Lugh had started coming along with Harlan when he worked with Sepul, he didn’t like Harlan doing what he was doing, but after he heard everything when he explained it to Balor he didn’t want to stay behind anymore.
Luckily the worst parts were over, the rest of the subjects currently had no use, but were kept around just in case.
The researchers came back with a newer and more refined version of Harlan’s spell to buffer the impact of messages being sent over the web along with a few prototypes of communication amulets, though at present the cost of a gem to make one that suffered no strain and thus was at no risk of breaking was still in the hundreds of gold and were quite unwieldy.
The king truly had little issue with the current form of them, though they would instead be placed in a box and used as such instead of being something to wear around at all times; yet the allure of refining and making new magic was something that he enjoyed; he was never a talented mage, but he knew the worth in them and how driven they were to improve.
“I am quite happy to be taking part in this, we actually have 3 more of these made, but they are currently on carriages heading away from the capital, and away from here. We would like you to develop a spell for communicating through these as another buffer, perhaps that could allow us to lower costs and shrink the gems needed for these.”
“I will be working on that then, I suppose I should’ve confirmed, but you can all use these, right?”
“Yes, it is as simple as using soulspeak, but as I’ve said, we simply want you to try and create another layer.”
After an hour Harlan had a spell that he considered the bare minimum for usefulness, though it didn’t receive that same divine input that came with making spells normally came with, he wondered why it was like this.
Mind magic was locked away. and yet he could make these spells and then normal people could cast them, meanwhile soul magic was something anyone could do and he received that divine reaction that guided him towards making better spells when working with it.
Another question to the pile.
The researchers joined in once they had some idea of what they were trying for, it was defensive in nature and Harlan found soft words and flowing movements worked best for it, now it was the slow process of refining those words and movements into a better spell.
There wasn’t much for Sepul to do anymore, Harlan had a full team dedicated to him and without the subjects around he didn’t need a bodyguard.
Though when it came to actually implementing the new spell into the items he did have an important idea.
“Harlan, I’ve not been idle, I’ve delved into your soulsmithing and I’ve thought of safety features. The one I’ve been more sure would have the least drawbacks would be to put half the runes in the spell into the item in question and then make a spell of that other half. The issue with this would be that having to cast even half a spell instead of the item would be worse for almost all uses, but you are unlikely to need to speak in an instant like you would need to shoot a fireball instantly. It could cut down on some of the cost, and thus the size of gems needed. It would also allow us to restrict who can actually use the amulets down to nobility and commanders along with communications officers.”
“I was hoping that this could allow anyone to speak with anyone, I do not agree with the idea of cutting out such a large number of people.”
“Until you can get the cost of such a thing down to where normal people can even afford them then that won’t be a problem. We can discuss this again when you have reached that point.”
There were a lot of people who Harlan didn’t believe would actually have this conversation again in the future, but Sepul, for all of his faults, seemed honest enough to keep his word.
They shook and Harlan went to work splitting the spell up.
By the end of the morning they had reduced the size of the devices by half and it would only get smaller as they kept working on them.
They still required a gem costing well over 60 gold, but it was small enough that it could reasonably be kept in a purse or a larger robe pocket.
Before Harlan left however, he did run an idea by Sepul.
He found it inhumane, yet agreed to take part.
When morning came Harlan felt relatively well rested.
Compared to the experiments he had been taking part in before these were not harsh on his body, the buffer spells were relatively costly, but most of the night was spent trying to figure out how exactly the very very low cost communication was incurring a large cost on the objects that sent and received them.
Harlan once more walked Adina around, the next part would also require her help.
“I am going to juggle my tray at lunch, when you see me doing this, tap me on the shoulder.”
She cocked her head to the side in confusion, but agreed.
He used his free time before lunch to ask around for a specific spell he had been wondering about for a little while but was little more than a novelty until now.
When he confirmed his target was already sitting down and which cup was hers he started his juggling act, drawing a few eyes towards him, at least those who didn’t already see his pale pink hair.
