Fermidia took a step back, blinking repeatedly. Once she didn't feel anything wrong, she started giving instructions to her crew through the rings she wore.

“Start digging the statue out in teams of five, and switch every five minutes. Leave one meter of ice on each side. The members digging need to employ blurring glasses.”

Blurring glasses were used to prevent the owner from reading things they shouldn’t. Fermidia didn’t know if the sculpture had any writings, but she wasn’t going to find out.

“Once the statue is covered and sealed inside the Pioneer Three, we will retrieve the corpses. Standard anti-corruption procedure.”

“The ones not digging, collect the records and documents inside the Agrana Base. Don’t read anything. Pack everything for delivery to the Mergifari.”

“Once everything is clean, refill the supplies and tell the substitutes they can move to the tower.”

The Agrana Base couldn’t be abandoned, more now than ever, after finding a potential divine relic. But, following procedures, they arrived ready for the worst, packing supplies, materials to fix the base and new members.

Fermidia wouldn’t stay on the Agrana Base. Her job was entering and exiting Permafrost constantly, maintaining the communications and safety of the Permafrost-Mergifari routes, transporting any findings and replacing personnel.

Once everything was set and done, her next stop was Mergifari’s harbor.

…

Velvet knocked on the wooden door before entering. The class didn’t start until two minutes, but some novice mages with nothing to do were already there. Unlike Velvet.

Velvet was a very busy woman, and she couldn’t waste time waiting.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason, but hey.

Hasdrubal was also there, and lifted his head slightly to see who had entered, his eyes widening in surprise upon finding who it was.

Velvet snickered in a low voice.

For someone all-knowing, you surely don’t look like you knew I was coming.

“Hello! I signed up just a minute ago!” She cheerfully said, stepping closer to an empty seat, sitting and crossing her legs daintily, a smile on her face.

Hasdubal cleared his throat, and the other three novice mages simply went back to what they were doing previously. Nothing.

Hadrubal’s class had five seats, Velvet occupied the fourth, while two mages she didn’t know and the blue haired girl she had sometimes seen with Igern’s group occupied the rest.

“Well,” Hasdrubal said, getting up from his seat like old people did. Slowly and crouching. “The class starts no-”

“Ah, wait, wait, is still not time, right? Can I enter too?” Someone interrupted, opening the door without knocking, rushing to enter.

Here it is. Velvet thought. She hadn’t waited until the last moment to add her name to the list for nothing, the same way she also didn’t pick Hasdrubal for nothing.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The old mage was dangerous for her, and she knew that. And, if she knew, the mages watching her also did. No mage eyeing Frenese’s Book would allow her to get so close to Hasdrubal without directly supervising in some way.

Hasdrubal remained silent for a few seconds, clearly taking offense. “Lox Voie. I don’t remember you showing any interest in knowledge all these years. Instead, you looked more interested in spending your life in decadent habits. Or so do the Phorella say.”

Velvet held back a laugh. Hasdrubal really lived to his name, didn’t he? He had already guessed what Velvet’s plan was, just by seeing her arrive so close to the limit, and, not only was he making that clear, he basically ended her plan.

At first, she just wanted to know who was following her. Now, not only she knew who he was, Hasdrubal had basically told her Lox’s Paradigm, family and strength.

All these years: he was in the Mergifari since long ago. Not a novice.

Decadent habits: Decadence Paradigm. The middle ground between grief and apathy.

Phorella: Lox not sharing the last name meant that he was simply selected into the Phorella, not born on it. An ex-wanderer.

Smiling sheepishly, Lox excused himself. “Well, I do have some questions about…”

Interrupting him, Hasdrubal spoke. “As the last one to arrive, your doubts will wait until the class ends.”

“How long was this class again?”

“Three hours or more. I plan on teaching you five the complete history of the one hundred and fifty years the Rancour Rebellion spanned.” Hasdrubal put down five heavy, dusty old books upon the table, repressing mocking the aghast face Lox was making.

He was not a knowledge mage, he was clearly unable to take something like that!

Continuing, Hasdrubal dusted off his hands. “Now, before you start. Do any of you have any questions…”

“Me!” Said Velvet, raising her hand high. “Me, me, me!”

Hasdrubal frowned slightly, wanting to admonish her attitude, but, once again, maybe Velvet had questions about Frenese’s Book, the one he didn’t have a chance to inspect.

He had kind of thrown her a bone with Lox, after all. Maybe Velvet was feeling gratitude. Turning to look at her, he asked. “And that is?”

Aren’t you all knowing? Why dontcha guess? Was what Velvet wanted to say, but, instead, she unceremoniously dropped Nebura’s box onto the table. “What’s this?”

Swallowing his disappointment, but still trying to professionally do his job, Hasdrubal grazed the box, sweeping his hand over it.

Several illusions made with blue light particles, depicting pieces, symbols and simpler artifacts appeared, all of them floating slowly on the air, which Velvet assumed they represented the inner pieces and workings of the box.

Hasdrubal took a kick peek with disinterest. “A shield replicator. It creates an explosion which collides with a shield, using the rebound to decrypt the formation behind.”

“Oh.” Velvet said. “Why does Arhontissa want to replicate Mergifari’s barrier?”

She used an innocent tone, but the blue haired girl turned to look at the box again, opening her mouth and moving her hand upon recognizing the box.

“Barriers are made to seal stuff, obviously.” Lox interrupted. “Aren’t you a Knowledge mage? You should know that.”

He was trying to provoke a reaction, but Velvet simply smiled and nodded. “Is that so? Why, thank you!”

Lox’s smile fumbled a bit, as Velvet stored the box again, to the blue haired girl's dismay.

“Any more questions?”

The girl raised her hand, before moving both of them, making signs.

It then dawned on Velvet that she was mute. She didn’t know sign language, since there weren’t books about it on Casrey, and neither were people who used the language. Even so, she memorized the signs, to look for them later.

“Switch the mermaid tears for mermaid blood.”

Another student raised his hand, asking his question, and then the other. None of those questions were useful to Velvet, mostly being related to their current problems, like ‘Why I cannot copy this spell?’ or missing pieces of charms.

Once each one of them (except Lox) asked their question, Hasdrubal started the class, and with it, the lesson.

He spoke in a really, really boring way. After ten minutes, Lox started fidgeting on his seat, and, after one hour, he had basically disconnected.

A really, really bad choice. Velvet thought.

The history lesson was intense, and Hasdrubal was making sure to be as detailed as possible, speaking about the lives of different important figures, but Velvet understood his secondary intentions. Hasdrubal only spoke about a certain mage every time he knew for sure that Lox wasn’t paying attention. A decadence mage, who had been betrayed and defeated.

Hasdrubal, you sneaky bastard! Velvet thought. He had already discovered her intentions of taking mages down, and, in a way, was helping her, giving her ways to take down Lox, a mage stronger and more experienced than her. But the same help was a warning.

He knew what her game was, before she even tried anything. And he was showing he wasn’t against helping her take down their mutual ‘enemies’, instead biding his time until she lowered her guard.

In a way, Hasdrubal actions spoke by themselves. He didn’t care about Velvet getting stronger, because he knew any attempt would be futile against him.

After all, Hasdrubal was All-Knowing.

But, Velvet thought, what is a challenge without some difficulty?