The mana-powered wall lanterns of the library gave off a calm, amber illumination. Each wooden table strewn around the many shelves also had a small lamp in the middle of it, including the table that Mina and I now walked up to.

"Luke, this is Pery," she said. "He's really excited to ask you some questions about circlecraft."

Luke looked a lot less threatening outside of his armor and while he was sitting down. Even more so when he offered us an almost bookish smile. He was toned, muscular for his tall frame even, and I'd seen his physical power firsthand, but he was quite thin. And his proportions seemed somewhat off, as if his limbs were just slightly too elongated. His ears were, of course, capped with short, edged points.

"It's nice to meet you, Pery," he said to me, his voice measured but charismatic in a reserved sort of way. "Sit down and I'll do what I can to help you sort things out, as a favor to Mina."

"And I'll leave you two to it," our mutual acquittance said. "I'll see you around, Luke!"

Mina didn't give me a chance to say anything as she turned and walked away. I was forced to look back and meet Luke's grey-blue eyes.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet me; I'm sure you're busy," I said.

"It's fine. I knew Mina's mother; I wouldn't have a chance to be so busy now if she hadn't helped me get through my first year in the Towers," Luke replied. "The least I can do is give her daughter a favor when she asks. Mina doesn't ask for much from anyone really."

"Mina's mother helped you? Not Master Steelvein?"

Luke shifted back a bit, getting more comfortable in his chair. "My master has trained me more than I could ever thank him for. But I wasn't his apprentice until my second year and after the dungeon trials. Mina's mother helped me with my circlecraft quite a bit. Without her, I wouldn't be here today."

My ears perked up, even though the mention of Mina's deceased parent did make me feel bad. Luke smiled, however, and intercepted my thought and continued speaking before I could say anything. "I'm not allowed to tell you anything about the trial. The only advice I can give you is to not go hunting the dungeon's boss unless you're sure about things."

"That I can beat it?"

"Just that you've figured out the situation," Luke answered and didn't give off the impression that he was going to elaborate further. "You had some questions for me about a sigil, right?"

I reached into a pouch at my waist, separate from my component pouch, and removed a piece of parchment. I pushed it over to him. "It's about this.'

He unfolded it. "It's a design for a spell scroll or at least the sigil?" he said and then studied the modified [shield] sigil. "I don't see any issues with it, other than that its missing the glyphwork to better bind it to a scroll. You're an abjurer?"

"I saw your fight," I admitted. "It helped me to decide that I wanted to start learning abjuration. It seemed useful."

"Well, I can show you some ways to alter the sigil to make it more efficient, but," Luke paused. "A lot of it is just practice. You should learn how to cast the basic spell you want to inscribe on a scroll more than anything. It'll be easier to refine it to fit your needs that way. Where'd you get this sigil design? A friend? Or did you buy it?"

"I designed it," I admitted.

Luke studied me more carefully, but then seemed to accept my answer. "I'm impressed you could adapt what you know of ciclecraft to abjuration without having cast anything in the school yet. Whoever taught you the basics before you came here did well. I imagine Master Elrica has also helped expand what your tutor or family taught you, but it's still impressive that you've done it."

It was clear that Luke was assuming I had been taught circlecraft by some sort of noble tutor before coming to the Towers.

I hesitated. "That's why I'm asking for help, actually. I didn't know any circlecraft before coming to the Towers. There's some things I haven't been able to figure out about what I'm trying to do."

Luke didn't fluster or look shocked like Kara had when I'd cast [shield]. "That's more impressive then. If you're asking if this sigil will work, then yes, it should. You'll need a bronze core and monster skin to make a scroll strong enough to hold its spell at the novice level, but you will have to know how to cast it first to charge the scroll. Like I said, I'd practice that first and foremost."

"I can already cast [shield]," I told him. "It's just that I can't figure out how to stop the sigil from drawing mana from me when I try to inscribe it on myself."

Luke's eyes narrowed a bit then. "When you what?"

I was surprised by how he had shifted to study my face.

"I watched what you were doing in your fight with Alara," I admitted, slowly and trying to seem noncombative. "It gave me the idea to try to store sigils on my body for later use, but when I do the sigil draws power from me even after its already been charged."

Luke's expression softened, and he glanced back to the sigil I'd drawn as if looking at it again reminded him of something that placated him, before giving me my answer. "It's because a stored sigil has to have energy to maintain itself, or it begins to draw on the mana inside itself. Which makes the stored spell inert eventually, so these modifications you've made here and here," he pointed to the second, switch-interspersed barrier I'd inscribed around the sigil's actual barrier, "are drawing mana from your body into the sigil to stabilize it. That's why you need cores and monster skin to make scrolls, so the sigil can draw life-force or mana from the scroll's components for energy. If it's on your body, then the sigil is going to stabilize itself with your body's mana."

"I just thought that would make it draw in ambient mana," I admitted. "It wasn't well-explained in the books I read. Honestly, I just copied the outer barrier for the one depiction of a spell-scroll sigil that I found and tried to alter the formula for [shield]."

