Louis Birch gave Gwen a grading of A and told her she needn't attempt the other exercises. Instead, he sent her away to the infirmary, under the supervision of the unexpectedly helpful Lu Fung. He wasn't exactly sure what business the junior Conjurer had, but his jurisdiction ended at the Lecture hall's entrance.
Now that the fight had concluded, Birch could see it was a wise decision not to intervene. What foresight, he thought to himself. As expected, Gwen Song was trouble personified.
"Kusu, are you alright?" Birch turned to the other party, assuming the role of a caring mentor. He wasn't worried about Kusu's health; the young man's pride was more wounded than his body. He was more concerned about what may come. That Lulan Li...
"I feel fine, Sir." Kusu's pride looked more wounded than his body.
"Good. And Kusu..?"
"Yessir?"
Birch leaned in closer to give the young man a private piece of advice.
"Maybe keep a tight leash on your sister. I've dealt with her enough in second-year to know what she's thinking—or not thinking, as it were. You and I both know foresight is not her forte."
His student acknowledged his advice with a bow.
Lulan Li, Magister Birch sighed as he withdrew. Another troublemaker. The younger girl was hailed as a genius of the Earthen arts. At fifteen, she entered Fudan and progressed almost exclusively through questing credits until reaching her second-year specialisation. The girl was initially slated for an LCSS placement, but after what she did to her opponent...
For a non-combat instructor like Birch, there were good reasons why Lulan Li usually took her lessons away from Shanghai. Then again, he mused to himself; maybe Gwen and Lulan deserved each other—like fighting fire with fire.
Despite the well-fought match, it wasn't hard for Birch to imagine that Lulan felt Gwen had cheated. After all, what kind of Conjurer-Evoker had an Abjuration Shield? Not to mention Gwen's Shield was more robust than an Abjurer's of the same tier. Then there was her Familiar's ability to consume Kusu's implements without dying. How was her brother supposed to fight that?
Having taught both, he knew a little of their circumstances: Kusu wasn't an inheriting disciple of the main branch but had every ambition to make it to the top. The boy was gifted, but his sister was one of a kind—and therein lied the trouble.
Birch fantasised about intervening, then stopped at that.
It would take someone far better connected than he to ensure the incident did not blow out of proportion. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to rile the Clanners up?
Maybe he should visit Klavdiya?
He would love nothing more than to see her again; not the imperfect facsimile that was her granddaughter, but the perfection of her face, all the richer for the passage of years.
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
"I am fine." Gwen's mind was still thinking of Lulan Li as she spoke, recalling the girl looked like she wanted to drink her blood then and there.
"If you're sure." Lu stepped away from her politely, keeping a respectful distance as she sat on the infirmary's white bedding.
"I've still got Evocation Practicals. I just need an hour's meditation, that's all."
"I'll speak to Magus Young if you like," Lu offered kindly.
Gwen shook her head. Clanners being nice to her? That itself was enough to set her packing. "Thank you, Lu. You've done plenty enough for me."
The Fung member had insisted on escorting her to the infirmary east of the campus. For a Clanner who was usually aloof and utterly neglectful of her presence, the Spirit Conjurer had behaved like one of those smitten men in inane idol-dramas, making her doubly nervous.
After Lu left, she double-checked her surroundings with Detect Magic, then told the presiding nurse that she would like some privacy for a few hours to restore her mana and focus. The nurse complied, pulling close the curtains, and told her to call if she began to feel worse.
Confident she was alone, Gwen began her meditation, feeling her Druidic essence restore her Void-ravaged mana conduits. As her body healed, she attempted to figure out if her latest incident was spontaneous or a part of something more significant.
She began with her immediate concern.
Kusu Li and Lulan Li.
She had seen them once before down at the training hall.
They were the ones who had cornered her once, whom she had elected to ignore. Did they challenge her because they thought she was an easy persimmon to squash? A little fig of fame, plump for the plucking?
Gwen knew that she was somewhat notorious because of the infamy brought by her Void talent, her Scholarship, and her relationship with Petra. With the addition of Caliban's high-impactful visual presence during her bestiary training, she was likely a well-known personality on the Upper Campus.
Was that why Kusu challenged her?
It made sense logically.
In European history, a young Henry V challenged Percy Hotspur and killed him for the 'garlands' of fame and honour taken from the warrior-prince. It was central to Henry V's plan to assume the throne by building a reputation for himself.
If so, then why was Lu trying to help her? They were both Clanners, and they knew each other. Kusu even called Lu Elder-Brother.
That being the case, was this orchestrated by both of them?
