Ribo is also looking for a table. She was planning to try to sit with Sacramento again but they seem busy and don't have seats. She notices Yushi looking and goes to join her. "Hello," she says in Mandarin. "Looking for a table?"

"Yes, I am."

"I think I see a mostly empty table over there." She points.

It is unclear if Ribo is planning to sit there too but it meets Huang's standards either way. "Thank you." There she goes.

Ribo follows. "I'm Ribo by the way. I'm an indie from Canada."

"Yushi Huang, Hebei province."

"It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too." She checks her chair over - she has practice from checking furniture in her home - and sits in it.

Ribo does a similar check then sits down as well. "Any interesting stories from your time here so far?"

"I don't think anything stands out. Do many people have interesting stories this early?"

"I'm not sure, interesting things have happened though. A girl from Toronto went into the void and didn't come out last night. I don't know if you heard about that. Also contrary to what I would have expected New York organized for all their freshman to have shop first thing on Monday."

"I didn't know that you could do that with the void. I thought no one could stay long before they came out, especially if they didn't run."

"Apparently you can, she said she wanted people to know if it was possible."

"I'm not sure that's useful knowledge."

"I'm not sure it is either, still it seems polite to tell people in case someone finds it useful."

"I suppose if it was her dying wish."

"Exactly. Anyway, are there any classes you're looking forward to?"

"I'm doing a lot of maintenance, so I don't know that I can attend classes because I like them as opposed to because they will otherwise kill me, but assuming I have the option I like the sound of the one on the Romance of Three Kingdoms, which I've had recommended to me but never read."

"That's too bad, hopefully that class will be at least as good as you're hoping."

"I hope so. Perhaps I can at least read the book even if I don't have time to do all of the assignments."

"That makes sense, are there any classes you're specifically worried about? I'm pretty good at Math if you want to trade for help with homework in that."

"My math classes are called 'applied math' and 'introduction to economics'. I don't know from those names how difficult they will be or how heavy their courseload."

"Those do sound pretty ambiguous."

"The economics class only meets once a week, which could be good or bad."

"Yeah, I don't have the best sense for what the range of classes are yet. Did people tell you a lot about that?"

"I received the student handbook, and read some things online."

"I didn't realize there were websites about the school, was there anything especially interesting there?"

"A surprising amount of it was about snack tokens, but it also explained the room numbering system, gave advice on course selection, and had some tips for maintenance students about checking broom closets and so on."

"I suppose it's a bit late to ask for advice on course selection. I wonder why people were so focused on snack tokens."

"I imagine it becomes steadily more important to have some better food. Though I did not find any accounts of the machine dispensing fresh vegetables, and those are what I will miss, I think."

"Yeah, variety is nice. I wonder if we could grow vegetables or if that's impossible for some reason. I guess we'd need seeds and people probably didn't bring those."

"Maybe someone with the right spells could convince a plant from the salad bar here that it was real and able to grow."

"That would be neat. I don't think I could do it though, my affinity is for wire not vegetables."

"Mine is weather. I could perhaps help, but not do all of it."

"That's an interesting affinity, I wonder if you'll be able to do mini-tornados when you're older. Those sound like they'd be fun to play with and useful for clearing a path."

"I could probably do that, given enough time to study and the right spell. At home I used to make it rain."

"That sounds useful too. I wonder if it would work in here to replace the showers in the bathroom. Probably takes too much mana to do it often."

"It depends on how much water there is to work with, so I cannot replace trips to the bathroom."

"Oh well, I expected it to be infeasible but it would have been cool."

"It would. If I had mana to spare, I think I could block air vents and keep the air circulating, but I don't at this time."

"I think a lot of us could do a lot more if we didn't have to worry about mana costs."

Nod nod. "If the induction spell didn't take it I wonder if things would be different."

"I hadn't really thought about that. I think it would probably be helpful but I'm not sure how long an amount of storage you can carry would last. At a minimum it would probably make your first year safer."

"Perhaps if the rule were something like, a student may bring any amount of stored mana provided an equal amount is donated to the school, there would be more total resources available to the students."