Luke studied me again, but then continued. "No, that would require different modifications. And only certain mages have worked out how to even do it."

"Do the sigils on your body and the runes on your armor draw from your mana?" I asked.

Luke paused. "I'm afraid I can't answer that. I'd be betraying more than one person if I did."

"Oh, I'm sorry for asking then," I said politely, feeling somewhat disappointed.

"I'm not mad; just know that mages don't really freely give out knowledge that's not already common among academics in general," Luke advised me in a respectful tone. "How are you getting the sigils on your body?"

I lifted my hand up to him, exposing my palm, and activated [lesser shapeshift]. The sigil drawn on the paper I'd passed over to him formed on my hand as well. It was much easier to manage the feat now that I'd unlocked the spell proper.

Luke raised an eyebrow. "That's... I honestly wish I could do that. At least you're not using paint."

"That seems like a bad idea," I agreed.

"If you're not happy with the idea of your sigil exploding if it gets smeared, then yes. It's a terrible idea then."

I couldn't help but smirk at his joke.

"I could teach you to shapeshift," I said; I hadn't seen the sigils on his body up close, so I was truly wondering just how he got them on himself. But if he was going to help me, maybe I could help him too.

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"Is it transfiguration magic? It didn't look like it was," he said. "You didn't use a sign or a sigil. But I'm assuming it's not sorcery if you're offering to teach it?"

"It's druidry," I replied. "I learned the shapeshifting recently, but my father taught me how to use the kind of magic behind it."

Luke looked suddenly interested but not overexcited—he didn't seem like the type to get overexcited, he was too level-headed feeling. "Does it use a lot of mana, or drain any to keep it going?"

"No, but it takes a lot of meditation to start. It took me two years, after I was six, to cast my first spell."

I had specifically been two years of meditating for hours every day with my father out in the forrest. Until I finally began to feel the life and impulses inside the weeds and grass beneath my body.

"And yet you learned abjuration in how many days?" Luke inquired.

"A week or two? My proficiency is still only around thirty," I revealed.

"It took me three months," Luke chuckled to himself. "I think you might be more talented than me. I'm not saying no, but maybe we can come back to the idea of you teaching me your magic later. I don't know if I have the time to invest in it right now or if I'm willing to trade knowledge of equal value for it."

"Okay," I said. "You really can't trade me the secret behind how your sigils work?"

Luke's features took on a lighthearted mirth. "Now you sound like a mage. Listen, I just can't tell you how mine work. And I don't really know how you'd make that shapeshifting trick work without me telling you my method, but I do think it's brilliant. If you level your mana-efficiency attribute, it'll lower the drain the sigils take from you and that could help you; unfortunately, leveling your abjuration proficiency will only lower the cost to charge the sigil though."

"But there'll still be some drain, no matter what I do," I said.

"Yes. Do you not have a lot of mana?"

"I think I have the average amount." I answered.

"Then you're better off than some," he said. "It's all genetic, you know? You can level your attributes for years, but they only multiply and work with what you already have."

I got the feeling he was talking about himself. It made a lot of sense, considering he fought so efficiently with his mana. And it explained why he used stored spells if his mana reserves were so lacking. It also shed some light on why he might feel he owed Mina's mother so much if she'd helped him overcome a limited mana supply through circlecraft. It still didn't explain where he'd learned runecrafting though, unless Mina's mother had known it? It didn't seem likely considering Mina wasn't a dwarf, or half-dwarf; and I was afraid it'd hurt Mina too much to bring up her mom to ask later.

"I guess," I said. "I suppose I'll have to make do."

Luke paused. "How about this? I'm glad to see someone else delving into abjuration. So, I'll teach you a spell that works a lot like [shield] but that draws less mana. It should work with whatever sign you're using to fuel your [shield] spell now. And I could show you how to prepare some rather small spell scrolls without compromising their structural integrity."

"Really? You'd do that?"

Luke smiled again. "I would. As I said, I wouldn't be here without others helping me either. I'll show you the sigil for the [warded palm] spell now, if you're ready, and explain how to cast it. And if you can bring me a bronze core and monster flesh later, I'll show you how to make the smaller scrolls. I will warn you, though, the scrolls I'm talking about have a lot less longevity than the larger variety since there's less infused ink and monster components for a sigil to feed off of in them."

"How long will the scrolls last? And how small will they be?"

Luke reached into a satchel he'd laid next to the table. He pushed a small piece of parchment with a sigil inscribed on it towards me. I didn't recognize the sigil on it, and it looked rather beyond me in its construction, but the moment I touched the paper, I felt a hum of magical energy in it that prickled my fingertips. The piece of parchment was only palm-sized; if I could make something like that, then I could definitely deploy it easily in battle.

"Expect a scroll that size to last about a month, whereas a proper scroll would last a year if you used the minimum level of monster core in its creation," he said. "Both would last longer if you used stronger cores, without inscribing a stronger spell. You need a core a tier higher than the spell you're inscribing. So a novice spell scroll needs a bronze core at a minimum, and so on."

