Chapter 319: A Wizard's Integrity

The campfire blazed, drawing Alex’s eyes to the flame.

He was alone—or close to alone—warming himself and idly turning Ito’s Spiral in his hands. The explosion had dampened the mood in the encampment, casting a shadow over everyone. Much of the research team had returned to Generasi, wanting some distance from Greymoor for the day. Those who stayed had turned to relaxing activities, finding calm in simple things. The young wizard was staring at the fire, taking in the flickering light.

In the distance, someone played a mournful tune on a set of panpipes, the song drifted through the camp with the sad notes of one being played to send a loved one off to the afterworld. It fit the darkness in Alex’s thoughts. Images of the blast replayed in his mind.

The substances blended together in chaos.

He saw the golem’s mana rushing into the solution.

Then, a flash and…

“Boom,” he muttered. “Dust.”

A few simple steps had taken them from a regular day to…destruction and chaos, and it had happened so quickly. By random chance. And that had shaken Alex to the core. An ironic laugh escaped him.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked himself quietly, his voice barely rising above the crackle of burning wood. The fire cracked, startling him, reminding him of the sudden eruption from the hilltop.“You’ve been fighting monsters in situations that involved explosions for like a year without being affected like this. Yet, this shakes you? What’s different?”

He closed his eyes and considered the question.

In a way, he was like Carey, but in reverse: she gets shaken by monsters, while alchemical explosions are simply ‘fascinating’ to her. Whereas, to him, monsters were just another fact of life, barely stirring any fear in him, but that explosion?

That was something else.

Minervus came back to mind. He hadn’t thought about the young man in a long while, but his death…felt pertinent right now. He was taken by a mana vampire while doing an everyday activity; taken off-guard, then suddenly, dead in the wilderness.

Maybe that was why the thought of monsters didn’t shake him like the abruptness and magnitude of the explosion had. Baelin had taught him how to fight. How to defeat attackers. How to anticipate harm from others. And, how to kill enemies before they killed him.

That knowledge was a tool that gave him control.

He looked up at Claygon, who felt more solid than anything in camp. It was like the golem was a steady rock while the world was often unpredictable, like a random tidal wave.

‘If monsters or the Ravener or anything else comes at us, we can fight them together,’ he thought. ‘Hell, if it’s the typical kind of danger that comes with alchemy, we can take safety precautions and be okay. We’ve got control, you and I.’

Then he frowned.

‘But the explosion wasn’t typical…we couldn’t do anything about it,’ he thought. ‘All the unknowns came together and, boom. If we’d been any closer, it would’ve been the end of everybody. No control. No nothing. Period.’

Alex stopped himself.

‘No, come on, get a grip. That’s not true. You’re being irrational. There had been a degree of control. Jules had obviously considered that there could be an explosion and that’s why she’d used the precautions she did. If she hadn't, they'd all be dead now. The extra precautions, that was the control, that’s what had saved their lives.’

“The conversation where Baelin talked about mortals eventually becoming dust has you shaken up,” he told himself. “If you just sit here, you’ll drive yourself crazy. You have things that aren’t terminal to think about.”

Alex turned his attention to the object he was holding—Ito’s Spiral—and felt his mana flow through the tiny pathways with more ease than ever before. He remembered how much resistance there was with his earlier attempts. Now, his mana was gliding along like a long sleek eel swimming downriver.

Streams of power flowed through the wire, splitting when they reached the spiral. Again and again, they split into branches. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of them. His mana moved through the device comfortably, like it belonged there.

Yet, as Alex’s mana neared the midpoint of the funnel, he expected this attempt to be another failed one since the last dozen had failed at the same place; halfway through the funnel. His mana would stream through the branches to the middle of the funnel, touch the sides, then shake, flicker and die.

With a sigh, he anticipated what was coming and let his mana glide like it had a mind of its own. That was the nature of practising; improvement comes from failure. His thoughts drifted back to the explosion. His jaw tightened then released.

