The Academy had a cafeteria that I didn’t know about. Kalli marked it on the map for me. I dragged my feet on the walk over, nervous about being surrounded by Kalli’s friends.

The first thing that I noticed when I walked through the door was that most of the students sitting at the tables were older. I questioned Kalliphae about it.

Where are all of the kids that are our age?

She felt proud when she replied. This is a special area reserved for third and fourth-year students. Alex said it won’t be a problem because we are with him.

Alex again. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. The smells coming from the kitchen already made the older kid’s cafeteria a much better choice than the dorm one. Six holes in the wall with students lined up in front of them told me that was where the smells were coming from.

I looked around for Kalli and found her jumping up and down waving at me from the other side of the hall. She smiled and said, “Hi Mel. I hope you’re hungry.”, as I made my way up to the table.

Remembering that several of her friends hadn’t met me, she continued, “Guys, this is my friend Melvin Murphy. Mel, you’ve met Alex. The rest of the gang is Tyler, Cyrus, and Rufin.”

I nodded to each of them and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

Alex chuckled and added, “This is the boy I was telling you all about in group chat. He’s the one that passed out while feeding his pet.”

I gaped at the older boy, wanting to point out that the situation was a bit more complicated than the way he had explained. The others started laughing.

Kalli stomped her foot and grabbed Alex by the cuff of his shirt, “Cut it out. I didn’t invite Mel to lunch just for you to tease him. Now apologize.”

I never got to know whether Alex would apologize because a loud noise from a nearby table captured everyone’s attention. A lone girl with short-cropped brown hair had risen from her table. I found it strange that she sat at the table by herself in such a crowded cafeteria.

Some of the boys with Kalli gasped as she kicked her chair away from her and started to make her way over to us. Kids all over the cafeteria were murmuring to themselves. I didn’t know whether to be happy for the interferences or nervous about what she was coming to do.

When she arrived, she looked Kalliphae up and down before turning her attention to the boys, “Do you want to know what’s actually funny? The four of you laughing at a superior wizard who you won’t be able to compare to if you leveled all the way up to 100.”

She took a deep breath and turned her attention to me, “I need to talk to you about something. In private. I somehow doubt you want to hang out with these morons anyhow.”

Kalli stepped in between us and said, “Excuse me. Melvin was about to have lunch with me.”

The girl took Kalli’s hand in hers, “I know. I apologize. It’s just that I urgently need to discuss something with your boyfriend.”

The redhead stammered, “Um, he’s not…”

The older girl cut her off, “Even better. Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m going to eat him or anything. I promise I’ll bring him back in one piece. Go enjoy your lunch with these guys. Not that they deserve your company. You could do so much better.”

Realizing that we had attracted an audience, she spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, “Okay folks. The show is over. Everyone back to their lunch.”

As she dragged me out of the cafeteria, I was surprised to see that everyone including Kalli sat down and dutifully started eating. I turned my attention to the girl, “How did you do that? Did you just use words of command on everyone?”

She steered me down a side passage and laughed, “Words of command? As if. First off, those don’t work well on wizards. Second, there are much better ways of getting people to do what you want. What you just witnessed was a little high-grade intimidation. It works well on peons.”

I gasped, “Those were peons? They were all older than me.”

The girl laughed, “Hah. Age has nothing to do with ability. I’m sure half of the faculty here wishes that it did.”

“Where are we going?”, I blurted out, unable to help myself.

She flashed me a mischievous smile, “Somewhere we can be alone.”

I took a moment to inspect her.

Name

Kiki Morin

Class

Negotiator

Level

43

Affection Level

Familiar

Starting to pull away from the girl, I asked, “Why do you want to be alone with me?”

Kalliphae cut into my thoughts, Mel. Are you okay? That girl was here, and then I was eating without you. Where did you go?

Kiki answered at the same time, “I didn’t mean be alone like that. I just need to talk to you about something and it would be best if nobody eavesdrops.”

I’m fine, Kalli. She just wants to talk.

The last thing I felt from Kalli was a feeling of concern. Then she was suddenly gone. Kiki smirked and then put her hand over her mouth, “Oops. I forgot to tell you to tell your groupmates goodbye. I put a blackout on us so we can talk in private.”

I started to turn back toward the cafeteria, “Kalli is going to freak out. I need to go talk to her.”

Kiki sighed and said, “Fine. I’ll lift the blackout for a second. Tell your mate that I need a few minutes.”

Suddenly, Kalli’s voice nearly blinded me. …and I am going to go get the headmaster to rescue you!

Hold on Kalli. I’m fine. She just has some privacy spell called blackout that blocks telepathic communication. Kiki wants to talk to me in private for a few minutes. She says she has something to tell me.

Relief washed over me from Kalli, followed by anger. Tell her that she needs to warn people before she does that. You were just suddenly gone. I was about to form a search party.

Kiki looked at me intently, “Are you done?”

I’ll be back as soon as I can.

I turned to Kiki and nodded, “Okay, do it.”

Not waiting for her to confirm, I walked past her and through the door she was holding open right into a utility closet. She followed me in and shut the door, plunging us into darkness. I assumed that she had the ability to see in the dark as I did because she didn’t bother with lights.

I deadpanned, “A closet? Really?”

She shrugged, “It’s not like I was going to take you back to my dorm room just for a quick chat. This room will do.”

We stared at one another in the dark for a moment before she said, “Inspect me and tell me what you see.”

My hesitation must have been obvious because she laughed and added, “My menu. Tell me if you see what I see. It was obvious to me when you walked into the room.”

I grinned and informed her, “I already know that your name is Kiki and you are a level 43 Negotiator.”

