A question comes out of Zahra’s notes. Why am I not the one teaching this class? I’m thoroughly ignoring the lessons on Advanced Cantrips I. I’m sorry, but they are just asking the students to rehash the first 23 Cantrips with more stringent rules. Yeah, and guess who has done that already. By mistake, yes. But still. I could probably teach this class myself. Hell, I could probably teach whoever wrote the manual on this stuff.

Should I introduce new Cantrips to my study group—

I activate [Single-Minded Focus] to take my mind off the questions that can be postponed.

Ok, let’s actually re-read the question that shall be the foundation of another group essay. This one is from Fundamentals of Magical Theory. It’s not really an essay. It’s more like a bunch of questions packed together that we have to answer cohesively, using arguments from each question to—whatever. It’s homework, you know.

The question that caught my eye while the professor drones about visualizing God knows what—hell, he’s distracting me with his stupid stuff. Really distracting me. Even with the skill on!

“And so, if you want to perfect your mastery over the Cantrips, redundant repetition is your best bet. Our esteemed predecessors and many [Archmages] can boast about having repeated the first Cantrip thousands of times. One of the [Archmages] of old said that he used to practice it in every waking moment he was not busy with something else.”

What the hell is this person saying?

I raise a hand. I’m sorry, it’s stronger than me.

He looks at me and gestures to put the hand down.

“Questions will be taken at the end.”

“Yo!” I say, scandalized. “Professor, I believe you are wrong. No disrespect.”

“Excuse me?” the somewhat short Elf with a pudgy constitution says.

Now, the whole class is rustling in their seats to look at me. Yeah, low profile. That’s how we like it.

“How is it possible that sheer repetition will make something better?”

“What’s your name?” the professor says while picking up what looks like a note to send me to the [Dean] or something.

Argh.

I can’t cause huge problems, for God’s sake.

“Whatever, never mind. Go ahead.”

Some people start giggling, and I believe the professor is already saying something else to me, but I’ve stopped listening. I’m back to looking – more depressed, this time – at the question that had piqued my interest before. It’s just one of the many inputs that we are supposed to discuss in the essay, but it is something I’ve rarely stopped contemplating.

What is a spell matrix?

Hell, Lord Juler should have put those questions in the book instead of those weird things at the end.

And do you know why? Because now I feel my mind expanding, I can feel myself almost floating on a veritable ocean of knowledge and—

“STUDENT!”

I look up and find the pudgy Elf staring at me, no more than a foot from my face. The fact that this incompetent idiot is teaching stuff that is incredibly wrong irks me.

“What?”

“I said that you are to leave the class now!”

I snort.

“Just because I questioned what you are teaching? Isn’t that what a student is supposed to do – challenge the teacher? Get a better synthesis between the two figures instead of a monologue by an idiot that barely knows what he’s talking about?”

Holy shit.

I said that out loud.

“How dare you—”

I get up from the first line of seats where my ass was resting, under the stupefied gaze of all my group – they are probably scared shitless by the possibility of being expelled.

“You are coming with me to the [Dean],” I say to the [Professor]. “Come.”

I start walking toward the exit, hoping that he will follow because I have no idea where the [Dean]’s office is located.

…

Ariostus, [Dean] and [Grand Magus] at the Nine Towers Academy, looks straight at me while the pudgy professor is shouting with a red face.

“In all the years of my esteemed career, I have never had to face an insult so great that—”

I shrug at the [Dean]. Like, it’s not my fault that this guy is insane.

“[Professor], I need a minute with your student,” Ariostus says without even looking at the guy. Thankfully, given the smug smile on his face, he probably thinks that I’ll get whipped or expelled. Instead, I just think that we, the [Dean] and I, will have a conversation about my secret identity.

As the petty Elf walks away, Ariostus starts moving his hands around.

[Advanced Mana Sense]

I see several looping wards activate. They are mostly anti-scrying and general measures to prevent spying. One wall, in particular, has a complex overarching spell matrix. A ward is not necessarily an enchantment. It can stay in the air if you prepare the locus for it well enough. But this one is a complex spell ward built on top of an enchantment.

“Heritage from greater times,” the [Dean] sighs as I keep looking at the wall. “You have a good eye.”

“Robin told me that you know me,” I say, still staring at the wall. There’s some real expertise in there, and I have no idea what I’m looking at. This is the stuff that Lord Juler has not taught me yet.

“I suspect a couple [Archmages] might be onto you as well, Luciani,” Ariostus says. “And I told Robin because I’d rather hold peaceful talks with you. But I wasn’t expecting to meet you like this.”

“Best cover you could wish for,” I say, angling my head to better catch a moving component of the spell matrix on the wall.

