The day had been long and the sun was setting, they had been at it for quite some time. Having eaten when needed and taken rests when they wanted to, they currently found themselves sitting around the table in Gilliam’s room.

They had tried hammers, swords, ropes with weights on them, flails and any other normal weapon you could imagine. As well as some dumb ideas that they all had.

With the amount of damage the dome had to heal, there was the need to recharge it during the day, this was easily handled by a few minutes of mana condensation, something that Gilliam had been using even more downtime on making some magic crystals. Make one, store it and do other things until he feels refreshed again, then repeat. This had allowed him to store more of the crystals in his ring, but to make sure that he didn’t overdo it when time came, he made sure to have a bunch in there of various sizes. He had made four new fist sized, fifteen small marble sized and ten he defined as fragment sized, they would most likely be used for testing later on.

Needless to say, he had spent a considerable amount of mana today.

On the other side, they had figured out that Petal didn’t really do that well with weaponry. The standing theory was that she had never really held a weapon for combat before, but she had fought a few times for scraps of food and just self protection in her old life.

“Though, I wonder-” Gilliam started as they were talking about the day’s results. “-You seem to use your tail as a weapon, but it’s not strong enough to pull people around or hurt them when whipping. We could try to strengthen it? Or attach a blade to it?”

Gilliam had clearly seen too many movies, but it would make sense, she can hit with relative reliability, it got some decent speed when whipped around but it’s not damaging, it doesn’t hit hard enough to draw blood from a human let alone a demon. If there was a way to strengthen it with magic or training, she could use the tail to grab or redirect things, or if it’s armed somehow then rather than slapping targets she could cut or impale them?

Angela seemed to muse on this for a moment, but Petal had some info on the subject.

“There are warriors in my land that have iron balls fastened to their tail. Some have other things like blades or axes. But they are always male.” She didn’t seem sad, more like she wanted to share some information.

Gilliam raised an eyebrow, but as he was about to ask about details he remembered the ones that he fought with. The male demons of her variant seemed to have a straight up more physical build. Petal’s tail was long and slender, tapering down all the way from her back to the end, the point at the back was a bit wider but it was not amazingly so. The men had more lizard-like tails where there were clearly more muscle mass that supported their tails, realistically speaking it was like they were more made for combat than the females.

“What if we get a small and light, but magically enchanted blade attached? There wouldn't be a weight problem, it would just let you do some damage when hitting with it.” As soon as he completed the idea he denied himself. “Nah.. that would need recharging all the time and could be its own problem..:”

They pondered for a moment until Angela had an idea.

“I don’t know if this will work, but if you train like I did, and if you manage to learn to use your Inner Energy, you should be able to do amazing things. A friend of my father could cut anything with anything, he once cut a sword with a wooden stick. He was a master but just training under horr* special circumstances can help.” She clearly forced a smile as she interrupted herself.

“Petal can’t heal herself, so that’s not going to work.” Gilliam explained.

“Oh, but it is!” Angela seemed to have a horrible idea. “I could do it whenever I wanted because I could heal myself, we just need a magical item that always heals or someone else to heal her.”

She had a point, but that sounded like torture..

“That method of training sounds a lot like torture... Not fond of that idea, what else is there?” Though he said that, he had seen the results it had. But there was another way.

“We could have her train normally but feed her a bit different...” The way he toned the feeding part strongly hinted that he didn’t mean normal food.

“Yeah... about that. I have some questions about the arm...” Angela didn’t seem happy about what happened.

Gilliam decided to just explain his side of things before she got too deep into questioning. “It is simple. I felt he deserved to die, horribly, for doing that to Savia. You talked me out of my rage and I decided to only take his arm.-” Shrugging like he’s explaining why he wears shoes outside, a completely normal event. “-I don’t know if healers can regrow it, but I decided to take the arm with me so it couldn’t be reattached. I didn’t want the punishment to only be a bit of pain.” He absolutely realised how sadistic and evil this sounded, vengeance without due process is usually very passionate and evil, after all.

Sighing a bit, he moved on to the most likely main topic. “I didn’t intend to feed it to Petal, but based on how she reacted and how feral she was... I tried a way of training angry dogs where I come from.-”

Looking at Petal with an apology in his eyes. “I don’t consider you an animal, but it felt similar at the time and.. I’m glad it worked.”

Petal shook her head. “It worked, and I’m very grateful.” Seeming to ponder for a few seconds she looked at her hands. “I have something I have been wanting to mention to you-” She hinted towards Gilliam. “I noticed that I felt... strange.. Not starved but like I had less energy and felt weaker when you were gone. Now that I’m with you I feel energised and fine.”