Was Kusu supposed to thrash her, then Lu comes to the rescue to impress her?
Was Dai Fung a part of this?
Then again, Dai still owed her a favour. Maybe she could look into that. That was one way to resolve this problem, but further contact with yet more Clanners was the last thing she desired.
She wanted to keep meditating, but her time was up.
1400—time for Evocation Prac.
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
Evocation took place on the Lower Campus Training Grounds in a set-up zone for large-scale magical demonstrations.
Portable "WoF" generators had been set up across two football fields, dividing the malleable, transmuted asphalt with simmering barriers. Various Dummy-golems given life with simplistic Animate Lesser Objects formed a line of stackable targets that, from a distance, looked comically like a wooden marching band. As with Conjuration, the examination was split between combat and utility.
As Gwen walked onto the field, she became surrounded by her usual companions in Evocation, the phonically challenged Pu, the haughty Lily, as well as the quiet Material Engineer -Jon.
The trio immediately surrounded her.
"Mao below! Pu and Lily told me about what happened during Conjuration. Are you alright?" Jon inquired, his bookish face red with worry. Usually, the boy kept to himself and was the ardent listener of the foursome. "The Clanners… I don't know. Couldn't you have refused?"
In hindsight, Gwen wished she'd refused as well. She had made a call on imperfect information, and now she had to live the consequences. But it wasn't as though Gwen thrashed the man. It was a good duel and a lovely spectacle. Conversely, given opportunity and Evocation, she could have jacked up Ariel with a Druidic boost and potentially dropped the poor man with a single Elemental Sphere or a well-placed Lighting Bolt.
The young man had been amiable enough, humble and accepting of his defeat. Lu helped, and Magister Birch had certified her victory - what more was there to be done? She'd done her part.
Or maybe it was the money? Gwen felt a rash of cold sweat. Kusu had given her denomination as small as 5 HDMs. Perhaps she had accidentally bankrupted the guy? If someone had ruined her finances, she would be feeling sore indeed.
Then again, Gwen reminded herself. She had done what was best for herself in the circumstances, going as far as to leave Kusu unscathed. If that Elemental Swarm had been Void or if she finished him with a Void Tentacle...
Yikes.
"I've got it under control," Gwen assured her friends. "I've got back-up as well, haha."
"You're friends with Petra Kuznetsova and studying under Magister Wen, right?" Pu asked doubtfully, his lack of confidence written all over his face. "Are they going to help you? Magister Wen is famous for her indifference to these things."
"It's not Magister Wen who's going to help. I know that Gwen's the niece of Jun' The Ash Bringer' Song," Lily spoke up, far more confident than her companion in Gwen's bravado.
The two boys turned to regard Gwen with a new light.
"But he's Chinese! And you're..."
"He's quarter-Russian. Though he takes after my Grandfather," Gwen corrected them.
"Who's your grandfather?"
Gwen told them.
"You're a PLA Guan-er-dai! A power progeny!" Pu stammered. He had told Gwen to avoid association with Clanners, Guan-er-dai, and the Fu-er-dai. He and his friends were just regular, middle-class kids with a bit of talent. Involvement in a political power feud could wipe out their entire line in a single purge.
Jon looked thoroughly intimidated as well.
"I am not—it's complicated." Gwen shook her head. "The family and I are not close. I also have no desire to follow my Uncle into the PLA."
"Don't worry, we understand," Lily, who was a provincial Guan-er-dai herself, said sympathetically with a wink. The girl seemed to have reached a suitable misunderstanding involving affairs and mistresses. "I am sure your family will accept you one day. You have such an amazing talent, after all."
Gwen felt fatigued by the effort required to dispel Lily's inferred hypothesis but decided against it. Her friends were clearly 'independently aligned' students, and she was better off being seen as 'one of them' than one of the 'big three' to be avoided in Fudan.
"Still, wow, The Ash Bringer is your uncle," both Jon and Pu muttered reverently.
"That's why Gwen should be safe!" Lily took her arm, and they proceeded toward the centre of the practice field, where the students were assembled. "Ha, can you imagine it? Some Clanner opening their mountain gate, only to find The Ash Bringer staring them down, demanding for the prick who hurt his niece!"
"Uncle Jun wouldn't be so rash!" Gwen chuckled, realising that perhaps, she was in a better position than she'd thought. The cognisance instantly made her relax, scattering the dark cloud of paranoia that had hung overhead. In Shanghai, as in Sydney, a Mage couldn't just thrive on talent alone.
At worst, she could appeal to Uncle Jun.
She could call in her favour with Dai.
She could even ask Magister Wen, who would fight tooth and nail for her fortnightly samples.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Therefore, her present problems were solved!
