The next three days passed quietly. Nathan and Terran used their time to explore Apprentice Village and get to know the other students. There were 57 new students, who arrived before them and 82 in their second year. The second-year students spent most of their time in the castle and only came to the town to sleep and eat. They didn't have much contact with the new students. Most of the first years were quite eager to socialize, especially after they heard, that the curriculum didn't just include magic, but also mathematics, physics, and chemistry. When Terran learned of this, on the second day of their stay, he pretty much spent the whole day in one of the two bars, in a foul mood. Nathan used this time to sift through the magical engineering library, in the hope to find information about airships. But to no avail. After spending nearly seven hours, the supervising research student told him, that the higher-level information can only be accessed in the castle's libraries, which ended his search. In the evening, Nathan met with Terran, who was back to his usual, easy-going self, and brought a new acquaintance, Revar, with him. By the time the third day passed, two more groups of altogether 23 new students arrived, making the town quite lively.

Nathan, Terran, and Revar were currently sitting on a bench, outside of the aquatorium, watching the new arrivals.

"Remind me once more Terran, why exactly are we here?" Nathan asked with a hint of impatience.

Terran sighed. "I know, I know, you would prefer sitting in some dusty library, reading boring books, but we really need to grab at least two more new students. You know what that second year told us."

Nathan replied with a quiet voice. "Sorry, I know, we have to turn in the homework as a group of five. It's just, I need to find some information."

Patting Nathan's shoulder, Terran answered, "I don't know why you're so restless these days. I will help you if you ask. But we really shouldn't lose sight of what we need to do. Just think about what happens if we don't find two more decent persons, they might assign someone like Erina to us."

"Ew, not that pretentious brat." Revar made an exaggerated expression of disgust.

"Yes, yes, you're right, both of you." Nathan conceded.

"What about that guy? He looks quite intelligent." He pointed towards a small, scrawny teenager with black hair.

"You just say that, because he wears glasses," Terran disagreed, "look how he moves, I know that type from my former school, he's no good."

"Ahh! I got an idea." Revar jumped up and walked towards the newcomers. They were still a bit confused because Magister Kennen left once again without giving any further directions.

"Hey guys, can someone tell me what pattern I have to use to turn water into ice?"

Surprised, the new students looked at Revar, some were ignoring him, a few just looked confused and some where pondering about the question. Revar pointed at those who seemed to think about the question.

"There, those should be fine."

"Wow, great idea, Revar!" Terran high-fived him and hurried over to a nice-looking girl, that played with her long greenish hair while being deep in thought. Nathan and Revar followed him.

"Hi there." As always, Terran was the first one to talk.

"Hi?"

"I'm Terran, that's Nathan, and he is Revar. We need to form a five-man group for homework and stuff and wondered if you want to join us?"

"Oh, hi.I'm Alina. I don't really know the answer to your question, though."

"Doesn't matter, we don't either." Revar grinned.

Alina looked relieved."Phew, somehow I'm happy to hear that. Sure, I'll join you, for now, why not."

"Great!" Terran gave her his brightest smile. "Welcome to the team then."

"Where is our fifth person?" She asked.

"Oh, we will have one in a minute." Terran scanned the other students, one of them still seemed to contemplate the question. Inspired by his earlier success, Terran walked towards him.

"Hello friend, we are a group of four looking for a fifth member to join us for our homework assignments."

He received no answer.

"Hello?" He lightly poked the arm of the other boy.

The teenager flinched. "Ah, sorry, I was thinkin' 'bout somethin'. Joinin' a group for homework? Yeah, sounds nice, I'm in." He scratched his eyebrow, obviously still a bit lost.

"Wow, no need to think too hard about that question, we don't know the answer either." Terran wanted to comfort him.

"The question? Nah, I wondered where I could get some food, you know?"

A light giggle could be heard from Alina and Nathan also grinned at Terran.

"Don't mind, one out of two is quite a good ratio." He said.

"Yeah, true, after all, we have you to rely on." Terran cheekily replied.

Nathan's grin froze and turned into a defeated expression, while the new group member listened to their quarrel in confusion. Revar reached him his hand.

"Hi, I'm Revar. The two squabblers are Nathan and Terran."

"And I'm Alina." The only female group member added.

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He smiled embarrassedly. "'ello 'gain, I'm Thomas. Sorry 'bout my confusion, I can't think straight when I'm hungry."

"We can help with that. There's a kitchen in every residential building. Follow us." Terran said.

A few minutes later, the small group sat in the meeting room of Nathan's and Terran's building. They were eating some fast cooked noodles, and answered the questions of the newcomers.

"So you can take the last free room here Thomas. As for Alina, there are a few buildings with only female inhabitants if you want that."

"I'd prefer it, seeing that there are shared showers and bathrooms." She blushed slightly.

Nathan nodded. "Probably a wise choice. I know a person in this town, who had quite the unpure reasons when he chose his residence."

"By the way," Thomas said, now happy and content, "we 'eard somethin' 'bout some ceremony in the evenin'?"

"We know only a bit about that," Terran answered after glaring at Nathan, "it's basically an all-in-one ceremony. First, the students who finished their second year are honored, and then the new first-years are introduced. After that, the Magisters present their lectures for the free-choice part of the curriculum."

"Do you know when it'll start?" Alina asked interested.

"In roughly four hours, at 18:00."

"Oh, then I should go and find a room before that." Alina stood up. "Thanks for all the information, we'll see each other at the ceremony."

"Shall I help you finding a residence?" Terran quickly asked.

Alina winked at him. "No thanks, I can do that by myself. Bye guys."

After she had left, Revar and Nathan started to laugh loudly.

"Nice rejection. Guess you'll have to find someone else." Nathan smirked.

