It felt good to Salt to finally get one over on the literal hordes of weaklings and not so weaklings coming to enslave him every day. He imagined the future third year for him, little running and more learning. Creating actual magical equipment instead of temporary shambling messes made with spit, prayer and knowledge from who knows where. Of not holding 50% of his mana well back during research in case someone attacked him. Well let's not go crazy, that was something he learned by almost dying, that rule stayed, maybe toned down to 40% but it stayed there. As it was coming up on second bell, he felt hunger set in, and though the risks were not inconsiderable Salt decided to simply take the straight road there.

Ok, maybe in plain sight was a bit brash Salt thought as he dusted himself of, of the ash that was all that was left of two cocksure men thinking to score an easy bounty. Couching quietly to himself Salt restarted on the road to the Cafeteria, but this time the others on the throughfare left him some space. Walking on Salt thanked himself for having a wide spell repertoire, at least wide enough not to need blood cleaning spells all the time. And at least he had reached for an evocation spell when attacked this time, progress Salt thought to himself as he recreated the illusion clone of himself 2 meters forward and one to the right. As he slipped into magical invisibility he felt better, the whole way to the Cafeteria.

Going through to the inner seats Salt settled down at a table detaching the scrolls tome from his staff and taking his tome mastery tome from his robes, Salt settled down to go over what the tomes had to teach. The way he used scrolls came first; he used them as an aid to his own spellcasting. Never in the many scrimmages over the last day and a half had he truly expended a scroll, that is to say let the magic of the scroll itself cast itself thereby rendering it useless. This was prudent to do if the scrolls were hard to get or expensive, but he could make a scroll in the time it took to eat a meal. And the only resource he had not had to make new scrolls in great quantities, was the magical metal border needed for the scroll not to fade trough mana saturation or time. And with the demonic brass he just traded for, well he had enough for a year's supply if he kept it at 3-cirkle scrolls. So, use the scrolls that’s why they are there, each arcane servant should have multiple other scrolls on them including a scroll of arcane servant.

Now tome mastery, Salt looked up if the time aspected pages was giving him anything. Well, there were some secrets written but not something he could use, not anything big or interesting. The most interesting thing about this was that it sort of worked, and that more of the pages had become time and comprehension aspected. The way he used the tome in battle was as an extra set of eyes and a casting medium for his conjuration scrolls, the truth was he really did not know how to use this powerful weapon and tool. So, more reading on tomes and maybe some book-mancer classes if he could find them or afford them. Bookmancers made massive amounts of wealth, but also used massive amounts of it.

After a rousing breakfast/lunch and some vigorous after-action analyses, Salt could not stall any more. Getting up he proceeded to go see what had happened to his room. When he got to the dorms there were way too many shady characters hanging around so taking a lower road and setting out for a servant staircase at a brisk pace, he placed a glimmer line spell scroll between two walls hastily shrouded them took some steps down and set another glimmer line spell scroll between two walls not shrouding them this time. Salt waited, hearing the running shoes the jockeying and the sudden stop as they saw the second glimmer line scroll. Salt activated the first glimmer to trap and started walking and channelling lightning with one hand and healing with the other. Somone had clearly not seen the glimmer line scroll for a face appeared fast as Salt began walking up. Leaving the first man smoking with a healing spell localised to his heart Salt continued walking and casting in front of himself. Only one of his stair friends put up an adequate shield, thankfully she was a second-year student so he could simply punch trough her shield with a strong acidic attack. The screaming and the smell he could do little about without blocking out an avenue for his foes to attack him. Detaching his scrolls and having his servant loot bodies unconscious or otherwise, Salt gingerly walked up the stairs he had ran down not a couple minutes ago.

Welp that was anticlimactic, the portal door would not open into his coterie's corridor. Standing there looking at the doors to the dorms, he was treated it seemed by the magic as an unwelcome upperclassman. How could he know what to do when you do something no one does, quite frankly he did not plan for this because he expected to be dead by now. Evan franker he thought no one expected him to be alive or at least enslaved. So, in desperate need of help and wisdom he went to a place all wayward souls could find it, the school guidance counsellor.

