The next semester began—the first semester of the fourth year, and possibly the last semester—and Wulf's classes now contained his least favourite method of grading: class participation.

When Dr. Konstant introduced their last advancement class (ADVC 490, or Future Advancement), Wulf almost audibly groaned.

But then he remembered that class participation was only ten percent of his grade, and he could tank the dip if he really wanted.

Besides, there was a high chance that he wasn't going to be in the academy for much longer, anyway. They were almost finished their codex-storing construct, and Dr. Tallari was getting antsy. He said he'd provide Wulf an alibi whenever he was ready, but apparently, the Orichalcums were now trying to erase any information on Spiritmarks, and Dr. Konstant had been instructed to not teach high level advancements to his students. It just caused 'unnecessary ambition.'

In Wulf's mind, that meant treason. There was a chance Dr. Konstant just wasn't allowed to tell them the proper advancement methods in Future Advancement, but Wulf would see. He could always ask Dr. Arnau and see if his notes lined up.

Their room was a tiny class, barely large enough to fit thirty students, but it had windows and plenty of candle sconces to keep it bright. Instead of an amphitheatre-style lecture hall, it was flat, with an array of tables and seats and a single blackboard for the professor to stand in front of.

"A small class today," Dr. Konstant said. "It's no matter, no matter, fourth years are always like this. You've dwindled so much." He checked a sheet of notes he held, hummed under his breath, then looked back over the class. "Ah, yes. This is section one. You are all students who have been assigned to an Oronith and are confirmed to be on a crew. Congratulations to all of you! That must be an immense relief."

The class was silent.

"Ah, well, it is early in the morning." Dr. Konstant cleared his throat. "Other sections aren't so lucky, I'm told. We still have nearly two hundred students in their fourth year, and not all of you will go on to claim Oroniths. Some of this generation have already been assigned to previous years, and we have upcoming third and second years who are showing some promise."

The class was still quiet. Wulf glanced at Kalee, who sat beside him, and Seith and Irmond, who sat across the table. The table, however, was large enough for eight of them, and that included four of the five who crewed the Oronith in the hangar bay beside them—Ishi Laak, which Wulf had learned meant 'West Wind' in his language class.

He definitely wasn't taking Westspeak as a four-hundred-level option in his last year to impress Kalee, definitely not.

There was, of course, the question about West Wind's crew being a year above them, but it sounded like their whole crew was aiming to take five years to finish their time in the academy instead of four. Since there were five of them, and two Pilots, they had a lot more organization to do.

"Regardless of my tangent," Konstant continued, "we will be looking at an overview of your potential advancement to Ruby, and discussing how, one day, if you are very lucky, you might make it to Orichalcum." He looked over the class. "We have lots of future guild owners here, which is to be expected. Of course, we won't cover it all today."

He jotted some notes down on the blackboard, made a few sketches, and then spent the entire first day on an overview of the course. At the end, as everyone was leaving, he pulled Wulf and his crew aside.

Softly, Dr. Konstant said, "The Headmaster and I pulled some strings to get you in this section. The Orichalcums don't know, and it's best if we keep it that way. Presumably your classmates won't have contact with their parents, so we won't have to worry about them spilling the tea, so to speak."

"Excuse me for asking, professor," Irmond said, "But why exactly didn't they want us in this section? Just…prejudice?"

Dr. Konstant chuckled, "No, no, son. The Orichalcums have imposed strict restrictions on what I can actually say about the advancement to Orichalcum to the other sections. They did that months ago. But to the very upper echelon, I am still free to tell you all the details of advancement."

"So I was right," Wulf muttered. "Sort of."

"You were right?"

"I kinda assumed you would be withholding information from us," Wulf said.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I wouldn't keep information from some of my strongest students." Dr. Konstant shook his head. "But correct, I have certain requirements imposed, which forces me to…in many ways, give wrong information to the other sections."

Wulf still wasn't sure if he trusted Dr. Konstant, but that could come later, and he would compare it with what Dr. Arnau knew.

Even if Dr. Konstant was a Middle-Ruby, and Dr. Arnau was still in Gold.

"How much do you know about advancing to Orichalcum?" Seith asked.

"Enough. I have studied it for many, many decades, and I can hopefully provide enough information—which, of course, we will verify by your success on class papers."

