There was a flurry of activity as the group passed through the Summoner gates. It seemed that the guards weren't there just for show or only to scan students. As Max watched, one of them manifested ectoplasmic, bladed arms growing out of his shoulders. Another one held up a hand and flaming skull appeared above her palm.

Neither guard had reason to actually attack, but Max thought the show of force was a nice gesture. The real deterrent against the ambushers were the golems at the gate. Unlike the golems protecting Max, the border golems were holding out hands with glowing gems in their palms—obviously ranged weapons. The spear attackers were already long gone, but Max was willing to bet if they'd crossed the border, the golems would have lit their asses up.

He felt glad that he’d listened to his instincts and not attacked or retaliated against the ambushers. Now he had a better understanding of the rules and limitations that they were working within. It was almost a certainty that Max would have gotten nothing out of revealing his power to them.

The gate guards stayed at their post, and a group of students who'd been about to leave the academy grounds stood aside with mouths agape. Another professor practically materialized out of nowhere and began ushering Max's group and the golems following him back to the academy. When Max stole a glance at the professor's face, one he was not familiar with, she seemed confused enough that Max assumed she was acting on orders. On top of that she kept glancing at the nanny golems. Max blinked. The golem chaperones seemed to convey some sort of immediately recognizable status to the academy staff.

Nobody spoke on the way back to the academy grounds; everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Even the professor who traveled with them didn't say anything. The fact they didn’t ask any questions at all seemed astonishing at first. But now that Max was aware that spirits could communicate with each other, and now that he was more familiar with messaging through the Quartet tablets, he figured ther ewas plenty of conversation going on–he just couldn’t hear it.

Max and his party got back to the academy, and the instructor accompanying them vanished as quickly as she'd materialized in the first place. It was likely that she had a contracted spirit that let her bend light. Lance spoke for the first time since they'd made it past the gates. "What the hell?" he muttered.

There was a group of at least twenty students who were watching from the de facto entryway to the academy grounds. None of them were even trying to hide their curiosity and stares. At first, Max couldn't figure out what was going on, but then he remembered the messaging system and the fact that there had been students at the gate. For the first time, he actually thought about some of the differences between the tablets and smartphones back on Earth. He felt grateful that tablets could not take pictures. Otherwise, who knew? Maybe Max's run-in with the would-be assassins would have gone viral or something.

As if a some cue was given, the group rushed forward and began excitedly interrogating Max's companions. He noted with amusement that they all gave him a wide berth. Some even shot him worried looks. This behavior wasn't exactly surprising based on how other students usually acted around him. It was also not unwelcome at the moment because he was carrying an absolute fortune worth of wrapped gear. The last thing he wanted was a dozen students crowding around him where it would be easier to try snatching things out of his arms.

In a moment of clarity, Max realized that although his life in the Quartet had been extremely dangerous and stressful fairly often, but for the average student, it was probably anything but. After their initial adjustment, they probably experienced a life of much more boredom and routine. For them, hearing about a mysterious assassination attempt by Mystic Spear students and seeing the intended victims–Summoners–come jogging in afterward might be one of the most exciting things they would experience for a while.

Max took advantage of his notoriety to push right through the crowd. All he had to do was clear his throat, and students wearing Summoner Academy robes melted away from him like mist. When he was close enough to his party, Max said, "Hey, we gotta go, follow me." And then, without looking back, he set off directly through the middle of the academy grounds. The group of other students followed them for a while but eventually gave up when nobody talked to them, and Max's group traveled further away from the more common areas that students usually traversed.

When he finally made it to his dorm building, he glanced back with a raised eyebrow. At some point, Belle had left. Even though Max was really trying to give the woman a fair chance, he couldn't lie to himself that he cared if she was gone. He didn't exactly dislike Belle, but she hadn’t done much for him to really consider her anyone special. He was completely neutral.

Yet again, Max wondered if he was being too hard on her. Then he decided that he had been second-guessing himself about this subject too much. There were more important things at hand and if he didn’t like his friend’s girlfriend it wasn’t the end of the world. Lance would handle his own business and it wasn't Max's job to tell his friend how to live his life.

Deciding that made him feel better, because in his heart of hearts, he knew he was never going to like Belle.

He walked up to the door of his dorm where the guarding golem waved him through. With a sense of relief he entered his dorm, ushering Lance and Momo into his sitting room. The other three golems took up places around the outside of his dorm as well, so he had a full four golems standing guard. When he finally closed the door behind him, he leaned against it, letting his head roll back and gently bump the doorframe.

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His arms, full of wrapped weapons and other gear, were not exactly heavy for a two star mana body Blade Sorcerer, but it would still feel nice to finally put all of the stuff down. He ended his brief rest in the doorway, straightened, and cleared his throat.

"Okay, so now that we're here," he began, but then he noticed his friends' expressions. Momo's eyes were practically bugging out of her skull as she tried to look at everything at once. Lance was just staring at the beautiful mosaic floor tiles and softly shaking his head. He finally turned to look at Max and said, "Dude, why is this the first time I've ever been in your place?"

Max shrugged. "I don't know, I guess it just never came up."