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
Despite having spent almost five weeks with two Familiars attending class with her, Gwen's infamy in Evocation was nowhere near the level of begrudging notoriety engendered in Conjuration. She rarely used her Void powers outside of private practice, and most of the students knew her as a Conjuration Major.
For Evocation, combat trials were obstacle courses combined within a shooting range. Targets varied from stationary-single, moving-single, cluster, cluster-in-motion; to identify Friend-Foe scenarios. This final segment, where 'enemies' were placed beside 'allies', proved the real challenge. Even in Fudan, its talented Evokers had variable access to elements and spells. Thereby, the grading was geared toward problem-solving, precision and control, Spell-shaping, and situational awareness.
The rationale for such stringent training was that future graduates were independently operating agents. A secondary graduate going straight to vocation College or Military Service would also be trained in the same tactics but would lack the knowledge necessary to become anything other than NCOs.
Unlike Gwen's incident-filled morning, the afternoon proceeded smoothly.
In her class, there were prodigious standouts in Evocation. A plethora of Fire Mages scored over 90. An Earthen Mage scored over 100, performing above the scoring threshold. The student who topped the class was a Mud Mage, the first of his kind Gwen had ever seen, who had a perfect 120, going as far as to single out and destroy a target surrounded by moving, friendly dummies simulating a panicked crowd.
Gwen finished her heat with a personal best of 1 Minute and 58'11 Seconds, extinguishing eighteen of twenty targets with an aggregate score of 89.
Her companions of Evocation, Pu and Lily, finished in the mid-80s, with Jon trailing in the 60s.
Gwen didn't mind the modest score because she was bereft of a foe-seeking Spirit to guide her bolts, not to mention both Ariel and Caliban were absent from her score. She was happy with the uninspiring result, for the last thing she needed was another Clanner who would pluck a wreath from her brow to adorn their heads.
Magus Young was still excitedly congratulating the victor when Gwen told her friends that she seriously needed some food in her belly. She had used her Void abilities excessively in the morning, then skipped lunch thanks to Lu's creepy kindness. Going by the experience of the past month, another hour or two without a fortifying meal of mana-rich comfort cuisine and she would be feeling light-headed and dizzy.
Her friends urged her to be safe, going as far as to escort her home.
"Well, how about I shout you guys a nice dinner since we're all going the same way?" Gwen suggested. Familiarity breeds intimacy, after all. She had known Pu, Lily and Jon for almost six weeks now.
"Shout dinner?" Lily raised a brow.
"It means buy dinner," Gwen translated.
The boys were keen, going by their breathless anticipation. Lily sighed, overpowered by democracy.
"Alright, nothing too expensive," Lily relented.
"How about Fengbo Manor on Zhengmin Rd?" Gwen offered. "Cheap as chips, and a top watering hole too."
"What… do those words even mean?" Lily grew confused by her idiomatic expressions. Gwen realised that her Australian locutions must appear bizarre under her magically-translated Mandarin. "Is it next to a lake?"
"Whatever it might be, I am sure it's good!" Heedless of Lily's protests, the boys took their friend by her arms and began to carry her forward, urging Gwen to lead the way.
[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]
Fengbo Village was cheap but well worth the culinary visit.
The place was tiny, with a whimsical decor that alluded to a 'branch' of a 'Beggar's Clan'. Its dishes followed titles that sounded like something from an old wuxia Vid-cast, with the menu tastefully written on bamboo plaques.
"I'll take a Fengbo Platter, Wildland Beggar Pheasant, Chilli Mud-Carp soup, braised pork, Purple bamboo stir fry with preserved rabbit. Also, giant-headed fish pot, stuffed goat leg, and two tubs of Enchanting Jasmine rice."
The matron took their orders.
"Tsingtao for the table as well, Mama," Gwen ordered from the menu like a local even as her Ioun stone struggled with the pictogram calligraphy.
"You got it, Beauty!"
The middle-aged NoM lady, the chef's wife and proprietor took Gwen's order to the kitchen.
Gwen knew she was a favoured customer. Gwen usually ordered the most expensive and exotic dishes on the menu, making her a godsend for attracting customers.
"So, this your usual haunt?" Pu looked around the tiny restaurant and felt cheated that an up and coming goddess of Fudan would find comfort and solace in a place fit only for middle-class NoMs and low-rank Mages.
"They serve fresh ingredients if you order the specials," Gwen pointed out. "I guess it's not always Wildland produce, but the taste is top-notch!"
