Chapter 91: Chapter 91

Elise didn’t turn her head, but she did focus her {Aether Sense} around the room. She had a distinct advantage over everyone else in the room, but that left her with a mild dilemma. Showing off too much could get her in trouble. {Aether Sense} wasn’t a common Skill, and revealing that she had it would raise questions.

Then again, her existence in general raised questions. Knowing that Professor Emmett seemed to be such an expert on aether, there was no doubt that he also had the Skill, and if he did, he probably noticed the issues with her own aether. She doubted that revealing {Aether Sense} would be any worse than just existing as she was.

In that case, if she wasn’t going to bother hiding it, it raised the question of who was using what the professor deemed to be aetheric illusions. The most obvious example was the masked woman’s mask, which was a more literal visual illusion. As she focused more, she noticed that Helene’s aether was behaving a bit oddly too. It wasn’t erratic, but she seemed to be emitting more than she should have been. A presence skill, perhaps?

Then, of course, she and Samantha were both using suppression Skills or artifacts, but she didn’t know if that counted. She felt it could go either way. Just before, Emmett had defined the act of having high Charisma itself as being a form of aetheric illusion, so technically, suppressing it was the opposite of an illusion, but at the same time, it was hiding the reality that she and Samantha both possessed quite a bit of aether.

“For privacy’s sake, you will be writing your answers down on one of these papers, and I will grade them individually,” said Emmett, holding up a small stack of note paper and pencils as he began using {Telekinesis} to distribute them. “I will not confirm any details of illusions that you missed. I will only inform you that you have missed them.

“You are free to work with others if you’d like. In fact, I encourage you to. You will have five minutes to talk amongst each other. When you do, try to look for signs of aetheric illusions. Perhaps an aversion to looking at a person, or a part of a person, or a way in which your perception feels warped, or an emotion that you feel that you don’t think you should. Anything that you think might be an aetheric illusion. Identifying these signs will be a large part of this class, so please try your best. Any questions before we begin?”

Elise’s hand shot into the air.

“Do presence suppression Skills count as aetheric illusions?”

“That depends on the situation,” he said. “In some cases yes, but in others no. However, for the purpose of this exercise, yes, they count.”

Elise glanced over to see Samantha raising an eyebrow at her. Her mouth was curled in a slight smile, so Elise knew she wasn’t bothered, and responded with a shrug.

“Anyone else?” asked Emmett.

“Are we supposed to try to figure out which illusions you’re using right now?” asked the masked woman without raising her hand.

“I am not currently using any aetheric illusions,” said Emmett with a smile. “And I will not use any for the next two weeks. After that, I will begin using them, and each class, you will try to figure out exactly what it is that I am doing.”

A few seconds passed with no more raised hands and no questions, so Emmett nodded and spread his hands.

Elise looked at Sophie, who was already writing about the masked woman’s mask, and then turned to see what Samantha and Helene were doing when she saw the two warriors standing up and walking toward them. All four girls looked up as they approached and stopped right in front of Elise and Samantha.

“Hey,” said Leonidas, putting on what he probably thought was his best smile, which unfortunately only made him look high.

“Hello,” said Samantha. “Can we help you?”

“We were hoping so,” said Cassian with a much more normal smile. “Teach said to talk to the others and see if we notice anything, so here we are, talking. Plus, you guys seem like the type to know what’s going on. Honestly, I’m kinda lost. Most of that aether stuff went right over my head. This stuff is like mind magic, right?”

“Basically,” said Samantha.

“So we gotta figure out who in here is using mind magic. I can tell you that I ain’t. I don’t think Leo is either.”

“Nope,” agreed Leo. “I dunno who in here is using it either. Are you guys using it?”

“If we were, telling you would defeat the purpose of the exercise, right?” said Samantha, smiling sweetly.

“Alright, so you definitely are,” said Cassian with a smirk as he wrote something down.

“Maybe,” said Samantha. “Eleanor definitely is.”

“Ah, is that why she looks so good?” asked Cassian, hitting Elise with another wink.

“No,” said Elise. “Samantha is lying. She has no idea whether I am or not.”

“Am I?” said Samantha with a mischievous smile.

“Well I’m not,” said Sophie. “And neither of them are.”

Elise glanced over to see that Sophie’s were yellow and her pupils were slitted. Elise was a bit taken aback, as she always was when Sophie’s eyes changed colors, and she couldn’t help but feel nervous. Irylax didn’t care one way or the other whether Sophie kept their relationship a secret, but Elise still felt like it was something that shouldn’t be broadcasted.

“Woah, your eyes look really cool!” said Leonidas. “What Skill is that?”

“It's a secret,” said Sophie, seeming very pleased with herself.

“What if I pinky promise not to tell anyone?” asked Leonidas.

“Three?” asked Cassian peering down at Sophie’s paper.

“What?” asked Sophie.

“She’s using an illusion?”

“Is it obvious?” asked Cassian, scratching his chin.

“Have you not looked at her face?” asked Jesse, joining the conversation.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“It’s covered by a weird shadowy mask.”

