Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

“You’re all here because, somehow, you’ve had your head buried deep in the sand, and missed a few fundamental basics of how the world works. If it were up to me, I’d have a general knowledge requirement to get into the School, but it isn’t, and you’re all here.” The old man grumped while lying back on his deep cushions, his tail wrapped around a ramrod straight metal gem-studded rod. He glared at us like it was personally our fault that he had to get up and teach.

Well, getting up was a bit of a stretch for the old, lazy Naga. My opinion of the dude started off high, and was doing a rapid nosedive with no end in sight.

“Staves! Wands! Same thing, there’s no difference between the two. An intelligent mage - yes, don’t look surprised, both sorcerers and wizards use wands - will store a single powerful skill inside a large gem in a wand. This gives them permanent access to the skill, and, hoping that you all have eyes and they’re not just for show, you can see that most staves have more than one gem.”

He waved his staff in front of us, twisting it around with his tail to show off the numerous gems studded in the thing.

“Some of these are support skills, designed to empower the main skill trapped in the gem. Recharging, potentiating, double casting, and more, there’s a wide variety of things that can be done. Wands can also be used to interface with certain types of wizardry. In this course, we will learn the common types of materials used to make wands, simple enchantments, and of course, gems and what they do.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Gems… something else you all probably don’t know about. Let me start at the very, very basics, and try to dig your collective heads out of the sand…”

This was not shaping up to be my favorite class, and I immediately marked it low on my priority list.

I’d gotten the basics. Learning how wands worked was immensely useful, although I wondered why “encased in armor” or even “in a shield” wasn’t nearly as common as “in a wand”.

I did get a chance to ask that question as the class was winding down, and the professor scoffed at me.

“In a shield? Have you been listening to a word I’ve said all class? Why yes, it would technically work if you wanted to create your own set of enchantments from complete scratch, the common ones I will be teaching you are designed for staves. A shield is heavy, you don’t want to be throwing your extremely expensive gems and delicate enchantments in front of arrows, give purchase for hostile mages to steal it from you, and walk around declaring you’re expecting a war! Shields, honestly.”

The professor dramatically shook his head, and what I got from his answer?

Shields were completely valid.

I might try taking the class again with a different professor.

====================

I got stiffed on dinner as well, and I was starting to feel a little light-headed. Vigorous exercise in the morning, followed by an entire day of difficult lectures had me a little fried, a little on edge.

I could totally operate just fine, but there was a difference between “operate on a mission” and “think hard about new things.”

One I had years of ingrained training to fall back onto, the other was, well, new.

Live and learn. Missing lunch and dinner wasn’t going to kill me, and I’d make sure to properly stock up in the future.

Divination was next!

==========================

I was expecting a smoky room with crystal balls. Instead, I got another plain lecture hall, and a man in the front of the room who looked like he’d fit right in with the Instructors at Ranger Academy, not teaching Divination.

“The first thing you need to know about divination!” He sounded like a drill instructor as well, all yelling and barking. “Is it does not exist! The entire field is a hoax! A fraud! Conmen and imposters, claiming to see what happens next! It is all a pack of LIES! If you think you have wasted your time, excellent! The exit is there, make better use of your time!”

I packed up my materials and sprinted out the door, robes flapping as I beat out a dozen slower students who were making the same smart call I was.

If I was fast, I wouldn’t miss much of Biomancy. The main education buildings all being next to each other was nice for that, and there was an easy window to jump out of instead of navigating the crystalline, reflective hallways of the Earth Tower.

Apparently, that counted as being passionate.

[*ding!* [Passionate Learning] Leveled up! 382 -> 383!]

=================================

Marcelle gave me a wink as I snuck into the room and discreetly took a chair near the door. There was another woman with her, and most interestingly, she was not dressed in robes like literally everyone else at the School was, but in pure white armor with red trimmings. She was short - maybe as tall as I was - and had fiery red hair.

“... and that’s the basics of biomancy. Now, Inquisitor Ren here would like to say a few things to all of you. I trust that you will listen to her, because this is important. She is deadly, deadly serious, and I will help her if you break the rules.”

She gestured, giving the floor to Inquisitor Ren, and stepped back.

“You all know the Divine Decrees.” Ren stated, words like fire, and without a hint of shame, I raised my hand. Her eyebrow quirked up as she looked at me.

“You don’t know the Divine Decrees?” She asked as if she was stunned, like such a thought had never occurred to her.

I heard some titters behind me, but I didn’t care. Marcelle whispered something into Ren’s ear.

“Ok, the Divine Decrees. The closest thing we have to the great gods above, may they watch over us and bless us, giving us rules. They are simple. They are difficult to break. They are as follows.”

“Do not claim to be a god.”

“Do not exterminate another species.”

I studiously kept the BEST poker face I could possibly manage, visions of the Formorians flashing through my mind. The hand from a god, descending down to crush one of the Queens. The legions of angels pouring through the breach.

Nope.

Not me.

