Magic was difficult. If it was easy, every human might be a great mage, he supposed. Abaddon was a ruthless teacher, giving Tyr very little time at all to rest in his vain attempt to bring the young prince up to speed before the start of the school year. Whereas Varinn had spoken in riddles and given the oddest of tasks with no explanation as to how it benefited him, Tyr's new 'master' was the complete opposite.

Blunt, aggressive, and possible the worst listener on the face of the earth. First, it was a trial by combat, but the prince was near worthless in this regard, magic or otherwise. Using what he'd learned from his first master, it wasn't hard to focus anymore. The prince had always had trouble focusing and quieting his mind, but no longer. The problem lay in the fact that his 'petty spellcasting' was just that, petty and weak, inferior to many mana sensitive children.

“Stillness of mind is all well and good for one who wields the arcane as typical humans do.” Abaddon posited. “Those who require a calculation of mana, who don't have an inborn element. You, however, are approaching this the wrong way. Your ability to wield mana as one born to it requires emotion, not the opposite.”

“Emotion?” Tyr asked, panting after a particularly rough lashing from his academic advisor. As of yet, they hadn't much in regard to academic advisement at all. A week had passed with Tyr visiting daily and they'd only fought, no studying whatsoever. He hadn't even chosen his classes yet... “My master told me--”

“He wasn't wrong, either. That's not what I'm saying.” Abaddon interrupted him with a raised hand. “Oneness is not the lack of emotion, it's complete control of the self. Control of the self means making the right decisions at the right time. It has nothing at all to do with ignoring compulsion and desires, only tempering them, disciplining yourself. Bringing out that which you need the most in that moment. Now come, again.”

Another beating.

“Again.”

And another. Tyr healed fast, with Abaddon being aware of this fact – showing little in the way of mercy as he turned the princes own fire against him without moving an inch. He didn't need to move at all, able to beat Tyr senseless at a complete standstill.

“Enough. Here, take these. And... This. I've learned all I need to about your capabilities.” Occupying the air in front of them, ten leather backed books with impressive backings blinked into existence. An eleventh, blank of even a title appeared, with ink appearing in neat lines around the first few pages to form common runes.

“What are these?” They were only books, but they were heavy, a stack near as tall as he was – nigh on buckling him under the weight of all that parchment.

“...Books.” Abaddon replied with a straight face. When Tyr glared at him for the obviousness of the statement, the man sighed. “Just read them. Start with volume one and go down the list. As for the blank one, use it to take notes on things you might think will be useful – it's your grimoire. A personal spellbook of sorts and a way to organize what you've learned in a way you best understand it. All mages have one, with some of the older spellcasters carrying five or six on their person at all times.”

Tyr raised a brow at the claim. He knew that he was fairly strong, even beyond the typical athleticism offered by his well honed body, but that seemed unrealistic. “Wizards walk around with a bag full of books, or...?”

Abaddon face folded, scrunching up around the mouth as he tried to contain himself. Contrary to the exclamations he made often, Tyr found the professor to be much more patient than he'd have initially expected. He complained a lot, but kept going, at least. Another item appeared in thin air, a silver ring on a chain to be worn around the neck. An amulet of sorts. Both... He guessed...

“Do you know what this is?” Abaddon asked.

“A... Ring?”

“It's a dimensional ring. Take it, go home, and study. I'll know if you've been slacking.”

“I already have a dimensional ring, though.”

“Splendid. Then you'll realize how incredibly fucking stupid your confusion was in regard to a man 'carrying around all those books' was.”

“Ah, yeah. That uh... That does make sense.”

“Please go away.”

And he did. Tyr was well aware of dimensional artifacts but he'd never owned more than a ring capable of holding a great deal of clean water – and he had no idea where that trinket was. Probably on his nightstand back at the estate... This necklace possessed an internal extra-dimensional space of its own. Anything put inside of it was weightless, frozen outside of time.