“Oh,” said Cassian. “Interesting. Doesn’t look that way to us, but I s’pose that proves it’s mental magic then. Leo and I are basically immune to that stuff.”

“What Skill is that?” asked Sophie.

“It’s a secret,” said Cassian. “And I won’t tell you even if you pinky promise not to tell anyone.”

“So you’re completely immune to mental magic?” asked Elise, examining their aether with newfound interest.

She hadn’t noticed anything before, but now that she looked closer, she saw that while it behaved normally within their bodies, as soon as it came into contact with external aether, it seemed to harden, not interacting with the foreign energy.

“Well, mostly,” he said. “Literally, no, but effectively, yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Can’t say,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Trade secret.”

Elise wanted to test the limits of the Skill. What did it block, and what didn’t it? Could she get through with {Whisper}? Would it prevent {Fey Bargaining} from activating? It should be possible to overpower it, right? Was she strong enough to do that yet, or would it take some more time.

“So, we’ve got Samantha here using mental magic,” said Cassian, looking back down at his paper and tapping it with his pencil. “Three’s got a magic mask thingy. Eleanor looks prettier, and-”

“No,” said Elise. “I am not using any aetheric illusions on my appearance. Besides, even if I was, you wouldn’t notice because you’re immune.”

He paused his tapping. “Oh, you’re right. Damn.”

Wait, is {Transformation} an aetheric illusion?

While she kept her face straight so it wouldn’t belie her thoughts, but inside, the gears were turning. While “illusion” didn’t feel like the right word, {Transformation} did technically fit Emmett’s description of an aetheric illusion. It was an aether-based skill that obscured the truth that she was a skinwalker-looking rabbit changeling. So technically, she was using an aetheric illusion to make herself prettier.

She refrained from glancing over at Emmett when she came to this conclusion. Did he know? Could he tell? There had to be a way to tell, right? If he was a Larcombe though, then he might be in on the mission. Duke Larcombe had mentioned that they were working directly with Ostra, so Emmett might have been informed, or at least just assumed that Elise was an Ostra operative, which she was. It wasn’t worth worrying about though. If he knew, he wasn’t doing anything about it, and if he didn’t, she didn’t want to give him a reason to suspect.

“But you are using an aetheric illusion, right?” asked Cassian, drawing Elise’s attention back.

“I don’t believe you. I’m writing your name down. And I’m gonna guess you’re doing some kind of suppression since you asked Teach about it.”

“I was asking because I know that someone else in this room is using one,” Elise retorted.

“And that person is Samantha,” he said with a smile.

“What?” said Samantha, feigning astonishment. “Me?”

“I saw that look you two shared when she asked,” he said. “You can’t fool me. You’re both doing it.”

He’s actually smart? thought Elise.

His first impression had been somewhat of a dumb, possibly womanizing jock, but he was apparently much more observant and better at deduction than she initially thought. She looked into his eyes again and saw that he seemed to notice her realization and was enjoying it. In fact, she wouldn’t have been surprised if his first impression was intentional to get people to let their guards down. If it was, it had worked very well.

“I don’t think your sister is doing anything,” he said, then turned to Helene. “You…”

“Me,” said Helene, smiling. “I’m not doing anything.”

Elise focused on Helene’s aether and noticed that it was different from what it had been earlier. She must have deactivated her presence Skill. Or perhaps, she hadn’t been using one before, and was now. Either way, Elise was still going to write her down. Later, once the others left.

“Right…” said Cassian. “I don’t trust you, but I don’t know what you’re doing, so I’ll leave it off. And you.” He turned to Jesse. “You’re definitely doing something.”

“Nah,” said Jesse. “If I was, I’d just say it. I’m not a good liar.”

“I don’t trust you either,” he said. “I’m writing you down.”

“Alright,” said Jesse, shrugging.

“One minute remaining!” said Emmett. “I recommend you start thinking about your final answers. You will have a moment to write them down after we stop, but not too long, because we need to get back to the lecture.”

“Right,” said Cassian. “So, you two, Jesse, and Three. And that’s it?”

“Helene was doing something earlier!” said Sophie.

Helene gasped and put a hand to her chest at the accusation, but her reaction was a bit too over-dramatic, causing everyone to narrow their eyes at her.

“I would never,” she said, but no one believed her.

Well, so much for my advantage, thought Elise.

It wasn’t really a competition, but with {Aether Sense}, she expected to be a bit further ahead of the others. She would still get Helene’s presence Skill that the others might not, but Cassian had more or less gotten everything else. Except Jesse. Elise focused her senses on Jesse, and still didn’t notice anything strange. His aether was somewhat chaotic, but it didn’t seem to be doing much else. Unless the chaos was intentional to hide something else…

The last person left was the young Larcombe, but he was easy. He was using a presence Skill. Not one whose effects Elise recognized, but a presence Skill nonetheless.

