Zenith of Sorcery

Steady Growth

Marcus stood in front of the Sacred Oak. The last few days were busy, but he finally managed to get some free time and this was something he had been thinking about a lot while being stuck in that cave, and then in another world. Marcus was quite apprehensive about Sacred Oak still, but he knew he had to come back and talk to the tree. He had hoped to be able to figure out things on his own, but that was proceeding too slow for his liking.

"Welcome back, my child," the Sacred Oak spoke to him. "How can I be of assistance?"

"You keep calling me 'child'… is this because of the 'soul seed'? Sounds like you have lots of children, and you never even spoke to most of them," Marcus complained. "You're even more neglectful than my fairy familiar."

He did apparently give Marcus a considerable boost in life, so that was at least something. That was more than his real parents did, considering they just dumped him on a doorstep and never sought him out afterwards.

"I'm an oak tree," Sacred Oak pointed out, unrepentant. "Have you seen how many acorns we produce every single year? Some prosper, most die. This is nothing unusual."

But Marcus wasn't an acorn…

"Fine, have it your way," Marcus said, rubbing his forehead. "Listen, I want to ask you some questions. About your past, about the Soul Tree Technique, and why people are after us."

"I will do my best to answer them, but you might be disappointed," Sacred Oak said. "I may be old, but many things are just as much of a mystery to me as they are to you."

"Then, my first question is this - who is responsible for suppressing the wood magic traditions and why?"

"I touched upon this when we first met, but Grandfather Trees like myself once tried to wipe out humanoid civilizations in a genocidal war that spanned multiple planets," Sacred Oak said. "They lost, but not before doing a great deal of damage. They completely destroyed the empire of the Silver Aeon, driving the elves off the mainland and forcing many to flee the planet altogether. The center of the continent was turned into a forested wilderness, the cities and buildings destroyed so thoroughly that not even ruins remain of them. Even now, some lingering magic slowly breaks down anything built there, inhibiting settlement and making sure that any ruin eventually gets broken down at record speeds. In any case, because the Grandfather Trees possessed such great control over forests and wild areas, any wood-aligned adept was incredibly vulnerable before them, and were first ones to be destroyed when they began their campaign."

"Oh…" said Marcus. "You destroyed all the wood magic foundational techniques."

"Well, not me," Sacred Oak countered. "I sprouted long after the war had already concluded. I'm telling you what I have been told, not what I witnessed. In any case, while my ancestors may have destroyed all the wood traditions, the reason you can't find much in the way of wood element spells is because the gods and their followers went out of their way to destroy or purge any records of them after winning the war. It was considered unsafe to have them floating around. Grandfather Trees are hard to truly eradicate off a planet. Our seeds can lay dormant for centuries, even thousands of years, before sprouting anew… as I myself aptly demonstrate."

"Do the gods know about you? They must, right?" Marcus asked.

"They do," Sacred Oak confirmed. "Thankfully for me, the Abyssal invasion means I'm no longer seen as an enemy, but as a potential asset. As far as I know, the Illuminated Pantheon has officially ended the wood element hunt, and their agents should not have any quarrel with you. However, keep in mind that the Illuminated Pantheon has dominion over Tasloa only, and I have been warned that not every outsider agrees with this decision. Some forces may still hold a grudge and target you."

"I am already being targeted by someone," Marcus pointed out. "There is even a bounty placed on me."

"Yes. Truly unfortunate, that," Sacred Oak said. "Someone is definitely targeting the adepts of the Great Tree Academy, but it shouldn't be anything divinely sanctioned. I am not sure who they are or why they're doing it, but it probably has something to with death."

"Death?" Marcus repeated, surprised.

"Yes, the divine authority of death… you have no doubt already figured this out by now, but I am not the originator of the Soul Tree Technique. It was brought here to Tasloa by a mysterious outsider. Unlike most wood element techniques, which are closely associated with life, vitality, and nature, Soul Tree Technique is closely aligned with death and souls," Sacred Oak explained.

"Raven Temple seems to be on my side," Marcus mused out loud.

"They have always been surprisingly friendly towards my children," Sacred Oak said. "I'm not sure why. I think there is a war of sorts going on between different death-aligned factions, and due to the foundational technique you practice, you have automatically chosen a side, whether you like it or not. But that is merely my speculation."

"Since we're talking about death…" Marcus said, changing the topic a little. "I received memories from an animal I had placed my soul seed in."

