The dining hall was now filled with fifty Magic Academy students, previous prisoners of war turned to the human side and the senior inscriptionists.

Considering the fact that they were in a Grand Mage's Private Sanctum, many of the students were elated with themselves. The culmination of their abilities had all been to garner a response from a Grand Mage and curry his favor.

Willem sat at the head of the table as Kinsey, Anna and Arania all prepared to serve the food to the guests. Kinsey and Anna had received a large red belly pig to roast from Willem, and Kinsey decided to make a brisket for Willem especially. The rest of the pig was for the others, and Anna made a pork sirloin broth from the main body of the pig.

The extra parts that did not go into the broth were eaten by the growing White Tiger Cub.

In order to even out the all meat broth, a side of potatoes and green vegetables were placed together.

Some of the students, while waiting, recognized Anna as the young girl who would often spend a lot of time in the library. Other students were focused on the natural beauty of Kinsey and Arania, with the notion of look but do not touch.

When the food arrived in front of Willem and all his guests, everyone present waited for Willem to take the first bite.

Willem gently bit into the roasted pork brisket, and a small trickle of oil and fat slipped down his lips. The students turned away when they saw the sight, and began to eat the broth in front of them.

Anna placed a small silk cloth at Willem's side for him to wipe his face with, which he did after properly chewing his food. The difference in taste compared to usual had left him absent-minded, while in his mind he was comparing the past meals.

After an hour, the food was taken away by Willem's servants and everyone but the fifty Magic Academy students left their seats and returned to their rooms.

"Soon it will be time for us to leave, so you should be mentally prepared. From now on, there will be no extravagant meals or protection from monsters. I will be transporting you to the Army Training Grounds, where you will be watching my other fifty soldiers formation and participating in combat drills."

The students stared down at the table, seemingly unable to raise their heads. Each of them had the idea that this was their last meal of sorts.

"Some of you will be supporting my soldiers, and you will understand why soon enough. Those of you that practice offensive magic will be a part of the offensive squad. When you join this squad, you will understand exactly what you are expected to do." After practicing what he would say, he finally delivered his talk unerringly and gathered the students together.

As the students held hands, Willem moved them through the shadows of the world. Remembering what they had been told on the way, each student closed their eyes as they were relocated.

Only Willem, remaining steadfast and defensive, moved elegantly through the void while avoiding the creatures inside it. Luckily, the removal of the weaker wraiths proved useful as there were no casualties despite the roundabout method of arrival.

When they arrived at the Army Training Grounds, the students let out a sigh of relief. As they were drifting through the void, they could not open their eyes for fear of the consequences, but being naturally curious mages made them want to open their eyes despite guessing what would happen. The ambiguous noises and weird smells made it that much harder to resist their natural curiosity, any longer and they would have definitely opened their eyes.

Again, for the third time, the weapons that Willem bestowed upon his soldiers began to resonate in synchronization. Excitedly, the soldiers broke formation and ran as fast as they could towards Willem, as if they were compelled to.

Fifty one soldiers arrived at nearly the same time, with only five soldiers arriving ahead of everyone else by a few seconds. These five were obviously Sir Gehrig, Sir Kris, Sir Rowan, and the apprentice Knights Eli and Mark.

The students stood amazed at the quick gathering speed of the soldiers. The velocity that they moved in their armor was remarkably similar to the movement one would accomplish when weaving magic into their leg muscles.

With everyone gathered, Sir Gehrig snapped his fingers and the offensive and defensive formations were set before Willem. Again the students expressed their admiration for how quickly the formations were achieved.

"Soldiers, rejoice, I have brought your comrades. Those with support magic will go with the defensive team, and those with attack magic will go with the offensive team." Willem clapped his hands once while the students quickly rushed into their expected positions.

When choosing who would join the magic division of his squad in the auditorium, Willem paid heed to how many classified themselves as offensive or support magic for the express purpose of separating them for the upcoming battles.

Now, the two teams had the exact same amount of people for each team, split fifty and fifty. Sir Kris stood with Mark at the front of the defensive formation, while Sir Rowan and Eli stood at the front of the offensive.

"I am telling you now, before the magical beings have a chance to deal with the traitors or change their plans, we will launch an offensive to destroy them. This is a surprise attack, so our formation has to be perfect to ensure they cannot recover. You only have two days to acquaint yourself with the formation. However I have complete faith in you." Willem nodded his head in satisfaction.

The steeled faces of the soldiers and students gave them an aura of being ready to take the fight to the enemy at any time.

"Sir Gehrig, compile a list of their families name and addresses for me, I will return later to retrieve it." Willem whispered to Sir Gehrig while patting him on the shoulder.

"As you command, Sir!" Sir Gehrig saluted as Willem melded into the shade of a nearby tree.

"To the new magical soldiers, line up in order, one at a time, and approach me!" Sir Gehrig ordered. The shine of his armor glowed magically as an oppressive gaze washed over the soldiers.

One by one, the students sheepishly walked up to the Knight Captain, wrote something on a piece of parchment and hustled back to formation. Many of the other soldiers were curious as to what was going on, but dared not speak out of line.