Anything, so long as it fit within the offered space, would remain just as it had been upon its storage in the artifact. After imprinting it with his unique mana signature, only Tyr could use it unless it possessed a mechanism for sharing. Of all the things on his person, playing with it on his way back to the estate, only the bracelets about his wrist refused to be stored. It possessed the capability of stripping the clothes right off his body, but unfortunately for the middle aged professors he'd passed in the hallway (butt naked), it didn't do the same for uh... Putting them back on.

I wonder what the rules are behind this thing... Tyr tried shooting a fireball into it, but the mana ran right through the dinner plate sized gate and out the other end, smacking into the wall beyond. However, strangely, a stick that was lit with magical fire could be placed in the thing and come out still burning even several hours later. He was already aware that food and water would not spoil inside dimensional artifacts, since they used them in the palace kitchen.

Refrigeration was for people too poor to afford an artifact like this, though Tyr himself had never seen one that was so general-purpose before. Usually they could store specific things and in not so wide a space, but the interior of this amulet was huge. Near twenty meters cubed, at least. He could fit several bear carcasses in it. Almost like carrying a warehouse in his pocket.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to stick living beings in there, but that was self evident. Their pool of world energy was likely responsible for refusing to pass through the gate. Or... Perhaps it was an unexplained rule of magic. Regardless, he didn't have much time to think about such things what with the incredible workload he'd most certainly not be able to finish before the year started.

He tried though, with three weeks left he rarely left his room. Not for his love of the academic, of which he'd never felt any such predilection, but his refusal to fail. If Tyr failed now at a task given to him by a 'friend' of his father, if that man even had friends, Jartor surely would hear of it. Another failure. The prince didn't fear these small failures as much as he used to, but that didn't mean he wanted it.

Deep within a tome regarding the history of human magic, Tyr remained focused. Focus had never been a strong suit of his. If it hadn't been for his mother, he might even be illiterate, only ever studying by her request. Though even as a young lad he had never ceased his mischievous attempts to escape the bondage of his tutors. It'd earned him many beatings, which mostly ensured that he'd try even harder to escape his lessons. Growing to hate them even more, like they were at fault. He wanted to play in the gardens and feel the wind in his hair, not stick his nose into a stack of dusty old books.

Now though, it was strange. There was nothing interesting about magical history. Incredibly dry excerpts. After conjecture between who taught humans magic, whether it be gods or elves or dragons or 'you were born with it, baby' – it was all no different than any collection of the histories. Dates and names, all irrelevant. Dry as a mouthful of ash, none of the flashy hero-washing of the only books Tyr had liked when he was younger. Everything was numbers and calculations or hard truths with far too much exposition and not enough damn explosions.

What was strange – was that he blew right through the first tome and the two after that without much trouble, and he understood most of it. Moreover, he could remember every single thing he'd read. If he'd been asked to recite page seventy one, line fourteen, of the History of Mana Phenomena, Tyr would've been easily able to recall the discovery of true dimensional magic due to the thinning of the veil in the region known as the godfall. He could tell you what the veil was, the barrier between the material world and the plane of mana. What the godfall was, an area located south of the talon in that same massive mountain ranged he'd traveled through, where rocks floated around and physical law was made a mockery by the otherworldly energy.

Is world energy the soul...? He had found something within the energy that grew far denser in primus' comparative to humans. Even Tyr, with his energy paling compared to his father, possessed more world energy than every single person, sans Varinn, that he'd encountered. Not just a little, but by an incredible margin. He knew better than to assume that world energy and intelligence went hand in hand, but they couldn't have had an inverse relationship. If not the soul... Tyr tapped his lips with a quill, taking the first empty page in his 'grimoire' to posit this theory, ensuring that he wrote in code rather than being so blunt as to leave this information in the open.

World energy, very likely, was responsible for some mechanic of sapience. After all, undead were almost universally mindless – as were elementals – and Tyr was aware that neither possessed world energy. He'd studied a ghoul during a quest for a decent hour or so before coming to the conclusion that the creature only possessed a tiny spark of mana courtesy of the spell that 'made' it. Animated it, more appropriately.