Adina came from behind and tapped his shoulder, a simple excuse to throw it towards his target while pretending he had just been distracted.
He flew after it and while they looked at him making a fool of himself he guided the hair dye potion into her glass with a little water magic.
He profusely apologized and promised to stop playing around.
The girl felt a little awkward with how heavy he was laying it on, but it kept her from suspecting he had done anything.
He was somewhat amazed at how easy it really was to slip something into her drink, were it to have been a poison he could’ve killed her on the spot.
If somebody wanted to slip something into his drink, into Zella’s, into Adina’s.
He stopped that train of thought before it got too far.
When somebody finally asked him what happened to his hair he said somebody must’ve slipped something into his food.
Nobody second guessed it.
With the rumors of him being a terrible person lessened along with the clear hostility against him by students from Reino it was easy to make it look like a stupid prank from one of them.
He kept the bottle around, it was sudden, but he did have an idea.
As soon as he entered healing class Hellon gave one look at his hair and he wondered if he could gain from this.
“I guess it is a joke from somebody, I heard it also happened to a girl in alchemy not long ago. I also heard that it is hard to remove this stuff, I’ll just need to live with it for a while.”
“If you were in a backwater then yes, that would be the case. I healed that other girl as well, this will just take a moment.”
Her hands glowed after she cast her spell and then she ruffled his hair.
“Give it 10 minutes, then your hair is going to need to be washed, but it will return to its original color.”
“Thank you very much. But how does that spell work and why is this stuff hard to get out?”
“Ask me again after class, it is going to take a few minutes to explain it.”
The class wasn’t being given exact situations at the moment, the slabs of slime in front of them had a variety of issues from burns to deep cuts to broken bones and the students were now being timed and judged based on how they handled them.
Hellon also made loud pops sometimes around the classroom to simulate war magic going off on a battlefield.
She looked as ornery as ever, but he could tell she was having a lot of fun doing this.
Despite her being the best healer in class Ximena had dropped to the third place.
She didn’t handle the pressure as well as him and Adina.
Harlan stayed behind to get his answers.
“Alright, to start my spell simply tells your body that it shouldn’t be that way so the dye is expelled as natural oil. That little prank potion is based on kingslayers poison. It got its name since it is what killed the last king, no doctors could figure out exactly what was happening so the very quick acting poison that was made with the same method killed him before anyone knew what was happening. Funny how 30 years have passed and now stupid children are using it for jokes. I should also explain a little bit about why my spell works. Have you ever taken control of another person's magic?”
He thought for a moment, he was sure he did it, but he couldn’t exactly remember, maybe the mist during the water fight before he entered the academy?
“I believe I have.”
“Well try this.”
She made a small flame in her hand and Harlan tried to take control of it but it didn’t work.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Huh, that is odd.“
“This is a smart spell, most magic is dumb because it needs extra focus and intent to make spells smart.
Most healing works by giving energy to the body and then letting the body itself fix the issue in question with help of that energy source. This makes most healing dumb and is why you can’t just heal your hair back to its normal color. My spell is smart and instead of pointing at an issue and telling the body to fix what it knows is wrong it explains to the body that yes, what you believe is fine is actually not, so fix it like this.”
“Now that is very interesting. Why isn’t this part of basic magic?”
“Because magic is all in the mind, adding focus is one thing, but when you add intent sometimes spells warp into something that they shouldn’t be, these wild spells are dangerous things. Your little show with the wrath of heaven in war magic is exactly what I mean. Purposeful and especially pure intent is a powerful and dangerous thing.”
Harlan wanted to laugh that him drinking a hair dye on impulse led to such a turn of events, this would be useful.
In war magic Harlan finally grasped the splitter spells.
He knew how to focus and force the spell to do something else than what it had been originally cast for, but what he needed was intent.
As he split apart the spell he imagined a crowded street, merchants lined the sides selling meats, mothers taught their daughters how to haggle for better prices, and yet there were 20 people who shouldn’t be there.
The illusions in his mind pulled blades to strike out without reason and he needed to save those people.
