“I wish we could pretend like we didn’t hear him, but I already know that doesn’t work.”

Soren turned back toward his group.

“We shouldn’t need everyone to explain what happened in Talonia. Me, Kai, Sydney, and Brewan.”

Soren’s friends all nodded their heads in thanks for being saved, then scuttled off, disappearing into the campus.

[They make Golal seem like some kind of terrifying beast. Kai, if he starts attacking, throw my necklace as far as you can. There’s no way you can run from a tier 4 mage, but he might not notice me. Even if you die, our sect’s legacy must live on~]

A frown started growing on Kai’s face as Halia hummed a tune in his mind.

“I’m sure he can’t be too bad. He’s a professor, right?”

In front of Kai, Soren let out a snort.

“Only because we’re short on manpower. Back when I was a first year, he sent our entire class out into the forest. A few of us nearly died, and when we returned to the academy, he pretended like nothing happened. My father banned him from doing stuff like that again, but he might be crazy enough to do it anyway.”

Soren started walking as he spoke, leading Kai’s group further into the campus. After spending a bit longer complaining about Golal, he started to introduce the nearby buildings to Kai.

There was a mess hall constructed from wood. It was easily bigger than the wooden warehouses back at the destroyed academy, and there were a few students loitering around outside.

A bit further in, there were a couple shorter classroom buildings. All of them were made from brick, just like the ones Kai’d seen previously.

“It’s a much better material to use in places where magic is being tested. Students mess up sometimes, and it’s a lot better if that doesn't cause the entire building to burn down.”

Behind the classrooms, there were a pair of training fields, the ground scorched from taking spells. There was a line of corn straw target dummies on one side of the training field, one of which was flickering with flames after tanking a fireball from a student on the field.

“There aren’t as many people around as I thought there would be. Are they all out fighting beasts right now?”

Kai had seen a handful of people since entering the walls, but it wasn’t even as lively as his own tiny sect had been.

“There are only about two dozen students in each grade, and the 3rd and fourth years will be out of the area often. With how many beasts there are, pretty much only mages and knights can travel between settlements safely.”

So there’s probably only about 100 members total. That’s more people than we had at our sect, but I don’t know how much stronger they are. From what Sydney said before, they don’t seem to be very unified, either.

Kai made note of the location of the academy library as they passed through the campus, then followed Soren into a brick building. It had two stories, and the bottom one looked shockingly similar to the classrooms the trio called home during their time in the woods.

Just like back at the Crescent Moon Academy, a set of stairs led up to offices on the second floor.

[The layout is the same, again. Did I miss a temple hidden somewhere on the academy grounds?]

“Sydney, is there a temple here?”

The knight trainee shook his head. He’d been silent for most of their walk, but was now standing near the front of the group with Soren.

“No, but now that I think about it, this place does look oddly similar to the classrooms. It is only a few day’s journey to here though, so maybe our sect hired the same architects. I’ll check in the library once we’re done here.”

“What are the two of you talking about?”

Soren butted into the conversation, and Kai started feeding him vague info. Kai was still worried that something could be afoot with his sect’s predecessors, but he also thought it would be useless to fabricate an entire tale. The academy would likely investigate the area when they sent out a team to hunt down the terror bird, so crafting an easily caught, useless lie would just be dumb.

“You must’ve been mistaken. I heard from my father that our academy was built by the best architect in the region, before the beast tide hit. The buildings themselves have powerful enchantments and formations built into them. There’s nothing like that in Talonia.”

[Fufu- ahem, sorry. Every time this dude says “my father” it reminds me of something. He even looks the part. Carry on.]

Kai wanted to continue the conversation, but they had already arrived in front of Golal’s office, and the door was left wide open. Inside, they could hear frustrated grumbling accompanied by the shuffling noises of papers.

“Come in already, don’t stand there blocking the door.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Golal’s raspy voice sounded from inside, and the group of four slowly filed in. The room was even messier than Golal’s hair. This was a pretty impressive feat, considering that Kai could see a bird peeking out from a nest it’d made in the professor’s frizzy hair.

Kai had to give the man credit though, he somehow pulled off the look without coming across as entirely insane. Golal’s stern face was clean-shaven, and his amber eyes shone with an ambitious light. His uniform was clean too- the only unusual part of his appearance was the tiny green bird peeking its beak out from Golal’s hair.

The room around them took after Golal’s hair. There weren’t any birds hiding in it- not organic ones, at least. There were papers scattered everywhere, some of them folded up into random shapes. A handful of barely-recognizable bird-shaped origamis stood proudly on Golal’s desk, which somehow had fewer papers on it than the floor.

“Little Soren, help me find my report log. I seem to have misplaced it.”

Halia was always making a mess in our libarary back home, but it was never this bad. Still, I bet she could find a lot in common with this guy.

