Celebrations were great and all, but so was studying. The problem was that Valar had quite a lot of studying to do, but his time was limited. And who limited that time? He himself, Valar, of course!

  As dumb as it sounded, he simply refused to take over 8 months or so to be out of the academy. That included his past two months and two weeks, so the remaining five and a half months needed to be full of studying. Perhaps it was due to his own young foolishness, or maybe the need to get stronger fast originated from Viktor’s ominous parting words.

  “You’ve got time.” Those words just make me feel like the exact opposite! Stupid onyx ranker holding secrets from me…

  Most likely, it was a mix of both.

  Armed with his new knife hidden in his robe’s pocket and wearing his new comfortable boots, Valar set out to the entrance building and interesting courses to study. The 1st day morning was relatively peaceful, although the people who wandered the hallways tended to pay attention to him just as much as always. The scarring on his arm, his young age and his level of progression were all aspects that usually drew people’s attention. After many therapy sessions and consistent exposure, Valar didn’t really care anymore. As long as it was just staring, it didn’t truly harm him in any way. If he didn’t let it, that is.

  As for if knives were allowed within academy premises, he wasn’t exactly sure. Sure, they could be utilized as dangerous weapons, but so could a Fireball or Ice Lance. I doubt anyone will bat an eye even if they discover a life magic student carrying a knife around in his pocket. We have to be able to protect ourselves somehow, don’t we?

  When he arrived at the entrance hall, Valar sighed in relief. Mary was manning the desk, and although Karen had shown herself to be at least half-decent, she was still quite annoying to deal with. Mary, on the other hand, had been nothing but pleasant towards him. He really hoped that the young woman would be able to gather the funds to enter the academy soon.

  “Good morning, Mary!” He greeted her with a smile on his face. “I know where the course selections are for iron rankers, but where are the options for bronze rankers?”

  “Good morning to you too, Valar,” Mary looked up from her desk, giving him a small wave. “The bronze rank class options are with me, actually. I can give you the book containing all the current options and you can choose from them, okay?”

  The slight woman rummaged around for a short while, letting out a joyous shout when she finally found the thin book. She handed it to Valar.

  “It contains all the courses, their schedules and the estimated workloads in addition to comprehensive descriptions of the course. Be sure to pick only as much as you can handle, as it’s annoying for us clerks when we have to cancel too many registrations.”

  “Thank you, Mary,” Valar took the book from her hand, heading for the sofas to the side. “I’ll come back to register myself once I’ve made my selections.”

  Sitting down on the plush sofa, he let out a soft sigh and opened the book. Even though it was quite thin, every page was one course to consider, so going through them would take some time.

  The very first page included a lesson that Valar absolutely knew he was going to need to take. General Magic Theory… Brynn’s lectures covered the iron rank part, but this is the bronze rank version.

  Considering ascending to the next rank required a deepening understanding of magic, not taking the course would be akin to shooting himself in the foot with a gods’ damned ballista. Sure, he could potentially learn the same things from Carla, as she was a true talent in the field, but that would be a stupid thing to do when he could very well study the same thing at the academy. That’s already one course decided, and I haven’t even gotten past page one…

  He wasn’t exactly sure how many courses he could go through in less than half a year without slowing his runic studies down. Runes and spells were still his top priority, and hindering himself in that field would be idiotic, at least from his own perspective. Valar was pretty sure other people would disagree, though.

  One example of a person who would disagree with him strongly was Elizabeth. Even though she had already learned all the core spells she needed to call herself a fire mage, she was still at the academy, sucking up all the information she could get. The most clear example of this information was Firebird, a spell that was by no means necessary for an iron rank fire mage. Still, Elizabeth had taken learning it upon herself, and actually succeeded in it a couple weeks back.

  The spell itself was very similar to the Flaming Bolt Konrad Wendir had cast at Valar, although it was in the form of a small bird instead. Firebird was better if you just looked at potency, but it was quite a bit more complex than the core spell. Their efficiency was similar, so the caster just ended up trading their mental energy for power—not a bad trade, but nothing extraordinary either.

