Lee gave a bright smile from behind his hood as he stood behind a podium in the main foyer of the village hall. He smiled at everyone who was attending his third session of teaching healing magic. Well, If you counted his lecture, which was cut short in Neldam, this would technically be his third, and he leaned more toward counting that as his first.

Before him, inside the foyer, sat well over fifty mages who had spent the last week and a half learning life mana. Lee had watched some of them meditate and focus on learning it over the past few days and couldn’t be happier with his god of choice. It looked terribly dull to focus on learning a new element. For him, it only took a few seconds once a week, but for them, it was a trial.

Regina and Jeremy had been hounding him for the past week about every little detail of his plan to come, which was the same as it always had been—Teach people healing magic. The more he taught, the less the Healer’s Sanctum was a threat to himself and others.

Regina and Jeremy stood to the right of the entranceway, having become ‘friends’ over the past week because of their curiosity about him and their apparent dislike of Kendri. Lee wasn’t really surprised at the fact that Regina didn’t like Kendri; it was hard for him to like Kendri as well. But he didn’t expect a small friendship to blossom.

Lee had watched them writing notes together—apparently compiling a database of some sort about what he could do. Even when he was mere feet away from them, training his enchanting, they would confer amongst one another about his potential skills and spells. Jeremy, the traitor that he is, willingly complied with all of Regina’s questions—no, demands.

To be fair, it was quite funny hearing all of Jeremy’s thoughts about his abilities, skills, and spells. Jeremy had been really trying to find out how Lee could kill everyone around him in less than ten seconds without magic, and Regina was like-wise intrigued. They never asked him about it, which was odd, but they never got close to the truth either. He let them fester.

Em had been the one true friend during the past week of hardships. It was a good time watching Em bash and man-handle trees in the forest as they walked to the small glade Lee had found in the past. Since the ‘fae luring’ fiasco, Lee had managed to talk Regina into letting Em be his guard, and he couldn’t be happier.

Lee began teaching those in attendance once everyone had settled down. Regina and Jeremy both had paper and quills and began jotting down any and all information that came from his mouth. He didn’t mind, as they could teach people when he was gone in the future.

This lesson was much faster than the others, as he had enough time to practice, plan, and test everything with his prior attempts. His new skill, Teaching, really helped out as well. For all that Lee took skills for granted, this was one of the more obvious ones regarding its effects. By the end of his short thirty-minute lecture, everyone in attendance was glassy-eyed and fumbling with what little notes they had taken.

Lee clapped to get everyone's attention and brought out his spellbook from his Hidden Cache, eliciting ‘ooh’s’ and ‘aah’s from its instantaneous appearance. “Time to learn some spells! Please line in here in front and wait patiently for your turn.”

One by one, adventurers came to learn from his spellbook.

Over the past week, Lee decided to add Touch of Remission to his spellbook’s spells. Back in Neldam, Lee had taught the Dark Elves how to create the spell themselves, but in hindsight, he could have just done both. He hoped that his slight blunder wouldn’t cause anyone to die from cancer in the future.

He did think about adding Drop of Life but didn’t want to create more problems than he already was. Also, it was a synthesized spell. He wasn’t sure if it was even possible for others to learn it. If they could, his spellbook was going to be the only way. It was better to keep those spells to himself for now. Maybe once he filled out his five synthesized spell slots, he would add some in.

Around halfway through teaching everyone his spells, he felt a sudden vicious tug. He fell forward, crashing into the podium, toppling over it as the chain he held aloft was yanked out of his hand. With the wind knocked out of him, he looked up to see a younger adventurer sprinting toward the doorway, spellbook in hand.

Once near the entryway to the freedom of outside, the young adventurer ran straight into Lee’s Wall of Winds and fell straight on his ass. Before he could make another move, Regina stood before him with a dagger made out of the air itself placed up against the young man’s throat—a line of blood trickling from the man’s throat as Regina rooted the man in place with her emotionless glare.

Lee politely shoved his way through the murmuring crowd until he was accosted by Jeremy. “Lee, I know you’re angry, but let’s talk him with first…”

Lee looked at Jeremy, the idiot he was, in confusion. “What? Did you think I was gonna kill the kid? He can’t even use it. It’s soul-bound to me.”

Lee pushed Jeremy away and approached the young man, who was probably fifteen or sixteen years old. He wore a plain gray robe and had a long, curly mop of hair atop his head. Currently, he looked resigned to his fate.

