Not just his hand—his entire arm should've shattered from yesterday's impact. At least he saved the bunny. Still, he was somehow unscathed—no blood, no broken bones, and not even any numbness. Only a mild concussion and the hard calluses from his daily chores at the orphanage. He turned his palm towards his face and examined it carefully, something tingling—
Ouch!
Lori's dainty fingers had pinched his ear—her usual way of yanking him back to reality.
"Hey! I told you to stop doing that!" Alaric grumbled as he almost dropped his apple, holding it by the stem. He pulled himself away and shook his head, his short, messy, ashen hair bouncing.
"Oh please, I'm too tiny to hurt you—barely a breeze!" she teased, knowing full well she could—and would. She stood up and started pulling on his scrawny arm. "Anyway, class is starting any moment now! It's your favourite, Awakened Studies!" she added enticingly. Alaric glared at her with his silver-grey eyes and eventually shrugged in compliance.
"Yeah, yeah… I'm coming," Alaric responded in a defeated tone. As usual, Lori didn't care about Alaric's protests and dragged him into the classroom. "Can you go a bit slower?" He protested with annoyance, but got ignored.
Stumbling into the old, worn classroom, Lori tripped over the threshold, as usual. The usual creak of the floorboards sounded off to Alaric. Even the stale chalk smell carried an odd freshness. Disregarding these strange sensations, he continued toward his usual broken desk at the front of the weathered classroom and sat down. Looking down, his shadow stretched at an odd angle despite the morning light. Something about it felt... wrong, not just the way it looked, but something deeper. Dragging his hand over the coarse lid, he was surprised by how unfamiliar it felt.
"Hey, Lori… have you done something to my desk?" he asked.
"What? No, why would I do that? Have you hit your head or something?" Lori responded with her usual mockery.
"No, or ye—" he was interrupted by Mrs. Whitmore's entrance.
Standing before the cracked blackboard, she declared, "Now, class, you only have a few weeks left in your semester here before you head on with your lives. So let's freshen up on our basic theory first. After that, I have a surprise announcement. But first, can anyone tell me the names of the three domains that awakened draw their power from?"
A black-haired classmate near the open window raised his hand, but Mrs. Whitmore´s gaze showed no intention of picking him. Instead, she was fixated on the scrawny, ashen-haired boy, weirdly caressing his desk whilst giving his hand a questioning look. This boy usually jumped at all of her questions without a second thought, regardless of whether he knew the answer or not; this change of character, in a young mind she greatly cared for, made her worry.
"Alaric, could you name me the three domains?" she asked him in an enticing tone.
The sound of his name seemed to finally catch the boy´s attention, and he raised his head with a confused expression.
"Uh… oh, right! Yes, Mrs. Whitmore. Could you repeat that?" he asked, clearly embarrassed.
"Could you tell me the names of the three domains that a person can awaken to and later use to fuel their techniques?"
Well, of course, he could—Awakened Studies and mathematics were the only subjects he enjoyed. Too bad a commoner—let alone an orphan from the poorest region in the valley—could ever land a job where a skill like mathematics would help. His dream was to work with the Striders, the Awakened tasked with holding back whatever lurked beyond the breaches in the valley's slopes.
"One of the domains is called Vitalis, the domain of heart", he answered proudly.
"Very well—can you give me the other two as well?" intrigued Mrs. Whitmore.
"Yes, Mrs. Whitmore. The other two domains go by the names of Nereus and Aegis. The first of mind, the following of body"
"Correct", she responded.
Lori turned in her seat, giving him that familiar look—the one she always wore when he outshone her at something. A look that once bothered him, that he now had started to appreciate in his best friend.
Mrs. Whitmore raised her gaze and spoke loudly—" But remember, class, an awakened is not just determined by their domain but also by their rank. Could anyone tell me the first, and most common rank?"
Seemingly satisfied with Alaric for now, she looked to the eager black-haired boy by the window who already had his hand in the air. She gave him an accepting nod and, with a friendly tone, exclaimed, " Go ahead, Rio—"
"T-the first awakened rank is an Artisan, an awakened that can sense their domain's mana, b-but not control it. Most Artisans use this gift to better their craftsmanship, henceforth the name." Rio stuttered.
Being an Artisan was such an unfair boon. Alaric thought to himself. The boy scratched the lid of the desk with his nails as he rolled his eyes and slouched his back. Life surely was unfair—if you were a commoner, you would get beaten out by any Artisan in whatever business you tried to live off. Sadly, only one in twenty-one people awakened as Artisans—and even then, most were born in the east. His odds were worse than the numbers made them seem. Even if he got lucky enough to awaken to a domain as an Artisan, he still wouldn't be able to defend himself from the breaches that occurred here near the western city of Ashengard.
The ones who could use the power from a domain to survive these creatures were the Vanguards. All of them at least Knights, and some even higher. Even then, the mighty Vanguard tasked with protecting humanity could rarely beat higher-tier beasts; that job was left to the pinnacle of the awakened— Striders, the elite cohorts that roamed the valley and its slopes. To be a Strider was every young child's—Including Alaric's dream. Sadly, that dream was orders of magnitude away from his current self. Alaric had done the math so many times in his head at this point that it felt silly crunching the numbers again.
Alaric, lost in his thoughts, didn't hear Mrs. Whitmore talking; thankfully, she didn't address him this time, and he also didn't notice Lori throwing— and missing wads of paper at him. One wad struck his shadow, which in response twitched. No... flinched?
He reached the same conclusion as usual: one in every four hundred and forty-one people were knights. At least he could calculate his unfortune with his trusty abacus and long division, he bet that a lot of highborn his age couldn't do that.-
Then it hit him.
His eyes widened, fixed on the cracked ceiling above.
Alaric looked down and opened his desk again—the texture still rough, oddly rich beneath his fingertips. Inside, his pen, paper, and trusty abacus were still there.
He closed the lid slowly, his mind racing.
Did I... just calculate all that in my head?
The realization struck like a cold splash. No abacus. No pen. Just... memory. Instinct?
He swallowed. There's no way I squared that to six decimals in under a second.
Suddenly, a spike of white-hot pain drove itself between his eyes. Warmth trickled down his lip. He reached up instinctively—his fingers came away red.
He wiped the blood away quickly with one of Lori's paper wads and steadied himself on the desk. The coarse grain now felt... normal again. Even the stale chalk smell had returned.
" Now, as promised, I have a surprise for you all. Since you are all almost fifteen now and will shortly graduate, the next class won't be here at school. Instead, we will have a field trip to the stronghold of Ashengard. There, you will be able to meet some actual members of the vanguard. You will even get to speak to some knights and maybe a baron or two. If we are in luck, maybe even Seraphin, a Duke of Vitalis, could show up!" announced Mrs. Whitmore.
Really?! The Seraphin — The Saintess of Ember Grace.
She who could mend the injuries of her comrades with soothing flames and burn beasts to a crisp. A true hero with the potential of becoming a Strider, but decided to stay and support those here, the less fortunate.
He had to meet her, this could be his only chance to ever see a Duke in his entire life. Normally, one would be lucky to ever meet a Baron, but a Duke?!? — It was every child's dream, especially for a no-one like him.