Magically speaking? Not a lot beyond cantrips, unlike some people they can't get more spell slots by having sex. 

(Though you could easily be misled on that by how much sex is had on campus. These are co-ed youths living under the shadow of a mortality rate comparable to fighting in a war.)

At this time of day most of the student body are at least supposed to be attending their lectures and tutorials in the various halls of the Acadamae. Those outside are those between lessons or skipping them, along with all the apprentices doing the drudge work that takes them outside. Unseen Servants are ordered around, Prestidigitation cleans the latest messes, a Floating Disk carries heaps of spellcasting supplies behind the student delivering them, and clusters of wizards-in-training amuse themselves on the steps and benches with games of chance or skill, contests of lore or Ghost Sound impressions, or in one case a duel-by-proxy between familiars. 

One student, a lanky human who looks like he's still in his teens, tries to match her pace by running alongside her for a few dozen paces, flashing her his best attempt at a charming smile and perhaps not coincidentally putting himself in a position to glimpse whether shoes aren't the only item she isn't wearing. Most are not so daring. 

(The daring and unwise make up a noticeable fraction of the 20% who fail to survive their first three years.)

Eager, which is always a little cute. She ruffles his hair with her tail, and leaves a tracking mark on him (weak divination). Seems like a promising lead to a booty call later.

(Incidentally, yes, shoes are not the only thing she is not wearing. He just gets a glimpse for now, though, and will be pretty sure she let him.)

But: Later. Cantrips as a concept, minimal efficient reusable spells, are fascinating and she want to design one. She will, reluctantly, actually walk into Ornelos Hall to see about playing nice with the mud-pit that is bureaucracy.

Fortunately for her, a considerate or ambitious student is already waiting there for Sinnah to help guide her through the process.

"Seska Imintar," she says by way of introduction, since they don't have a language in common yet, and extends a hand for a herb-bap.

Bap.

"Sinnah. Just Sinnah. Convinced my every word will be as the nectar of the god of revelations, dripped into thy ear? Hah. I want to efficiently convert time and a diamond into learning cantrips, which are foreign to my magical tradition, and if you're volunteering to facilitate that, hoping to benefit on the margins, more power to you."

She's here to learn cantrips? With a diamond? Damn right Seska intends to profit from facilitating that. 

"Then you won't be wanting the standard Acadamae contract, that would commit you to studying here for 10 years to start from the basics and leave a powerful wizard. There's not an option offered for students to enrol for shorter durations, and the regulations would make it inconvenient for you to learn here if you're not a member of the Academae... But what you could do is sign up as a visiting teacher, that would only need the approval of a dean and you've already spoken to Vost, and then take on some nominal teaching responsibilities over some cooperative students who are willing to be apprentices in name only, hint hint, while paying other teachers for the cantrip classes you want. Maganrad would be my first recommendation for learning those, he's got this Ulfen sense of honor and is one of the best wizards of his cohort, a real prodigy."

Inhale. 

"Contracts, feh. You know I'll be pissed if there's a blatantly ridiculous scam instead of just moderately noxious graft, right? And even name-only apprentices have to impress me somehow, I have my pride."

She digs through one of her pouches and produces a fingernail-sized black container of some kind, that has within it a very tiny diamond, by her standards.

"I was going to make a new piercing with it later, pretty sure I have the compression figured out, but that can wait. I should probably bother to get coins for this."

How blatant is blatant? You can never be quite sure with foreigners. She'll play it safe, especially as this one doesn't seem too Good. 

"A diamond that size could fetch you... maybe a thousand gold pieces, more than enough to cover learning some cantrips and covering your expenses for the duration. I can lend you a hundred for getting all the paperwork done first so as to not waste your time, you're obviously good for it."

Seska will start filling out the relevant letter of registration for her, on the assumption that her language-sharing doesn't give her Taldane or anything useful like that.

"How do you like to be impressed? Or is figuring that out independently impressive in itself?"

"Be good at magic. Or interestingly supernatural in some other way. Knowledge and skill in other domains can't hurt. Don't be annoying. Examples of annoying include sabotaging each other, being lazy, and generally wasting my time. I'm sure I'll move on from cantrips eventually, but my tradition of spells is continuous, not discrete. In terms of circles. I'll be interested to see if anyone can cast, oh, let's say the cantrip-equivalent in that it does almost nothing, condense water vapor. Or maybe lift. Those are both one step up from so simple an animal could probably do it, but not too hard... The baby exercise for twelve year olds is activating a lantern magic item I have."

No sabotage? But that's one of her strengths! She'll do her best. 

"Thank you... oh, what title and mode of address do you use? My apologies for not knowing them in advance. And the letter template also asks for your age, homeland, and if your own teacher would be known to the Acadamae, and who your next of kin might be."

