A thin shimmering layer covered the sword once Dallion returned to the real world.it wasn’t the standard shimmering of an otherworlder, at least not entirely. There was a slight nuance to it, making it appear both to be part of this world, but also not.

“This what you wanted?” Dallion stood up.

Based on the intense emotions resonating from both Phoil and Raven, the answer was obvious. Even so, the black-haired noble had no desire to surrender a compliment.

“How many tries did it take you?” he asked.

“Two. Does it matter?”

“Not particularly.”

Internally, Dallion frowned. He’d learned to accept that nobles respected items, least of all.

“Alright, then. Now about your part of the deal? I need to be out before dark.”

“I’ll keep my word.” Raven pointed at the sword in a slow, dismissive fashion. That was more than enough for Phoil to pick up the weapon. Instead of heading outside, though, he went up the stairs to the private area of the building. “It’ll take me a bit to get my seal adjusted. Meet you at the door in half an hour?”

“Half an hour.” Dallion nodded. “See you there.”

This was the best deal he’d get, so there was no point in shaking the boat. He himself had something to pick up from his room.

Onda, did you get all that? Dallion asked as he went back into the corridor.

Well done, old man. One could almost near the nymph clapping. Lamer than me, but still cool.

What did I do wrong?

Nothing. Everything was perfect. The set up, the way you convinced the guardian, the selection of the material… It’s your logic that’s messed up. No, not exactly messed up, just too dependent on other things.

Hmm.

Keeping himself from running along the corridor, Dallion made his way to his room. The new feat he’d achieved filled him with more energy than was healthy. He tried getting rid of some of it by extending magic threads out of his hand—weaving them into a rope, as Katka had instructed—but that made him even more restless. Magic had a way to make its owner feel invincible, almost as if he’d drunk a bucket of energy drinks.

“Ruby, we’re heading outside.” Dallion pulled back the cluster of threads back into him, then took the aetherizer he kept hidden in a drawer with an invisibility symbol on it. “How do you feel about that?”

The shardfly stoically flew off the spot on the ceiling, taking its place on Dallion’s shoulder. For some reason, that reminded Dallion of Gleam.

Within seconds, the euphoria he had accumulated vanished without a trace. Was he capable of bringing the shardfly back? It had to be more complicated than opening a portal to the banished world. And even if it wasn’t, Dallion had no way of reaching that realm again.

“Tell me when you sense nearby illusions, okay?” Dallion said.

Okay. Ruby flocked his wings.

“And don’t get into any fights, even if I’m attacked. Got it?”

Dallion looked at his heavy gear. Considering what he would be facing, having his armadil shield and harpsisword would help. Unfortunately, he’d have to make do with his Nox dagger.

Less than a minute was necessary for Dallion to reach the main door of the building. Judging by the occasional look of disapproval he received from passing apprentices, it was safe to say that the glamor from the challenge was starting to wear off. And then there was the waiting. Every second dragged on. Unlike Dallion, Raven didn’t seem to be remotely in a hurry to get there.

Now you know what it feels like for guardians, Nil commented.

Precisely thirty minutes after he’d promised, Raven appeared, walking calmly down the corridor. Surprisingly, he wasn’t alone.

“Mage Tisaku?” Dallion asked.

The man didn’t seem at all pleased to be there. The fact that he was showed the pull Raven’s family had.

“Dallion,” the man acknowledged the other’s presence as he walked by, stopping right in front of the door. “Two hours,” he said, fingers drawing an intricate pattern faster than the human eye could see. A top level awakened would have trouble following the design. Unlike the standard spell, this was composed of a single pattern.

Purple light blended with the threads and symbols covering the door’s surface, melting them away.

“Try not to get in trouble. I don’t want to owe the White Eye favors.” The door opened.

“Yes, mage.” Dallion was the only one to answer.

Meanwhile, Raves passed by as if both of them were beneath him. The sad truth was that thanks to his father, they probably were.

From such an angle, the surroundings seemed a lot better than what Dallion had seen from the rooftop. That was to be expected; the mages had taken great care to cover all undesirable sights with illusions. If one didn’t know better, they would swear that the cluster of buildings surrounding the Learning Hall was pretty much the same as it always had been. Occasionally, there would be small signs that something was wrong—some magic symbols wouldn’t glow as bright, some streets would have a quarter of the people they were supposed to—but the illusion was close to perfect.

“Well, we’re out.” Raven looked at Dallion. “How what?”

“Now, I need to see a dwarf.”

After ten steps, Ruby mentioned that they were near an illusion. The spell was quite subtle, creating the impression that Dallion was walking along the same path. In a matter of minutes, he had reached his destination—the shop he had frequented so many times while outside.

That wasn’t remotely true. Discretely casting the spell that let him see through illusions, Dallion found that he’d reached an entirely new area. The level of the spell was beyond impressive; it had successfully created a false memory of the area and maintained it as reality, while in truth shardflies were destroying more and more of the surroundings.

A few steps from the shop, Dallion stopped. A small, quickly constructed building was in front of him. It was impossible to tell whether he’d find the same people on the inside, or the whole thing was nothing but a fake façade.

