“Welcome to the Azunad Academy of the Arcane Arts.”

After that admittedly dramatic proclamation followed a frankly boring whirlwind of bureaucracy. Registration, accommodation and a seemingly endless amount of paperwork. At the end of the day, we were left inside our new room in the school dorms. Aiden ended up being so exhausted that he immediately fell asleep, without even saying goodnight.

So here I am, once again stuck waiting for my summoner. Or at least, I would be if I hadn’t learnt that I can move about! It still seems like a huge injustice that I hadn’t known that.

But first, I have to overcome my first challenge. Escaping this prison of a room. There are only two entrances, at least for me. The big, heavy wooden door and the window. And since I am the smartest spirit alive, I know that it’s going to be easier to flee through the window.

After a bit of fiddling around with it, I manage to just barely push it open enough to quickly float outside. And off I go, exploring the world.

The academy ground, as much as they seemed enormous from outside, are even bigger than I first thought. Our room is located in one of the southern dormitories, yet there are dozens more all around. Not to mention the fact that not all students stay here and instead come in everyday, at least according to what I overheard during our registration.

Exploring further, I realize that the huge castle-like structure visible from the entrance is mostly some come gathering hall or something, and only the higher floors are actual classrooms. Also, I found a basement! Not much I can say about that since it was locked a couple passageways in, but that’s still super cool.

But the main attraction, the thing I wanted to see since I first spotted the academy-castle, are the towers. Specifically, the highest one. Its base is a bit hidden, behind the main roof, and yet it reaches high up into the sky. Bit of an oversight on the architect’s part if they wanted to keep it hidden, in my opinion.

I fly higher and higher, circling the tower as I go, until I reach the top. There just beneath the pointy roof is a small circular window. Well, small for humans, more than big enough for me. I float to it and peer inside what has to be the most interesting, or at least important room in the whole school.

And inside I see… Just a dude. Admittedly an old wizened dude with a long grey beard, but still just a dude. He’s sitting behind a desk, writing something. All around him are shelves on shelves of books. And in front of his desk, on the floor, lies a creature I had never seen before.

It was a… squirrel? But it had a shell? What? Aren’t snails supposed to have shells? I distinctly remember seeing a couple of snails in the forest during my unmentionable first summon, and that is what they had on their back. Why does a squirrel have one? And for that matter, why is the squirrel so big? It’s almost the size of a wolf! What the-!

Suddenly, it raises its head and I realize. This is an academy for people with Familiars e.g., spirits. And this squirrel-snail hybrid just simply cannot exist, so it has to be a spirit! Ha-ha, I thought that we could change shape since The Big Snake was so much different from me, but this proves it! Ha-ha, yes! I wonder what I can become? Could I also be so big like the serpent? Or should I instead stick to small and fast, like this sqail probably is?

Once again stuck in my own mental musings, I didn’t notice the old geezer stand up and approach the window. Then he just opens it and walks back to his desk.

Ooh, well don’t mind if I do. I zip right inside and start moving about in the room in what is slowly becoming my favourite movement, circling. Though there doesn’t appear to much more to see other than what I could already observe from outside. So, I eventually slow down and focus my attention on the two strange occupants.

“Sigh,” the old man begins quietly, as if only talking to himself even though I can clearly hear him, “newly borne are always such a bother. Anyway, welcome to my office I suppose. I am the headmaster of this academy and this here is my familiar Grintoa. Just for your information, you are currently in a restricted area, but seeing as you are just an unformed, I suppose I can humour you for a while.” He continues throughout the whole introduction in a bored monotone voice, as if greatly exhausted.

“Oh, yes. And if you hadn’t learnt this already, to talk to other people than your contracted you have to actually push your thoughts out, instead of just loosening your hold on them.” He quickly adds before going back to his writing.

“Cool, cool!” I manage to shout out almost immediately, “So, mind telling me how I can become something so interesting like you or that big snake I met?” I, of course, ask the most important question first. I guess it was bugging me more than I thought.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The sqail, squirrel-snail hybrid, doesn’t move a bit, yet I know that it is the one to speak. “You grow, practice, and make contracts. Seriously, you would have figured it out on your own.”

At this, I finally freeze my continuous flight around the room. Did it just say grow? Like the mysterious grown my special talent referred to? Am I finally going to figure out what that is?

“Grow? What do you mean by that, can you show me, how do I do that?” I quickly ask, even while stopping a much bigger deluge of questions.

And yet, the Familiar just sighs, and gives me a non-answer. “You’ll figure it out. I mean you are at the school of arcane arts. Besides, it changes.” This spirit is very meanspirited.