Both Gilliam and Angela were a bit confused at that. The demon physiology was a bit strange, they looked humanoid enough, the men a bit less than the women but both were still human-like in their weakest forms. As they grew stronger this changed but... How did that actually work? Why did it work?

Gilliam broke the awkward silence first with a questioning tone and expression. “Do you know how the growing stronger when you eat thing works?”

She had explained it a bit before, but Gilliam couldn’t remember the details, or if he had asked directly like this before.

“I don’t know-” She started, having Gilliam display a dissatisfied expression for a moment. “We eat and if we’re lucky we grow stronger. When we invade other worlds and bring back people, the growth is stronger with some of them than others. I know that Lord Vozellath preferred mages and the heroic kinds. If we found one of those we...-” She hesitated a bit, her eyes bouncing between Gilliam and Angela before they went back to Gilliam, almost as if she was uncertain for Angela’s sake. “-break or remove their hands, and get them to him as fast as possible.”

This had Gilliam think, this kind of made sense. If there was a chance to inherit some powers or magic, but not all of them could work, it made a little sense that they were absorbing magic. The only non-physical strength or skill based powers he saw were magic spells. Perhaps it is that their bodies are absorbing the magic from their victims along with other nutrients. He really didn’t know, the demon's ability was still a mystery to him.

But that raises a question, if the demons don’t have magical ability unless they inherit them from their food, do they produce their own mana? Or is this something they also need to inherit?

Gilliam took out one of the tiny fragments of mana crystals that he made, it was no larger than a fingernail, handing it to Petal.

“Can you do anything with this?”

She took the fragment and held it in her hand, picked it up in her fingers and seemed to just inspect it.

“I.. don’t feel any different.” She handed it back to him once he held his hand out for it.

Putting the fragment back in the ring, he took out a fist sized crystal and handed that to Petal. This caused some unrest with Angela, Gilliam assumed it was because of the same reaction as Ghaos had, with the explosive nature of them.

Gilliam could feel the mana from these gems himself, so he knew they were potent.

Petal was a little hesitant before taking it, but did the same, handled it carefully and tried to... do.. anything, with it. But to no avail.

In the end she handed it back to Gilliam. “It feels like I’m just holding a rock, there is nothing.”

Gilliam put it back in the ring which seemed to also calm Angela down a bit.

“In that case my theory is that you are magic vampires... That sounds weird but, since you gain power by eating, you can get more powerful that way but it might be that the mana cannot be used or changed, you might need the raw mana from a creature?”

This kind of made sense, it’s like converting electrical energy into heat and trying to power your computer with it. It won’t work as it’s not adapted to this kind of energy. But in the electrical form it works perfectly.

“What about this, then.” Gilliam started ejecting mana from his hand in her general direction, almost like a humidifier of mana.

Not long after she started breathing it she seemed to react a little.

“I... feel something... It’s like a pleasant warmth, something like back in the desert.”

Gilliam increased the power without saying anything about it, but she didn’t really seem to react differently. Attempting to raise it a tiny bit more also didn’t change anything at all. She was just looking about in the room trying to see more of it and only reacted a short moment after Gilliam stopped.

“Oh. It disappeared.”

“Ok... So... My theory is that you can absorb a tiny bit by just being around mana, but no matter how much I used now there was no difference. So I guess that you can only absorb a little bit that way, you might have to eat it and have it absorbed through your digestive system like other food giving you nutrients.”

He sat back in the chair and looked over his demon companion.

“If what I’m guessing is correct, we can’t use this. You need to eat something or someone magical... Something I doubt anyone is going to be willing to help with.”

Angela seemed almost a bit relieved at this.

“It seems that training is your best way of getting better. But don’t worry, I’ll train you!” Angela seemed to really enjoy that thought, Petal didn’t seem to dislike it either.

“Then I think we have a plan tomorrow, you guys train and I go test a few things in the mountains. There are a few spell ideas I want to try out, I also need to ask Jial or Ghaos a few things. I’ll join you in training afterwards.” Gilliam had a few more things he needed to do than just train. And on a second note he needed to find out a bit more about Savia, she would most likely want to come with no matter where he went in the future, which could get dangerous.

They all agreed and after a few more details planned Angela left their room for the night.

Shortly after Angela left, Gilliam turned to face Petal.

“I would like to know a bit more about what happened when I was gone. I’m very happy that you seem to have come out of your shell, somehow, you seem more mentally free. I really do like that but I just want to know everything that lead up to... the things that happened.”

He didn’t make it sound like this was a bad thing, he was just curious, which was very true. He was very happy that she was having more personal thoughts and goals, when she shared a life goal with him before it made him incredibly glad on her behalf. But this kind of change was a lot without context.

