Christie was suffering. Oh, how much she hated life. It was an endless struggle of suffering. Truly the greatest of maledictions. Ceaseless and intense.

  “Can you stop grunting?” Agatha said as she threw a wet towel at her.

  “But it hurts!” Christie protested.

  “Yeah, that much is clear. I will not say that understand your pain but at least try to control yourself a bit.”

  “Easy to say…” The redhead said between grunts as she washed herself with the linen towel. She didn’t want to stand up from bed.

  “Eh,” the blonde shrugged. “I was on my period during the Agatecraft midterm and you did not see me protest.”

  “Wait?” Christie almost jumped out of the bed. “You were doing all those acrobatics whilst bleeding?”

  “Yeah? Why do you think that I ended the last duel so suddenly? I was on my last legs. It takes a looooot out of you doing all those shenanigans while you can feel your abdomen one step from bursting.”

  “…has anyone told you that you have a lot of pain tolerance?”

  “Once or twice, yes,” the villager smiled. “Perhaps having a more intense cycle would be far better for me if that meant having it shorter.”

  “I cannot say I recommend it. I feel awful. I just want to laze around.”

  “Well, at least we should be thankful that our cycles do not overlap. That would be a mess. At least this way we can take care of each other.”

  “You do not need much care at all,” the nouveau riche highlighted.

  “Then how about you try needing less care,” Agatha giggled. “I am going to sew a bit, shout if you need something.”

  Christie dropped on the bed and pressed the back of her head against the pillow. She was tired and she had just woken up. How queer that the only thing she hated after arriving at the academy wasn’t even related to the academy. Whilst she was drowsy, the girl picked up a book from her nightstand and tapped the agate vein behind her bed so it produced light.

  “Ugh…” That was all she said before she started reading.

  ***

  When Christie woke up and opened her eyes for the second time that day, she felt a bit more rested. She still hadn’t eaten anything, no breakfast or lunch and she was feeling hunger poking at her.

  Groggily and lethargically, Christie stood up and walked out of her bedroom. In the main dormitory, Agatha was calmly working on a piece of fabric Christie had gone to buy yesterday in Knight’s Ascent. It was tedious and repetitive work and the seamstress had entered a trance as she continued interweaving the needle between two different fabrics without paying attention to the redhead.

  Christie loved when her roommate shone, and whilst it was dim, she was still glowing. It wasn’t the sun-like brightness she emitted when she was boasting whenever she performed lithorica, but a more sophisticated glow. It wasn’t a bad one in the slightest, though she still preferred the overwhelming shine that threatened to burn everything in her path.

  There was something deeply compelling about that light.

  “Hey,” Christie said softly to get Agatha’s attention.

  The noise seemed to get through the seamstress’ focus, though a part of the nouveau riche wished that it didn’t so she could scream at her and scare her.

  “Has the dormant behemoth awakened?” Agatha put a pin on the fabric before turning to face her.

  “Since when I am a behemoth?” Christie pouted with her hands on her hips.

  “Since you are taller than all the girls, even of older years.”

  “Fair enough,” she sighed. “I am hungry.”

  “And why would that be my problem?”

  Christie gave a look to the half-finished dress; one the seamstress had started yesterday. “Have you eaten?”

  “Fair enough,” Agatha reiterated and stretched her arms alongside with a groan. “Though I guess it is too late for breakfast, we should skip it and go directly for lunch.”

  “Anything works for me. Let me change first.”

  “Sure, go for it.”

  Christie felt gross changing into her uniform. It didn’t help at all that she was greasy, sweaty, and bloody. Whilst she hadn’t soiled anything, she still changed her underwear if only to not feel as gross.

  “If you feel that gross, you should take a bath,” Agatha commented once they were already on the mess hall eating the same gruel as always. Though this time it had slices of roasted banana. It surprisingly complimented the meal.

  “The thing is, I do not want to just yet,” Christie sighed as she removed her gruel around to mix the gravy.

  “How come?”

  “You remember how I was able to make a wall during our duel?”

  “Hard to forget, yes. Especially when you had me doing more gymnastics than I planned for and exhausted me before the last duel.”

  “I intuit you are implying something else with your words…” Christie squinted at the blonde.

  “You are intuiting correctly,” Agatha smiled as she supported her head on her palm.

  “You are not going to let it down, are you?”

  “I do not know what you are talking about. You are the one that is always protesting about the aches.”

  Christie sighed and pinched her nose. “Sorry. Are you happy now?”

  “I told you that I did not know what you were talking about,” the villager smiled in satisfaction.

  “I feel like Shayla is being a bad influence on you.”

  “We are all being a bad influence on each other.”

  “True,” Christie nodded in admission. “I am being a horrendous bad influence on you. I have gotten you to use fancy words~” The nouveau riche made an ‘O’ with her mouth as she portrayed faux terror.

