“Is something wrong?” Selina asked, looking at her brother closely. “Your face looks funny.”

“N-no!” Alex cried, trying to keep his expression neutral even as he felt his cheeks turning red again. Thundar’s rope question had been conjuring all kinds of images in his mind for hours. “Y-your face looks funny!”

Selina gave him a look that seemed to say: ‘I regret that we’re related’.

“You’re thinking you regret that we’re related, aren’t you?” Alex said suspiciously.

“So school was interesting today,” Selina said quickly, looking away.

“Don’t change the subject!”

“Then let’s talk about why your face looked funny!” his sister glared at him.

More rope images rose in his mind, all consuming, as if the Mark was forcing them into his head.

‘Wait…the Mark,’ Alex’s thoughts froze. ‘The Mark of the Fool lets me improve in any skill outside of divinity, combat and spellcraft. So does that mea-No Alex, not now!’

“Y-yeah so why was school interesting?” he asked as the two of them walked across campus.

She’d just finished school a few hours after he and Thundar stopped working on Illusionary Patch. Campus was its usual busy self again since summer break was now officially over. Students scurried across the green like ants rushing to meet their queen’s orders. Except, instead of a queen, it was demanding professors who had students running from class to class, assorted labs, and the library.

As busy as they were, a number of them were focused on Alex and Claygon. Some tried concealing the fact that they were watching the pair, but others were openly staring.

If Selina noticed the extra attention her brother and his golem were getting, she gave no sign. “We started learning about mana today.”

“Really?” Alex said, turning to her with interest. “What did you learn?”

“Well, all about where it is in the world and how there’s so much more here than everywhere else,” she said. “Is there really so much more here than at home? I asked Mr. Powell, and he said that Generasi might have twenty times as much mana in the air as there is Thameland.”

“Oh yeah. There’s tons here,” Alex said. “It’s like how there’s more sand at the beach than there is around a pond. Remember when we first came to Generasi, and Lucia—our sky-gondolier—talked about sky-gondolas not being able to work in other parts of the world? Well, that’s the reason why. Thameland’s mana is a little below average compared to most places. Though…that’s kind of oversimplifying it. Thameland’s relative ranking in terms of ambient mana changes a bit depending on which realms you count, and whether you’re using the mean, median or mode. But, basically, it's slightly below average, while Generasi’s is way at the tip-top.”

That’s too bad,” Selina said a little glumly as she shifted her bag on her shoulder. Her knife bounced on her hip; she rarely left home without it these days, even though weapons were peace-bonded at the junior school, which meant school staff tied the sheath closed during class time. “If we had all the wizards Generasi has, I bet The Ravener would’ve been dead forever a long time ago.”

“Well, wizards can’t fix everything,” Alex said. “But yeah, I think if more wizards were born in Thameland, we’d be farther ahead in a lot of ways.”

“That’s what Mr. Powell was talking about,” she said. “I’m glad they’re teaching us this stuff.”

“Yeah, it sounds like they’re starting you off on the really simple parts of magic theory,” Alex said, leaning in to stage-whisper to her in a playful, conspiratorial tone. “Here’s a fun fact: it gets a lot better later.”

A smile lit up her face. “I really want to learn spells that make things: spells like they used to build all those buildings for the Games. That’s what I’m going to do someday.”

“Well, keep studying and you’ll learn all about it. Hey…” Alex paused. “Speaking of building and constructing things, have they taught you about magic circuits yet?”

Selina shook her head. “Not really. I heard you, Khalik, Thundar and Isolde talk about them, though.”

“Okay,” Alex took a breath, stood straighter and squared his shoulders. “Imagine like…a network of roads in a city. You know how city roads let people go from place to place so they can get to work, school or home?”

“My teacher last year said that roads keep cities and kingdoms running.”

