welcome to Eldritch Academy
In a world of myths and mysteries, the pinnacle of the magical academies exists. Eldritch Academy offers education to all ages and species but specializes in the study and training of one's innate mystical capabilities, often called Eldritch Energies, Powers, or Unknowns, but more formally known as their Talent. However, tensions run high with the nations only holding a fragile peace as the Talents that rival the epitomes of technology change the balance of power.
With the more recent uprising of evil Shades and introduction of combat-oriented programs into Talent-focused schools, nations grow more aggressive towards one another. The demand for resources grows, and skirmishes at the border of Arka and Mistere become more frequent. Monsters run into the nations from the Wildes, terrorizing villages and cities. The need for trained or in-training Hunters and Guardians has never been more urgent.
Of Myths and Mysteries
eldritch academy The Tea Team
Blueprint is a premade Proboards v5 theme designed and built by punki of Adoxography and Pixel Perfect. Eldritch Academy is the work of the mind(s) of The Tea Team. All characters and content are copyright their creators, and may not be replicated without their creators' permission. All images belong to their original owners.
updates
FEBRUARY 20, 2019
Community Update 2.5 is out! We would like to introduce you to Student Dorm Assistants, a newly organized staff list, and best of all, an updated Academy Guide!
DATE HERE
Community Update #2 is out! We bring you a Fame/Infamy system, an organized Event/PvP system, a new Academy Guide featuring new roles and colorgroups to replace our dorm colors, along with monsters, quests, teams, shards, and more!
A Little Midnight Reading (Private)
Sharaku
Administrator
Lord of Logic
GRADE •
A+ (100)
VITALITY •
2
STRENGTH •
5
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
5
STAMINA •
3
Mirage Manipulation
|
Vamp/Were Hybrid
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Tyki
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None of your business~
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Jul 4, 2019 11:35:03 GMT -6
Post by Sharaku on Jul 4, 2019 11:35:03 GMT -6
The Vamp Wolf | “Hn…?” That was a rather strange admission to be making. While he certainly couldn’t speak for all types of parents, he would have nevertheless thought that making sure their child knew how to deal with their own traits and powers was a pretty important priority. Unless you had a way to block out the influence of one half entirely, the kid was going to notice they were different anyway, and that’s if some other acquaintance or family did not let anything slip to begin with. Then again, he couldn’t say much when it came to how example parents ought to be, given that his own barely cared whether he was even alive at all. And as far as he knew, were it upon his mother, he’d have been straight up dead. Not a good example to be drawing inspiration from, but still….”That sounds…like an odd choice. What if something ended up happening to you as a result of never being told…?” He’d shake his head, not quite sure what to think of that. “Not telling your kid doesn’t make them stop being what they are….”
If only it worked that way, the world would sure be a very different place. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he’d flip over a couple pages of his book, seeming to be pondering something, before glancing back at his companion again. “So then…have you found anything useful?” |
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Ryse Azar
Student Scholar
GRADE •
B-
VITALITY •
3
STRENGTH •
2
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
4
STAMINA •
2
Spirit's Fire
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Church Grim / Phoenix
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Terra
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Jul 6, 2019 10:36:37 GMT -6
Post by Ryse Azar on Jul 6, 2019 10:36:37 GMT -6
“My mom said she wanted to protect me.” Ryse muttered in a disgruntled manner. “She would always dodge the question, or say ‘You’re too young to know’... Of course, it didn’t stop me from bugging her about it.” She tapped the book with a finger absentmindedly as she read the page, her eyes on the book instead of the other student
Her mother never had said what she’d wanted to protect her from. Not that anything could be worse than what’s already happened throughout the years. Surely there was nothing more dangerous than almost getting killed, like she had when she visited her mom a few weeks ago. The teenager sighed a little as she turned the page. “Doesn’t matter now, I guess. I know the truth. Plus, it wouldn’t be fair of me to stay mad at her. And I’ve been doing my own research since I came here; she can’t exactly tell me ‘No’ when I’m in a completely different nation.”
The rumors she’d heard circulating around her mother told her when she was old enough to understand that she was different. She didn’t look like a phoenix, and the words Church Grim told her that she was indeed not a normal fire bird. Not that she knew what a church grim was besides a giant black shadowy dog that she appeared to be.
Some magical wolves that taught her how to use her smell and hearing had given her some information, mostly tidbits of things they’ve heard here and there. But nothing concrete about church grim abilities. Such a species wasn’t exactly common where one lived out in the middle of nowhere. Until she’d come to this school, rumors and limited information were what she’d had to go off of.