"When you told me that you were living in the troublemaker housing, I definitely wasn't envisioning anything like this."

Max frowned. "I told you it was expensive."

"Yeah, well," Lance shook his head again. "I still wasn't thinking it was anything like this."

Momo finally spoke. "You actually live here?"

"Yes."

"By yourself?"

"Yes. I mean, my spirits too, but yeah.”

“This is nicer than anything else in the academy," the red-eyed girl muttered. She walked over to one of the chairs in the sitting room and poked it. "Even this chair is disgustingly well-made. How much did this place cost?"

Max frowned, thinking back. "I could look at the logs to verify it, but I think it was just under two thousand mana units or something like that." He shrugged. So much mana units had come through his hands just to be destroyed at this point, he personally didn’t really give them a lot of value.

"Two thousand mana units?" Momo's eyes grew even bigger.

In Max's head, Lavinia chuckled and said, If they're having a tough time with this, wait until they see the gifts you got them.

I know, right? He was starting to feel a little embarrassed. Max didn't mind the limelight or attention, but he didn't feel comfortable with the idea that his friends would ever feel…too indebted to him. He wasn't going to just not give them their gifts, though. That just meant that they would just have to get used to expensive things in the Quartet pretty quickly. After all, if they kept hanging out with him, especially Momo and Gantry, they would probably start making their own money in due time.

He suddenly thought about how he and Momo had contracted spirit but Lance still didn't. In fact, as a normal student, Lance probably realistically wouldn't meet or contract a spirit for another year or two. Max decided that was unacceptable, especially since Lance was likely about to own what was likely the most expensive weapon in the Summoner Academy, if not the entire Quartet. Max vowed to step up his research, tweaking Lavinia's spirit-seeking circle quicker..

Hey Lavinia, where should I give these two their gifts?. He'd thought about including all of his spirits in the conversation, except Slick didn't speak, and Saliron would probably just start uncomfortable love-rants about bones again.

Lavinia came back with an answer fairly quickly Probably your workout room. After all, the magic research room has a few sensitive things in it, and the other two rooms are private.

That's true. He realized that in the future, the sitting room would probably be the best room for entertaining regular company since it was also not far from the second bathroom in the hallway. He motioned to Lance and Momo to follow him and said, "Let's go to my workout room, and I'll show you guys some stuff there. You can stay in here for a while until everything dies down outside."

“Workout room…” whispered Momo.

"Until everything dies down?" Lance grunted. "I'm just a normal guy, not the second coming of Bruce Lee. What the hell am I supposed to do with all this attention?"

Max ignored him. And once his friends were in his exercise room, they made shocked noises and gave Max offended looks all over again. This time Max just rolled his eyes and sat down on the bench of a piece of exercise equipment. He set down all of the wrapped bundles in his arms on the floor beside him. Then he said, "You guys should take a seat, too."

Lance looked around at all the exercise equipment and raised an eyebrow. "Do I have to?"

Max chuckled. "Yeah, I think so. Because I'm about to give you something that is probably going to surprise you a bit."

"Surprise me a bit," Lance repeated. And then he sighed in resignation, took a seat, and asked, "Okay, what is it?"

With a flourish, Max unwrapped the Shadow Sun Rising and handed it over to his friend with a smile. Lance's eyes glazed over, and his mouth opened as if he'd lost all power to his facial muscles. Max knew why. Attached to the sword was a piece of parchment that listed all of the sword’s enchantments. He could still remember the list very clearly.

Lance choked a few times before finally finding his voice. "What the hell is this? How much did this thing cost?"

Max gave a full-throated laugh and responded, "Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answer to."

"This is seriously for me?" asked Lance.

"You bet, buddy. And you know what? This is for you too." Max mimed holding out a hand, which Lance did. Then and then Max placed twenty-five mana units into it. Hilariously, his friend goggled even more at the mana units than he had at the incredible enchanted sword.

"What is this for?" he squeeked.

"Well, you see, I looked into it, and it costs twenty-five mana units to have a weapon tied to your soul. That way if it's still in your possession when you go back to your home world, it will appear next to you when you return. So…I want you to take this back with you to Earth." He smiled.

Lance continued trying to form words that wouldn't come, while Max grinned like an idiot. After all, Headmaster Mong Hao Han, Territ Mond and likely the other head masters would expect him to give back any of the tools or weapons that he had just effectively bought for free today. However, Mong Hao and Territ hadn't said anything about him giving it away to somebody else. He laughed again, and this time, all of his spirits mentally joined him, all of them in on the scam, as Lance sputtered and Momo kept making concerned looks at the bundles on the floor.

Max finally stopped chuckling and winked at her. "You guessed it. One of those is for you."

Lavinia mentally said, I’m glad you got something for Momo, but you could have picked up something for your hardworking spirits, too. Me in particular.

He knew she was joking, but Max still responded. Saliron already has his bones. Slick doesn’t need anything, and you have the pleasure of my company. But seriously, you know if you were still alive, I'd get something cool for you too.

You would?

"Of course."

Lavinia hummed happily as Max began unwrapping the throwing knives. Momo’s reaction was going to be funny.