“Still can’t believe that they have actual co-ed hostels,” Scottie said.

  He was currently doing his best version of a sit up. It looked difficult since his stomach was determined to get in his way. He groaned on his next sit up, taking his time lying down to speak.

  “Was as shocked as you are,” Deidi said. He was a slender boy with a frame for a swimmer. His salt pepper hair always looked like he’d just woken up from bed, and not in that model kind of way, more like a messy child kind of way. It was the only messy part of him, though.

  It had been two weeks since the party and everyone was falling into a slow understanding. It was around the time when everyone was beginning to decide on who their friends were, a time when cliques were slowly solidifying.

  Melmarc hadn’t made any real friends yet. In fact, he rarely talked to anyone. In class, he sat and paid attention to the teachers. There were no passing of discreet notes of communication through subtle facial expressions through classmates for him.

  He wasn’t a pariah, not by a long shot. He just hadn’t found a mutual reason to talk to anyone and, apparently, no one had found a mutual reason to talk to him. The plane incident had been a point he had hoped would make people talk to him. He’d even made plans on how to keep those conversations to nothing but opening points when he was spoken to. In the end, he had no need for such plans.

  For his year, they were split into three classes. Each class had about fifteen kids in it which Melmarc found very surprising. He knew that they weren’t few, but forty-five students in his year seemed like a lot of Gifted considering how rare the Gifted were supposed to be. It wasn’t like Fallen High was the only Gifted school in the country.

  “I saw Vanessa last night,” Deidi said, grinning from ear to ear. “She looks better than she does now.”

  Melmarc paused midway through a sit up. Like the two other boys in their small group, his head turned in the general direction of Vanessa. They found the girl doing pull ups at one of the pull up bars. She had a petite size but it was clear that she took pleasure in athletic activities.

  “I didn’t know you liked yours strong,” Kalayo muttered almost to himself. “I like mine more… endowed.”

  Scottie gave him an odd look while Melmarc shook his head and returned to his sit ups. They were supposed to complete four sets of fifty sit ups each. As for their supervisor, the gym instructor, he was standing at one end of the gym supervising a few students currently engaged in rope climbing.

  “I hate that,” Jackson, the freckle faced boy who wore glasses said from beside him. Only then did Melmarc realize that he had been looking at the instructor.

  At the same time, Kalayo scoffed at Scottie. “What’s with the judgement on your face?”

  “Not that.” Scottie shook his head quickly. “I’m just trying to understand what you mean by endowed.”

  Kalayo made a gesture with his hands over his chests, keeping a good amount of distance between them. “The bigger the tits, the better.”

  Scottie grimaced at that while Melmarc tried to return his attention to his sit ups. He was at number thirty-one of his third set.

  “Can you stop being vulgar?” Deidi asked. “This is the reason girls don’t want to talk to you.”

  Kalayo shrugged, unbothered.

  “Girls want to talk to me,” Scottie pointed out. “I didn’t think they would.”

  Deidi gave him a curious look, brows furrowed. “Well, sometimes the cute guys get the girls. Keeping the girls is the problem. Also, you have poor taste.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Dude, you’re trying to hang out with the dragon princess.”

  In the two weeks that he’d been here, Melmarc had learned a few things. One of those things was that Patience was actually famous on Tatelat, and not just for being [Dragon Knight]’s daughter. Sadly, her fame was not for anything good. Another thing he had learnt was that she was called the Dragon princess, but that was on account of being her mother’s daughter.

  And being violent, apparently.

  Scottie blushed at Kalayo’s words, looking away in embarrassment. The boy got shy very easily.

  “She’s actually very nice,” he said in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

  Kalayo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. You probably like your girls wearing the pants in the relationship.”

  Jackson chuckled at that, reaching out to grab Scottie by the stomach. Scottie was quick to slap his hand away, frowning at him. Jackson raised but hands in a show of surrender.

  “How did your date with her go?” Kalayo asked, deep brown eyes seeming to focus on Scottie in interest.

  Melmarc paused at that, looking at Scottie. “You and her went out?”

  “You didn’t hear?” Kalayo asked. “I see you and Patience exchange conversations every once in a while, I thought for sure you would’ve heard by now.”

  Scottie held up three fingers with a wide and proud smile. “Three dates.”

  “In two weeks?” Jackson blurted, impressed. “My man!”

  He held his hand up for a high five. Scottie was quick to take it.

  Three dates, Melmarc thought, his mind going to Patience’s conversation about dating rules. I guess he meets the qualification.

  She hadn’t said anything about not wanting to date someone that was the same age as her after all.