The explanation she gave was surprisingly lacking anything new and interesting. The first few days went on without anything happening, she went and ate when she felt like she needed it, she used the showers and toilets like Gilliam had shown her, though it was a bit boring it was still comfortable and safe. This also let her see and hear how the other people interacted and played about with each other, it gave her an insight she had never had before. Though she spent a lot of time with Savia trying to keep her calm in the start as she was a bit panicky. She bit a lot but her venom was not enough to do anything lasting. In the first few days she was actually rather free.

As time went on and Gilliam didn’t return, there were more and more looks at her, people assumed that he was dead and she was then just ‘some demon’ that walked around. She confined herself more and more to her room, letting Savia fly out the window to not be coped up as much. She had a lot of time to think, listen to people walking back and forth, looking out the window and process her new place in the world, this much time to herself without any form of danger slowly changed her mind. It was a bit of a boring reasoning but she had never been safe and had time for herself, to decide things for herself before. This did something to her mentally.

Garend had managed to catch Savia one one of her flights. It took a while before she was able to find out why Savia didn’t return, and when she confronted him the attack happened and... The rest he knows.

Gilliam couldn’t feel anything but sadness and empathy for Petal. Though he could still understand the people who had lost others in the first Gate incident, Petal was not at fault in this case. Yes, she helped the demons but it was not due to choice, it was under the threat of her own death. It’s still not a good thing but... It’s a weird grey zone mixed with racism and ‘part of the enemy’ thoughts.

In the end he didn’t really get a good explanation for any good events that explained her change, it was more of a collection of things that slowly did their own part. She had explained that she felt a bit different, slightly changed after eating the arm and Gilliam knew this as well. When she came out of her feral state at the end of that feedingtraining thing, her asking for the rest of the arm was the first proper request she had come with after she was bound to him. So it might be part of it. She was changed mentally as well as physically, there might be more to the whole demon eating thing.

They talked a bit more about the different events but in the end the night dragged on and they headed to bed.

The next morning they were woken by the bells once again, which like before sent him almost into a heart attack. It seems this also affected Savia and Petal, the hair gremlin had grabbed onto where she was sleeping and held on tight, it was uncomfortable but not painful for Gilliam, plenty to notice it though. Petal jumped out of the bed but seemed to process what was going on as she landed on the floor.

Letting out a deep sigh, Gilliam waited a moment for his heart to calm down a little before he started getting out of bed as well. He didn’t know that they were going to resume school or the usage of that infernal bell. Not that he planned to follow the normal classes, he had more important things to handle. Though all that considered, it was probably not a bad idea to just get up, breakfast was available and it wasn't like they would be able to sleep long with the bells tolling anyway.

Getting dressed and ready they headed down to the mess hall before the second bell rang, no need to really wait.

On the way there they talked about Angela between themselves, though kept their talk in Demonic. Petal was plenty good at V’idan, but she felt more comfortable speaking Demonic when that was possible.

The talk was mostly about the training and how they would handle things, Gilliam changed the non-combat order so it allowed for training, just in case it was going to become a problem, and before long they found themselves in the mess hall.

Most of the students tried their best, perhaps a bit too hard, to not look at Gilliam and Petal. Others chose to try and steal glances or just look at them through the corner of their eyes.

Gilliam had probably gotten some more interesting reputations or rumours after openily, and without regret, taking a student's arm. Both in the conceptual and literal sense.

This was doing wonders for his hero image... Good times. Though parts of him really did care for the reputation he had been building up, other parts of him realised that it didn’t really care that much.

Ignoring all of this he walked over to get some food, Petal followed and they soon found themselves sitting at one of the available tables.

More students came walking in shortly after the second bell rang, and their reactions on noticing the demon and her human master mirrored the students that were there before.

It didn’t take too long before Angela came in the side door, scanned the room and came over once she saw them. This was a welcome change to the current situation, though he didn’t really care for the staring and whatnot, it wasn’t exactly fun.

Gilliam smiled a bit as she came over. “Mornin’. Didn’t expect to see you here so soon.” He didn’t have many friends so he treasured the few he had.

She nodded in return to the greeting and seemed to get straight on topic.

“I have been thinking a little. I think that for today, it’s better if you spend your time with Nolis and we train in the dome.” This sounded a lot like a command more than a request.

Though Gilliam didn’t really have a problem with her statement, he did wonder who Nolis was. “I’m fine with the two of your training for today, but who is Nolis?”

He did have plans already today, but she seemed to have some plans of her own.

She looked around the room and turned back after finding someone. She pointed to a table with two people at. One was Aeris, the young teleporter girl, the other was a white haired man who looked entirely mentally vacant as he had a plate before him with only meat, enough to feed three men which he was eating slowly but steadily.

