At a green or a purple school? Sculpture implies green?

He is still researching schools to see what the difference even is!

(Meanwhile he does research via search engine to figure out what do the two different color schools focus on, anyway?)

Summary Bank says: greens do the arts and sciences like music and physics and writing and sociology, and purples do labor and labor-adjacent work like farming and shipping and cleaning and retail.

Yes, he knows this, but what does this mean for what the different electrical engineering schools actually teach is what he is trying to find out.

Looks like it's a combination of the purple curricula being more hands-on, the practical examples being tailored to the interests of the students' castes, and the schools offering different classes and the certificates being good for different jobs.

He is leaning towards a green school because it's more theoretical and he can poke at practical applications on his own. If any schools want to let him attend one lecture or something to see what it's like that would be neat. He's pretty sure he wants to attend some school even without knowing what it's like though.

(He looks into what applying for a school is like.)

There are forms to fill out and many places want a letter from a teacher or tracking counselor and your school records and some have school tours and they usually admit in the early summer but have options to get in at other times.

These application forms are obviously not designed for Draak. It would be unreasonable to expect them to be, of course. I don't have any teachers or tracking counselors. Maybe my dad would count, but he is kind of terrifying and I don't want to bother him.

"I can write to a university for you if you'd like, if you pick out a couple that are your first choices."

I am certainly an unusual case. Thank you.

He picks green schools, one with a nice campus on the coast and one that also has an agri-science college and thus is a bit more spacious.

The blue writes emails with his very official government email. He gets one response right away; the one with the agricultural program can schedule a tour for him and let him audit a day of classes of his choice, here's the schedule. The blue forwards the reply to Wire.

Excellent! He does want a tour and to audit some classes and emails back to set up a time.

(He is meanwhile doing his best to get the internet more excited about his little sculptures while he finishes setting up the auction house account.)

The internet is fully prepared to become excited about his little sculptures. Four people are advertising their willingness to make knockoffs for commission rates.

...That is extremely annoying. He writes a rant about how annoying it is.

His commenters want to know why it's annoying? The original will still sell for more.

But they're going to be like a thing he made, and less good! And the ones he makes will be less unique! That's just terrible! It might be a Draak thing.

Commenters assure him it's not solely a Draak thing but Amentans are more used to it. Do Draak not copy each other?

Draak copy each other sometimes. It depends on context and can range from almost flattering to a dire insult, but it's generally rude. Especially if it's actually just a copy and not putting your own spin on it.

The ones that move are harder to copy, here's a barrage of them:

More alien fish and turtles and birds that spin or swim or flap or open and close their mouths. A polished egg that 'hatches' into disconnected pieces with a nebula-type pattern on the inside to reveal a carved baby Draak whose head tracks towards light! Transparent animals that glow with spirit-lines in their bodies, analogous to how Draak 'see' them with the extra sense (Technically these are supposed to be a teaching aid, to teach animal recognition). Pieces that ape natural scenes, with 'trees' whose leaves rustle, 'ponds' that look like something is splashing in them, and an arrangement of red crystals that flickers like a fire.

...And that's basically all of his best things, he was originally going to bring them out bit by bit. Oops. He will take ideas for new ones, though!

He can have so many ideas! And what are spirit-lines?

They're the soul. They're these things in the extra sense, the Song. Every animal has them and most plants do and spirits do and sometimes natural phenomena have them too. They can be very pretty, and they have positions, and something that can translate fairly well as shape and color though it's not exactly shape or color. They run through bodies, and collect around the head of most animals smarter than, like, a fly. You can tell if something is dead by whether it still has a spirit. Amentans' are mostly "white" in the body and "grey" around the head. Draak's are mostly "red" in the body, and come in green/red/white/blue around the head.

Huh! He should do sculptures of Amentans with these line things.

Sure, he will if someone will sit still for it. He still has all the same materials he used to make the animal ones. (He bribed the real animals with food to sit still.)

He has 9,682 volunteers.

Can any of these volunteers get to Tapa's conference-thing?

That depends on how they're screening people!