20 out of 20 targets destroyed without collateral damage.
He repeated the feat over and over again, he changed the scenery, changed his justification for needing to to make the blasts smaller but deadlier.
Bandits in dry woods, infected people, hostages.
It was somewhat difficult to focus after class, the induced delusions were more than he thought they were, the intent fed back somewhat and made him momentarily believe in what he was imagining.
At his first free period he slipped the bottle into the robe of the younger Cato before waiting near the 2nd year alchemy class for the girl who was bothering the Armaus girl, he should’ve asked for her name.
He met the girl as she left class, he had been told she always stayed behind to talk with the teacher since she had a free period so she would be alone when she came out.
She matched the description, but Harlan felt wrong to threaten her.
She couldn’t have been more than 10, she had her dark blonde hair tied in pigtails and she practically pranced down the hall.
“Excuse me. Could I have a moment of your time?”
“Of course, what do you need?”
He was already very uncomfortable, the way that the Armaus talked about her he expected somebody vindictive and mean spirited, perhaps followed by a gaggle of other snobby girls.
“I was asked to talk to you about how you keep painting on an Armaus girl, she seemed upset that you wouldn’t stop.”
“Oh! That must be Halik, but it looks so pretty on her scales.”
“I know, but when she washes them off it makes her skin red and itchy because of the oils in the paint. Did she ever tell you that?”
The girl was upset, she believed that Halik was her friend and they were just joking around, she didn’t realize it had hurt her in any way.
“Hey hey hey, it is ok, just don’t do it again.”
“I am sorry… I’ll leave her alone.”
“I am sure if you explain that you didn’t realize it was a problem she will forgive you.”
“Really?”
It hurt him to lie, he had no idea how she would react, and now that he thought about it she seemed like a crabby person.
“You can’t know until you try at least.”
She smiled again and went on her way.
It left a bad taste in his mouth, he had wondered if he was going to become someone worse with his vengeance, if he just hadn’t realized where he was headed.
Yet the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to threaten the child allowed him to remain firm in his beliefs, he would be willing to do more evil, but what he considered good hadn’t changed much.
He decided to spend the rest of his free time looking for items for divination classes, he had been falling behind due to his work and taking the weekend off.
His next report on a magical creature would be on the Dire Dogs.
The dogs people normally kept were still animals descended from wolves, depending on breed they could end up as a variety of magical creatures.
For the breeds of the north which they used for pulling sleds their closer relation to the native wolves led to them being quite like the Dire Wolves of the area.
The biggest difference was that a Dire Dog would be fire aligned for the sake of providing warmth to its master.
When Harlan wrote he preferred to be in the garden, few people passed through the area due to its intentionally out of the way placement.
Yet on that day the Librarian was there.
“Ah… how nice to meet you here.”
“It is a nice day and I’ve got about 10 minutes until I need to go get Adina.”
The tall man took a deep breath and looked into his eyes.
“Your violence will only bring more violence. I am surely not the first to tell you this.”
“That is correct.”
He handed Harlan two books, the first was the holy book of Reino, it technically had no name, so it simply had the 7 circles of Reino in white on its black leather cover.
The second was the history of two families, they had been on the opposite sides of a war, afterwards a dispute over a hog led to dozens of deaths and a grudge that lasted decades.
“I will not convince you to understand the consequences of what you will do, but I hope you can understand why they are as they are, and how easily things go beyond what you desire.
And do hide that first book, they don’t like outsiders to have them.”
“Would you be punished for giving this to me?”
“I can tell you are asking out of some kind of fondness for me, but you don’t need to worry, there is no harm they could inflict on me. I have one person I truly care for in this world, and she is beyond anyone on their side.”
He placed his hands over top of Harlan’s and said a small phrase in a language Harlan did not know before walking off.
“Before you go, what is your name?”
“Alrick.”
He vanished as soon as he had passed the corner and was out of line of sight.
Harlan wondered who exactly he was, it didn’t matter if Harlan came in the middle of the night or in the afternoon, he was at the library without fail.