After the last student wrote down his family name and address, the parchment was dried and folded into the pocket of the Knight Captain's gambeson.

"Now, you may go practice your formations with your new brethren! Dismissed!" Sir Gehrig saluted Sir Kris and Sir Rowan before heading to his Private Quarters.

When Sir Gehrig left, the tension of the soldiers naturally eased up. Besides the natural difference between the Knight Captain of an army and a Magic Academy student, the aura from his armor made it hard for him to even be looked at. Compared to the active effects of the weapons and armor of the other soldiers, Sir Gehrig's intimidating aura was passive and had no activation words. This allowed him to focus solely on commanding his troops or fighting his enemies without fearing distractions.

Sir Rowan led the offensive combat unit to the training dummies, and the students quickly learned that in order to keep up with the other soldiers, they needed to spread their magical force through their bodies to match their allies just in speed. The students watched as the soldiers dived between each other while striking out in a confusing and sporadic manner, like many dancing bees in concert. The more they watched, the harder it became to differentiate one from another. The strikes, while seeming sporadic and disorganized, always struck the training dummies with glaring accuracy and maximum force to deal a lethal blow. If the training dummies were not reinforced with magic, they would have wilted from the first set of blows. The magic soldiers, when they understood what was happening, joined the formation and began to weave spells with the melee attacks of their allies.

Meanwhile, the defensive formation led by Sir Kris and Mark were practicing the shifting defensive tactics that they were now well known for. In all the practice skirmishes with the offensive formation, the defensive team had never been beaten or their formation broken. They had never won either though, as their distinct problem was being unable to deal a decisive blow to the opponent. However that was not their job, and they displayed their capabilities to the new magic soldiers. As the magic soldiers joined the formation, it expanded and retracted like a large heavily breathing beast. The formation shifted from a phalanx formation into a tortoise formation, protecting the overhead from ranged attack. The mages weaved their own defensive spells, increasing the movement of the soldiers while strengthening the small blind spots of the formation change. With the involvement of the mages, the formation had become near impenetrable. Foreseeably, the only way the enemy could break this shifting formation would be if they had superior firepower to break it apart, or they had a means to exhaust the new magical soldiers of their magical power.

Deep in the woods outside the Army Training Grounds.

In anticipation of the newly arriving guests for his Private Sanctum, Willem decided to hunt large game to provide an ample amount of meat to Kinsey and Anna.

As he moved through the forest, he would come across some beasts, but they were not worthy of his attention. Some were even smart enough to retract their threatening gaze and scamper away when they felt how powerful he was.

After doing some travelling deep into the forest, he came across a silver back Caribou pack. This offshoot of the typical Caribou gained magical perception from feeding off magically infused lichen within the forest during their winter migration, changing their manes to reflect their new abilities. Though the strength of a silver back Caribou does not change much from it's predecessor, the enhanced magical perception alerts it to enemy movement far beyond the capabilities of others of the same species.

From Willem's point of view, the silver back Caribou was worthy of at least a tenth of his strength.

Before deciding what he wanted to do, a silver back Caribou fledgling had wandered away from the pack and into the direction of Willem. Alerted to Willem's presence, the Caribou infant called out to warn it's pack of impending danger.

The large elders of the pack called out loudly and the pack scattered in many different directions. Willem decided to go for the large elders, as they would have the most meat to contribute to his cause.

"Thank you for giving your life to sustain my kind." Willem said a quick prayer to the elder Caribou he had cornered as he blocked off it's only means of escape. With nowhere to turn, the Caribou readied itself to charge at Willem in hopes of overrunning him. Willem baited the charge and pulled a large blue sword out of his spatial spell. The sword glowed magically as it sliced deeply into the throat of the Caribou trying to charge through Willem. The Caribou made it a few extra feet before it's legs gave way from the excessive loss of blood. Willem stood beside it and, sensing the Caribou in pain, quickly ended the creatures suffering.

As the light faded from the Caribou's eyes, Willem placed the body into his spatial spell and readied himself to hunt another.

Before he could go, however, the young Caribou that initially warned the others to his presence had appeared behind him and charged Willem with the intention to headbutt him. Willem received the gentle headbutt with no perceivable damage to himself, and the young Caribou called out as it laid down beside the blood stains of the elder Caribou while sniffing around. Willem watched it with a measure of sincerity and confusion. In the moments before it charged, he did not even notice it sneak up on him.

How curious...

With the information Willem had about Caribou habits from the book of -Migration and Habits of Large Game-, he knew that this was most likely the mother of the child. If the mother is dead, the Caribou will not be 'adopted' by another, and will eventually die.

Give and take, that is the way of this land.

Willem covered his hands in the blood of the mother and approached the Caribou. Though the Caribou was young, it was not naive, and scraped at the ground with it's hooves, wanting to be left in peace. Willem grabbed some nearby moss and again approached the Caribou to feed it. The familiar scent of it's mother made the Caribou reluctantly grab the moss and chew.

After Willem thought it was calm enough, he teleported with it back to the Private Sanctum, and made a room filled with the flora of the forest it had just inhabited. The Caribou was surprised with the amount of food that surrounded it, but was also very wary of this new forest it was in.

Willem left it alone and returned to his hunting grounds.