Harlan felt like he was walking on air as he went to the cafeteria.
This time he really wasn’t going to let anyone spoil his mood, he picked up what people dropped using his telekinesis, he dodged out of the way when others tried to bump into him; He really did need to talk to Taren about this finally, no more letting it fester, either they came to blows or it stopped, one way or the other, it would be ending.
He even stepped in for students getting bullied around him, he wasn’t going to be a passive observer just because he didn’t know who they were.
By the time he sat down for breakfast he had 3 honor duels set up for after dinner.
Just because he was happy didn’t mean violence was off the table, he could’ve broken hands on the way, instead he started issuing challenges, if they had an issue with the other students then he had a problem with them.
As he stepped inside the cafeteria he searched with his mindsense and found Ximena, she was 2 other girls, one her age and one older.
“I am really sorry for what I said to you before I left, that wasn’t right of me to push you away like that.”
She got strange looks and nudges from the girls around her, they wanted to know the story.
“I am sorry that I didn’t know what you had already gone through, do you still want to be friends?”
“Of course.”
They shook hands and Harlan went to find his own friend group.
He noticed that he hadn’t seen Amber or her friends yet, which was odd, they normally sat just a few tables down from him.
Adina knew he was there before he sat down.
“Welcome back, Harlan.”
The other looked up from their food and waved him down, Zella and the twins wanted to talk about their own camping trips, hoping to take his mind off of the disaster that was his.
“Good to see you everyone, Adina, I am sorry that I left like I did, but I was in no state to be helping you like I was. If you want to talk later, I’m free. Well, I have a few duels set up for later, but after that, I am free.”
“Should you really be fighting? I… I thought you were gone when you left. Miss Selen had that note, but I didn’t know if I should believe it.”
Zella and the twins felt like they should stay out of whatever this was going to be, for now at least.
“I spent time with my family, I honestly feel the best I’ve felt in years. I can fight without wanting to hurt the other person. Would you all like to watch later?”
There was hesitation from them, they knew that Harlan believed he was alright, but he was erratic at times, they didn’t really want to be there to see him savagely beat some other student, but they also felt that they should be there to step in if they needed to.
“Sure, do you have a teacher to watch the matches? Do you have the arena reserved?”
“The other people said they would do it, if they don’t, well, I guess I win by default.”
The twins wanted to be the first to talk about their camping trip.
“We were in the top 10.” “I am sure mother and father will be very happy to hear it.”
“We carved a place to stay in the ground at first.” “Then it rained and it flooded…”
“But I remembered when you told me about how you built your cabins.” “We gathered mud and trees and built one for the group!”
“Then we tried to make a fire inside…” “We put in a chimney after that.”
“How about animals? What all did you get attacked by?”
“Wolves.” “And a bear.”
“We stayed inside and they just waited around for the night.” “We thought the bear would break the door at first.”
“Oh, how did you kill them then?”
They looked at Harlan like he had just turned purple.
“Why would we fight them?” “It would just put the entire group at risk, we kept the food inside anyway.”
“Did you not hear about my trip already?”
“I didn’t want to talk about it, they didn’t mind.”
The others were clearly uncomfortable, Harlan had the feeling that her reaction to them wanting to know about it was a bit more Harlan-like, and a bit less Adina-like.
“Well, on the first night I fought off a pack of wolves, it was just 8 of them so it wasn’t a big deal. We had wolf stew for food until we left, I wonder where those pelts went? Anyway, then me and Adina took out 3 direwolves, it was a bit awkward reaching around its neck since my arms aren’t that long, but after it passed out it only took a few stomps to break the neck, direwolf isn’t as good as wolves, too much muscle, it’s like eating bark. But the pelts had some very nice fur on them, even with all the snow we weren’t cold.”
“Really? You fought off 3 direwolves?” “How impressive.”
“Well I took out one of them, Adina and Lugh got the other two.”
“Congratulations Adina, that was very brave of you.” “Why did you come back before us then? Did they realize there wasn’t anything for you to learn?”
“I’ve heard 3 stories.” “All of them were different though.‘
He could see Adina shudder, she still wasn’t ok with what had happened.
“I’ll tell you another time, Adina, are you ok?”
“Yes, I just don’t want to hear about…”
“That’s fine.”
Zella said she would talk about her time at camp later, they were going to be late if they didn’t finish eating soon.
Advanced elements was more repetition, more learning each little quirk of an element, most knew how to stop someone's heart with a lightning bolt, far fewer understood that the same spell, when properly tuned, could start someone's heart.
John did make sure to tell them to avoid trying this without training from a healer though.
Spellcrafting was more of the same, it barely felt like a class to Harlan, more like a place to try out his ideas and get reprimanded when they made everyone around him feel ill.
