Chapter 34

"Should we get breakfast?" Sylph asked.

"That sounds great," Damien replied. "I can't remember the last time I've eaten something other than dumplings or goop."

"Me too," Sylph said, licking her lips as they set a course for the mess hall. "I've tried ordering something different for lunch, but Delph must have done something. It doesn't matter what I ask for because the food that shows up is always dumplings."

"He's certainly interesting," Damien said, lowering his tone a little. "He was on the front lines, wasn't he? I wonder why they took him off."

Sylph shrugged. "No idea. I didn't have any interaction with anyone other than the man who trained me. From what he said, the front lines were a whole new level of danger. The monsters outside of the kingdom are nothing like the ones inside it. There aren't many mages strong enough to survive there, but the ones who do are incredibly powerful."

"So, why'd Delph leave?" Damien wondered. "Maybe he got tired of the constant fighting. Or he was injured."

"He doesn't seem injured to me," Sylph muttered. "I don't think he's tried seriously against us a single time. I don't expect to be as strong as a professor, but I would have thought he'd have to make a mistake or one of our attacks would eventually threaten him enough to at least make him slightly scared."

"I guess that's why he was on the front lines," Damien said.

Sylph just shrugged. They reached the mess hall a few minutes later. The sun had yet to climb over the horizon, and there wasn't anyone else in the line. The lunch lady glanced up from a large book. Damien was pretty sure it was the same one the clerk had been reading.

She didn't put the book down as they approached.

Damien squinted at the cover. His cheeks immediately flushed red. It depicted two people in some very suggestive positions, and what little was left to interpretation was cleared up by the title, Love Making for the Uninitiated and Lustful.

"Is it too early for breakfast?" Sylph asked, tastefully avoiding looking at the book. The woman didn't seem particularly bothered.

"No."

"Could I get something, then? Whatever's most popular on the menu," Sylph said.

The woman nodded and extended a hand. "One silver."

Sylph dug around in her bag and set the requested coin in her hand. It vanished, and the lunch lady turned to look at Damien, raising a thick eyebrow.

Damien forced the flush out of his cheeks and cleared his throat. "Could I get some pancakes?"

"One silver."

Damien pulled out a gold coin.

"Do you want change, or do you want to put the remaining ninety-nine silver on your account?"

"Might as well put it on my account," Damien said. "I think I've had my fill of the free meals."

What could have possibly been a grin flickered across her face, but it vanished as fast as it had appeared. She simply gave Damien a small nod as his coin vanished into her large mitt. She raised the book again and went back to reading.

All the tables were empty, so Damien and Sylph walked over to one near the middle of the room and sat, activating the rune circles in front of them.

"What should we do after breakfast?" Damien asked. "I suppose it might be a good idea to start learning some more magic. I've also got to train a lot more, Delph or not. I barely won those last few fights. I only beat Nolan by basically blowing both of us up."

"Blowing yourself up?" Sylph asked.

Damien quickly explained how his last few fights had gone. Sylph shook her head, rubbing her forehead.

"That's not a good habit to get into," she said. "I know there was a healer there, but if you train like that, then you might do it in the field when there isn't anyone to save you."

"Yeah, I know," Damien said, sighing. "Hence, more training and new spells. I want to learn something more defensive. The Enlarge spell is okay, but it has a lot of weaknesses."

"It might be time for me to look into a new spell as well," Sylph said, a small frown crossing her face. "I barely won this, even with your help."

Their runes lit up green. They eagerly pressed on the circles, the conversation forgotten as they had their first decent breakfast in weeks.

Damien polished off his pancakes within a few minutes.

They were fluffy and soft, with more than their fair share of syrup. The food wasn't quite as good as his mother's cooking, but they were better than anything he'd had recently for breakfast, when he had it at all.

He wiped up the last bits of syrup with a slice of banana and popped it into his mouth, letting out a satisfied sigh.

Sylph, who had received a heaping plate of bacon, eggs, sausages, and toast, finished off her food and sat back in her chair with a sigh.

"That was amazing," Damien said. "I can't let myself get used to that or I'm going to become fat."

Sylph nodded, rocking back in her chair. "We'll stick to more basic meals in the future. It's not good to get used to fancy stuff like this."

They stared at their plates for a few moments. Then Damien pushed his chair back and stood. Sylph did the same.

"What now?" Sylph wondered as they walked out of the mess hall. "We could get back to training, but we might want to wait a bit since we just ate. I don't fancy tasting my food a second time."

"Agreed," Damien said. "I was thinking, if we want to make a door, we should try to get some hinges or something, right? I can carve it out of the stone, but I don't think we want a giant hunk of rock we have to shift out of the way every time."

"That's a good idea. I can go back to the general store and find out if they've got anything while you do the door," Sylph suggested.

"That works."

The two of them split up. Damien headed for the mountain while Sylph headed back into campus. He reached their room and silently walked by Mark and the Grays' rooms. Damien walked into the farthest room he'd created, squinting in the darkness.

He grabbed the chalk from his bag and walked up to a wall. A few minutes later, a freshly drawn rune circle lit up with faint blue light. Damien gave an approving nod.

Any suggestions on making a door?

"It's a slab of rock," Henry said. "What do you want me to say?"

Fair enough.

