The sky was bright and blue and the air was warm as we lined up in the drillyard.

  Once again, we were outside of the Vigilant House neighborhood–physical training, at least for grade ones, was held at a joint training yard that straddled the House and Curriculum parts of the Domus Campus, and as such, we were sharing the field with the grade one warriors.

  While there were less than twenty level one rogues, there seemed to be well over thirty grade ones in the Iron Curriculum. By the time we arrived at the drillyard, they were already in an orderly formation, standing in three even lines.

  “Thank you for joining us, Vigilant House!” a loud voice bawled out at our arrival. “Take your places, please!”

  The voice in question proved to be a stout ellid, more powerfully built than even Gellert, making him the single most muscular ellid I had seen so far. Older than most of the Magisters, his heavily-scarred skin was the pale, arctic blue common to frost ellids, and though his head was shaved bare, he had a bristling white beard. About halfway down his thigh, his left leg turned into a series of interlocking steel plates. Something told me that, despite the section of armor moving as smoothly as the rest of his body, it was actually a prosthetic of some kind.

  My grademates hustled to follow his instructions, forming into two ragged lines next to the Iron Curriculum trainees. Our formation was not only significantly smaller than the warrior college’s, it was considerably messier.

  The burly magister gave us a critical look, and a few of my grademates shifted a little, trying to get more in line with their neighbors.

  “Blasted rogues,” the older man muttered.

  He stomped away to another small cluster of ellids. There were half-a-dozen of them, and they all looked older and significantly more experienced than my classmates–closer to how Charrin and his party had looked. Half of them wore heavy armor, a mixture of shining plate and liquid chainmail, while the other half wore close-fitting, functional black leathers.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  Unfortunately, neither Calum nor Fennia ended up close enough to me to respond, but to my surprise, Gwyn spoke up from behind me. “The Low Magisters,” she explained. “They help out the real Magisters with lower-level courses.”

  Before I could ask any other question, the battle-scarred old Magister turned to face us, calling out in a parade-ground bellow that made me think of the drill sergeants that were so common in old movies.

  “Welcome to Physical Training, grade ones! I am Armory Master Olgin, and for today, I’ll be starting you off on your first round of exercises! We will be starting with conditioning–which means running laps until you all drop!” He gestured at the field around us, which was more or less what I’d expect from a track field. A large, flat, oval of dirt surrounded the drillyard itself, which boasted a variety of wood and rope structures that I took to be archaic exercise equipment.

  “As you run, the fine instructors behind me will grab you each at random to complete individual exercises with them. Once you’ve either completed their exercises to their satisfaction or failed irreparably, you’ll continue running until you get chosen by one of the others! Questions?”

  None of the Iron Curriculum students raised their hands, but a few of my grademates did.

  Olgin eyed our group with an air of general dissatisfaction, then continued, “Correct! There are no questions! Now, get changed–all physical training will be completed in full armor!”

  This raised a subaudible groan from the Iron Curriculum, and quiet susurrus of excitement from the Vigilant House. I wasn’t sure if their orientation had included how to use conjuration powers, or if it was just something all ellids understood by default, but pale light quickly began gathering around the various students of both colleges without any of the awkward fumbling that had defined my early attempts to conjure my gear.

  By now, at least, I had been conjuring my armor every day, doing exercises in my room each morning while wearing it, so I was more than happy to follow the Magister’s instructions. Among other things, I had found that my armor cleaned itself in addition to being repaired each day when I conjured it fresh, so if I was going to spend the next few hours sweating, it might as well not be in my actual clothes.

  I reached for the magic of the rogue crystal, and felt the now-familiar sensation as some of that power separated from the rest, channeling itself through my thoughts and around my body. Within a few moments, it fully manifested, complete with the customary long coat, gloves, and reinforced pants.

  I flushed for a second, realizing how showy and over-dramatic my armor was, and I shot some looks around me. Fortunately, I found that I wasn’t alone. While some of my peers wore simple, functional leather armor, others had noticeable flourishes and personalizations. Calum’s leather armor left the taut muscles of his stomach bare, showing off the glossy gleam of his obsidian skin, while Fennia’s armor, as skimpy as her usual clothing, manifested with a long blue scarf dangling behind her. Behind me, Gwyn actually wore armor not so different from mine, including a flowing cloak, though it covered her entire body, leaving not a slip of skin below her neck bare.

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  The Iron Curriculum students, as warriors, wore heavier armor. The standard-issue on their side seemed to be heavy breastplates of dull, dark metal, with matching gauntlets and greaves, though I did notice a few of them had similarly personalized armor. One central ellid boy wore armor of shining steel that fit closer to his skin and body, while an especially tall frost ellid wore armor that only covered her chest, matched with a leather skirt lined with armor plates.

  Olgin gave the two groups a critical sweep, lingering on each of us that had more unique armor, shaking his head in most cases. Gwyn, myself, and the boy in the shining mail were the only ones he gave a grudging nod of approval.

