The end of the school year approached and I spent the remaining few days in the library. By now it became a comforting environment. I searched for miscellaneous knowledge of anything from plants and monsters to magic and spells. All the while, I made sure to use as little magic as possible, so that as much excess mana as possible could be funnelled towards the growth of my second soul.

In no time the end-of-year assessment test arrived and passed. And so too did Aiden. Pass the test, I mean. He did not pass on, luckily.

And so it happened that, for the first time since the start of the year, we were once again both in the dorm room. Wow, I just realized how much time I’ve spent in the library over the past few months. Freaky.

Aiden was walking about his room, putting all the few belongings he had into a backpack.

“So, what now? Why are you packing all your stuff?” I ask, for once bored since I didn’t have a book to examine for useful info.

“We leave. The Academy doesn’t allow students to stay in the dorms during break, so I have to pack and get out.” His reply is terse, very unlike the Aiden I’ve come to know during the first months. Then again, we’ve been meeting more and more rarely as the year progressed. I wonder if something happened. Oh well, at least he isn’t that stuttering mess as before.

It doesn’t take him long to finish putting everything away. As I said, very few belongings. Just a few spare clothes mostly and of course the suspiciously long book we received.

I decide to hide away inside him for once while he goes about. This way I can focus on a new boosting technique that increases my mana generation four times! Sadly, it requires almost my full focus, so I can’t pay as much attention to this new city.

Soon I get into the zone, my mana flooding towards my soul as the scenery passes by.

The dorms. Academy gardens. The long walkway towards the main building of the academy. The magnificent lizard engraved gate.

The plaza where people occasionally teleport to and from. A street. Another street. A public square. More streets and more plazas.

Occasionally Aiden stops by or visits one of the buildings we pass by, but then the journey soon continues.

The sun reaches noon and soon also passes it.

Some more streets and alleys. The occasional wooden house start appearing again.

Another plaza, another fountain, another alley, another building.

A crowd of people. Some commotion. A fancily dressed teen. More commotion. Armoured guards and some more streets and alleys.

Wait what? I pause concentrating inwards and focus on the outside happenings.

Guards? As far as I know, being escorted by guards isn’t a sign of good times ahead.

“Um, Aiden? Why are you being dragged by the guards?” I send him a quick message. Hopefully this is just a misunderstanding and we can clear it up quickly, but somehow, I doubt it.

It takes a while for him to respond, though he eventually does answer. Still, even in his mental voice I can hear the anger and frustration. “It’s that bastard Adraldor. Or ‘lord Levi’ ass he wants everyone to call him. Damn bastard.”

“Hmm, is he important? Wait, wait. Is he in your class?” I send back. A bit of distraction may do me good after working for so long.

“Haven’t you been paying attention? He’s the stupid son of the local lord who’s been trying to take control of the whole class since the very start!” Somehow, the thought of this makes Aiden even more angry.

“Well, I’m sorry, I haven’t been paying much attention because I was combing through the whole library so that you wouldn’t fail your so called ‘mundane subjects’.” Maybe that was a bit too harsh. Then again, it is the truth and I’d be nice to be appreciated a bit.

At this, he falls silent. We don’t talk after that, which is frustrating, since I still don’t know what’s happening!

Let’s see. There was some kind of commotion with a crowd. Then the apparently arrogant Adraldor Levi, son of Lord Levi, arrived. Then came more commotion and soon after the guards were taking Aiden away. Does that mean that Adraldor got offended by something Aiden did and called the guards on him? Seem like it, in which case he really is an entitled prick.

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It doesn’t take long and soon we’re waiting in another empty room. Ah, reminds me of my first day on this summoning. We wait and wait. I try a couple of half-hearted attempts to engage Aiden in conversation, but he isn’t feeling it. And to be honest, neither am I.

It at least gives me the opportunity to once again focus on my mana generation. Which actually managed to increase the size of the small soul twice since I got it. Though since it started so extremely small it didn’t count as a proper advancement. I’ll have to go beyond the size of my original soul to advance, it seems.

An unknown time later, a single guard enters and takes us out. He leads us all the way to the city wall, where he pauses and gives Aiden a look.