"This is the essence of the technique," Sacred oak stated.

Marcus took a deep breath.

"So… when you were talking about how I would receive all the knowledge and magic of a person…" he began.

"They need to die first," Sacred Oak confirmed. "Well, allow me to clarify that somewhat. When it comes to spells your students learn, you will be able to sense and even copy them for yourself if you don't already have them. It is much like possessing a stack of additional spellbooks in the back of your head at all times. However, when it comes to memories and more subtle magical traits and insights… well, you will have to wait until they perish and enter Acheron. The River of Souls will cleanse all the impurities from their soul, ejecting the soul seed. It will then return to you, bringing along everything it had learned during the host's life."

Marcus rubbed his forehead, not saying anything for a while. He did find it interesting that the River of Souls could cleanse the soul seed. He supposed if he ever found himself truly desperate to get rid of Sacred Oak's soul seed, he could always try dying and somehow coming back to life.

Related to death, indeed…

"Don't look at me like that," Sacred Oak said. Idly, Marcus once again wondered how Sacred Oak was perceiving the world, considering it had no eyes. Not enough to ask out loud, but he did wonder. "Even if you could get information from your students sooner, what good would it do? It is better to let them grow and truly learn over the years. Better to learn from beasts and magical creatures for now – it will give you a different perspective on life and magic, as well as strengthen your soul. And do not forget, no matter how closely you guard them, some of your students will die before you do."

Marcus said nothing in response to that.

"I'm glad you're not implanting soul seeds in people and then killing them yourself to harvest the accumulated knowledge without having to wait," Sacred Oak remarked. "Some of my children did resort to that, and it always pains me to see it. That is not the way."

The idea did occur to Marcus… it was probably for the best that he had not discovered this ability before his exile. He was bitter enough when he left that he might have been tempted.

"How do you not know who is targeting Soul Tree Technique practitioners when you receive their memories upon death?" Marcus asked. "Surely you've witnessed something."

"Whoever is responsible is being extremely careful and never gets involved directly. They simply employ hired assassins, bounties, or elaborate traps," Sacred Oak explained. "Thankfully, they seem to only target people when they get too powerful. Your students should be safe until they reach fourth rank of power or higher."

It was amusing to hear the tree just assume that his students would become that good. True, Marcus had high hopes for them, but even he wasn't sure he could get any of them to fourth rank, let alone higher.

"What are you, really?" Marcus suddenly asked. "Are you an earth god?"

"No. Do you even know what an earth god is?" Sacred Oak challenged.

"Not really," Marcus admitted. "I just know they're somehow different from gods of the Outer Planes. That might explain why you're so powerful, but can freely hang out here on the material plane with us."

"You know more than you realize, then," Sacred Oak told him. "Becoming a god on a regular planet is far harder than doing so on an Outer Plane, but it does have one advantage – you are not changing your home plane. Instead of ascending to one of Outer Planes and binding your soul to it, you are instead bound to your home planet. That matters because gods cannot enter the material plane easily, nor can they linger long when they manifest an avatar here… but if this is your home plane, then you can come and go as please. At least in regards to Tasloa. You are still barred from other planets."

"What happens if an earth god gets killed?" Marcus asked.

It might explain how there was a corpse of a god on the bottom of Tasloa's ocean.

"I don't know. As I said, I am not an earth god… but I imagine it's just like with regular gods, but reversed. If you get killed on the Outer Planes you get banished to your home planet. If you are killed here, you perish permanently."

Hmm.

"So just how powerful are you?" Marcus asked.

"I am a magical creature, and don't have a clear rank like you adepts do," Sacred Oak said. "That said, I am also a practitioner of the Soul Tree Technique just like you. In that regard, I am an Oversoul Mage."

This tree… the way he spoke reminded Marcus of the way he tried to weasel his way out of explaining his true level of power to people. It didn't escape him the way Sacred Oak was specifying he was only talking about the Soul Tree Technique and not anything else.

He believed the tree when he claimed he was not an earth god, but he was all but certain that its real level of power was equivalent to a pinnacle adept.

Well…someone that powerful was entitled to be secretive about their true abilities. Marcus had no right to push him on this.

After a while, Marcus approached the tree and sat down next to its trunk. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. Why did the Grandfather Trees launch their war? What was the connection between Tasloa and Sixth Manifold?

