After getting arcane passage for the first time, I spent some time nailing it down the best I could, before I turned to working on my other fourth circle spells. Dimension ward was complex, but not the worst in the world, while mastering the animal morph spell was harder. By the time finals rolled around, I was able to cast it seven times out of ten, which I counted as a win in my book.

I used the mage's tools ritual to unlock more of the power of my staff and wand and was pleasantly surprised at how much more of their power I was able to handle from the first time I'd created them.

But before I knew it, it was time for final exams. My core class went smoothly enough, though it certainly felt strange to have to write a three page essay about the economic and political impacts of the Dreki family declaring war on Cendel. Ethics course also went well enough, and I even got the bonus of hearing Emir complaining about having to send an officially unnamed other student to spend mandatory extracurricular time with a mind healer due to being at high risk of progressing his stage of the Creep. I wasn't entirely sure, but I was willing to bet that it was Wesley, and it served him right for his arrogance.

I passed the written portions for Fundamental Magecraft and Conjuration One without too much fuss, though I did lose a few points for not giving complete answers to the more complex questions that professor Toadweather asked about niche parts of spell array interaction. Even with those lost points, I wasn't too worried, as I'd walked out with a solid A grade.

The practical portions of my exam came the following week, and I found myself in professor Silverbark's office, sitting before three familiar ether manipulation devices, a small box, and a blue glass sphere. Professor Silverbark gave me a genial smile as I entered, and gestured for me to sit.

"Please, take a seat, and let's begin. Why don't you start with Xander's massage?"

I nodded and picked up the little glass tree, then began looping my ether pool through it. The first circuit of six leaves lit up almost instantly from all my hours of practice, and a moment later, the second and third ones also lit up, eighteen leaves all shining. I focused, flexing my ether, twisting, pulling, and bumping, and working on the fourth circuit. The nineteenth and twentieth leaves lit green, before the twenty-first started to glow a dull yellow color, as I slipped and pressed the wrong spot.

I'd been practicing plenty throughout the year, but I'd also been splitting my focus between ether manipulation, learning spellcraft, and bloodline manipulation. It might not have been all that impressive compared to Wesley's ability to light up the entire tree at once, but given that there were nine levels of the massage, which roughly correlated to the nine circles of spellcraft, I was satisfied with the performance.

"Very good," professor Silverbark said. "Full marks and even a bit over the expected threshold. Summers' inversion now?"

I lifted the glass rod and flexed my spirit, causing it to buckle and light green. I paused, running the massage to account for the strain, then after a pause, lit it green a second time in under a minute. I sighed in relief and put it down, to another approving nod from the professor. I picked up Willow's path without instruction, and began fiddling with it, opening up four different networks of tunnels within my ether pool. The professor's eyebrows rose at that.

"Interesting, not many people can push the path further than the massage. You're learning transmutation magic, aren't you?"

"I am," I agreed, and professor Silverbark let out a satisfied hum and a nod, before gesturing for me to continue. I shifted to demonstrating the various spells that I'd learned throughout the semester: using arcane seal on the box, finding objects he'd hidden in the room, pulling things from my Etherius locker, and so on and so forth. When I finally finished, the professor tapped his pen against the clipboard and nodded.

"Well, I must say, you've put on a good showing. What do you have planned for courses next year?"

"Honestly, I'm focused on Gerhard for right now," I admitted. "But I know that I'll have a free slot from not needing the core course anymore, and I'd like to fill it with the Intermediate Transmutation course."

"Intermediate? Interesting. I wish you luck. Well, hoping for the best and assuming you win, are you interested in taking Practical Magecraft, the second year of this course?"

"Frankly, I was under the assumption it was required."

"After your first year, the only required course is your ethics course. Getting the credits to graduate and advancing your spell circle is on you," the professor explained. "But Practical Magecraft does cover a great many spells that mages from all walks of life will find useful, as well as some additional ether manipulation techniques. I highly recommend it, but I am biased. That said… if you are already taking four second-year spellcraft courses, it may be too much workload."

"No, I'm only doing three: conjuration, transmutation, and abjuration. The fourth elective is Applied Mage Combat."

"I see. That's quite an intense course load, knowing that your life is, at the very least, put into peril for the midterm and final exams. I'm not certain if you know this or not, but you are not, legally speaking, required to take the course. Even if your scholarship requires it, the king has mandated–"

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"I know," I said, holding up a hand. "And I'll consider dropping it. But right now, Cendel is effectively waging a war on two fronts, with the wall to the north and the Dreki family invading Summerhold, my home region. I need to help where I can."

"Very noble of you," professor Silverbark responded, sounding more sad than anything. "Well then, best of luck, with both your battle, and your efforts. Please, try to be safe."

"Hold on, I get to take six courses: ethics, my three spellcasting courses, and combat. I want to take Practical Magecraft, that will be my sixth."

"That's quite the workload," Silverbark said hesitantly. "I don't want to discourage you from learning, but are you certain?"