  “And I am a bad influence on you because I got you out of bed instead of groaning and lazing around,” the sapphire-eyed girl smiled, her whole being shone as if commanded by Light.

  Depths, this girl… Christie didn’t know if to be annoyed by her constant jabs or flattered by the constant sanctified expression she was being gifted. She took a deep breath and made an equally long exhalation.

  “We have deviated too much from the conversation,” Christie said yet Agatha had the gall to look like she didn’t know anything about it. “As I was saying before, I made that wall during our duel, but I do not know how I managed to do that.”

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  “So you want to replicate it,” the blonde said casually as she stirred her gruel. Christie gave her a stern look. “What?”

  “Nothing, nothing. It is just that I did not expect for you to get what I was getting at.”

  “Whoa,” Agatha pressed a hand against her chest in faux offense. “Christie! You know what they say about me, I am the most polished agate in the pyxis, of course I can predict your words and actions.”

  “Sure…” Shayla’s definitely being a bad influence. “However it may be, I would like to run some tests as I am too indisposed to do my daily jog.”

  “And you want me around.”

  I always want you around. “Yes. Who is going to warn the teacher if something goes wrong?”

  “Ah, that is all I am good for. Warning the teachers. You are lucky that you are cute, Christie, otherwise you would not have my help.” Agatha’s words were overflowing with sarcasm and sassiness, yet Christie couldn’t help but blush slightly as she was called cute. She knew she wasn’t bad looking, but out of all the positive epithets to describe someone’s looks, cute wasn’t one she expected. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything cute about her monstrous height.

  ***

  The girls didn’t change to their military uniforms, mostly because they didn’t believe they would get too dirty performing basic lithorica. Though it also was because Christie was too uncomfortable to change into another set of clothes as she had half-permanent goosebumps assaulting her.

  “Let me first confirm this, even if I think you have told me this before,” Agatha started. “You did not use any command to create that wall, did you?”

  “None at all,” Christie swayed her head. Her hair didn’t sway as much as she had tied it up in a ponytail as today was rather hot for winter.

  “Right…” Her roommate stayed pensively for a moment with a crooked finger before her lips. “You have any idea how that could have happened?”

  “My best guess is that is just how my agates work. You know how instead of summoning them, I just need to stop keeping them inside me?” Agatha nodded. “When I release the pressure, I haphazardly aim at a direction and the agates flow towards there. No need for Summon, Control, or Shape.”

  “Interesting…” Agatha almost looked like a scholarite with the constant pondering expressions she made. “So, is this type of summoning-slash-shaping controllable, or are there limitations?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Agatha took her little sapphire out of her pendant and removed the Compact command, making it not so little. The stone slightly levitated on top of her palm and she put it in front of her finger.

  “So you can shoot pillars agate with your fingers or palms when you use Control like this.” The perfectly spherical agate deformed in a small and thin pillar of blue agate. Whilst it wasn’t as instantaneous – or nearly so – like Christie’s, the recreation was one-to-one. Barring scale, of course. “This much is instinctive, is it not?”

  “Quite,” Christie nodded. “It is as if I am a waterskin and I chose were to make a rupture, so the water flows out from the holes that I want.”

  “Yet when you made that wall, the hole did not rupture from yourself, but from the agate.” The pillar of blue agate became smaller and a branch grew from the side, now resembling more of a stick. “Like so.”

  “Yes. So what are you getting at?”

  “Maybe you do not remember the class as it was a handful of months ago, but when Teacher Dago firstly spoke about the Amplify command, when it is applied to Range the agates can now act as a stand-in for the lithorist. I think something similar is happening here. Because you are only in the First Stratum, you can only summon agates in contact with your skin, but as your sea of stone behaves as a single one… maybe that allows you to summon it from your agates too.”

  “That… does not seem likely,” Christie shot down her roommate’s theory. “It feels more like a growth, rather than a summon.”

  “Well, feel free to prove me wrong,” Agatha extended her arms open. “We have been theorizing so far, but you have a whole field here to put all the theories on the practice.”

  Christie took a deep breath. “Okay, I am going to try it.”

  She was the one that had brought them her, but she couldn't help but feel nervous. What if she couldn’t recreate that wall? No, you should not think like that, she pushed away those thoughts. Have a mind blank and try, do not create any expectations. Nor positive, nor negative. Just do it.

  The nouveau riche squatted and pressed a palm against the ground. She always felt like she had more control if she summoned her agates from her hands instead of her legs. Now that I think about it, I had tripped before I summoned that wall, so my hands were in contact with the agate amalgamate…

  It took another deep breath before she unleashed her agates. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she wasn’t in her top shape, but she summoned far more agates than she originally intended and she covered the whole training grounds in a thin, patina-looking surface. Christie panicked a bit and looked upward to check on Agatha, but she found the girl was comfortably in the air.