However, he already had plenty of things to think about, and he could always come back in a few days to ask the tree more questions. Plus, he suspected Sacred Oak didn't know the answer to most of the things bothering them.

No, he had a more immediate concern to raise with the Sacred Oak.

"This is an immodest request, but I wish to browse your collection of spells," he said. "My students will soon become real mages, and I want to see if you have anything suitable for them."

"And also check if any spell would be particularly suitable for you, as well?" Sacred Oak surmised.

"Exactly," Marcus nodded.

Asking another adept to browse their spell collection for free was pretty shameless and would normally be very poorly received. However, Sacred Oak kept calling Marcus his child, and it could be argued the tree was his teacher. So it should be fine, right?

"You can pick as many low-level spells for your students as you want," Sacred Oak said. "But in regards to high-level spells suitable for yourself, I want a trade."

"Trade?" Marcus asked, surprised. "But don't you know everything I know already?"

"Of course not. You are not dead yet, silly child," Sacred Oak told him, without any real heat in his voice.

"You know all my spells. And you will get everything else eventually," Marcus pointed out.

"Eventually is not immediately," Sacred Oak said. "You want spells now. I too want something in return now."

"Fine," Marcus shrugged. "What are you interested in?"

"You seem to have left the planet entirely at one point recently," Sacred Oak said. "It is not often that this happens. I am interested in hearing the details…"

* * * *

Cricket woke up brimming with excitement. In truth, she had trouble falling sleep last night, her mind filled with fantasies of awesome magic, exotic lands, and resplendent mounts she could use to traverse the sky like a magical goddess. Maybe her familiar could help her summon a giant butterfly or something when it finally metamorphosed into a fairy butterfly. Though a dragon would be cooler… she knew teacher said that was unrealistic, but surely there were some friendlier dragons out there and she could work something out.

Was there such a thing as a butterfly dragon?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Anyway, she was officially a mage! Her, little old Cricket who everyone in her village made fun of! Oh if only they could see her now… she kind of wished to rub into their faces that she managed to become an adept and brag a little, but it also kind of made her feel ashamed. That wasn't virtuous behavior – both Teacher Marcus and Teacher Helvran agreed on that point.

Yesterday she finally managed to keep the Soul Tree Technique internalized and keep it stable while casting a simple beginner spell – a fire bolt large enough to scorch the wooden targeting dummy she was trying to target. Teacher Marcus even praised her, saying she had done the spell flawlessly on the first try!

Of course, her Soul Tree Technique still wasn't completely internalized and she had to occasionally slip into practice stances to stabilize it and make sure it didn't unravel, but that didn't matter. The moment she successfully cast her first actual spell she became an apprentice mage, and nobody could say otherwise.

She wasn't the first to succeed. The first, of course, was Iris, Teacher's secret elven daughter. That didn't surprise anyone, because Iris was not just amazingly talented at magic, but also seemed incredibly driven. Cricket thought she might tackle her fellow students with superior work ethics, but ah… this was certainly no normal group! Diocles was also constantly training in his free time, as was Agron and Julia. And though she initially didn't think much of him, she had to admit that Renatus was putting in just as much work as she was.

After Iris, the next ones to become fully-fledged apprentices were Julia and Regulus (both on the same day), then Agron, Diocles, Renatus, and finally Volesus.

In the end, she was among the last few students who achieved 'foundational technique internalization', as Teacher Marcus called it. Only Cassia and Claudia were trailing behind her, but not by much. She felt they would break through by the end of the week, and then everyone would be a true mage.

She made her way to the training ground early, humming a tune to herself, probably having a stupid big smile on her face. On the way, she passed Volesus, who gave her a gloomy look and didn't even greet her.

She knew why he was like this, though it was still rude. Although Volesus beat her to becoming an apprentice, he only did so by a single day. He has been quite proud of himself for being "the best of the orphans", but in the end Renatus beat him by a wide margin and Cricket wasn't really that much worse than him.

Volesus had complained to whoever would listen that the three students who had followed their teacher on his adventure into another world encountered some great fortune that gave them an advantage, and were now keeping it for themselves. Cricket was certain he was just jealous, but she had to admit… she deeply regretted not coming along for the cave exploration when Teacher Marcus was calling for volunteers.