"This would really work," I said to him and reluctantly passed his miniaturized scroll back to him. "Nothing I could find in this library really even went into details about how to make scrolls outside of what I found on modifying a sigil itself. It only told me that I needed cores and other pieces of monsters."

"That's all on the second floor," Luke revealed to me. "That and some information on spellbooks, among a lot of other things. But I'll help you out. It's not breaking any rules for me to teach you or anything."

"Do I owe you anything if you do?"

"I'd prefer we just help each other if we both ever need it," Luke said. "I'm not much of a bargainer. I prefer just keeping good working relationships."

I paused. "I need to tell you something first."

He tilted his head slightly. "What is it?"

"Your brother doesn't exactly like me very much," I said, feeling guilty for accepting his kindness this far without letting him know, "we got into a fight a while back."

"Do you plan to get into more fights with Cedric?" Luke asked me.

"Not unless I have to, or—" I hesitated. "If I'm honest, I really want to beat him the next time we fight. But I don't want to hurt him outside of training or anything. I just want to show myself that I can measure up to him."

"And that he can't bully you, right?" Luke added.

I searched his face but found nothing accusatory before continuing. "Yeah."

He chuckled. "Alright, Pery. I didn't know you and my brothers were rivals, but I'll still help you because you were honest. Rivals are good; if you get stronger, then he hopefully will too. And I'm guessing you didn't exactly start things between you and Cedric, did you?"

I was genuinely surprised by Luke's response. "No. No exactly. I lost my head a bit when we got into our first fight, though. I didn't really help things either."

He nodded. "As long as you stay my brother's rival and not his outright enemy, I don't mind teaching you things. Just please keep in mind that he's not a bad person. He has more than most anyone can imagine on his shoulders. It might not look like it, but he thinks he does what he does for good reasons. And they are good reasons. He just gets the methods a little... mixed up sometimes."

"You're talking about him being the heir?" I asked carefully, trying to let Luke open up as much as he wanted to.

"Mostly," he confirmed. "He's got a good heart. I promise."

Maybe Luke was right. And his words did change my opinion on his brother a little. But Cedric hadn't exactly seemed kind when he'd kicked Mile or when he'd stopped my heart with more than one lightning bolts.

"He killed me in the arena," I said.

Luke softened and maybe grimaced a bit at the same time. "The first death is hard. I wish I could give you advice on how to deal with it, but... when I died with Alara the other day, it was my first time too."

"But you're a third-year apprentice?"

"I was undefeated," he said. "But being undefeated isn't everything. I think as long as you learn from your deaths out there that you're doing what the masters intend for you to do."

"I'm still trying to accept that I actually died," I admitted.

"Me too," Luke said. "But we'll get there, right?"

I nodded. Something about the athletic, tall battlemage's tone inspired a feeling of quiet confidence. "I hope so."

He accepted my answer without probing further, just like I needed him to. "Are you ready to learn the sigil for [warded palm]? It's like the [shield] spell, but it concentrates itself around the front and back of your hand. It uses a lot less mana while being a lot stronger than the spread out mana of a shield; it's a condensed barrier and just in one spot."

My thoughts of my death faded. And I felt a little excitement jump up in my chest; something about learning new magic was proving to always cause that for me. "If you're sure?"

Luke reached for the [shield] sigil I'd drawn and flipped it over. He then removed a quill and well from his satchel. "Do you mind if I draw on the back of this?"

***

I spent the rest of the evening learning with Luke. By the end of our time together, I'd successfully learned the theory behind the sigil for [warded palm] and also gleamed a lot just from watching him draw and explain it. It was more or less like a very focused and small [shield] spell; the only downside was that you had to be quick and accurate enough to catch whatever spell was being thrown at you on your hand.

Other than that, the casting methodology behind [warded palm] wasn't much different from how [shield] was cast. Luke had been very pleased when I'd successfully cast the spell after my third try. I got the feeling that he really liked teaching others.

But now I needed a bronze monster core if I wanted to learn how to make the smaller spell scrolls that Luke had offered to show me how to create.

I hadn't given up on storing spells on my body with [lesser shapeshift], but I needed to figure out how to make it more viable of an option before I could fully commit to the idea.

Luke's small scroll-slips were a more sure thing and seemed more prudent to focus on learning, even if it'd be a while before I could gain enough access to bronze cores to make them feasible options. Thankfully, while the smaller scrolls had a shorter shelf life, due to having a lower quantity of monster components in them by nature of their small size, this also meant I could make up to twelve scroll-slips out of a single core according to Luke.

Yes, I'd be sacrificing a bronze core, which was very valuable to me at my current level. However, having twelve spell scrolls seemed like something that could save my life or even help me gain more bronze cores in the future. I also didn't know when I'd get another chance to learn how to make them.

I couldn't take an apprentice monster on by myself, however. And the Adventurer's Guild likely wouldn't let me take on a quest to do so without a party.

Which is why I needed to talk to my friends. Hopefully Garron, Kara, and Rosaria were free and willing to go on an adventure to help me.