At Sharaku’s last question, Ryse was silent, pondering how she should answer. Finally, she opted for just telling him the default answer: the truth. “Well, some abilities listed here include turning invisible, and conjuring storms to them. Besides that they are slightly stronger and have a higher resistance, and guard graveyards. Standard information.”
Information she’d already found in several other library books. Information she wasn’t exactly looking for at the moment.
“Maybe they’re nocturnal?” She finally muttered. “....doesn’t say it here though… although it would make sense. If they guard graveyards they would probably be most active at night... but why is it happening now? Why not when I was little? I could turn invisible since I was two. That’s the only thing that’s happened until now.” She rubbed her face with her hands, sighing. “I’ve never conjured storms, and I’ve never been in a graveyard; don’t feel particularly compelled to go to one either. The book states that some can control shadows and darkness, or see the ghosts of the graveyard they guard; but those are just myths, fairy tales. Not facts.”
Fairy tales that would probably be read to children at night. Such stories, though they were interesting, would not help her in this case.
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Sharaku
Administrator
Lord of Logic
GRADE •
A+ (100)
VITALITY •
2
STRENGTH •
5
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
5
STAMINA •
3
Mirage Manipulation
|
Vamp/Were Hybrid
|
Tyki
|
None of your business~
|
Jul 9, 2019 8:27:58 GMT -6
Post by Sharaku on Jul 9, 2019 8:27:58 GMT -6
The Vamp Wolf | "Overprotective parents sound rather exasperating. Knowing what you are allows you to figure out how to deal with it. Personally, I fail to see how keeping one in the blind keeps them safe...." Especially if it was obvious they were simply different somehow. Kids weren't dumb either, they'd notice that much and wouldn't parents refusing to talk about it only give the impression that the side of them was no good?
Is that why she left home to study elsewhere? To have more freedom with learning about the things that have been kept from her? It would certainly be a plausible reason, at the very least. Listening to her explanation about the supposed powers and traits, he'd wave one hand vaguely before fixing the collar of his shirt absentmindedly. "It's probably not that simple...hybrids tend to not have all traits from both their sides, so finding out which ones you have is something you'd have to do by testing. Even if any of those myths are true, there's no guarantee you specifically will be able to do it." It was not the most straightforward business to be a half-breed.
"It could also be a result of different maturity age for each species. Or the fact that in your case, you've got a huge clash involved. Phoenixes are day beings, while your other half is more nighttime inclined. Maybe one tends to usually surpress the other and something caused that to break recently..." He'd shrug slighly. "It's confusing business. Hell, maybe these preferences could even be prone to fluctuating at random." Genetics and their manifestation was a complicated matter to try and solve. Every person was different in some way after all, and that would apply even more for those who weren't of a pure lineage...
Hmm. "I think I've met one of those grim guys before, but to be honest, I can't say I know a lot about them personally. They can be a strange bunch..." |
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Ryse Azar
Student Scholar
GRADE •
B-
VITALITY •
3
STRENGTH •
2
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
4
STAMINA •
2
Spirit's Fire
|
Church Grim / Phoenix
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Terra
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Jul 9, 2019 21:26:36 GMT -6
Post by Ryse Azar on Jul 9, 2019 21:26:36 GMT -6
She wasn't even surprised that he'd figured out what species she was talking about so quickly. Even though she told him the species by name, she'd given a fairly good description of the abilities and traits. There weren't too many species she knew of that guarded graveyards of all things. And she also had a book of the species itself lying open in front of her. It didn't take a genius to just glance over at what she was reading; she wasn't hiding the book.
"Well, if someone hangs around a cemetery twenty four-seven and has nobody for company except corpses, skeletons, and the occasional visitor, I don't blame them for being a little strange." Ryse replied, smiling a little in amusement. Of course, Grims could leave their cemeteries permanently if they so chose, but she'd think it would be a rare occurrence.
The teenager thought about what Sharaku had told her. He'd made several good points. Maybe he was right and it was a matter of age; perhaps now that she was older she was able to do things she hadn't been able to before. Or maybe it was also that her phoenix half had been somehow overriding her grim half, but something had happened to flip the switch on her dormant abilities. Even so, Sharaku was right about the main thing; there were no straight answers about stuff like this. It was better if she experimented with her abilities to see which she had and which she did not.
"Thanks. For your advice." She said, her smile growing a little wider. It helped that the other student was a hybrid as well. He understood what it was like, to be the product of two different creatures and not know what the hell to expect. Granted, he probably already knew what his own traits were, but at least he'd most likely had to do the same experimenting and research to find out that information. That's what she thought, anyways. "Do you have conflicting traits too with your other half? The non-vampire one?" She wasn't trying to pry; if Sharaku chose to tell her that information, that was his choice. And if not, that was fine too. She was just curious. It sounded like he had experience with this, from his words.