“That’s right,” Alex said. “Well, magic circuits are basically roads for mana.” He drew an invisible line in the air. “They guide mana along certain pathways so that it can create magic effects. The way magic arrays are constructed is really cool too, and their diagrams are kinda like looking at a map of a city’s roads. If you want, I can teach you a bit about magic circuits. Just the simple stuff, anyway.”

Selina’s eyes shone. “Alex, that’s awesome! I’m not embarrassed to be related to you anymore!”

“I knew it!” Alex’s cry swept over campus.

It seemed that time was moving faster with each passing day. That might’ve been because Alex was so busy, but the days seemed to whip past him like hailstones in a storm. Even so, juggling work, the expedition, school and family wasn’t as hard as it should have been, and that was largely thanks to the Mark.

He’d called on it regularly at the start of semester as he adjusted his schedule, trying to wring the most he could out of every hour. It had paid off too. His reading and note taking speed had spiked so high compared to last year, that any reading time was now minimal. He’d devoured every class reading, personal study text, and spell-guide like they were nothing: a year of using the Mark for speed-reading and memorising, was letting him soak up information like a sponge.

Which meant that the hours he would normally spend on readings, could be used in other ways.

Like working on spell practice, which was what he was doing right now.

A week after his first class with Professor Hak—tucked in his room during the late night hours—he finally finished learning Mana to Life.

“Whoa,” Alex said as the magic circuit completed. Moonlight streamed through his bedroom window as a new connection formed beneath his mana pool and lifeforce. It felt a lot different than the one that formed when he cast Life to Mana.

Instead of fatigue, he felt energised, strong and euphoric as mana was converted to lifeforce, then channelled into his body. His entire body felt solid, warm, and healthy. His vision sharpened for an instant and voices lowered in conversation throughout the courtyard, grew clearer.

His left index finger suddenly began itching.

Energy flowed, concentrating on one particular spot on Alex’s finger that he began scratching, then gasped: a paper cut running across his fingertip knitted together in heartbeats, and by the time the spell was complete, the cut had completely vanished, not leaving even the faintest scar behind to remind him that it was ever there.

“Yeeeeees!” elation filled his voice. “Healing. Finally.”

He remembered injuries he’d taken in battles. Wounds that should take days and weeks to heal, could mend much quicker now with repeated castings of Mana to Life. He just had to make sure he took care with the spell, since any mistakes could be catastrophic to his lifeforce.

“Blood magic…I’ve gotta say, I like what you’ve had to offer so far,” he murmured, then glanced down at his shoulder. “I wonder…maybe warp flesh could let me manipulate my skin and actually hide the Mark.”

His fingers flipped the pages of one of his notebooks and he quickly scrawled a note in it:

Warp Flesh is based on mana manipulation. Try to gain as much precision from it as possible and see if you can fold skin over The Mark to hide it.

He tapped his pen on the page, then added something:

See what other changes you can make to your body through Warp Flesh. If successful, possibly explore shapeshifting magic in your final year.

Finishing up, he took a moment to examine his handwriting. A year ago, his penmanship looked like Isolde had shocked him repeatedly with one of her lightning spells. But a year of Mark-enhanced practice later, it was now as precise, neat, and artistic-looking as if a trained scribe had done the writing.

Smiling contentedly, he twirled his pen and set aside the notebook then opened another one dedicated to Illusionary Patch.

80%.

“Thanks Thundar,” he said sincerely, as he cracked his knuckles in preparation to spell cast.

The simple spell array was easy to learn even with The Mark’s interference; his friend had done him a real favour.

“Now, if only there was magic to block the priests’ ability to sense you,” he whispered to the Mark as he got into the spell.

So far, it had resisted any attempts to analyse it using magic. Even Baelin hadn’t been able to examine it despite his wealth of experience, power and skill.

But, ‘unable to do it right now’ didn’t necessarily mean ‘impossible’.

It was this comforting thought that accompanied him as the Mark’s first waves of interference rushed at him. He worked through it.

