Most students remained at Ernst Institute for decades. Roommates assigned to the same dormitory often graduated as lifelong brothers.

Yale, Reynolds, George, and Linley were more mature than most children their age, but they were still children at heart. After only a short conversation, the distance between them had already vanished.

“Let’s spend today getting to know the academy,” Yale proposed, thumping his chest. “Dinner is on me tonight.”

Reynolds grinned. “He has a magic crystal card. Who else would we make pay?”

George and Linley joined in with equally mischievous smiles.

“Squeak...”

Bebe’s head suddenly poked out from Linley’s clothes. The little Shadow Rat had just woken and immediately demanded attention.

“Ah! What is that?” Reynolds jumped.

“Awake, Bebe?” Linley stroked his head. Bebe narrowed his eyes in pleasure, then surveyed Reynolds, Yale, and George with bright black eyes. His tiny nose gave two disdainful snorts.

“A Magical Beast!” Yale cried. “That’s a Shadow Rat. I’ve seen one in a book.”

“Linley, you have a Magical Beast?” Reynolds and George stared in amazement.

They were only children. How could someone their age force a Magical Beast to submit?

“Bebe was still an infant when I found him. I fed him, he grew attached to me, and eventually he formed a contract with me,” Linley explained.

“Heavens, Linley. That’s incredible.” Yale’s eyes shone as he stared at Bebe. “I’ve dreamed of owning a Magical Beast since I was little. I even have a Soul Contract Scroll, but I’m nowhere near strong enough to make a Magical Beast submit.”

“Couldn’t you subdue an infant?” Linley asked.

Yale shook his head. “I haven’t even become a First-rank magus. At best, I might raise the young of a First- or Second-rank Magical Beast—but why would I want something that weak? The young of Seventh- and Eighth-rank Magical Beasts are extremely hard to obtain, and even as infants, they’re much stronger than I am.”

Linley agreed. Bebe was already close to the fifth rank and far stronger than Linley himself. Yet despite living with Linley for nearly half a year, he had not grown at all. Neither Linley nor Doehring Cowart could explain it.

“His name is Bebe?” Reynolds could not take his eyes off the little rat. “Can I hold him?”

Linley tried to persuade Bebe through their soul bond.

No. Absolutely not.

Bebe could now convey simple thoughts. He bared his teeth at Reynolds and chattered angrily.

Reynolds’s face fell.

“I’ll tell you what works,” Linley said. “Bebe loves roasted meat. Bring him roast duck or chicken from time to time, and he probably won’t be so hostile.”

Reynolds brightened at once. “That I can do.”

Then he frowned at Yale. “If I run out of Gold Coins, you’ll have to lend me some. I’ll pay you back when Grandpa Lum visits.”

“No problem,” Yale said grandly.

“None of us has properly explored the Institute yet,” George said. “Why don’t we walk around and learn the grounds?”

Of the four brothers, George was the calmest and most even-tempered. Reynolds was the most childlike, while Yale was plainly the budding playboy. To the other three, Linley was the most mysterious: superior affinity in two elements, with a Magical Beast companion besides.

The ancient campus held buildings thousands of years old. Plaques on many of them recorded the famous figures who had once studied there.

Over the millennia, Ernst Institute had trained several Saint-level experts and many more Ninth-rank experts. The four boys—the youngest eight, the oldest ten—read their biographies with reverence. The deeds of the Saint-level experts made their blood race, and each imagined the day he might reach the Saint-level himself.

Only one voice kept muttering in Linley’s ear.

“They’re merely juniors who came after my time. One of them boasts about killing a Purple-Striped Black Bear? A Saint-level expert who can kill only a Ninth-rank Magical Beast, but cannot defeat a Saint-level Magical Beast, has barely crossed the threshold of the Saint-level.”

Most of Ernst Institute’s celebrated alumni seemed unworthy of mention to Doehring Cowart.

* * *

The four brothers of dormitory 1987 toured the Institute thoroughly with Bebe and gained a rough understanding of the campus. That evening, they held a lavish dinner at an expensive hotel near the residential district—though all four drank only fruit juice.

The following day, February 9, was the official opening of the academic year.

There were no lessons. Classes would begin on February 10. The hundred new students, aged six to twelve, spent the day in a hall that could seat several hundred, listening to speeches from academy leaders whose identities most of them did not even know. The children nodded off one after another and sprang happily from their seats only when the opening ceremony ended.

After dinner, four chairs stood in the courtyard of dormitory 1987 while the brothers discussed their schedules.

“This is easier than I expected. Only one lesson a day.” Yale glanced at Linley. “Except for you. Since you have two elements, you get two. And the Institute is so relaxed that we can attend whenever we like—or skip class entirely.”

“Don’t take it too lightly,” George said. “The academy tests us once every year. You advance a grade only after rising another rank. If you don’t train seriously, do you plan to spend a hundred years here? Besides, anyone who fails to become a Sixth-rank magus within sixty years is expelled.”

Linley glanced at the academy regulations in his hands and nodded to himself. Ernst Institute might allow a student to waste sixty years, but if that student still had not reached the sixth rank, he would be driven out.

“Expelled?” Yale’s eyes widened. “If that happened, my old man would probably kill me.”

For anyone talented enough to be admitted, expulsion from Ernst Institute would bring unbearable disgrace.

“Classes start tomorrow. I wonder how good the instructors are,” Reynolds said. “If they aren’t even as capable as Grandpa Lum, then I came all this way for nothing.”

“Your Grandpa Lum is a magus?” Linley asked in surprise.

“Of course. He taught me magic throughout the journey from the O’Brien Empire.” Reynolds sounded proud.

While the other three laughed and talked, Linley looked forward to the next day for a different reason.

The Earth-element lessons were unimportant. No instructor at Ernst Institute could rival Grandpa Doehring’s knowledge of Earth-element magic.

What mattered was Wind-element magic.

Night settled over the academy, but the laughter of four children still rang from the courtyard of dormitory 1987.