Divination was something that Harlan actually cared for quite a bit more, it was an odd class.
It was held once a week and the goal was always the same: find items on a list, ask questions about why they failed to complete it, because in the month since he started, not one student completed the list.
Last week was because one of the items was hidden behind a ward to stop divinations.
“For today’s class I will be teaching you all what is likely the most important divination spell you will ever have. Long range divination. For starters, does everyone here have something or someone that they cherish? Long range divination is best started by trying to find something you are very intimately attached to. Hold that thought in your mind, and follow my lead.”
She waved her hands and said her words, Harlan felt something click inside, like he already knew the spell.
“Now, how many of you got it on the first try?”
Harlan raised his hand.
“Now where would you have learned to do that? I shouldn’t be surprised though.” Harlan and Ximena had held the first and second place positions since the first class with Claudia in 3rd, when Harlan realized this made him feel worse that he didn’t even remember her name until they met on the trip.
“I don’t know, I tried to do it before, but right now it just… felt right.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that story. Sometimes magic just seems to speak through people in their times of greatest need.”
After class Ximena and Harlan both had a free period, so they walked and talked and found the first 2 items before lunch.
Harlan could’ve used the long range divination to try and make it faster, but Ximena wanted to learn how it was done before she relied on him.
“By the way, what does it look like to you? Maybe that will make something click and I’ll get the spell working.”
Harlan put up a veil, he was a little embarrassed with the spell.
“It looks like a woman, she holds my hand and points to where I need to go.”
Ximena giggled.
“Sorry, I just didn’t take you for a mother’s boy.”
“Well then you should meet my mother, she is very nice.”
“You should be more clear when you are proposing.”
Now it was Harlan’s turn to laugh.
He dropped the veil and they kept trying to get the spell to work for her.
During lunch Ximena introduced her friends to Harlan, they didn’t really share many interests, they were two other Golden girls that were learning different subjects from the both of them.
The Golden mostly sent their children there to gather information on changes within the magical community; they could open their city and be part of the rest of the world, but they had long refused that option.
Zella eventually showed up looking haggard.
“War magic?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“You could always start drinking tonics, I know the spell to help metabolize food faster.”
“I don’t want to get fat.”
“If you worked out with me instead you could get bigger muscles, used sparingly at least, Hellon always added on the use sparingly clause when she taught the class. Things can get… Weird, if you use it too much too fast.”
“No, I’ll just be tired for a little bit, it’s why you can learn so fast here, the mana in the air will have me just fine by the time I finish eating. I am kinda surprised that you haven’t turned into a hulking monster if you know how to do that though.”
Harlan looked embarrassed
“Wait, don’t tell me that you already tried to do it and got yelled at.”
“Not exactly, I got pulled aside after the class was over and Hellon told me that because of the way I am using the spell to try and power train would have, and I quote ‘substantial negative consequences.’ But she didn’t say who told her to tell me. I’ve got ideas, but I can’t say who might’ve given her that advice.”
Things got a little awkward when Ximena’s friends voiced a rumor that Harlan had rejected her before he left for his parents farm considering she came out of his room in tears back then, Harlan felt a bit of a threatening feeling from them which made him smile.
Harlan wondered what the twins considered the headmaster cracking down on rumors to be, they already knew what was spreading about Harlan, and everywhere he went there was a new rumor going around.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad lunch for the group.
After lunch was healing for Harlan, Ximena and Adina.
On the way he double checked that she had no feelings for him, she was a little offended that he seemed relieved to hear it, but she understood his reasons after he explained them.
They sat in their seats next to one another, Harlan then realized he had been sitting by her since the classes started, he vowed to try and remember people around him better.
He had already forgotten the faces and names of the people whose bullies he would be fighting.
“I hope you haven’t eaten too full of a meal, this class will be focusing on burns. It isn’t abnormal to find the smell appetizing, but please do not mention it during the class. Now, welcome our test subject.”
A golem wheeled in a large slab holding a slime.
As far as what Harlan knew, they are the best friends of a teacher, able to be grown in many different ways to simulate humans, animals, and more.
Adding the right mixes to them causes a creature that can become progressively harder to heal to test students, or in this case, one that is susceptible to fire so it can burn and blister like real human tissue, but can be healed for half the mana cost.
There were a lot of questions in the class, are slimes alive? Is it sedated? Harlan was a little surprised how… moral, the healing students were. They asked the same questions every time they had to operate on a living thing, but from Harlan’s view it lacked a soul, it lacked a mind, so it wasn’t really anything.
It was a thing made by people to be like something else, originally invented to prove that life could be created from scratch, now sometimes called a mage’s hubris.
The only ones that were dangerous were the ones either made to be that way, or the ones made by people overstepping their bounds, they were another one of those things that were closely watched and everyone who knew how to make them were on a list.
