Maxwell stood next to Insithrilax and watched as the rest of his classmates and the medley of instructors walked out of the arena, leaving him alone with his chosen instructor.

“So, sir, what will you be teaching me?” Maxwell asked, turning to Insithrilax.

“P-please no, sir. I find formalities…. They scare me…” Insithrilax replied, starting to shake under Maxwell’s gaze.

“Ok, what should I refer to you as then?”

“Just call me Sithy as they do,” Sithy replied, gesturing to where the rest of his classmates had walked out. “I’m ok with a nickname.”

“Very well, Mr Sithy, may I ask what you will be teaching me?”

“I will be gifting you the greatest power any being on the mortal plane could ever have. One that even drives gods pursuing it mad.” Maxwell couldn’t help but audibly gulp. Looking at his teacher, he concentrated his focus but could feel nothing.

He remembered in his personal studies into aura that some ascendant beings have an aura so pure and potent people cannot even detect the ambient aura unless they focused. Maxwell was more than confident the man who stood before him was one such being.

“So I will be learning stuff that will make me unbeatable?”

“Oh-no, not unbeatable. Some beings possess more of this power that can defeat you. There will even be those with access to power you never even knew about.”

“So what are you going to teach me specifically, sir?” Maxwell pressed.

“Follow me; I waited for them all to leave so they would not follow and steal my idea. We are going to a part of the campus where this great power resides.”

Insithrilax began to stride out of the arena, Maxwell doing his best to match the long-legged teacher’s stride. Keeping a light jog alongside Insithrilax, Maxwell began to think about what he might teach him.

He was friends with professor Alex which meant that common sense washed off him like water off a duck's back. So any sensible power would be out the window. Maybe soul magic… But that is forbidden as heresy magic.

“Sir, I can’t learn that?”

“Hmm?” Insithrilax asked, looking confused by the sudden outburst.

“Oh, never mind, sir; I was just lost in thought,” Maxwell hastily said, looking somewhat embarrassed by his outburst. Internally he began cursing Tasha. Ever since he began to spend more time with her, he had felt a definite slide into oddity.

“So, sir, will I learn how to shatter a mountain?”

“Possible,” Insithrilax replied, not slowing his pace.

“Shattering a mountain… it was always a dream of mine when I was little, you know,” Maxwell admitted.

“I understand how you feel. When I was little, I wanted to break a mountain in half to get at a rival who kept running away from me… I had the last laugh, though; I split the entire mountain range before he could get away… I did kill a lot of dragons that day,” Insithrilax admitted.

Maxwell looked at his teacher with a pale expression. He still knew very little about the enigmatic man who appeared to jolt at his shadow every so often. But the little he did know, like scarring Gorm, was enough to tell him this was a being beyond the pale.

“Ah, we are here,” Insithrilax said with a great grin.

Looking up, Maxwell expected to see one of the old abandoned buildings, possibly being used to conceal an ancient secret ritual. But what he found greeting him was the Academy library. The repository of old dusty tomes and knowledge barely even worth reading about. He couldn’t help but try and squash down his disappointment when he saw how excited Insithrilax had become.

“So the ultimate power is in here?” Maxwell asked, hoping that there might be a secret room in the library accessed through a book you pull to open a secret door. Much like those story books he and Kline read as children.

“Indeed, the ultimate power,” Sithy replied with an Alex-level grin as he opened the two massive doors with his own arms and not using the mechanism installed. “I offer to you the greatest power on the mortal plane.”

“Books?”

“YES!!” Sithy declared in a hushed, excited whisper. “Books contain knowledge, and tell me what knowledge is equated with?” Maxwell could only sigh.

“Knowledge is power,” he replied as Sithy beamed an even bigger smile.

“I’m now even happier I got you. You understand me.” Maxwell had to suppress a grimace at his instructor's enthusiasm.

“So sit here and read this,” Sithy said, ushering him to a table and sitting him down in front of a book that was already prepared. The old leather-bound cover was dusty. The sight of this sent Sithy into a furious cleaning spree cleaning all the dust off the book as reverentially as he could.

