I knew I needed to graduate. That my time at the School was coming to an end. That I had reached the end of my knowledge acquisition, that the School simply didn’t have much left to teach me in my chosen fields of expertise. That a single month of travel would teach me more than a year in the School.

Knowing that it was the right thing didn’t have me dreading the end of my time here. Like a cruel joke, time seemed to speed along, our birthdays came and went - 27! - and finals were upon us.

My last finals. The classes were easy enough, but the tracks were a different matter.

I wasn’t presenting a thesis for my Wizardry Track, but there still was a final panel examination. I wasn’t familiar with any of the professors performing the examination, and they all looked tired and irritable. Doing a few dozen intense hours-long back-to-back exams would do that to a person.

“Elaine of Remus.” The first examiner flipped his papers with a sigh. “Applying for Wizardry Track graduation in Jiwa and Anaconda.”

The second examiner snorted at Jiwa. Must be one of those wizards who thought Jiwa was cheating, and ‘too easy’.

“Young lady, where are your preparations? This is the Wizardry Track exam.” A third examiner peered over her glasses at me.

I held out my hand, and teleported one of my spellbooks into it.

“Preparations like this?” I asked.

“One spellbook is doable.” The first examiner muttered.

I gleefully pulled out thirty more at that.

[*ding!* [The Very Hungry Bookwyrm] leveled up! 79 -> 80! +80 Dexterity, +80 Vitality, +80 Speed, +240 Magic Power, +240 Magic Control, +240 Mana, +240 Mana Regeneration per level from your Class! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration per level for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Magic Power per level from your Element!]

“Silver in Jiwa. Silver! The only question I missed was Vetisan’s Binding, and that’s niche because Kunada’s Method is superior in every way!” I complained to Auri and Iona.

“Brrrpt.” Auri sympathized.

“How’d Anaconda go?” Iona helpfully asked.

I made a disgusted noise.

“Even worse if you can believe it. My specific spells weren’t general enough. My general spells weren’t specific enough. My ability to write arrays on the fly wasn’t ‘up to standard’, which they never named or stated. They seemed to expect I’d have meta skills that I just don’t have the slots for. Who dings a student in an Anaconda exam for not being able to integrate Delas into it?! That’s not part of the language! That’s an entirely different language! Honestly, I almost suspect that they gave me bronze just so I wouldn’t appeal a fail and take up even more of their time.”

I muttered more about their supposed proclivities and their mother’s weight.

I yanked my mind away from my train of thought on myself, and focused on Iona. “How about you?” I asked, trying to be a good girlfriend.

“Gold in Politics, gold in Interpersonal Relationships, gold in Drawing and Painting, bronze in Art, bronze in Mathematics, bronze in Logistics and Supply, and silver in Individual Duels.”

I started at the last one.

“Wait, Individual Duels is a track?”

Iona nodded.

“Apparently. They tracked me down to give it to me. Something about having the entire world watch me crush a team with a divine blessing in play made them want to make sure they had a claim on me. Figured it’s harmless, and I get an extra track. What’s up with your Medicine Track exam?”

“Brrrrpt!!” Auri made impressed noises at Iona’s accomplishments.

“Marcelle said it was going to be scheduled special. Speaking of, I need to sit down and study it more. I do not want to make any mistakes on this, not with all the effort she’s going through with my thesis. I can not make her look bad.”

With that I sat back down, popped out three reference books - hurray [Parallel Thoughts] level-up milestone! - and got cracking.

My Radiance Sorcery exam was about as straightforward as I could hope for. Blast things to pieces. Show off my utility skills. Demonstrate any neat tricks I had.

Sorcery was hard to properly evaluate, as it was, by definition, a grab bag of tricks. Some of the professors believed breath was important, whiles others graded on how well I used the abilities I had.

It was a fierce argument, but my ability to utterly annihilate every target given - including a few mirrors - managed to edge out a Gold in Radiance Sorcery by a narrow 3-2 vote.

“Are you ready?” Marcelle asked for the fourth time.

“I’m ready. I’m sure.” I’d done everything I could to prepare. I’d reorganized my entire [Astral Archive] to properly make a mental ‘shelf’ for all my medical knowledge, then carefully rearranged and ordered all my knowledge into books. Most tidbits of information ended up in five or six different books, just so no matter which one I ‘picked up’, I’d have the knowledge handy.

It was a perfect memory skill, and not only that, but I could organize it. I had unlimited storage - as far as I could tell. Why not make use of it?