Lee strolled up, then crouched in front of him. “So… I’m going to need that back.” Lee pointed to his spellbook, clutched to the man’s chest.

The young man gave Regina a quick side-eye, sighed, and then held out Lee’s spellbook. Lee waved his hand over it, sending it straight into his Hidden Cache, before asking another question. “You know, I just taught you the spells you needed to make a living. Why did you try to steal from me?”

The man looked around for some help, but every single other adventurer just stood by and watched. To them, his fate was sealed.

When Lee didn’t get a response, Lee looked to Regina. “What’s the punishment for stealing from a healer?”

“Death.” Regina supplied.

Lee gave an exaggerated nod and snapped his fingers, causing the young man, who was now pale in the face, to jerk and slightly cut his neck on Regina’s air-blade. “Jail for a month!” He shouted.

Then, Lee looked at Regina once more. “Jail is a thing in your country, right?”

Regina looked slightly confused, so Lee carried on. “Imprisonment. A stockade?”

That seemed to do the trick as recognition dawned on her face. “We have imprisonment, yes.”

Lee rose from his crouth, knees popping as he did so, and clapped again. “Imprisonment for a month! If he answers my questions.” He looked down upon the pale-faced teen with as much hate as he could muster. He wasn’t truly angry at the boy, but impressions needed to be made for some answers to be given.

“If I don’t get answers, then death will do.”

Lee nudged the boy with his foot, then began his interrogation. “Why steal from me?”

The young teen’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water before he managed to mumble out a reply. “I… I wa—I was paid to, sir.”

“Paid by whom? And what is your name?” Lee asked while giving the boy a nudge again.

“I don’t—I don’t know! Honest!” The boy pleaded, but Lee was unamused.

“Well, Honest. That’s very unfortunate. You didn’t answer my question…” Lee said but was cut off by Regina.

“Really?” Lee turned to see Regina's extremely unenthused and disappointed face. “Just Identify him for his name.”

Lee did just that.

“Well, Ross. That’s very unfortunate. You didn’t answer my question to a satisfactory degree.” Lee said, uncut from his speech but cutting off the prompt he was given.

Ross couldn’t really squirm with a blade of air to his throat, but his eyes could very much widen, and his face could morph and pale. In a panic, he hastily started to talk to save himself. “It was a cloaked man! He paid me to try and nab your book! Two gold pieces!”

“He paid your to try? Only to try?” Lee asked, frowning, gesturing for Regina to whip out her truth orb and failing to get the point across. He settled for whispering for it while Ross caved under the threat of execution.

“Yes! Only to try! I’d get more if I succeeded! Check my coin purse! You’ll find the two gold!” Ross wiggled his hip, which jingled his small coin purse.

Lee unabashedly yoinked the coin purse and inspected the contents, finding the aforementioned coins within. He closed the small pouch and tossed it back down onto Ross’ lap. “When did this man approach you?”

“Last night! Please, listen, two gold might not be much to the likes of you, but to me? That’s more than worth it for me. Even if I was bound to get caught. I… I didn’t think the penalty was de—Death.” Ross’ voice broke near the end; the slight warble was coming through heavy and filled with emotion.

Lee had enough of tormenting the boy and passed his judgment. “One month of imprisonment. I’ll be sure to get some more answers from you here soon.”

Surprisingly, Jeremy was the one to round up Ross. Lee had to mentally question if that was the correct choice, as Ross out-leveled… Lee paused, then quickly used Identify on Jeremy.

Huh. Identifying is useful.

Lee stood next to Regina as Jeremy pushed his way through the gathered crowd along with Ross, apparently going to some jail or something of the sort.

“I’m going to have you question him once he’s locked away. I doubt just anyone can offer up two gold for a simple attempt. Find out who paid him, and who’s after my spellbook. If it’s the sanctum… Well, I asked for diplomatic immunity for a reason.”

Regina gave Lee a long look, almost as if she was seeing him in a new light, before simply nodding to his request. “I’ll get answers.”

Lee smiled and then turned to face the large crowd as he clapped to get their attention. “Okay! Let us continue! Next one who attempts to steal my spellbook will get put down like a wild fucking animal!” Lee’s smile and jovial tone of voice made his statement a tad too threatening, but everyone eventually lined up to learn his spells.