  “Well?” the Armory Magister bawled out. “Are you waiting for an invitation from the Pontifex himself? Get moving!”

  Both groups stirred in surprise–and then we turned and started running.

  The Vigilant House students quickly drifted apart. Some, like Calum, Fennia, and Senna, quickly moved to the front of the pack, their long limbs moving with confidence, while others fell back, clearly less sure of their stamina. I took the same tack as Gwyn (the surprises continued) and paced myself, hanging comfortably in the middle of the pack.

  The Iron Curriculum’s formation held together at first, but it quickly began to dissolve, the orderly block turning into a long-tailed comet as some of the warriors quickly proved unused to running in the weight of their heavy armor. Only the strongest of them kept up with even Gwyn and I, and none of them even tried to outpace the fastest rogues.

  Back home, I had always hated cardio. The ragged breathing, the burning in my throat and chest, the simple tedium of it. But now, in Elida, with my improved body and all the magic of a level one rogue… I still hated it.

  My enhanced muscles sang for a few minutes with the simple joy of the activity, warming up and slowly stretching as I put them to work, but by the end of my second loop around the ring, I was as uncomfortable and mildly irritated as running had always seemed to make me.

  The Low Magisters had given us some distance and then started to run after us, jeering and encouraging and pushing the students that had fallen furthest behind, urging them to keep up with everyone else.

  By the third lap, I had taken a cue from several others and relaxed my run to a light jog. It was still jarring and uncomfortable, but at least I felt like I could keep going at that pace for a while longer.

  It wasn’t until my fifth lap that one of the leather-armored Low Magisters jogged up and tapped me on the shoulder, pulling me out of the ring and into the central yard.

  “Climb,” she told me, pointing at a wooden wall. Once again, it looked like something I could’ve seen in my own world, a simple climbing wall made of wooden planks. To one side of it was a rope dangling from the top, while the other had a series of roughly-shaped hand and footholds.

  I took a few deep breaths, trying to replenish the oxygen my muscles were desperately screaming for, and then the instructor pushed at my back, sending me towards the wall. Taking the hint, I started forward, reaching up to grab two handholds and hauling myself up. As tired as I already was, my body was stronger than it had ever been on Earth, and I managed to keep reaching and pulling, hauling my body weight with each movement.

  “Faster!” the woman behind me snarled.

  I groaned and did as she commanded, my muscles screaming with exertion–and then I was at the top. I pulled myself up, paused for a moment, then dropped fifteen feet straight down. My body moved without thought, tucking as I approached the ground and turning the shock of my landing into a rough roll.

  Wait. How did my body do that?

  “Acceptable,” the instructor said. She pointed at a wooden bucket nearby. “Grab a drink, and get back to running.”

  I stumbled to my feet, managed to gasp, “Thank you, Low Magister,” and turned towards the bucket–only to feel her fingers close on my shoulder like an iron vice, turning me back around.

  “What was that, Pupil Danielle?”

  I swallowed, my throat burning with thirst. If not for that, maybe I would’ve noticed the threat in her tone or the heat in her eyes. Instead, idiot that I am, I thought she hadn’t heard me express my gratitude properly, so I called out, louder, “I said ‘thank you, Low Magister!’”

  My words were loud enough to draw a few other surprised looks from the other instructors and students currently doing their own exercises–including Gwyn, who gave me a pleased smirk while she hung from a horizontal bar.

  “Do you think you’re funny, Pupil Danielle?” the woman snarled. “You can refer to me as Instructor Nelta, or as Senior Delver!”

  “Y-yes Instructor, my apologies-”

  “I’ve risked my life for this school too many times to be called mocked by a grade one who thinks she can get away with saying whatever she wants just because she’s a human! Get back to the loop, Pupil Danielle, and let the rest of your grade know that the next person I hear making ‘Low Magister’ jokes will get an extra hour of running!”

  I nodded furtively, mumbling apologies, and turned desperately towards the barrel of water–only for Nelta to shove me again, away from the barrel. “If you have the energy to make jokes, you clearly don’t need water! Get back to running!”

  #

  “I can’t believe you called her a Low Magister,” Calum said. He was sitting next to me, while I was sprawled out on the grass, gasping for air, my vision dancing.

  “Whlgr,” I replied.

  “The instructors are grade fours–senior delvers teaching courses to earn their way to graduation. Calling them ‘Low Magisters’ denigrates them and the Magisters at the same time.”

  “Gwyn,” I managed to groan, thinking of the girl’s self-satisfied smirk. The instructors had been extra rough on me after my early confrontation, and I had barely been allowed a couple sips of water to keep me from passing out.

  Fennia appeared, like an angel, and tipped a ladle of water into my mouth, no small amount of it splashing onto my face. It was warm, and stale, and tasted like the metal of the ladle. I guzzled it like the nectar of the gods.

  “Here’s the most important lesson for your first day of classes,” Calum said. “Don’t listen to anything Gwyn says.”