The morning sun filtered through the high dormitory windows like soft gold, catching in the translucent lace curtains and painting the wooden floor with warm, lazy stripes. Elara lay in bed, contemplating the merits of becoming a blanket burrito and never facing society again.
Unfortunately, society knocked.
"Elaraaa~!"
Sylv's chipper voice preceded her knuckles on the door, followed immediately by the sound of it swinging open.
Elara groaned. "Don't you people knock anymore?"
Sylv peeked in, already dressed in her pastel-accented academy uniform, hair braided in a way that screamed royal handmaidens and two hours of prep. She looked radiant. Elara, by contrast, looked like a fried sock.
"I knocked. With voice and knuckle. Get up, Chef. First day!"
Lyria mumbled from her bed, half-covered in a cocoon of plush blankets. "Too early… Tell the world to reschedule."
Sylv walked over, ripped the blanket from Elara, and narrowly avoided being kicked in the face.
"I will un-alive you," Elara muttered darkly.
"You'll thank me later. Come on, it's tradition for dormmates to walk to class together. Even if I'm technically next door."
With much grumbling, stretching, and a few suspiciously feline noises, Elara dressed and joined the other two. She didn't bother with makeup—this wasn't a fashion show. It was a death march with academic obligations.
The campus was alive with students. First-years in crisp uniforms bumbled about with nervous energy. Older students strolled confidently, some wearing enchanted accessories that floated, glowed, or hummed. Notably, Elara saw few magical artifacts. Everything high-tech and actually practical… was hers.
Solar lampposts? Her design.
Auto-adjusting lecture boards? Her circuits.
Temperature-balanced benches? Also hers.
She kept her hood up.
As they walked across the central courtyard, Sylv leaned over. "Hey, Chef. Notice anything weird?"
Elara blinked. "Define weird."
"Like… everyone is staring at you?"
Lyria chimed in. "Staring would be polite. That guy just walked into a pillar."
Elara glanced around. A trio of boys smiled dreamily. A pair of girls blushed and giggled. One student clutched their chest dramatically as she passed.
"Oh no," she whispered. "Not again."
"You say that like it's a regular occurrence," Sylv said, amused.
Elara sighed. "I invented a cosmetic mana ring once that gave smoother skin and slightly fuller lips. I tested it on myself. Accidentally. The results were… permanent."
"Ah," Sylv said, as if solving a mystery. "So you're both the prettiest and smartest girl on campus. No wonder the school's having a collective meltdown."
Lyria raised an eyebrow. "Do you glow in the dark too? Because that's the only thing missing."
Elara muttered, "I wish I did. Then I'd hide in a cave."
Their first class was Rune Arrangement and Application. A large amphitheater with tiered seating, chalkboards enchanted to clean themselves, and several long tables cluttered with mana crystals, writing tools, and sample rune sheets.
The moment Elara entered, silence fell.
A girl gasped. Someone else whispered, "She's even prettier in person."
Sylv leaned in. "Bet you 5 copper someone writes you a poem before lunch."
Elara glared. "You're enjoying this."
"Immensely."
The professor arrived with a swirl of robes and a bang of his staff. An elderly man with monocles that glowed slightly and a mustache that curled like question marks.
"Welcome, initiates! Today we begin with the sacred art of structure. Runic balance is the essence of all stable magic…"
Elara tuned out half the speech, choosing instead to review the rune sheets in front of her. She frowned.
The array they were supposed to copy was… wrong. Not dangerously so, but inefficient and backwards.
She raised a hand.
"Yes, Miss…?"
"Elara. Wyrmshade. Sir, I think the support-rune placement might be inverted. If we rotate the vector set 30 degrees counterclockwise, it reduces resonance loss by nearly 12%."
The professor blinked. "Er… interesting observation. That's… a theoretical model I hadn't considered. Continue."
Murmurs erupted around the room.
Sylv leaned over. "Lowkey, huh?"
Elara whispered, "That was lowkey. I didn't even say he was wrong."
The rest of the lesson saw her 'lowkey' correcting four more inefficiencies. By the end, she had her own little cheering squad.
Lunch was worse.
They barely sat down when students began to orbit their table. One offered Elara extra bread. Another gave her a ribbon. A third asked to carry her books.
Lyria ate in silence, clearly amused. Sylv took notes.
"Is this… is this what royalty feels like?" Elara muttered.
"Not quite. Royals get fear. You get adoration," Sylv replied.
Someone brought Elara a personalized bento box.
"I give up," she said, accepting it with a weak smile. "I am no longer a person. I am a mascot."
"A very pretty mascot," Lyria said.
"Betrayed. In my hour of need."
After lunch, Lyria headed off to her own classes, promising to meet them later. Sylv and Elara continued to Mechanical Theory.
The lecture hall had massive gears and mechanisms built into the walls for demonstration. Students gathered in groups, admiring diagrams and arguing mechanics.
The instructor was a sharp-eyed woman in a tight black vest and leather gloves. She spoke with confidence and clarity—until she started referencing Elara's inventions.
"As you see, the torque regulation in the latest mana-bikes is managed by a tri-rune compression belt—brilliantly theorized by the elusive inventor W.E."
Elara squinted. "That… that's not even close to what I built."
Sylv whispered, "Don't correct her. She might cry."
But Elara couldn't help it. Each time the woman mentioned her designs and misattributed their function, a part of her soul withered.
Finally, when the instructor asked, "Can anyone explain why the ignition rune is placed on the left side of the conduit ring?"
Elara raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"It's not. That's the decoupling glyph. The ignition rune is hidden behind a diffuser layer to prevent pre-activation during mana surges."
A hush.
The instructor stared.
"Who taught you that?"
"The original notes," Elara replied.
More silence.
Then the instructor nodded slowly. "That's… surprisingly accurate. Thank you, Miss Wyrmshade."
Sylv whispered, "So much for lowkey."
"I'm trying!"
By the time class ended, Elara had acquired three more admirers, two official study group invites, and one guy who claimed he would name his next golem after her.
She left the hall rubbing her temples.
"Is this my life now?"
Sylv draped an arm over her shoulder. "Welcome to academia, Chef. You're beautiful, brilliant, and tragically doomed to be noticed."
"I miss being a mysterious cave hermit."
"Too late. You're trending."