The next morning I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to the furious face of Grey. “I see you slept well.” Grey growled over a cup of coffee. He’d taken the liberty to set my chair at the side of the bed and wait for me to wake up. Considerate. “So, you mind telling me how both of us miraculously survived getting crushed into the walls with absolutely no injuries?

“I treated you! You had a lot of internal injuries so it took basically all of my mana though.” I stretched out in bed and rolled to face Grey.

“And how were you fine exactly?” Grey crossed his arms, less than convinced.

“Remember that pillow of force nullification? I got thrown into that.” Grey snorted.

“Your luck isn’t that good.”

“True,” I said while sitting up, “but the pillow only saved internal injuries and my head, my arms and legs still broke and then the jar of emerald scorpions that someone had set right next to the pillow fell on top of me. I definitely passed out a few times from that ‘cause we didn’t get back until super late.” Grey winced at the imagined pain. Emerald scorpions are so famous for causing pain without killing that they were used as an old torture device. I honestly am glad that I died instead of hitting that pillow like I claimed.

“Good thing you have pain resistance then huh?” Grey raised an eyebrow at me.

I smiled. “Even with it I’m never going in that vault again.” All perfectly true, I technically can’t go back in the vault and wouldn’t want to risk the disk being found so hey, honesty for everyone. Grey let out a sigh then set down his mug.

“Alright but you can’t blame me for this one. You did that on your own.” Grey stood up and stretched.

“True but I got one hell of a souvenir out of it.” I said while pulling out the immovable rod. Grey froze, and then looked at me with an anguished expression.

“Why?”

I shrugged.

“It’ll be fun.”

“Good morning boys and Jin!” Kel cheerily called while walking into my room. Hey. That hurts. “We have new orders. Jin, I assume you already got yours or it’s on the way or something but basically we’re all going to Grimax. We’ve been told to escort you to Grimax and then handle an issue that has come up in the city while you do your job, then we’re to escort you back. Cool?”

“Easy enough for me. When are we going?” I hopped out of bed and looked for my clothes.1

“We leave tomorrow morning. Spend today squaring away any last minute details you need to here and prepare to leave at dawn.” I snapped a sharp salute.

“Aye aye, Boss.”

“That’s captain to you.”

After a quick breakfast Grey and Kel went into town to pick up supplies while I headed into the academy one more time.

“Jin! I see you’re doing well. Up for a bit of practice now that you’ve finally got the skill?” I grinned. I’d seen him just yesterday but Piercil’s unwavering cheer was still heartwarming.

“Why not. Catch!” I shouted along with the wind snake that I’d tossed at Piercil.

“Tsk. Tsk. Too easy Jin. You just got a power-up didn’t you?” Piercil redirected the snake into a large ‘O’ shape in mid-air while simultaneously cleansing the status ailments it was filled with. He shook his head and threw the snake back, now filled with shining light. At first glance it looked like it was just wind and light, but now I could see that there was a small sleep spell hidden near the back of the snake as well.

“Now who’s going easy?” I laughed while dispelling the sleep spell and replacing it with wings made of lighting with flame membranes stretching between. Winged snakes man. Shit’s cool. I let the snake flap its wings a few times before firing it back to Piercil.

“Now you can do better than that!” He shouted while adding curling black horns to the snake’s head with a wave of his hand. He flicked the snake back my way; along with a few stray paralyze spells from above and below. I caught the status spells and wove them into a wiggling tongue for the snake and expanded some parts along the belly into arms and legs. The dragon floated over to Piercil while firing beams of light and a few paralyze spells at him. He caught them all and compressed them into flame talons that he tipped the arms and legs with. “One thing left I think,” he said and let it float back to me, all the while firing off light, paralyze, fire and darkness elements. I caught those and shaped them into a large, rock spike ball that I then added to the dragon’s tail.

“No, now there’s one left.” I responded and sent the dragon spinning towards Piercil. This time it didn’t let off any spells but I did. Launching fire, ice, air blades, and some electricity just to keep him occupied. He dissipated all of them and caught the dragon with a finger.

“Of course. One last thing.” He chuckled and coated the dragon with poison before pitching it my way. “Don’t ruin the floor!”

I grinned and made a cut on my cheek with my claw, then formed an ice chalice in my hand and caught the dragon, poison and all in the cup. Then I took a sip. Piercil clapped as the cut on my cheek vanished. “You changed it into a potion.”

“Yep!” I smiled. “I looked up the recipe in the library.”

“Alright Jin. So it looks like you can see status magic now and your control has developed to another level. I’m guessing those new eyes are probably the first part, and the skill is the second. Evil eyes, perhaps?” I nodded.

“Yeah, it was the reward I got for finishing top five in the trials. It lets me see magic a little bit.” Piercil nodded in understanding.

“Of course! I got my own evil eyes soon after I learned magic novice as well. Now, I imagine the guild has a job for you somewhere so you’re here to say goodbye, correct?” I nodded again. Piercil sighed grandly.

“Well, I’d have liked to keep you here until you mastered magic but there’s no helping it. First off, take this.” Piercil reached onto a bookshelf and grabbed a heavy tome. “Ah, actually you should give one to Mr. Grey and Miss Kel as well.” He then placed his hands one on top of the tome and one below, then he opened his arms and the tome split into three identical ones.

“That’s Copy! But that’s a shadow skill?” A shadow skill was a skill that was unique to thieves, assassins, rogues and the like. The only way to get access to the skills was to contract to one of the three prongs.

“You didn’t think we all started as mages, did you?” Piercil threw me a wink then passed the three tomes to me. “Now then, it is necessary to have a teacher to get the magic journeyman skill, but apprentice can be done on your own. All you have to do is follow the instructions in the book and practice as often as you can. Also,” Piercil reached behind his desk and handed me a folded piece of cloth. “This is a gift from me. It’s a cloak.” I received the gifts and looked back up at Piercil wide-eyed.

“Thank you so much! I—“

“No, no. If you want to thank me, come back when you’ve reached magic apprentice. That’s the cool way to do it.”

I grinned from ear to ear.

“Yes, sir!” That’s what the gift was, a cloak so I’d look cooler. Perfection. Now I only have one thing left to do in this city.

1 I was wearing pajamas; I’m not an animal.