My clothes were perfect. Fresh, clean, magically pressed, put on after breakfast, with my earned tracks stitched into the hem. I looked every inch the dutiful student.

“Alright. Here we go.” Marcelle opened the doors to the lecture hall, and we entered.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was that instead of the normal five examiners, I had a whole panel of fifteen, each of them an old Immortal. The one in the center had been one of the professors interviewing me to enter the School in the first place, and I’d had him for my The Art of Medicine in Warfare class. The second thing I noticed was the minor audience. A dozen or so professors and other faculty members had each claimed their own seat in the lecture hall. I recognized most of the faces here as people Marcelle and Ratcatcher had been working with, introducing me to as the author of the Medical Manuscripts.

“Welcome all. Today we have a special event. Healer Elaine here is one many of you are familiar with. You have seen her in the hospital, or taught her in class. Some of you know her for a different reason. Elaine has given credible evidence that not only is she a listed contributor to the Medical Manuscripts that we have all studied, but she wrote the original copy. This has been corroborated a few different ways, and we’d love to show you our evidence after this graduation panel. Without further ado - Elaine of THE Remus Republic.”

Slowly expanding knowledge of what I’d done felt something like a conspiracy, and I could immediately see which members of the interview panel hadn’t been ‘read in’ so to speak. Some had their eyes widen, a few sucked in a breath.

Kinda hard to get large rises out of old Immortals.

“Explains why this one got scheduled special.” One devil on the far left end said.

“Each in turn.” The middle elf said. “Elaine. It feels like yesterday you were in front of me, being interviewed for admittance to the School. Congratulations on successfully completing your classes. I would like to start with a question you struggled with on your initial entrance exam. If you encounter a rapidly spreading malady that you determine is created by a Miasma Classer or similar, what steps would you take?”

The open-endedness was part of the beauty of the question. Also, I knew what I’d done wrong last time.

Contact proper authorities - I wasn’t the authority anymore!! I had been in the mindset of ‘I am the boss, the final authority, and I am empowered to do whatever is needed to fix this shit.’

Except… the average healer wasn’t. The average healer wasn’t able to kill a Classer on a suspicion - not only was it legally dicey (I hated the phrase ‘it depends’ on the legal readings I did) - but most healers just didn’t have the skills, ability, or mindset to take a life. The professors here also frowned on it. The proper answer was to alert the correct authorities, then continue on with the rest of the plague methods.

“A creature with copper-based blood has a heart attack. What is your method of treatment?” The next question came in the middle of my description of how I’d organize different levels of healers.

I blinked, dropped the mental books I’d been holding with [Astral Archive] and picking up a new set of books.

The question was plain unfair, designed to trip me up. It was a trap, but it didn’t feel aimed at me. Just at cocky students in general. To no surprise, it came from one of the professors who occasionally taught some of the biomancy courses.

“Carefully. Since there are no copper-based blood species with a heart, I have to assume I’m dealing with a complex biomancied subject. My exact plan of action would vary depending on a thousand factors, primarily the heart design itself. How do I know they’re having a heart attack? Are they an elvenoid? What size are they? Do I have a reason to believe their changes are permanent, and I can simply address the problem, or are they in the middle of an operation and my tactics need to change? With that being said, a cardiovascular event can broadly be treated…”

On and on the questions went, and the difficulty just went up. Even a few professors who had liked me in class, who believed that I was the originator of the Medical Manuscripts, weren’t pulling any punches. Either this was the treatment everyone got, or people wanted to see me fail, or people wanted to give me a chance to show off, or ensure there were no accusations of people going easy on me. Or there was something else going on, a mix of multiple motives, or whatever. I wasn’t in a position to think or analyze it, and without Iona to spell it out, I was lost.

What I wasn’t lost on was what I needed to do.

Hit it out of the park. Crush every question thoroughly and perfectly. Prove that I knew my stuff.

[The World Around Me] let me see every single detail. [Parallel Thoughts] let me split my minds. I was close to the professors. After I hit my stride, I was able to skim through the entire list of questions they all had - each professor had a different set - then send off my parallel thought processes down my literal memory lane, grabbing books and preparing answers. Frankly, it almost felt like cheating. To avoid accusation of impropriety, I made sure to wait and let professors ask their questions before I started to answer.

On and on it went. Some professors let me finish the prior professor’s question before jumping in, others simply asked when they were satisfied by the prior answer - regardless if other people wanted to hear it or not. It was easy enough to figure out who needed concise answers to their questions, and who I could expound with, and fully answer all the details.

