Finding students

My journey started off simple enough the robes were comfortable and food was easy enough to come by finding the mushrooms the goblins had accidentally shown me were safe was relatively easy the travel bag I'd sewn together worked well for holding an assortment of things from edible mushrooms and a few edible nuts and berries to the blank leather bound book I traded for to write down any spells I found in my travels. My first month of travel towards what the elves assured me was the humans territory proved I had much to learn of this world even after reading about the history of magic it clearly had not been detailed enough about the other things around. I encountered a wight soon after leaving the elvish forest though I quickly defeated the undead it left an impression in my mind that the wilds were no child's play place the second foe I faced were a tribe of goblins who also fell to my magical attacks easily enough though their shaman took a bit of effort which made me wonder how it had been so easy to defeat him as the shaman surely had more experience than I did.

Little did I know but creating any kind of spark with lunar mana was and is almost unheard-of in this world everyone knew that it was impossible however apparently it was possible if you had enough mana like I apparently did. As I neared the the first human settlement I realized that I didn't know if I spoke the language or not so I prepared myself to run if I needed to and then carefully approached the village. I listened to the villagers talking to each other I almost laughed when I heard someone ask someone else who that weirdly dressed stranger is but I had to keep the aura of power and mystery I was trying to project up and I'd even come up with my own moniker to present to those who asked I was " Dagmathar the wizard" I thought it sounded better than my original name of Brand but maybe I should just stick to the basics and go with "Brand the gray wizard".

I was so preoccupied contemplating a name that I nearly missed when I arrived at the largest house in town but I caught myself and then proceeded up the steps and knocked on the door. The old man who opened the door looked taken aback by my presence and asked "who be ye and what be yer business stranger" I replied with "I am the Gray wizard Brand and unless you want a new arse where your face is you might try a touch more respect, while I may be no lord I am a spellcaster and capable of doing things to you that you would rather I didn't, do you have any questions" the old man turned a little pale and apologized before turning around and yelling for someone in the back.

I stood waiting calmly and then I realized I felt some kind of energy approaching and quickly put up a woven shield of mana before I realized that it was a child or possibly young man and he didn't seem to recognize the fact that I was able to sense him and then the old man barked at the youth "is he a caster boy" the boy on question turned to me and then he slumped to the floor unconscious apparently my power overwhelmed him. The old man woke the boy with some rough slaps and asked him "what did ye see boy" the youth looked at me dead in the eyes and said "calamity master, he could level this village to ash a few times over" the old man turned to me and apologized before say "we've had younguns come claiming they were powerful magi and demand our food right out of our mouths had to be sure ye was what ye said ye were no offense meant" I accepted the oldmans apology for what it was and decided to move on from that point.

I told the village elder "I have come to find students for the Tower academy and would appreciate any assistance from you and your village" the old man looked at me and asked "what kind be this academy" I looked him in the eyes and said simply "Magic" he stood stock still and said "Mayhap I know a few who might be interested though what might ye pay their folks by way of compensation" I decided that I'd pay a gold coin my own mint for them if I must and told the old man "One gold coin for the family in compensation" the village elder got a gleam in his eyes then and said "I know of your first student then" and pushed forward the boy who had tried to look at my magic and passed out.

Soon after the deal had been made I had several villagers bring 3 girls forward claiming that they were vile witches and I should take them off their hands.All total in a single day I gained 6 new students and spent 7 gold coins to get them then taking my new students towards the nearest city I had them watch as I dragged gold from the ground and formed new gold coins from it and then I gave them each a single coin on the promise not to speak of how I had obtained them. After several hours of shopping I found what I was looking for several books on magic and spells 7 copies of each of them in fact though it would take a day for them to be finished but that was fine by me and that night I rented 3 rooms 1 for the 4 girls and the other for the 3 boys the last for me. After breakfast and collecting the books I took my new studentsto get clothes before we headed back to the academy which proved to be challenging on it own the clothes I ordered were 3 sets each of the most basic robes available and made all of them change into their new robes.

After getting my novices ready we left unbeknownst to us however was the fact that we were being followed and only time would tell what their intentions were. After a little over two months travel we arrived at the Academy and I settled my students in and for the first week I allowed them to rest recuperate and explore the academy grounds before I brought them all to the lecture hall and began teaching them magic and how to aquire sources and the importance of acquiring the correct source for what they wish to do. The students proved to be fairly eager to learn and within a month aside from one of my students all had a new source and he already had one so didn't feel the need to try so I told him that having more than a single source would mean that no one could cut him off entirely from magic it would limit the things he could do but with the right source he would never need to be worried about being cut off from magic.

I had provided the students with a rough idea of what each source could accomplish if they so tried to use them then explained that they should never let their sources touch as if they merged they would likely lose both regardless of how much either was it would force them to restart. After 4 months winter was fast approaching and I'd made progress of my own, my mana wells were now closer to ponds from the mud puddles they had started as what the best part was though is that the didn't expand so much as my mana sources grew in density significantly from where I started. I should explain what's happening so the sources / mana pockets are not physical things and the effect of the cherries is to deepen the pocket making the same amount of space contain more mana so like a puddle there are two ways to hold more mana deepen the puddle or make it wider I was doing both.

My students all had mana sources some even had two the eldest had a mind source and now an electric mana source he was also the only one who had a mana source to begin with so he was abit ahead of the game and I'd questioned him on his source so as to add it to the known sources and their effects. I had begun marking out the various effects of each source type the requirements to obtain them and the difficulty of obtaining them along with what effect they could achieve the most with. As the book I was writing began taking shape a figure tried to enter the academy via scaling the walls and I was instantly alerted to the possible threat so I rushed over and found a older girl well woman climbing the walls so I just scooped her up and brought her to me for a quick face to face conversation.

The woman looked vaguely like one of my students so I decided she must be family of some kind come to check on one of my students and so I asked "why are you attempting to scale the wall of my academy in the middle of the night?" silence was her only response for a minute just long enough to be awkward. She eventually responded saying she just wanted to make sure her sister wasn't being used in a nasty way which was fine and I told her as much though I did mention she could have just used the gate as the wards had been preparing to expel her violently.

Meanwhile several kilometers away

"Lord the wizard has created an academy and successfully negotiated with the dragon his power has also quadrupled and his academy is well protected sir what are you orders" Lord Elvandial contemplated his next plan of action then said "We must get this wizard to leave this area I see no good coming from him so close to our borders the human kingdom will attempt to control the wizards of the academy and no good will come of this but first we should try peaceful methods before we resort to anything hasty".

In my tower I was unaware of the elves decision to drive or send me away I infact was happily writing out a syllabus for my students. My academy building was done aside from furniture and beds though I had improvised a bed system for the time being stone based beds with sleeping pads made of furs and stuffed with straw for the time being this was actually better than my students had slept on before apparently as none so much as complained about the rustic sleeping conditions infact they claimed the beds were the best they had ever had.