Hadn’t seen anything about Formorians going extinct… except in my classing up space… although the shimagu were. Then again, we might’ve killed them all before the extinction-notification wish was made…

“Do not prevent the worship of a divinity, nor should you desecrate places of worship.”

“Do not damage the fabric of reality.”

Ok, that Divine Decree sounded like it had a STORY behind it.

“Lastly, the one I’m here to discuss with all of you. Do not create new species. Biomancy is the primary field for creating new species. Do not. It is for the gods to do, not mere mortals. There are always a few young biomancers who want to tinker. Who combine a rabbit with a mouse, then put in the effort such that they breed true. The levels are great. If you do that, the gods will tell us, and we will put both the specimens, and the creator, to the sword. Questions?”

“What about Vorlers? Beastkin?” Someone shouted, drawing attention to the far side of the room. The student looked a bit older, and I kept a chuckle to myself as I saw a number of other black-robed students subtly making their way to the door.

Ren sighed.

“Beastkin prompted the Divine Decrees, and Vorlers are an excellent example of why we enforce them so harshly. Stamp them out before they become a true problem. Who wants a second set of Vorlers? Anyone?”

She looked around the room challengingly, and sharply nodded her head.

“That’s what I thought. With any luck, this will be the last time I see any of you.”

She sharply turned on her heels, and strode out of the room.

Marcelle clapped her hands to get our attention back, every eye having followed Ren’s journey.

“I completely support Ren in this. Do not make new species.Best case, you create magical termites that eat every building on the Island. We have records of that happening. Worst case, you make a new set of Vorlers, and generations will curse your name. Now! Let us discuss the tiers of biomancy.”

Marcelle gestured, and a display of her notes appeared behind her. I started furiously writing.

“The absolute lowest level of biomancy overlaps with transfiguration and transformation, that is, small, temporary changes to the body, that’ll revert themselves.”

Turning my finger into a talon was also a biomancy trick. Got it.

“I don’t generally consider that to be biomancy. Biomancy, to me, truly starts when the changes are permanent. For a given definition of permanent.”

Marcelle sighed.

“Biomancy is complicated, and there are rarely easy answers or straightforward methods for anything. Simply explaining the different types of biomancy is convoluted! Let us touch on healing for a moment, another art closely related to biomancy. Fundamentally, healing works on an image to image basis. We don’t care about the healer’s image for this, we are going to discuss the System’s image of us. One popular theory of healing at this time, is the System has a ‘blueprint’, for lack of a better word, of what our bodies are supposed to look like, and healing restores a person to that blueprint. I’m not going to get terribly in-depth on the details of this theory - take a basic healing course if you’d like to learn more, or go to the library - but that’s the fundamentals you need to understand.”

“Now, when I say basic biomancy makes changes permanent, I mean from a purely biological standpoint. I can transform into a bat, and the transformation will not wear off with time.”

Marcelle twirled in her robes, the purple fabric falling away to reveal a bat, her poofy hat having shrunk to fit on her new size.

Marcelle’s voice was higher pitched, but still perfectly understandable. She swooped back and forth in front of the class as she continued to lecture.

“The biomancy I’ve just performed means I’ll stay like this for the rest of my natural life. Or until a healer restores me to my natural form. To the healers taking this class, be careful! You can kill someone trying to heal them back to their true form if you lack the proper power and control. I want you all to imagine that you only healed my chest down back to vampire, and that vampire body is attached to a bat half.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine, and I shuddered. There’d be so many things going wrong, I didn’t know where to start. I must’ve missed the initial “Biomancy is dangerous, dangerous stuff” at the start of the lecture. Not that I needed that lecture. I knew enough biology to know what a tiny, incorrect change could do to the body.

“The third stage of biomancy tells the System that this new form of mine is ‘real’, and for any healing applied to me will return me to this form.”

Fascinating.

Oh! That’s what went wrong earlier! When I tried to transform my finger into a talon, my [Persistent Casting] of [Dance with the Heavens] instantly returned my finger to its “correct” configuration! A single-digit [Dabble] skill had nothing on my [Oath]-empowered custom-built panacea skill. No wonder nothing happened!

Ugh.

That also meant if I wanted to do any sort of self-modification practice, I’d need to turn off my permanent cast, and that skill was a gigantic pain to reset. Although, I suppose that could make practicing the skill easier in some ways? Just keep casting it again and again to grind experience points, not needing to ‘reset’ since that was automatically done for me?

Things to plot later. Although, dropping my persistent casting would get me back in the habit of properly forming images, which was important with all the comparative anatomy and new species I was handling, and…

Later.

“The fourth stage of biomancy is where things start to get a little dicey, but is generally accepted. Granting heritable traits to another.”

My quill almost stopped at that.

Biomancy could do what?!

“The fifth stage are chimeras, amalgams of creatures that shouldn’t exist. The line between ‘an improved creature’ and a chimera is fuzzy, but it’s generally where so many different creatures are put together that it’s no longer clear what the base is. A griffin is one example of what a chimera could look like, being half-eagle, half-lion, but of course, they are not chimeras. One of the defining features of a chimera is they don’t breed true. If they do? We arrive at our last stage, and the one that’ll get the Inquisition quite mad at you.”