“Ok, this book is-”

“Manatomy, the study of mana on the mortal body?” Maxwell read the title for Sithy. “I’ve read this book before?”

“The entire book?” Sithy asked, looking pleased.

“Yes, sir-sorry-Sithy. I read it as part of my education before coming to the Academy.”

“Magnificent!!!” Sithy beamed, only to have an elderly woman shuffle from behind a desk and shush him.

“Sorry…” Sithy hissed in reply.

“As you already know this book well, then you won’t need to read it, and we can go on to its associated practical,” Sithy explained to a much relieved Maxwell.

“Ok, revert my arm,” Sithy said, holding out his forearm, which transformed from a humanoid limb to one covered in silvery scales with nasty claws on the end of each finger.

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“I don’t know how to do that?”

“But you said you read the book?”

“I did, and it has nothing about reverting a transformed limb?” Sithy, at this response, just exhaled a sigh and all joy vanished as he realised Maxwell wasn’t one of his people.

“Page two-hundred and five, paragraph seven, sentence one,” Sithy said, gesturing to the book. Obeying his directions, Maxwell opened the book with a thud, freezing when he felt an icy sensation run down his spine. Looking up, he could see Sithy’s irises had narrowed to lizard-like slits.

Recognising his faux pas Maxwell carefully began turning the pages slowly but surely till he reached the desired page number. Running his finger down the paragraphs and finally reaching the line Sithy had requested.

“Please read it aloud… but not too loud…”

“It says…’Obstructing mana channels can cause issues in the mana flow’. I don’t see how this can help?” Maxwell said, looking to Sithy, who was looking increasingly gaunt and exhausted.

“Transform your arm into a claw for me.”

Maxwell obeyed the request and began to shift his left forearm into his wolf form. The grey fur and large claw now resided where his hand had a mere moment ago. Ever since his training to control his inner beast, he had been getting a better mastery of the transformation.

“There we go, Mr Sith-” Maxwell watched as Sithy crossed his middle finger over his pointer finger and jabbed three points on Maxwell’s left arm. As quickly as it changed into the claw, it reverted back to its humanoid state. Despite his best efforts, Maxwell was unable to bring back out his wolf arm.

“What did you do, Mr Sithy?” Sithy, in response, gestured to the line he had just read and then to a diagram of the channels through a body pointing to three dots on the diagram's left arm and then to Maxwell, where he had jabbed him.

“With a strike in the right way, you can stun the channels to obstruct the flow. Your transformation takes mana to maintain. Cut that off and-”

“There will be no transformation…”

“Exactly… This is the kind of stuff people can read about but never know to do. That trick I just used can stop a mage from casting a spell. Hit these four points,” Sithy gestured to four dots on the diagram. “And you can cause their mana to misfire.”

“This works on anyone?”

“Yes, so long as you know where the channels are, you can mess with them… only exceptions are Gorm and Yuu. Those two are too tough to actually affect their channels. Oh, and Alex, but that is because his mana channels are fused, so they can’t be warped. But there are very few exceptions to this attack.”

“I had no idea such a skill existed…”

“Few do, it’s in old books, but people don’t know about it because it’s not flashy nor cool. They want the new lessons. This is why so many mages often end up looking for ancient books because people got bored with old skills till they need them.”

Maxwell could only stare at his chosen instructor with wonder realising that there was more to the old adage than he had given credit for. Though he was still left with a nibbling question, he had to ask.

“Mr Sithy, while this is useful, am I not meant to be getting practical training?”

“We will, but just as a sailor doesn’t go out into unfamiliar waters without a map, we will get you aware of where you are going before we start practising.”

“Seems logical,” Maxwell nodded. “So I could fully transform and use these skills and be a really tough opponent.”

“Oh no, you can’t fully transform. These require a lot of precision, something even a fully controlled bestial form cannot have. No matter how well-trained and controlled, the beast won’t ever be precise enough. You will learn to do this with partial changes at most.”