“Look, man. I don’t know what you did and it’s obvious it isn’t fair, but orders are orders. The lord has banished you from the city for a year. The most I can do is give you this,” he hands Aiden a smallish pack, " and wish you good luck.

The anger bubbles back to the surface of Aiden’s psyche, but thankfully he still takes the pouch. With clenched fists and a steely gaze, he sets out into the wilderness outside the city.

Ok, that’s a bit exaggerated. The area surrounding the city is mostly grassland and farms, though he does head in the direction of a forest in the far-off distance.

Which gives me more time to focus on my own growth.

The second soul is slowly inching its way towards the size of the bigger original one. It gains a small increase in radius continuously even though the vast majority of its enlargement happened due to those proto-advancements.

By now it’s orbiting around my original one at only half the speed of when I first claimed it. Does that mean that when they’re balanced, they’ll both be still? Hmm, food for thought.

We enter the forest and I decide that I’ve had enough of being confined for now and start flying about once again. Aiden still appears to ignore me. Whatever, he’ll eventually have to calm down and talk to me if he wants to survive here. After all, I’m pretty sure that they didn’t cover any survival spells in the academy this year.

We spend the rest of the day trekking through the forest. Well, Aiden did. I can fly.

As night approaches he’s still going and I begin to wonder whether he has any plan or even an idea of what to do. Eventually, he just looks around, lies down near a tree and promptly falls asleep.

Dumbass! Is he a complete buffoon or what? You have no idea what lurks in this forest! You haven’t even tried to construct the most basic of shelters or hide. And also, I’m a floating source of light. Don’t you think some creature will be attracted to that!

Once I’m done mentally shouting at him in my head, I set about fixing at least some of his mistakes. I collect some sticks and underbrush to cover him from any predators. Now, what about my light?

Actually, that’s an even better question than I thought. Why am I glowing?

I never really questioned it; it just was one of the things I did and there was no reason to bother myself with it further. But now I wonder. Is it something I even have control over? And why is it happening in the first place?

All the other familiars, that I’ve seen so far, who went through the first advancement don’t have any sort of glow to them, so what makes me, or rather all the unformed ones, different?

In one of the books, I read over the past year, the author proposed the idea that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. Which is obviously false, just look at where mana comes from, but what if it did have something to it.

I once again focus inwards, but this time I concentrate on my actual mana pool. It’s the most straightforward form of power I know of and I have to make sure that he glow isn’t stealing any of my mana. I need that for my advancement.

The mana pool has also transformed since I got my second soul. At first it only grew by a little bit, but now I can almost call it a mana pond. Which suggests that by having two souls the combined mana capacity isn’t additive, since, you know, the new soul is much smaller so it makes no sense for my capacity to more than double already. Hopefully the same applies to generation.

But I digress. I haven’t cast a spell I some time now and my mana reflects that. It is as smooth and calm as can be. If not the pool, then maybe the generation?

I check on my souls and where all the extra generated mana goes, but once again find no discrepancy. All the generated mana is heading right where it should, towards my new soul. Where does the glow come from then?

Out of options, I turn towards the one place that had most of the answers to my unanswered questions. My instincts.

It’s always troublesome when I have to deal with them. They either completely overwhelm me (even if they haven’t led me astray so far), or I have to coax them into action with all of my effort. It’s quite troublesome, really, but what can I do.

As I focus on my problem while concentrating on the very core of my being, a faint sense of directions whiffs by me. I blindly follow, hoping that this won’t be the time when I’m betrayed by my own instincts.

And my faith is rewarded. Though I only notice later when I stop my intense focus, my light slowly dims, until only a faint,, barely visible glow remains. Is that a requirement or do just not have enough practice to completely turn it off? Whatever, it’ll be enough for now.

But tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll have to properly teach Aiden how to survive in the wilderness. Admittedly my own knowledge is only theoretical, but at least the spells I should be able to cast. If nothing else, at least he won’t starve.

I settle into the crown of the tree Aiden is sleeping under and turn half my attention inward. After all, I can’t have something sneaking up on us in the night. With the other half though, I can do whatever I want. And what I want the most currently is to finally advance. It’ll soon be a whole year late, but still better than never.

I slowly drift into a mana generating fugue as I ponder that my multitasking abilities also seem to have gained an improvement since my acquisition of two souls.