Marcy heard Korean in the cradle but doesn't actually know much about the history of the place; outside the Scholomance there are more efficient ways to learn spells. She gives the room a once-over for lurking mals and, finding none, takes the seat next to Huang. Is this one of the ones where they get textbooks if they don't expect anything one way or another?

Yup. Huang has a textbook. It has some Chinese and some Korean on the cover, suggesting that this is one of those classes that sticks you with a language, but that's okay, she didn't have one picked out. "Good morning. My name is Yushi Huang," she says, when Marcy sits next to her.

"Marcy Park. Pleased to meet you." And her textbook (all Korean) has made itself known while she was looking at Huang's, nice. It probably does not start with a spell for turning bears into humans or vice versa, because that sounds beyond the ability of a freshman and also like a terrible idea, but it might have something else good.

It does not have a shapeshifting spell but it does have one for transmuting food! Huang transcribes the hanja very carefully so she can look up how they're pronounced in Korean later. She reads ahead as fast as possible since she's going to have to skip classes once the maintenance requests are coming in.

Marcy tries to read ahead as much as possible without missing anything important, because if she can get far enough ahead in her easier classes she can use them as more time to study German and Akkadian.

Huang eventually murmurs, "If I have cause to miss this class in the future, may I copy your notes?"

"If you pay for them, sure. I'm pretty flexible about the currency." One of the many nice things about being in an enclave: more people means more odds you can find a good use for any given resource.

"Mana?" She understands that if you do maintenance right you can wind up with extra even though Tianjin didn't give her a power sharer.

"Mana's always good. Also, just because I'm asking around, do you speak Akkadian? I'm starting it this year and looking for study partners."

"No, only Mandarin and Jin."

"Fair enough, it was a long shot. I don't actually know much of anything about Jin; where's it spoken?"

"Shanxi province, principally, and some Hebei and Henan areas, and I believe parts of Mongolia."

"That's cool." Marcy makes a mental note to take notes in all Mandarin if Huang doesn't show up, so she won't have to translate them to sell them, and gets back to work.