“Decent,” Ariostus acknowledges. “But there is the matter of your presence here. I can’t allow you to run rampant among students and create problems, Joey Luciani. I support the free development of magic, thinking liberally. But if your presence here poses a threat—”

“Our professor is a threat to this academy,” I deactivate my skill and turn around, miffed. I don’t like the treatment I’m getting here. “[Dean], can I tell you something, like, in confidence? I have some thoughts I have not shared with anyone else yet. Hell, I’m afraid of thinking about them sometimes. What do you say? Are you interested?”

The man crinkles his nose and shrugs.

“Sure.”

“Ok. If I wanted to create problems, I’d be bunkering up in Amorium, creating civil unrest because of the people going after me. I broke no rule. Your people did. And even if I’m not strong enough to be a real threat – yet – I know a spellcaster so powerful that she could overthrow this nation with a snap of her fingers. Shoot, maybe even her freak of a disciple could do the trick. They could go to Kome tomorrow and turn the war around just like that. I bet there’s a lot of political unrest because of that, isn’t there? How many nations are shitting their pants?”

The man observes me with sharpness in his eyes. There was some kindness before, but now there’s only analytical acuity behind his pupils – I’m talking of matters that could influence the world. Valarith is worse than a North Korean dictator with more nukes than the entire USA.

“So, if I wanted to create problems, I’d be either in Amorium or learning stuff from the Vanedenis. Then, I could create real problems. But guess what, I just wanted to enjoy some chill time. I want to study magic. Magic is cool. I am good at magic. Better than Vanedeni-good at magic. Did you know that? I’m so goddamn good that I am going crazy about it. I don’t even know what to do with all of this,” I point at myself. “But I’m still here, trying to learn, trying to make the best decisions possible, and even creating a fake persona to avoid ruffling any political feathers. If I wanted to be a threat, one day I could create chaos like you have never seen in your lifetime, [Dean]. But I’m here to learn. And you are here to teach. One thing I considered is going down the wrong road. I considered going back to Amorium, trying to see who would follow me, who’s on my side, and putting people in front of a choice. I lifted up more than half of the homeless population from abject poverty. Who do you think those people would believe, the idiots doing all the politics in this country or me? But I’m here. I’m here to learn. And your professors are incompetent idiots. Some of them are politicized incompetent idiots. So, what about that?”

The [Dean] looks intensely at me before nodding.

“I like you.”

What?

“What?”

“I like you, Joey Luciani.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t swing that way—”

The [Dean] waves a hand dismissively.

“You know what I’m saying. I like your attitude toward magic. I’m a [Dean] because I want to guide new generations. I have ties, and there are political implications to what we do here, but I was a [Researcher of Magic] once, and I’m still one at heart.”

The man gets up from his leathery chair and looks at the books on the shelf behind his desk. There are many, and they come in all sizes. Some can’t be bigger than a palm, some look as thick as my head.

“I gathered knowledge; I spread the things that some of my predecessors tried hoarding. I’m against that flat-eared idiocy of secret classes. If it were up to me, everything would be open to all, Luciani. And I don’t really care for Humans. I care for magic.”

He takes a book from the shelf and looks at it with a regretful frown. Then, he shows it to me.

“Milzius’s Anthology of Magic. Here, he suggests that once there were many more Cantrips. That the ones we are practicing now are no more than a beginner’s test. I used the skills from my [Researcher] class to dig deeper, but I could never find enough information on the topic. He also assumes that people used to be much better at Cantrips than now. Somehow, spell matrixes were more accessible.”

Or they could simply see the spell matrixes. That’s something I realized. The book gifted me with a skill before I could learn anything. If I hadn’t been able to see the spell matrixes, I would be grasping at things completely in the dark.

I bite my lip, tempted to reveal this crucial information about [Advanced Mana Sense]. But maybe there’s something else I can say without giving out specific knowledge.

“There are 23 sets of 23 Cantrips,” I found myself saying with a sigh. “They are 22 sets, actually. The last set is theoretical in nature. I believe that the first 22 were made to divide [Mages] into different talent classes. The fact that you only practice the first 23 means that your actual ‘talent’ level can’t be assessed above 1. More advanced Cantrips are fundamental to the study of higher magic. Practicing a Tier 3 spell without the first five sets of Cantrips is the stupidest thing I could think of. Being able to practice all Cantrips means that even Tier 4 spells could be easily learned in no more than a week or two. I believe that the current speed for anyone below the [Archmage] or the [Grand Magus] level should be anywhere between two weeks to three months, based on how complex the spell is and how many spells with an affinity someone knows.”