“Knowing when to rest and recuperate is half the battle. A novice can beat even the most experienced archmage if the former is refreshed and the latter exhausted enough.”

- Igei Ben-deren, widely known as the “Undefeated Duelist”

___________________

“Two-thirds of a sun makes… thirteen silver moons and four coppers,” the guild receptionist said. “As well as thirty member contribution points, bringing both of you to forty-eight for your first month. You have twenty-two days remaining to acquire the remaining fifty-two points to continue membership.”

He reached into a counter beneath the desk, grabbing a fistful of coins and sliding them across the table to us.

“Next!”

Jasmine and I split the coins, which she dropped inside her purse and I placed into a pouch by my waist. With that, our job was officially over and we exited the Tayan Adventuring Guild’s headquarters, leaving the startlingly mundane office building behind.

It had taken us a total of four additional days to finish our mission. One day and night after the small town we’d hit, one day spent inside the Yelian border delivering the package— the contents of which we still didn’t know— to a designated drop house, and two days and a night to make it back. After the catastrophic mess that had occurred, we had encountered few issues beyond the local Altered, which had been strangely dormant in the latter half of our journey.

Five full days to complete our mission. We’d left at the beginning of a weekend, but we’d still missed a handful of classes. Thankfully, none of the classes we’d been gone for covered anything beyond fundamentals that the both of us already knew, but this was something that we might have to take into consideration in future jobs.

“That was such a mess,” I sighed, raising my arms above my head and stretching.

“Agreed,” Jasmine said. “You’re completely good now, right?”

“I can walk and run now, at the very least,” I said. “I haven’t tried out my magic yet. Not much I can really do with it that doesn’t involve gratuitous violence.”

“Well, we’re heading back to class today, so maybe you’ll get a shot then,” Jasmine said. “Make sure to let me know how things go, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Do you know what you have today?”

“I memorized my schedule,” Jasmine said, without missing a beat. “It’s just a bit before noon, so in one and a half hours I have Maximizing Oath Effectiveness with Professor Wenhai, then three hours after I’ll have Oath History with Professor Gyast, and that’s it for my day. We’ll meet up at the library again?”

“Sure. Your entire schedule?” I asked. “That seems unnecessary.”

“And yet I bet you memorized yours, too,” Jasmine said, a smile creeping across her face. “You’re not that much unlike me, you know?”

“I copied it down and kept the copy,” I said dryly, reaching into a pocket and finding the crumpled piece of paper. “I’ve got Oath History first, same time as your first class, then Structuring Spells with Professor Lasi in the second time slot.”

“None together today,” Jasmine said. “Unfortunate. Wanna get lunch before class starts?”

“Will we get back in time?” I asked. “Yaguan is big, even if the University is near its center.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Jasmine said. “I know this city like the back of my hand.”

“If you say so,” I said. “Where are we headed? Hopefully somewhere cheaper. My dorm doesn’t pay for itself, you know.”

“I know this tavern that serves fantastic pork over rice,” Jasmine beamed. “It won’t set us back more than a couple coppers a piece, and it’s only ten minutes or so from here on foot.”

“Fine by me,” I said. I wasn’t just giving into her will or anything— picking a place to eat was always hard for me when I’d spent the first part of my life eating servant-prepared meals exclusively and cooking my own food for the second part. Jasmine must have had a lot more experience in the city as a child than me.

“Come on!” Jasmine said, taking my hand and tugging me along.

Her enthusiasm was infectious, almost bouncing on her feet, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as we half-walked, half-ran to our destination.

___________________

“Aedi oathholders are perhaps the most common throughout history,” Professor Gyast droned. “Likely due to the ease of obtaining an oath to this god..."

The lecture hall we were in seated a hundred students, and as far as I could tell only around half of us were actually paying attention.

For good reason, too. It sounded like our professor was reciting the textbook word-for-word. Then again, odds were decent that many hadn’t read the textbook. It was startling how dry an author could make oaths sound like.

“The practitioners of Aedi’s lifestyle are generally inventors, whether or not their inventions are major,” the professor said.

I spoke with her for the next line, having found the point in Oaths: A Comprehensive History, 7th edition where her last sentence left off. “Many will already know that some of the most prominent Aedi oathholders have brought unprecedented innovation to our world that may never have been discovered otherwise. Writing paper, oathlights, trains, and many more are deeply integrated into our society, but many today forget that these were created by Aedi oaths.”

The boy to the left to me looked at me, a vaguely concerned look on his face.

“Don’t worry about it,” I assured him. “I’m just practicing to take the professor’s spot.”