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Sharaku
Administrator
Lord of Logic
GRADE •
A+ (100)
VITALITY •
2
STRENGTH •
5
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
5
STAMINA •
3
Mirage Manipulation
|
Vamp/Were Hybrid
|
Tyki
|
None of your business~
|
Jul 11, 2019 17:19:15 GMT -6
Post by Sharaku on Jul 11, 2019 17:19:15 GMT -6
The Vamp Wolf | Yeah, he could kind of see what she was reading about, and the description she gave was a very obvious giveaway too. While there were other beings that could make home at a graveyard, none of them had all those other traits too. “Honestly…many species are strange in some way. I think it’s just that it’s a very different type of canine than what I’m used to.” He’d shake his head in mild amusement as he flipped a page in his own book. While both Church Grims and Werewolves were more or less on the nocturnal side and larger/stronger than a normal dog or wolf, that was about as much as the two really shared.
He’d huff. “There’s no need. I’m just throwing around options that seem logically sound. It could turn out to be anything for you, as every person is unique in their own way, especially when you’re a mix. I suppose if you think it helps though, I can’t tell you otherwise.” To be honest, he hadn’t even thought of his words as advice, since all he did was pose possibilities that were likely based on the situation combined with some common sense. None of that was revolutionary information that one couldn’t come up with by taking a few moments to think. Well, in his opinion at least. “For the most part…I’d say no. I suppose there is one thing, but it’s something I can personally influence, so it’s not as problematic. It’s more about keeping in mind that I can’t use the same standards as either of the two species at times.” He did not have a lot of trouble as both his halves preferred night time, both were predator type beings and most of their traits did not clash terribly.
The only issues were at times with balancing his diet, and the fact that the two tended to be on different spectrums body wise. Vampires were usually underweight for human standards due to their very low calorie intake that a liquid only blood diet provided, but a werewolf was a physically strong beast, especially in the more feral forms. Being a noodle did not bode well for that. It wasn’t like he could really be both however. He was clearly on the thinner side at a glance, but at the same time, the weight he did have on him was nearly pure muscle so it sort of worked out for him? Conflicting metabolisms were a strange matter to think about. “Frankly, the biggest red flag for me is probably the catastrophic social compatibility in the end….I'm just one big faux pass, I guess.” He'd laugh slightly. Vampires and Werewolves usually opposed each other, and he was on neither side and both had reasons to not like him at the same time. |
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Ryse Azar
Student Scholar
GRADE •
B-
VITALITY •
3
STRENGTH •
2
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
4
STAMINA •
2
Spirit's Fire
|
Church Grim / Phoenix
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Terra
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Jul 12, 2019 16:06:43 GMT -6
Post by Ryse Azar on Jul 12, 2019 16:06:43 GMT -6
Hmm... So Sharaku didn't have complicated issues with his two sides as she did. Ryse blinked in curiosity at his comment. A different type of canine? So he clearly wasn't half Church Grim. He definitely smelled kind of like some sort of canine. She didn't know that much about the different types of canine creatures. The only ones she knew of were Werewolves and Magical Wolves, but that didn't mean those were the only ones he could be. There were probably more.
She smiled at his response. He was honest, and spoke his opinion openly without worry. He didn't seem to care what anybody else thought about him. Something she still had to work on. Her smile fell, however, as she replied. "I guess you could say the same about me. Other phoenixes don't like me too much... they don't trust me. They think I'm strange."
A freak more like; both her parents were phoenixes, and it was complicated how she managed to have church grim genes mixed in with phoenix genes. Some hated both her and her mother, some thought she was nothing but a mongrel. And some said she wasn't even supposed to be born. But that was besides the point. Both of them were outcasts in their species' societies, though Sharaku didn't seem to mind that so much, if his laugh was anything to go by.
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Sharaku
Administrator
Lord of Logic
GRADE •
A+ (100)
VITALITY •
2
STRENGTH •
5
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
5
STAMINA •
3
Mirage Manipulation
|
Vamp/Were Hybrid
|
Tyki
|
None of your business~
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Jul 13, 2019 15:22:53 GMT -6
Post by Sharaku on Jul 13, 2019 15:22:53 GMT -6
The Vamp Wolf | In a way, he did not care what people thought of him, although it was mostly because he had come to the conclusion that it was not worth getting constantly upset over. That’s exactly what the people shitting on you wanted after all. Reacting to it only gave them more power over you, and he’d be damned if he fell for that. Besides, wasn’t his own opinion more important in the end? They weren’t him. “Well, I think I’d consider strange to be slightly better than outright being half their enemy, although I also say that their opinions are crap in general. Judging someone by what they were born as is really old by now. Especially since one has no choice in that.” If anything, at least they could direct that more towards the parents, as they were the ones that made it happen. The resulting kid got hate for something that had always been out of their control….