What a blunder! If Cricket had known this would lead to an adventure in another world, she absolutely would have participated! Not even beatings would have made her hesitate! Well, that was a lesson learned. When Teacher Marcus offered you to join him on a seemingly routine quest that sounded like a chore, she had to take into account that Marcus was one of those people who always seemed to have interesting things happen to him. She talked to Teacher Helvran about that time they saved her from the vespids, and that was supposed to be just a routine chore too, and look how that turned out…

Plus, Teacher was a bit of a liar. It was just like him to tell you he intended to go clear the cellar of giant centipedes and yucky lizards, only for it turn out he would be exploring ancient secret caverns and taking a detour to another world. He apparently didn't even intend to tell his superiors about what had really happened, and warned them all to keep it a secret.

So yeah… next time Teacher Marcus went on an adventure, she was attaching herself to him like an annoying tick and begging to be brought along. She could be very annoying when she wanted to be!

After a while, she reached the training ground, which was a lot fancier than it used to be. Teacher had sunk a lot of time and resources to build up the area around the tower, completely rebuilding the small temple Helvran lived in into a larger structure, and building a separate lecture hall for the students and overall expanding many of the buildings. A lot of local workers were brought in to help with this, so Cricket got to meet a lot of new people – she found it a lot easier to interact with the local villagers than most of her fellow students, since she used to live in similar circumstances until recently. The only annoying part was that some of them tried to get her to put in a good word to Teacher Marcus in regards to them, hoping to get hired as a permanent worker or something. Unfortunately for them, Cricket didn't think Marcus intended to hire any servants, even for the most menial of tasks. He just had his students do it.

"What do I have you lot for?" he told them.

Oddly, Regulus didn't complain about being assigned menial tasks just like everyone else. From what she understood, he was basically a noble back in Adria, so she thought he would find such things beneath him, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

She kind of liked Regulus.

Looking around, she spotted Agron practicing and approached him. He was always early, and seemed to spend most of the day at the training ground, so she wasn't surprised he was one of the first people present. She rarely interacted with the White Dragon clansman – back in her village, they spoke of mountain barbarians in hushed tones, recalling the times they descended on the lowlands to rape and pillage, only being repulsed with great efforts by Great Sea's adepts, so she had to admit she was a little apprehensive of him. But! They were fellow students now, so it should be fine.

"Hi!" she said, waving enthusiastically to get his attention.

He looked up from the patch of grass he was sitting on. He was fiddling with the knife he brought back from his excursion on another world, seemingly fascinated by the weapon.

"Greetings," he said, politely but wearily.

"Umm, is it okay if I ask you something?" She asked.

"Sure," he said shrugging. He put the knife back into the sheath on his belt. He had actually made it himself, constructing it out of a piece of leather he'd bought in one of the nearby villages. She should have probably listened more closely when her mother was trying to teach her how to repair clothes and make small crafts like that. She kind of wished had those skills right now. "I didn't have the chance to say this yesterday, but congratulations."

"Thanks," Cricket said, plopping down on the grass beside him. She actually suspected he would have completely ignored her if she hadn't approached him. "So, umm… how did you manage to beat nearly everyone in becoming an apprentice?"

Was she being too blunt? As far as she knew, he wasn't that special, so how did he end up being fourth one to internalize the foundational technique?

Anyway, Agron didn't seem to mind her question, so she was fine.

"I didn't do anything special," Agron said. "But I already tried to learn a foundational technique from my clan before coming here. It didn't go well. I just couldn't stabilize Breath of the Dragon properly and had to give it up. However, some part of the process must have stuck to me, because I found this part pretty easy the second time around. I suspect the next step will not be as easy for me."

"I didn't know you could do that," Cricket said.

"Some people apparently outright drop their foundational technique entirely and start over from the beginning," said Agron. "It's a big sacrifice, but if you find a foundational technique that is much better than what you have, it might be worth it. I heard back in Adria that most people coming from Great Tree Academy drop their foundational technique and pick another."

"Teacher is really proud of the Soul Tree Technique," Cricket warned him.

"I don't intend to start over for the third time," Agron said. "I just found it interesting, that's all."

Cricket thought about it for a second.

"You seem kind of sad that you had to give up this Breath of the Dragon technique," she said. "Do you wish you were still there? Back at your clan, I mean?"