“There, the white haired man, that’s Nolis.”

Gilliam raised an eyebrow. “And... I should spend time with him because...?”

The tone of the question was more hinting that he needed to know and was unsure about this man, than he was doubting her choices too hard.

“Nolis is the only darkness mage at the Academy, he’s also very knowledgeable about those kinds of spells.” She put heavy emphasis on the word ‘very’ and ‘those’, the latter hinting to something that Gilliam didn’t quite get.

However, that was not a bad idea. If he was willing to share knowledge it sounded like a very good idea. Gilliam had cast a single kind of darkness spell, and though it was super effective it did seem vastly different than the other elements. How Light, or healing, kind of only had one spell but was dependent on your knowledge of healing, he did wonder how Darkness was different as this was also one of the odd elements.

“Well, that sounds nice, I’m fine with that but I have something I need to do before that.” Gilliam stated honestly, he really did want to learn more about Darkness magic but he needed to find out what was going on with the young student that stabbed him.

“That’s fine, but go talk to him before breakfast is over, plan where to meet or something, he’s not often outside of the academy basement.”

Angela was halfway nudging him to go talk to him right away but stopped herself as she realised something.

“Oh, by the way, we’re going to need one of those insane mana crystals of yours, to power the dome.” She spoke with confidence and clear facts but her face seemed almost a bit guilty stating this.

Gilliam pondered her expression for only a moment, but given Ghaos’ reaction before and apparently how pure or powerful this thing was, it might be that they were just very expensive. No hassle for him to make but realistically speaking, if what the different teachers had told him was true, one of those large crystals might house more mana than the full Boundary of most mages.

“Yeah, no problem.” Opening his hand to an empty palm one of the gems suddenly and instantly appeared in his hand. He handed that over to Angela.

In addition to the caution she displayed when she received the crystal, she also had an almost flabbergasted look on her. Which could make sense for several reasons, she might never have held a gem as large as this before, but it might also be how nonchalant he handed over this potentially valuable object with. Perhaps he’ll try to sell them at some point, if he could make several of them easily enough, it could become a nice income if he needed the money.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, still looking a bit hesitant, as she got up from the table and motioned for Petal to follow her.

Since food was done they split the group up here and continued with their plans. Angela seemed very eager at this as they disappeared through the side door, Gilliam walked over to the table with his possible upcoming teacher.

“Excuse me-” He got their attention as he came within acceptable conversation distance.

Both of them looked at him, and though he gave a smile and a nod to the young Aeris he focused back on the man. Getting a better look on the young man, he looked like he was in his early twenties and was covered in scars, he was wearing a black robe and his pin had only the black triangle and had a golden disk.

“Angela said that you could teach me Darkness magic?”

The man looked back with glazed eyes hinting that he was either still sleeping or just not all there.

He slowly nodded as he took another bite of the pile of meat on his plate.

Aeris broke in. “Hold on, he’s like this every morning.” She had a smile to Gilliam but at the same time she had a fed-up tone to it.

Walking to Nolis’ side she straight up slapped him.

The light in his eyes returned and he seemed to be mentally present as he looked down on Aeris. “... Yes?”

He had a questioning tone and reacted much like someone would if you just poked their shoulder.

Aeris pointed at Gilliam, and as Nolis followed her finger he took a few long seconds to look him over.

“Ah, so you’re the fancymage. I see you have used darkness magic before, to considerable effect.” He had a weird smile grow on his lips as he noticed whatever he noticed.

“Y.. Yes... How could you tell?” Though he knew that some mages were super adept at sensing things, this was days ago in another world.

“Ah, that makes sense. Had you known what you actually did you would know.” He smiled in a weirdly sinister way.

Until Aeris slapped him again. “Stop scaring him.”

Nolis placed his hand on Aeris’ forehead and pushed her away until she was out of reach, before he sat back up in his chair.

She huffed about it but there was a slight smile on her lips.

“But yeah, I can teach you. Come down to the basement level four, just tell the guard that you’re there to see me and we’ll get started.”

Without waiting for any response his eyes glazed over and he seemed to mentally vacate again.

Gilliam was... confused, no idea how to handle this situation or this man. He looked at Aeris with a look asking for help.

She just shrugged. “He’s always like this in the mornings. He’ll be better when you see him later.” She sounded almost annoyed as she climbed up on her own chair. “Just let him eat for now.” Her smile grew more honest at this later sentence.

Gilliam nodded and thanked her, he felt that thanking Nolis would hit deaf ears anyway, so he just left to start his own plans, the first step was to find either Ghaos or Jial. Ghaos seemed to perhaps be the correct person to check with but Gilliam had no idea where to find him, so the reception was probably the best place to start.