Ribo did a little calculus before coming but she's not sure what exactly to expect. It could be an easier introduction or it could be an advanced class about applications. She recognizes Jiang Cheng as being from the Shanghai Enclave and goes over to say. "Hello, do you know what to expect from this class?"

"I don't know whether this is one of those classes where the school talks to us or just one of those classes where we get problem sets and if we don't do them it eats us," he says to Ribo.

She giggles, "I was more wondering what will be covered, I suppose that's an important question though."

"I think it's just regular high school math but with more of a focus on artificing applications."

"That makes sense. Mother taught me some calculus before I was inducted so I'll have to see how much is new."

"Most of the people here are juniors, I'm glad there's another freshman. My linear algebra class is going to be all seniors, I think."

"It is nice to have someone the same age around, I didn't get Linear Algebra. I didn't even know it was an option, it would be nice if there was a better class listing available."

"I think it's only available if you already know calculus."

"That makes sense. It's cool that the school knows what we know like that. It even gave me a creative writing class associated with a language I'm planning to learn. Maybe that was a coincidence though."

"Ooh, which language?"

"Russian. I'm trying to get all the most popular languages. I already have English and Mandarin so I'm trying to get Russian, Spanish, Hindi and Arabic to complete the set."

"Cool. I no know very Russian," Wei Wuxian says in badly accented Russian.

"I don't know even that much yet." She says in Mandarin. "I figured it was safer to follow the school's curriculum than try to teach myself."

"Why?"

"Mother said getting spell blocked is very dangerous and that if you're learning a language from the school that usually doesn't happen."

"Oh, if I get spell blocked I figure I'd just learn the language faster."

"Do you have a particular talent for languages then?"

"I'm good at things," he says in pretty much the same way you'd say "I like broccoli."

"That's fortunate. I can usually succeed at things when I try but sometimes they go horribly right."

"You should have thought about it at all before you decided to be good at things," Jiang Cheng snaps. "If you're in advanced senior-level math now what's going to happen next year? You're going to be in a one-person class and die?"

"You'll just have to study harder, a-Cheng."

"If you're good at things, perhaps that includes protecting yourself from Mals."

"If you find any human bones lying around I'm going to carve one into a flute the song of which repels mals."

"I'll let you know if I see any."

"Well, not this early in the year, anyway. --I'm not creepy or a maleficer or anything, my affinity's just dead bodies."

"The only person I know of to have died is the girl from the Toronto Enclave who went into the void and didn't come back. No bones to be had from that."

"Oh, wow, that's a lot of deaths so far. --I guess we don't know Song Lan is dead."

"He's not dead. They just couldn't induct him for some reason."

"One of the people you expected isn't at the school?" Her mind goes back to the last corpses she saw but those were in Canada totally unrelated.

"Our martial brother-- uh, enclavemate. He-- was present at the Shanghai induction. Then he didn't show up at the cafeteria."

"That sounds strange. I don't know what could interfere with an induction," short of death she doesn't say. "Has anyone from your enclave checked for vacant freshman dorm rooms?"

"I think we got an indie to do it?"

"How many open doors did they find?"

"Well, I don't think they're done yet."

"I should have expected that. There are a lot of rooms."

A grainy image of some mathematical notation appears, and a polite, cultured voice begins to say, "before we can dive into calculus, we need to make sure we have a rigorous understanding of certain basic concepts, such as sets, numbers, and functions. A set is--"

Jiang Cheng bends over his paper and begins to furiously take notes. 

Wei Wuxian tries to take notes and manages to for almost three entire minutes before he folds all of his notes into a paper flower. 

Ribo takes notes intermittently when there's a concept she wasn't already familiar with or if something is explained in an interestingly new way.

Hey! There's no teacher in this classroom! 

He starts to pace around the room in circles.

"Jiang Cheng, I'm booooooored."

"Then pay attention, you idiot."

"But I know all this already."

"Shhhhh!" says a senior taking notes.

Ribo will not giggle, that would make a bad impression on the seniors and she is not an enclaver. She does smile just a little though, it's like something from one of those TV shows where kids are in school.

"Then work on a problem set! The problem sets are in the book!"

"Oh, they are? Awesome!" Wei Wuxian proceeds to sit down and work on problem sets, except when he gets stuck or distracted and returns to pacing in the back of the room.

Ribo isn't quite excited enough about Calculus to do problem sets she hasn't yet been assigned. When the lecture is particularly boring she'll trace shapes on her desk with her fingers. She'd doodle but paper isn't unlimited here.

When the lecture finishes, Wei Wuxian says, "do you think if I work far enough ahead I can just skip class?"

"No! You'll get eaten."

"Maybe I can bring a book."

Ribo thinks that's probably reasonable though maybe there will be important information in the boring lecture. Apparently that's true for history. She doesn't interrupt class to express this though.