Isabel and Lee had just finished a sparring match when Noah and James returned from the plateau. James stepped off the flying sword and went to sit down beside the other students.

“That’s everyone,” Noah said as he picked the flying sword up and returned it to his side. “How did things go down here?”

“Well,” Moxie replied. “Aside from nearly popping my arms out of their sockets while we were stretching. Lee is still a little overzealous about a few things, but she’s getting better.”

“It’s not my fault that your body is so stiff,” Lee said defensively. “You should have considered having joints that actually move the way they’re supposed to.”

“Joints don’t move in every direction, Lee,” Moxie said as she rubbed at her shoulder. “We’ve gone over this. They’ve got specific directions that they’re meant to go in.”

“You should fix that,” Lee suggested. “It sounds sub-optimal.”

Noah shook his head and hid a laugh. If he looked too amused, Lee might take offense and try to apply some of her stretching to him when he wasn’t expecting it. He might have been able to come back from death, but that wasn’t going to do anything if she ripped an arm off by accident.

“It looks like this is a decent spot to stop for a bit, then,” Noah said. “Everyone is now up to date on patterns and has successfully put their magic into them.”

Moxie’s cheeks reddened slightly. She’d yet to actually put any magic into her own pattern yet. Noah made a mental note to make sure they had a private session where she could practice that before continuing.

“You all did a great job. Everyone is advancing really fast – possibly faster than I had thought you would. We’ve only been working on this for a little while, but the results are already starting to show.”

“Can we get to the part where you tell us who the best one was?” Todd asked with a grin. “We’re all dying over here.”

“A little patience wouldn’t kill you, Todd.” That got him a sharp look from Moxie. He coughed into his fist and pointedly ignored it. Hypocrisy was great when he was the one doing it. “Anyway, I was getting there. You’ve all got a lot to be proud of, and I’ll be honest, it was pretty difficult to determine exactly who had come the farthest from where they were last time.”

If it were purely just who had the strongest magic-infused pattern, I think Alexandra or James would win. Probably James. He’s got his pattern mastered perfectly and his magic already flows through it really well. I’m curious to see what he’ll do once he gets to actual Formations.

But… if I account for how far people have come rather than just their current strength –

“Third place, Emily,” Noah said. Emily’s eyes widened slightly as Noah continued. “You’ve made huge improvements from last time. There’s still a lot you can work on, but in terms of percent growth, you’ve come really far.”

Emily’s cheeks reddened and she just nodded, not saying anything else.

“Second place, Alexandra,” Noah said. “You had one of the strongest patterns and a great understanding of how to use it. You need to work a bit on your concentration, though. But, given the amount of effort and time you’ve put into things, you’re coming along great.”

Alexandra inclined her head in appreciation. That just left Todd, James, and Isabel as the remaining students. James was probably the strongest of the three in terms of his actual ability, but Noah was pretty sure he’d been restraining himself before. He hadn’t actually grown that much if he’d already mastered everything from the start. And, possibly most importantly, Noah could tell James didn’t actually want to win. Even if his laziness did have a few small ulterior motives, he also really did just like sitting around and doing nothing. And, if that was what he wanted, there was no reason to stop him.

Todd – well, Noah hadn’t seen all that much of his pattern at all. It was hard for him to give it a real grade until they sparred. He definitely understood the basics of what he was doing and seemed confident, but it did put Noah in an awkward spot.

I don’t want to exclude Todd, but I genuinely just don’t know how to grade him yet. Maybe I should have had that sparring match before we did this. Whoops.

Todd caught Noah’s eye, a small grin tugging at the corner of his lips as he gave his head a small shake that told Noah not to worry about it. He took a tiny step back to make sure Noah understood. Noah gave him a small nod of appreciation. Avoiding the situation entirely was the best-case scenario.

“In first place – Isabel. You’ve been improving at an incredible rate and your understanding of your pattern is very solid. I can honestly say that all of you are neck-and-neck, so this was quite difficult to decide.”

James looked relieved at the results. He’d probably have been peeved if he’d actually won.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Nobody looked too put out about the results. If anything, Emily still seemed shocked that she’d placed on the ranking at all. Moxie wasn’t even watching – as soon as he had returned, she’d pulled her book back out and was leafing through it once more.

Either way, Noah was satisfied with how the day had gone. He’d accomplished just about everything he’d wanted to with the students and all of them were doing great.

“After the points Moxie gave out last class, that puts Isabel in first and Alexandra in second for actually getting the Rune,” Todd observed. “How many more contests are we going to have?”

Moxie gave out points? She must have done it while I was off distracted while she covered class for both of us.

“Haven’t figured that out yet,” Noah said with a chuckle. “If you want the Master Rune, I suggest pushing to catch up over the next few days.”

“Noted,” Todd said with a laugh. “I suppose I should have guessed as much.”

