A new year at Nine Petal Academy means a new crop of students, including a boy who can't control his magic, a thief, an angel, and even a suit of armor? Adela, Lei, and their friends are tasked with welcoming the new class of first years and helping...
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We sat back in our seats. Lei stared at his paper intensely. There were several magical seals on the papers.
"Were these not there when you got them?" I whispered.
"No, they actually had very little written. They looked like permission forms more than anything."
Mr. Suzuran swung his hands behind his back and smiled. "Surprising that this is your first time seeing one of these." He sighed. "Then again, Mr. Obi did make sure to keep you kids away from the honor courses for your first year here."
"So, what is it?" I asked.
"They look like summoning talismans," Nyima said.
"Indeed," Xue said as she picked up her pen. As she wrote her name, prana flowed into the pen. Once she finished, the paper glowed bright violet and rose into the air. It curled into a ball and turned into smoke. Once it disappeared, a small purple cauldron with moons on it appeared.
"A cauldron?" Lei said, eyes wide.
Mr. Suzuran smiled. "In your first year, you had to share the same ones. As second years, you get your own. It isn't as good as something you might eventually produce using tool synthesis, but it should work for what we're going to be doing here."
"Well, there is a chance it might be better," Eien said, smiling.
"What do you mean?" I asked, tilting my hand.
He smirked as his paper rose into the air. "The ingredients within are the same, but the quality depends on the prana of the wielder."
"Ingredients?" Lei asked, blinking.
When had Mr. Suzuran put them in? While we were talking during note-taking?
"Yeah, the paper had invisible ink that summoned items pre-arranged for me and put them together using the charm I wrote down. I made it so that it would make cauldrons. It can also be used to make cheap weapons, but that's a different charm pattern."
Lei grinned. "So the printer wasn't a normal one?"
Our teacher chuckled. "It can work as one if we wanted it to, but its main purpose is for things like this. The ingredients themselves are procured from dwarves. I traded some cultivation pills for them. It's really simple."
"Dwarves?" Nyima asked.
"Yeah. They're a very entrepreneurial people. The invisible ink parts were a sort of receipt. Your sign calls them forward. I gave the dwarves all of your names, so if someone outside of this class signed them, it wouldn't do a thing. My charm activates as soon as they're present. It is a super quick process. Blink, and you miss it."
"I think I did see some items floating. There was some Ginoko ore and some crystals," Lei mumbled.
Eien smirked. "You must have some impressive vision."