  The main reason why she had learned it was the direct link from Firebird to spells like Phoenix Descent. Learning the runes and visualizations for spells depicting the mighty beasts of fire was much easier when you started learning them early, after all.

  Still, Elizabeth hadn’t left the academy just yet. She was going to do so soon, but considering the breadth of courses available to students, she was still finishing a couple courses before she left for the adventuring life. Well, either adventuring or soldiering; the young woman hadn’t been sure about her choice when they had talked about it at the Iron Owl.

  For Zeke, the explanation was much more simple. He was studying very specific things, and to learn those things, he needed a lot of time. Abstract mages often needed very specific training regiments to grow efficiently, and the one that had been given to Zeke by the royal family was destined to last for a couple months more. He was progressing through iron rank slowly and surely, however. The energetic man hadn’t given an explanation for his growth, but Valar suspected that he was being given easy beasts to kill by higher-rank combatants. That was common enough, as much of the mana would go to the iron ranker if the helper didn’t participate in the fight itself. They would only kidnap a beast from its natural habitat, place it in an arena that was advantageous for the iron ranker, and let them fight it out.

  The presence of the helper would undoubtedly lessen the experience gained for the iron ranker, but who cared when you could just bring wagonloads of beasts to offset the loss? The method was mostly utilized for rich non-combatants like members of nobility, but Valar suspected that Zeke’s case was somehow different. I guess it’s useless to speculate when he’s obviously been told to stay quiet about it.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Valar returned to look at the book, frowning as he scrolled past courses that didn’t interest him. Animal husbandry, Company finances, Gathering… That could be good.

  He ended up picking a couple more courses, mostly centered around different survival skills and adventuring stuff. Grimacing at his final choice, Valar scribbled it down in his notebook. Personal finances for an adventurer. Eww…

  It was a choice based on pure logic, going against everything that he wanted from life. Still, the course was shorter than most and held important information for a person at the start of their adventuring career. Considering Valar had over ten gold in his coffers, knowing about finances was pretty useful…

  Having made his choices, Valar set out to do the thing he did best: Immerse himself in the wondrous world of academics!

  …

  In the following months, Valar found himself busy. In fact, he was so busy that it left little time for anything else but studying. He studied his runes, read several books on the topics he had chosen and attended the necessary lectures to pass his courses. That meant that he had a lecture almost every day in addition to his runic studies.

  The lectures proved useful in a couple of interesting ways. First of all, he actually learned quite a bit. Especially the general magic theory lectures interested him greatly, as they delved deeper into the structure of spellframes and magic in general.

  The professor for this course was Drox Thrawn, the space mage who had teleported Harrison out from the arena after Aron’s victory over the Thorn scion. Where Brynn had been an excellent teacher with a lot of flair and humor, Valar had to admit to himself that Drox was not. It wasn’t like the lectures weren’t interesting, but they slowly became something that didn’t truly excite him as the weeks rolled by.

  Another example of a relatively boring course was the personal finance class, although the reason for Valar’s boredom was entirely different. Whereas the general magic course was boring because of the lecturer, the finance one was boring purely because of the subject matter. Money was just so, so boring!

  Still, even boring things could be useful. Thus far, Valar had been saved from complete financial ruin by Viktor not only once, but twice, and that was when he didn’t count the tuition for the academy itself! As for what those chances for financial ruin were? Infirmary bills, of course!

  The first one back in Lyndale had been pricey already, but Valar hesitated to even think about the cost of the visit after fighting Edwin. The bill had been covered when they left, and he hadn’t been told how much that had cost, but considering the amount of damage his team had taken, he was pretty sure that it had been massive. That only strengthened his will to learn about finances, as bringing himself up to a situation where he didn’t need to worry about such things was extremely important to the orphan boy. I can’t let Viktor bail me out of every single catastrophe forever…

  The personal finance class brought another surprise, that being his new acquaintance in the private viewing booth. Aron Morell attended the very same course, and although he was extremely antisocial, Valar had managed to gleam a few details about the young man during the months.

