Chapter Thirty

  Ohing Harmony learned as a maid was when to summarily extract herself from a situatioher by being as invisible as a five-hundred-year-old credenza whose only use was to look nid be dusted or find somewhere better to be. The tter would be best since she cked the social armor of her position here. If only the room wasn’t so tight as to make it difficult for her to slip out. Two more short steps in by the professor, and she calcuted being able to squeeze on by.

  Except the professor pivoted and pointed a long finger right at her face. “Who are you?”

  “I…”

  “Child? Boy? Girl? Student?” The man grilled forcibly.

  “She’s a friend,” Len said.

  “Ha! I should fail you now, liar. You have no friends. That’s why you always made the best assistant. The social aptitude of a shambler. Didn’t even realize when some girls and guys offered physical favors for better grades. Suggested they do the extra credit. And when he does choose to associate with people, it is in a professional leveling capacity. Did you know, acc to the sheets, he made the poor choice of doing so with the likes of stuck-up princesses and revolutionary servants who want to rip the whole system down?”

  “Professor Dunphy, you know the sheets aren’t accurate.” Len started.

  “Aren’t they? Don’t they hold a glimmer of truth? Yet, I’m insane for seeking the truth.”

  Not improving Harmony’s opinion of Hazeldown Uy here.

  “Perhaps I should leave?”

  Len nodded vigorously from behind the white-coated professor’s shoulder.

  “Stay. Having a wito prove that I am judging him fairly is good. You wouldn’t want a different professating my examinatios because of the faults they perceive me to have. I’d imagihout a witness, they’d call a ission, pi iigathe iigator, reschedule Len’s exams, and tie him up for two, maybe three more years of editing work on their b academic missives. “

  At that suggestion, Len looked sick.

  “Fine. I’ll stay but on one dition. I had hoped Len would help answer my question, but perhaps you are better suited.”

  “Of course, I’m better suited. Just look at my glorious white coat. We have a deal.”

  Power rippled across Harmony’s soul, causira little ripples in the she’d cultivated almost automatically. The power settled in like a gentle shackle, a skill activated when the deal was made. Her e stat made her unfortably aware of the skill-enforced agreement, as it seemed to like it. It wasn’t like the professor could be a forbidden soul binder, but clearly, he had some agreement-based skill. That saying, don’t make deals with strangers, always rara true.

  “Is there a way to sever a pet bond without harming the pet or bonded?”

  Dunphy tapped his temple. “The zy answer is that with all of the skills, stats, and powers, in the infinite realm of possibility, sure, there has to be a way. But the truth is we are talking about a primal bond that extend past death, one of the oldest magics where a e is formed when the css holder finds a panion and goes, I choose you.

  Primal bonds have showao mind trol, the ability to break tracts, be there through dimensional boundaries, and evehe greatest powers known. A way to break them without some drastic repercussions? Don’t try your luck.”

  “Thank you for your advice.” She replied rally. As skeptical as the maid was of the manic professor, he did give her the term primal bonds to explore.

  The professor moved to point his fi Len. “Now that we have a witness, it is your turn. The exam will be in three parts, knowledge, theoretical, and practical. What is the speed at which mana flows from zero-state to skill activation at level one?”

  “Five heartbeats to base,” Len answered.

  Harmony didn’t know if that was right. None of Tyler’s books talked about zero-state. Base was sidered the lowest power you could use a skill activation at. It wasn’t like skills were useless outside of activation. For a base effect, [Poise and Bearing] straightened her spine and gave her the picture of perfect attention. She’d missed the following question with her musings. The professor was already asking a third as the pace ratcheted up.

  Not wanting to give up a learning opportunity, she focused oions and ahat made seo how she saw the world. She wished ostasis would ki so she could have more time to think about the rapid fire of information gleaned from the questions and answers. Some she found useless, like the exact date the kingdom was founded. Or irrelevant, like how modifiers and evolution affected aging. Others firmed her thoughts and what she read, like how the more plete free skill absorption happens, the easier it is to gain skill levels in them. Authority, lords, history, mana growth, proper spell po handling, it all left her head spinning as the questions and answers spped bad forth.

  “Passable.” Dunphy ehat round.

  Len panted heavily. Even his familiar flew down to nd on his shoulder and pat him with a bck wing. Now all of Harmony’s hard work wasn’t undone. If a hair or two was now out of pce, it was merely a fw that atuated his [Beauti]-altered image. It was a temporary boost, though. Pig up ay gss from his desk and a sheet of paper with a spell diagram sketched, he summoned a small storm cloud that rained into the gss, filling it up for him to drink.

  “Now, preseh your uanding of the theoretical underpinnings of css and profession evolution,” Dunphy demanded.

  “Our as and experiences defihe evolution optio. Attending church daily increases the odds of getting a religious css, profession, or even the holy modifier. This has created the idea of path manuals with achievements and steltions to help guide people to certain evolutionary paths. People o aplish and experience more difficult tasks to get rarer options or even to level up their css and profession as they evolve and reach higher levels. But you ’t ighe foundational aspect of all the skills and stats in your soul.”

  Harmony watched the professor be stoitil Len got to that “but.” There, an eyebrow raised slightly. Probably because it went against what Len had spouted previously, but as the wizard reached his personal leveling blod plucked the information out of his familiar, it was clear that he had ged. ing up after her mom had been one of the reasons she’d been offered the maid profession. She was sure of it.