"This is… not where I thought I would be," he admitted. "But no, I don't regret it. It could be a lot worse, I guess. Teacher is okay with me practicing my archery and combat skills, even though we're mages. And his base is surrounded by wilderness, and free from crowds and clamor. I know you people were very impressed with Adria, but I was afraid I would end up apprenticed to some soft islander mage there for my entire youth. I'm glad I got this instead."

"You people…" Cricket repeated strangely.

"Well, uh… you know what I mean," Agron said awkwardly.

"We have an elf, a nobleman, a common city dweller, a transfer from another academy... even us orphans are really different from each other," Cricket pointed out. "Um, I'm not trying to lecture or anything. I just think it's really hard to group us together like that. I think there are plenty of other people here that are just as weird as you."

That didn't come out quite the way she wanted to… this is why she didn't usually try to be deep like this.

"Right," Agron said, giving her a weird look. "Is that all you wanted to know?"

"No," Cricket admitted. "I actually wanted to hear about your adventure in another world."

"I thought you already had Renatus and Diocles tell you about that," Agron pointed out.

"Yes, but I didn't hear it from you," Cricket said, excitement creeping into her voice. "I want to know everything that happened!"

Agron sighed. "You really regret not going, don't you?"

"Yes!" Cricket didn't try hiding it. "Please? Please, please, please, please…"

She could be very annoying when she wanted to be.

* * * *

Over the following two months, all of Marcus's students had become rank one mages. He was proud of them – they all worked hard and did their best. Perhaps because they had all gone through a lot of excitement recently, whether it was an adventure in another world or a siege by hostile forces, but they were all really motivated and didn't require a lot of encouragement from him to apply themselves.

Marcus was not idle either. He had made good on his promise to Helvran and done a lot of upgrades to the facilities around the tower – a new lecture hall, a bigger temple to the Raven God, and an external storage building for items that were often used. More valuable and less used stuff was hidden away in the tunnels beneath the tower, just like before.

He also expanded the garden beside the tower, cultivating the plants and seeds he had brought over from Sixth Manifold. He had high hopes for those – they might not be anything special there, but here on Tasloa, these plants were completely unknown. If he could cultivate several new species of magical plants, this would be a huge boon for his fledgling academy. Even if he didn't find a use for them himself, he knew plenty of alchemists back in Adria who would kill to get ahold of some of this stuff.

Finally, he built a shrine to a number of gods from the Illuminated Pantheon. He was worried that if he waited for too long to build something like this, the Illuminated Pantheon might think he was snubbing them and take offense. He had heard from his teachers that it was especially dangerous for powerful adepts to ignore the gods – it was one thing for a random commoner or a low-ranked adept to think himself above honoring the gods, but when leaders of entire factions and powerful adepts did so, it risked bringing curses and misfortune upon everyone around them.

For the most part, the Shrine honored Perun – he was the head of the Illuminated Pantheon and Marcus's personal god – but he also made prominent places for Telaneith and Mars. Telanieth was a goddess of magic and spellcasters, among other things, so of course she had to have a prominent place in a magic academy. As for Mars, that was another personal thing – the name 'Marcus' was derived for 'Mars', and Mars was a god of war. Marcus had often invoked his name during his campaigns in the First Academy War - it felt wrong not to give him a prominent spot.

He had also done a fair bit of research on the strange moss and the Soul Amethyst recovered from the cave network beneath the tower. The moss didn't seem to have any miraculous properties, but Marcus felt there had to be more from it. And if nothing else, it did grow extremely fast when exposed to ambient magic. Marcus managed to revitalize some of the moss and planted it in several rooms in the tower's basement, which he repurposed into moss-growing fields. It was amazing how quickly the moss would regrow to fill empty spaces once he harvested some of it.

That was really useful on its own, because the caterpillars loved that stuff. If there was any difference between the naturally growing moss in the caverns and the stuff Marcus was cultivating, the caterpillars didn't seem to care much. That meant he finally had an easy source of food to offer them that didn't require him to constantly burn his money on expensive herbs.

As for Soul Amethyst, that was proving to be a tougher nut to crack. After seeing how easily Hishur had been using his Soul Amethyst to amplify his spell, he thought it would be easy enough to figure out how to use it himself, but he was wrong. Sure, he figured out how to boost his spells a little with it, but that was actually not that special. Other magical gems could do that too. He was sure there was something big he was missing, probably related to the 'soul' part of the name, and once he heard back from Celer, those suspicions were confirmed.