‘Jeez, I really dodged a crossbow bolt. I would’ve blown the Cells to ash if I’d tried combining my sample of dungeon core remains with chaos essence.’

That nightmare scenario began to consume his imagination, building until a vision of smoke and debris rising from a crater where the school used to be-Ding, ding, ding...Alex looked down at his hands where Ito’s Spiral was shaking and ringing like an excited bell.

“What the—” he said, eyeing it.

It kept vibrating and chiming—like it had come to life—while his mind tried making sense of what it was doing. “Oh shit, don’t tell me I broke it.” He inspected it with his mana…then it finally clicked.

He’d completed the devilish device!

He’d finally crushed Ito’s Spiral!

Mana filled every branch in the funnel, all the way to its widest point.

A rush of triumph erupted in him, wiping earlier thoughts of explosions, dust and the random brutality of life, away. Alex leapt to his feet, holding Ito’s Spiral above his head like a prize he wanted the world to see.

He’d done it, he’d bent the device to his will!

He could hear Hobb, Baelin, and Jules using a similar phrase…except Hobb’s involved, ‘bending the forces of the cosmos to your unbreakable will!’ …Hobb’s was a little, or maybe a lot, more dramatic. But, basically what it came down to was Alex was starting to sound like Baelin and Jules, two experienced and powerful wizards he’d grown close to.

“Oh by the Traveller, power really does change you,” he laughed. “Oh well, ethics and all that. I’m sure someone will stop me if I go mad with power. And, speaking of power.”

Using the Mark, he quickly went through Ito’s Spiral a few more times with no interruptions. Each run-through became easier than the last until, elated at what he’d finally accomplished, Alex gathered his things and pointed toward the teleportation tent.

“To Generasi, Claygon, we’ve got magic to learn!”

The golem followed as he jogged toward the waiting teleportation circle.

“Hello, Professor.” Alex stalked out of the shadows, his eyes bright.

“Gah!’ Val’Rok cried, jumping a foot in the air. His books slipped from his hands but Alex moved fast enough to catch some, then picked up the rest and handed them to the mana manipulation professor.

An unnerving grin spread across his face. “Here,” was all he said.

“Alex? By all…you nearly gave me a heart attack!” the lizardman wizard said, pressing the books to his chest like they would soothe his pounding heart. “Where in all hells did you come from?”

“Thameland?” Alex offered.

“Good lord, you didn’t have to hide in the dark like some kind of maniac!” Val’Rok’s reptilian eyes bulged. The two wizards stood just outside a seminar room where Val’Rok had just finished lecturing. Since Alex had gotten bored waiting, he’d come up with an idea: scare Val’Rok.

“I just wanted to let you finish…whatever you had to finish. I was being polite!” he said, his voice tinged with mania.

“Well your ‘politeness’ nearly killed me. And say…” Val’Rok looked around. “Where is that golem of yours? I thought I heard some thundering coming from out here during my lesson, so he must be here somewhere.”

“Oh, Claygon’s behind you.” Alex nodded in the direction behind the professor’s shoulder.

“What do you mea—Oh hells!” Val’Rok turned and came face-to-torso with a towering, snarling golem. The books dropped from his hands.

This time, all clattered to the floor.

“Two heart attacks!” Val’Rok complained. “When have I ever scared you like this?”

“All the time,” Alex said. “But anyway, let’s leave the past in the past—,”

“You nearly frightened me to death five seconds ago!”

“—and focus on the present!” the young wizard smiled serenely and dug into his bag for Ito’s Spiral. “And so, I present this! Waaaaatch!”

Alex fell into Ito’s Spiral. His mana sped along the device, spreading through the branches like water running downhill to a waiting pond.

Before Val’Rok could say a single word, the device vibrated and chimed in Alex’s hands, making the older wizard’s eyes grow wide.

“Well, well, well, well indeed!” he grinned, revealing his sharp teeth. “You’ve done it! Did I tell you that it takes third-years months to master the Spiral?”

“Yeah you did.”