“Now I have a few more books for you to read,” Sithy said with a grin returning to his face as he picked up a stack of books from a nearby librarian's cart and gently placed them on Maxwell’s table.

Tilting his head to read the titles on the spines, Maxwell could see a strange selection of books, some of which he could see no practical uses for in combat.

The titles he could make out through the dust were, ‘A Dietitians guide to better a metabolism’, ‘Fear and you: How I slew a dragon in six hundred easy steps’, ‘Parents guide to know when your child will run wild’, ‘Greater lexicon of words’.

Maxwell tried his best to conceal the grimace that wanted to reemerge on his face as he looked over these textbooks. But looking at how pleased his instructor was, he didn’t have the heart anymore to rebuff him.

“A question Mr Sithy.”

“Sure shoot.”

“What kind of werebeast are you? I know it is a bit of a faux pas on my part to ask that question… but with the scales, are you a lizard man… maybe a dragon born?”

“Oh, I’m not a werebeast,” Sithy replied, which only caused the confusion in Maxwell to grow.

“I’m a Dragon,” Sithy explained, which only confused Maxwell even more.

“A Dragon… like a giant fire-breathing monster?”

“That is a rather outdated stereotype, but yes, I suppose the infant dragons are like that.”

“So why do you-”

“Why do I look Humanoid? Simple, I use the same transformation you do, just in reverse.”

“Is such a thing possible?”

“Well, obviously it is; I am a good example. In this world, there are three realms of transforming beasts. The first and most well know are werebeasts,” Sith explained, gesturing to Maxwell.

“They are born and live day to day with humanoid forms but can call upon an inner bestial form to strength themselves.” Maxwell nodded as this much was common knowledge, especially amongst his people.

“The next are sapient magical beasts that gain a humanoid transformation. The Arachne, Naga and even Dragons are under this category. We can start with humanoid forms, but that is only through a union of two in a humanoid form, to begin with. This is actually the source of werebeasts.” Maxwell had to contain his shock at casually learning the origin of his people.

“And the third?”

“The third are the beastlings,” Sithy answered. Maxwell failed to hide the grimace at the mention of the lesser race. They were a small, diminutive race stuck in a bestial humanoid form. They were often used for menial labour and were widely considered lesser beings.

“None of that,” Sithy said as he swatted a rolled-up scroll across Maxwell's head.

“OW!!”

“The beastlings used to be werebeasts, you know?” Maxwell couldn’t hide his shock. He had learnt much about his people’s origins already, and now he was being told something that would have a mob of people coming after him If he had said it back home. He could only bite his lower lip to restrain the outburst that wanted to surface.

“Long, long ago, there was a werebeast king and his people. They grew powerful and arrogant. At the height of their arrogance, they snubbed the gods and were punished for it. Their descendants are the ones we know as beastlings.” Maxwell could barely conceal his shock as Sithy continued.

“The Gods supposedly said something like, ‘If you enjoy your bestial forms so much and think yourselves so great, remain that way forever’. So they were forced to be in their in-between forms while also never finding peace. They are also the reason werebeasts migrated to the Dark Continent because other races couldn’t tell the difference and exiled all werebeasts.”

“This must’ve been ancient history,” Maxwell muttered.

“Yes, it was before even Lord Hades arrived in this land,” Sithy replied with a nod.

“To know this, you must be an ancient dragon?”

“Heh… I am ancient in terms of power but not ancient in age. I’m the same age as Alex.”

“Then how do you know all of this?” Sithy wordlessly pointed to the books stacked in front of Maxwell.

“I read it; knowledge is power. I know so much, especially thanks to Alex getting me a copy of the imperial libraries, that I grew in power. Now I wish to guide you down that road as well, so shall we start to read? I promise you we will do some fighting when you have absorbed the knowledge I want you to.”

“Yessir!” Maxwell said with a big salute, only to have the librarian shush him again.