  Jackson froze suddenly, then scrambled back into sit up position. Deidi moved quickly, too, so did Kalayo. Giving Jackson a high five, Scottie had been forced to leave his sit up position. Seeing the others, he tried to scramble back into position when a voice stopped him.

  “Pick the friends you do the wrong thing with, Mr. Scottie.” Their gym instructor walked up to them just as Scottie fell flat on his back, legs coming up from the momentum of his upper body.

  Melmarc held back the smile on his face as the other boys were suddenly doing their sit ups with so much serious dedication.

  Their gym instructor was called Tuff. Whether it was his real name or not was anyone’s guess. He was almost as tall as Melmarc and had a chest like a barrel. If Melmarc was to guess his class from his appearance, he would say the man had a class built to play the tanker role in a fight, taking damage and dealing slow but heavy damage.

  But he could be wrong.

  “How many reps do you have so far?” Tuff asked Scottie.

  Scottie pulled himself up, completing one sit up. He stopped there to look at their gym instructor. “Fourteen of my third set, sir.”

  Tuff nodded, then turned to the others. “Jackson?”

  “Twelve of my third set, sir.”

  Dissonant.

  “Deidi?”

  “Twenty-three of my last set, sir.”

  Dissonant.

  “Kalayo?”

  Kalayo hesitated before answering. “Eight of my second set, sir.”

  Dissonant.

  Tuff pursed his lips as if in thought. “Melmarc?”

  “Thirty-three of my third set, sir.”

  Tuff stroked his clean shaven jaw, nodding to himself. The one thing gym classes in Fallen High had taught them since their first day was that it was always their last class of the day, and Tuff was determined to run them physically rugged. He’d even told them once that his job was to leave them physically exhausted and unable to do anything by the time they left the gym.

  “You are Gifted with dreams of becoming Delvers,” he’d said to them on day one, “Everything expected of you will be ten times greater than that expected of your peers.”

  So far, he had kept his words.

  With Melmarc and the others frozen mid reps, Tuff took a moment before putting his hands on his waist.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Why do kids always think that they can get away with lying?” he asked nobody in particular.

  “We’re not—”

  Tuff raised his hand with an expression that cut Kalayo’s words off. “I’m adding another set to all of you except Melmarc and Scottie since they were the only ones willing to tell the truth. And when I come back, you better tell me the truth or I’ll keep you hear until you miss your dinner.”

  Without giving anyone a chance to say anything, he turned and walked over to another group of students. That group was engaged in pushups.

  Kalayo and Deidi exchanged a look. “How did he know?” Jackson asked in dismay.

  “No idea,” Diedi said. “But joke’s on him, I don’t eat dinner.”

  “Midnight snacking isn’t healthy, though,” Deidi pointed out, reminding Melmarc that he and Jackson were in the same hostel.

  “Really?” Jackson asked, giving everyone a stunned look. “No one is bothered by how he knows?”

  Melmarc couldn’t really say that he was.

  “I heard he has some kind of lie detecting skill,” Scottie said, dedicating himself to his sit ups.

  Kalayo shook his head. “Not lie detection. Spatial awareness.”

  “You sure?” Jackson looked at the instructor who was currently shaking his head at the new group. “He doesn’t strike me as someone like that. Isn’t he like a tanker or something?”

  “Weren’t you paying attention to Skill Thaumaturgy?” Deidi asked with a touch of disappointment. “It is not unheard of for some classes to end up developing skills that are not necessarily fitting with their normal skill set. A [Sniper] class can end up having maybe one sword related skill that actually helps. It’s not out of the way.”

  “But it’s not common,” Scottie pointed out.

  “Only because people don’t pick them.” Melmarc was coming up on the end of his set. “Why would a [Gunslinger] pick from a list of skills when every other thing is helpful except one that is for let’s say a [Titan]?”

  Scottie held his hand up. “I will.”

  “Me, too,” Jackson said, adjusting his glasses.

  “Even if it will slow you down?” Melmarc asked, knowing that speed was essential to the [Gunslinger] class.

  Scottie paused. “Okay, maybe not.”

  “Still doesn’t matter,” Jackson said. “I’ve got the [Marksman] class. Movement speed isn’t that important to us. We need more of reaction speed, and I’ve got that in spades. So, give me a [Titan] skill anytime.”

  “Imagine a [Mage] with a [Swordsman]’s skill to supplement,” Kalayo mused.

  Scottie snapped his fingers at that. “Emerald’s always talking about how she would love to have some agility skill added to her class.”

  “Emerald?” Deidi asked, confused.

  Scottie responded by pausing to look around. It took him a while, but he eventually found who he was looking for. He pointed.

  “Emerald.”

  She was hitting a punching bag with so much gusto.

  Melmarc paused. “She has the [Mage] class?”

