Chapter 21: Spying, Jobs, and Enchanting

Alex had spent more time than he thought reading the letter and thinking about it's contents. By the time he set out to breakfast, he realized he needed to skip the meal to make it in time.

Alex didn't really mind. The cafeteria was open all day every day. He would just eat after talking with professor Keller.

As Alex approached the classroom, he could hear muffled voices. The voices were not muffled, intentionally. They were simply far away, and the speakers were on the other side of a door from him.

"This is simply ridiculous!" Alex clearly heard it this time. Since the person was yelling. It sounded like professor Keller.

"I understand. But you know.... green house.... wont survive the winter winds." The second voice was much more calm. It was a woman's voice. Alex was sure he had never heard it before.

"Yes. Yes." Keller sounded very impatient. "What idiot hasn't heard this proverb." Keller seemed to be calming down, but that only made him harder to hear. "I understand.... they do need to be stronger, but... five years ago!"

Alex was trying very hard to hear, but he feared that if he came any closer to the room he would be noticed by them.

"My family is on the move...." The voice was becoming clearer. "...once it starts, no one knows what will happen...." Alex decided to risk it. He had to hear this. So, he moved to the door. "...all out war. We can't protect them then! We must prepare them instead, while we have time!" Suddenly, the room went quiet.

Alex placed his large frame against the door, in an effort to hear better. Not even a second later the door was flung open.

Alex was over balanced, he was going to fall onto whoever this person was that was standing in front of him. It was a woman. She was small, compared to Alex anyway.

Her hair looked like fire. Alex tried his best to grab her shoulders to stop himself from toppling over her. As he reached out to grab her, a sudden pain shot up his arms. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air.

He landed in seat to the side of the doorway. Dizzily, stared at something white in front of his face. It was a bird of some kind. It almost looked like a dove. Almost, because this dove was covered in white flames as it stared at him menacingly.

"Miriel, he is a student. In fact, he is the one I told you about. The one I am meeting here this morning." An apologetic tone was clear in Keller voice.

Miriel simply nodded, never taking her gaze off of Alex. "You need to learn not to spy on people. Perhaps those will remind you of this fact." She motioned toward his wrists. They were already turning the reddish purple of a deep bruise.

As Alex looked at his wrists, the pain came back. Shooting up his arms. He had to grit his teeth against the pain.

Miriel turned to say goodbye to Keller before she left. The dove, alighted from the desk in front of Alex and comfortably sat on her shoulder as she walked away.

"Well, that introduction went well." Keller was clearly irritated by Alex's actions. "How much did you hear?"

"Not much, to be honest. It seemed to have to do with the letter I got this morning." Alex said sheepishly.

"Ah, yes. Well, as you may expect I am not too happy with the decision made by our headmaster. But, it is not my place to question his wisdom. You should do your best to take advantage of these quests to grow as quickly as possible." Keller said seriously.

"What do you mean by, 'to grow as quickly as possible'?" This had really peaked Alex's interest. "Well, take for instance the quest given by professor Jarilo. You will need to work for him repairing basic enchantments in the greenhouse over the weekend. This job would serve two purposes of expediting your growth." Keller had obviously switched into teacher mode.

"Firstly, it will give you practical experience in enchanting. It should be obvious how useful this can be. Second, upon completion you will be given some points and a spirit plant. The points are useful on their own, as they can be traded to the school for items, but that spirit plant could increase the growth of your spirit animal."

Alex didn't have the chance to read the jobs or rewards this morning, so he had no idea that the rewards were this good. He wanted to get this issue with his mana/qi over with as soon as possible and meet up with the others to decide on what jobs to do first.

"I see you are now excited by the promise of rewards." Keller said with a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. It didn't last long, as his countenance dropped down to chilly levels. "Take great care. These jobs are not as simple as they look. Real danger exists in many of these jobs. Even if it might not seem that way at first glace."

"Why would the school ask us to do things that are dangerous?" Alex asked.

"Because we do not want a repeat of what happened five years ago. This is, in part, to help you develop real world skills. But even more so, it is to show you just how dangerous our world is." Keller paused for a moment to let the idea sink in.

"The danger in these jobs increase as the rewards do. Each year has its own maximum expected danger levels, that are allowed to be assigned. It is important to note that these are expected danger levels. They could always be higher. We are human too, and as such, we may over look something when assigning these jobs."

After talking a bit more about the jobs and safety, they finally got down to why Alex was here this morning.

In the end, Keller was just as much in the dark as Alex was. Well, maybe not as much. Alex at least knew it was qi and that others used it to become something called a cultivator. The title sounded like a fancy word for farmer to Alex.

As such, Keller decided to take as many measurements of Alex's qi as possible. He then decided to tell Alex the secret he had been keeping from the first years in his enchanting class. It wasn't a big deal, the rest of the class would learn it on Monday.

As far as secrets go, it was very lack luster. His runes had not worked earlier because they were not finished. For a rune to become more than just a symbol scratched or panted on a surface, it needed mana. It needed the mana to form bridges between the runes linking them together. They also needed a small amount of mana to start the operation of the runes.

Once these two requirements were met, a true enchantment would be made.

Alex was very excited to have this information ahead of time, as it would allow him to work on some of the many jobs that included enchanting. Simply put, he now had more options than most of the first years. He decided that he needed to leverage this advantage as much as possible, as it would only last for two days.

By the time he left Keller it was already lunch time. The night before he had agreed to eat lunch with Tom and Red today. So Alex quickly made his way to the cafeteria.