Terran hissed at him, "Just because you said something about unpure reasons."

"Hey, I have to protect our group members from hostile predators, don't I?" Nathan countered.

Terran acted as if he was shocked. "Hostile? I'm very friendly and gentle!"

"Not denying the predator, though. But maybe a toothless one?" Revar chimed in.

"Just wait. I'll show you by the end of the year exactly how 'toothless' I am."

"Why don't you try it with Erinas group. I bet they would love your attention." Nathan responded.

A long moment of awkward silence followed. Revar coughed lightly.

"Way to kill a conversation."

"Was a crappy one anyways." Nathan grinned. He then added, "I have to go now, see you later."

"'kay, then I'll be goin' upstairs, gotta claim my new territory before that ceremony."

Terran looked at Revar.

"And you? Anything planned?"

"Nope, nothing."

"Bar?"

"Sure."

Nathan left the others behind and made his way to the close-by library. Lately, he was looking for hints concerning the 'Black Out Magic' he experienced, but so far nothing came up. On the contrary. Every book, that listed existing types of magic, claimed, that it would be impossible to influence the body and mind of a sentient being directly. Weirdly enough, it did work on animals, though. However, the mechanics behind that were not understood, at least not at the time these books were written.

The supervisor of the library greeted him.

"Hi, Nathan, back again? You sure are hardworking."

"Heya Reginald. Don't know about that hardworking, I just don't find what I'm looking for."

"What exactly are you looking for?"

Nathan contemplated for a second.

"When I was at Port Verago, a magician let me lose my consciousness. I'm trying to find out what spell it was."

"Influencing your mind? Impossible."

"Yeah, that's what's written in the books, but I know what I felt."

"Are you sure, that it was a spell and not some poisonous gas or something alike? A little poison dart maybe?"

"Oh... a poison dart certainly not, but poisonous gas?" Nathan stared into the air, deep in thought.

When he was losing consciousness, the airship was just getting ready to land by the village, and he was quite a bit away. Poisonous gas that influenced such a large area was unlikely but certainly not impossible. He never thought about it in this way, maybe he was looking for the wrong clues.

"Thanks, Reginald, you helped me a lot. Do we have a library about poisons?"

"Not in the Apprentice Village, too dangerous. I think we have some books about it in the castle, though."

"Ok, too bad. Thanks again." He just wanted to leave, when he turned around again.

"Have you ever heard something of villages disappearing overnight, humans and buildings and everything?"

"Huh? Buildings too? I heard some students from the Warsong Alliance talking about some raided villages lately, but I'm quite sure they didn't tear down the buildings."

"Yeah, figured. Thanks anyways. Bye."

Nathan chose a chair in the reading corner of the library. As so often, the library was empty. He was mulling over what Reginald said. It seemed to be universally agreed upon, that influencing a person with mana wasn't possible. But it made no sense to Nathan. Obviously, a person could be influenced by poisons, drugs and similar, how could some herbs and fluids do something, that magic couldn't? However, he had found no answer to that in the books. Maybe it was just a big deception because such magic would be too dangerous? But that was also unlikely, everyone who can cast magic was able to try and cast it on the body of another person. It would be immediately known if it's possible or not. It just didn't add up. No matter how hard he thought about it, he came to no conclusion. But one thing he knew for sure, he reached a deadlock. He couldn't find any information about the airship or the black rods, at least not until he could access the libraries in the castle. The mind-influencing magic was most likely no magic but a poison, making way less mysterious. There were probably hundreds of poisons with similar effects, which meant, that identifying the attacker with this information would be extremely hard, if not impossible. He had nothing left. Over the past days, he was in the library whenever he wasn't with his friends. He couldn't accept that it was all for naught. Nathan left the library in a gloomy mood.

When he looked at one of the small clocktowers, which were distributed across Apprentice Village, he saw that only one hour was left until the ceremony would begin. He was quite surprised, that he spent more than two hours in the library.

"Hey, Nathan!" Terran and Thomas were walking towards him.

"I knew, that I would find you at the library, I should've made a bet with Thomas." said Terran, laughing softly.

"Oh wow, you look horrible, what happened?"

Nathan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, there was no need to bother them with his bad mood.

"Nothing, there was just a text, that I couldn't understand."

"I told you already, wait with that stuff till the Magisters taught us the basics. It's just wasted time."

Thomas disagreed while stuffing his mouth with a piece of dried meat.

"Nah, ye're wrong. At least he'll know what the Magisters 're talkin' 'bout. Makes 'nderstandin' easier. A lot."

"Way to backstab someone Thomas."

"Just sayin the truth, mate."

Thomas shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't care. Let's get Revar and Alina, we should head out for the castle."

"Any idea, where they are?" asked Nathan.

"Let's just wait at the road, that leads out of the town. We can't miss them that way."

Nathan and Thomas nodded. They didn't have to wait long after arriving at the boundaries of Apprentice Village. Revar and Alina arrived just a few minutes later.

"Hi. You two came together?" Terran threw suspicious glances at Revar.

However, Revar acted as if he didn't see it. "Yeah, we met on the way."

Alina, oblivious to the situation, greeted the three teenagers with a happy smile.

Terran pulled Revan closer to him and whispered, "If you find a girlfriend before I do, you'll need a new drinking buddy."

Revan answered quietly. "Don't be so petty, let me try my luck, dude."

Seeing the two whispering, Nathan could guess what they were talking about. He sighed inwardly. If only Lizzy wasn't killed in that night, if they had just moved half a meter away... he didn't dare to finish that thought. It would still have been a devastating night. But at least they could have comforted each other. Shaking off his negative thoughts, he started to walk towards the castle, followed by the whispering duo, a happily whistling Alina and the chewing Thomas.