  Jackson was simply staring. Melmarc didn’t think he cared about Emerald enough to stare. The boy had to be staring at something else. As if aware of his curiosity, Jackson satisfied it with his next words.

  “Did you guys know that the [Invoker]s have their own special training twice every week after classes?” he said.

  Oh, Melmarc thought. Pelumi was hitting her own punching bag right beside Emerald. Had he been looking at Pelumi as a girl or had he simply been looking at her as someone with the [Invoker] class.

  “I heard about that,” Kalayo said. “Last night Arthur was carried back to the hostel. Apparently, he got hit with mana fatigue.”

  All of them paused.

  “I hate mana fatigue,” Jackson muttered.

  Deidi nodded. “I still remember my last mana fatigue. I felt like puking.”

  “Mine was bad,” Scottie said in a chuckle. “I was trying to bring down a squirrel with stones when it hit. I actually couldn’t see for a while.”

  “I heard it hits different for different people,” Kalayo said. “Most [Weaver]s just kind of lose all bodily control. My proprioception stats went into the negative. It was horrible. My mom started crying when she saw me in the front yard.”

  Jackson looked down and away. “I shit myself,” he muttered.

  “Wait, what?” Kalayo and Deidi said in united shock.

  Scottie looked a little panic. His head darted from one side to the other before settling on Jackson once more. When he spoke, it was in a conspiratory whisper. “Just now?”

  Jackson paused, looking at all of them. What was going through their minds hit him a little late.

  “Oh, God, no,” he blurted out. “I didn’t just shit myself. I meant my first mana fatigue.”

  “Oh,” Deidi sighed in relief, relaxing visibly. “Thank God. I had no idea what I was going to do.”

  “The second time I had it, I couldn’t control my fingers or toes,” Jackson added. “It’s not like I shit myself all the time.”

  “You should count yourself lucky,” Kalayo said. “I spoke to some of the second year students and I heard that within the first two months our gym instructor is going to push us until we hit mana fatigue. They say it’s supposed to help us know our limits.”

  Melmarc went down on his sit up as they spoke. When he came up again, it was to silence and four pairs of eyes staring at him. He paused.

  “What?”

  “What about you?” Jackson asked. “What happens when you get mana fatigue?”

  Melmarc had no idea. He remembered training with Uncle Dorthna when he’d gotten his class and how heavy his head had felt with every skill activation.

  That was from using [Knowledge is Power] without picking a buff, he reminded himself, at least that was what Delano and Uncle Dorthna had speculated.

  Which brought him to his answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Really?” Scottie asked, skeptical.

  Melmarc always felt a little tired when he was running out of mana. It was just a sense, like a loss of will. Whenever activating his skills began to feel tedious, he knew that he was running out of mana. But he’d never actually experienced mana fatigue before.

  “I call BS,” Kalayo said, adding very quickly: “No offence.”

  Melmarc shook his head. “None taken. But I’ve really not experienced it before.”

  “Dude,” Deidi said firmly. “You fought off a [Pyromancer] on a plane. I watched the video. I saw how hard you were fighting. How did you not get mana fatigue then?”

  Melmarc shrugged. “It just happened.”

  But he knew why. With mana stats in the fifties, he had more mana than some S-rank Delvers with years of experience that he knew of.

  “Just how much mana do you have?” Deidi muttered, thoughtful. “What’s your mana stat.”

  Kalayo smacked him on the arm, hard.

  “Ow!” Deidi exclaimed, rounding on Kalayo. “What was that for?”

  Kalayo didn’t back down. “Everyone with half a brain knows that you don’t ask someone that kind of question. Or do you not have up to half a brain.”

  Deidi frowned, rubbing his arm, but did not press the matter. That led to the end of their conversation in an awkward way.

  Melmarc was the first to finish his sit ups. When he was done, he simply laid back on the ground. His stomach hurt like hell and he took the opportunity to try and stretch his abdomen. Kalayo finished second despite his added set.

  It wasn’t long before everyone was free. Since it was their last exercise for the class, they just sat with each other saying nothing.

  Melmarc looked at all three boys. He was fairly certain that the reason Scottie talked to him was because of the good first impression he had gotten from Ark. As for the other three, they just happened to keep ending up with each other.

  It was as if they were only here because they hadn’t ended up in any of the other friend groups. It left Melmarc wondering if they had just lumped themselves together through their shared experience of no actual friend group.

  The misfits, he thought, hoping that he was wrong.

  “Marc,” Jackson said suddenly.

  Melmarc kept his eyes on the ceiling of the gym. “Yep.”

  “What’s Pelumi like?”

  Melmarc felt himself tense for a very brief moment. “Use more words, please.”

