"Pery, wake up," Rosaria's voice roused me.

I blink my eyes open. "What time is it?"

Rosaria, her purple-black hair tied up in a neat ponytail and adorned with a simple silvered pin, smiled at me.

"You have about an hour and a half before you have to be there," my friend said.

"It's a ten-minute walk," I said.

I wasn't really complaining, but I'd been up late last night scanning through my father's notes on the Towers; the extra sleep would've been nice. Thanks to my born trait [mind of memories], I could look at a page in a book, or anything really, and see it again later. This essentially allowed me to create a mental library in which I could store any book I had time to flip through.

Unfortunately, my father hadn't really spent much time at the Towers. From what I could tell, his one-time adventuring partner Renalt had, at some point, become a master at the magical institution. My father maintained correspondence with Renalt via letters, but his reluctance to transcribe each letter prevented him from documenting most of their exchanges in his journal. The only information I could gather was that my father and Master Renalt had been friends before my father even met my mother and his actual adventuring party, and that my father had visited the Towers at least once and found them to be awe-inspiring.

I also knew that the letter of recommendation my father had written had been addressed to Master Renalt. So, even though I hadn't met the man yet, I likely owed his bond with my dad for the fact that I was even being given a chance to try out for the Towers.

"That's a little early," I said to Rosaria and pushed myself up in my bed.

"Samantha is making breakfast for you," Rosaria said. "She'd be upset if you didn't have time to eat it."

"She didn't tell me," I replied. "I would've gotten up if I'd known that."

My mind drifted to the thought of Samantha's cooking, and my stomach rumbled. Another surge of hunger, distinct from my own, crept into my mind. A little black ball of fur and muscle moved between my calves and crawled his way out to bark at Rosari happily.

"Right," Rosaria said with a hint of sarcasm before grinning at Mile. "Hey there."

The puppy happily licked her offered hand and then looked at me.

Hungry, Mile spoke over our bond. You're hungry too. Food?

Mile's intelligence was increasing at a shocking rate, likely due to the effects of our [beast bond], which allowed us to share thoughts and emotions at will—and oftentimes by accident. I was still honestly shocked that he was already communicating at the level of most grown dogs in their native tongue. Just how smart would Mile be when he was fully grown, and how much of it was due to us sharing a mana connection?

"Yeah, food, buddy," I said to Mile.

Good, Mile barked.

"He can really talk to you now?" Rosaria asked me.

"Yeah, a little at least," I replied and pushed myself out of bed; Mile jumped down with me.

"What's he saying now?" my friend asked and affixed her gaze on the dog.

Why is she staring at me? Is she going to give me pats? Mile asked me.

"He wants to know if you're going to pat his head," I laughed. "And if that's why you're looking at him."

Rosaria smiled and bent down to scratch between the dog's upright ears. "I wish I could talk to you too."

"I think he might start to understand other people too, eventually, but right now it's just our bond letting me talk to him. I mean, other druids could speak to him too, I guess. If they knew how to speak dog," I offered.

"Yeah?" Rosaria asked. "Did your dad tell you that?"

I frowned a little at the mention of my dad. "I wouldn't put it past him to start understanding the imperial tongue, but not in so many words."

"He still won't be able to talk it though, right?" Rosaria gave Mile's head a final scratch.

"Probably not. Dogs have different vocal structures. Maybe magic could fix the issue, but it'd be easier to just use a spell to translate it rather than to actually speak it," I said.

"Children," a lovely voice slipped from the doorway. "You do plan to come down to eat sometime today, don't you?"

My brother's wife, with her flowing blonde hair and sweet, softly angular face, wore a simple and chaste morning gown as she stepped into my bedchambers.

"Yes, ma'am," Rosaria said. "We're about to be on our way."

"Good," Samantha replied and looked to me. "Big first day. I've prepared some buttered bread and cold-sliced tailwens."

Tailwens, a local monster, resided in the mountainside forests. They were weaker than even goblins and preyed pretty much exclusively on the natural wildlife, rather than other monsters. Their meat, resembling a cross between a dove and a rabbit, had a light red color and a slightly fowl-like earthy taste, but it was surprisingly supple and juicy.

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Mile barked in excitement. He loved monster meat much more than he enjoyed that of regular animals. Although I knew Tailwen wasn't his favorite, Mile's preference for almost any type of food was close enough that he didn't focus too much on the differences.

"Is Bastion around this morning?" I asked Samantha.

"Oh, unfortunately, no. He had to head off early this morning; the castellan sent a runner for him, actually," Samantha replied, "but we can still enjoy our meal together as a family, can't we?"

"Of course," I said, feeling a bit guiltily relieved that Bastion wasn't around.

My brother very much wanted me to squire under him, but I just wasn't sure I had time. Not training with my sword under a master was likely to become a problem soon, as it was much harder to learn on one's own.

Maybe I could become my brother's squire after I successfully completed the dungeon trial? Perhaps I'd have more time then. Maybe anyway.

"So did the Duke himself send for my brother?" I asked Samantha once we were all seated comfortably in the dining room.

Under normal circumstances, it would be unusual for the castellan to summon a single knight, particularly one who was only a knight-sergeant and not a captain or grandmaster. However, Bastion was the Duke's son-in-law, so there was that to consider.

