Chapter 7: Inefficient Results

Ethan made it back to his dorms and when he opened the door, Lila was already inside.

She sat cross legged on the couch, the new access key dangling from a single black cord around her neck, scrolling through something on her phone.

When the door opened she looked up and smiled.

"You’re back. I got the replacement." She held up the key. "They made me fill out a form explaining *how* I destroyed the first one. The administration office has no chill..."

Ethan closed the door behind him and replied with a raised eyebrow. "You set it on fire with your own ability. I’m surprised they only made you fill out a form."

"I was charming about it." Lila tilted her head. "You were gone for quite a while. Where’d you disappear to?"

"Testing my ability." He offered truthfully

Her golden eyes lit up with immediate interest. "Really? How’d it go?"

Ethan considered how much detail was necessary, then shrugged, decideding the truth was funnier than any edited version.

"I found a dead bird," he said. "Raised it. Taught it how to walk in a straight line. It was bad at it. Then I dismissed it before it could further damage my expectations."

Lila stared at him for a second....

Then she burst out laughing.

It was not a chuckle.

It was a real unrestrained laugh that forced her to lean back against the couch. She pressed a hand over her mouth, failed to stop, and instead began to speak between breaths.

"You... you spent your first night as a necromancer... running combat drills with a dead bird?"

"It wasn’t combat," Ethan said mildly. "It was basic mobility. And it failed most of the tests."

Lila wiped at the corner of her eye, still grinning. "That’s amazing. Everyone else is out there trying to look impressive with fireballs and ice spikes, and you’re in the bushes running a physical therapy for corpses."

"That’s.... Basically it, yeah." He replied defeated.

"Oh, I’m sure the bird appreciated you taking the time to go through all that.." She sat up straighter, clearly entertained. "So? What’s the verdict? Is necromancy as terrifying as everyone says it is?"

She asked this with an amused grin and Ethan shrugged

"Currently? It’s inefficient." Ethan leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. "High energy cost for poor results. Limited command complexity too. I’ll just have to experiment with it further to see where it goes." ℯ

Lila’s grin softened into something more thoughtful, though amusement still lingered in her eyes. "You’re taking this way more calmly than most people would. If I’d gotten a restricted class I’d probably still be freaking out."

"Freaking out doesn’t reduce the energy cost," Ethan replied walking toward the fridge and grabbing something to drink. "Practice might."

She laughed again, quieter this time. "Fair point."

They talked a little longer—about ranks, about how quickly students were already forming cliques based on ability and about which professors seemed likely to make life difficult.

Lila treated his class like any other piece of information, like she didn’t care that he was currently on the academy’s watchlist.

Well that probably because she didn’t.

They just had an easy conversation. It was... strange. Not unpleasant. Just strange.

This is coming from a guy that made up his mind to stay away from popular girls by the way...

Eventually, she stood and stretched.

"I’m turning in early. Need to get some shut eye.

Don’t stay up all night running a corpse boot camp."

Ethan replied without looking at her. "I’ll try to restrain myself."

***

The next day began with a lesson in the same lecture hall he was at yesterday.

Professor Crane continued her lectures of ignorance regarding monsters and Dungeons. Students took notes with varying levels of seriousness.

Ethan listened to the lecture, noting down the useful parts, and ignoring the rest.

What interested him more was the room itself.

Aria Reed sat near the front, her silver hair unmistakable as always.

People still orbited around her between classes offering greetings, asking questions, all angling for proximity to an SS rank. She answered most of them with politeness and very little warmth, and anyone who talked about her would always talk about how cool she was.

Pun intended...

Other high rank students trained openly during free periods, producing flashes of fire, stone, wind, and light. Everything was like a show of awakened humans showing off what ability they awakened.

Ethan’s progress, by comparison currently involved a dead bird that could not walk in a straight line.

’It’s still progress, though.’

Flashy power invited expectations. Inefficient power invited dismissal. Dismissal, for the moment, was useful, as long as he convinced the school that his ability was more or less useless, they would give him more space and that will give him room to improve.

When the final class of the day ended, Ethan did not return to the dorm.

Not because he didn’t want to. It was more like he couldn’t.

Because standing in front of him was a certain red haired girl that had started living with him.

"Alright," she said, walking up to him. "Ready?"