Damien awoke the following morning in much less pain than he’d been expecting. Another rune had joined the circle on his chest, but there was no blood. The rune had already sealed over and become faint. Damien ran his fingers along it. The scar tingled at his touch.

He blinked and rolled over, pushing the blanket off himself before sitting upright.

When did I get a blanket?

“You doing okay?” Sylph asked from her bed.

“Surprisingly, yes,” Damien said. “What happened after the fight with Jayce? It’s all kind of blurry.”

“You fainted once we got back to the room,” Sylph replied. “In the middle of the night, you started bleeding everywhere again. I dragged you to the shower and held you underwater because you were losing so much blood. Somehow, you didn’t wake up the entire time. After that, I just brought you back to your bed.”

“You didn’t have to do all that,” Damien said, his cheeks flushing. “Thank you, though.”

“It’s fine,” Sylph said with a shrug. “You were going to get blood everywhere again.”

“Fair enough,” Damien said with a small laugh. He pulled his clothes on and slid out of bed carefully. He felt a little dizzy, but it didn’t seem to be serious.

Someone knocked on their door. Damien and Sylph glanced at it, but the stone swung open before they could move. Delph strode in, his features cold and his torn cloak rippling behind him.

“We’re sorry for missing class today,” Sylph said. “Damien only just woke up, but Sean said he would let you know why we couldn’t make it.”

“He informed me,” Delph confirmed, eyeing Damien carefully. “I hear you put up something of a fight against that Year Two boy.”

“I got my ass handed to me on a shimmering platter,” Damien said. “But I could have done worse.”

“Indeed,” Delph said, his dark eyes not moving away from Damien for an instant. “He didn’t happen to drop by again recently, did he?”

“Who, Jayce?” Damien asked. “Why would he come by? I don’t think he did, at least.”

Delph and Damien both looked at Sylph, who shook her head.

“Nobody came by since we got back,” Sylph confirmed. “And even if they had, we wouldn’t have had much to say to them. Damien’s been unconscious until just a few moments ago.”

“I see,” Delph said, turning to examine Sylph. He drummed his fingers on his thigh for a few moments. “Well, if you see the kid again, don’t interact with him. Find a professor immediately.”

“Do you think he’ll try to take revenge on Damien?” Sylph asked.

“Something like that,” Delph said. “Sean gave me a rundown of what happened. It looks like the kid went on the run after getting the snot beat out of him, and he might have delusions of revenge in his mind. I’d like to think he wouldn’t be that stupid, but you never know.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Damien promised.

“You do that,” Delph said. “And while my class has been canceled, I don’t know if Greg will be as lenient. His clone has been waiting for you for about an hour.”

“Oh shit,” Damien cursed. Delph stepped out of the way, hiding a smirk as the boy dashed outside.

The long bearded professor sat against the stone wall of the mountain, humming to himself. He glanced up at Damien and let out a long yawn as he slowly got to his feet.

“I’m sorry for being late,” Damien said. “I was unconscious.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Greg said, but the old professor gave him a slight smile. “Please demonstrate your homework. I will take you to class once I’ve confirmed you can cast it.”

Damien nodded. He’d used the spell against Jayce, and it wasn’t hard to form a rough blade out of the Ether in his hand. It was a far cry from perfect, but it still resembled a pointed implement. The professor let out a grunt and nodded.

“Acceptable. We’ll be going, then.”

He reached out and grabbed Damien’s shoulder. Before Damien could respond, the man’s body crumbled away and gray light filled his vision. The world shifted and warped. The next thing Damien knew, he was sitting in a wooden chair.

“So kind of you to join us,” Greg said from his position near the board. “We’ve been waiting for you to show up.”

Damien’s cheeks reddened as the other students all turned to look at him. He couldn’t help but notice that there were a few less students in class today than there had been the previous time.

“Really?”