  “You really like that synergy, huh?” Christie said, her voice completely devoid of the worry filling her mind.

  “It is a nice one,” her roommate smiled. “It allows me to stand taller than you.”

  And it did, because the petite girl was comfortably standing on a platform separated from the ground by a meter.

  Christie’s last vestiges of worry finally evaporated, and she focused anew on her sea of agates and tried to summon that wall. Yet as much as she tried to do so, nothing happened. Her head was hurting from the strain, something she had never experienced whilst performing lithorica, yet no progress whatsoever was made.

  “Hey, Christie!” Agatha shouted and the redhead raised her head, only to see an agate rapidly approaching her.

  “Eep!” Christie yelped in a panic and tripped backwards, falling on her bottom.

  The agate stopped a finger away from her eyes.

  “Huh, I thought that would work,” the villager mused as she calmly walked towards her.

  “Agatha!” The nouveau riche hollered in a mixture of distress and rage. “Do not do that again!”

  She nearly had pissed herself. It was one thing being shot in a duel, another whilst she was calmly going on with her life.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she didn’t sound especially sorry. “I really thought that would work. You know, recreating the trigger scenario and all of that.”

  “I understand your logic, but I do not appreciate.”

  “Fair enough,” Agatha shrugged and offered her a hand that Christie took but without much glee. “So, how is it that you have not been able to summon the wall? You have been struggling there for a while.”

  “I have not the most remote idea, Agatha.” Christie recalled her sea of agates so she wouldn’t trip again, which had the funny byproduct of having her roommate drop by a handful of centimeters.

  The petite girl didn’t lose her balance or anything, but it still was highly amusing seeing that brief expression of panic as she found herself in free fall for a few fractions of a second. Agatha gave her a short but mean look, as if she had the right to protest. Which she didn’t.

  “How have you tried to summon the wall? Have you had had any imagery in mind?” The blonde asked a second later.

  “I cannot say I have had anything in mind,” the redhead revealed.

  “Christie, you cannot do that. Lithorica is all about mindfulness, your intent and internal imagery matters a lot.”

  “You say that, but… it is not like I have thought of anything when performing lithorica in my life.”

  “That is because you have not had the need. You never use commands, and you just let yourself… be carried by the waves of your sea of stone. You need to be more mindful of your agates and yourself.” Christie didn’t know why, but Agatha made a lot of sense. Something that usually didn’t happen. Perhaps it is because she is the best lithorist in the class. “Maybe do not use commands right now as you did not need them originally but think about how you could grow a wall out of your agates.”

  “I will try,” she replied with the most confidence she could utter, which wasn’t much.

  Christie squatted again, a gesture that became more uncomfortable after doing it for the second time as her lower body burned, and she pressed her palm against the ground. Even if she was more exhausted than before, she was able to only summon a carpet of agate instead of a whole field.

  Think about that moment in the duel. You were panicking and you wanted to protect yourself. It was a reflex, but you wanted to defend yourself, like how a person puts their arms in front of their head to block and attack… The tall girl took a deep breath, and for a moment, she felt herself a mountain. The connection was gone as fast as it had come, but she sensed something from her sea of stone. Grow, she commanded.

  And the agates obeyed.

  A wall far bigger and more voluminous than the carpet sprouted from it. The construct reached the massive height of three meters, completely hiding her behind it, and it was only vaguely translucent from its thickness as only a handful of sunrays passed through, their colors shifted to red and green. It vaguely reminded Christie of the caustics in the water of a river as she was showered by the colored light.

  Ugh, my head hurts… The nouveau riche grabbed her head with her free hand as a migraine assaulted her. How queer that performing lithorica hurts my brain this much when it is far more developed than my body.

  “Whoa!” The villager mused as she approached in a pitter-patter toward her, the sole of the moccasins echoing through the mineral floor. “How did you do that?”

  “I am… not quite sure…” Christie removed her hand from the agate and looked at it in confusion. I commanded something… but it definitely was not a Command. Grow, huh? “I think I just realized what imagery means. Let me try again.”

  Christie recalled her agates once more, and this time she repeated the same movements of before, only now in quick succession. The moment the agate ground was summoned, she didn’t hesitate in the slightest to grow a wall of agate. It was almost instantaneous. Or, as instantaneous as her sea of stone could get. The agates rapidly grew organically, as if it were a tree growing in real time or a spill of water spreading. Not immediately like agates commanded by Summon, but gradually. Still frighteningly fast, however.

  “That is an interesting trick,” her roommate mouthed with a hint of awe.

  The new wall reached the border of her summoning range became a curved one with tens of meters in height, width, and a handful of thickness.

  “It indeed is,” Christie smiled. The growing headache mattered to her no more. She was now one step closer to being an actual lithorist. Whilst she was still far away from the masterful control she imagined and her agates still fought against her, her dreams of commanding her fierce sea of stone became ever more possible.

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