The exercise was actually working.

  Last time, Mal's 30 minute run had him dying on the ground, barely able to move. Now, although he was definitely winded, he was still capable of walking and and talking.

  Not that there had been much of that during their run. Philo had kept glancing at him as if to say something before he would turn back and continue his run.

  It didn't take a genius to understand what was happening. He was sore about what happened during the last combat class.

  Mal didn't particularly care.

  They were all children. They didn't understand that sometimes sacrifices had to be made. Besides that, it was just a class. Vigil would've stepped in before anything truly bad had happened. Mal was simply doing what was most optimal.

  Once they were done exercising, they rejoined the group and headed into Spellcraft class.

  Headmaster Puck greeted them with a nod. The rest of the students filed in one at a time. Once there was a decent amount, Puck stood up from his seat, a piece of chalk in hand.

  Interesting, Mal thought. Once again, he chooses not to write things out using magic. He's surprisingly humble, given his high status.

  "For most of our time here, we've been focusing on running mana through your cores," Puck said. "And I think that everybody has gotten to the point where they can comfortably do so. It's now time to move to the next step."

  Rolam leaned forward enthusiastically. Philo looked less excited, but there was a definite focus to his eyes that hadn't been there before. Nima had brought out a notebook, pencil ready to go.

  "Many of you have already learned two or three simple spells. The most likely spell you've learned is arcane sphere. A handful among you have been more ambitious and learned launch or push," he said. "However, what you've been learning has been a gross simplification."

  Rolam blinked. "What? Is that true?"

  "Yes, it allows beginners to get started faster and give them a taste of what magic can do," Mal said. "But there are other parts of the spellcasting process."

  Headmaster Puck stepped over to the chalkboard and wrote out two bullet points on it: Spell Patterns and Effects.

  Mal found himself tuning the lesson out. He'd heard it all before. You attach different effects to different patterns to create new effects, blah blah blah.

  And I have another year of this. How exciting.

  "What I've done is apply an effect to the pattern. If a pattern is a vessel, the effect is the cargo," he said. "In this case, I've applied the simple Pull effect to my sphere. Watch."

  Puck launched the arcane sphere forward with a mental command. It slammed into another piece of chalk that was on his desk and it went flying back toward his hand.

  The students made the appropriate noises of shock and awe. Mal rolled his eyes.

  "And now, because I know that pull is an effect and that this isn't a whole unit of a spell, I can do interesting things like this," Puck said.

  He stepped forward and set the chalk back onto the desk. He reached out and tapped it with his finger. The chalk flew backwards, ran along his wrist, then smashed into the wall and shattered into pieces.

  He brushed his hands against his cloak. "Now then, I want you all to pair up. I'll write out the effect on the chalkboard. I want you to practice rotating between using the effect on its own and using it with arcane sphere."

  Rolam looked between Philo and Mal. He made a face at the both of them, then glanced at Mal. "Partners?"

  Mal shrugged. "Sure."

  Philo stepped over toward Nima. "I suppose that leaves us two."

  Nima laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, hopefully you can show me the ropes."

  "I actually haven't practiced this very much. I know the basics, of course, but I'm not that far ahead of you."

  While Nima and Philo continued talking, Rolam held out his hand. Mal could smell the mana going toward his hand and a small arcane sphere appeared for a split second before it popped into nonexistence.

  "Still having trouble with that, eh?" Mal said.

  Rolam shot him a dirty glare. "I don't want to hear from you."

  Mal rolled his eyes and held his hands up. "I mean, I was going to try to offer advice, but what do I know?"

  Rolam looked like he was about to respond back with a smart remark before he bit his tongue and focused on arcane sphere again. Once again, he tried, and once again, he met with the same result.

  "Maybe just try getting the effect down before you do a pattern and an effect?" Mal said.

  Rolam gave no sign that he'd heard Mal, but Mal noticed that there were no more Arcane Spheres being summoned. Rolam twisted up his face in concentration. There was a faint glimmer—then it flickered away like a dying candlelight. After a few more tries, Rolam dropped his hands.

  "You go," he said.

  Mal shrugged. He drew mana in toward his core and started to write out the pattern and the effect. It wasn't as smooth or instantaneous as he would like—he hadn't practiced the spells at all, so there were no grooves to take advantage of that had already been written out. Well, except for Arcane Sphere. That one came a little bit smoother. But even then, his core was so low-quality it didn't really matter.

  After about a minute of concentration, the arcane sphere appeared atop his palm.