Kai glanced over at Soren. The mage was glaring holes in Golal’s back.

“I sent a first-year over here last week to organize this. How exactly did you manage to do-”

Soren swept his arm around, gesturing at the chaos of the room.

“This?”

Golal shrugged like the chaos around them was commonplace.

“I was testing out a new spell. Little Soren, at my old age, my back is starting to hurt. How about you and your friends look for the logs while I take a seat?”

Kai could hear Soren’s teeth grinding as he resisted the urge to zap the professor with a lightning spell. It probably wouldn’t even reach Golal- considering his status as a tier 4 mage- but it looked like Soren was still debating doing it anyways.

Golal completely ignored Soren’s anger, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Eventually, Soren’s clenched fists started to loosen, and he started half-heartedly searching through the papers surrounding them.

Hm, maybe not. Not even Halia would refuse to help clean up her own mess. He also said for the rest of us to join in on searching…

“What are we looking for?”

Golal opened one eye as he looked over at Kai, his eyes scanning over the unfamiliar white robes. The little green bird in his hair let out a quiet chirp, and Golal closed his eye again.

“White, has writing on it. No drawings though, I’d get chewed out for that. It’ll have a little stamp at the top, though.”

Kai could tell that he probably wasn’t going to get any more, and started searching through the heaps of errant papers while mentally marking Golal as ‘crazy’ in his mind.

Sometimes cultivators go astray from their dao, and fall to mental demons. It seems that there is something similar in the pursuit of magic, and it’s just as dangerous. I know I’ll be fine… I’m not sure how sane the other three are to begin with.

The frown on Kai’s face only grew further as he looked down at the stack of papers he’d gathered. Rough, childish sketches of birds and green winds scattered the backs of every page.

I’ll need to keep an eye on Halia, if she makes herself a body and starts practicing magic. She never got the experience the rest of us did, since she was stuck in the sect. Who knows what she’d be like if she went nuts.

After a couple minutes of fruitless searching, Golal spoke again.

“Oops, I found it.”

He opened his eyes as he leaned forward again, then grabbed one of the folded origami birds off his desktop. When he flattened it out, Kai could see a small circular stamp at the top.

“You-! Just because you’re strong doesn’t mean you are free from consequences! Just wait until my father hears-”

“Hush. Your dad would be ashamed if he heard you throwing his name around like that. You need to learn some humility.”

Golal grabbed a pen from a small jar on his desk, then used it to gesture toward Sydney.

“If there was something in that woods that could kill this guy, and I sent you after him, we'd be down two talented kids.”

Golal ignored the rage on Soren’s face and turned toward Brewan. "That's why I sent this guy. At least he knows when to back down. And you didn’t die, good job. You didn’t even need to use my shield.”

“What?”

The bird on Golal’s head let out a little chirp, and a small gust of wind swept over toward Brewan. It reached for the small ‘Hillhold Academy’ pin on his robes, then pulled it off. At the same time, Golal fetched an identical pin from somewhere within his desk and passed it over to Brewan.

“I wouldn’t send a first year out into the wilderness without some form of protection. If you’d taken a big enough hit, it would’ve shielded you long enough to escape somewhere safe. Good job not wasting it.”

Brewan stared down at the pin for a few moments before looking back up at the professor.

“Why didn’t you tell me I had this?”

Golal shrugged.

“You wouldn’t have grown nearly as much if I had. The sense of threat can make mages grow exponentially faster. Just look at yourself, you’re over half way to tier 2 already.”

Golal’s gaze finally traveled back to Kai.

“And you… I don’t know you.”

Kai bowed his head to the crazy professor.

“I’m Kai. My friends and I used an artifact to escape from a powerful beast, and I found myself lost in the forest near Talonia. If it’s possible, I’d like to stay here to recover for a time.”

Golal nodded his head as Kai finished speaking, making the little green bird bounce up and down a couple times.

“Sure. I’ll put you in with the first year classes, you might be able to pick up something new while you’re here.”

That was surprisingly easy. I’m pretty sure he understands that I don’t mean to join the sect, too. Do they not care about their knowledge being given away for free to a stranger?

After getting acquainted with the group, Golal started writing down the results of their mission on the report log. When he heard that Talonia had been completely destroyed, his expression fell.

“That settlement stood for a long time, despite it being multiple days from the nearest surviving academy. There were many good people there.”

“Surviving academy.” I think this guy might know something about the destroyed Crescent Moon one we were in. If I can’t find anything at the library, it might be worth trying to get some information out of Golal. He should be old enough to remember before the beast tide, too. I’ll keep this in mind…

After telling Golal everything they’d told Soren’s group previously, the group of four departed. Soren quickly split off to find his friends, and Sydney left shortly after. Kai looked over at Brewan, then toward their next destination.

“Looks like it’s just you and me again. How extensive is your library’s selection?”