His physique could be human, but Harlan didn’t think he was.
He didn’t show up strangely to his mindsense, his soul sight showed no abnormality, but Harlan felt that something, somehow, was wrong with the man.
The weight of that black book in his robe seemed like more than just paper and ink.
Finally dinner arrived, he looked over the people already there and saw the girl with pink hair.
He decided to offer his help to clear the dye, he hadn’t actually made the spell yet, but if he understood the underlying principles of it then it shouldn’t take long.
He felt bad about convincing her that they were both victims of the same prankster and using that to gain something, but he wanted to show himself as being helpful and getting her to empathize with him made it easier to ask for tips on starting alchemy.
Unfortunately she said that the alchemy classes at the academy were some of the harshest.
They expected anyone interested to already have experience with it due to its nature of memorizing and experimenting with things that could turn poisonous and endanger other students if made improperly.
He would need to spend his free time learning a great deal before he even wanted to think about trying to add it as a class.
“What if I did the alchemy? I already know more plants and animals than you, I could even study when you are doing that other stuff with Sepul, there wasn’t anything I could help with there anyway.”
“Would you really? I mean… I know you don’t like me hurting people, and I am going to be using the things you would make to do that.”
“I like how you feel when you are with Adina, I am angry that people hurt her. I still don’t like it, but I could hurt somebody who hurts our friends.”
Harlan knew where that path would lead, first he would protect people who were close to him, then he might extend it to anyone who looks like they are innocent, then he would be proactive in stopping threats, then he would end up like Harlan.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
Harlan didn’t believe killing was inherently wrong, sometimes it really is him or his enemy, sometimes it lessened other suffering, like killing bandits that would attack but weren’t in a fight at the moment.
But Lugh was young, he advanced more quickly than a normal being, but he was still a child, and Harlan didn’t want to be the person to force Lugh down that path.
If he took those steps on his own however, he would not dissuade him.
“We should talk to Sepul, he can make those truth potions so he must know alchemy.”
“Alright…”
Lugh was unnerved by the man, but he knew that Harlan liked, or rather, he trusted him.
He sat with the others.
“So, what are you going to do? After academy I mean?” Yara asked.
“I might just spend a few months at home, then I’ll travel to the frontier. I have a friend who is training to be, or maybe he already is, a ranger. Another friend lives in the north, so I want to go there too.”
“I wish I could invite you to our home, but that isn’t possible.”
“Yeah, it is a shame.”
“What about everyone else?”
“I would’ve joined the army, tried to get a noble title, but with the war over I don’t really know. I don’t have anything else lined up. I could always join anyway, go to frontier clearing, but then what? I’ve seen the expectations, with all the land we know about we’ve got 20 years, maybe less, before the entire frontier is cleared. I guess I could just wander around.”
“Surely you have some talent that you can use to find something worth doing? Do you like styling hair? I mean, surely it takes a lot of work to braid yours.”
“No to both of those. I can control my hair so braiding it only takes a few minutes, and I don’t want to be dolling up other people.
The question had touched a nerve.
“Maybe I could just find Ky, try to see if frontier life is good for me. Be somebody he can come back to out there.”
“Never underestimate the effect of just having somebody there. Did he ever tell you if his family has any history with magic? It could help to have somebody who understands that part of him.”
Harlan hoped that Zella would find something to do, he knew that he hated being idle.
They spoke of ideas of what to do, of who they wanted to be.
Liat almost asked about Zella’s family, but Harlan was fast enough to stop her.
When they were finished eating they all split up again, Harlan wanted to start on his reading, he wanted books on alchemy from the library, but he decided to read what Alrick had given him first.
Though he did get convinced by Liat to have another spar to keep him spry, it was really just an excuse.
She still didn’t have anyone else who was willing to fight her, their matches were always painful but both sides had enhanced healing and their bodies simply didn’t process pain in the way as everyone else.
Things went on like this for weeks, Harlan now had the things needed to put his plan into action, yet he held off.
If things didn’t get worse, he wouldn’t make them worse.