"Scholar Sugira, and yes, I'm observing."

"Have a seat, then. We're waiting for a few stragglers, we'll begin in about five minutes."

There's no completely empty tables, but one on the right has only two people clustered at one end. It's anyone's guess where the stragglers will sit when they arrive, though. 

He'll sit at the one on the right, at the other end. He can put up with a few stragglers, anyways.

Some stragglers do appear. None of them sit near him, though one joins the pair at the other end of the table. Once they arrive, the class begins. 

They're covering a particular rune in depth today - the rune commonly called 'repell'. An important run in Sanctuary, it can be found sewn into clothes and carpets, carved into doors and walls, and inked onto paper - along with the rune for 'water,' in order to protect the city from the abundance of it. The professor has brought an example of gloves, though she points out that most of them likely have paper bought in the city, and if it wasn't water repellant they likely would have noticed by now.

He doesn't ask questions but does take copious notes.

Near the end she hands out unmarked paper and small bottles of rune ink to the students, suggesting they attempt the water repelling set. 

"I can't give you any, since I don't have any idea of your rune proficiency," she tells Sugira, apologetic but firm, while the students work. "The water repelling set is difficult to mess up in a dangerous way, but it's better to be safe than sorry." 

"That's sensible," he says, nodding. (He's good at copying random symbols - he's done that in arcana enough - but arcane symbols can fail disastrously very easily.)

She appreciates this. 

So the class passes in this way, and soon enough the students are standing up and slowly vacating the room, the teacher waiting impatiently by the door so she can leave as soon as it is empty. 

He heads out, checking his schedule for when his next thing is.

He has several hours free before the next class he chose to attend - the Artefact Handling one. 

The halls are bustling again, it being the start of the second lunch period. It's not quite as crowded as it was when he arrived, as only about a third of the Academy attendees are out of classes at this time. The green outside is littered with students and scholars eating their meals and enjoying the early autumn sun. Some are settled into comfortably furnished alcoves off the main hallways, in groups or pairs or alone. 

...Hm, does he have any money for food...

He does not! But Erin (and Lucan) is waiting for him in an alcove by a window outside the P&R classroom. She has something that might help with that. 

"Sugira!" She calls, waving him over. "I forgot - I was going to give you this before we parted ways earlier." 

She hands him a small black metal disc, carved with a lightly glowing stylised hand - or gauntlet. 

"This is a Healer's Seal," she tells him. "It gives you access to the palace, and also lets you draw your resident's funds from the treasury. It'll stop glowing if you run out - you have 75 silver a day, and you don't have to spend it all in one day." 

"20 copper to a silver, 100 silver to a gold," Lucan adds when she looks to him to see if she forgot anything. "Those drinks were a silver each, if that gives you useful reference. An average meal is five silver. Coppers are mostly used to buy small things like candies, and to give exact change." 

"Alright. Thank you."

"You just tap it on the readers - the little black metal squares, most stores have them. Or you can take out coins from the treasury offices - there's one in the academy, and more here and there around the city," she adds.

"I have to go, though - I had first lunch, and I'm almost late." 

And she hurries off, Lucan trailing in her wake.

Well, off to see what food's available.

There's a cafeteria in the same building as the main entrance. They offer free meals to registered students and scholars, including an option for vegetarians or people with various sensitivities. A fair number of students and scholars can be found there, though many more are heading out to the square to buy something more interesting or appealing from the restaurants and stands. 

He's not really saving studiously or anything, so he heads out to the square, to get something mild and vegetarian from somewhere less trafficked, and sits himself in as quiet a corner as he can find to eat.

Many of the stands offer vegetarian options. Meat is actually quite expensive in Sanctuary, given the fact that they import nearly all of it. 

The quietest place around is probably one of the alcoves he passed on his way out of the Academy. Many have one or two people inside, eating, studying, socialising, but at least a few were empty, especially off the main pathways in the Mana Studies building. It shouldn't be too hard to find an empty one in the halls off the Academy entrance, or inside the library. 

That suits him well. 

He heads to the library, intending to spend a bit of his break browsing the shelves.

He can find an empty room on the second floor, then. 

The library takes up all six levels of this building, though the ones above the second floor contain mostly study rooms, and the sixth floor is restricted access.

The books on the second floor are mostly about the Sealed Age, covering things such as pre-Breaking geography, countries, and cultures. There are a few students quietly browsing the shelves, and more sat reading and writing at the desks out with the books, or in their own rooms. 

After he finishes eating, he wanders the shelves a bit, mostly browsing but also seeing if there's more introductory materials for different magic categories. Like runics.

The runes section is on the first floor. Most of the mana studies books are on that floor - excepting only the ones up on the sixth. He can find several introductory books, along with rune dictionaries, books on individual runes, ones detailing the study of untranslated runes, and more. 

He just grabs the introductory books for now, and spends the time until he has to leave for his last thing reading.

He can pass the time reading about rune orders and rune choices, along with materials. The book recommends always starting with something small and not too mana conductive, with only a few runes, simple enough to charge on one's own. 

One goes a bit deeper into the details of what is actually happening when you make runes. When you charge them the first time, you remove the actual matter of the material making up the runes, whether stone being carved, or thread being stitched, leaving only mana. When they lose charge, they revert to adamantine - that black metal - a highly conductive material, which can then be recharged to allow the object to be used again. 

That doesn't sound much at all like the arcane writing or runes he's familiar with. He notes it down for later investigation, then heads to his next thing.