  First of all, Aron was attending the course at his mother’s suggestion. The windfall he had received from the tournament was apparently sitting in his account, burning a hole in the wind mage’s pocket, and his dear mother was getting annoyed. Secondly, Aron was even more shy than Valar had thought possible.

  On the first day they had met, Valar had tried to talk to the savant. He had failed miserably. Each time he tried to open a line of discussion again, Aron’s eyes had seemed to glaze over, and he had started muttering to himself. Eventually, Valar had found out that he could ask small questions from the antisocial mage amidst the lecture, but eye-contact was an absolute no-go. All in all, they probably weren’t going to be the bestest of friends, but Valar still tried to get to know the man better. He was pretty sure that he would rise through the ranks fast, after all.

  As for his other classes? Gathering was fun, but he felt that the other survival classes kind of sucked… It wasn’t even the courses’ fault, as they were full of important topics like surviving the elements, suggestions for useful enchanted items and many more useful tips, but they just felt bland when he compared them to getting the needed experience by actually adventuring. Honestly, they felt like a waste of time, but he had signed up for them, so he completed the courses dutifully.

  One course Valar didn’t take but maybe should’ve was Dungeon Exploration 101. He had passed it up for other choices, as it was quite the workload, but hearing a bit of it from Elizabeth, he started regretting his decision. Apparently, delving into the mana-rich environments that spawned mutated beasts like they were common houseflies was actually quite hard… Let’s hope that I can get that knowledge from somewhere else, because I don’t have time to take that course anymore. Besides, what are the chances I’ll actually delve into a dungeon within the next year or two? The permissions are hard to get and the dungeons are so rare that it won’t probably happen anytime soon.

  Even with all the courses, Valar’s runic studies progressed with leaps and bounds. After only two months of his personal five and a half month deadline, he had learned restoration and balance for Edict: Restoration in addition to wave and link for Healing Glade—the multi-target healing spell he had decided to go for. His choice had only been affirmed by the discovery that Healing Glade and Edict: Restoration shared restoration, balance and life! He was only missing two runes to complete both of the spells, and was even pretty close with glade, the last required rune for Healing Glade, but there was only one issue…

  Why is the edict rune so fucking hard to learn?

  Valar smashed his fist against his desk as edict dispersed once again. He felt that he was so close with each attempt, but somehow, at the very last second the rune always seemed to lose all of its stability. It was just so, so different from all the other runes he was studying that the process of learning it seemed to be nearly impossible. The concepts it relied on were just much further from life than the concepts of a rune like balance. In some ways, the other runes had felt like extensions of life, but edict was anything but!

  Speak your will into existence? What does that even mean? It’s a rune; you just don’t utter runes-. Wait… What if you do?

  Every single edict spell included the rune in its name, and that name absolutely needed to be uttered for the spell’s visualization to succeed. What if the requirement wasn’t with the spellform itself, but the rune within?

  The next time Valar drew the rune he didn’t do anything differently. He drew the exact same rune without a single alteration, except for one simple thing. As the rune started destabilizing at the very end, he uttered a single word.

  “Edict.”

  The rune, a construct of vivid green life mana in the shape of an open scroll, manifested in the air and finally stuck. When it didn’t disperse in the air like every prior attempt, Valar let out the breath he had been holding in with a bellow.

  “YES!”

  …

  Just about three days later, Valar finally managed to scrabble together the spellform for Edict: Restoration. Even though the spell didn’t have a lot of runes, the connections between them seemed to be deviously complex for such a simple spell. In the end, the only way to succeed was following the instructions detailed in the scroll Viktor had given him exactly. Compared to the other spellforms he knew, it felt almost nonsensical, but…

  “Edict: Restoration.”

  Abyss, it felt good to cast!

  The instant he started channeling the spell towards himself, Valar felt a rush of life mana flood through his body. Unlike Lesser Restoration, it followed his simple command, flowing to the places where he was ‘injured’. Pains he hadn’t even realized were there slowly melted away, and he let out a surprised gasp.

  My back doesn’t hurt anymore! I didn’t even realize the pain was there until it went away! Oh, this feels good…

  Valar had a new favorite spell!