"You damned cheapskate!"
Within the sleeper compound, a young girl stormed out of a dorm room shrieking in frustration, as if she faced some terrible injustice.
Emerging from that same dorm and trailing behind her was Yoru, who wore nothing but a towel.
"Make sure to advertise me to your friends!"
Without turning, the girl flashed a rather crude gesture and disappeared around the corner.
Yoru sighed and weakly smiled. Only then did he notice that many astonished eyes were now glued to his half-naked body and the vanished figure of the sleeper girl. Realising how misleading that entire spectacle must have looked, Yoru felt a sense of outrage bubbling up within him.
"I just got out of the shower!"
"Get your minds out the gutter, you depraved wretches!"
Walking back into his room, he snapped his fingers and the door slammed shut behind him.
A week had passed since he arrived in this world and it felt like the longest week he had ever lived. Yoru was certain the academy wanted him dead.
His timetable consisted of Wilderness Survival in the morning which lasted all the way to the evening, when it was time for him to attend his Combat Class.
By now his body was a collection of bruises, sore muscles and joints that protested every step. And his mind wasn't any better off. Between Julius dumping entire encyclopaedias of obscure knowledge into his skull and his sparring partner tossing him around the dojo like a rag doll, Yoru felt like he was being dismantled piece by piece.
Alongside all of this, he had also been empowering himself and learning more about his aspect. He had been going around the academy granting trivial wishes. Things like the wish for food or a pen. Whilst doing this, he found that he could grant the same wish but it wouldn't contribute towards his counter. He also found that a wish didn't necessarily have to be fulfilled to be granted.
In a queue in the cafeteria, a sleeper had once moaned about the line being too long, So Yoru grasped their hand and cut ahead. He was verbally assaulted right after and consequently thrown to the back but the wish had been fulfilled nonetheless.
Now, Yoru could accomplish a wide array of things by simply clicking his fingers. He could manifest food for himself or whoever wishes it, jump the que in a line, close a window and even summon a pillow!
Yoru frowned and let out a deep sigh.
Recalling some of them, it dawned upon him how mundane each of these things were but they were more convenient rather than powerful, so the trade off was acceptable. Besides, his hard work over the past week put his counter at [3.5/1000] wishes, which was an appalling number - but progress.
It was this same duty of wish granting which sparked an idea of great innovation and ingenuity. The most marvellous business prospect the academy would ever see...
The Wish Market.
Since granting the same wish wouldn't make him stronger, Yoru realised that he needed to prioritise granting diverse wishes, and his solution to this was the Wish Market.
The idea entailed allowing people into his room and having them wish for something from him, but he applied the rule of "Only one Wish per person." And that didn't just refer to the amount of wishes but also the content of the wish. If one person wished to fly then no one else could wish the same. This rule allowed him to filter the ones he had already granted.
However his one and only customer had just stormed off because she asked for something Yoru was incapable of granting. That was bound to happen - How was he supposed to give her an elephant, a creature that was extinct in this world?! It was surprising she even knew what an elephant was.
Issues like that were bound to occur much more but he couldn't let the wish market decline after just one day, that would be a great dishonour to his pride as a genie. Although he wasn't too sure if he could even call himself one as the best he could do was solve slight inconveniences. With that in mind, Yoru rightly agreed with those who called him a cheapskate.
He quickly dried himself and put on the academy uniform, preparing to leave for his wilderness survival class.
****
After Sunny had so mercilessly slandered him, Yoru picked his mind struggling to come up with ideas that would help him earn Sunny's trust. Unfortunately, no solutions came to mind. That was because Sunny at this point in time was just too cynical and mistrustful. Sunny bore an Innate ability which stripped him of everything that ever mattered to him if his True Name was spoken aloud. It made sense that he didn't entertain the idea of making friends, so in the end...Yoru just accepted that. It was better to just leave Sunny alone and befriend him when he was less aversive to the prospect of trust.
So now, faced forwards, the two ignored each others existence's and absorbed every word Teacher Julius said about the astrology of the Dream Realm.
Different regions of the dream realm possessed different stars and constellations, and even different moons. The sun was the only single constant but even that was unpredictable. Using celestial navigation in the dream realm was a serious undertaking but not impossible, and it could prove useful to him in the future.
Julius turned away and continued to detail the star geography with great enthusiasm. That was when Sunny spoke.
"I saw your fight with Nephis. That water bottle tactic was pathetic."
Yoru's spar against Nephis had quickly become an academy joke, and he was known as "The guy who threw a water bottle at Changing Star."
'Why does everyone keep mentioning that? Bloodydamn!'
Yoru sighed.
"I think you're the seventh person to tell me that. How did you even see it? You're not in the combat class."
Sunny hesitated before casually replying:
"I just came in to take a look, I was watching from one of the corners at the back."
'Yeah, through your shadow you creep', Yoru thought to himself, both irritated and impressed at how effortlessly Sunny twisted the truth in his favour.
"I see… But why are you talking to me exactly? I have a saviour complex that I should shove up a titans ass, remember?"
Sunny awkwardly scratched his cheek.
"Ah, yeah I remember. That may have been a little harsh but I don't regret it. And I'm only bringing it up because… You're weak."
Yoru stared at him deadpan and shook his head.
"Oh wow. Thank you. That really clears things up."
Sunny continued:
"What I mean is you're too weak. Much too weak to protect yourself let alone two other sleepers. For all your big talk about being a miracle, your pitifully weak. You couldn't be a saviour even if you wanted to. You're fight with Nephis was evidence of that."
Incredibly hurt and downright upset by his words, Yoru thought to himself , 'What kind of apology is that?!'
"Was that supposed to be an apology, because if so, that was a terrible attempt."
Sunny frowned and said matter of factly.
"I will never apologise to you for anything in the foreseeable future. Any harsh insults I throw your way are likely justified."
Yoru blinked, mouth parting slightly. He had a dozen retorts ready to go, each sharper than the last, but Julius' voice thundered from the front of the room before he could fire back.
"I'm hearing a lot of chatter behind me. I hope you boys are listening, because this is incredibly vital information you should know!"
They both replied in unison:
"Yes, Teacher Julius."
"Brilliant! Now... onto the 75th constellation of the Dream Realms known 125…"
****
A few hours passed by and the lesson had ended.
Yoru and Sunny's relationship couldn't exactly be called "friendly", but the two could speak to each other just fine. He was glad that the situation had worked itself out - probably due to his attribute - but there was still the issue with Nephis that he had to resolve.
He was unsure how to even tackle that one, as dissuading Nephis from the notion that he was after her life, didn't seem as easy as just telling her, "Ah, don't worry. I'm not here to kill you or anything."
Someone like Nephis would need to be shown that he wasn't a threat rather than told. And that was the crux of the problem.
How was he supposed to show her such a thing?
Yoru wracked his brain, scouring for any ideas and eventually a solution came to him.
The answer to his problem was so simple it was almost laughable.
'I'll just have to kill Caster.'