Harlan wondered how many lists he was on.
He was brought from his thoughts by the tray being placed on his desk.
The golem was carving squares off of the slime and putting them in front of the students.
Harlan dove in immediately, searing the skin, it did have a rather pleasant smell, fruity, but Harlan couldn’t tell what fruit.
“Sir Fomoria, please listen to me before you start on the test.”
“Sorry, Miss Hellon.”
“As I was saying, this will be another test where light and dark are used together, you cannot heal the dead skin because it has stopped being skin, the muscles are ruined, the fat has somewhat liquified. So, the answer is like when healing broken bones, use small precision strikes with darkness to remove the offending matter and then grow outwards from whatever it left. Remember, it is better to cut deep and heal right, then it is to cut shallow and heal the wrong way, if your magic catches on the now dead and flawed parts of the body, you will be growing flesh that doesn’t work properly and you will need to correct it before trying again. Now, you can start on the test, please feel free to ask as many questions as you like, I would rather not drag these classes out longer than need be, free classes will start as soon as I feel every single one of you deserves a red rose pin and not a day sooner.”
Harlan found it somewhat enjoyable, like lighting a nice smelling candle and reading a book.
Though the candle was about 5 pounds of opaque blue artificial flesh.
Hellon watched closely and dropped some solution on the slimes every now and then as they withered away, even they needed nutrients or they would die.
Harlan lost out to Ximena when it came to healing, she had a flawless record in class, he could attest to this considering how badly that direwolf had sliced him.
They didn’t have far before their paths split off, so Harlan left her with a question he was going to ask everyone else over dinner.
“Hey, I was planning on going back to my parents farm in another month, assuming nothing changes that, would you like to come? I am going to ask the others later, so just think it over, no need to answer now.”
And then he was gone.
War magic, the favorite class of many students who took it, who didn’t want to launch a spell into the distance and watch it blow something up?
Harlan wasn’t one of them, he liked it sure enough, but he didn’t hoot and holler with the other boys.
“Today is more accuracy training. Some of you fail to realize that just because you can level a village, doesn't mean you should. If any of you came to me on a battlefield with your lack of restraint I’d send you back to basic training.
Target the red building without harming any of the surrounding buildings, you all already know how to make an implosion, so do it right and stop competing for who can make the biggest boom. For today you will also be deciding on your elements, keep in mind every aspect that makes up a spell before you cast it.”
Harlan was last as usual, many of the others played flipped coins to decide the turn order, Sepul considered it a bonding experience for them to compete with one another.
The others often didn’t like how long it took Harlan to cast the spells he made, it wasn’t for a lack of trying, Harlan made most of his spells up on the spot, taking bits and pieces of the ones he made before and slotting in new ones until everything looked right.
A sphere 20 feet around formed in front of Harlan and shot at the target building.
He had gone with void, he knew it was destruction and it seemed to hold itself together, darkness was generally somewhat gaseous and could’ve spread to the surrounding buildings when it hit.
Sepul watched very closely as it screamed from the cliff to the mock village, the sound however wasn’t from air being displaced with the speed of the object like a cannonball, rather it was from the vacuum that formed in the trail behind the orb as it devoured and destroyed everything around it.
Pockets of air filled the vacuum with a whistle as the pressure difference hissed.
The blue building was gone, the void ball struck from the top down, imploding in between the two floors, it was flawless, a perfect half sphere was cut into the ground.
What was worrying to Harlan though was that the building didn’t reform as it would when the others hit it.
“Everyone, pay very close attention, what Harlan here demonstrated is exactly why void as an element is so dangerous. What is that?”
He pointed at students and they answered.
“It has a moral lowering sound?
“Wrong. Next.”
“The magic that rebuilds the building stopped working, so it ate away at the magic?”
“Very close, last chance. Harlan, what do you think you did.”
“I killed it, everything, my uncle talked about void orcs once, said they taint the land, it is hard to heal, like the ground, the water, even the air was poisoned.”
“Also close, but still wrong. The most dangerous form of magic for the user is teleportation. The number of people who can do what I do, which is teleport without a gate, can be counted on 1 hand. Void is a gate that breaks things down without having an endpoint to spit them back out at. Everything down there stopped working because the area has been returned to neutral mana, until elemental mana flows back up from the core of Aarde any spells require mana to be pulled from the surrounding area. Void is rarely used for large scale war magic because of the danger that it poses to both sides of a conflict, though it is often used during a retreat so that the pursuers must rely on their own strength to reach the fleeing army while spells cast outside of that void contaminated area are unaffected by it.”
One of the younger looking boys who Harlan was pretty sure could’ve used a few more years to mature chimed in.
“That sounds awesome! How do I use void?”