And what a place it was thought Salt as he searched around for somewhere to enter inside the keep like structure, surrounded by a moat, bristling with anti-flyer warding and other less nice wards. Salt would have been at a loss if it was not for his own student guidebook from his first year. That monster of a book was almost 2000 pages long and as useful as sticks on a snowman. The book being a necessity for Nersinia to give you a pass on its proctore mission, was simply copied over every time there was a change. The subsequent sentence explaining the change would simply be inserted into wherever the proctore found a break in a line. Since all the information was there technically no flaw was introduced, and so no harm to students learning. All rules from as far back as the beginning was in that book, some contradictory and some insane beyond belief. No student where allowed robes of living meat without an oath of allegiances to Nersinia, and no its not what you think the robes of meat is what has to be the one to give the oath. No student may worship a God, but prayer is totally fine even encouraged.

Buried deep inside (and printed clearly in his own) the copy of the student guidebook, was what to do in the event of irradiating one's own room. And other less fun ways of becoming room less when a student. When looking it up in the student guidebook one was directed to the Bursars office. Having had to look up many parts of school lore and ephemera, Salt had found quite compelling evidence that all students sent to the bursary was never heard from again. Though it was not ideal he had at least found supporting evidence for SOME of the students sent to the guidance councillor surviving. And any way the book clearly stated if students who cannot find or operate their room may find help with the guidance chancellor. It was not ideal, but he was in the clear as far as school rules were concerned, and in Nersinia those were the rules that mattered. The trick to entering a warded place is finding where the one who warded are going to come in from. Unfortunately, it seemed this warder entered from the water rather than an easier path for Salt to follow.

Circling outside the keep and copying the warding down for some bells of time, Salt came across a snippet of a contacting spell on his third circling of the place. Preapering his announcement of his presence there with all the formality and his need to not piss anyone off he had learned. Sparking a simple hello on the communication net a courtesy to send seconds before sending the real massage, the entire place went insane. Rolling balls of bladed lightning shot into the air and eyes sprouted from the keep itself, focused lights started cutting in a grid pattern around the keep. Seeing the doom, Salt promptly transmogrified the ground under his feet. Closing his eyes and transforming the earth into air temporarily Salt effectively sat himself in a sort of free fall through the earth as the air above his head became earth again. But Salt for all his smarts was barely a 4-circle wizard and power will trough Salt thought as the earth was ripped from on top of him and he felt no more.

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Waking with a start Salt found himself in a cotton gown lying on a steel table, in a room of steel tables. “Underclassman” came a sing songy voice from the ceiling “I had forgotten how week you people are. I am glad you are not dead.” the voice declared, Salt pushed himself to the side looked himself over and seeing no punctures or breaks got to his feet as the voice continued. “Due to my survival-imposed exile in this place I am not up on current Nersinian trivia. So, who are you and who told you where to find me, alternatively who told you to come here?” Salt looking up said “I am Salt, where are my things, a book in the library, and I need help with my room if this is the guidance councillor speaking.”

“Okay I am coming down, if you have some MagiTech bomb on you I cannot find it so I will take the probable hassle of reconstituting myself after just to see how it works.” Hearing clutter braking and other less identifiable sounds Salt waited some time before a man who looked like he was wearing a massive copper diving suit plopped through a hole in the ceiling and said: “So what do you know about the bomb attached to you, did they say anything about what not to eat or where to pick your ears.” As Salt began to understand what was happening, he also began making plans. “Hello mister guidance councillor I need you to fulfil your Nersinian set mission to help this student, namely me Salt third year student of cohort 023 with his room, primarily locating it.” Shaking about clumsily as if trying to remember walking the weird copper person said “yes, yes that is one of the only ways to force me to do things, I am the assistant guidance counsellor. But the last one they sent did not explode until hours after he came in, and that totally drenched my paperwork in blood. Well, I am not doing that again, we will sit here until you explode like proper people.” Salt knew it was normal for upperclassmen to become incredibly self-involved and paranoid as they murdered their way towards graduation something he understood and even admired. But a thing an upperclassman never ever was, was stupid and his information would soon pierce the bubble of self-absorption of even the thickest gauge.