"That's a cool idea. I think that's why you get extra weight allowance but I think most people don't think it's worthwhile at the exchange rate the school uses."

"Precisely. So, taking weight in is very costly, but if the mana were donated directly, it would likely seem worthwhile. But perhaps it is too late to alter this school in that way and it will have to wait for a second to be built."

"Is that likely to happen? It seems like there's a lot of problems with this one but it was really hard to make."

"There is talk of it in China. Currently just a threat, but I cannot expect it will remain only a threat for long."

"Especially with what happened to Chicago."

"I hope a new school is the most that comes of that."

"Me too. I don't think it's likely that any of the Sinoshere Enclaves are responsible... I don't really see how it would help them but it'll definitely increase tensions even if there is an explanation."

"Yes. Politics is frustrating."

"It is. Hopefully calmer heads will prevail."

Nod nod.

Other topics ... maybe Ribo should ask about hobbies, no she said she didn't think she'd have time for class so she won't have time for those either. "What languages do you have?"

"Jin and Mandarin. I have a Korean history class and expect Korean in the language lab."

"I know English, Mandarin and Lojban, I'm in a similar situation with a Russian literature class."

"I haven't heard of - Lou-zhe-ban?"

"I'm not surprised, it's an artificial language Mother picked for it's unusual syntax and its obscurity."

"That must make it hard to stay in practice."

"That's a good point, before I came here I mostly talked to Mother so it wasn't an issue really. We had a schedule and rotated between the three languages I knew. I expect I'll still be reading her notes and casting Lojban spells regularly but that is a bit less fluid than conversation."

"I have heard you don't need much fluidity to cast."

"That's probably true, though Mother's spells are mostly designed to be tweaked on the fly so I need more fluidity than most people to use them to their limit. That's a bit of a moot point though since using them to their limit also takes way more mana than I have."

"But it might be a concern if your Lou-zhe-ban is rusty in two years."

"Mother's spells are medical, I expect I can get people to give me mana in exchange for casting them often enough to stay in practice."

"A fortunate set to have, then. My spells are almost all useless here."

"That's hard, did you make them yourself or learn them from others?"

"Some of both, though only the weather spells are mine."

"Maybe you can tweak them? I'm not sure what the limits of weather are. Especially in confined spaces like this. You've probably already thought about this though."

"A little, but I admit my imagination failed me. It's very indoors here."

"I wonder whether the gym would be easier to work in. It's one of the bigger rooms and you're less likely to annoy people than doing something like that in the Library. I suppose you probably want things that work anywhere though .... I wonder if you could focus on wind, there is a ventilation system and that's a little like air currents outside."

"I could probably make it rainy or at least foggy in the gym but I'm not sure that would be wise."

"That's true... making it rain isn't that useful indoors and if people slip in the gym they might get annoyed. Were you able to fight with weather magic outdoors or did you use it for utility purposes?"

"I couldn't fight with it. Later I will probably be able to do lightning spells, but for now I have a sword."

"I think a lot of us are relying on melee weapons until we're a bit more impressive with magic. Does yours have anything special?"

"One of my brothers enchanted it, just for durability and not being dropped. It's probably junior level work. I may add to it, if I get the right shop assignments."

"Those both sound useful. My multi tool has sharpness, durability and some degree of animation. I love it a lot."

"That sounds very convenient."

"It is, it was so very helpful last night. I managed to make my bed into a hammock."

"...I admit I don't know how you would do that with a multitool."

"I just took apart my bed and anchored one of the blankets into the wall in a bunch of places. It's temporary but I should be able to make it a bit more durable with some more supplies."

"I'm glad you were able to make your room more comfortable."

"Thanks, did you do anything special with your room? Or do you plan to?"

"I think I will be able to deal with it in its current state, apart from having taken the drawers out of the desk. I do not expect to have spare time for decorating, though perhaps if I wind up with colorful objects I will decorate with them."

"Hopefully you'll have more free time than you expect."

"It would be nice, though I hope no one of the enclave is going to suddenly stop having maintenance shifts to pass to me."

