And so, the three spent their next days and weeks, focused on their own projects. Kupi tried to make them make up and solve their differences, Arabelle followed her passion with the help of Kupi and Gabriel was hell bent on investigating the nail.

For that purpose, he had investigated the nature of the spell for hours and tried to read it for some more. Gabriel managed to decipher part of the enchantment and when he tried it, he realized that it worked but less effectively. It’d take more time for the owner to track him down, but if he really wanted to investigate the mysterious chill that the fingernail emanated, he’d need more time.

So, he went to the town’s library, to see if there was any spell which assimilated the one, he was trying to use, but to no avail. The only public spells were simple ones that he’d already glossed over at Grumbonk.

When he questioned the woman in charge of the library, she answered that magicians and wizards had a monopoly of spells and rarely shared them with others, so if Gabriel wanted to learn some of their spells, he’d need to go to them.

First, he went to the wizard’s academy, because it was closer, but he didn’t have much hope to find the spell he wanted here, as he thought that it was more a control of forces, which meant it was a magician’s job and not a wizards.

He had to take a written exam, which he didn’t find too hard. There weren’t any questions that left him stumped, but he wasn’t sure of his answers in a few. Next, he was given a doll and he had to make it move by itself only using three spells at most. He didn’t find this too difficult, and after he finished, he was told that in three days they’d have the results and that he should come back then.

The day was already turning darker, the sunset starting as Gabriel made his way into the grandiose doors of the magicians’ manor, as the institution was called. He followed the directions the receptionist had given him and made his way towards an exam hall.

There was a clear difference in the testing method of the two schools. While the wizards had a room for every person who attempted, the magicians had about twenty chairs on a room, and a blackboard which was empty. It was like a normal classroom, just very large and between every table were about three meters in diameter without another table.

Gabriel sat in one of the empty chairs, leaving three empty. He started looking around the room and was surprised that there were other like him – not human, but still humanoid. No plant monsters like David yet.

Maybe one would enter through the door soon. Not so sure how it would to that, though. The walls were mostly empty, except for some scribbles which seemed random, but didn’t at the same time. There were patterns, but they were broken close thereafter.

He then turned his sight to the table in front of him, which was incredibly boring. Nothing was on top of it, nothing was below it and it was all made of wood. Maybe that it was a single piece was peculiar, but Gabriel paid no mind to it. His gaze kept moving and it reached the roof.

There he saw that there was a clock for every table, all of them on different times and the clocks on top of empty tables hadn’t started. It was a countdown! But how much time did he have? Maybe he had twenty-five minutes, but he could also have an hour more than that. What did he have to do before the time ends?

Gabriel started focusing on the other people in the room. Many of them had focused looks towards a specific direction, albeit different for each of them. Maybe the test was mental, and he had to find the test and solve it at a distance? Gabriel started increasing his vision with the help of spells, also searching for mana signatures.

He couldn’t find anything at the sights of the other children, but somewhere else he found a vague disturbance. He pried onto it and discovered that it wasn’t very easy to see, but with enough effort he managed to see the test. But when he started reading a question it turned blurry, because seeing the paper required all his focus and reading took some of it away.

This was because of two main reasons. First of all, the test’s difficulty changed depending on the student’s abilities, but it wasn’t completely customizable. Instead, it picked between a few variants that increased in difficulty and Gabriel was just above difficulty four, so he had to do a quite hard difficulty five.

This wasn’t by any means the hardest test, there were ten different difficulties, although the hardest ones were hardly done, even by students already inside the academy. During an excruciating two and a half hours Gabriel tried his best to solve the test and he ended up being mildly contented with his results. He would make it. Probably.

Satisfied and late, he made his way back to his shack in the middle of the slums, opening the door to a common image these last few weeks. Kupi was sitting on a chair beside the table, looking at the door he just came through.