I spend a little more time with Mr. headmaster and Grintoa, but they are both uncooperative, so I soon leave for brighter pastures. Speaking of brighter, the sun is coming out! And I have to admit that they chose a great spot to build the academy. With the sun rinsing right in front of its entrance, it makes for a truly majestic sight.

And then: “Um, spirit? Where are you?” Aiden’s voice interrupts the magical moment. I seem to get interrupted a lot lately. Or maybe that’s just life, I mean I am very new to this.

Anyway, I should probably go back to him. “Don’t worry, I’m right there, just give me a minute.” I give quick reply before heading back.

As I arrive at the window to our room though I realize my mistake. The window doesn’t open from the outside! Which is all well and good when considering break ins, but what about me?

So, with what is left of my dignity I ram my body into it in the hopes that Aiden will hear and open it for me. And lo and behold, he does! I settle into the room, once more circling, and focus on my summoner.

“So, um, hi.” He greets me shyly.

“Hi Aiden!” I reply in kind.

He seems unsure, which I still don’t understand, but to each their own. I still slow down a bit though and reduce my trajectory to move closer to him. After a little while, maybe to collect his thought, maybe to collect himself, he continues.

“Right, so. Hi, I’m Aiden. Thank you for becoming my Familiar. I, um, not sure what exactly will happen now, but this is the Academy of Arcane Arts, where people with magical potential study to become great mages. I, uh, may have been rejected and, um, stolen a manual on how to summon a spirit companion to summon you. So, yeah, here we are. That’s about it.” He finishes barely audibly.

“Hey, that’s pretty cool! So, what now? We go study, right?”

He appears shocked for whatever reason, though this time recovers much faster.

“Right, um, not exactly. There’s still a bit before the school year starts, and most other student will already know a bunch of basics, so they gave me this,” he motions to a book on the bedside table, “so that I can catch up and be more or less up to date when we do start studying.”

“Nice, does it have a section about growing? I was told that that is one of the things we would learn.” I don’t let his unexplainably sullen mood ruin mine and focus on the important stuff. Once again, growing.

“I’m, not sure,” he begins hesitantly, “but I’m sure we’ll find something when comb through it.”

Aha, he finally gained a bit of confidence there at the end. Good.

We spend the rest of the day going through the book. I mean, almost the whole day. He had to go eat a bunch of times. Either way, we find a bunch of tips and tricks for us as a summoner-spirit due. Little things like how to talk between each other we already knew, but a lot of stuff was news to both of us. For example, if we concentrate on our bond, we can sort of sense the location of the other one. Or that if we really concentrate, then we can actually share senses. Thought the book does say that it only works for a certain distance.

At the end of the day, though we’ve been reading the time, we still haven’t finished with the book. We did manage to find one hint to what growing is, but only barely and not by any exact name, and it was that the spirit should stay inside the summoner, at least at night, to improve its efficacy. Not sure if that’s really true, but bye bye my night exploration. Maybe we’ll see each other again, but for now I’ll be locked up again.

At night, with nothing to do and nothing to observe, unlike in a forest, I eventually too fall into a stupor like state, similar to my worldly companion.

As soon as the sun starts rising, I quickly emerge once again. I’m a bit sad that I couldn’t see the sunrise, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunities for that later. We spend the day similarly to the previous one. A bunch of new facets of our connection are revealed to us and we once again spend the time between reading practicing them.

At the end of the there’s still no mention of the fabled growth, but I’m still hopeful. No one’s come to check on us yet, so I’m unsure about this whole academy, but Aiden assures me that that’s just because school hasn’t actually started yet. Which doesn’t explain why we have to be here, but whatever.

The next couple days progress similarly, and I’m increasingly more and more suspicious of the length the book. It appears normal from the outside, yet no matter how many pages Aiden turns, there seems to be barely any progress. I pointed this out to him, but he still can’t notice it and refuses to skip ahead.

Truth be told, even I was beginning to lose a bit of hope when, after a more than a week of continuous studying we reached near the end of the book. And there, although not a chapter on growth, there’s a chapter focusing on something called edification. But it’s contents, well that certainly does sound like growth.

And honestly, it once again sounds so simple that I’m kind of embarrassed I didn’t figure this out. Apparently, there’s something called mana, some kind of energy, I’m not sure, that the people here use to cast spells. Even the summoning ritual that called me here was powered by it. And apparently, the more you use this, the more you improve in it. Now, of course this most likely isn’t all there is to it, seeing as this is only a basic book to catch students up, but at least it’s something.

Oh yeah, and dear Aiden here apparently knew this already, the little rascal. Which, makes sense since he had to have mana to summon me, but still. He could have said something! Now I have to learn how to use it, but at least Familiars have a much easier time about it than humans do.