“Well, it’s worth repeating!” Val’Rok laughed, clapping Alex on the shoulder. Then he made a face at the pile of books on the ground, and the wizards began picking them up. “What this does is open an entirely new avenue of mana regeneration techniques for you, Alex. Here. I have to run to my next class, but…”

He conjured a set of Wizard’s Hands to hold the books, then pulled out a piece of paper. Snapping his fingers, he caused a pen to float from his pocket and begin writing a list of book titles and page numbers. The professor snapped his fingers again. A silver ring floated from his pocket and pressed itself to the bottom of the page, marking it with the wizard’s personal symbol.

“There, you can have the librarian find these books for you. And I’ve made a note that you can—with an escort—visit the mana manipulation sections of the third and fourth floors of the library,” Val’Rok said. Then he paused. “Say…you’re not going to go and try anything ridiculous, are you?”

“Huh, me? No.”

“Just had to ask…” he said, handing Alex the precious piece of paper. “I’m sure you know there have been more than a few cases of professors giving students ‘special permission’ to access the library for one thing, then next thing you know, the students are sneaking into other areas, or finding forbidden tomes, and blowing things up and causing a mess. You’re not going to do anything like that…are you?”

Three memories came to Alex. First, the explosion from earlier echoed through his mind. Next, the explosion in the Cells when he, Selina, Theresa and Brutus had first arrived on campus. And lastly, how he’d researched the dungeon core remains in secret last year.

He remembered coming clean to Baelin and how the chancellor had said that—if his discoveries hadn’t been so valuable—then their conversation would’ve been far different. Professor Jules came to mind because of how she’d beaten herself up about the explosion and folks getting hurt, in spite of the very solid safety precautions she’d taken. Precautions that had saved lives.

Baelin had also said that Alex had violated her trust…and that he’d need to live with that. He wouldn’t do anything like that again.

“Professor, I’m not going to violate your trust like that. I’m going to get books from the sections you say I can access, and then I’m going to leave,” he said. “I promise you that.”

###

“This is a very rare privilege,” the librarian said to Alex, leading him onto the fourth floor. “Not many second-year students even get to see this floor, nevermind remove books from it.”

Alex looked around the fourth floor and saw…absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. In his mind, he’d imagined the lower library floors would have special magics or mysterious auras to them.

Strange mists.

Witch lights.

Illusions floating around.

Instead, everything was the same as the upper floors, bookshelves and balconies, tables and benches. The only differences were that glyphs surrounding the doors that led to the floors below, were much more powerful than the glyphs upstairs.

“Alright, the mana manipulation section is over here,” the librarian said, leading him to a large bookshelf. “Now, according to your list—”

“Excuse me, ma’am?” a student suddenly hurried up to them. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s an emergency and I can’t find Drive: A Guide to Power Through Teleportation, by Gosling. And my report on it is due tomorrow!”

“I’m in the middle of something—”

“Please, please!” the desperate student begged. “I won’t take much of your time.”

The librarian sighed, then turned to Alex. “Wait here, I’ll be right back. You may explore this section all you wish. But, please, don’t touch anything else.”

“Got it.” Alex said.

She quickly followed the student to another section on the third level, leaving Alex alone. He looked to the left: books on higher tier summoning spells were nearby. He looked to the right: higher tier alchemy recipes lined a shelf, one blocked by another bookcase.

He could casually walk over and flip open any book he wanted in a heartbeat.

He could look it over with the Mark, memorise it, and be back where the librarian had left him before anyone was the wiser.

Alex smiled to himself.

About fifteen minutes later, Alex Roth left the library peacefully with the librarian's blessing, Claygon beside him, and his fancy new mana manipulation books in his basket.

He hadn’t moved from where she’d told him to stay.

He hadn’t broken his promise, his ethics were intact.

Later, he could get to see those other, tempting books in the proper way.

For now…

He flexed an arm while looking at the cover of Currents: A Guide to Mid-Level Mana Regeneration.

…he had a technique to learn.

He looked up at Claygon.

And a conversation to have with a certain golem maker.