Gwen was growing guilty of being spoilt by Marong and Mayuree's maid. During a hectic week, she had eaten so often at Mayuree's generous behest that she was sure the maid had to restock the pantry twice over.
At Fengbo, her favourite food here was the 'Beggar Wildland Pheasant.'
It was a fantastic dish that Gwen had initially ordered out of curiosity. The chef first cleaned and tied off a Wildland pheasant after stuffing it with Chinese rice wine, cured ginger, shallot, coriander leaf, star anise, soy and blood sugar, then wrapped it in betel leaves, covered it in clay, then buried in a charcoal kiln and baked it for six hours.
When served, the chef personally presented himself with the cocoon, breaking the clay 'egg' with a mighty blow from a wooden hammer and releasing the famously steaming pheasant within. The juices flowed generously onto the wooden plate as the leaves came off, sending out an aroma that flooded the restaurant and about half the alleyway.
"How is it possible that I am getting food advice from a Gweilo?!" Lily moaned, her mouth salivating. "Beggar's pheasant, where have you been all my life?"
The foursome tapped their beers then dug into the dish, carving up the bird with their greasy fingers and sending up another cloud of aromatic euphoria throughout the restaurant.
"Boss! One pheasant!"
"Mama! One here as well!"
Gwen's other dishes came soon after, weighing their bamboo table until its lattice frame creaked.
"Dig in!" Gwen lavishly urged her friends to try a bit of everything.
Beers clinked, Gwen bit into a chicken leg, then almost choked.
Just as the taste entertained her tongue, she perceived a crashing premonition of danger, turning the savoury juices into rusty iron as if she'd bitten through some undercooked offal.
Gwen immediately looked about her surroundings, searching the patrons. Ashamedly, her Divination was too untrained to pinpoint hazards and recognise the source of potential dangers. Could it be her fellow diners? She wondered. Was it the man stuffing his face with jasmine rice, or perhaps the bloke who looked as though the Sichuan-fish was giving him an aneurysm?
Seeing Gwen's sudden expression of dismay, her companions' chopsticks came to a standstill.
WHAM!
The restaurant's bamboo gates flung open with a crash.
A girl-Mage of about five-foot-five stood at the threshold, her ochre eyes more rust than amber, burning with a circular current of Elemental Earth. She was attired in black, her silhouette tenebrous against the exterior street light.
Wocao! Gwen picked up a bit of the local dialect. It's been less than six hours! Was the girl that impatient for satisfaction? Shouldn't the Clanner girl be plotting from the shadows or at least ambushing her somewhere discrete? How about bringing a few goons or calling on some allies? Gwen was sure the caution of Lulan's peers still rang in her ears.
While Gwen held her beggar's chicken in disbelief, Lulan Li strode across the bamboo tiles toward her table.
Pu stared with his mouth hanging half-open.
Jon was struggling to keep the soup in his mouth.
Lily allowed the soup to flow from her lips.
Gwen dropped the chicken awkwardly, then looked for a napkin. If the girl wanted to meet and greet, it was best performed with dignity and not orchestrated with a pheasant drumstick.
A second later, the girl was now upon them.
The restaurant was packed with primarily NoM patrons, yet every one of them, Gwen and her companions included felt the pressure unleashed by Lulan's petite body. A stench of oxidised iron permeated the air, a scent that curiously reminded Gwen of that unfortunate time in Blackheath.
"Umm..."
"Lulan, Li."
"Gwen, Song."
"I know."
"How can I help you?"
Gwen was confident she could bluff the girl. She was wearing a bib, and her hands were still sticky with grease. It was hard to face down a stone-cold sorceress, more so when your dignity was yet invested in juicy chicken bits.
"My brother's daggers. I want them returned."
"What daggers?" she asked carefully.
"The daggers you took during today's match."
"I took his daggers?"
"Don't play the fool!" Lulan snapped at her. "Your Mongolian Death Worm! It ate almost a hundred of Big-Brother's implements! I want them returned! They don't belong to you!"
SHIT, Gwen confirmed that the girl was talking about the 'daggers' the Earthen Conjurer had summoned. How the fuck was she supposed to know they were magical implements? Return them? Since when did Caliban return anything?
"There's going to be a slight problem with that," Gwen replied politely. Were the daggers particularly precious? Or were they a sentimental thing?
"You better not fuck with me." Lulan's irises alternated between amber and wine, pulsating with dark emotions. The girl seemed unusually taken, Gwen noted, almost excessively so. "Those daggers took brother thousands of hours to inscribe. They're irreplaceable."
Gwen realised that that would explain why Kusu was moving them around like a telepath. She had thought that the guy had a Sword-Spirit or something. But none of that mattered now. She couldn't return—that is—Caliban couldn't regurgitate the blades.
