The Kobold covered his sparkly eyes with his sun-goggles as he excitedly waited for Gilliam’s answer.
It only took him a few minutes to make one, a bit more effort and a little more time than an irregularly shaped crystal in the same size category, but it was not really problematic. Easier than one of the fist-sized gems due to sheer size and stability of the channelled stream of energy needed.

“Hmm... I suppose that depends on the price.” Gilliam smiled. Though he originally didn’t intend to use this event to make money, since he didn’t even know how much money is worth yet, but since he had already broken that thought with the advertisement contracts he had signed he might as well.
Though, the value of things could be slightly gauged based on the little guy’s response.

Harroc thought hard for a few long seconds. “For that crystal I’ll pay 20 gold, it should be around market price, I can’t say for sure without my tools but it feels about right. Now, for the rest...”
He brought his notepad back and started listing a range of sizes, from only a few millimetres (1mm ~ 0.039 inch) up to some bar or cylinder shaped ones of a specific length and thickness. Harroc explained that he would pay what he thought was market price for the gem and purity and he would add a bonus at the end for the extra work.

Gilliam enjoyed this kind of transaction more than some of the others, the others were contractually bound, details and a lot of weird things. This guy just wanted to buy the gems and the problem was solved. From what Gilliam had read and heard about the crystals, there is a market for them due to how easy they are to use for non mages and mages alike, all from using them as bombs to fuelling magical items and gear, for some extremely skilled engravers one could engrave a spell circle directly onto the crystal itself, making it a throwable spell. Though this required a steady hand more than most people had so the more common method was to make the circles on paper and just put the gem to the paper when time came.

The weather was nice, and though the day had dragged on, Gilliam decided to just make his orders right away instead of postponing. The non-orb shaped ones were surprisingly hard, he needed a few attempts to get them working properly, the failures he just put in storage for now. In the end he had made everything that Harroc needed, which had the little kobold nothing short of ecstatic.
“Thank you, this has saved me a lot of money and time. I’ll be sure to come back if I need more in the future.” He smiled extremely happily.

They did the math which put the gems at the upper 900 somewhere, rounding up to a flat thousand seemed fair in Harroc’s eyes, Gilliam had no experience to say anything in either way so he took the payment as his client put everything in his small shoulder bag. The fact that it all fit in there hinted that it was a holding space much like his ring.
Mimicking the concept, Gilliam put the money in the ring and after several more words of thanks Harroc climbed down the chair and scampered off in the direction of the Aether field.

Throughout the whole day, Savia had just been sleeping in his hair, though she did briefly come down for food before returning. There was an oddly content feeling over their shared bond, though this did again remind Gilliam that he needed to spend more time with her.

As this was the last serious person in the queue, Gilliam finally got up and left his desk, Petal following him. First now that Gilliam was no longer focused on the line of people and the contracts, he noticed that Petal seemed oddly uneasy, like she was almost shaking even though she seemed to act fine.
Considering a few things it made a bit of sense, she reacted similarly to an adrenaline kick when she was in the presence of the large mana crystals when he tested it before, and he had spent the last hour making more of them... She was probably hyped up on mana..
“Are... How are you doing?” He asked her a bit worried that she might be uncomfortable.

“I am... Fine..” her words were a bit hesitant. Gilliam wondered if she was hiding something, though remembering that the slave brand forced her to always be honest with him, meant that she was indeed fine. Whatever had her hesitate would not be related to this question.

Parts of Gilliam wanted to pry, find out what had made her act odd, to confirm if it was just the magical adrenaline kick or if there was something else. The other part of him wanted her to be as much ‘her own’ as she could, he really wanted her to be as free as possible. This was a conflicting feeling.

“However... I have a request...” The hesitation grew stronger. “I would like to return to your room.” She didn’t seem in pain, but perhaps this ordeal was taking a toll on her mentally?
He knew that when he was on an adrenaline kick over a longer period of time, he usually felt physically drained. He would consider himself ‘fine’ and just tired. Perhaps that’s what she’s feeling?

“Of course.” He replied without thinking as he followed her towards his room.

The torrent of people had thinned out considerably, which made a lot of sense given that most had probably gotten their contracts or left due to lack of interest.
Though Gilliam was more focused on Petal, he was fine with her doing her own thing but he wanted to see her to the room at least, they didn’t have anything specific planned until tomorrow so this wasn’t really a problem.