“Probably. No point trying to think too far out when we’re all still learning, after all. I’ll bring the contest to a close once you’re all starting to use proper Formations. That should give you a target to work toward,” Noah said. “But, moving on. This went a lot faster than I’d initially thought it would, so we’ve got a fair bit of time left before we get pulled back to Arbitage. We’ve got two options. Either spar some more with each other while I pull people aside for some more personal training, or we can go hunt some monsters to keep in practice. It’s definitely been a little while since we’ve done that.”

“Monsters,” Isabel said. “I want to practice against something I can kill.”

After a few seconds of deliberation, the others all nodded their agreement.

“Let’s get to it, then,” Noah said, rubbing his hands together. “One monster hunting session, coming right up.”

***

Class ended a short while later after a rather productive hunt. The group wiped out several plateaus worth of monsters, and Noah added a few new Greater Rank 1 Wind Runes to his grimoire in the process. He also broke away from the group for a few minutes to claim a Monster Rune that Lee identified for him as a Thickened Fur Rune. It didn’t sound particularly appealing, but it was still a Monster Rune.

Noah had yet to find the rich noble that had bought the previous Monster Rune from him, but it felt like a good idea to prepare for their next meeting in case there was a pile of gold burning a hole through the man’s pockets.

At this point all the students were more than capable enough to handle Fluffants without even needing supervision. It was probably just about time to find a new location to start hunting monsters – preferably one with some Rank 2s.

“Noah, do you think–” Moxie started as the lift brought her, Noah, and Lee down while the students waited in the cannon room above them.

“We’ll find some time to work on your pattern together so you can properly get magic into it,” Noah promised before she’d even finished speaking. Moxie raised an eyebrow, then grinned and shifted the large book under her arm.

“Great.”

“By the way, what is it you’ve been working on?” Noah asked, nodding to the book. “Rune stuff?”

“No. Well, yes. I’ve got a few papers wedged in here,” Moxie replied. “The main thing I’ve been looking at are artifacts. Wizen was after my family in particular. If he’d just wanted Runes, he wouldn’t care about me.”

“But he did,” Noah said. The lift reached the bottom of the cannon and they stepped off. It rattled back up to collect the others. “Did you have any artifacts that he’d care about, though?”

“Not personally, but I was Evergreen’s aide. It’s possible he was going to try to use me to get access to something. I just don’t know what – and I don’t know why Arbitage would have anything to do with the Torrins. We don’t have anything that rare here as far as I can tell – but that’s what I’m checking for.”

“Smart,” Noah said. He thought for a few seconds to see if there was anything that would come to mind with regard to Wizen’s motivations, but he came up blank. Nothing in his fight with Silvertide had revealed his motivations. “Any thoughts, Lee?”

“Not really,” Lee said with a shake of her head. “But don’t a bunch of noble families all have things they donate to the neutral grounds to keep them neutral or whatever? Like the Linwicks gave the Hellreaver.”

“Yeah,” Moxie said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“No record of what the Torrins gave?” Noah guessed.

“Yep. Guessed it in one shot.” Moxie sighed. “Hence the research I’ve been doing. They had to have given something to the school. It would have had to be pretty important as well. I just don’t know what it would be.”

“I can try to help you look later,” Noah offered.

Moxie sent him a surprised look. “Seriously?”

“What? You don’t have to look so surprised. I know how to read.”

“Yeah, I’ve just barely ever seen you voluntarily choose to go to the library when there was literally any alternative available,” Moxie said with a laugh. “I won’t turn down help, though.”

“I can come too.” Lee offered. She paused for a second, then frowned. “Wait. Can you eat in a library? I think I saw a sign on the door saying I couldn’t.”

“No,” Noah said. “They don’t want you getting the books dirty.”

“Oh, that’s fine. I won’t. I’m very clean when I eat.”

A thought struck Noah and his eyes narrowed. “You can’t eat the books either.”

“What?” Lee exclaimed, her eyes going wide. “That’s stupid. They’re all just sitting around on shelves like pastries.”

“What part of a book even vaguely resembles a pastry?” Moxie asked through a laugh. “I don’t think they could possibly be more different.”

“They’re flaky.”

“Lee probably has more experience than you do with eating books,” Noah said. “I’m inclined to believe her.”

“Thank you,” Lee said.

“That doesn’t mean you can eat the books, though.”

“Aw. Are you sure?”

“I’ll find some other books for you to eat later. Just settle for actual pastries or something in the meantime.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s a good idea.” Lee grinned and nodded; the topic completely forgotten. Noah snuck a glance back at the book under Moxie’s arm. A small frown crossed his lips. If there was an artifact sitting around Arbitage that was strong enough for Wizen to put this much effort into getting… it didn’t take a genius to tell that it was bad news.

But what does it have to do with any of what he’s done so far? Why all the clones and extra shit? Stealing something feels more like an espionage angle, not this.

What is Wizen playing at?