The conversation didn’t take much longer.

Lady Lar seemed to want to make sure Ava wasn’t a threat and had no plot to destroy the world.

Obviously, she didn’t. She hadn’t had enough time to figure one out yet. And apparently, that was good enough for Lady Lar.

It was good enough for Cael too. He didn’t think he was quite ready to take over the world just yet.

In the end, he shouldn’t have worried. It wasn’t like she would have said anything bad. Their survival was tied to one another and he was certain she wanted to live for quite a bit longer. There was no way she would throw that away right after getting her second chance.

He really only needed to worry if she suddenly severed the connection.

As soon as Lady Lar finished her drink, they were out of there. Cael picked up his luggage on the way and waved goodbye to the two teachers from Genus.

“Send letters when you can!” Layla said sternly. He hadn’t thought she cared that much. “All the interesting things happen around you. It’s pretty entertaining.” And he’d been right to think that.

“Okay. If I get the opportunity, I’ll be sure to do that.” Regardless, it wouldn’t hurt to send an update every once in a while.

Now that Cael was thinking about it, he should probably stop by a church or something to properly thank Arx and send him an update too.

He waved and they vanished, replaced once more by Lady Lar’s garden office. Tar was draped over his head and Ava stood by his foot.

Tar slipped onto the floor in a puddle and slithered away into the greenery.

“Is that teleportation?” He thought he was supposed to sign some kind of contract to teleport that far. Lady Lar had moved them with her own magic instead of through Layla’s gate. Probably because the portal had timed out during the conversation. It had been short, but not that short.

“Not exactly.” Lar handed him a pastry and his stomach grumbled in response. “I’m restricting a bubble of space around you and then manually moving that bubble to the destination I have in mind. I don’t use teleportation magic.”

“Isn’t that a lot more effort?” He took a bite of the offered food. Some kind of berry jam was in the center. It was sweet and absolutely delicious.

“Not necessarily. Some people find certain kinds of magic easier than others.” She studied him for a long second. “You don’t know this.” It wasn’t a question. She was sure he didn’t know.

Cael frowned but didn’t say anything. He had food in his mouth.

“They’re called affinities… You… know what those are.” Also not a question, but she was definitely more confused now.

Cael gave her a thumbs-up and finished his mouthful. “I know what those are. They make magic types cost less mana and do more.” He tried.

“But you don’t seem to be able to connect those points in practice.”

“It’s a new concept to me.” He said defensively.

Lar huffed a laugh and mumbled a quick prayer to the god of time. Cael didn’t catch much of it, but the god was definitely mentioned.

“That reminds me. We should construct a class schedule for you and then get your affinities documented.” A piece of parchment fell onto the table.

“You can’t just see my affinities?”

“It’s too much effort without the proper instruments or skills. Knowing Balbanda, she already has your affinities, so it would just be a matter of asking. No need to waste all the energy doing it myself.”

Cael could respect that. It sounded like the most reasonable and low-effort decision.

“You’re the expert. What classes do you think I should take?”

She slid the paper across the table to him. “This is a list of the classes we offer.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

After a quick scan, Cael was able to make his decision. “I have no idea what any of these classes are.” Well, some of them were self-explanatory, but he didn’t even have a guess as to what might be taught in ‘Classic Resurgent Specialties’ or ‘Apotheosis and Evolution’.

“Those classes have prerequisites. The left side of the list has the classes you would be able to take. If you don’t mind, I was thinking you could take everything in the top row.”

The whole thing? Cael counted the classes in his head. “That’s

“Well, everything seems like it would be helpful to you, and it isn’t as though you have any friends or obligations to take up your free time.”

‘Ooh, she’s got you there.’

'We’re his friends, dumbass.'

‘Oh yeah. We definitely take up his free time, too, but that's something we can work on.’

“Half the time I meet a new person it ends with me unconscious for the rest of the day.” Cael agreed.

“If you really don’t think you can do it, then we can lower the number of classes to twelve.” Lar offered.

“That’s ridiculous. How many classes do people usually take?”

“Ten.” She answered

“Then I want to take ten too!” He complained.

“Eleven?” She wagered.

He stared at her for a long moment, but she had a pretty good poker face. Not a single one of her feathers so much as twitched.

“Fine.”

'I think that was the wrong decision.' Ava said.

‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’ Tar asked.

'Well, I don’t know if it's wrong.' Cael would still have appreciated the feedback.

Despite definitely being able to hear them, Lar chose to ignore their conversation. “Wonderful! I was thinking that you could take the standard package plus the ‘aspiring adventurer’ series.”

She turned the paper and began pointing to the classes as she listed them. “That means Mathematics, Physics, History, and Physiology 1 are given.”

“Then Elemental Awareness and Familiar Caretaking.” She skipped to near the bottom of the list before continuing. “I’d say Practical Combat and then Weapon Handling, and if you’re taking those, you might as well take Shielding and Mitigation as well. And lastly, I guess you could take Monster Harvesting 1.”

'That’s ten.' Ava noted.

“Well, you need to do a physical activity class too.” Lar shrugged. Apparently, that one was up to him.

“Practical Combat and Weapon handling don’t count?”

“Those used to, but some people don’t move when they fight or swing a weapon.”

Cael scanned the list and noted all the beginner-level classes that Lar hadn’t offered. There were all sorts of arts and languages. On top of that, there were maybe fifty different crafting classes available that she hadn’t even considered. Not that any of them were especially interesting to him. Maybe culinary? But that was it.

“How about ‘Running’?”

“That’s great!” Lady Lar produced another two items from her metaphorical storage unit. They were a bracelet and a notebook embossed with Mereo’s emblem. A silver mountain in a black ocean. Lady Lar slid the bracelet toward him.

“Put this on. You can’t use most of our doors without it.”

While he struggled with the clasp, Lar opened the notebook, which-

‘That’s a calendar,’ Tar corrected him.

And so it was. The eight-day weeks were still a little jarring to see, but the idea was still similar.

When Lar waved her hand over the pages, words and numbers appeared. He leaned in and caught a glance at his class schedule before she flipped to the next page.

Eight-day weeks, with five weeks in a month. That was forty days a month and… He didn’t know how many months were in a year.

“One year is ten months, or fifty weeks, or four hundred days.” Lady Lar supplied. She was giving him another one of her looks. Cael supposed that the standard year cycle would be pretty common knowledge.

“Universally?”

Lady Lar shrugged, “Aside from an extreme minority of individuals, yes.”

“What minority is that?” Knowing Cael’s Luck, he would probably end up meeting one of them.

“Some people who are older than the current standard calendar prefer to use the one that they were born into, but even most of those transitioned ages ago. I’m sure you can guess the other kind.” Lady Lar gave him another one of her looks. She totally knew.

“Anyway, with your classes sorted and the rest of your information effectively handled, you can go tour our academic campus. Please try not to break anything else.”

That was a dismissal, wasn’t it?

Cael scooped Ava into his arms and picked up the offered calendar before standing up to go find the exit Tar had found while wandering around in Lar’s garden.

Before he could even take a step, he turned back to Lady Lar and did his best estimation of the salute he’d seen earlier.

Lady Lar smiled and waved him off.

He grinned and left, stumbling a bit when Ava waved a wing at Lar.

“Don’t do that, I almost dropped you!” Ava was made entirely out of metal and had the mass to prove it. He could swear she was actually heavier than the vambrace she'd formed from.

Cael thought he might have heard Lady Lar laughing as he ventured into the foliage.