Jonathan stood in the room.

He stood there for over an hour already, and for the outside observer, it looked like he might be in trance. And in some ways, the outside observer would have been right.

He looked at his magic, and tried to figure out how he cast that light spell. It was a difficult task, but one he wanted to complete.

A few meters away, Heinrich Tablos, the most powerful archmage for 10 days by foot, sat bored.

Ten minutes after Jonathan begun with his task, he had magicked a few documents into the room, which he was working on by now.

Elise was not in the room, she needed to attend her studies. Tablos, trying to ignore his job, thought about how happy Jonathan was after he had managed that light spell completely by himself.

Still, it was strange, that after that, he tried to find out, how exactly he did it.

But it was no matter, and even great, especially because he remembered an old proverb his mentor liked to tell: ”Only an inquisitive mind can become great at magic. It does not matter how powerful you are, how much magic you posses, as long as you do not have an inquisitive mind, you will not become a great mage.”

There was truth in that sentence, but he always liked to add something to it: ”If you have an inquisitive mind, you can offset some disadvantages in raw magical power and talent.”

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So while Jonathans action might have destroyed his teaching plans for today, so far, it did not bother him.

Suddenly, his wards alarmed him.

This was strange, an attack to this time was unlikely. He instantly activated his defenses, as well as those of the school and then looked into the specifics of the warning he received.

He realized, without needing much time, that it was a fundamentally new part of his network, which was strange, he did not remember adding something too the attack warnings.

So what exactly had happened?

Then he realized what the problem was and decided instantly to teleport to the location of the attack.

There Elise lied on the ground, surrounded by children of the more powerful nobles, who were kicking her.

Tablos looked around, searching for the teachers, which should be nearby.

What he found shocked him to the core. At least one teacher was actively encouraging the perpetrators, and two more stood by differently to the situation.

But one teacher, who should be in this area was absent. Tablos noted it down, so that he will find out where that teacher was, and why he derelicted his duties.

But now he really should deal with the matter at hand.

So he decided to make an unnecessarily flashy entrance and asked loudly, in a demonic voice: ”What is going on here? I demand answers, and if I do not get them now, you will pay the price.”

One of the boys, the child of the noble who had already tried to attack Elise earlier, Tablos did not bother to remember the name, had the gall to answer: ”We are only giving that bitch a lesson in proper etiquette...”

Most of the other in that room begun to laugh.

Tablos, not at all amused, answered: ”Is that so? If so, I think I need to teach you how to behave in magical society.”