“No,” Greg said, smirking. “We’ve been going for about an hour and a half. However, I’m sure one of your classmates will fill you in. Now…”

Greg launched right into the next lesson. It took Damien a while to figure out what was going on, but the occasional pointer from Henry helped bring him up to speed. Concentrating was a little harder than normal since Damien’s stomach started making its grievances known about halfway through the class. Luckily, the material was interesting enough and had a decent bit of information that Henry found just barely novel enough to keep them both entertained. By the time class finished several hours later, Damien wasn't sure if he was fascinated or exhausted. However, he was sure on one thing: he was starving.

The professor dismissed the same way he had last time – by transforming into a gray portal. Damien was one of the first ones through it. He practically sprinted to the mess hall and ordered a large meat pie.

He stuffed the entire thing down his gullet within a few minutes. Once he’d finished his food, Damien headed back to his room while recounting what Herald had told him during their dream.

“That seems reasonable enough. You probably should have waited until we were asleep, but it’s too late now,” Henry said. “But we still shouldn’t take anything Herald says as fact. It has an agenda, so I’ll keep an eye out to see if there’s anything suspicious. I’ll do some research. And, speaking of which, you need to return the books to the library.”

Damien groaned and rubbed his forehead.

***

About two hours later, Damien returned to his room for the second time that day – this time carrying a new pile of books for Henry. He staggered past Sylph and set the books down in the second training room before returning to his bed and sitting down with a sigh.

“Long day?” Sylph guessed, opening her eyes and allowing the dark wisps of energy floating around her to fade.

“Yep,” Damien said. “At least I didn’t get homework for my Magic Theory class. I was worried the professor would give out homework every day we had class.”

“That’s what my professor does,” Sylph said, frowning. “It’s mostly just meditation, though. He wants us to cultivate as much as possible so our bodies are stronger. I know there’s a link between your physical body and the amount of energy your Core can hold, but I feel like it can’t be that much.”

“You were already always meditating,” Damien pointed out. “So doesn’t that mean you just haven’t changed anything?”

“Pretty much,” Sylph said. “It’s getting pretty boring, to be honest. I’m spending half the day sitting still and doing nothing. Luckily, Delph dropped by around an hour ago and said that he could meet us tomorrow morning to make up for the class we missed today.”

“I’m not sure if I’d call that lucky,” Damien said small laugh. “It’ll be good for us, but I don’t personally enjoy the feeling of my legs turning to mush beneath me.”

“It’s clearly doing a lot for you,” Sylph pointed out. “You were doing pretty well against Jayce in the beginning. I don’t think many other students in our class could have pulled that off.”

“Not saying I don’t want to do it,” Damien said, absentmindedly scratching the runes on his chest. “I’m just whining. Anyways, if we’re meeting Delph tomorrow, I’m going to get some practice in.”

Sylph nodded, returning to her meditation as Damien headed into the training room. Henry nabbed Damien’s shadow and slipped into the second room to read the new books while the boy worked.

Damien practiced late into the night, splitting his time between getting a better grasp of Devour, his Gravity Spheres, and the Ether knife. The runes on his chest occasionally throbbed, but the pain had started to fade.

By the time he was done and started to get ready for bed, Sylph was already asleep, sprawled across her mattress with her limbs pointing in every direction and her mouth slightly open.

Damien bit back a laugh. He started to pull back the sheet on his bed but paused halfway through. He looked back at Sylph, squinting slightly. There was no sheet on her bed. He looked back at the sheet and carefully gathered it up.

He padded over to Sylph’s side of the room – which was only about one step across the thin hall between their beds, and gently put the sheet back over her. Sylph muttered something under her breath and turned over.

Damien grinned slightly and slipped back into his own bed, making a mental note to buy himself some sheets already and stop procrastinating. A few minutes later, he was asleep.

The next few weeks passed without further incident. Damien bought a new set of sheets and promptly ruined them again when Herald carved yet another rune into his chest. After that, Damien bought an entire set.

His free time dwindled further and further as Delph and Greg worked him to the bone. Damien’s reaction speed slowly improved to the point where Delph could only strike him through his mage armor once or twice every minute. After the incident with Jayce, Delph seemed to train him and Sylph harder than ever before. They met exclusively in the forest, bathing in the refreshing water whenever they grew too tired to continue.

