The baron was less forgiving than Harlan. He nearly had Breken sent to jail for a month but Harlan managed to convince him to just give him a week.

For Harlan it was just another learning experience. For the baron it was a major breach in safety and etiquette since technically he was still supposed to act as Harlan’s ward until he left for the academy.

And Harlan really did learn quite a lot from it. Balor felt how healing worked, it was very precise compared to how he would flush poison by just flooding his body with light magic. And Harlan had spent time learning how Lugh moved, he couldn’t really understand it, it was shifting his soul into different shapes since the blade was now his body like how a human had a soul which determined how they were shaped. Harlan looked around the library and couldn’t find anything about shapeshifting in humans, but clearly it was possible since the beast races exist. He just hoped it wasn’t something locked only to gods.

And then more time passed, winter came and went, spring came and went. There was a few situations where people tried to enter his home in the woods only to end up buried alive. Once in winter a group of thieves nearly froze to death since Harlan was working inside and didn’t notice them until the morning. Leading to him setting up an alarm that would tell him when the trees captured people.

But for Harlan his favorite work in progress was transformation. He couldn’t do much, but he made a crow double in size after slowly making it bigger over the course of a month.. He could change something that was already there, but any attempts to add new features on an animal ledd to immediate death. He was glad that one of the wards was a cleaning ward, the gore never settled into the ground and instead seemed to very slightly float above the ground. Making an easy clean up with a little bit of blood magic. He always cleaned up those kinds of messes himself since he didn’t want Isha to get the wrong idea about him.

Everyone settled into the slice of the forest quite well, they didn’t know about the trees, instead Harlan had set up lamp posts that he pretended were the things actually acting as the defensive system burying people who weren’t supposed to be there. They were really only enchanted to make lights and answer simple questions, wrong answers to these questions lead to a burial. A courier had seen them once while delivering had brought back a request for a dozen of the posts. He had actually done quite a lot of work with the couriers. He had an understudy who was a river vampire, able to turn into mist. They took well to learning how to teach a spell to a soul enchanted item.

Harlan had received quite a lot of praise from the couriers for being willing to just give them the knowledge on how to do such a thing instead of hoarding the knowledge and forcing them to pay him for all of their enchanting needs.

Most of it was that Harlan really didn’t have that many spells he knew how to actually cast in a structured manner, leaving him unable to enchant many of the very strange and esoteric spells the couriers needed for their work. And learning them would cut into his own experiments. He couldn’t understand the use of a spell to make blood glow when exposed to colored light.

The 6th month of the year was starting in just one week, Amber would be back for the next month, Redmond would be there for a week, and the ball was going to be just a week before Amber and him had to go to the academy. Harlan decided to spend his time working on flashy magic to try to impress party goers.

His favorite trick was to enchant his jacket to let off a constant black smoke made from dark mana just with the destructive aspect removed. Balor and Isha said it was a bad idea, Lugh and Sara said it looked really cool.

Harlan was working on a necklace for Ava that produced a cold fire, removing destruction from darkness was far easier than making fire cold, darkness was a more general element, it did a lot of different things. But for fire heat and light were the 2 largest factors of it.

Stood behind a wall Harlan whistled, this was the signal telling the necklace to turn on.

He covered himself in a silent veil and waited. After 5 minutes he finally felt the shockwave go through the ground. Another failure, the 5th try, but he was getting closer he felt. Every one of them wouldn’t be able to let go of the heat, instead it just built up until it exploded. It was a neat trick, but it wasn’t something he wanted his sister to wear.

As he went over some notes and set off a new much larger necklace when the alarm went off, the trees had buried someone again.

Harlan walked up stairs to find out what idiot it was this time.

But then he heard a knock on the door.

Harlan had Lugh in hand and Balor was ready to release a blast of wind to force their opponent away from the house.

He opened the door and saw a man, maybe 30 years old with a strained look on his face.

“Can you please turn off whatever these defenses are… I am from the academy…”

Harlan grabbed a cable near the door that was connected to the roots underground and sent a signal to stop the attack. The man was panting but recovering quickly.

“What a strange system. I imagine most would be unable to hold off such a thing.”

“I would like to see some proof you are who you say before I invite you inside.”

The man held out his hand, a scroll with the symbol of the academy. An eye with spikes coming out of it like the sun. Balor instantly reacted to the magical paper, it burst into dust. And Balor knew somehow that it was real.

“He is who he claims to be.”

“Please, come inside then.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like some tea? Wine perhaps?” Harlan didn’t drink but it was customary for a noble at have a few bottles lying around just in case.

“Just tea is fine.”

“Green or black?” Harlan had found out about how many different kinds of tea there were and decided to make a small garden to grow the teas and some other herbs which could be added to them.

“Black please.”

Harlan whistled a short tune and water was automatically drawn and placed in a kettle, the small hotplate he kept on his counter heated up and then shut off when water boiled. A golem walked out of its indent in the wall and poured two cups of hot water and brought a box of tea supplies.

“Well, that is impressive. I take it you have spent quite a lot of time to prepare such an event for whoever comes around.”

“Nope. I just don’t want to bother anyone when I want a glass of tea in the middle of the night.”

The man clearly didn’t believe him.

“Well, I did not come here to speak about your home. I came because you are a very unique student, and we at the grand golden academy would like to ensure you have the best possible learning experience. I am here to ask you questions about which classes would best suit you, as well as bring a message from the headmaster. Which would you like to hear first?”

“The message.”

“Of course.”