“Aren’t you going in there?” Raven asked.

“No.” Some things were better left uncertain. “I changed my mind. There’s somewhere else I need to be.”

Ignoring the noble’s comments, Dallion went back through illusion to the first place—the potion lab. The trip took slightly longer than Dallion remembered. To his surprise, the actual building was still there, mostly intact.

“You’re here to buy potions?” Raven crossed his arms. “I could have gotten you everything this third-rate place could make.”

“It’s not potions I’ve come for. Wait for me here, okay?”

The black-haired shrugged, then summoned a chair for him to sit in.

Reciting the names of the seven Moons, Dallion opened the door and stepped right in. The lab was in relatively good shape, if abandoned. Gone were the apprentices slaving away, as were most of their tools and material components.

Splitting into a dozen instances, Dallion went on. Every few seconds, he’d pause and split again, in case a flutter of shardflies came flying at him from somewhere. Thankfully, no such thing happened.

“Mage,” he said, as he approached the office of the lab’s owner. “Mage?” He entered.

The room was a lot smaller than he remembered. Seated on a rickety chair, slumped over a small old desk, was the mage. A strong stench of alcohol came filled the room, mixed in with tobacco smoke.

“Mage?”

“Mage no more,” the man said. His appearance was in worse shape than the room itself. One could only speculate how long it had taken him to reach such a wretched state, but it was more than a few weeks.

“The Academy rogued you?”

“Ha.” The man let out a sad laugh. “If they had rogued me, at least I’d have something. Now, I’m just a nobody that’s sentenced to remain here. I lost my reputation with this. All the conniving schemers that wanted to take me down had their chance. Everyone important wouldn’t speak to me, and anyone less important doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.” He pushed an empty glass across the desk.

Dallion couldn’t be sure whether he was being offered a drink or expected to fill the glass. Ultimately, he did neither.

“My apprentices left, as did all my customers.” The mage cast a spell, pulling the glass back. As he did, it filled up with murky liquid. “The archmage generously offered me temporary quarters in the apprentice wing. Me!” he tapped his chest with a finger. “To live with common apprentices.”

Would have been better than here, Dallion thought.

“Why not leave the Academy?” Dallion asked. “Temporarily.”

“No one’s leaving the Academy. Not with the war going on. The web of lies is in full effect. One province has fallen, two more are all losing ground. And the idiots in the south are still engaged in their petty squabbles.” He grabbed the glass and downed it in one go. For a moment, the stench in the room got worse. “Mages are too precious to be out in the open. Emperor’s orders. The way things are going, we’ll be ordered to fight.”

So, it’s that bad, Dallion thought.

He’d long suspected it, but this was the first time he’d gotten actual confirmation… if the words of a drunk could be believed. Looking at him, it was clear that the mage was a potion maker and an academic. He was not fit for combat. He’d probably forgotten all his combat spells decades ago, relying on the impenetrable strength of the Academy. His reputation was the most valuable thing he had, and now that was gone as well.

“They’ll be a need of potions again,” Dallion said, using his music skills to add as much joy to his words as possible.

“If the war doesn’t finish us, the blasted shardflies would!” The man tried to take another gulp from his glass, only then noticing it was empty. “You’re the hunter, aren’t you?” he asked. “Your level’s too high to be anything else.”

Here we go, Dallion prepared mentally.

“I guess I must thank you. I wanted to get you kicked out after you sealed off my room in the basement. Truth is you did me a favor. I don’t know what spell you cast on the shardflies, but they didn’t attack anyone here or try to destroy the place. They destroyed lots of buildings around me, but never mine.”

“The swarms came from here?”

“Who knows? Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. All of them appeared from the ground. The idiots thought they could stop them, and they did. The shardflies have been contained, but no one has any idea why they became active in the first place.”

“This whole place might be built on a shardfly nest…” Dallion whispered, more to himself than the mage.

Worst of all, it was all but confirmed that he had caused a stir with his arrival. An empath with nightmares of void was enough to stir any creature. No doubt it had happened subconsciously. Neither Dallion nor the creatures suspected. Even so, something had kept disturbing the shardflies, causing them to drill above ground and lash out at anything in sight.

“And the Academy has no overseer,” he added.

“Overseer.” The mage laughed. “We have enough battle constructs to destroy armies. That’s the problem, though. Everyone is too good at destroying. Those that aren’t affected don’t take the shardflies seriously, and those that are, are already considering how to use that to their political advantage. I did. I even snatched a few buildings from a few people. All of them are now holes in the ground.”

That sounded like something a mage would do. Yet, why hadn’t the Archmage intervened? Even with everyone busy covering up the situation, there was no way he wouldn’t notice by now. Unless, he too was covering up for the emperor. Such a dramatic failure could well be grounds for him to be replaced. Isolating the Learning Hall could well have been the best option from his point of view.

Dallion took out the aetherizer. He still had second thoughts about using it. Nonetheless, he linked the item to the realm and then activated it. The artifact turned purple.

Holy crap!

There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, or vortexes in the twenty miles area surrounding him; so many that he could tell when one started, and another ended, not what level they were. Suddenly, all this seemed more than a natural phenomenon.