"Just Sinnah. 'Mage' if it's absolutely necessary. I don't hold with titles and forms and bureaucracy. Or stupid pointless apologies. I forgot my age on purpose. Homeland is what is now called the Duchy of Roses, in Noten, in Tirra. My teachers, whichever I could choose to claim, would not be known here. Next of kin can be someone called Weiss Faron who ought to be around somewhere. I came here looking for her actually. And if she's not found and we're contemplating my death or at least the destruction of this body, my stuff can go to any light god temples or academic scholarships I guess."

She pulls out a piece of quartz with a small engraved metal plate wrapped around the bottom. There are two obvious touch-points. And tosses it underhand.

"Here, lantern, if you can figure it out literally without any further instructions, that would be impressive. Not doing so isn't disqualifying."

Seska transcribes all that as best she can with one hand, catching the lantern with the other. She'll switch to a less formal register in writing, to convey Sinnah's own preferences there.

'Weiss Faron'? Never heard of her, but she'll record the name. The 'light gods' sound like some kind of sanctioned pantheon, so that can be approximated as 'any legal and nonevil church' for now. 

They do look like obvious touch-points, so she starts by putting a fingertip on each of them at the same time if it's suitably shaped for that, and willing the lantern to illuminate. With an unknown magic item you can sometimes force it to activate by imposing your insistence through force of personality even if you don't know the command word for it, the worst that can happen is a mishap that might leave a commoner dying but that she can sleep off. 

That's not going to do it by itself. There's a specific mental motion to exerting will, separate from just wanting it, or demanding it, or expecting it, or commanding it. 'Fine, I'll do it myself' is more the correct attitude.

Sinnah pulls out a small notebook from one of the other numerous pockets, and an (expensive!) ballpoint pen, and fixes the notebook in place with something between a cantrip and a 1st level spell, and starts taking notes on things she has seen so far.

Ignorant of that, Seska will then attempt to force her own magic into it, casting Mage Hand into the lantern as though it is a Ring of Spell Storing. What if the problem is just that she hasn't tried hard enough. 

For a brief moment she feels a connection to the lantern, as if it was her Mage Hand and she could command it in the usual way. Then something snaps and she loses the cantrip from its slot.

Sinnah glances over, one ear tilting slightly.

She has more cantrips to spare. First she'll try and perform that mental motion even though the sense of it isn't there any more, and if that fails then she'll cast Read Magic into it and try to grasp the sense of connection before it breaks. And she'll see whether touching only one of the contacts at a time makes a difference.

Read Magic doesn't create the odd connection again, instead it reveals a series of tiny, intricate engravings along both sides of the metal plate, and the quartz.

It's difficult to make sense of, being an entirely foreign design. The two contact points aren't the same, though. It's almost as if one is the reverse of the other. 

"Would you say this school is focused on summoning more than other studies?"

"The Acadamae? Yes, to graduate you need to be able to summon a devil of some kind, and so everyone learns at least a little of the school of Conjuration."

Then she'll attempt a Daze into just one of the contacts. 

"Interesting. I'll have to pick some of that up too."

Notal doesn't have anything that cleanly translates to 'devil', so it will have to be a loan word.

She loses the cantrip again, but before it snaps it does give her a better idea of the mental motion. Some might call it Volition.

Oh, that's a little like the feeling of controlling an already-active spell through concentration. What about if she pretends that the lantern is like a Dancing Lights she's just cast, and wills it to glow while touching one or both of the touch-points?

Was that a faint flicker of light when she was touching both? Perhaps. Sinnah doesn't seem to be counting it as a success, and has turned back to scribbling away. Her work looks like a low detail sketch of the Prestidigitation spellform.

Then she will KEEP TRYING. Bloody-minded perseverance past the point of reason is another of Seksa's strengths, along with sabotage of her peers. 

She can produce a few more flickers of light, steadily stronger.

"You have the grasp of exerting will, at least. Passing grade, no extra credit. Want to hear the trick? Or borrow it for a while so I can do other stuff than stand around now that I'm done taking notes?"

"Yes, how is it supposed to work? By your leave I'll borrow it."

"Sure. 'Will' can be modeled as a fluid of sorts, in that it flows and pools and drains. But it is also like lightning in many ways, requiring a source and a basin to ground to. Exert will through the contact point marked with the stylized sun, and do nothing with the other contact point while still touching it. Your will shall flow into the crystal, the motion of it will generate 'activated-will' within the crystal engravings, and then it shall flow back into you. What you were doing before was like dunking it in water, it would only light up at the point of changing from wet to dry and dry to wet. You have to pour water through to generate 'activated-will'. Like a mill. If you do it with enough will the motion will leave the quartz activated for a while, as it slowly discharges and converts the stored 'activated-will' to light."

That is completely different to all her other magic lessons. So much simpler in concept! No need to visualize complex spellforms and develop a sense of how to hang them, just raw intent, like the way a sorcerer's casting is supposed to work. If she can't get that lantern to glow every time from now on, she's going to be ashamed of herself. 

Presumably the more complicated spells in Sinnah's magic have more elaborate shapes for will to be channeled through? As soon as she can get the lantern lit consistently, she'll examine the engravings closely and try to get her will flowing between two hands in that same pattern without the lantern there to shape that flow.