Damien cast out his net of mental energy, lighting up the room with strands of Ether. He started to gather it, then paused.

"Wait. I don't need to make light if I keep the Ether visible," he realized.

"Except you won't be able to see what you're doing very well," Henry pointed out. "Do you want a lopsided door?

You haven't learned to filter out the Ether from your sight when you don't want to see all of it. Stick with your scribbles for now."

Damien grunted, drawing several motes of energy into himself before allowing the lines of Ether to fade away. He pressed the energy through both of his palms, creating two dark orbs, and got to work.

He started by carving a large square of the stone away from the wall. Next, he carved its edges away until all that was left was a wide circle of stone that barely fit through the doorways without brushing the ceiling. He kept its width as thin as possible to avoid making the door too heavy.

Damien brushed the stone dust off and turned around to start dragging the door toward the outside of a cave. He leapt nearly a foot into the air when he realized Sylph leaned against the entryway.

"Seven Planes," Damien cursed. "I didn't realize you got back already."

"It's been over an hour," Sylph pointed out. "How long did you think it would take me to buy hinges?"

"Fair enough," Damien sighed, his heart still racing. "I lost track of time, I guess. Were you able to get hinges?"

"I was," Sylph said, jingling her bag. "And some runes screws as well. They'll put themselves in, so we don't have to buy tools."

"That's very convenient," Damien said. "Good thinking."

Sylph just nodded. She walked over and helped Damien roll the large wheel of stone through their room and toward the entrance.

It was a bit difficult getting it to squeeze between their beds but, after turning Damien's mattress on its side, they were able to just barely get it through the room and to the mouth of their cave.

"Let's roll it in front of the entrance," Damien said.

"Then I'll grind away the rock until it fits."

They did as Damien suggested. Around two hours later, Damien had carved the stone down to roughly the shape of their cave's entrance. The process was considerably harder than he'd thought. When he started moving too fast, he carved away rock he needed to keep. By the time he was done, there were several spots where he'd carved away too much stone. It wasn't perfect, but it was a better door than a curtain.

Damien sat back, wiping his sweat- and dust-covered forehead with the back of his arm. He jumped for the second time that day when he saw Mark, Nolan, and Reena all standing beside Sylph, watching him.

"By the— Why is everyone so sneaky today?" Damien snapped. "Can't you be louder when you show up or something?"

"Sorry," Nolan said. "You looked very concentrated, so we didn't want to bother you. You're making a door?"

"Yep," Damien said, sighing. "And I don't think I'm on the market to make another. Sylph, do you have the screws and the hinges?"

Sylph nodded. "I'll go on the other side, and then we can push the door into position. I'll put the hinges in on my end."

She stepped past the door and into their room. Together, she and Damien slowly slid it into its proper place. Damien, Mark, and the Gray siblings watched the door for a few minutes as dull buzzing noises came from the other side.

The stone shifted. Damien stepped back as it swung open, scraping slightly on the ground.

"It worked!" Damien exclaimed, only half-believing it himself. Then he sneezed as some of the dust got into his nose. "And now I need a shower."

And that was exactly what Damien did. He made a beeline for their shower and spent several relaxing minutes in the healing water. His muscles weren't particularly sore, but just the warmth and steam felt fantastic.

Once he finished, Damien quickly dried himself off. He glanced at his dirty clothes, then cleared his throat.

Ah…Henry?

"You need to learn how to do your own laundry already," Henry grumbled. Despite his complaints, a small sphere of darkness formed in the air above the clothes, sucking the dirt to the side before vanishing.

Thank you.

Damien pulled his clothes back on and pushed his hair out of his eyes before heading back into the main room.

Sylph was sitting on her bed, scanning through the book Delph had given her. She'd left the cave entrance open to allow some of the sunlight through, but Mark and the Gray siblings had left.

Damien hopped onto his own bed, grabbing the book from beneath it and flipping it open. Henry stirred as he scanned through its contents.

"There are some useful spells there, but they aren't what you're looking for right now," Henry said. "You need a defensive spell with more versatility than what light can offer you."

I presume you've got something in mind?

"Initially, I did," Henry said. "But I was thinking, and I realized I'm doing you a huge disservice."

What do you mean?

"If I just give you every single spell, your mind won't develop enough. You need to practice and learn yourself, or you'll never be able to think on your feet."

That's…a fair point, actually. But isn't that suboptimal?

It would take a lot less time if you just told me what to do.

"You'd also be a lot worse of a mage that wouldn't be able to do anything without my help," Henry pointed out.

"Is that what you want?"

No. So in that case, I'll just look into researching some magic myself. Are you saying I should try to make more magic on my own?

"The chances of you creating new magic with the understanding you currently have are pretty much zero," Henry said. "But here's what we can do. You look through the library and try to figure out what kind of spell you want to learn and improve. I'll fill in any information you're looking for that they don't have and give you pointers as you work, but you'll be the one working on the spell. If it's something I don't think you can handle, I'll just stop you.

That way, you'll get all the benefits of learning a spell without any of the drawbacks."

I like the sound of that. To the library, then?

"To the library," Henry agreed, sounding just as excited as Damien felt.

Damien bid farewell to Sylph and slipped out of the room, heading toward the library as fast as he could go without actually breaking into a run.