Getting to the room was not an issue, after entering he took Savia out of his hair and put her on some cloth that he had put on the table, so she had her own little bed. Turning to Petal afterwards he saw that she had a feverish expression.
“Are you sure you’re doing fine?” He asked, though her answer surprised him a bit.

She walked over to him, clawed hands reached around him in a close hug and gave him a long and surprisingly deep kiss.
Gilliam was frozen, not in fear or by force, but through surprise. When she stopped he got a moment in to talk, though still being surprised. “Ok... I honestly didn’t see that coming, I think I should have but... Are you sure about this, I don’t mind but...?”

Parts of him absolutely didn’t mind, and her behaviour started making more and more sense when he considered the talks that stopped between her and Angela, there were a lot of hints he just didn’t put them together.
Other parts of him was somewhat against this, due to the whole slave thing, however she was under a command to be honest about everything meaning that if she’s doing this it’s something she wants.

She didn’t reply, but rather continued.

*GONG, GONG*
That blasted bell woke them up again, he would like to turn down the volume roughly 70% but... Here they are.
Though, that being said, waking up this day was more pleasant than others, the last third of yesterday was different, in several ways. Gilliam had never expected to end up with a demon but here they are. He didn’t mind, just not something he foresaw.
Petal and Savia woke up like everyone else in the academy at this moment, though things were a bit different. Or rather Petal felt.. different.
She was metaphorically glowing, her eyes were the only thing actually glowing but there was an air about her. She also seemed quite content with herself.

He wanted to comment on things but he found it strangely hard to do so.
Getting out of bed, going through the morning routine was a bit different and more intimate than normal, a positive change but different. The oddest of things was that Savia’s healing progress had improved substantially. Much more over this night than the other days, his theory was that the shared bonds they had somehow amplified the healing, which could make sense. Gilliam didn’t actually understand how the soul bond worked but if they at least somewhat shared emotion she might have been getting her share of positivity.
Gilliam couldn’t consider anything else than this being very interesting, on top of everything else.

Getting to the mess hall as normal, they got their food and sat down. Savia was much more active today, climbing down to the table on her own instead of being lifted down by Gilliam, this raised his already good mood higher.
“Good morning, Savia-” she was awake during the clothing and getting out of bed, but she wasn’t mentally present at the time. “-You look much better today.” He smiled at his little companion.

“Savia feel better! Savia hungry!” She ordered in her chirpy happy voice. Her feathers were coming along and if this speed continued she should be back and flying in not long.

Gilliam shared his food with her as normal and it didn’t take long for Angela to come in, get her own food and sit down. She used a few seconds to look across the table before sharing a look and expression with Petal, this had Angela only smile an incredibly wide and oddly satisfied smile as she started eating, moving her gaze between the two of them.

This turned the atmosphere super awkward. Though it did confirm a lot of things Gilliam earlier considered, mainly what their talks was about, he guessed that Angela was a sort of wingman or at least answered things. Which in turn hinted that Petal might have had these thoughts and feelings for a while now...
He felt dumb, though in one way he felt that he should have seen some of the signs, other thoughts validated him not getting it was it was somewhat hidden.

“Anyway, so, what’s our plan for today?” Gilliam broke the silence with a topic to talk about. He was normally not one to shy away from the topic, with his old girlfriend before they broke up or now but... For some odd reason this felt way more embarrassing.

Angela chuckled before replying. “Well, I suppose today we continue training. You had some magic you wanted tested, we’ll continue sparring and I still want to see your magic.”

“You saw some of it when I killed you before.” As soon as the words left his mouth Gilliam felt a bit unwell that he could casually say this to a friend... The Dome was really messing with his concept of things... Though he supposed this was the point of using it, getting used to things so you don’t hesitate during the real thing.

“Yes, yes. But the bigger things, I heard you shook the academy when I was gone, I want to see that.” She seemed eager and excited about this idea.

Gilliam didn’t really consider it for a while, at least not directly. Though it made a lot of sense that she’d know about it, it put the academy in a state of high activity so... Perhaps he should let someone know about it.
“Well, I also have a few other things that I want to test, I got a neat coat yesterday, I need to find out the limits of my ring and check a few things with the sword that Kintas pointed out. I think it might be best to not be around people when I do this...”
Given the damage the mega fireball did last time, and if he planned to make it into a structured spell to increase its effect... Being far away from everyone might be a good idea.
“Perhaps we can borrow Aeris for a day, have her take us somewhere more remote?”
This was a question about the idea more so than asking for permission.

