Chapter XIV: Spears and Drugs

(General pov)

The day after their outing passed with Reyvin following his usual routine, he did try meditating on the words of power again, and this time chose to try whispering the word instead of speaking it, it did help as he didn't fall on his ass immediately but even a whisper was still exhausting.

He did get into another practice duel with Bor, this time they were thankfully not interrupted by their destruction teacher, he came out the victor once again, with no rewards for it unfortunately.

Focusing a bit harder on his levitation spell, he managed to keep it up for a good five minutes, which was enough for him to get the spell on his menu.

[Mysticism-apprentice: Arcane Ascension, Levitation]

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Morndas began a bit differently than what he got used to, instead of leisurely drinking coffee in the morning Reyvin went to visit the local guards for his combat training, the guards themselves were rather welcoming and some even praised him for not being a 'little milk drinker' like the rest of the mages.

The exercises were hard, but he managed to persevere, earning some more respect from the mostly Nordic guard force, after the 'warm up' as they called it he was given an iron tipped spear and they had him do basic drills and stances for a good hour, after that came some light sparring.

He did make a new friend, a young Nord lad named Thorfinn, who was incidentally his sparring partner for most of the time. He seemed very angry at everything, but after a couple of bouts he was too tired to be a whiny teen, so they struck up a conversation about Reyvin's adventures and shared a drink.

The tiresome morning didn't go without its rewards.

[Spearmanship-beginner]

[Str: 7.5 => 7.8]

[Dex: 10 => 10.2]

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(Reyvin pov)

As I left the guard house while checking my progress I couldn't help but smile, my growth was going quite well, I should have a chance to not die instantly when dragons come. I jest of course, by the time ol' Alduin is here I am going to be ready to blow him to pieces.....

Maybe....

Probably!

On my way back I grab some roast horker a young Nord was selling on the street, I've already spent most of my morning with the guards and today's alchemy class starts very soon, so no lunch for me.

I rejoined my colleagues in front of the lecture hall, the alchemy and enchantment lessons are both held there, as they don't have their own towers. Most of the students seemed to lack any kind of enthusiasm for this, and I don't blame them, chemistry was never my thing and this wasn't much different. Thankfully I already do have some basic alchemy skills, this doesn't however mean I like doing it.

Morrigan on the other hand seems super eager to get to it, the moment she learned she can sell some of the higher tier potions for ridiculous prices she was hyper-focused on studying it, I am not sure how she endured waiting for over an entire week but she did.

We were joined by our restoration teacher Colette, she did say she worked with the alchemy master, I hope she was overblowing the part where he was always barely coherent when teaching, but I will have to wait and see.

Not long after we arrived a Redguard man entered the hall, he seemed unfocused and smelt very heavily of.... grass? Yeah I already see where this is going.

He slowly waddled to the teachers desk, with Colette already looking like she was about to cry, then turned to us and gave us a smile that only a man not really there can give "Hey kids, you wanna learn how to cook?"

I think I could hear crickets, somehow.

Judging by his face he must have imagined us giving a jubilant and enthusiastic response to his question "Excellent! Today I Hakan will teach you how to make that sweet blue liquid that we all know and love, the Magicka potion!"

At least it will be useful, how do they even let people like this teach?

"Right then, why don't you all grab those mountain flowers and ground them for a bit, after that you can toss that together with some lichen or spiky grass or something and boom! Magicka potion."

Not waiting for any response he pulled out a pipe filled with something that was definitely not legal and proceeded to light it up while completely ignoring us.

Colette facepalmed and started explaining the actual recipe, which was to be fair pretty much what Hakan had said, just with more details... let me rephrase that, just with actual details.

It took us all a couple of tries to get the ingredients in the right proportions, but we all managed it. After we were done we turned to the professor, but the man was out cold surrounded by a cloud of smoke.

His unfortunate colleague had to teach us the health potion on her own as well, poor woman.

I couldn't help myself anymore and asked her "How exactly is that" I point to the alchemist "Allowed to teach here?"

She lets out a sigh for the nth time since we arrived "He might seem completely worthless now, but the man is an absolute genius with alchemy, he managed to create about ten cures for obscure diseases and even perfected a regeneration elixir"

"Elixir?"

"A potion giving a semi-permanent effect"

Even if I don't learn how to brew those, it's nothing money can't solve, hmmm white phial plus elixir, interesting.

"Ah, I see now, I guess I will just treat him like an idiot savant or something, it will be easier on my psyche"

I join her in a collective sigh and return to my health potion, thankfully they decided to teach us the two most important recipes on the first lesson, because after this showing, I am definitely not returning for round two.

Most of the others seemed to share my feelings, even if they did learn something incredibly useful, this was a bit much for most people. Morrigan however, didn't seem to care in the slightest, I could almost see the dollar signs in her eyes...

Our grumblings were stopped when Hakan suddenly stood up, and abruptly walked to each of us to check on our potions and started giving out ridiculously precise criticisms of everyone's work, dude was able to identify how hard someone ground the flowers by looking at the finished product.

He spoke with such a manic intensity some of the others actually got scared, which made me laugh my ass of internally.

The alchemist noticed what he was doing and suddenly stopped and muttered to himself "Damn, my immunity is growing again, got to perfect the recipe." before he rushed outside to Dagoth knows where.

We were all dumbfounded for a solid minute, until we finally got out of our stupor and started packing. I spied Colette in the corner taking a swig of something that looked a lot stronger than mead, can't really judge her here, teaching restoration and dealing with this must really grate on the psyche.

An interesting thought did enter my mind as I left the hall, magic boosting cigarettes, definitely a project for the future.

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A/n: gib stone.