Shifting his weight on his chair, he would give her a brief thoughtful look. “Are phoenixes mistrustful towards other species in general, or is there a specific reason for them to think you strange? Hybrids aren’t that rare these days anymore…I think normally the negative views are due to the specific combination being a frowned upon one, rather than shunning any and all mixes.” He definitely understood why Vampires would not want a half Werewolf and vice versa, as the two were potentially lethal to each other, but were one a different combo with either of those, it technically wasn’t as bad? There were levels like that for any species and combinations, probably. Some hybrids were viewed worse than others. |
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Ryse Azar
Student Scholar
GRADE •
B-
VITALITY •
3
STRENGTH •
2
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
4
STAMINA •
2
Spirit's Fire
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Church Grim / Phoenix
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Terra
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Jul 13, 2019 22:03:14 GMT -6
Post by Ryse Azar on Jul 13, 2019 22:03:14 GMT -6
"Well, I think I'd consider strange to be slightly better than outright being half their enemy..."
Something suddenly went 'click' in her mind, and it was like all the pieces of the puzzle had arranged themselves to form a complete image.
Werewolf.
Sharaku had given her the answer to her question without her even asking him. It was a well known fact that werewolves were the enemy of vampires. And the teenager had been told that he was half vampire. So... a vampire and werewolf hybrid, huh? She didn't react to this information other than a slight flicker of curiosity in her eyes. Of course, she was wanting to ask him questions, but that was for a later day. Not tonight.
Ryse closed the book on Church Grim, fingers absentmindedly tracing the silver lettering on the black leather-bound cover. "I don't know about mistrusting other species - the Council is usually concerned with affairs about their own kind rather than thinking of other races - but I know phoenixes where I live are extremely hateful towards those who are different."
She gave a sigh. She really didn't want to explain it, but the other student had asked, and she didn't see a reason not to tell him. ".......Both my mother and my father are phoenixes... but I'm half church grim." She began hesitantly. Her hands wrung together. She glanced at Sharaku for a moment before looking away again.
The story, right. Keep it short. "My father left when I was very little; wanted nothing to do with me or my siblings after we hatched. There were rumors I heard when I was growing up; that my mother was unfaithful to my father, that my mom and I were cursed. That my mother had had one too many bad rebirths, or maybe she had done something too terrible to mention, and so this was her punishment for it. The fact that I was half Grim when my mother and father were pure phoenixes didn't sit well with people. There was no explanation for it. No good ones, anyway. I don't look like a fire bird, so a lot of phoenixes don't treat me like one of them. Some say I'm not even a phoenix at all." Some still did. People didn't like what they couldn't explain. The fact that they couldn't explain why she was half Church Grim meant she and her mom received a lot of grief because of it.
"I suppose their problem with me, is both that I'm a fire bird and an undead dog, and that there was no reasonable explanation why that is. My mom swore that she never cheated on her husband, but of course they don't believe her. They hate her for creating me, and they hate me for being created in the first place."
As it was, the actual reason why she was half Grim instead of pure phoenix was confusing, and even that was more of a theory that an actual concrete answer. She'd only learned it recently; both she and her mother had.
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Sharaku
Administrator
Lord of Logic
GRADE •
A+ (100)
VITALITY •
2
STRENGTH •
5
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
5
STAMINA •
3
Mirage Manipulation
|
Vamp/Were Hybrid
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Tyki
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None of your business~
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Jul 15, 2019 15:51:31 GMT -6
Post by Sharaku on Jul 15, 2019 15:51:31 GMT -6
The Vamp Wolf | Well, that was definitely a very confusing situation. Could you be part something neither of your parents were? There was no denying that the idea in itself did not make a whole lot of sense at all. How would that happen? You needed one’s genes to make offspring like you, and it had to be all the way at the beginning when the child was conceived for it to really work. It would have to at the very least be some shady work at play to make that happen, and even more so without the actual parents knowing about it. He’d frown. “Can’t say they are wrong in saying that it does not quite make sense when considering how babies are normally made and how inheriting one’s genetics works. Though it does astound me how eagerly people choose to be biased. For all they know, your father could have been at fault somehow, but despite the fact that he up and left, abandoning his children and not even caring, they blamed all of it on your mother by default?” Pulling the poor betrayed daddy card without any proof of what really went wrong was quite a distasteful move to make.
