Weeks slipped by in a blur, and before Caecus noticed it, the actual school year commenced.
The morning before the classes began, the blind boy awoke.
When his eyes fluttered open, the familiar ache of being beaten up the day before greeted him.
He slowly rose, removed the blanket, and got ready for the day.
Caecus checked his phone, to see what classes he would attend for the day.
'Soul Forging, Combat Theory and Duels.'
Before he knew it, Titus was already knocking on his door, calling out for him.
"Caecus? Are you awake?"
The short boy's head turned towards the source of the sound.
Then he stood up, and opened the door for Titus.
"I'm up." he greeted, voice still groggy.
"Great! Let's go eat then." Titus smiled, voice as enthusiastic as ever.
"Why are you so energetic? Did you watch one of your cat–"
Before he could reveal more, a ridiculously big hand covered his mouth.
"Not here..!" Titus whispered, his smile twisting into a grimace.
Caecus only chuckled in response, and returned to his room to grab his schoolbag.
The duo strode towards the cafeteria, a certain black haired girl joining them on the way.
"Good Morning~" Nyx hummed, her enthusiasm matching Titus'.
'Why is everyone so energetic today?'
A cold sweat ran down Caecus back when he ruminated about what Nyx did to him in training yesterday.
'Well it's no wonder that they are energetic, they didn't get beat up like me.'
Unconsciously, his face mirrored his thoughts.
Nyx immediately noticed. "Why are we so grumpy today?"
"You know why. I told you weeks ago, if you go too hard during training again, I won't train with you anymore. Well you crossed the line again yesterday."
"Stop pouting." she plainly retorted, and trotted ahead.
When they reached the cafeteria, the aromatic smell of the food greeted them instantaneously.
As usual, they grabbed their trays and piled food on it.
Nyx, like always, sat next to Caecus.
While picking on his food with a fork, Titus brought up a topic to talk about.
"Did you guys hear? Today we're gonna be fighting against the second years 'to show difference in power' or something like that."
"Really? Where did you hear that from?" Caecus raised his eyebrows, and paused his eating.
"My teacher mentioned it." Titus answered. "Nyx, your duel classes are with the second years right? Time to show off or something like that." he said while nudging her.
Nyx shot Titus a glare, but then raised her shoulders. "They don't know that we'll be attending their duel classes, so the second years are in for a surprise today."
Caecus thought of his sister, and his fingers tightened around his fork. "Does that mean we'll see the Zenith in action today?"
"Probably."
They continued eating and chatting about their classes until the topic about the culmen from the other years arose.
"Do you know the Zeniths from the first and second years?" Caecus was curious.
"Yes, my older sister is the third year Zenith, and I'm pretty sure Julius' older brother is the second year's Zenith. As for the second places they are also from the main corpora as far as I know" Titus rubbed his chin.
'The advantages of being from a big corpus really can't be beat huh?'
Suddenly, the soul phone of everyone in the cafeteria vibrated.
Checking what message he got, Caecus unlocked his phone.
"The duel classes today are being skipped, so that everyone has good energy in the afternoon for the fights against the second years." He said. Titus was staring at his phone, while Nyx just ate unbothered.
Caecus ate his food, while silently staring into the nothingness. For a moment no sound emerged, just everyone in their own world, eating.
…
Soul forging class was simple.
The basics were taught already in the introductory classes, and now the students were left alone with a bunch of materials, and manuals while the instructor just watched.
Everyone had their own projects, and the same concept also applied to soul engineering.
Now that it was the first actual day of class, the projects would start.
In Caecus' hands, there was a blueprint of a foldable knife that he drew himself.
The room for soul forging was located in the basement of the first year's building.
It was hot.
As far as the eye could see, nobody here wore any warm clothing. Most had an undershirt, with some shorts and on top an apron.
Caecus was fitting that style too.
There were different areas, one for inscribing the soul runes, one with the anvils, one with the ovens, and so many more.
So far, not one of the first years had smithed their own weapon. They all used already existing ones, and tried inscribing them with their runes.
The foldable knife on the blue print was right in front of Caecus.
He was at a rune inscription table, with a soul pen right next to the knife.
'Time to get to work.'
After drawing the rune on paper multiple times, he had practiced enough to be sure that he would not be able to make any mistakes on the actual thing.
Caecus unfolded the knife, and the blade was out.
With a steady hand, the soul pen in his left hand, he kept the knife pinned against the table, so that it wouldn't move.
His soul essence entered the pen.
Taking a deep breath, Caecus pressed the tip of the pen against the blade, and started writing.
Heat
That was the rune that was now etched into the blade.
He felt a little of his soul essence drain, but since it was a pretty simple rune, it was not much.
The way the runes worked was that if you infused them with your soul essence, the command etched into it would be executed.
Runes like 'Sharpness' and 'Durability' were unusual, since you could achieve the same by augmenting your weapon, but there was one pro for writing them.
If you used the runes, it would use significantly less soul essence for the same effect.
The more soul essence you use the greater the effect.
A rush of dopamine hit Caecus.
"Yes, I did it!"
He grabbed the knife by the hilt, and augmented it with his soul essence, and as he did, he felt the rune.
When he infused the rune with his soul essence, the blade started changing color, and the more he infused the redder it got.
Sweat started dripping from Caecus' hand, which was holding the knife.
'Hot!'
Immediately he stopped infusing the blade with his soul essence, and put it on the table.
Luckily the inscription table was made extra durable for times like these, the material was unknown to Caecus, but it served its purpose well.
After his hand cooled down he grabbed the soul forging manual, and flipped through the pages.
'Perfect!'
Caecus grabbed a pen and paper, and started practicing a new rune once again.
Once his hand got proficient enough at drawing the rune, he grabbed the soul pen, but this time he pressed it into the hilt of the knife.
Heat protection
He felt ten percent of his soul essence drain into the knife, but once the draining stopped, the knife seemed just as usual.
The black haired boy drew a line connecting both runes.
This would combine both runes into one.
Caecus' grip closed in around the hilt, and while augmenting the blade, he activated the runes.
Just like expected, no heat was felt on his hand.
'That worked well!'
The Soul Forging class finished, and Combat theory was the usual.
Now came the duels against the second years.
Just at the thought, Caecus' heart skipped a beat, and a slight tremble came from his hand.
'I just know something's gonna happen.'