Melch and Leif returned back to the dormitory, after spending their time outside. Once back, Melch went straight into his room, where he put down the book he had borrowed from the library on a stand with the extra notes he had brought along with him.

Melch kept writing from where he had left off, making way firmly through the cryptic material. However, he could only manage to get through a little less than half before exhaustion took over. Knowing he had to complete it, he forced himself to stay awake into the early hours of the morning. Eventually, he reached his goal but as soon as he did, fatigue overcame him and he collapsed onto his bed slipping into a deep sleep.

Melch did not know at that time, his body was subtly but decidedly deteriorating. His Valkora was gradually worsening, a condition now masked by his unnatural high recovery ability. There would eventually come a time when his resilience would not be able to hold back the emergence of the symptoms.

As morning broke, Melch slept deep into it until jolted out of slumber by loud knocking on the door. It was Leif.

"Oi, Mr. Serious. You alive in there?" Leif called out knocking even harder.

Melch groaned forcing himself upright. His head felt heavy, a dull throbbing lingering from the lack of rest. He stumbled to the door and opened it to see Leif standing there, his usual carefree grin dancing across his face.

"You look terrible. Did you again fight a ghost in your sleep?" Leif joked as usual stepping inside.

Melch rubbed his eyes ignoring the remark. "Just stayed up too late reading."

Leif shook his head. "A true reader. Now come on, we need to eat before we miss breakfast again. I'm not surviving on just snacks today."

He realized how starving he must be and quickly dressed himself as well. They both rushed to the dining hall, only to be lucky enough this time and be present when the food was still available. There was a fresh salad and this strange type of meat with a weird dark purple color.

"This is something that doesn't look right. It looks like something out of a witch's potion" Melch said suspecting as he was seeing this purple colored meat for the first time.

Leif was already chewing on a large piece. "Tastes fine to me, Kinda chewy but it has a good kick. Might take another serving."

Melch sighed pushing the meat aside and focusing on the rest of his meal. "If you grow a tail or start glowing, I'm not helping you ever."

Leif laughed and went back for another serving, while Melch finished up and prepared to head to class.

By the time they arrived, the lecture had already begun. Surprisingly, the professor wasn't present. Instead, an assistant professor was teaching. Melch and Leif quietly sat down in the last row. The two became curious about this situation. Melch leaned forward slightly and turned to the student sitting in front of them and asked "What's going on? Why is an assistant professor teaching today?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The student leaned back slightly mumbling "No idea. I got here late too. That's all I can say up until now is this isn't like any other lesson. A new assistant professor is saying how trading material works, exactly where one finds rare stuff, exactly how the factions... Well how they function from adventurers, knights, magic towers and so forth."

Leif's eyes lit up. "Wait, is he speaking from experience or just some theory from a book?"

The student smirked. "Oh, he's definitely experienced. He used to be an adventurer before taking up teaching."

Leif leaned back, his eyes intrigued. "Now this might actually be something interesting."

Melch said nothing and continued to listen to the lesson. The assistant professor went on and explained the nature of different groups of factions, how the adventurer's guild worked, what materials were in demand and how traders and smugglers operated within the black market. It was an unusually thoughtful exposure to the daily side of magic and combat related professions.

"For example" the assistant professor continued "if you wanted to sell rare magical ore, the best place wouldn't be a regular shop or at the market. First, you'd want to get in touch with specialized buyers or auction houses. Selling to the wrong person might get you swindled or worse attacked."

Leif nudged Melch. "You might already be very rich with a market for weird cryptic notes."

Melch rolled his eyes. "Doubt it. I don't even know what they mean yet."

"Well, if they're valuable let me know. I'll handle the business side of things." Leif said with a wink.

As the lesson progressed, Melch took meticulous notes surprised at how much he didn't know about the other trading side of the magic world. Knowing spells and how to fight was one thing but knowing how the world actually worked outside of books was quite another challenge.

On the last day of class, the assistant professor told them something that would stick with Melch forever. "Magic isn’t just about power. Knowledge and resources dictate who rises and who falls. A skilled mage with no supplies is as good as a fool with a stick."

Melch listened carefully to those words. If he wanted to get ahead, it wasn't enough to have magical talent. He needed access to information, resources and allies.

Leif stretched, letting out a loud yawn. "Well, that was way more useful than I expected. Still, I hope the next class is a bit more action packed."

Melch ignored him, already deep in thought. He had more research to do, more questions to answer and more than anything, he needed to figure out How to save himself from Valkora for his own good before it became too late.