  He could've pumped more mana into it or added an amplification rune, but there was really no reason for that. He held out his hand and the sphere whizzed forward and slammed into Rolam. Rolam jolted forward, then dug his heels into the ground, preventing him from crashing into Mal. He took a few steps back to his previous position and squinted his eyes at Mal.

  "Have you been practicing?" he asked.

  "Yeah, just a little."

  Rolam shrugged and dropped his knees. "Hit me with your next one."

  Mal wrote out the pull effect on his core and reached out to touch Rolam's shoulder. Then he stopped.

  Probably best not to draw any more attention, isn't that what I was beating myself up for this morning?

  Instead, Mal let the spell fizzle out on its own.

  "Seems like not even you can get everything right," Rolam said. "I guess that the universe does have a little bit of honor."

  Mal felt gazes drilling holes into his back. He looked out of the corner of his eye and saw the headmaster looking at him intently.

  He knows! He could tell I was holding back!

  Mal was, of course, completely wrong. The headmaster thought he saw a bug on top of Mal's shoulder and was wondering if he should tell Mal about that. Mal had no way of knowing this, however.

  While Mal had an internal panic attack over the fact that the headmaster was staring vaguely in his direction, Nima and Philo were making steady progress. They'd both managed to get the touch effect down, though it took a significant amount of time for the spell to be written out.

  "Professor?" Nima asked. "How did you manage to cast it so fast?"

  "Practice, young student." The headmaster stroked his chin. "Igna's far better with the theory part of this, but essentially, every time you cast a spell, it indents grooves along the surface of your core. The more times you use that spell, the more of a groove you carve, and the easier future spells using that groove become."

  Nima nodded, taking this all in. Philo and Rolam were leaning forward, hanging on the headmaster's every word.

  Mal, on the other hand, had convinced himself that the headmaster wasn't going to kill him for holding back in his class. In fact, it was probably just a stray glance, yeah, totally…

  A sudden pained grunt took Mal out of his thought process. He looked over the direction of the sound to see Philo grasping his chest while Nima looked a bit sheepish.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  "Sorry about that," Nima said. "You need to head to Cassandra?"

  Philo held up a flat hand. "I'm fine, these things happen."

  They spent the rest of the class continuing to hone their skills. By the end, only two people had managed to successfully cast both the pull spell and the pull–sphere combo spell.

  With that done, they all packed up their textbooks and headed out.

  There was still a little bit of tension in the air as they sat at the lunch table, waiting for their food to conjure itself in front of them. Mal noticed Rolam and Philo glancing at him from time to time, as if trying to gauge something based off of his reaction. Mal, of course, ignored them. Strangely enough, the only one who had acted normal over the past few days was Lusia. He suspected she knew what happened during the last combat class. She seemed to always know those sorts of things. It was more that this was completely in line with her expected behavior for him.

  He didn't experience her presence for too long, and she merely walked him to the central hall before heading to her own servants' cafeteria.

  He looked away from the others and focused on the spot on the table in front of him, waiting for his food to arrive.

  Rolam coughed, then opened his mouth.

  "So, did you hear that the city guard is cracking down on the Bird Eaters?" Rolam nodded to himself. "A rather honorable thing, in my opinion."

  Philo was about to open his mouth, and Mal could tell that he had a snippy retort on the edge of his tongue. He stopped, then nodded.

  "For once, Philo agrees with you, elf," Philo said. “The Bird Eaters aren't as extensive as they used to be. But the church must remain vigilant. Even a small amount of vinegar can spread to the entire wine barrel."

  Mal raised an eyebrow. "I'm not much of a drinker, but is that actually true?"

  Philo looked over at him. He shrugged. "Philo doesn't know, but that's what his parents always told him."

  Nima snorted.

  At that, all three other members of Circle Turkey looked over at him.

  Nima stiffened and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, I just thought of something funny."

  "And what would that be?" Philo said. "Philo fails to understand what could possibly be amusing about the presence of one of the worst and most evil organizations in the history of the Quia region."

  Despite himself, Mal found his eyes wandering over toward Nima. There was a hesitance there, an awkwardness and fear that Mal hadn't seen on Nima before.

  "I…" Nima sighed. "Look, I just don't really buy into much of what the monarchy and the church have to say."

  Rolam staggered back, his head tilted back like a turtle. "That's a rather dishonorable thing to say. Although I have my own issues with the Church of Eternus, I understand them to be trustworthy. Especially in this matter."