"My father calls on him from time to time, usually when he's free," Samantha said. "It's probably nothing to worry about."

The woman took a slow bite of bread.

"So you don't know what it's about?" I asked.

"I don't, no," Samantha said. "Not yet anyway. He'll tell me if it's important, I'm sure."

"Are you worried about something?" Rosaria asked me.

"No, I guess not," I replied. "I was just curious."

"I'm sure he'd be here to see you off to your first day in the Towers if he could, but you can tell him all about it tonight," Samantha offered in a lighthearted tone.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm sure he would."

Samantha gave me a soft smile; I couldn't tell if the woman knew what I was thinking deep down, if she could read my conflicted emotions when it came to talking to my brother and my fear of letting him down. I was certain of one thing.

"What about you, Rosaria? What have you been up to?" Samantha asked.

"The training with Bastion is hard," Rosaria said. "We spar with other squires a few times a week, and they're good."

"Better than you?" I asked her.

The edge of her mouth twitched up a little bit.

"Some of them," she said.

The rest of the breakfast went well enough. Samantha chatted about the local goings-abouts. Apparently, the king would be visiting Highmount sometime in the next year—something the nobility may have been more nervous about than excited for.

After breakfast, I returned to my room and changed into my initiate robes. I wore the outfit with a good bit of reverence; they represented something to me, on more levels than a singular one. They symbolized a promise of further fantastic and truly magical things, seemingly forged from mana alone.

"Come on, buddy," I told Mile, and I let him out the doors of my brother's manor.

Walk? Mile asked me.

For a bit, I told him. Then we've got some sitting to do, but I promise to take you into the woods later.

I sit? Mile asked me with a bit of disappointment.

For a few hours, I told him. There should be breaks.

Woods after? Mile asked.

Woods after, I confirmed to him.

Hunt? He asked me, hopefully.

Maybe just a jog by the river, I answered. We might be tired.

From sitting? He asked me.

From sitting, I confirmed.

Mile made a huffing noise, conveying that he didn't really understand how anyone could be exhausted from just sitting.

Bear with me, buddy, I told him. Might need your support today.

My companion's mood shifted a bit when I said that, and he rubbed against my leg.

Here, he said.

I smiled.

Meandering through the White District of Highmount wasn't all that hard. Like the rest of the city's districts, the roads mostly followed the meandering flow of the mountain itself. Mile and I had to cross a few low-arched bridges that skipped just above the streams and waterfalls that flowed all throughout the mountain settlement.

Unlike the rest of the districts, however, the White District, home of the Duke's court, boasted much taller and more ornate buildings. The quarried stones of the noble manors were much more polished than their lower terrace-residing counterparts, and many of them were adorned with swirling, magical sigils.

The long, casted shadows of the floating towers of magic were especially prevalent in this highest of residential districts. The reaching spire-cast shade would shift as the Towers themselves followed the sun in their rotation throughout the day, with each of the six casting the most dominant shadow at different points in the day.

The ground-level embassy of the Towers had thrown open its massive and gleaming mithril gates freely today, as it did every day. The teleportation array just beyond the gates consumed and dissipated a person as I passed through them.

I wondered who had beaten me to the courtyard. A teacher? Student? Visitor? The last was less likely. The mithril gates were only kept open because, other than the array, there was only a small receiving center of sorts beyond them. The center offered minimal opportunities for sabotage or plunder, while the array's enchantment restricted its activation to those who had received permission to use it.

We're about to go through a teleporter, I told Mile. Might feel a little weird.

Teleporter? Mile didn't understand the word.

Like a door, but with no walking through it, I explained.

How? Mile asked and then added, I like the walking.

Magic, I replied as I beckoned the dog to follow me onto the array.

Like with apples?

Mile was referring to how I used [enhance herbal effect] to magically increase the juiciness and crunch of the white apples that grew along the riverbanks of the Midean Forest.

It's a little different, I said. We're going to be sitting and learning about how other people do magic differently than I do.

The apple magic is good, Mile said.

I think other magic can be good too, I replied.

Not sure, Mile said.

I hope it can be. Give it a shot with me; maybe you'll learn more things, I said.

I'll try, Mile replied. Sitting is hard. A lot of stuff isn't sitting when we do.

If there were two things I'd learned about Mile that had only been further reinforced as facts as he'd learned to better communicate, it was that he had a high prey drive and an even higher protective instinct. The poor puppy had a lot of trouble sitting and staying when there were chaseable things around him, but he was a good boy about it—mostly, at least as long as I bribed him well enough.

As we spoke over our telepathic bond, the edges of the teleporter's sigil-carved borders began to illuminate. The magical hum sizzled the air, slowly spreading to encompass the rest of the intricate glyph work carved into the raised platform.

Here we go. Don't jump off.

Mile sniffed the air in response to my command. Smells different than the apples.

I reached across our bond into his very different senses and noted that the scent of the arcane magic was indeed very contrasting to my druidry. The scent of the arcane spellwork was more sterile, but not necessarily more clean-smelling—and definitely not as fresh as my nature magics. Even my air-based magics, gleamed from my temporary possession by a greater wind elemental, had a different nose-feel to them.

The illumination of the array consumed us, and we moved without moving.