“It sounds like they’re just afraid of what they can’t understand…but seriously, in this age where so many species roam the world wherever one looks, you’d think these kinds of ‘witch hunts’ for anybody that is different would cease already.” Does it even get them anywhere? Besides inspiring more and more pointless interpersonal hate, that is. “I wonder if people like that will ever open their eyes. It would be a very useful development….” Conflicts would always arise over something, but doing away with such a silly reason would still be helpful at least a little bit. |
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Ryse Azar
Student Scholar
GRADE •
B-
VITALITY •
3
STRENGTH •
2
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
4
STAMINA •
2
Spirit's Fire
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Church Grim / Phoenix
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Terra
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Jul 16, 2019 23:12:26 GMT -6
Post by Ryse Azar on Jul 16, 2019 23:12:26 GMT -6
Ryse nodded and sighed, rubbing her face with her hands tiredly. "It's.... confusing, honestly. Trust me, I know. But I visited my mom a few weeks ago, and I finally know how it happened." Simply asking her mother for an explanation for years hadn't been enough, nor had the research she'd done when she was here at the school. It had taken convincing with the help of a snarky Atronach named Oras in order to get her mother to talk in the first place. Apparently, the older phoenix hadn't known how it happened either. With a lot of digging through her memories, however, the family was able to come up with a plausible explanation.
A few years after the Ancient War, her mother had been attacked by a church grim; she died from her injuries and was reborn. Then twenty years ago, she met her husband and three years later, Ryse and her siblings hatched. Because Church Grim couldn't pass on their genes through bite, the theory was that the Grim had been turned into either a vampire or werewolf before the attack. When it bit her, its DNA was mixed in with her own. Instead of being turned, however, when she was reborn the flames burned away the infectious genes, leaving only the Church Grim genes behind. Since she was now a carrier of the genes, she was able to pass it along to any offspring she had. Which was how Ryse and her siblings had gotten it.
As it was, it was a miracle Ryse had survived at all. Bird and dog genes didn't mix well; her siblings had died hours after hatching due to how misshapen they were. Out of a clutch of four, Ryse had been the only one to survive.
The explanation was just a theory, however. There was no concrete proof that was what happened, and her mother's memory wasn't the best. The event with the Grim had happened 310 years ago; any details of that night was long gone.
Ryse wasn't in the mood to explain this to Sharaku, however, so she'd let the matter drop for now. Maybe she'd discuss it later, when she was more awake. "All that matters now is just.... figuring out which traits I have and which I don't..." Which was probably the hardest thing about all of this. It would take trial and error in order to figure it out. And a lot of nights staying up late.
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Sharaku
Administrator
Lord of Logic
GRADE •
A+ (100)
VITALITY •
2
STRENGTH •
5
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
5
STAMINA •
3
Mirage Manipulation
|
Vamp/Were Hybrid
|
Tyki
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None of your business~
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Jul 18, 2019 15:09:54 GMT -6
Post by Sharaku on Jul 18, 2019 15:09:54 GMT -6
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Ryse Azar
Student Scholar
GRADE •
B-
VITALITY •
3
STRENGTH •
2
SPEED •
3
RESILIENCE •
4
STAMINA •
2
Spirit's Fire
|
Church Grim / Phoenix
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Terra
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Jul 19, 2019 19:39:05 GMT -6
Post by Ryse Azar on Jul 19, 2019 19:39:05 GMT -6
True. There was a rather short list of abilities that church grim had compared to those of other species she'd seen, and she'd already written down what they were in her notebook. She'd also written those mentioned in the myths. She doubted those were true, but there was no harm in testing them as well. And also as the older student had stated, it was better that she test these things here at the school instead of somewhere else on her own.
"I'll definitely ask someone for help with this, yeah..." Ryse murmured softly to herself. It would be safer to have someone else with her while she was testing out her abilities; she wasn't stupid enough to try it by herself. The question was, though, who should she ask? Oras? Ozaki? Nuada? Maybe one of the teachers? Maybe even Sharaku, if he was willing?
This was a question better asked on another day, though. She'd gotten the information she was looking for, both for her schooling and her own personal reasons. And she was finally getting tired. It was better if she headed to bed and came back to it when she had a clearer mind. "Well, I should probably get some sleep... I'm seeing blobs instead of words at this point." She said with a chuckle. She then proceeded to close the book in front of her and put the notebook and pencil back into her jacket pocket. Morning would be here soon enough, and then she would be up and active again. Perhaps it was best to get as much sleep as she could before dawn arrived.
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