To say that he was smarter was, if not objectively false, unclear at this time. Intelligence was a tricky thing to measure. Tyr wasn't stupid, and knew that his mind worked just fine, but he was ignorant and had a twisted approach to learning. Close-minded, maybe. However, it beyond a doubt had a miraculous effect on his ability to focus and retain information, giving him some kind of pseudo-eidetic memory.

Possibly a secondary effect. Refining his body meant refining his mind, and it was arguably the hardest mental exercise he'd ever done, moving it all around inside himself like that.

Combined with the rejuvenating effects of refining both of his sources of energy, he hadn't needed to sleep in days. Ensuring that he always had time for his tasks, only moving when his position became noticeably uncomfortable. Or relocating outside to enjoy the cleaner air and the more abundant energy so as to kill two birds with one stone, it came easier when he left the confines of a building. He didn't consume this energy, as per every universal law these same books explained to him, just letting it pass through him like a conduit and growing more aware of its existence.

The sensation was near intoxicating, grabbing onto the stuff native in the atmosphere and bringing it into himself. If he could gulp it up at will, Tyr was sure that he'd have done it until he exploded. This was the first time he noticed an actual, quantifiable benefit of doing it rather than the obvious. He sat there, night and day and even through a rainstorm becoming increasingly singular in his task. Not even eating, just reading. Magic histories were dry, but fairly easy to absorb. If he didn't understand a place or concept, he'd just open a thesaurus. Kriegstad was the largest single city in the successor states, founded in...

Tomes on magical theory, however... Half of the jargon was lost on him, every page had five references he needed to search for in various other books. Without his enhanced mind courtesy of his growth under the world energy, he'd never have been able to handle that kind of strain. He was, after all, skipping ten years of prior education when reading some of these books.

For the first time in his life, Tyr found reading fun. He'd been fond of games and puzzles, and this was no different in the bigger picture. Drawing conclusions and feeling the pieces missing from his own mind slide into place in exchange for effort. Alright, so it wasn't 'fun', but the inherent challenge was something he could content himself without stabbing himself in the face.

“Alright.” Alex had gathered them all around the conference table present in the left wing of the estate. A place where foreign dignitaries or trade princes might meet to discuss business. The room was well furnished and even a single chair would buy the house of near any commoner, so absurd was the display of wealth near everywhere in this place. To think that the primus' were simply given these things was absurd, all in the name of the churches presiding over the ascension. And the government who feared them, that was worth noting. “Something is seriously wrong.” She remained standing, while the others sat, dragged from their beds in the witching hour to attend this 'meeting' or... Intervention? Perhaps?

“I wasn't quite sure what you meant before...” Sigi looked the least tired of all, still sweating from her nightly training regimen. One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten kilometer run. Not once, but twice per day. While wearing her full panoply of armor and kit, without the aid of magic. Tythas had winced at the idea of such a thing, and the madwoman lifted weights in between all of that... “Now, I'm inclined to agree.”

“Indeed.” Astrid nodded in agreement as well. “I've never seen him read a book in his life, even back when we were young and I would visit. He was only fond of hitting things, eating, and complaining. I tried talking to him the other day and he just ignored me...”

“Isn't this good, though?” Women were truly a strange breed. Tythas saw the prince as someone approaching his academic future with the utmost dedication. While he was concerned at the intensity and singular focus to the point that he even skipped meals, how could this be a bad thing? Yet, as ever, the women in the household had deigned make it a problem. Everything the man did upset somebody, they didn't seem to enjoy his company, and yet they'd even complain when he was spending too much time alone and not entertaining them... “Clearly, he saw his evaluation and realized how much work he has to do to catch up.”