"That would be a bad reason to have more free time yeah. A good one would be turning out to be really fast at doing maintenance work."

"That would be good, though I have no reason to expect it."

"That's reasonable. Is there any interesting gossip in the Sinosphere?"

"A fair amount of Shanghai drama, apparently. They have a very mixed batch of freshmen this year, and lost an upperclassman they were expecting to make it earlier."

"I wonder where that will lead."

"It's too early to say. Possibly many people arrive unprepared and rise to the challenge."

"Hopefully, I know it might be naive to say but I don't want anyone to die."

"I agree with you."

"I just wish I knew how to make that happen."

"Well. If I see anything trying to eat people, I'll stab it, and I'll make sure the Tianjin freshmen can eat in the cafeteria."

"That's a start at least."

Nod nod.

"What other classes do you have? It doesn't seem like there's a class catalog anywhere."

Huang presents her schedule.

Monday: Introduction to Economics, Korean history overview, lunch & work, language lab, introduction to incantations
Tuesday: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, History of Hanzi and Related Systems, lunch & work, applied mathematics, History of Japanese Theater & Storytelling
Wednesday: Maleficaria Studies, introduction to shop, lunch & work, language lab, introduction to incantations
Thursday: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, introduction to lab, lunch & work, applied mathematics, History of Japanese Theater & Storytelling
Friday: Maleficaria Studies, Korean history overview, lunch & work, language lab, introduction to incantations

"It looks like you're taking more writing and history classes than I am, do those tend to be easier or do you expect them to be easy for you specifically?"

"I'm not sure, what do you have instead?"

Ribo shows her schedule.

On Mondays she has into to shop first thing followed by Asia in Modern History and Calculus for Engineers. Then there's lunch before a back to back writing classes in Russian Literature Before Pushkin and Poetry and Prosody.

Tuesdays she has intro to lab first thing followed by Fundamentals of mechanical design and then lunch. After lunch it's two math classes in Formal Logic and Spell craft and Applied Electromechanics.

Wednesday is the same as Monday except with Mal Studies instead of Shop.

Thursday mornings has language lab followed by  Western European history through 1500 and the same classes as Tuesday after dinner.

Friday is completely identical to Wednesday.

A lot of this is in English so Huang can't read it. "I think I expect history classes and literature classes to be easier to do on my own time, which I am likely to need to do."

"Oh, sorry, should I translate for you? And yeah that makes sense."

"If you're pretty sure I won't have to learn English in addition to Korean."

"Probably safer not to then, I don't understand the language forcing mechanic."

"I don't either. I'm told the writing system for Korean is very straightforward where it isn't just hanzi, though."

 "I wouldn't know, Mother told me to avoid researching etymology and how similar languages are."

"Aren't you going to have to learn something new in language lab anyway?"

"Mother said that if you let the school pick it'll usually only introduce you to one language at a time but if you get curious it can have you learning a bunch of languages simultaneously and that's harder."

"Oh, I see. I'm letting the school pick, I just anticipate Korean. I suppose it could also be Japanese, because of the Japanese theater class."

"I'm expecting something similar with Russian. Fortunately, it's one of the languages I brought a dictionary for."

"Are there not dictionaries in the library?"

"Apparently it's often a bad idea to take books out of the library and that's a bit limiting if you're trying to learn a language."

"...oh. Why is it a bad idea?"

"Library books can run away like spellbooks do if you're not careful about it and if they do you probably won't be able to find them again."

"Oh. So it may just be necessary to be kind to them."

"Yeah, I think it's mostly an argument for not taking more than one book at a time and returning them if you're not using them actively. I don't actually know for sure though. Mother's advice is usually framed in terms of being more cautious than strictly necessary."

"Why is that?"

"Mother thinks I'm too impulsive and idealistic so her advice is meant to compensate for that."

"Ah, I see. Then I will get a Korean dictionary from the library, when I need one, and kiss it goodnight every day."

"That sounds like it will work, but obviously I haven't tried it."

"We'll see what happens!"

"I guess we will."