The adrenaline from the vortex’s absorption didn’t let Dallion have a blink of sleep all night, constantly causing him to shift between agitation and restlessness. Most of the time he spent pacing throughout the room or entering his awakening realm with the desire to practice more symbol making. The truth was that his body was itching for a fight, even if his mind was well aware there was no point in doing so. Common item guardians were no challenge, and magic opponents were beyond his reach. In the end, he improved his window frame to platinum. The effort finally caused him to tire… half an hour before the start of class. Fortunately, he spent half a day in the realm of the window frame sleeping. After that, it was back to normal.

After a quick wash, Dallion got dressed and went to the dining room for breakfast. The food was alright, although it couldn’t remotely compare to Aspan’s masterpieces.

“You’re eager today,” Cheska joined him. Unlike most of the children, she tended to skip breakfast, only going there for a cup of exotic juice. “What happened?”

“This and that,” Dallion replied, mouth half full. “You?”

“Finished another symbol book. Will ask for a new one in class.”

The way she said it suggested that she’d learned way more symbols than Dallion. Being a prodigy definitely was nice, making Dallion feel somewhat inadequate.

“Are you trying to crack a thousand?” he asked with a forced chuckle.

“I’ll try. The more I know, the better spells I’ll be able to cast. At least that’s what Raven said.”

There was no mystery to whom she was referring to. If anything, Dallion was surprised the nickname had stuck. Up to now, nicknames and any form of reference other than the most trivially descriptive had slid off the black-haired noble within minutes.

“How many do you think he knows?”

“Lots,” Cheska replied curtly. “I think he knows a lot more than he’s showing.” She turned to Dallion. “I think you know a lot more as well.”

“Not in terms of magic.” He felt the sudden need to defend himself. “I’m nowhere near your guys.”

The girl didn’t seem convinced in the least. She was about to add something when Phoil entered the room along with his usual crowd. The fact that most of his posse had remained in the rank one class didn’t seem to affect matters particularly. They still would group together, following his orders, and praising him even when there was no reason for it. Back on Earth, Dallion would have called him a middle manager. Here, he had a few other descriptors in mind, although he’d avoid using most of them in public. Cheska seemed to be of a similar opinion, for she quickly stood up.

“See you in class,” she said, making her way out. As she did, Dallion saw her draw the rune of cold on each of the tables she passed. The smooth surfaces clouded up, as the humidity in the air reacted with the sudden cold emanating from the tables.

Childish, to say the least, Nil grumbled.

“She is a child,” Dallion muttered, taking another bite from his sandwich.

A loud scream filled the room. A short distance away, someone from Phoil’s posse had leaned against a recently chilled table. While cruel as only a child could come up with, it also had a distinctly comedic element to it.

“Hey, you! Huntling!” Phoil shouted. “Did you do this?”

“Huntling” was the nickname Dallion had earned after a few weeks. The lack of imagination that went into it made it clear that it had originated in Phoil’s mind, who was also the only person who dared used it to Dallion’s face.

“If I was that good at magic, do you think I’d have stopped at something so harmless?” Dallion smiled.

Phoil’s face turned red as anger emanated from him as loud as a siren. For a moment, Dallion thought that the large boy might start a fight in the dining room. However, cooler minds prevailed—most likely the echoes within Phoil’s realm.

“Do that again and I’ll tell the instructor!” he threatened.

Is this what it comes down to? Tattling to a teacher? Dallion felt annoyed. Spending so much time in the body of a child was starting to affect his personality.

Shoving what was left of the sandwich into his mouth, Dallion stood up and calmly made his way past Phoil’s table, before leaving the room. The moment he went into the corridor, he heard the empty threats the children made regarding him, mostly because they believed he was out of earshot. It was so tempting to go back in and give them a piece of his mind. Doing so, though, was going to disrupt his progress. For the time being, the only thing Dallion had to focus on was symbol learning and vortex finding; and that was what he did.

During class, Dallion focused on the remaining symbols of the book. Getting the knack of using them presented no problem, and by noon he was given a second booklet to experiment with. The symbols there were twice more complicated, requiring nimble fingers. Having a reaction trait of sixty-one, though, ensured that wasn’t a problem.

After lunch, Dallion returned to his room, where he entered the realm of the tile he’d brought home, leading him to his second vortex. The guardian he encountered was utterly massive, towering above Dallion like a three-story rhinoceros. The method of spellcasting was similar to the first guardian, but instead of attempting to drain his magic, this one was trying to crush him using magic barriers. Fighting involved a lot of spark attacks and quite a few line attacks as well. It was an unusual method of fighting, making it impossible for Dallion to use his guard skills, or any of his main skills, for that matter. When it came to magic skills, though, smooth surfaces were perfect for writing magic symbols on.

