As it turned out, Maggy’s explanation didn’t shed any real light on the matter of levels, if anything, it made the entire thing even more convoluted and incomprehensible. Mainly because there didn’t seem to be any connection between the things she received EXP for, mainly centred around organisation and information, and the things I received EXP for. The only similarity between my teaching and the things she described was that a certain level of information exchange was involved but if that was all that was needed to generate EXP, almost anything should do so. However, it was only these two fairly specific activities that generated EXP, making me wonder if other people had their own specific ways of generating EXP outside of combat. And, if they did, how these ways were decided or where they came from?

For me and the teaching of magic, I could make a case for it being caused by Lady Hecate who might want to spread arcane magic as fast and far as possible, maybe to limit the influence divine magic would have in the long term. After all, if the divine didn’t have a monopoly on magical gifts, especially when it came to healing, their influence would be limited. Sure, I had a feeling that even without the monopoly, divine healing would spread further than arcane or alchemical healing, simply because it was a lot easier, both when it came to using it but also in regards to learning it in the first place. You just needed to be consecrated to the right deity and use the correct macro, the rest was all done by the deity in question, at least according to the things I had heard from Olivia, back on Mundus. I doubted the gods would change anything about that particular system, as it worked quite well.

But why would any of the gods deign to reward Maggy, and apparently only Maggy, for her efforts in organising her community? Why would any of the gods have rewarded her for acting as an information broker, and possibly a thief, on Mundus? Sure, there might have been a few quests involved from what I could tell about her adventures on Munuds, but where the majority of her EXP came from, I had no idea. It didn’t make all that much sense when judged by my current knowledge, meaning there had to be some other mechanism involved, something I had yet to learn about.

Yet another topic to be put on the ever-growing pile of things to research and investigate, not like that pile was ever going to shrink, given that I wasn’t even cognisant of the things I didn’t know. There was simply too much to learn out there for a lifetime to be sufficient to make a dent in it all, though maybe, given the draconic traits I was accumulating and the lore behind dragons, my lifetime might just be sufficient. Or it might not, who knew which of the old myths and tales turned out to be true, the elves of Mundus certainly didn’t have an innately long lifespan, they had a long lifespan thanks to their connection to their forest - Until I managed to have winter claim it all, that is. They cut short the life of my beloved, I cut short the lives of all their beloved. If they could, they might be able to reclaim that lost life, just like I had to quest and strove to reclaim my lost love. Some would call it Justice, others likely something else. No matter what, it was in my past and I had other things to work towards.

Sadly, my musings, and the remaining discussion with Maggy, were cut short when Jeremiah, one of the other students approached us, looking quite distraught.

“Maggy, do you know where Liam and Sandy are?” he asked, making me recall the apprehension I had felt just earlier, that premonition that these two kids would find a way to roam around the countryside and get into trouble. Immediately, I drew upon the magic of my tower, quickly checking if they were anywhere in the vicinity, the area I had worked over still saturated with enough of my magic to respond to my demand.

“No, I thought they were working with Jamie,” Maggy replied, while my mind was racing across the area and through the tower, checking one person after the other, only to come up short a few people. Namely, Liam, Sandy and, to my swiftly growing horror, Luna.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“They are not,” I spoke up, causing both of them to frown as I continued speaking, “I just checked, the tower and the quarry around it are saturated with enough of my power to let me do a few fairly unusual things. Like find out who is present and who is absent, unless somebody is using a fairly advanced concealment technique. Lia might be able to hide from that detection and you, too, Maggy. But I doubt that Liam and Sandy have learned how to hide from me within my domain,” I explained, receiving nods of acceptance even if I doubted that they truly understood what I was talking about.

“Do you know where they are?” Maggy asked, though her voice didn’t betray much hope, maybe because my tone had been slightly grim.

“No, I do not. But given that Luna is absent, too, I’d be willing to help you search,” I admitted, trying to figure out the best way to find them. Well, to find Luna, as that was my priority and the easiest way to accomplish that was fairly simple. It was to ask Silva for help, her canine nose, in addition to her protective instinct in regards to Luna, were off the charts, making her incredibly adept at finding her.

“Let’s go then;” Maggy stood, as did I. “Jerry, can you check what Jamie is doing, just in case there’s something else going on?”

I didn’t tell her that Jamie wasn’t doing much of anything, though you could say she was being done. Thanks to using the magic infused in the area to survey, I had learned a lot more about the relationship between Jamie and Murray than I ever wanted to know, maybe more than anyone not involved should know. Eh, if the pair was caught by Jeremiah, it wouldn’t be my problem, unless they decided to ask me about her location.

After a quick whistle, Silva came bounding down the stairs, looking somewhat concerned. When I explained to her that Luna wasn’t in the tower and might have done something ill-advised, she happily put her nose down and swiftly moved, sniffing the ground to pick up the right scent.

Sadly, despite Silva’s incredible nose, I could already tell it wouldn’t be an easy task, mainly because Luna’s scent was all around the place thanks to our fairly frequent wanderings. Which track was the correct one would likely be hard to tell, so Silva had to sniff around a lot, while I had to deal with the sunlight streaming down from above. It was an annoyance, though I began to notice that I was a lot less vulnerable to it than I had been. Now, I could simply use my magic to protect myself without the risk of running dry within minutes, I didn’t even need to conjure a physical shield, a simple, somewhat concealed barrier of Darkness Magic was sufficient. For a moment, I even wondered if I might be able to pick up a bit of Light Magic, it would allow me to delve deeper into my understanding of magic in general and maybe even unlock a few additional elements, though I would have to see later.

For now, I had to focus on the environment around me and on Silva, to make sure that nothing was sneaking up on us while we were following Luna’s trail, hopefully letting us find Liam and Sandy, too.

Finally, after a few far too long minutes of searching, Silva let out a soft, somewhat familiar growl, telling me that she had found what we were looking for. Moments later, she started moving down a slightly trodden path, making it obvious that this was a route somebody had been following repeatedly, a realisation that gave me a great deal of relief. If Luna, or somebody, was coming here habitually, I doubted she was in some sort of grave danger, though having two kids with her might change that.

So, forward, we went, following the path to wherever it might lead. Not that we had to go all that far, the path soon turned upwards, into the mountains and around the quarry we had made our home in. A few minutes later, I could hear some movement up ahead, the rustling of cloth from a person but little else. Then, as we hurried up even more, the three of us came into an open area, where Luna was currently crouched before a small sapling, her magic streaming out of her as she was doing something. What, I had no idea but, to my alarm, neither of the two missing children were with my experimenting daughter.

We might have harried after the wrong trail.