Bumping into Katka had made Dallion lose his appetite to the point that even Ruby wasn’t able to snap him out of it. The shardfly was initially pleased with the brief journey outside of the room, though seeing Dallion’s state had gone back to being moody as before.

From a logical perspective, Dallion was supposed to be pleased. It wasn’t like he had come across Alien. Considering how much the man despised him, that would have been more than a little awkward. Yet coming across anyone from the otherworlder faction was a stark reminder of how much influence they held within the Academy. Gassil had been the weakest of them and even he had reached the position of Archmage assistant years ago. Everyone else was at least at Katka’s level. So far, Dallion had met two of them, and one was the equivalent of a dean. So much for hoping that he’d find peace at the Academy. He had only himself to blame, though. He’d gone to the Academy not because he was running towards something, but running from Countess Priscord. As it turned out, the whole world was full of assholes. They just tended to hide low the first few months.

“I’m fine, Ruby,” Dallion lied, forcing himself to take another bite of his food. “Did you like the trip outside?”

The shardfly flicked its wings.

“How about you join me from now on?”

Nil had warned that bringing familiars along could be risky, but Dallion had grown confident enough to be sure he could protect the small creature should the need arise.

Cool. Ruby gave his usual one-word answers.

“That’s what we’ll do, then.” And indeed, they did.

The following morning, Dallion went to class with the ruby shardfly on his shoulder. The event quickly brought a crowd, flooding Ruby with attention. All the girls found him adorable, and the boys were envious they didn’t have something similar.

Dallion was tempted to have Ruby “accidentally” injure Phoil, but decided against it. Other than his constant boasting, Phoil hadn’t done anything particularly irritating. If anything, Cheska was slowly transforming into the bully of the class. She didn’t do it openly, though it was made quite clear that if someone wasn’t already in her circle, it was better not to try to get in. The constant talk of what a prodigy she was had clearly gone to her head. Thankfully, she knew where the line was and always made sure not to cross it.

Interestingly enough, there was no sign of the black-haired. Apparently, he had been granted permission not to attend class. Considering what Dallion had to go through to get his own free movement pass, that was beyond impressive.

Class continued with the standard symbol drawing. At this point, everyone had caught on that the best way of training was to do so in their awakening realms. Dallion was pretty sure that his realm was the most developed of all, though most of the rest had their echoes to instruct them.

Every second, a student would flip over the page, having learned the symbol there. As the contents of one booklet were learned, a new one would be given, substantially increasing the difficulty. At that point, the children would slow down.

Cheska was already on her fifth book and—judging by the frustration emanating from her—had reached her limit. Dallion himself was doing alright with the third booklet. The symbols there were more complex than anything he had learned, though thanks to the method Harp had taught him, creating them was on the whole easier than before.

“Want some sparkle in your wings, Ruby?” Dallion asked as the shardfly was moving about on his desk.

A double flick of the wings indicated that the insect was willing to go through the experiment.

With a smile, Dallion drew the symbol of light on each of his wings. Within moments, Ruby was shining as bright as a light crystal. The only issue was that the color was incandescent white.

“Showing off, Dal?” The fury instructor went to his desk. “Would have been more impressive if you knew the symbol for color.” Using an air current, he erased each of the symbols, returning Ruby to his former state.

“Will I find them in the new booklet, sir?” Dallion asked.

“No. It’ll be a while before you get there. Cheska’s the only one close to learning that.”

Instantly, all eyes focused on the girl. The room resonated with envy, only disrupted by the feeling of overconfident pride coming from Cheska herself.

“I’ve noticed, however, that you’ve increased your magic level,” the instructor continued. “Care to share your secret?”

“Oh, it just naturally came to me,” Dallion replied.

“Really?” Palag narrows his eyes. “How fortunate for you. However, not so fortunate for most of the rest,” the fury addressed the rest of the class. “All of you have either reached level five or are close. In order to reach rank three, you’ll need a magic of at least ten. Those that aren’t will have to remain a rank two novice until they do.”

It was clear that the conversation was meant to scare the children enough to push them out of their comfort zone. Thanks to his music skills, Dallion could tell that for the most part, it was working. He also knew that now was the time for the interesting part to come. This had become the pattern of Academy teaching: a problem was presented shortly after a solution was provided. So far, the fury had presented the problem. Now it was time for him to share the means to overcome it.

“Starting next week, you’ll be having magic trials. Think of it as a miniature version of an awakening trial. You’ll be taken to a special room in the Learning Hall and given a single task: obtain the magic core there. What the task will be, that depends entirely on chance. It might be a magic maze or a fight against a magical creature. The goal, though, will always remain the same.”

“When can we take the trials?” Cheska immediately asked.

“Anytime you wish.”

The girl stood up from her seat.