“Did you say, location of your room........?” The assistant guidance counsellor asked after a while, “yes, sir.” answered Salt. “But that’s just stupid.” said the copper man “just go to your room in your coterie's hall, corridor, you know that place you end up. It's clearly marked with your name, in your mother tongue!” Trying to interject Salt at last could cut through “but sir the front doors of the dorms do not open for me, and the teleports fizzle out when I stand in all 5 different openings I have found.” “Ha!” The maddening upperclassman yelled “there are 17 different teleporters into the dorms! But the one that’s most reliable is the spider's maw, just use that one.” Salt interjected again “But sir I have tried the spider's maw, I even brought magical creature and sentient flesh as offerings. It's no use, the dorms treat me like an upperclassman.”

“There we have it!” Came the self-congratulatory voice of the assistant guidance counsellor. “You are an upperclassman who erased your own memories temporarily, and copied or ate the memories of an underclassman thinking to get through wards. Its brilliant!......... Wait no. You would be dead by now...... maybe....” The copper man took out tools and wove spells of investigations for about half a bell, before saying “well there is clearly nothing I can find by a cursory examination, you will either have to consent to a more rigorous examination for some days or weeks. Or you can drop the act and tell me why you thought that coming here to the guidance counsellors would be helpful in your personal opinion.”

“Well, I paid my tuition late 2 days ago, some people were after me, so I hurried the payment a little bit. Well, maybe a lot of bit see I were tasked as tuition to grow a magical thing for the school. It took so much time and effort to set up a benevolent circle where the room fed the plant, and the plant fed the room. So being proud of my achievement I simply sacrificed the entire thing to Nersinia, I sort of thought I would...... get a new room, or maybe die?” The copper man sat still for a while and then started muttering. “You....... just......... Poff, gone......... and you still.........I.............breakfast.......bomb guy. So, you sacrificed your room to the school. And you would like a new room now. Yes?” Salt nodded at this and responded, “if it's not too much trouble, I did pay the quite exorbitant tuition.” At this point the copper man seemed to become despondent, “so no new nice bomb to play with just an insane underclassman whom I can't kill or torture.”

After a while sitting and waiting Salt said “may I ask your name assistant guidance counsellor? And where my things are? And where the guidance counsellor is?” Shifting in his suit the assistant guidance counsellor finally said “I am Morn a 9-year....... and you are sure you are not going to blow up? Do you feel blowi-uppi at all?” Morn asked with a hopeful smile. “How does blowi-uppi feel like sir, and where are my things please?” Salt said. Sighing heavily Morn got up and walked over to the stairs while saying “I guess you wouldn't know that, you're just a third year not enough time to get into the common things like being blown up around here. Your stuff is on the table two rooms down and to the left according to the rules I have 40 hours to answer your questions, so I am going to look stuff up. Do not go up to the second floor it will kill you, you can wait down here, good luck.

Seeing Morn walk of Salt got to his feet and stretched, both physically, mentally and magically. Seeing his cores spin into action as he reche- “and for the gods sake don’t do that! You will wake her and then we are all..........” Came Morns voice receding into the background. Noting ventured Salt set of trough the special place he was in, so 2 rooms and to the left. A tiny/massive room came into place before his eyes, and a thing looking down on him with eyes on stalks handed him a card. “Welcome you have elected to use the statis wardrobe what would you like deposited.” Salt got out a strangled “wa!” “I would not like to dispose of anything but to retrieve something instead.” said Salt as he moved further back from the eye thing. “Please explain the thing you wish to take out in great detail and also how you own it and treasure it.” “I am Salt a student of Nersinia cohort 023 of the third year, relinquish my things or......” Another card came shooting out “Please sir I would like to help you I shall make some things spin around the door and if you see your things shout out.” And with that the door turned into a circle too fast for the human eye to follow, “hey, stop, I can't see anything.” Suddenly all the things stopped and luckily Salt could barely make out his tome of tome mastery. Pointing he shouted, “hey that’s my Tome It has my mana signature and everything.” Pouting the weird eye creature grabbed the tome and gave it to Salt and said “ok, but just this one.” Grabbing the Tome with both hands Salt asked perplexed “what one, wait you can talk!” Suddenly a new note flew out that said “no, I have lunch see you later.” And just like that the door closed leaving Salt standing alone with his tome.