Dear Mother,

  I hope this letter finds you well. If not, I hope it finds you before Father does, because someone needs to be held accountable for the absolute hell your son is currently enduring.

  Let me start by saying I have not died—though several parts of me have come close. My spine, my pride, and any lingering hope I had for a peaceful school life were all pronounced clinically dead after week one.

  You were right, by the way. This “gifted education” my father dreamed about? Yeah. Turns out it’s code for ritualized abuse cloaked in academic tradition.

  Rielle the Trainer (or, My Bruises Have Bruises)“Stop flinching!” Rielle yelled, swinging a practice sword at my ribs.

  “I’m not flinching, I’m avoiding damage!”

  “This is training!”

  “This is trauma!”

  We’d been paired for the upcoming Inter-Division Mock Battle, a school event where Sword and Magic students form tag teams and try to beat the daylight out of each other under the pretense of “practical experience.”

  Naturally, Rielle saw this as a divine excuse to spar with me like I owed her money.

  “You need to learn to block with mana shielding,” she shouted, unching another overhead strike.

  “Why would I block when I can sidestep and throw sarcastic comments at my enemy until they rage-quit?”

  “You’re lucky I haven’t rage-quit you yet!”

  I didn’t respond because I was too busy rolling across the ground like a fming onion.

  The Opponents: Twisted Nobles with Matching SmirksOur first battle was against a noble duo—Callen Devareux and Lysia Thorne. Both from old money. Both with perfectly symmetrical hair and the kind of smiles that made you want to test out your fire magic on their colrs.

  “I heard they forged an alliance through some old family blood-pact,” Gram whispered.

  “Or maybe they’re just mutually insufferable,” I replied.

  “Be careful,” he added. “Callen uses gravity magic. Lysia’s sword is enchanted to cut through barriers.”

  “Great. So it’s a combo of ‘can’t move’ and ‘gets stabbed.’ How exciting.”

  The Battle Begins: Or How I Did The Bare Minimum and Still PassedArena: Hexagonal ptform with floating runes. Sand below. Floating seating above where students and instructors watched like it was the empire’s favorite bloodsport.

  “BEGIN!” the proctor called.

  Callen immediately cast Graviton Pressure, targeting our side. The floor beneath me wobbled, and everything got heavier.

  Rielle didn’t flinch. Of course.

  She charged forward, mana-enhanced boots kicking off the runes as she spun and crashed her sword into Lysia’s barrier with a boom that echoed across the whole arena.

  Meanwhile, I—being smart—walked calmly around the edge of the gravity zone, sipping a mana-restoration potion and watching the chaos unfold.

  Callen noticed me. “Are you even going to fight?”

  “Depends,” I said. “Do sarcastic comments count as a ranged attack?”

  He growled, raising his staff. “I’ll crush you.”

  “Oh no,” I said dryly. “My sarcasm’s only weakness: being physically crushed.”

  He unched another pressure wave. I zily side-stepped. The edge of the arena glowed beneath my feet, and I nudged a minor wind rune active beneath the sand. Poof. Mini gust.

  Callen’s footing faltered. He stumbled.

  Right into Rielle’s flying roundhouse kick.

  THWACK.

  The crowd went wild.

  Lysia tried to counter with a magic-slicing thrust, but I flicked a small fme thread to her sword’s hilt. It fred. She yelped, dropped the weapon.

  Rielle finished her with a clean mana-pulse punch to the gut.

  Match over.

  I hadn’t broken a sweat.Rielle had nearly broken two ribs.Everyone cpped. Some were confused. I sipped more potion.

  Meanwhile: Team Chaos Also WinsGram had paired with Eli, Rielle’s sword-psycho roommate. They were like two caffeinated wolves in a meat market. Eli with a bde that whistled through the air, Gram with wind spells that made her faster instead of being actually useful on his own.

  Together, they tore through their opponents—two kids from merchant-noble backgrounds—by accident and momentum.

  Gram tripped over his own foot, cast wind burst in panic, unched Eli at high speed into the other team’s healer.She elbowed the other in the nose.Match over in 42 seconds. It was somehow... effective.

  They celebrated like they’d just won a war.

  Then Gram Had A Terrible Idea“We should party,” he said ter in the dorm common room, sprawled out like a cat on a couch. “Celebrate the victories, y’know?”

  “Define party,” I said cautiously.

  “I got these from a senior,” he whispered, pulling out a small case of colorful bottles that glowed faintly. “Energy potions. Mana enhancers. Very mild! Definitely safe! Probably.”

  “Gram,” I said, “those are bck-market alchemy brews. No bel. No seal. Probably brewed in someone’s dorm toilet.”

  “So they’re organic!”

  Before I could stop him, the girls arrived—Rielle and Eli, both still sweating from post-battle cooldown.

  “Oooh,” Eli said, grabbing a bottle. “Shiny.”

  “It’s fine,” Gram grinned. “Just a celebratory boost. Cheers!”

  Clink.

  And just like that, they drank.Like it was water.

  I watched in horror. “This is how we die. This is how we all die.”

  Side Effects: Chaos ModeWhat followed can only be described as chaotic enthusiasm on steroids.

  Rielle suddenly challenged the hallway to a duel. With her bare hands.

  Eli scaled a bookshelf and decred herself “Queen of Vertical Combat.”

  Gram was vibrating. Not metaphorically. Physically vibrating.

  I calmly sipped actual water, looked at my summoned fire serpent napping in my p, and whispered, “I am surrounded by idiots.”

  The fire serpent opened one eye, looked at me, and nodded in agreement.

  Letter Continued...So, Mother, please inform Father that his noble pns for my greatness are currently being derailed by peer-induced lunacy and recreational alchemy.

  Also, please send healing salves.Rielle says we’re “training” again tomorrow.Which means more bruises, more yelling, and maybe a few more sarcastic monologues before I inevitably get punched in the shoulder.

  Sincerely,Your slightly concussed son,Lucien.