"I am. If I can't handle it, I'll leave one of the courses behind. But I've already been doing an entire self-studied transmutation course this year. I'm fairly confident I can manage the work."

Professor Silverbark nodded, wrote my name down, then extended a hand.

"Well, as I was saying. Best of luck against Gerhard. I look forward to teaching you next semester."

I shook his hand, thanked him, and returned to my room to practice for my next final exam, which turned out to be abjuration magic the following day. When I walked in, I was met with a grinning professor Caeruleum sitting behind an empty desk.

"No practice dummy this time?" I asked as I took a seat.

"None of the spells really need it," they said. "Why don't we get the hard one out of the way, dimension ward?"

I nodded, closed my eyes and took a breath to center myself, then snapped my eyes open and began shaping ether. I swirled my hand, flicked my wrist, and began to chant the language of magic.

It was slow going, and I began to grow nervous as I reached the end. This was the trickiest part of the spell, where I had to mold the ether of the spell to match with the ambient ether of the room, sealing off the entire thing from external influence.

Funnily enough, the spell was almost the opposite of what I'd expected, becoming more difficult when cast at a smaller size as opposed to a larger one. When I had practiced the spell on the campus greens, I'd been able to simply expand out the effect to the largest area I could hold with the ether I was putting into the spell. Now, though, I had to align with the natural shifts caused by the walls, without accidentally treating a filing cabinet or desk as a barrier.

I took a deep breath, let it out, and made a vertical slashing motion, the last step of the spell. My cobalt blue ether spun out through the room, settling in place and creating a ward. Professor Caeruleum smiled at me, giving a nod of approval.

"Well done. Now, let's move on to the third circle spells…"

I demonstrated greater arcane armor, spellglyph, disrupt casting, and abjure shadows for them, then they passed me a vial of blood, and I showed my mastery over holy healing as well. With that complete, they reached into a satchel hanging on the wall and removed three vials, each one also filled with blood and painted with runes.

"These are preservation vials, a cheap and useful way to keep blood fresh," they explained. "The runes will only hold their charge for nine days, then they'll vanish, and the components will start to age again."

I did some quick mental calculations. The blood for Holy Healing had to have been collected within three days, meaning I effectively had twelve days to use this. The duel with Gerhard was next Sunday, which was… eleven days from now.

"Thank you," I said seriously as I placed the vials into my locker. "You've done a lot for me. Between pointing me to spellglyph, and the blood. If there's ever anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask."

"I'm only doing for you what I wish professors had been able to do for me when I was your age," they said somberly. "Best of luck. I saw Silverbark already put you down for taking Journeyman Abjuration, so go on. I think you're double booked, aren't you?"

They were right. My practical final exam schedule had me slotted for Conjuration One within the hour, so I ate a quick lunch, then rushed out to meet professor Toadweather. The faerie was waiting in the ballroom where class normally met, and had already laid out all of the ritual materials for a lesser planar contract: herbs, chalk, and glimmering ether crystal. She looked me over with an unusually serious look on her face as she rested a hand on her familiar.

"Are you ready for your duel?"

I shifted, taking a step back, unprepared for the tone shift from the normally somewhat bombastic faerie.

"I believe I am, at least, to the best of my current abilities. If I had tons of silver to drop on ether crystals, I might be able to do more, but that's nothing but smoke and wishes."

"I do wish, sometimes, that I had the same freedom to act as mortals," she said. "I can act as a teacher, and you are protected against accidental deals, but I cannot use my discretionary fund to simply give you money. If I were mortal, I might be able to use some of my personal funds, but…"

"But your bloodline limits your ability to give freely without compensation," I finished for her. "I understand. I'll be leaning on that protection here. Thank you for wanting to."

Truthfully, it was more than I had expected out of her. She might play up her tendency to give in to flights of fancy, but she was both old and powerful, and fae didn't get to be either of those without also being cunning.

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch on, and professor Toadweather clapped her hands.

"Well. Which creature are you going to summon to make a planar contract with?"

"I have established decent relations with a wadjetktt, so I will be contracting him in order to defeat the demon you summon."

"Ah, good, you remember! Well, if that's what you're contracting with, we'll leave it for last. Summon a chrysaor."

I worked through the summoning, conjuring up a large, winged hog who immediately snorted at me in its hellish tongue.

"Am I to kill this faerie?"

"No," I said in the same language. My skill here was a bit rough, but I got the message across well enough. "No today. She test. Showing me skill summon you for future battle."

The chrysaor studied me, then blinked its black eyes and turned around, flopping to the ground.

I went through the rest of the spells we'd learned, conjuring an indoor storm and teleporting across the room. When I finished those two, professor Toadweather waved her wand and conjured a floating eye.

"While you prepare the ritual, I'm going to summon a hellspitter worm and let it free in the forest to do what it wants. I'll be watching you to grade your skill through this cute little bugger. Better hurry if you don't want it to snack on anyone, but don't mess up!"

With a buzz of wings, she burst out one of the ballroom windows, teleporting through the glass, leaving me alone with the ritual components and a floating eye.

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