The concerned look did not get better, but he looked away eventually.

I ignored the professor. I’d read ahead already, and not only was nothing she was telling us new but it was pretty useless to my plans for the next few years.

Reclaiming a noble name wasn’t exactly something one could do by telling others which brand of train were and weren’t of Aedi oath make.

I’d always been more of a practical girl than anything else, though, so that lofty final goal could wait until I finished meeting the prerequisite short-term goals.

Income, notoriety, and connections. Those three were necessary in spades for anyone to make even a ripple in the pond of the noble houses. I couldn’t claim to have a great amount of any of them, but all three were slowly being worked upon. Hopefully, I would soon have a better income stream once Jasmine and I ranked up with the TAG, and notoriety too would only come with time.

Connections, though… Jasmine certainly counted as one— after all, it wasn’t every day you saw a noble daughter go adventuring— but given recent events I felt that solely relying on her wasn’t the best idea.

Everything was coming back to Jasmine now, wasn’t it? That girl had managed to worm her way into my life dangerously quickly, and she was entrenched far enough into it that I wondered if I even wanted her gone.

This wasn’t the first time my thoughts had drifted to the matter of Jasmine, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. She was dangerously powerful, wielding not one but two oaths with the skill of a trained professional at an age when most people were barely obtaining theirs. Not only that, but she was still hiding something about herself. I had only just noticed the dishonest edge in her words when she’d told me her story earlier, her voice sure and confident in a way that almost always came from years of wearing a lie so frequently that it had become natural. She had killed, at some point, and had not flinched at all at the execution of a prisoner. And most damningly, she was a noble, the likes of which I unfortunately knew all too well.

On the other hand, she’d undeniably saved my life at least once now, even if it had been after I’d saved hers. She was cheerful and actively sought me out as a friend, which was something that I hadn’t had in my life in… an embarrassingly long time. After I’d been sent into exile post-execution of my family, I had spent the latter half of my childhood growing up in a village that had been accommodating but had never truly been warm. The way Jasmine spoke with me, fought with me, supported me? That was something that I had long ago become accustomed to not having.

On top of that, she was dangerously powerful but everything she’d said so far indicated she was dangerously powerful on my side. Though her moralizing could get the slightest bit annoying, she did appear to be a genuinely good person.

She’s pretty, too, my traitorous brain added unhelpfully.

I sighed. I was familiar with my own thoughts. Soon enough, I was liable to start thinking about the parts of Jasmine I had yet to learn and the cycle of thought would begin anew.

I would have to trust her for the time being, even if I maintained a reasonable level of wariness. And if I had fun along the way, well, that was just a side effect.

Instead of getting bogged down in another meaningless loop of thoughts about my adventuring partner, I observed the room, looking for anything to train my thoughts on.

Professor Gyast, a middle-aged woman who I was pretty sure did not specialize in teaching history, wore thick-rimmed glasses and a supremely bored expression at the lecture desk.

“Someone doesn’t want to be here,” I muttered.

The boy next to me laughed. “I thought I was the one who wanted to get out of here most, but I have to say the professor is competing for that.”

I looked at him, fully processing his face for the first time. A shock of black hair and a thin face that I was pretty sure was more common in the Kingdom of Siago down south. His eyes were a little narrower than mine, but they were friendly nonetheless.

“Hi,” he said. “Lukas, with a K. Lukas Noben.”

“Lily,” I introduced myself “Lily Syashan.”

“Syashan… you were taken in by a village, then?”

“I never knew my parents,” I said, painting a small sad smile on my face. “The Church said I had the talent, and I eventually made it here.”

“I’m sorry if I touched on a sensitive topic,” he said. “My story is a lot less impressive.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Please tell me. Anything but more of this godsdamned lecture.”

“I’m a household soldier for the nobles of House Varga,” he said. “Here as a bodyguard to the heir.”

“Is he a friend of yours, or did they just send you because you were the closest in age?”

“You could call him a friend, I suppose,” Noben grinned. “Sometimes it’s a little more than that.”

“I don’t care all that much for romance,” I said. “But good for you, I suppose.”

“Thank you,” Noben replied. “Oh, it looks like we’re wrapping up.”

Sure enough, Professor Gyast had finally stopped reading the textbook, and she was saying something about dismissing the class. She looked relieved.

“Finally,” I groused. “Nice meeting you, though.”

“You as well,” Noben said. “I’ll be accompanying the heir soon after. Would you like to get in touch with us at some point?”

“You can always leave a letter,” I said. “Campus post should have that.”

“Duly noted,” Noben said. “I’ll see you around, then.”

“See you around.”