“Starting next week,” Palag added. “Just keep in mind that, unlike awakening trials, these won’t consider your current skills. If you don’t have what it takes to complete the trial, you’ll fail.”

Whispers filled the room. The fury was likely hoping for this, for otherwise he’d have imposed silence as was his practice in the past.

“One more small detail. If you fail a trial, you won’t be allowed to try again for a week. If you fail three times in succession, you’ll have to wait a month for another chance. Keep that in mind.”

You could have told me about this, Nil, Dallion thought. Would have saved me all that sewer stench.

I’d love to have done so, dear boy. However, back when I was at the Academy, such a practice didn’t exist. The only way to increase one’s magic was through aetherizers, duels, and vortexes.

That must have taken ages.

The process was a bit longer, but we could be assured that only people who knew several hundred symbols and lots of spells got to become an apprentice.

That made sense in a depressing sort of way. Having apprentices who knew all the basics could focus more on assisting their mages and less on learning.

Once the hushed discussions were over, everyone returned to learning symbols. Dallion too pushed himself a bit harder than he was supposed to, completing an entire booklet by lunch. That increased the total number of symbols he knew to over sixty. He was tempted to go on further, but Nil and the rest of his echoes persuaded him to take a break. Reluctantly, Dallion agreed, though only until after lunch. Back in his room, he spent several hours enchanting the plate from the apprentice’s dining room. The effort rewarded him with reaching the cap on his spellcraft skill. It also gave Dallion an interesting idea. Since he had learned that magic could be bottled, it was possible—even likely—that it could be combined with other skills.

A new phase of experimentation began. Remembering all the games and animes on magic he’d watched back on Earth, Dallion’s first goal was to create paper charms by combining spellcraft and scholar skills. Thanks to everything he had learned from Harp, that actually worked and was considerably easier than making potions.

The greatest difficulty was the activation mechanism. Drawing a symbol on paper tended to immediately trigger its effects. However, if the symbol wasn’t complete, no magic would occur. The solution was to create the symbol within the ink as it was applied on paper, effectively imprisoning it. All that it took to release the spell was to tear or otherwise destroy the paper. That significantly limited the practicality of using charms, though it did earn Dallion the achievement Paper Mage, increasing his reaction trait by two points.

Pumped up by his success, Dallion tried combining spellcraft with music, a thought that proved even more difficult than creating potions. The effort was appreciated both by Nil and Harp, but both agreed that maybe Dallion had to master potion-making, before adding magic to songs.

Attempts at combining spellcraft with a few other skills similarly resulted in failure, with one notable exception: attacks. After focusing on it for hours both in his realm and in the real world, Dallion was able to release enough magic through his harpsisword, using it as a conduit, to draw a symbol with the tip of the blade. It was a slow, laboriously intensive process, but it proved to be possible. Once Dallion got the hang of it, he’d be able to carve magic symbols into his enemies; which could prove vital when fighting invulnerable opponents. Also, there was the Magic Swordsman achievement, increasing his body trait by another two.

Exhausted, Dallion took some rest, both in his realm and in the real world. Then, the following day, the cycle continued. There was a new set of symbols to be learned, followed by another search for vortexes.

Nil insisted that the sewers had to be checked again, in case something had accumulated since the last visit. Dallion had outright refused. He was just considering dropping by the potion lab to check if there were any further shardfly problems when, unexpectedly, he stumbled upon a fairly familiar face.

“Heya.” He waved, seeing the young dwarf he’d met in the second-hand magic shop.

“’ey,” the dwarf replied, not in the least enthusiastic about the meeting. She was carrying a large wooden bucket full of iron ingots, treating them with such disgust one might consider them garbage.

“Need any help with that?”

“Sure.”

The dwarf quickly handed him the bucket. It turned out a lot lighter than Dallion expected. Without a word, she then turned, heading in the direction of her father’s store. Amused by her rebellious teenage mentality, Dallion followed.

“What are you forging?” he asked, in an attempt to make conversation.

“Me? Nothing. Dad wants this to patch up the floor.” She sighed deeply.

“You sure? It’s high-quality stuff. I can make lots of things using it.”

“O’? Then you can pay off your debt?” The casual way in which the dwarf addressed it, suggested that it was a frequent topic of conversation.

Right, Dallion thought. He had forgotten about that, mostly because the store owner was a friend of Adzorg, and a lot nicer than the general in Nerosal. Ironically, that only proved the general’s point: if someone wasn’t a cheating asshole, they were a lot more likely to get ignored.

“Sure, no worries,” Dallion replied. “I’ll make a sword or two.”

Arriving at the shop, though, made him reconsider. Forging items was not an issue for someone who could shape metal like clay. Rather, there was a very different task that the older dwarf was in need of, and Dallion wasn’t in a position to refuse.