“That’s probably fine, she has more or less mastered her art so she doesn’t really need to go to the academy anymore. A lot of people ask her for transport aid, we can ask her.” Angela replied as she looked towards the table where Aeris and a very wounded Nolis sat.

The wounded Nolis caught him a bit off guard, nobody seemed to react, nobody seemed to want to heal him or.. Anything. He just sat there, wounds no longer bleeding but clearly present on his body. Aeris sat and talked with him happily like nothing was going on.
“Hold on... You can see his wounds, right? It’s just not me?”
The lack of reactions had Gilliam doubt his own mind for a moment, was he seeing things?

“Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s more normal to see him wounded than not.” Angela replied.

The more Gilliam considered it, the more it sort of made sense... With how Darkness magic worked and the cost of using it, and the potential danger of something summoned if it didn’t agree to being a servant.
“Well, might as well get two birds.” Not completing the saying he took the last bite of his breakfast as he got up from his chair, walking over to the duo.
Petal followed, as did Angela though she brought her plate of food with her.

Coming over to Nolis and Aeris he couldn’t help but find a weird amused thought when looking at the wounded Nolis, who looked like he had been running through a farming shed filled with blades, now sitting there with his zombie smile and eating on full autopilot.
“Sooo...-” Gilliam started to break into the one-sided conversation Aeris was having. “-I could heal him up... or should I just leave it?”
He didn’t know if this was part of some training, since nobody did anything to help him, even with such a large collection of healing mages in one location.

“Please do.” Aeris smiled, seemingly not shy at the request.

Gilliam nodded and went in to heal his short-term teacher in Darkness magic. He was not a super skilled healing-mage but all his wounds were superficial and somewhat healed already so all he had to do was to focus on those, closing them in only a few seconds.
“He’s gonna have to clean himself...” Gilliam worded the statement as an insulting joke, but in reality he hadn’t learned the cleaning spells yet. From when Jial used it to clean Petal before, it shouldn’t be hard; he just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Aeris smiled. “I’d make him thank you, but I don’t think he’s quite here yet.”
There was an odd pain in that smile, but she somewhat snapped out of it as her smile turned more honest.

“Well-” Gilliam changed the subject a bit to the topic that brought him over. “I’m wondering if you have some time to spare today. I would like to try out some spells but... As we remember from the mountain I... I wonder if you know of somewhere much further away where I don’t have to consider that kind of thing.”
He scratched the side of his head in a strange embarrassed expression as he realised he was asking if she knew of a good nuke-testing site...

“Oh, that’s no problem-” She smiled at him, seeming legitimately interested. “-I know of a bunch of islands that are uninhabited, some are just barren rockscapes, you can probably destroy those without considering anything.”
She thought for a good solid few seconds, seeming to be processing some ideas. “There is a large island that is basically just mountains, it’s larger than the area around here.” She seemed really on board with this.

“You’re sure you won’t get in trouble for leaving school like that?” Gilliam had to double check even though Angela confirmed it only minutes ago.

“Yeah, I don’t learn anything new anyway.” She sounded like most fed up students that want any excuse to leave.

“Well... I’m not going to complain as long as you’re fine with it.” He didn’t want to get her in trouble but she is the perfect person to help him with the location issue.

Getting up from her chair she walked over to Nolis, grabbed hold of both sides of his face and shook it violently. It was enough to snap him out of whatever zombie daze he lived in.
“I’m going for a trip with Gilliam.”
She spoke faster than normal, perhaps she wanted to get the whole sentence in the few seconds of clarity Nolis had?
His eyes glazed over a second later as he lazily raised a thumbs up for a solid second before he used that hand to pick up more food.

Nolis was a mystery in the morning...

Almost skipping back over to Gilliam’s group she seemed happy to be part of this. “Are we ready to go?”

“Oh, that soon? Yes, I mean... I think so?” He was taken off guard at her being ready in not even a minute. Looking at Petal and Angela to confirm that they were ready, both nodded so that seemed like all the confirmation needed.
“Yeah, I suppose we are.”