Her dilemma left her with a problem.
The irrationality of Lulan's act was as rash as fire, more so than Yue, who would not do something as stupid as confronting a rival in public, and alone no less.
Furthermore, Gwen couldn't see why the Huashan girl would ruin herself by attacking her here. They were well within limits of the business district—her Clan was not one with influence in Shanghai's provincial government. What was Lulan getting at? Surely it can't be over some measly steak knives!? What are they, Dwarves forged Damascus? Did she have other associates outside, waiting for an ambush?
"I am afraid that's impossible," Gwen explained calmly. "Caliban consumes things in a manner directly correlated to the Void. Your brother's implements are gone—in the purest, most literal sense imaginable."
As the last of her words left her lips, the ground began to tremble.
The Elemental Earth pouring out of the girl was tectonic! Gwen's Divination Sigil pinched her nerves like she'd slipped a disk. She immediately circulated a flood of Void matter through her mana-conduits, triggering a surge of her Druidic essence. Across the table, her companions readied themselves likewise, resisting the incredible pressure exerted by the brash Earthen Elementalist.
"Don't you fucking dare," Lily warned Lulan. "My father is—"
CRACK!
Something shot their table from the top, smashing the bamboo top into a splintering mess. The recently prepared banquet erupted in a delicious cascade, sending up a fountain of hot soup, congealing grease, chunks of chicken, slices of pork, vegetables and rice into a fantastic shower.
Gwen immediately regretted not having her Familiars out. Caliban was naturally gifted at snatching flying bits of food out of the air.
"Tamade! That bitch is dead!" Lily, the fiery Evoker, staggered back from the table, her expression livid with anger as she wiped soup from her lips.
Pu and Jon likewise retreated, their clothes and faces covered with sauces.
Gwen sat without moving an inch. She knew the immediate danger had passed. Her Divination sense was no longer flaring like a swollen sinus during the pollen season.
She sighed as bits of beggar chicken fell from her hair and dripped onto her v-neck tunic, soaking her intimates with mouth-watering brine.
Picking out a leg of pork from between her thighs, she looked around to see if the owners were safe.
The patrons and the staff were fine, and their assailant was gone. Lulan Li likely made her escape during the eruption of the banquet volcano, while their attention was distracted by the earthen explosion.
"Sorry, Aunty, I'll pay for all this," she said to the terrified NoM woman cowering in the corner. "The Arbitrators should be here later. Please let them know what happened, exactly as is."
"Ayeeeya!" The woman seemed to have regained some of her sensibility. "Are you okay, Miss?! Ai-ya! Your clothes are all dirty!"
With some urgency, the lady-owner picked herself up from the floor and approached Gwen with a large towel she retrieved from the kitchen.
"We have a shower upstairs," she said helpfully. Her husband, too, was watching warily from the kitchen. The rest of the diners, in typical Shanghai fashion, either discussed the spectacle with great enthusiasm or continued eating as though nothing had happened.
Gwen's friends double-checked their surroundings and affirmed that Lulan Li was gone.
"I am going to tell my Dad. You don't worry a bit, Gwen," Lily assured her friend.
"That's alright, Lil. I don't want to involve you. I'll inform my Uncle," Gwen returned in kind, speaking a language that her friend understood.
"Wocao! Huashan Sect," Pu cursed, his face scowling. "Gwen, are you alright?"
"I-I've got pork-floss in my eye," Jon complained as he tried to rinse his face with a kettle of warm water the lady-owner provided.
"Sorry, everyone…" Gwen wrung a fistful of broth from her shirt. She could launder her outfit, but she was determined to cut her losses if it meant getting out of this sticky mess sooner.
She dropped a fistful of Kusu's HDMs on the counter and told the owner not to worry about the change.
But—was it safe to go home?
She was about five minutes from the apartment.
Maybe if she used Expeditious Retreat and Enhanced Agility?
Something wasn't right with the girl's head. That much was obvious even to Gwen. Could she bet that Lulan Li wouldn't assault her in the middle of Shanghai's second largest University District? There was a police station just a block away! There was a Tower within walking distance!
Still, could she bet her life on Lulan's rationality?
Gwen wasn't a betting sort of woman.
She pulled up her Message device and dialled for Richard.
Behind her, her Evocation companions exchanged curses and insults about their encounter with the iron idiot.
"Yes, Gwen?" Richard's voice answered.
"Hey Dick," Gwen intoned sweetly. "Can I trouble you for an escort? I am a bit ruined from an unexpected... catfight."