  From there, the description of the theoretical underpinnings got dryer and more educational teobabble, refereng dead and living professors and theorists. Carter, Harmony’s favorite, was only mentioned once about Carter’s student Simone aheory of harmonizing synergies to ease progression. The maid knew she might have nodded off if she wasn’t forced to watch by her agreement as the discussion turned into word soup for her. Evehat oath-enforced attention only got her so far.

  “Not bad. If you had goh the ridiculous idea of minimizing some skills and stats and maximizing others as a viable progression path, as Professors Ziggler and Trubbs pressed upon you, I would have failed you or, worse, passed you a you flounder uhat misception. As it is, I have to pass you by this woeful college’s standards.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t tha. The hardest has yet to e. Your practical portion is upon you.” The professor reached into his white coat, pulled out a spell scroll, and poi at Harmony. “Witness, ihis.”

  Familiar Augmentation.

  Requires at least 12 levels of a magic-based css, 10 skill levels in familiar, two monster cores, four bnk magical tracts, mana potion, and 3 thimbles of the casters blood.

  Pce materials around the target, el mana and break the scroll.

  He hahe scroll to Len.

  “Professor, I ’t. The cost alone must be exorbitant.”

  “I never selected a familiar. The scroll is useless to me. I happen to have all the required casting pos as well for you. As you know, it is reehat the caster of the scroll have at least twice the required levels for at least a det ce of success for these kinds of augmentation spells, but skill and thaumaturgical knowledge help. This will not be easy for you, but I am not asking you to do some near-impossible boundary-crossing magic.”

  “Thank you, professor.”

  “Don’t tha. This is a pass-fail. If you don’t mahis, you’ll be digging through atrocious spelling, grammar mistakes, cripplingly bad paragraphs, and the worst educational theories in the bined kingdoms for the year. Let that motivate you.”

  came the bag of spell pos minus the caster’s blood. Harmony watched as he cut his thumb to supply that. He stared at his raven, Farthington, in the eyes, unig silently before setting up the pos around him.

  If Harmony was going to get value out of this, she o see the mana. She activated [Mana Rotation] Internally, she could feel the kito high gear, ready to empoell, but it was the extrasensory feeling of outside mana she wanted. Uilized it due to the disfort of holding the skill active. Maybe if she had it active, she wouldn’t have as easily been caught by the professor’s oath skill, bindio this task.

  She could sehe magical energy active in many items around the room, the scroll’s spell pos, particurly the bnk magical tracts, which felt like a weave of threads, but all of them were passive.

  It was the people that ied her most. Professor Dunphy’s ma warm but hyperactively, as though his wild, exaggerated energy was syo his mana. Len’s felt like a bucket of water sloshing bad forth or a tide moving at a regur rhythm. His familiar shared the trait though the timing wasn’t quite matg.

  The raven sat in the middle of a circle made of pos. At the same time, Len stood, scroll in hand over him. Harmony watched as he started to el mana into the scroll, Len’s internal motion of mana helping to push it out. The wizard wisely focused on his e and skills with his familiar. Still, Harmony was disappoihat she didn’t feel him using any other aspects of his profession or css. Raw mana and familiar bond. Through her e stat, she could tell that the energy was tenuous but acceptable, if only because Farthington worked towards allowing the scroll to work from his end.

  Pying with es had gotten her into so much trouble retly that Harmony vowed to stay back as long as it looked like it would work. There was a methodiature to charging the spell and how the crafting materials liogether. It looked han simply throwing a bag at the target, and the circur set-up beled the target.

  Len broke the scroll. Too soon, in the neancer’s opinion, with how charged the scroll and materials were, but as her eyes flickered to Len and his now weakly moving mana, it was clear he’d given his all and simply was tapped out. She watched how the power was directed. It was at Farthington, but Harmony immediately saw what the wizard did wrong. The energy pushed at the feathers, which were dead material like hair and nails. She’d once ged the color of all Ambrosia’s birds mud-brown for a day as a prank. Len robably hesitant about risking Farthington by pushing directly into him.

  Harmony sneezed, and the raven squawked as a feather fell out, plucked free. A little bit of familiar blood dripped from the wound, creating an opening for the magic of the augmentation scroll, a portal allowing access.

  Farthington started to ge. His neck lengtheiny horns sprouting from his feathered head, and his body bulked up, turning more muscur, adaptive, and lizard-like. To bahe head, the tail grew long and whiplike. More Raven than a dragon, but now more a mix of something iween as the magi its course.

  Harmony wondered if the scroll had been more powered, artfully activated, and used if the transformation towards a dragon would be plete.

  “I did it.”

  “That you did. sider yourself graduated.” Dunphy pulled out a letter and ha to Len. “You’ll have enough of a burden fighting against Hazeldown Uy’s reputation when you get to the capitol. This letter of reendation might not get you much except your foot in the door for the Capitol Institute once you evolve your css and profession. Remember, you’ll have to fight to keep them from smming that door onto your foot.”

  “I ’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t leave tomorrow. Take a week, maybe two, and finish editing my colleague’s papers for them while I find your rept. It would be best not to give them any reason to try to fight my decision on this.”

  Free of her oath, Harmony got up and slipped out of the room. Len would crash and sleep all day if her suspis were right the moment his energy dropped from that experience.

  She quietly made it to the Brown house entrail a hand gripped her shoulder, stopping her.

  “If I thought Len knew what you did for him or that it nned, you would learn why they called me maddest here,” Professor Dunphy whispered to her harshly before letting go of her shoulder and jogging out of student housing and towards the main campus.

  Harmony allowed three slow breaths to calm down before she, too, left.

  Author here are 10 more chapters for this ark (Book 1) Which tally is the number of chapters you'll get if you join my Patreon if you wish to see where this goes before the rest.