Over the next few days, Wulf adjusted to his new schedule, dealing with LANG 412, ADVC 490, PILT 456 (which was Mana Pushing Challenges—mostly a test to examine how well students could push and move mana within themselves), PILT 403 (Advanced Pilot Maneuvers) and CMBT 402A (Combat Training - Styles). He'd tried getting into a codexes class, but suspiciously, it had disappeared from the course options list only days before registration had opened.

But he paid most attention to Dr. Konstant's lectures. He needed to get to Ruby as quickly as he could. He was tired of slow advancement, and they were running out of time.

On the second of ADVC 490, a Thirdday, he sat at the same table with the others and took notes with rapt attention.

"Your cores are currently massive," Dr. Konstant said, pointing to a drawing on the blackboard. For most of you here, you are already at Gold, which is a wonderful achievement. It's possible that you may even reach Ruby by the end of your time at the Academy, but you must remember: you are all prodigies here. In the world, you are the top forty Ascendants."

Wulf swallowed and glanced at the others at his table. He wasn't exactly sure if they were his allies or not, but they looked equally as uncomfortable with the revelation. Quickly, he firmed up his expression, and whispered, "That's a good thing, right?" He cracked a small smile, just to be sure.

The other two Pilots from West Wind returned his smile—they were twins. They had olive skin, slightly darker than the Centralis locals, and long black hair. Both Pilots were from the far West, and from south of the equator, and if he remembered right, their names were Muy and Phelot—they had all been required to make introductions to the class on the first day.

"This is not what I meant by participation, Hrothen," Dr. Konstant said.

"Sorry, professor," Wulf replied.

"As I was saying," Dr. Konstant continued, "your cores are massive. Expanding them won't work, nor will it help you gain any more power. You must now compress them, while maintaining the same overall amount of arcane matter. It won't affect your ability to store mana—so long as you don't trim your arcane matter—and you won't drop a tier if you drain your store too low now. Your mana has been effectively locked in, and your core is too strong. Even if you wanted to burn it to lower your tier, you could not.

"The compression, however, increases the purity of your mana and the strength of your mana. Consider this: when you activate a skill, you are drawing mana out into your body. You are fuelling the Field, and the Field automatically sorts it for you, sending it in the right patterns and right movements to trigger a Skill. But if you're trying to drink through a massive straw, it won't work nearly as well as a tight, small straw. Your mana will simply move faster, with more assuredness.

"As well as improvement to the function of your Skills, your more powerful mana will naturally improve all your Marks. Most people cite feeling nearly a doubling in their physical and mental attributes—anything the Field can improve. Strength, speed, durability, agility, perception, physical senses."

Dr. Konstant continued the lecture, discussing the minutiae of compressing the mana, and Wulf took close notes, vowing to bring them to Dr. Arnau and compare them with her knowledge later.

After the lecture was over, Wulf turned to the crew from West Wind, and asked, "Hey, you guys doing alright?"

One of the two twins (Wulf couldn't remember which was which; they were identical) said, "Yeah. Just a little overwhelmed."

"Content?" he asked.

"Not really," the other replied. "Admittedly, we've been taking five years because we didn't want to get out into combat too soon. We were hoping it would be over, and that we wouldn't have to do any difficult missions. But the easy missions are below our year, now, and the war has just gotten worse."

Wulf grimaced, then looked at all five of them. Their Ranger was an elf, too, and she nodded in agreement, then nudged their Mage, a boy with antlers and deer ears.

"Sorry," Kalee said. "He gets into other people's business a lot." She grabbed Wulf's arm. "You're going to be late for your next class."

"Wait a moment," the other twin said. "It's alright, we don't mind. But…Wulf, right? You guys are always hanging out in the dorm common room. You know, if you wanted, we could get you an invitation to the fourth years' hangar lounge. All four of you, too."

"You could? Really?" Irmond exclaimed. "I've seen it every time I bring Speckles back to the Thrustwing stable, and I was wondering how you got in there! Like, who did you have to know, and all that! I guess it was you guys all the time."

"Of course," the twin said. "Stop by some time. We have better food, and I guarantee you, it's a lot quieter than the regular common rooms. Much better for studying."

"Thanks," Wulf said. "I'll probably take you up on that. Not sure about the others—"

"Of course we will," Kalee said. "Now come on. Or Dr. Long is going to be mad at you again."

"Yep, gotta go!" he said. "See you soon."

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