Aeris held out her hands expectantly, everyone placed a hand in hers.
This teleport was different than before, before there was just a flash of light but this time there was a solid few seconds of building energy, a sort of fuzzy feeling in the air which lifted around them before it all collapsed in on itself. As the energy collapsed the familiar bright light came over them, this lasted for a few seconds which felt normal, but the weird part was how it felt different. If the teleports before were like being suddenly shaken once, this was like landing from jumping off a chair.
Absolutely not a problem, it just ‘felt’ like it had a bit more punch to it.

When the bright light faded from inside their eyes the group could finally take a look around them. They were on top of a large grey mountain, several hundred metres (100m ~328 ft), around them were several smaller islands with plenty of water between them, some had jungle-like plants on them and some were just rocks.
The temperature was calm and nice, their elevated location had a little wind present but all in all this felt like a really good vacation spot.

The young girl had brought them to an archipelago surrounding a large mountain, which was perfect!

“This is amazing.” Gilliam stated without really thinking, something that had the girl puff her chest in a reaction to the off-hand compliment. “This is perfect, far away from everything, plenty of targets far away from us. This is going to be interesting”
He walked around the top of the mountain they were on, checking out the lay of the area.

It seemed that the tall mountain they were on was on one side of the archipelago that made up this aren. All the islands made up a large oval’ish area with the massive mountain being on one of the pinched sides. Really it was perfect for his goal.

“I suppose the best start is to just go for it, or do you girls want to do something else before I start?” He turned to the girls, visibly excited. He really wanted to know where his limit was at this point. He also had a lot of testing planned for the coat, the sword, the ring and just to see how much he could do with the mana gems.

This was going to be a good day regardless!

“I want to see what you can do, so go ahead.” Angela stated.
Only after stating this did she see Aeris get visibly uncertain, sporting a forced smile and doing her best to keep calm.
“... A... Aeris.. Are you ok?” Angela asked once she noticed this, mainly for her own uncertainty due to the timing.

“Yes... no problem... But... Can everyone stand close to each other when he does this? Just in case we need to leave.” She sounded like she was preparing to flee a monster.

“It’s not going to be that ba-” Gilliam wanted to reassure them but the glance from the little girl stopped him. “Ok... Fine... I don’t know how bad it’s going to be, the last time it was unstructured so....”

This raised an eyebrow on Angela.

“Well, I have been thinking about this, but I haven’t really planned it, please give me a few minutes” Gilliam smiled as he turned towards the smaller islands off the edge.

This was a spell he had been considering for quite some time, but he hadn’t actually planned the runes, circle or exactly how it was going to work.
He intended to use most of his mana in it, thinking back to Jial’s explanation of how the circle worked he might need to strengthen the lines with some protection runes, he hadn’t needed to do this before so testing was needed there.
Though, if a line could move so much energy, routing the energy properly or just widening the line sounded plausible, right?

Thoughts like these went through his head as he expanded on the spell circle he had formed in the air. He had chosen the Fire rune for the main circle, he had several mana storage spots in the construction that could hold energy, since it was going to store a massive amount it needed its own local storage within the spell, information from Jial earlier suggested that it could collapse without it.
Adding many power increasing runes, a few control runes and special descriptor runes that helped hold the shape and size of the created fireball, he didn’t want to end up having to compress it like before, this time he’ll just define the size and shape to strengthen this.

This took quite some time of him musing, planning, testing and taking notes in his book. In the end he had a massive magic circle the size of a man, it had several smaller circles encompassing the main circle as well as others within certain nodes of the main circle, there were also two levels of simpler circles that surrounded the main circle as well, these were based on Aether and were rather simple, focusing on aiding the fireball keep its shape when the thing is released, as well as propelling it forward to a pre-aimed area, so control and aiming.

Once this magnificently complex magic circle was created, he took a gander at his companions; Petal didn’t seem to have any special expression, if anything she seemed rather content, Aeris seemed a bit confused, seeming to have problems reading it. Angela on the other hand seemed strangely terrified.
“Are you... going to cast that spell?” She sounded like that shouldn’t be possible.

Gilliam turned back to the circle, he knew that extra runes added extra power requirements but would aid in the end result. For example if you added two power runes you would need to pay more energy to activate them, but the empowered result would be worth it.
“Well, yes. I believe it should be possible, although I think it’ll eat most, if not all of my mana.”
He said this somewhat calmly, it was an experiment and it was all good, after all.

He turned back to see Angela’s face in the same grimace as before, as she took a few choice steps closer to Aeris.

Shrugging, Gilliam turned back to the magic circle in the air, made a few choice small edits before updating his notes, then started to charge the circle.