The days had turned into weeks since he’d learned Mana to Life and in Thameland, expedition teams had tracked the chitterer…only to find its trail had led nowhere.

“I suspect some sort of airborne Ravener-spawn is dropping these monsters into our lands,” Professor Jules said one day. “Which would explain why their trails start and end so abruptly. If a flyer is transporting them, it’s a damn elusive one, but sooner or later, we’ll find it.”

One of the reasons for her confidence was because the chitterers hadn’t stopped coming around, no matter how many they captured or killed. It seemed like every week, one of the survey teams found at least one stalking through the hills of Greymoor. Their persistence bothered Alex, but as Jules had said, with timing and a bit of luck, they’d eventually learn where the creatures were coming from…and how and why they were coming into Greymoor.

Alex couldn't wait for that day since he and his teammates often had the feeling that the expedition was being scouted, but they hadn’t caught sight of anything. Yet.

Things seemed mostly quiet in Greymoor. Some of the other surveying teams had come across the occasional local monster, but apart from them and some chitterers, it seemed their lands were largely abandoned. There were no more bog fights, or goblin-nests to destroy like in their first week there.

But still, that uneasy feeling of a threat looming unseen somewhere in the background, nagged at Alex. Being among an expedition of fully armed and prepared wizards ready for whatever came, there should be little to fear…he hoped.

Yet, he kept something in mind that Leopold’s attacks had taught him; armies should be met with other armies.

And Alex was working on crafting an army of his own.

“Holy shit!” Alex swore one sunny day as he sat practising in his room.

He intently watched as the Mark of the Fool slowly disappeared from his shoulder. Finally, his reward for repeatedly casting Thundar’s Illusionary Patch was revealed: a bare right shoulder.

Like an object sinking beneath the water’s surface, the grinning, glowing jester’s face had sunk beneath the illusionary patch. In heartbeats, the glow receded until there was nothing but unbroken skin where Uldar’s Mark had sat for over a year.

Time for a test: he rotated his arm, pinched the skin and stretched it. It turned red when he pinched it, stretched when he pulled it, and folded when he raised his arm.

“This…this is great!” Alex said, almost bursting with excitement. “By the Traveller, I can’t wait to tell Thundar. But first things first…celebrations later. Practice now. Don’t lose focus.”

Patting his shoulder, he buttoned his shirt, cast a pair of Wizard’s Hands to carry his bag, and left the room to pick up Claygon. He’d booked a room in the Cells to practise one of the summoning spells his class would be learning this semester: Summon Small Water Elemental.

The apartment was empty when he locked the door: Theresa had a shift at the beastarium and Selina was still at school, enjoying an activity for the junior school students who were learning the beginnings of wizardry. Deep in thought, he tried to not let recent successes distract him as he crossed campus.

‘This is a second-tier summoning spell,’ he reminded himself. ‘You’ll need to keep your focus. Remember how long it took you to learn Summon Elemental Beetle Swarm.’

Alex paused when he opened the Cells’ doors, almost expecting Amir to rush through the hall with his arms straining with too many books and that perpetually stressed look on his face. But, there was no Amir.

He sighed, shaking his head to banish ghosts of the past, then went up to the room he’d booked, closing the door behind him.

“Alright, set-up time. Let’s not summon anything horrible this time.”

He started practising immediately, trying the spell once. Then twice.

Over and over, Alex guided his way through, slowly noticing a difference. When he reached a dozen tries, he was already 30% of the way through the spell array.

At two dozen, he was 50%.

On attempt thirty-nine, power suddenly rippled in his summoning circle.

A droplet of water formed, like a drop of dew on a leaf.

Then another droplet. And another. More and more, the air in the circle grew moist and cool, condensing into a water globule about two feet across.

A fully formed water elemental shuddered in front of Alex, stretching across the floor like a cat.

He watched it in shock.

He’d cast Summon Small Water Elemental successfully. Just like that.

It was the fastest he’d ever learned a spell.

Ever.