Damien never saw Jayce again, although he didn’t have the time to spare the bully much thought. Delph questioned him about the subject once more, but the man apparently seemed satisfied with Damien’s response and didn’t ask anything further.

His mastery of Devour grew to the point where he could draw the rune and summon the spell in only a second, which Henry deemed barely acceptable. The eldritch creature had grown slightly distant, but Damien didn’t have the bandwidth to wonder why. He visited the library several times to refresh Henry’s stash of books, and that seemed to satisfy the companion.

Greg’s classes grew progressively more difficult and the students attending them dwindled. The man forced them to utilize magic in ways that Damien had never thought possible.

The professor made them form Ether into shapes, solve puzzles that seemingly had no relation to magic whatsoever, and occasionally just delivered books for them to read that he would test them on the next class.

Throughout all that, Damien and Sylph spent at least an hour every day training in the forest. Damien was still a far cry from matching her physical abilities, but he wasn’t ending their sessions wheezing for air.

As for Sylph, her Magical Control class seemed to be doing some work. Henry reported that her core had grown by almost ten percent. It was a drop in the bucket compared to what Damien could do, but the improvement sparked her desire to train even harder. She often returned to the room long after Damien had gone to bed and only a few hours before morning.

The two of them occasionally had dinner with Mark and the Gray siblings, but all of the students were so busy that it didn’t happen often.

In what small free time Damien did have, he expanded their room. He added a section to the second training room and bought a small table so that he could read without sitting on the floor or his bed. He also made several new rooms beyond it, although he wasn’t sure what they were for.

As the month drew to a close, Delph gathered all the students at the training arena. It was the first time that Damien had returned to the arena since the incident with Jayce. He and Sylph stood at the front of the small group of students, waiting for the professor to arrive.

A small grey mote blinked into the air in front of them. It spiraled outwards and Delph shimmered into view. The man’s eyes had slight bags under them, and his armor sported several new scars.

“Congratulations on making it this far,” Delph said, looking out dramatically over the students.

“Is this a special occasion?” Reena asked.

“No. I just thought it was impressive that some of you hadn’t dropped out yet,” Delph said, smirking. “I expect nothing less from my students. Even you, butterball.”

Delph nodded in the direction of the slightly overweight boy that had almost gotten kicked out of the class on the first day. The rude nickname didn’t apply to the boy anymore, as he’d gone through a growth spurt and stood nearly a foot taller than Delph did. Damien wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, but the boy also had more muscle than the professor.

The boy just rolled his eyes. A flicker of a grin crossed Delph’s face, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Today is the last class we’ll have for one week,” Delph said. “You’ve all gotten sufficient training to begin taking on quests. Of course, if you feel that you still aren’t prepared, you’re welcome to train yourself this week. However, keep in mind that you must complete five quests in order to move on to Year Two.”

“What if we don’t want to fight?” Loretta asked, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

“Then take quests that don’t require combat,” Delph replied. “They exist. Actually, if you’re dead set on becoming a researcher, speak to me privately. It won’t come into play yet, but it will be very important in the latter half of Year One and the rest of your career – Blackmist or elsewhere.”

“Is there any reason not to just take five really easy quests and complete them this week?” Reena asked.

“That would work to meet the requirement,” Delph admitted. “But you’d only be shortchanging yourself. The quests prepare you for the field, and if all you can do is weak and easy stuff, that’s all you’ll get. The real money is made in the higher rank quests, and you can only get to them if you work hard.”

“What about the front lines?” Nolan asked.

Delph’s face darkened. “That honor is reserved for the best of the best. The monsters at the front lines are a far cry from anything you’ll ever find within the kingdom. I wouldn’t worry yourselves with anything like that for a good while. Make it to Year Four first.”

There were a few moments of silence. Delph cleared his throat.

“Anyways, please keep in mind the restrictions for the quests. If you want to do one at the highest level permitted, you must work together with your teammate. You cannot take a quest higher level than what your teammate’s lowest level is. If you elect to go alone, you have to reduce the difficulty of your quest by two rankings. Please see me after class if you plan to go alone so that I can make arrangements for your teammate.”