- We need to talk, Gabriel. – Kupi had been ‘talking’ with Gabriel every second or third day, trying to convince him to talk with his sister, giving many plausible reasons, but he found none of them as important as preparing against this unknown enemy.

- What tale have you come to tell me now. Did she get kidnapped, maybe? Or my nemesis is back to get her! Maybe she has told you that she doesn’t want to come back because she is happy there? – Gabriel mocked Kupi because he always exaggerated things.

One time she had cut herself in the finger and Kupi said that she was losing ‘tons’ of blood and needed urgent help. Another time someone at work fist bumped her amicably on the arm and Kupi had urged him to come as she was getting bullied, once more. Gabriel had simply told him that ‘she can solve her own problems’ and put a smug face.

- You have a nemesis? – Kupi questioned, but quickly focused on the task at hand. – Wait no that’s not important right now. – Kupi stood up from his chair and started walking towards Gabriel. – I believe she is being mind controlled once more. You know that you told me that she slowed her reactions and showed less emotions when she had been controlled before? Well, she has been behaving similarly recently… I think you need to check this…

This shocked Gabriel. Hadn’t they defeated Grumbonk? Was he back, somehow? A clone? Or was it someone else? Wait, maybe it was the boy crying wolf and trying to convince him to go and meet his sister, trying to make them make up in an exaggerated story once more? After recovering from the visible shock, he fixed his posture and answered seriously.

- You really are getting better at your stories, Kupi. I almost believed this one. But she is probably just a little sad that something she cooked didn’t end up as she expected or something like that. I won’t fall for your tricks, my friend.

- But this time it’s real! You need to see her! You’ll know how to heal her, as you said you did before! I… I don’t want you two to be apart but what I want less is one of you two leaving this world! Please! Don’t repeat my mista- - Kupi silenced himself immediately.

He realized that he was going to say something he wanted to keep to himself. The thing he was most ashamed of, the biggest mistake of his life. Gabriel’s eyes immediately perked up as he listened to the last sentence, his curiosity immediately working things out, trying to find out the truth.

- What mis-ta-ke Kupi? What can be so bad that even you stopped talking? – Gabriel mixed in his voice mock towards him, curiosity to find out the answer to these questions and compassion to Kupi as he had never behaved this way.

Kupi had walked almost all the way towards Gabriel, but he stopped steps before being face to face. When he mistakenly exposed one of his biggest secrets he had stopped in place and now he had moved to the nearest wall, lying onto it.

- I… You… Well… - Kupi didn’t know how to start, but Gabriel fastened things up.

- Just tell me the mistake and the minimum things I need to know to understand. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but how am I supposed to trust you when you exaggerate everything and told want to tell me things about you?

- I… You’re right. – Kupi agreed and started telling his story. – You already know that I lived in a village but ventured into the world. Well, it wasn’t so easy. I had to escape and when I did, I had plans to return soon, in a few months, but life did it’s thing and I spent years traveling the world before I got the chance to get back to my village.

Kupi paused for a moment and breathed deeply.

- When I came back two main things about my life there had changed. – Another small pause, but he continued soon. – First of all, I was exiled from the village and given a day to exit it once I entered it. Secondly my family… - Kupi cleaned the tears that had started to form and snorted the mucus inside his nose before he finished. – my family was different. Not only in the psychological sense, worried, angry and mad at me, but also physically. You see, when I left my sister was really worried about me, but my parents and brother managed to stop her from venturing to search for me. But after months and years passed without any news for me, her worries became unbearable for her, and she also escaped from the village. But she wasn’t as lucky as me when travelling through the forests. They had found her half eaten body on a lush section of the forest and although they could ask her why she left… It was clear it was because of me. This caused my parents to fight between themselves and divorce each other and so when I returned, I got slapped by everyone in my family. I ruined everything for them, so it was understandable, but I still can’t forgive myself for what I did. So you have to understand that I am really worried about the two of you… I… please, at least check up on her… - Kupi finished almost whispering as his voice faded, being covered by the sound of crying and snorting.