She twirled her hair in her fingers, “Don’t call me that. I hate the name Kiki. My mother went through a phase. Call me Ki. What else can you see?”

Her question made me hesitate so I quickly added, “Um, and you are familiar with me?”

Kiki sighed and slumped in front of me, “I had such high hopes for you too. Look deeper. I know you have the ability.”

I did a full scan.

Name

Kiki Morin

Class

Negotiator

Level

43

Hitpoints

4,300

Mana

4,300

Stamina

4,300

Strength

45

Dexterity

40

Agility

50

Constitution

45

Intelligence

78

Wisdom

65

Charisma

85

Luck

60

Not seeing anything out of the ordinary there, I checked her skills and traits.

Skills

Traits

Impose Contract

Bloodline: M

Negotiate

Enhanced Regeneration

Command Attention

Enhanced Mana Regeneration

Absorption

True Sight

Affinity: Speech

Normally, I would be very interested in her class. I had never heard of professions like a negotiator. At least not in the magical sense. However, one trait, in particular, stuck out like a sore thumb.

Bloodline: M

I stared at Kiki and asked, “Are you saying that we are family?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. Could be. My mom doesn’t know what the bloodline means. All I know is that bloodlines are special. I’ve spent quite a bit of time getting nobles to spill their guts about the perks of their bloodlines.”

This was a topic that I was very interested in so I asked, “What kinds of perks do bloodlines have?”

Kiki wagged a finger in my face, “Nope. No free information. How do you think I got my class. You could start by telling me about that extra bloodline you’ve collected.”

I groaned at the memory of how I collected it but I wanted information, so I told her, “The Shaw bloodline is the equivalent of the vampire class. Their mana lives in their blood instead of mana channels. They can absorb traits by drinking the blood of mages. I don’t know how much of that is tied to the bloodline or the additional traits that I acquired.”

When I looked up, I was surprised to find Kiki taking notes in a tiny notebook. She nodded and said, “Okay. So, I’m not going to tell you about other bloodlines. I am going to tell you something far more valuable for you specifically. Don’t stack too many traits and skills on yourself. Each new skill weakens the rest. Imagine a pie. If you slice it into 4 pieces, everyone gets 25% of the pie. If you cut it into 10 pieces, everyone gets only 10%. The same goes for skills and traits. The more you have, the less power goes into each of them. It can get so bad that a skill that grants you immunity only makes you resistant. While it’s not a big deal with your current assortment of skills, you could be stronger than you currently are if you pruned that list a little.”

I was speechless. My trait list had recently swollen with all of the traits I continuously added for my classes. I asked her, “Are you suggesting that I should delete some traits?”

Kiki shrugged, “I honestly don’t know. The only thing I know about the manipulator class is that it’s generally forbidden.”

Another revelation. I groaned, “You can tell that I am a manipulator?”

The girl laughed at me, “Is there anything they can hide from your eyes?”

I thought of Kalli’s affection for me and answered, “Yes. The same enchanter that enchanted my class also enchanted a certain status of Kalli’s which I still can’t see.”

Kiki smirked, “You are talking about her affection level, aren’t you? Have you really tried looking at it? When someone masks something, it usually looks out of place. Once I saw that about you, I just kept looking deeper until I saw everything. I believe it has something to do with our bloodline. Therefore, I believe you can do it too.”

The idea that I could potentially see Kalli’s true feelings for me felt like cheating. It felt like it would cheapen it if she actually did like me. I told Kiki, “I can’t do that to her.”

She patted me on the head and smiled, “Good answer. I think I like you. I’ll give you a freebie. What else do you want to know?”

The fact that people here could know my secret worried me, “Who else can see through my enchantment?”

Kiki rubbed her temples in concentration, “Well, we can see a lot of things that other people can’t. That doesn’t rule out the few powerful people here at The Academy. The headmaster, Mr. Ramsey, for example. He would know for sure. Rumor has it that he is somewhere around level 200. Of course, you’re probably safe with him knowing. He will want to protect you. Some of the students in the advanced courses could be able to read your menu, but I doubt that they will break through your enchantment. Most of the faculty here are just low-level specialists. This is a public school, so we don’t tend to attract any big names.”

I missed half of what she said as I calculated and replied, “Mr. Ramsey is level 175.”

She gaped at me and asked, “How would you know that? I can’t see his level when I inspect him.”

Taking Kiki’s notepad, I sketched some quick math, “I can’t tell what level he is either. However, every time I level up I get 100 more hit points. Mr. Ramsey has 17,500 hit points. If you divide that by 100, you get 175, so he is level 175.”

It was Kiki’s turn to be stunned as she stared at her notepad, “Wow. All this time there was a loophole, and it never even dawned on me. There are a few people that I need to inspect the next time I see them.”

She was getting distracted, so I asked, “What now? Does this mean we’re family?”

Kiki reddened and asked in a small voice, “Do you know your father?”

I shook my head, “No. Not really. Just what my mother tells me about him.”

The girl planted a hand on my arm, “I know how you feel. I never met my father either. Mom raised me all by herself. Perhaps we are related. Who knows. Of course, we might not be brother and sister. We could be cousins or something more distant than that. How old are you?”

I replied, “I’m fifteen.”

Kiki looked up and did some mental calculations, “Two years apart. I’m seventeen. I suppose it is possible. Fine. That settles it. You can be my baby brother.”

Groaning, I replied, “I don’t think I like it when you put it that way.”

She quickly reached around and got me in a headlock, raking her knuckles through my hair, “Great. That’s the way it’s supposed to be with your big sis. Get used to it.”