[The World Around Me] also let me see professor’s eyes flicker off to the side, focusing on nothing, a quick and subtle movement that let me know they’d just gotten a System notification.

Levels for everyone!

“Thank you all.” The central figure said after a grueling six hour interrogation. No other final exam had taken nearly so long, but given that everyone had leveled a skill or even a class, nobody seemed eager to bring the event to a premature close.

“I have one last question for Elaine. What do you plan to do after you graduate?”

That question took me by surprise. It wasn’t written down on his list. It was also easy.

“Find people to heal, and heal them.” I shrugged, letting them know my answer was done.

“I believe we’ve heard enough. I propose Elaine should be awarded gold for the knowledge portion of the exam. All in favor?”

Fifteen hands were up in the air before he even finished speaking.

“Congratulations, Elaine. I look forward to your thesis defense.” The center professor said.

[*ding!* [The Very Hungry Bookwyrm] leveled up! 80 -> 81! +80 Dexterity, +80 Vitality, +80 Speed, +240 Magic Power, +240 Magic Control, +240 Mana, +240 Mana Regeneration per level from your Class! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration per level for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Magic Power per level from your Element!]

It took me another three hours to get out of there, and that was only because Marcelle ended up swooping in to extract me.

I took a sip of Linnet’s magical tea. It was snowing outside, the island on a brisk flight path over the northern continent.

Honestly, I’d be pretty happy to be in a stable location soon, where I didn’t need to pack winter clothes for the afternoon during a blazingly hot morning. Where the sun set at a reasonable hour.

Linnet had a fire roaring in her hearth, heavy blankets she’d sown herself strewn over the sofa and a never-ending supply of warm tea.

I wanted a room like this wherever I ended up.

I put my teacup down and broke the companionable silence.

“Linnet. You’ve been amazing these last few years.” I said. She sipped her tea.

“Oh peshaw. I’ve just done what anyone would do. Cookie?” She offered me the tray.

I’d never seen the tray empty, and the smell of baking filled the room. I happily accepted one.

“I think sadly, this is our last meeting. Our goodbye.” I was starting to tear up a bit. I didn’t want to leave Linnet. I didn’t want to lose the grandmotherly ear, the shoulder I could always rest on.

But life moved on. Time marched forward, without pause, without rest. The sun rose, and the sun set. Time goes by, we can never stay the same.

All that would be left of today were memories, drifting like a snowflake in the wind.

Linnet was quiet a long moment.

“A goodbye is simply another chance to say hello. Who knows what the world will bring? Don’t worry about me so much, worry about that thesis you’re presenting! It sounds like it’ll be quite the event! Exciting! I’ll be sure to mosey on down myself and watch.”

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answer, but I plowed on.

“Linnet. I’d - if you want, I can make you young again. Just -”

Linnet cut me off with a slow shake of her head.

“That’s very generous of you, but I’ll have to decline. I’ve made my peace with the world already. White Dove will be taking me soon enough. No need for any of that frantic running around you Immortals do for me, oh no. I’m happy here.”

Linnet made it clear that she didn’t want to argue or discuss the topic more. We switched to more mundane matters, although we got interrupted near the end of our time.

The island had a broadcast system, powerful inscriptions fueled by kilos of arcanite to make announcements when needed.

“Warning. Warning. Warning. Take shelter. Take shelter. The island is about to pass through Xyris, the Living Storm. Take shelter. Warning. We are about to pass through Xyris.”

Linnet gave an overly dramatic sigh.

“Well! I don’t feel like swapping my skills with anyone else, do you?” The question was purely rhetorical. Nobody wanted their skills randomly swapped around with other people caught in the storm - especially not with the absurd number of fish with silly skills around.

“Not at all.” I agreed.

“Good! Help me get the cookies out of the oven. Want to make a fresh batch with me?”

Did I ever! It was almost a treat that the island’s flight path was bringing us through Xyris, extending my final moment out with Linnet.

Linnet watched the door close on Elaine, her heart breaking just a little once again.

Another one she’d helped. Another one who’d left, who she wouldn’t see again. Sometimes it was just so hard to see people leave, and Elaine was just so lonely.

Linnet cheered herself up by reminding herself that she’d freed up some time, and helped Elaine. Another poor lost soul would come knocking on her door soon enough, another person who needed a fresh cookie and warm tea.

She took out a tiny, specially made teacup, and poured the smallest splash into it.

“For you.” She called out into the empty air.

The teacup was half-empty when Linnet next looked, a gentle coooo echoing through the air.