  Mal cocked an eyebrow. If Nima was a bit too loose with his tongue, there was a very real chance that he could be taken in for questioning by the authorities. Chama was more liberal than most kingdoms, but outright sedition was toeing the line.

  Philo, meanwhile, leaned in toward Nima. "What exactly do you mean?"

  "Look, this may sound a bit cynical, but—" Nima shrugged. "I just find it hard to believe that there could actually be some creepy conspiracy organization that's been operating for centuries with the stated goal of destroying the world. Who would even join such an organization, for starters? How exactly would it maintain such a ridiculous level of longevity?"

  Rolam snorted and waved Nima off. "There are madmen everywhere. Is it so shocking to assume that a handful of them would've decided to get together?"

  "Look, the church has a history of warping information for their own benefit," Nima said. "Like, take a look at dark magic. There was once a time when aligned magic was considered dark and witches were burned at the stake, all on the orders of the church. Is it really so inconceivable that they might have exaggerated other details?"

  Rolam's frown had deepened and he looked tense. His legs were such that it looked like he was about to stand up. Philo stared at Nima, his expression neutral—though Mal could make out a faint spark of curiosity in his eyes.

  Mal trusted that the Heralds wouldn't be so foolish as to believe Nima, but he figured he should put a stop to this particular line of logic. As irritating as the church was to Mal, one thing that they could both agree on was that the Bird Eaters needed to burn. If he had been able to, Mal would've teamed up with the church. It was unfortunate that Mal had crossed out that option before he ever really had a chance.

  "You have a point." Mal looked away from the table and stared at Nima. "But at least in the last hundred years, your position has become pretty much inexcusable."

  Nima seemed to bristle at that and scowled. “W—what are you talking about?"

  "Dark magic doesn't refer to aligned magic anymore. It hasn't for a long time." Mal rested his cheek against the palm of his hand. "It refers to an extremely select set of branches of magic. Necromancy, mind control, soul manipulation, and a few others in the same vein. When the church says that they're hunting down dark magic users, they're not talking about cottage witches. They're talking about wizards who have committed unforgivable crimes."

  Nima furled his eyebrows together. "Y–yeah, but that's all coming from the church. How do we know that they’re not lying?"

  "I could put that back around on you. How do you know that they’re lying?"

  "Because they have a history of lying."

  "No, they have a history of misunderstanding the truth. There's a difference."

  Nima was about to fire off another argument when Philo narrowed his eyes at Mal. "What do you mean? What kind of difference?"

  Mal shrugged. "The church, for a brief period of time, did engage in the practice of burning practitioners of aligned magic. But it wasn't out of malice. It wasn't as if a bunch of priests and church exorcists got together in a room and decided that they wanted to engage in a mass campaign against innocent people. They were legitimately under the belief that the only aligned magic practitioners left were those associated with the Bird Eaters. Was it a foolish error? Unquestionably. Was it a deliberate lie? No."

  At this point, everyone else at the table had stopped speaking. Figuring that was implicit permission to go on, Mal continued.

  "With that in mind," he said. "I think it's fairly safe to say that when it comes to reporting of the strict facts, the church is probably telling the truth. Besides, I think if they were really innocent, they would've changed that name long ago to something far more genial."

  "Like what?" Nima said.

  Mal shrugged. "Like, say, the Aligned Magic Club? But no, I think anybody sane would've already left and avoided that organization in the first place. The only people who stuck around are those who are legitimately obsessed with causing the end of the world, or at the very least, dabbling with types of magic that no decent person should be dabbling with."

  By the end, Nima was looking away awkwardly. Philo was nodding, a puff of steam coming out of his nose.

  "Where did you learn all this?" Rolam asked. "You seem like an expert."

  "I'm far from an expert. I just had the displeasure to speak to other people who were experts in the matter."

  Back before Mal had crossed the line into the irredeemable, he'd managed to convince a priest to join him in his crusade against the Bird Eaters. From that priest, Mal learned a great deal about the history of the church and the Bird Eaters.

  Mal had always gotten the impression that the priest had been holding back certain truths due to a lack of trust in Mal, but the parts that he did share were useful in changing Mal's perspective of the church for the better. Prior to his conversations with that priest, Mal had considered the church only slightly better than the cult. Now he was personally of the opinion that, though flawed, the institution was far better than he had initially given it credit for.

  At some point, Mal would have to thank that priest in the current timeline.

  Before anybody could say anything, there was a flash of magic and multiple meals were conjured up in front of all of the students.

  Soup.