"My goodness, Marcus, do you have any idea what kind of beehive I kicked when I asked around if anyone knows about this thing called a 'Soul Amethyst'?" Celer asked him rhetorically. Of course he didn't. "I got visited by a pair of noble fey who demanded to know where I heard about that. They got really pushy and threatening. I really thought I would get killed at one point! It was really terrifying!"

"So did they tell you what's so special about the Soul Amethyst?" Marcus asked.

"Nothing that you probably don't already suspect," Celer said. "It's apparently really valuable and associated with Ancient Giants – the ones that could equal gods in strength, not their mortal followers. At one point the giants ruled over the Sea of Chaos, before they entered into a war with the dragons and the dragons displaced them and seized control of the plane. Apparently this is common knowledge, but I didn't know that. I never cared for history. Anyway, since the fall of giant civilization, these gems have become really rare… but I still don't know why they're precious."

"They seem to be crystalized life force of some sort," Marcus said, turning the crystal in his hand. "A piece of a godlike being would definitely be incredibly powerful in some ways… but also incredibly dangerous."

A pity. If Marcus had known the gem was this precious and this hard to research, he would have taken the cracked one from Hishur before sending him away. Alas, it was too late for that now.

And speaking of the tunnels beneath the tower, Marcus had done his best to research the situation – always remotely, of course, since he didn't want to get stuck in the tunnels again. What he found was that most of the time, the tunnels were just mundane tunnels and caves. You could follow them to the end and not encounter anything special. They weren't even that extensive. However, on rare occasions, space shifted into some kind of subtle dimensional sinkhole, and anything that tried to pass through would end up 'falling through' into the hidden tunnel network he and his students had stumbled into.

The entrances were virtually impossible to detect without stumbling straight into them. If Marcus had not known they were there, he would have never been able to detect them – even then, it took his most advanced diagnostic spells to do so. He wasn't surprised that Crystal Mountain had failed to find anything when they ransacked the tower. Unless they spent several weeks down there and knew exactly what to look for, they would just see a normal, minor cave system.

In a way, they were really lucky to stumble into one of these sinkholes on their first trip down there.

Great Sea Academy sent a delegation to his academy one day, seeking to inspect his tower and demand an explanation over where he had disappeared while it had been under siege, but Marcus had sent them away, threatening to burn them to ashes if they continued to waste his time. He refused to explain himself at all, his only concession being to bring all his students in front of them to prove that Regulus, Diocles, and the other students were alive and well, so they didn't have any cause for worry on that front. It was not the most diplomatic response, but he didn't want them hanging out around his tower and he felt that the lack of assistance they showed justified his annoyance with them.

If they wanted him to be courteous, they would have to send Gaius, or at least an actual fellow elder, before he would deign to deal with them.

He was still unsure what to do about Sixth Manifold and their offer. Exploring other realms of existence had a bit of a bad reputation. It didn't carry the kind of heavy stigma reserved for things like demon summoning and necromancy, but it was definitely something that caused other mages to view you with alarm and suspicion. Considering how careless world-walkers had frequently led outside menaces back to Tasloa over its history, it was an understandable sentiment. Even the plants Marcus had brought with him were a potential risk – he had heard from Celer that there had been some catastrophic cases of magical plants and animals becoming rampant once brought to another world where they had no predators and other balances. He thought the risk was manageable in this case, but the point remained. Planar exploration was risky business, both to the mage in question and their home world, and required vast skill and resources to pull off correctly.

Realistically, he would need help from other powerful mages if he wanted to do this. Not just because Darayaush requested it, but because it simply wasn't possible for him to deal with it all on his own.

If you had told Marcus a few years ago that he would enjoy this kind of life, spending several months to teach a bunch of teenagers and slowly build up a base in a sleepy forest province, he would have called you crazy. Then again, most fledgling academies didn't have to deal with a secret god-grave beneath their base, hostile spirit adepts menacing their students when the leader left for a couple of days, or any of the other complications Marcus had to deal with while setting this up.

"I hope things will calm down a little from now on," Marcus said to himself.

He was in his office at the top of his tower, observing his students through a window. There was nobody around him, so by all rights nobody could have even heard him.

Despite that, he had a strangest feeling he had just cursed himself by saying that.

* * * *

Gaius gave the delegation he sent to Marcus's tower a strange look.

"What do you mean he has a tenth student?"