"So how did you find me?" General Makon asked. He still remained immobile, breathing softly.

Royi glanced up from the book he was reading, stared at General Makon, then shook his head.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" he asked.

"I am resting."

"Right." Royi said. "Well, There's a Navon Official called Lord Cepher."

"I know him." Makon said. "I was at his house some nights ago."

"He was in Saymor city." Royi said. "I followed him around for a while, he noticed I was stalking him, and then he shook me off, but he wasn't very good. I followed his trail here. Imagine my surprise when I got here and found his corpse, next to a mutilated woman and a bleeding Mage back from the dead."

Makon chuckled.

"Killing him was a mistake." Makon said. "I was blinded by rage. I should have kept him alive. Now if Roe dies, I won't be able to torture him for relief."

"Are you Sungans always this intense or is it just you?" Royi asked.

The two men remained in silence for almost a minute before Royi offered some words of encouragement, "Don't worry, Roe seemed like a strong woman. She'll survive."

---

Mage Saulmon grinned from ear to ear as he surveyed Dodi's work. The assignment was simple, They were asked to construct a red blast.

A red blast was the weakest possible energy blast possible, it was immensely weak, the temperature of an average red blast was only slightly hotter than room temperature and their pushing force was only a few pounds.

Mage Saulmon did not expect much from the class but he was surprised. Giyand, Zoyi, and Nyubi all stood out, but Dodi was on a different level. The boy was endlessly creative, he was destined for great things. Nyubi's work was meticulous, almost perfect, but Dodi was a wild card, bring in spells from unexpected places and merging runes in combinations Saulmon couldn't believe worked.

In the end, both Nyubi and Dodi achieved the same result, crafting the best red blast spells in the entire class by a large margin, but Saulmon personally preferred Dodi's approach.

He didn't want to display any form of favoritism, however, so he told the entire class they'd performed excellently.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"...And," He continued. "some of you have come up with some very clever tricks that I think the rest of you should know."

He then proceeded to teach the rest of the class Dodi's techniques without telling them where they were from.

Later when he bid them goodbye, Dodi complained to Zoyi as they walked towards the main street that ran in front of the institute

"Those were totally all my ideas." He said. She laughed.

"Maybe he didn't want to make anyone jealous." She said. "This is a very competitive class after all."

Dodi scoffed. "Like I care who gets jealous."

"Really smartass?" Nyubi said, bonking him on the head with a long piece of rolled paper. "I know you never cared about my feelings, but do you really want Giyand after you?"

"It's hot out here guys let's walk faster." Zoyi said as beads of sweat started to form on her face.

"Are you guys going home?" Nyubi asked. "There's a park in Catcres I was thinking we could check out first. It just opened."

"Sure I'll go." Dodi said immediately.

"Me too!" Zoyi said quickly

"Dodi will pay the hovercoach. His dad is rich." Nyubi said to Zoyi.

"What?" Dodi asked confused as both girls laughed and ran towards the street.

"Hey! My dad is NOT rich!" he called as he ran after them.

---

Back in Saia, Royi and Makon had gotten into an argument.

"I'm saying we would have come to your aid if you had just waited." Royi insisted.

"You were against me from the start!" Makon retorted. "It was obvious to the blind that Ganz was a villian."

"Yes but we needed to be diplomatic—"

"To what end?" Makon interrupted. "Now the man has begun to build a shadow network all over Gan."

"We'll dig it out." Royi said. "He and his co-conspirators will be found and punished."

Makon scoffed but ended up coughing.

"Would that be before or after he decides to massacre your ranks like he did mine?" He asked bitterly. Royi sighed in response.

"My condolences." He said finally. Further comments were interrupted by a wave link prodding at him.

"Excuse me" he said and went out to accept the wave link. It was Mullam.

"Hello Royi." He said over the wavelink. "Has Segi given you an update?"

Royi replied in the negative, and Mullam sighed.

"We found Ganz in Kanam." He said. Royi gasped.

"He's locked himself behind some sort of magical wall that's impervious to all our attacks." Mullam continued. "He's in cahoots with the governor of the city."

"Shall I join you?" Royi asked.

"You'll have to ask Segi that." Mullam said. "But not now, She's with Lord Daron now."

"Lord Daron is there?" Royi asked in surprise.

"Yes, there are a lot of people here. About thirty war mages so far." Mullam said. "What have you discovered on your end?"

"Lord Cepher's corpse, mostly. And General Makon, albeit... significantly injured. It's a long story."

"Every story in Gan is getting pretty long these days." Mullam said.

"I'll talk to you later." Royi said.

He walked in and took a seat near General Makon. There was a short silence and then General Makon cleared his throat.

"So what are you people doing about Ganz now?" He asked. "He can't be allowed to roam about."

"We have him cornered at Kanam." Royi replied. Makon looked sharply at him.

"What?" He asked.

"Yes, that's right." Royi said. "He trapped himself in an exotic magical barrier, But he has nowhere to go, we have him surrounded by over thirty mages and counting."

Makon looked incredulously at Royi for a few seconds, then he blinked and shook his head.

"You fools! it's a trap." He said breathlessly.