  “I mean, you and she are friends, right?” Jackson adjusted but didn’t get up or sit up. “I was just wondering what kind of girl she was.”

  “As a friend, or…”

  “Or.”

  Melmarc wasn’t sure how to answer the question. So, he settled for something simple. “I’m not sure if I can help you. I only know her as a friend.”

  Dissonant.

  Oh, shut up, he groaned.

  “Do you know if she has a boyfriend back home or anything like that?” Jackson pressed. “Or if she has someone she likes.”

  Ark had said that the first time she’d come to see them in Grace Hall she had wanted to kiss him. Melmarc was fairly certain that something like that counted as her liking him.

  Right?

  “Dude,” Kalayo groaned suddenly, garnering everyone’s attention.

  Jackson was the first to speak. “What?”

  “Not cool.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Let me make it clear then.” Kalayo sat up. “You don’t go asking a guy if his only girl friend might be interested in someone else. That’s not cool.”

  Melmarc interlocked his fingers behind his head and used his hands as a pillow. “I don’t mind,” he said, meaning it. “I can ask her if you’d like me to.”

  Jackson brightened, his voice growing excited. “Really? I’d really appreciate it.”

  Kalayo sighed in defeat. “Does the bro code mean nothing anymore?”

  “What?” Jackson whined. “It’s not like she’s his only friend. He’s friends with Patience, too.”

  “Hey!” Scottie exclaimed.

  Deidi chuckled. “He said they are friends not that they are going out, Scottie. Calm down.”

  “I’m calm,” Scottie muttered. Then he turned to Melmarc. “I’ve been taking her to fun places, do you think I should take her to a fine restaurant next?”

  “Why are you asking—Oh.” Melmarc pursed his lips in realization. “Sorry, Scottie, but I can’t help you with that. I don’t have my brother’s skills.”

  “Oh,” Scottie muttered, crestfallen. “I’ll just text him.”

  Once again, they fell into another bout of silence, disturbed by the grunts and groans of their classmates all over the gym as they pulled through their exercise.

  Melmarc’s stomach hurt a lot less. And the soreness from the other workouts like the one hundred and fifty pushups he’d done split into sets was significantly less. He could still remember how it had been for most of his classmates after the first gym class. There had been a lot of moaning and groaning and complaints of pain. Now, everyone looked better at it.

  When Tuff called the gym session to an end there were a lot less groans and sighs of happiness.

  “There she comes,” Jackson whispered quickly while they were getting ready to leave.

  Melmarc turned his head and found Pelumi headed towards him. It was actually a known thing that they walked back to the students residence together at the end of classes.

  She waved and he waved back.

  Jackson nudged him discreetly. “Are you going to ask her today?”

  Melmarc opened his mouth to answer when he was interrupted by Tuff’s voice.

  “Melmarc Lockwood.”

  Melmarc turned immediately. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good work today.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Tuff came to a stop in front of him, then sized him up for a moment. After that, he looked at the others.

  “I don’t remember calling more than one person,” he said in a gruff voice. “You guys can get your asses out of my gym, thank you very much.”

  The others shuffled away reluctantly. Pelumi hesitated, leaving only when Melmarc gave her a smile and a nod. He was obviously going to be fine. She just had to wait for him outside.

  “You might have to text her to let her know not to wait for you,” Tuff said. “I know how kids like to walk back together, but there won’t be any of that for you today.”

  Melmarc reached into his pocket and brought out his phone. Why am I not going back early? He wondered as he typed a quick message to Pelumi, updating her.

  Tuff only continued speaking when he had returned his phone to his pocket.

  “Good,” he said. “Now, there is a student waiting for you. Starting today, you will be going for another program after your gym classes.”

  “Another program?”

  Tuff nodded. “Yes. I heard you have applications for the combat team. That exempts you from gym because they practice during gym period. However, practices for the combat team don’t begin until next month, so you’re still stuck with me.”

  “So, what’s the program I’ll be going for?”

  “Something combat related,” Tuff answered, then stepped to the side. “Someone is here to lead you there.”

  Behind Tuff, revealed now that he was standing to the side, was Devin. The boy stood with arms folded over his chest and a frown on his face.

  Melmarc’s memory of wiping the ground with him during the admission tests was still fresh in his head.

  Looking at the boy’s expression, he gulped. This did not seem like it was going to be fun.

  “I have been informed that you are already aware of it and your brother is also a member,” Tuff added, turning to leave. “So, I won’t need to say much. Today will be your first day as a participant of The Promise program. Good luck to you.”

  When he was gone, Melmarc kept his attention on Devin.

  Goodluck to me, he thought. I’m going to need it.