The black-haired young man didn't look up right away as Xavier approached, though the corner of his mouth was already curling upward, like he'd clocked Xavier coming from a mile off and found the whole thing amusing in advance. His attention stayed fixed on the ring of glowing runes hovering in front of him, each symbol shifting slightly as he adjusted something with a small tool that looked halfway between a paintbrush and a scalpel.
"If you're here to spar," he said, still not turning, "the yard's over there. I don't take challenges before noon. Bad for my complexion."
"I'm not here to spar." Xavier straightened, doing his best to project the exact right amount of casual confidence. It was the kind that had worked shockingly well on a vengeful spirit not too long ago. "I'm here because I heard you're the best rune-mage this school has, and I think you'd be wasting your talents not taking me on as a student."
That got a reaction, at least. The young man finally turned, one eyebrow arched, a grin spreading slowly and slyly across his face, the look of someone who'd just been handed a toy he fully intended to take apart. "Bold claim from someone who isn't even enrolled here."
He couldn't have been older than Xavier himself, maybe a year or two at most, and yet the pin fixed to his collar was unmistakable. It was the same instructor's insignia worn by the tall, foghorn-voiced man barking orders at the shield formation across the yard. Xavier filed that away as either deeply impressive or deeply concerning, possibly both.
"Wait, you're a teacher here? At your age?"
"Graduated at Regarden, that's the Magic Academy back in Aqua Province, if the name doesn't ring a bell. A full three years early, if you can believe it, then wandered here and made myself annoying enough that they gave me a title just to shut me up." He said it with an easy, self-satisfied grin, clearly delighted with himself. "Rune magic doesn't care how many birthdays you've had. Neither do results. Now, you were saying something about wasting my talents?"
"Elrick, right?" Xavier had picked the name up from an overheard conversation on the walk over, a detail he chose not to disclose. "I've got fire, ice, light, and dark all keyed to me already. Four elements, self-taught, in under two weeks. I'm told most mages spend years chasing a second."
Something lit up behind Elrick's eyes, sharp and delighted, like a cat that had just spotted something small and interesting to bat around. "...Four," he repeated slowly, drawing the word out.
"Four. Possibly a fifth eventually, if certain sources are to be believed." Xavier let that hang in the air, vague and tantalizing, without elaborating on the fact that his "certain source" was a cosmic being who found him mildly entertaining.
Elrick set down his tool, folding his arms, circling half a step around Xavier with the unhurried, appraising amusement of someone deciding exactly how much fun a new toy might be. "You're lying."
"I'm really not."
"...Prove it, then. Go on. Impress me."
Xavier raised his hand and, without much ceremony, let a small flame bloom to life over his palm, then coaxed a thin ring of frost around its edges, then, after a strained breath, let the flame darken at its core into something that swallowed light rather than gave it off. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't even particularly stable. But it was, undeniably, three elements at once, dancing uneasily above one hand.
Elrick stared at it for a long moment, and then his grin widened into something almost predatory.
"...Oh, I like you," he said. "Okay. You have my attention."
"So you'll train me?"
"I said you have my attention. That's very different from agreeing to waste my week on you." He circled Xavier once more, tapping a finger thoughtfully against his chin, clearly enjoying dragging this out far longer than necessary. "But fine. I'll test you properly, and if you're even half as capable as that little party trick suggests, I'll take you on for the week. Fair warning — I'm not going to be gentle. I don't really know how."
Xavier smiled, the specific smile of a man who had just won an argument and had absolutely no idea what he'd actually agreed to.
"I look forward to being unbothered by that."
He would, in fact, come to be extremely bothered by that.
***
The "test" turned out not to involve any magic whatsoever.
Elrick pulled a slim, leather-bound ledger from his coat, licked the tip of a pen, and began writing with the cheerful, unhurried energy of a man drawing up a particularly satisfying prank.
"Five hundred push-ups. Five hundred pull-ups. Five hundred sit-ups. Five hundred squats. A fifty-kilometer run. All to be completed by the time your friend's exam results are posted, one week from tomorrow."
Xavier blinked. "...That's not how magic training works."
"No," Elrick agreed, far too pleased with himself, "it isn't. But before I teach a single rune to someone with an ego large enough to walk up and demand my personal attention, I like to see whether the body carrying that ego can actually keep up with what I'm about to put it through. Call it a foundation. Also call it a little bit funny, because it is."
"I didn't tell you my name."
"I make it my business to know things." Elrick finally looked up properly, eyes glinting with open mischief. "Your regimen starts now. I'll be watching. Mostly for the entertainment value, if I'm being honest with you."
Xavier stared down at the ledger, at the numbers written there in small, tidy handwriting, and felt, for the first time since setting foot in this new world, something close to genuine dread.
"...I hate this already."
"Good," Elrick said, positively beaming. "That means it's working."
***
He started that very moment, because Elrick, as it turned out, did not believe in warm-up periods.
Xavier dropped into position in the dirt of the training yard, ignoring the small crowd of students who had begun to gather, drawn by the spectacle of someone in fine traveling clothes doing push-ups next to a floating rune circle. He made it through the first twenty at a reasonable pace. The next twenty came slower, and by the fortieth, his arms had entered a state of open rebellion.
"Form's slipping," Elrick called out cheerfully from where he sat, cross-legged, sketching something into a small notebook, clearly enjoying every second of this far more than was strictly appropriate. "Elbows in. You're not swimming."
"I don't know what that means, but I hate it," Xavier gasped into the dirt.
"You'll learn to love it. Eventually. Possibly. Mostly I just enjoy watching."
By the time Xavier collapsed onto his back, arms trembling, chest heaving, the sun had barely moved. He stared up at the sky, doing some quick, horrifying math regarding the four hundred and sixty push-ups he still had left, to say nothing of the pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, and the fifty kilometers of running he was somehow also expected to survive within the week.
"...I've made a terrible mistake," he wheezed.
"Probably," Elrick agreed brightly, not looking up from his notebook. "Most people do, the first time they meet me. Get up. That was one set."
Xavier did not, in fact, get up right away. But he did, eventually, get up.