  Soup for everyone.

  Rolam's jaw dropped. "What kind of crap is this?!"

  "My cakes. What happened to my lovely cakes?" Philo's reptile eyes teared up. "How am I supposed to survive without a decent meal?"

  Huh, I didn't know reptiles could cry, Mal thought.

  Nima picked up his spoon and prodded at the soup. "At least it looks edible?"

  Mal picked up his own spoon and slurped quietly on the soup. It was perfectly edible. Not exactly the most delicious meal he'd ever had, but compared to some of the things he'd eaten while he was on tour with his army, this was downright luxurious.

  “Philo doesn’t understand. Did they make a mistake?" Philo said. "Even for an institution of such knowledge and power as Exodi, it seems that they're prone to errors just like anyone else."

  "The dishonor!" Philo slammed his fists into the table. "Whoever was responsible for this is most dishonorable!"

  Having had enough, Mal rolled his eyes. "It was on purpose, you idiots."

  "On purpose? Why!?" Philo said.

  "I’m more surprised that they were giving us decent food at the start." Mal stirred his soup. "Remember, we’re rewarded with amenities based on our performance. The worse we do, the worse those amenities become. That's why we have such a terrible dorm room."

  "You're saying that we’re being punished for our poor performance in class." Rolam stared at the soup like it had killed his entire family. "But we’ve been doing fine, haven't we?"

  "We’ve been doing significantly below average," Mal said.

  Rolam was about to respond when he zipped his mouth shut and grimaced.

  Nima looked over at him. “R—Rolam? What was your last test score for Spell Theory?"

  Philo turned and glared at Rolam. "Yes. What was it, elf?"

  Rolam looked up at a convenient spot on the ceiling. "It wasn't that bad. A perfectly honorable score."

  "Yeah, but what was the score?" Nima said.

  Rolam muttered something under his breath.

  "What was that?" Nima asked.

  He muttered it again, but this time a little bit louder.

  "I still couldn't hear you—"

  "It was 11, okay!"

  11 out of 100?

  Mal was almost impressed by how awful the score was.

  The words rushed out of Rolam's mouth. "I just don't understand how spell theory helps us. I know that Professor Igna explained it was useful, but we’ve just been talking about unaligned and aligned magic and the history of wizardry. None of it is applicable in any way possible. You can't blame me for finding it dull."

  Philo's jaw dropped. "How did you—" he shook his head and turned to Mal. "Never mind. What does that have to do with anything? Even if his score is bad, why was my food exchanged for soup? I’ve been scoring above 90 every single class."

  "B—Because we’re scored as a group." Nima's face turned into a slow look of dawning horror. "One bad score from one bad individual results in punishment for everybody."

  Mal suppressed the urge to roll his eyes for a second time during the conversation. It took them long enough to figure it out.

  “Philo can't believe you, elf." Philo's fists clenched on top of the table. "If it were stupidity, Philo could understand that. But from what you just said, you’ve been intentionally refusing to pay attention. Don't you understand that your scores on these classes will affect your future?"

  Rolam scoffed. "No, they won't. During a scrap, do you really think that someone is going to stop and ask me who the founder of modern wizardry was?"

  "Do you even know the answer to that, though?” Mal asked.

  Rolam opened his mouth, then shut it.

  Philo groaned and pressed his snout into his hands. "Unbelievable. Philo should've known that getting paired with an elf would result in this." He scoffed, then took his hands away from his face. "It was Zoli, by the way. Voice of Eternus? Thousand-year-old leader of the church? Sound familiar?"

  "I knew that."

  As the argument continued on, Mal briefly considered helping them.

  It wouldn’t be too hard. A tutoring session once or twice in the afternoon, and he was sure that he would be able to whip even someone as maddening as Rolam into shape.

  Unfortunately, that went against his goals.

  The more of a disaster this circle turned into, the greater the odds that the school would allow him to transfer to a different one. If things were working, they would have no reason to transfer him. But if the entire team was dysfunctional, arguing, unable to hold it together…

  Then surely they wouldn't allow a promising student to rot in such an environment.

  So instead of saying something, instead of offering a constructive solution or neutralizing the argument, Mal stirred his soup and ignored what was happening next to them.

  It was no problem.

  At the end of the day, they were only allies of convenience.

  He finished his soup, then stood up and walked away. They didn’t notice, too engulfed in their argument.

  As he walked, his mind drifted to the status of the Shattercore brew.

  It was almost done.

  It was time to finish his infusion.