Chapter 169: 169: Academy Life Starts XXVI

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"Set an alert if my mana gets close to empty while during a training or fight," John thought.

[System: Alert will trigger at 25% remaining, then at 10%.]

"Good." He says while he yawns, "I am feeling sleepy too."

He breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. The war on dirt fell away. The smell fell away. The thought of a dark star tethering a small patient shell did not fall away; it hung in the space between waking and sleep like a lamp left for latecomers.

He drifted.

In the quiet, the egg warm under cloth at his heart pulsed once, very faintly, as if it had heard a promise and filed it in the place where old things keep their truest maps.

The storage room door across the way did not open. It just sat. Waiting. It had done this for years: waiting for the next boy assigned, the next cart, the next bundle of horns and hide. It did not know that this time the boy who had to clean its stink would bring a small, hungry idea to it, and a very polite hole.

Outside, a bell man counted the hour like a sensible bird pecking grain.

John slept. Fizz slept.

The system watched the line of his mana the way a careful river-walker watches a dark ripple that is not a fish.

And the new day got ready to be used.

A few moments later...

Fizz woke first.

It began with a snort, then a sneeze, then the kind of quiet, wicked smile small troublemakers wear when they see an idea. He floated off John’s lap on slow paws, drifted to the tin lantern, dipped his tail in the cool soot, and painted a tiny black moustache just under John’s nose. He added one curly line on each cheek. He stood back, nodded at his art, then leaned down and whispered in a voice like a stage villain:

"Arise... ancient broom."

John’s eyes opened. He blinked once, twice, then sat up fast because men who sleep in odd rooms learn to sit up fast. His hand went to his pocket where the egg lay. There. Safe. His breath slowed.

Fizz clapped both paws over his mouth and squeaked with laughter. "You look like a noble with regrets."

John rubbed his lips, felt the soot, and pulled his hand away with a flat look. "Funny."

"Very," Fizz said, proud of himself. He flicked a warm spark; the soot puffed into a ghost and was gone. "Up, master. The enemy—dirt—recovers at dawn."

John pushed to his feet, rolled his shoulders, and checked the section numbers he’d chalked on the wall. Then he looked at Fizz, then down at his own inner coat pocket. He spoke low.

"I have an idea for the egg," he said.

Fizz straightened, ears high. "Say it."

"I... bonded it," John said, searching for the simple words that would tell enough and not tell what he could not. "One drop of blood. Now I can feel it. Not like a voice—like a tug. It wants food. Beast flesh. Beast blood. We have a storage room here. We can use it. I think I can... process the parts so the egg can eat. It won’t be messy."

Fizz blinked, then grinned in a very Fizz way—half proud, half greedy for results. "Ha! I know you are a genius. Good thinking. You say ’food’? The storage is a banquet hall for dead things. Let us feed your pocket-rock baby until it knocks."

He zipped a loop in the air, then stopped and peered into John’s face. "But no stealing. No sneaky. We write it in the book. We stack the rules like plates and eat off the top one."

"We log everything," John said. "Weights if we can guess. Counts. I want no trouble with the warden beyond the trouble I already have."

Fizz saluted with both paws. "Captain Soap and Lieutenant Ledger report for duty."

They crossed the main floor to the low iron-mouthed door set into the far wall. It had a slot for slips and a plate that looked like it had chewed men’s knuckles for years. John set his duty slate against the plate.

The lock clicked. The door sighed. Cold air spilled over their boots.

The storage room was a square stomach. Hooks on rails. Bins. Barrels. Labeled crates. A high vent that should have breathed more than it did. And stacked in a quiet, terrible order: horns, hooves, hides, bottles of congealed old blood with chalk dates, bones wrapped in cloth, sacks marked "low rank—claw," "boar," "crawler," "reef spines: dull," "wolf: old," "stag-limb," "boar heart (training)."

A year of lessons. A year of "we’ll burn it later." A year of "put it in there."

Fizz’s nose wrinkled so hard his ears bent. Then he rallied like a general. "Inventory!" he declared, grabbing the ledger with both paws as if it weighed nothing. "We will not faint. We will count. We will say rude things to the smell until it gives up."

John took the book, dipped the pen, and wrote:

Duty Shift: John (East House) + Contracted Spirit Fizz

Task: Disposal/cleaning per Warden Lutch (4 days)

Storage draw for processing : mixed beast remains accumulated over previous term.

Method: authorized disposal by guard on duty.

Note: Processing inside secured space. No fire used. No outside help.

He looked at the racks. "We clear by rows," he said. "Weigh what we can by feel. Count by pieces. We log ’processed’ with a mark. Then we move to the next."

Fizz puffed himself up. "And I sing to keep the courage in your legs."

John set his hand toward the nearest bin. He inhaled. The line inside his chest hummed, low, like a loaded bow being drawn, but not to fire—only to hold true. He opened his palm.

The void formed. Not the big, fighting ball. Not the show that had taken men from their feet. This was smaller. Denser. A quiet mouth the size of an apple, then a melon, then a round doorway big enough for a head. It hung above the barrel like a black mirror that did not reflect. It pulled—not hard, not wild, just steady.

"Easy," John told it under his breath. "Eat, don’t bite."

The nearest sack shivered. Old claws rattle-whispered inside. The sack nudged forward, lifted as if it had decided to fly painlessly, and slid into the black. The void puckered around the mouth of the sack and took it in. The sack did not thump on the ground on the other side. There was no other side.

[System: Void-mill ready.]

John felt the cue and, in that hidden place only he could touch, he turned the pull. It became a slow grind, not a tear. A wheel in a wheel. Not to destroy. To reduce.

He reached two fingers to his inner pocket. The egg was warm. Not hot. Just warm, like a hand held too long around a cup.

[System: Do you wish to pin and sheath the egg now?]

"Now," John whispered to himself. Then to Fizz, louder: "Stay close."

Fizz hovered at his shoulder, eyes big. "Close," he said, serious for once.

John closed his eyes a moment and pictured the shape the system had taught him. A film of his mana around the egg. A tiny dark star at the top of the shell, not pulling, just holding. He let the film slide out of his core and settle. He felt the cost at once: the well inside him dropped by half, neatly, as if a clever farmer had dammed a river and sent half to feed a quiet field.

[System: Mana sheath engaged. Micro-tether anchored. Consumption monitor set. Alert at 25% and 10%.]

"Good," John breathed.

He turned his palm. The void-mouth widened a hand. He started the steady feed: crates of hooves, two jars of spare blood—thick and almost black—three bundles of ribs. He used his other hand to mark the ledger as he went: "processed: 7 jars of blood (old), 4 sacks horn chips, 2 hides—boar, 1 hide—stag (rotted), 15 claw bundles (low rank)." He wasn’t sure the numbers would please a clerk, but they would be honest.

Fizz lit the tin lantern and hung it on a peg so it threw light across the room. Then he took a deep breath and began his first song.

Ballad of the Bristle (Verse One)

Scrub, scrub, scrub, little floor, do not cry,

The soap is a hero and bubbles can fly.

The bucket is brave and the brush is my friend,

We clean to begin and we clean to the end.

He danced as he sang, small kicks in the air, paws making drummer-beats on his chest. He rummaged in his own little bag and brought out a heel of bread wrapped in cloth, took a bite as he spun, and pointed at the ledger with his crust like a military baton.

"Mark the jars! Count the hoof! Do not lose count—we will be proud later and then we will forget and that will make us sad."