“Except you know as well as I do that the evaluation was a load of shit bigger than anything expelled from any bull I've ever met”

“Mm...” Tythas could agree with Alex's words. Tyr might have poor control, but the exam didn't really care about that – it measured mana capacity and the flow of ones reservoir, not their ability to cast spells. That wouldn't come until later. Not all mages predicated their clout or reputation on their projection of mana, some schools didn't require projection at all. A weakness in this could easily be solved with a focus or any number of artifacts. Or just by practicing, the academies wanted to measure baseline talent first before anything else. He'd personally rated Tyr as an A, at least, as the princes mana capacity was far beyond his own.

“I only called you here and not those ruffians that sulk about because we are all bound to him in some way or another. Except for the Amatean, but he's a mage and a sorcerer at that so I figured I might as well.”

“I'm his, uh...” Tythas cleared his throat. “His court mage, I think. My name is Tythas, by the way.”

“That is so interesting, but I don't remember asking.”

“Alright.”

“I'm not sure what you're getting at, Alex.” Astrid steepled her hands, stretching languidly after being risen from her pleasant slumber in those southern silken sheets she liked so much. “Just let him do what he wants. It's not like it's a bad thing for him to study, he's been different ever since he came back. In some ways that concern me a great deal.”

“As strange as he's been acting...” Sigi added. “I don't see a point in hounding him about it. Why should I care what he does?”

“Because...” Alex sighed, exasperated. She realized that Astrid and Sigi were far from trained mages as she was, but she'd thought it was quite obvious. “I think Tyr falsified his examination result, which is illegal. Next, he changes his personality completely which is concerning enough. Second, he refuses his fathers own money and disappears into the wilderness and comes back with the sum of a lifetime like it was no big deal. Third, he's begun to read some tomes that many scholars in the field of magical study consider quite... Eccentric. And not in a good way.”

Astal spoke for the first time, the old man shaking his head at the fate of his poor nephew to be married to such a nag. “Okay, and? None of this is important. First, he's your husband. I don't care if you like him or not, but you're bound partners beneath the light of the gods. Moreover, he is your prince and heir primus. What his kind do or why they do it is not for us to understand. Do you have a point to all of this?”

“My point is that I am very sure that Tyr is the primus of magic. I've always suspected it, and he's been lying to us for years about his capabilities. Not just to us, mind you, but also his father. Why?”

“That doesn't answer my question.” Astal rebuked. “Why is any of this important?”

“Because, I believe he is trying to find a way to kill Jartor.”

Astal laughed at that, as did Sigi, while a grim line appeared on the mouths of Astrid and Tythas alike. In all reality, considering what they'd seen and heard, it wouldn't surprise them. Even the general public was well aware that there was little love lost between father and son. The court were all too familiar with their very loud conflicts in the past.

“I understand what you're saying, Alex.” Astrid shook her head. “But these words are... Heresy. What proof do you have?”

“Yesterday, I saw him leafing through the Book of Solomon.” She had a hard glint in her eye. “He opened it in full view of me and just stared while filling his grimoire with notes from the tome. And I trust you know what that tome is?”

Tythas' entire body froze hearing those words. Magic was freely studied beyond the borders of the twin empires, being far more progressive places. In some states – even necromancy was completely legal and accepted. The Book of Solomon though, was not. Nowhere in the human kingdoms was a forbidden tome like that permitted. Not just a forbidden tome, but one of the thirteen. Nobody with their sanity intact knew what the thirteen black books contained, but all of the unified churches under the eight pillars considered a mere mention of the them a crime.

The Confessions of Ellemar, who posited that gods were actually demons who ensured all men died so as to harvest their souls and sustain themselves. Tree of Helen, Tempest Lux, the Necronomicon, the Arcanum Altrimar, or Leda's Opus. There were many such tomes and they were all a death sentence if one was found with them on their person. How Tyr had acquired one was an important question, but it explained a great many things including why he'd chosen to attend a foreign academy. Why he was suddenly working so hard after years of being so lazy. His great manipulation over, separated from his father, and now he was looking for a weapon.

“...What do you plan to do?” Suddenly, Astal wasn't laughing anymore, looking for askance from the younger mages despite being far older and wiser to the world.

“I don't know.”