When it came to practical combat use, Dallion realized how limited his magic knowledge was. Even with more than a bit of ingenuity, it took a lot of effort to defeat the guardian with the twenty-one symbols he had learned. Quickly it became clear why Cheska was so eager to learn as many as possible, suggesting that she might be into vortex hunting as well.

Days seemed to fly by and once again Dallion felt he was lacking time despite spending days in the awakening realms. Learning became more and more difficult, often requiring days for the symbols to be mastered. The more Dallion got used to the process, the more complex the next symbols became. The instructor assured him that there would come a point at which the complexity would plateau, but from what Dallion had discussed during his time in the dining room, neither Cheska nor the black-haired had reached that level.

Afternoons were spent roaming the Academy grounds in search of vortexes. Going through the remaining five sewers yielded a single result, which Dallion absorbed immediately after a surprisingly short fight. Afterwards, the search continued in other remote areas, namely spots at which magic threads merged together. The tricky part was that magic was in constant motion, converging at different places at different times. There was no certain way of knowing where a vortex would emerge, other than going to the magic rich locations with a relatively small number of visitors.

Two weeks after receiving his pass seal, Dallion had yet to find a fourth vortex, although he had become rather well known in a few building clusters throughout the area. And, as usual, there always was someone who wanted to make use of his hunter skills.

Maybe you should stop wearing your hunter emblem, Nil said as Dallion made his way into the cellar of a small potions lab. The mage running it wasn’t of particular high ranking, but even so had the authority to boss around a novice. Thus, Dallion had no choice but to complete the job for virtually free.

“It’s just a simple job. I’ll get it done quickly.”

That’s not the point. Soon enough, everyone at the Academy will realize they have a free hunter at their disposal. Any guesses what will follow?

“Hopefully, better pay.”

You really don’t know mages too well, do you?

A winding stairwell continued three floors below ground, ending in a massive wooden door. Dallion could see magic symbols drawn everywhere, keeping the air perfectly dry and fresh with a hunt of chill. One could only imagine the horrors that lurked beneath the fake façade; or in Dallion’s case, he could hear them—whole colonies of moss covering the place. That wasn’t the only thing he could hear, though.

Hey, Dallion said to the wooden door. Anything I should be worried about?

Define worried, the guardian verbally smirked. Last apprentice that went down there had to spend three weeks with the healers.

How do you know that?

He reminded the mage the next time the old goat sent him in. After that this was not addressed again and conveniently forgotten. Research was moved to another section of the building and everything continued as normal.

Quite a waste.

Hah! When you spend as much time as me here, you get used to things like that. The things I could tell you would drive you insane or bore you to death. The door paused for a while. Maybe both. Are you really sure you want to go there?

It’s a job, Dallion sighed.

Fine by me. Just a few pieces of advice. Don’t make any sudden movements and get ready to run fast.

Dallion, of course, did the complete opposite, opening the door and charging inside. Of course, before that he split into a dozen instances.

The first thing he found in the cellar were shelves and shelves of potions beaming with magic. The next—thousands of emerald shardflies covering the walls and ceiling of the artificially large room. Never outside of awakening trials and item exploration had he seen such an amount.

Normally, Dallion would feel pretty confident in his abilities to resolve the situation with minimal effort. Lately, though, his animal communication skills weren’t too good.

“Hello there,” Dallion said, adding calm to his words.

The shardflies flicked their wings, turning the ceiling green.

“I’m not here to harm you.” Dallion split in a new set of instances, keeping one outside the room at all times. “I just want to lead you out of here.”

Why? A shardfly asked. Its wings were slightly brighter than the rest, indicating that it was the flutter’s leader. It’s nice here.

Not the greatest start, but at least the shardfly was talking and not trying to slice him to shreds.

“I can find you a better place with lots of space. I took a whole group of ruby shardflies there a while ago.”

Ruby shardflies? Several of the insects fluttered their wings. It was difficult to tell whether they were eager to see the specimens or wanted to get into a fight. Despite their looks, shardflies were vicious and aggressive creatures.

“One remained with me, even here. I can take you to him, if you want.”

Why don’t you just order them out? Nil asked. You’ve done it before.

“You can tell my level,” Dallion ignored the echo. “You can guess what I’m capable of, just as I’m not lying. When was the last time anyone spoke to you?”

The last mage who came here did. The shardfly leader flew off the ceiling, fluttering towards Dallion’s face. He tried to burn us all, but his magic was weak. Your magic is weaker.

“That’s because I’m not a mage. I’m a hunter with the empathy trait.”

You just want to get rid of us.

“Yes, I’ve been asked to get you out of the cellar, but I don’t want to get rid of you. I just want to move you somewhere else.”

You can’t do both. If you take us out of here, the building will crumble.