After a few more seconds, Cassian and Leonidas returned to their seats, and the room turned silent aside from the scratching of pencils. Elise wasn’t sure if she was supposed to incriminate herself, but she wrote her own name anyway for using a suppression skill. She put Samantha’s own suppression, Helene and Hugo’s presence skills, Three’s mask, and after a moment’s hesitation, she wrote Jesse’s name as well. She had no idea what he might have been doing, but the more she thought about it, the more suspicious it felt. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novel{f}ire.net

After a few seconds, she also added to both Helene and Hugo’s lines that she thought they were nobility presence Skills. She couldn’t feel anything from them, so it would make sense. If whatever their Skills were worked the same as her own {Royal Presence} Skill worked, it wouldn’t work on nobles of higher rank, for example, a princess.

A minute or so later, the last of the pencil scratching noises faded and all the papers flew back to Emmett, who briefly glanced at a few, nodding thoughtfully.

“You all did much better than expected,” he said, flipping through. “Much better. But there is still room for improvement. I’ll use these final few minutes to go over a few ways to identify aetheric illusions being used on you, and we’ll pick back up with this topic in two days in our next class.

“At a very basic level, all aetheric illusions work by causing a disconnect between your conscious mind and your subconscious and emotions. By consciously keeping tabs on your subconscious and emotions, you can often pick up on aetheric illusions as they happen before they sink too deep and influence your consciousness as well. For example…”

The rest of the lecture was ten minutes of Emmett going through some of the example illusions he had used in the prior part of the lecture, and explaining how one would notice them. Elise found this part fascinating. It was from the perspective of someone without {Aether Sense}, so the signs were often not as obvious as they would be for her, but that made it all the more useful. After all, as she had just witnessed with Helene’s and Hugo’s presence Skills, there would be times when she could identify aether Skills being used, but not tell their effects.

Class couldn’t go on forever though, so at the end of the ten minutes, Emmett wrapped up with some closing words.

“In two days, we will pick up right where we left off today, and go into a bit more detail. The class after that though, we will begin regular practical classes. Either I, or an approved guest, will come to the classroom and demonstrate some aetheric illusions for your benefit. Sometimes you will try to resist. Other times, you will simply observe. In either case, you will learn about how they are used, and how to counteract them quite thoroughly.

“These practicals won’t be every day, but I have them scheduled once per week for the next seven weeks at least, and I will try to set up more for after that, and possibly during other classes, depending on my guests’ availability. I have some very interesting guests coming, so I hope you all are excited.

“Now, if you would like to leave, you are dismissed, but if you want to know the results of the little activity earlier, you can come to the front, and I will grade your performance personally. Have a great day!”

Once dismissed, the entire class lined up in front of the desk to see their results, including Three and Hugo, who looked like they wanted nothing more than to leave. As expected, everyone in the room did quite well, though Elise suspected that was largely due to Cassian loudly announcing his suspicions which happened to be spot on most of the time. Most of the feedback was intentionally vague, with Emmet saying things like “you missed one,” or “you got the right person, but wrong effect,” until he got to Elise, at which point he frowned slightly.

“Well, you got everyone,” he said. “Specificity could use work. Also, why are you under the impression that each person is only using one?”

“Always keep an open mind,” he said with a smile. “Have a good day, and enjoy your next class.”

Sophie was after Elise, and Emmett gave her much higher praise than he gave anyone else, though his feedback for her was roughly the same as it was for Elise. Sophie had copied a couple of Elise’s answers though, so that made sense.

As they walked out of the classroom, Elise felt quite satisfied with the experience. She had gained some knowledge, and Emmett had proven himself knowledgeable on aether. Even if she could learn the same things from people like Irylax or Oberon, this would be an excellent environment to train her {Aether Sense}—in fact, it had already leveled twice since the class began—and get used to identifying different types of aether Skills.

On top of that, she felt like she would be able to make friends there. She already considered Samantha a friend, Jesse seemed alright, and while a bit forward, Cassian wasn’t the worst either. And Leonidas seemed fairly harmless. It was a surprisingly pleasant environment for a class where they had all just learned that half of them were using mind magic on the others.

The rest of her classes for the day were a little less interesting. Since it was the first day, most of the time was spent on introductions and syllabi, so not much content was covered. However, she was pleased to see that her Basic Unattributed Spells gave the methods for unlocking the Skill Quests up front, so she could focus on unlocking {Mana Shield} as soon as possible so she could move up to the next class and learn the more advanced spells.

When she walked home with Sophie, it was late afternoon, and the sun looked like it wouldn’t stay visible for more than an hour. Nick, Bianca, and Irylax were waiting in the dining room with a steaming feast on the table. The meal passed quickly as Sophie excitedly told them about their first day, and Elise slightly less excitedly corroborated her stories.

After dinner, they settled into their regular routine of reading around the sitting room in silence, and a half hour of silence followed. Then, there was a knock on the door.

“Are we expecting someone?” asked Bianca.

“No…” said Nick. “I’ll go check it out.”

Elise sensed that he was wary as he approached the door, but his wariness turned to confusion when he opened the door.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked.

“I’m here to see Snowberry.”

His wariness rapidly shifted to suspicion at the sound of Elise’s real name.

“There’s no one by that name here.”

However, Elise was already out of her seat and running toward the door.

“No, she’s definitely–” said the visitor. “Ah, there she is!”

“Maggie!” said Elise.