Lyan
As I reached the library after almost getting lost more than a few times, this academy was gigantic, I opened the door and found shelves and shelves of leather bound books with covers so colourfully they could rival the rainbow.
The library was so big that I had no doubt that something as small as a gem could be hidden in it.
I started my search through the lower shelves and made my way up.
After almost four hours of searching for any kind of hole or anything out of place I gave up and decided there was nothing there.
Feeling my stomach grumble I left the library and marked that spot with an x. I was making great progress, now there were just 10 places left.
When I reached the cafeteria I picked a tray and started loading food into it, some pizza, without pepperoni, and a little bit of salad because it was never bad to be healthy and a coconut yogurt.
Once I found a spot in one of the smaller tables I sat down and started happily munching my food. Although not the best pizza I had ever tasted, it was decent enough and the yogurt was pretty good.
After finishing eating I left my tray on the trolley and started looking for a place named the study room.
When I found it I discovered why it had that name. It was a study room, and one full of people at that.
I was wondering whether I could look around despite the people or not when a smiling Jack started walking towards me.
" What do you want?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest so that he knew I wasn't happy about it.
" Just thought you would like to know that tomorrow we have an exam"
" What exam?"
" A common sense one. We've already had two and they were brutal, almost everyone failed"
" Really? I thought the teacher was pretty easy going"
" Yes. He asked what you should do if someone was crying, or what to do if you saw an injured person. I answered correctly and still got a 0"
" What did you answer?"
" The obvious" Jack said, while subtly guiding me towards a study desk on the far end of the hall where a bunch of books laid opened" I said, prank them and ignore them, but I still failed. I don't know what I got wrong"
It was at moments like this that I was grateful for my human upbringing. Even though my parents were mages my foster parents were all human and I was pretty much raised as a human, so this common sense thing was pretty obvious to me, but to mages, who had almost nothing to do with humans, and whose whole world revolved around power and being the strongest, I was sure this was quite the cultural shock.
Jack sat down and gestured for me to do the same.
" You seemed to be good at this. In class you answered a few questions correctly. Will you please help me? I don't want to fail" he said while looking at me with puppy eyes.
I wasn't sure why he thought I would be of help. All I did was answer that pets were not food and that you shouldn't throw someone into a volcano, but I sure as hell wasn't going to help the boy who had made my day hell.
" Hell no" I said and began to walk away.
" Don't you want to know what's in it for you?"
At his words I turned to look at him.
" If I pass the exam I'll help you cheat in every other subject"
" Then why don't you cheat on this one too?" I asked, confused.
" Because there are no books and no information on this subject at all" he said, frustrated.
I was seriously tempted to agree, but then I remembered the laughs and was about to say no when he upped his offer.
" And, I'll only prank you in our dorm, and I'll give you..." He searched his pockets" 100 dollars" he said, fishing out a few bills from his jacket pocket.
It was a very good offer. No more humiliation, good marks and the most important of all, money.
" Deal" I said. " But why do you want to pass so badly? You don't seem like the type to care about marks at all"
" Don't you know about the ranking system?"
When I said no with my head he sighed and started explaining.
" Basically, there are only so many places here so in order to get rid of students they have a ranking system where all your marks from all your subjects are taken into account to make a ranking and every month those three at the bottom get to leave the academy....in a body bag. There are also room rankings, where the roommate's rankings are taken into account and they give the two at the bottom some penalties, like no food, or no bathroom time, or detention, or stuff like that, but it isn't as bad. The worst is that in 5 months the death battle will begin"
" Death battle?"
" Basically, in combat class and in PE right now we can maim, or hurt our opponents, but not kill them. But in the death battle everything goes, even killing. These battles take place once a week in class during the 4 years we'll be at the academy, so yeah, I want to keep my marks up"
After hearing his explanation I noticed I would also have to get good marks or I would not just not find the gem but also lose my life. Scary.
" But don't worry, since you're new your ranking starts with this exam, so even if you fail it nothing will happen, but I, on the other hand...."
" I get it. I'll help, but first give me the money and promise me to help me cheat and not to prank me outside our dorm"
Jack handed me the money and did just that.
" First of all, forget about your common sense, just memorize what I tell you, no questions asked" I told him, taking a seat and already in teacher mode.
" Aye, captain"
I proceeded to give the idiot a three hour course of common sense. It was pretty satisfying to see how he failed to understand basic concepts, such as empathy or decency, but it was fine, he just had to memorize it.
A while later we left the study room and I felt a sense of accomplishment at making this idiot memorize all of that.
" Thanks to you now I can cheat in this exam" he said, waving around a cheat sheet full of the things I had just told him. Apparently he couldn't even keep basic information on his brain, but it was okay. After all I got paid.
It was already 11:30 by when we reached our dorm, but contrary to what I thought our roommates were still on the common area looking at the same books Jack was carrying right now and that I discovered were some human books with no relationship to the class whatsoever, but that they thought could help them.
" These idiots also got a 0 on the last exam. All the class did except a guy that got a 1, and I'm sure he cheated" Jack whispered into my ear.
Yep, they were all idiots.
" You also got a 0" Orus muttered while Mark nodded.
" Yeah, but now I'm gonna get a 5" Jack said proud.
" How?" The two guys asked, genuinely curious.
" Because of this" Jack said, weaving the cheat sheet around.
" You have a cheat sheet?"
" Yep, wanna see it?. It's 5 dollars to copy it"
" Deal" the guys said, taking some money and giving it to Jack, who in turn gave me 5 dollars while winking his eyes and saying " we're partners"
I smiled and walked away as the guys took photos to send to their friends so that they too could make some cheat sheets and pass. Idiots, the whole lot of them. I just hoped they were better at other subjects, but taking Jack's words into account I highly doubted it.
Once I reached my room I was about to get changed when Jack entered and gave me some money saying " I told you we're partners" then he left.
Smiling I put all my money inside my Cheetos, which were opened and picked up some panties and some Cheetos. After eating the Cheetos I tried to take off as much of the orange pigment from my panties as I could, which wasn't much, but it was better than getting caught having female underwear in an all male school.
I put my Cheeto colored panties on and then my pajamas and took my uniform, with my old panties hidden well inside of the jacket's sleeves and left my room.
I entered the common room, where the guys were in some kind of contest to see who could make the smallest cheating sheet, by now the winner was Jack, and asked them if they knew where the washing machine was.
" Just use a cleaning spell" Jack told me, but the thing was that I didn't know that many spells. I was raised in the mortal world.
" I'm tired" I lied " could you do it for me as a favor for saving your ass?"
" Fine" Jack moved his hands and a green, aether like substance, went from his hand to the clothes on my arms and a few seconds later my uniform smelled like fresh laundry.
" Thanks" I muttered and left the room.
Everyone here seemed to use magic for everything so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to pay attention in magic class, but the teacher's voice was so monotonous it made me want to sleep and since I woke up early I gladly gave in to my inner demons, who just wanted to sleep a little bit more.
Leaving my cleaned uniform on the closet I hid my panties inside the Cheetos bag, which by now was half full, I loved Cheetos, and went to sleep.
Tomorrow I'd get to see a bunch of idiots try to hide even smaller cheat sheets into an exam that even a 5 year old could pass, but to be fair they probably were amazing at magic and all I could do was protect or hide myself with my shadows, but since I was stuck here until I found the gem I might as well learn how to use my powers properly, and I swore to myself that tomorrow I would try to pay attention in magic class.
'After the exam tomorrow I'll check the study room' I thought and little by little drifted off to sleep.