He pulled a letter from his bag, and then he unfolded it and it spoke in a voice unlike his own. Harlan was very impressed at what others could do using souls, he would’ve never thought it possible to put something like sound magic spells into paper, more advanced spells normally caused the bursting of weak materials.

“I am Headmaster Hirum Selvis. I have looked over your file and I believe you have committed a grave sin against my principles. You have talent which you are squandering by impulsive choices. I don’t want to force you down any path but your own. I simply wish that you would think through these choices and focus yourself onto what you wish to do, you may switch classes until your 3rd year at which point the work which would be required to catch up to students who have already been in those classes for the last 2 years is simply so insurmountable that you would never catch up before the next set of classes started. Think on my words, what do you want to be in this world? A builder? I have seen your works and they need refinement but at a good base. A soldier? You could form an army of those same golems, or the undead. A farmer? You taught yourself how to grow plants on your own, a greater feat than you know. And even, dare I say it. An adventurer. I see you qualified but yet did only a single quest. You impulsively joined them and did nothing with it, once again I must stress that you have talent but you need to focus on what you wish your path to be.”

Power in the scroll finally faded and it returned to a simple piece of paper. The messenger then burned it to dust with a heatless fire, sealed the dust into a bottle and placed it back into his spatial bag.

“That seemed… Overly dramatic.”

“Basic anti-divination procedure. There has never been a case of a headmasters mana trace being used for ill, but we do not take such chances. Magic is always changing after all. Do you have any other questions.” with perfect timing a rumble came from the floor below them.

“How do you stop cold fire from building up heat? I am making a necklace for my sister. That rumble was a failed experiment.”

“How long have you been trying? and what have you been doing?”

“Well, I started the tests about 3 hours ago. And I made a small structured spell to remove the heat from the fire.”

“Please, cast the spell.”

Harlan did as asked, shifting the mana, making some of the particles of mana change size and shape to fit the runes Harlan formed in his mind and projected into the air.

“I see the problem. You don’t understand how magic really works, do you? You cannot just remove heat, mana does not change, what you did was simply trap it. You need a spell of fire to make your desired visual effect, then a bit of water to cool the stored heat and prevent an explosion. Magic is 2 sides of a coin, if you wish to offset an aspect of magic you need to take the opposite aspect from another form of mana. You can make hard air, and you can make soft stone, you can also make hard light and dark, taking physicality from earth magic. Though those are fairly advanced, light and dark are fickle and dislike mixing with other mana.”

“Oh, oh… OOOH. That changes a lot.”

“I am shocked this was not explained to you already. Though I suppose in your golden cage they had you working on many more esoteric arts and skimped on details as they tossed you back to the world.”

Balor fed a statement to Harlan, for all they knew this was some kind of test of loyalty or bitterness towards the crown.

“I learned quite a lot during my time working alongside the crown, it only seems sensible that I have missed out on smaller details.”

“Hmm. Right. Well then let’s get to class selection. Here is a list of classes, and side classes for the first year.”

“What is a side class?”

“Smaller subjects that do not have enough to fill out a full curriculum. These take place during what we would call your free periods, the time which you would be free to spend however you please.”

Harlan looked over the stack of papers in front of him, chatting his brothers and with the messenger when needed.

“Fae law?”

“Helping to understand all known rules and regulations from fae. They are strange and seemly mad, but their rules and laws are consistent. The kingdom has dozens of fae lawyers to trade with them for things, either seemingly impossible items or to simply get them to leave an area free from their influence.”

“What about healing? You could use such magics, considering how often you have been harmed. You are sturdy but anything that can really hurt you can leave you in such a state that even if you win you may die. And you don’t want to just spend your live building and killing… Do you?”

“I am undecided. But it would be nice to not have to rely on other healers.”

“How many classes can I pick?”

“While there is technically no limit, it is normal for a student to only pick 3 classes, and 2 side classes, though you don’t sleep if our information is correct. So picking 4 classes, and then 4 side classes, since we do have some which happen at night for our… Nocturnal students.”

“Vampires?”

“Officially the academy does not allow any undead, or false undead students due to the risk which is involved with them.”

“Sure.”

Harlan sat and looked at the classes for another hour, asking questions here and there.

“Alright. I want advanced elements, healing, warmagic, and spell crafting. For side classes I want magical creatures, divinations, telekinesis, flight, and soul magic.”

“Are you quite sure you wish to take 5 side classes? You won’t have much time for socializing if you take up too much of it working. Just being alive is not living, that is a principle mages should remember. You will also have your mandatory classes throughout the 5 years you are expected to be there.”

“Yes, I am absolutely sure. The divinations and soul magic are night classes, the others are things I think I am going to need for what I want to do. I think I will have time to socialize just fine.”

“Very well. I will mark your papers and bring them back with me. But before I leave there is one more thing I need to tell you. You must watch out for Reinoian students. Your works are known, and you have many enemies. The chances of them being able to actually harm you in the school is nearly 0, but it is not 0. Do not rise up to pointless challenges. Find a teacher or a guard if you have an issue with another student.”

“Sure. I will do that.”

No one was fooled by his words. But no one felt like arguing.

Harlan spent the next 4 days working on various little pieces of elemental jewelry. He was especially proud of a bracelet that had lightning surge between the links, every other advanced elemental piece was too unstable to wear safely. And even with his own mimic trees it was starting to burn a hole in his wallet. The simple metal pieces he was working with were worth less than cost of gems and sedatives for the trees.