“You don’t, if anyone here but Harlan cast that spell I would’ve stopped them immediately and told them to never repeat what they had done. If any of you lost control of void for even a split second it could either harmlessly fade away or it would spread out and eat away at everyone here. It exists in three states, solid, liquid, and gaseous, at all times.”
“Well that’s not fair, monster boy gets to do it but we can’t?”
“Harlan has more safeties built into one spell than all of you combined. If you all want to fail my class you will continue with your near suicidal practices, I recommend you all take spell crafting practice, extra classes are held every week on monday after dinner.”
He teleported them all back to the classroom and dismissed them.
Harlan stayed around for a bit, Sepul taught flying right after this anyway.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why am I allowed to use void in war magic but not for flight?”
“In flight you are using it unstructured, which is far more volatile. If you were a grown man I’d have no issue, but you and the rest of the class will be or are hitting puberty and if any of you broke concentration because another students robe lifted up then you could kill yourself and anyone around you. I'd actually stop it, before it reached that point, but you should remember that it is possible. Walk with me.”
It wasn’t like Sepul to not just teleport anywhere he wanted to go, it also wasn’t like him to put up a veil around both of them to fake a conversation that wasn’t actually happening.
“I am told you are being quite the headache for Dahlia, her and Rosewell do want the best for you, my friend sent me another letter after you yelled at her again.”
“I am not sorry.”
“Nor should you be, regardless of the reasons you left, I can tell that the end result is you gaining peace of mind. People like her can’t understand people like you, I don’t understand you.
Death has never weighed heavy on my mind, it has never weighed on hers either, for us life is a job, we live, we die, and we do whatever we can do between those two points. She has it worse however, I know what loss is. I formed bonds, I had children, but she is locked by golden chains, she is likely to die without ever living first. So, next time you see her, say you are sorry, offer her a cup of tea and a cookie, she is fond of the spiced ones. Understand that you and her will never see eye to eye, because she is not you, and you are not her, and accept that.”
“How much of what you just said applies to the king?”
“I will have that conversation another time. But, since you’ve brought him up, do you have any breakthroughs to share? Something to take the edge off of your meeting with Dearil?”
Harlan froze in place, everything was over, he was done, he wanted to flee, but he knew it didn’t matter, Sepul would catch him.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“The king knew from very early on, it seems The Darkness hasn’t been honest with you. You are still alive now because she promised that you would be the key to taking the kingdom into a new golden age, and so far you have fulfilled her promise. But Dearil is doing something and we still can’t find him, and if you know something to strengthen security for the kingdom then maybe whatever he has planned won’t be as bad as it could be, and instead of being beheaded as a traitor when it comes out; you could be pardoned because your contributions to the safety of the kingdom overshadow the emotional mistake of a 13 year old child who had a breakdown shortly beforehand. We can call it temporary insanity.”
“I can wipe the spells from soulsmithed items.”
“Perfect, you’ll need to teach whoever they send this way, I’ll send a letter tonight telling him that you can save an untold amount of gold that would be wasted on forging new items.”
“And… I’ve not finished it yet, but I feel like I am close to a breakthrough in communication, everyone is connected through some kind of web, I just need to tap into it with my empathic abilities and then translate it into magic for everyone else. If Rel- Sorry, Esparella could come here, I believe I would be able to learn a great deal.”
He hadn’t actually done any research on that in weeks, he couldn’t even get a vague sense of progress so it was just grasping randomly in the dark.
“Can those empathic abilities be transformed into normal magic? I will need a rundown on what all they are as well for a report.”
“I’ve tried, Balor and Lugh, despite being made from my soul, still can’t use it. I believe that the seal on mindmagic is bound to each person, so even copies of me can’t use it.”
“I expected that answer, Cecht has always been very cagey about unsealing magic or even telling me what is and isn’t sealed. I will be seeing you tonight so I can put together a larger letter than I expected.”
“When? I have a few duels lined up after dinner, the last one will be at 7.”
“I’ll be there at 7:15 to pick you up. I shouldn't need to tell you, but please remain silent about all of this, even what you have given now isn’t going to be written down anywhere, this is all preemptive in case it somehow does come out.”
Harlan left it unsaid that the person he thought most likely to out him was the king himself.
----------------------------------------
There were murmurs from the other students who were still going off any number of rumors, the one spread by Delmet, was that Harlan had tried to force himself on one of the girls and so he had to be removed from the academy for a week.
The one spread by Taren, was that Harlan had tried to kill Delmet and that is why he was gone, the two ended up as fast friends once they were united in hate.
It wouldn’t take long for the first to be dispelled as Ximena and Adina would keep a close friendship with him.
The second was harder to wash away, Harlan had a certain reputation from other rumors already assumed facts, mixed with Delmet being moved to a separate group, it held some validity.