Gabriel got back to his home to be met with a delightful surprise. He had managed to pass the wizardry test and could access its facilities. He was also asked to go to the building the next day to pick what he wanted to learn to see which professors would teach him.
It was really late now, so Gabriel found it reasonable to secure everything in his home and then go to sleep. But just as he got into bed, someone knocked on the door, who turned out to be Kupi, searching for a place to sleep. Gabriel let him in to sleep on a sofa and this hectic day finally ended.
The next day he woke up early, not wanting to waste time sleeping more than what he needed. He prepared himself breakfast, ate it and left all while Kupi was peacefully resting on the living room, without a worry in the world.
The first thing Gabriel wanted to take care of this day was to study more about mind control and spells of that area. How they worked, which ones existed or what their differences were, were questions he wanted to find an answer to.
Rushing towards the wizard’s academy, trying to enter before the masses, he met with a grayish haired young man who wore decorated clothes. It was an accident, both of them bumping into each other, thinking about their own things.
In fact, the man was moving towards the magician’s manor, on the opposite direction from him. Both of them felt that the other wasn’t a normal person, but neither had the time to study each other. Therefore, they simply continued on their own paths to their respective schools.
Nothing else of importance happened during his trip, but when he got to the academy, he was asked for documents proving he was a student there. He only had his letter, which he had foolishly left back home.
Luckily, as it was his first time entering after the tests he could just go to administration and get a student ID there. Gabriel just needed to fill a form, let someone take a scan of him and then wait about five minutes before the card was done.
It didn’t look anything too special, it had a white background, the logo of the school and the wizard’s union and some light blue boxes, which had his information written on top of them. His name, the address he had given them, and other miscellaneous information was included.
As he got that document, he made his way towards the library of the academy. Once again, he was stopped by a staff member of the school. This was the librarian, a slender man who asked for his identifications once more.
He asked why he had to show them again when he needed them to enter the academy, but he got no conclusive answer. After seeing his ID, the man asked him what books he was searching for, but Gabriel didn’t want other people knowing that he was searching about mind control, so he conversed for a while in a back and forth of questions and answers until he knew how to search for knowledge himself.
Before he was allowed in, the man stopped him for a moment and told him the limits of his search, which for simplicity was just the first floor. If he wanted to look for deeper knowledge, he’d need to get the approval of a certain number of teachers which depended on the level.
This approval was usually gained after passing a semester with them, but some teachers let students gain their approval through other means. This was what Gabriel would go for, would he need to go to deeper levels, but for now he started exploring the large library.
Gabriel read some books about the topic, but with his level of access he could only access to superficial stuff. The ‘best’ he found were a collection of spells which could control muscles to make someone else move in a certain way, did this individual want this or not.
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The young-minded man realized that if he wanted to learn enough to save his sister he’d need to go deeper in the library, step over his limits and try to find whatever could help him there. But there was a problem, someone was always guarding the entrance to the next level of knowledge.
This ‘someone’ wasn’t exactly a person, instead it was a collection of defensive mechanisms controlled by the academy itself. It could, in theory, have the highest level of security in every level, but this would be a waste of mana, so the higher the level of knowledge, the better the stairs were secured.
Gabriel had an inner debate on what to do. On one hand he could try to pass through this first level of security measures and search at a deeper level, but he could also meet some teachers and try to get their approval to legally access more information. But time was tight, so he went with his first alternative. Well, he also wanted to test his abilities.
Gabriel thought that because this was the wizard’s academy the security measures would be weaker against magic, but this was quickly proven wrongly. In fact, he observed that the defenses against magic could be better than the ones against wizardry.
It wasn’t a really exciting fight, instead, it lasted about twenty seconds until Gabriel figured a weakness in the system, but there was never an active defense mechanism that acted against him. All there was as a defense were passive defenses that combated against some types of spells.
Gabriel was now on the second floor and started searching for more information. There were more books about this topic on this level, so he started gathering them on a table to read them in order and organize his findings.
Soon after starting to read the books, a tall, voluptuous woman sat on the other side of the table and started looking at him and the books he was eyeing. She had black pants and a shirt of the same color, while she had some white gloves on.
- I haven’t seen you here before… And these books you’re reading are quite interesting, if I do say so myself… - She started a conversation tentatively.
- Hello - Gabriel started his sentence, but quickly brought it to an end to think of an answer. Even though he couldn’t tell who the woman in front of him was, he learnt from Kupi that it was never too bad to be a little careful. – I don’t usually come here, but I just had to find an answer to my question. – Gabriel finally gave an answer to her.
- Hmmm… I see. I am Cam, what is your name? Maybe we can contact each other after you tell me what you’re doing here. – Before Cam had finished her sentence Gabriel had started preparing an alibi to give reasons for him being here and a reason to leave the place.
- I am Peter – He decided to give out a fake name, as to prevent trouble. – And I already told you what I’m doing here. Learning about mind control. Now I was studying quietly, but if you’ll keep disturbing me, I’ll have to go.
* I’m not buying that. I know that you shouldn’t be here, at this level and as a teacher I have the responsibility to take you out of here.
Gabriel was shocked at this revelation, because he didn’t suspect that such a young-looking woman would be a teacher and the ease that she told this. This also made him doubt her, maybe it was another student pulling a prank on him.
- I know what you’re thinking. I’m lying to you. But I can prove you that I’m a teacher, quite easily. Look at my ID here, it shows who I am, my teacher level and which classes I give. Now show me your ID so I can document what happened here.
But as she finished her sentence, Peter, AKA Gabriel, was already gone. While she was talking, he had given himself some extra speed and ran away from the library as fast as possible. He was lucky that the security measures only worked on one direction, because otherwise he’d been caught.
Gabriel decided not to enter the library nor the academy for the whole day, maybe the next day as well, but if he missed too many days it’d arouse suspicions and he may be caught. He didn’t know what the consequences of entering deeper knowledge were, but he also didn’t want to find out.
Back at the table he had been studying at, Cam had stood up. She was smiling at the prospect of a well-prepared student. She’d search for him to get him on her class. She taught something similar to combat and was always searching for tough students.
She enjoyed watching them fighting between themselves for a better grade, which she gave to the winner. At least she had a name, she thought, but when she was back at the entrance of the library, checking the register of entrances and exits she found no one named Peter. She had been tricked, which got a small laugh out of her. She now wanted this child more than ever.