“The last stage, and I’m covering it simply for the sake of completeness, was what Ren was talking about. Not just granting traits that can be passed down, but creating an entirely new species. The beastkin are famously supposed to have been one Immortal’s project, and we all know about vorlers.”

“As I said earlier, biomancy is extremely demanding, more so than healing, and requires more classes than nearly any other Track. The other part that makes biomancy difficult is you need all the classes to be successful. Fail to do well in a course, and you’ll just kill people instead of helping them.”

“Let us begin…”

The good thing about all the biomancy classes though?

Near perfect overlap with all the medical classes I needed.

====================

I was doing a lot of sprinting, but classes were finally over. Seven classes in a row, 14 straight hours of learning, and I was fried. It was only day one to boot!

Eh.

I’d adapt.

I made my way over to Auri’s school, picking her up after a long day. Her hat was crooked and slightly stained, all the marks of having had an absolute BLAST of a day.

“How was it?”

“Brrrpt…” Auri suspiciously looked up at the sky.

I rolled my eyes.

“It stopped raining ages ago!”

“Brrrrrrpt……”

“Oh please don’t tell me you gave Bridget a hard time about the rain.” I stepped out of the building, starting to navigate towards food - then home. All those buildings being on roughly the same side of campus was a big help.

“BRPT! Brrpt brrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrPT!”

“You really like her?”

“BRPT!”

“Lots of fun?”

“Brrrpt!!!”

“Learned lots?”

“Brrrrpt.”

“Like what?”

Auri regaled me with all sorts of interesting things she’d learned, and slowly cut off mid-sentence.

“Brrr…. rrrrrrr….. rpt”

Heh. She’d fallen asleep.

I got in line for food, mentally noting that I was going to be late for work as a result. However, it wasn’t just my nutrition at risk here, but Auri’s as well, and Auri missing a meal because of my suboptimal planning was unacceptable.

Enough food to make up for missing meals, snacks for tomorrow, and a ‘liberated’ jug filled with fruit juice later, I was tucking Auri into a little nest she’d made in my room. I only had time to grab a few quick bites myself, all too aware that I was already pushing it.

I left the door open a crack - Auri hated being locked in a room, and I dreaded to find out what would happen if she ever was locked in - and sprinted over to the library, which was not on the same side of campus as my dorm.

Hopefully I wouldn’t be too late.

=======================

The library. A peaceful, calm place - and us helpers were empowered to keep it that way. [Shush] was a favorite, a high-level [Librarian’s] powerful skill that any one of us in the library could activate to create a targeted, weak bubble of silence around the offender.

I brought my notes from the day with me, and after the initial rush of people wanting to get some early studying - not too many people, just the ones who were on top of things - and I was left mostly to my own devices.

Which meant I could look ready and attentive at the front desk, while reading my class notes.

It was a little surreal.

Here I was, Sentinel Dawn of the Remus Empire, formerly the most powerful human healer in existence… working at a library desk, reading over my notes. The levels came quickly and easily.

[*ding!* [Study] Leveled up! 1->11]

In a cruel twist, successfully studying caused notifications that distracted me from studying.

After going over everything thrice - and mentally wondering if I should take a [Drawing] skill to improve my diagrams, they sucked - I closed my notes.

I still had my new skill, [Runic Scribing]. I hadn’t gotten a chance to test it yet, and we hadn’t gotten any runes in class. Just an overview.

“Hey Martin, I’m going to prowl around if you don’t mind.” I told my demon boss.

He shrugged.

“It’s quiet, suit yourself. Don’t be afraid to break up couples getting it on, it happens far too often.”

I could instantly understand how and why that would happen, but I kept my mouth shut.

I briskly walked over to the wizardry reference section that had gotten pointed out to me before, the overflowing stack. While I wasn’t looking for something in the pile of papers, the area did have a number of reference books.

Figuring the shorter, the better, I found a reference book on Jiwa, figuring ‘one rune that does it all’ would be easier to sort out and figure than ‘needs a lot of runes, and to think about them.’

Keeping it simple.

I hauled the book back to the desk, Martin giving an amused snort at how quickly I’d come back with a book, but otherwise didn’t say anything. Clearly an accepted practice.

I flipped the book open to the first page. On the left side was a detailed description of the result of the rune, while on the right was the rune itself, in all its glory.

Yesh: Rune of protection. Snaps a spherical Brilliance barrier around the focal point of the rune. Lasts approximately ten minutes, or until mana runs out, whichever occurs first. Air-permeable. Works best against light projectiles, liquids, and the like.

That sounded a bit too large and flashy for an initial practice rune. I didn’t want to stop anyone from getting to the desk, and Martin might be annoyed that I was making glowing bubbles in the middle of the library.

Actually, I should be doing this at the Firing Range. Well, trying to use it. Finding the right rune, and practicing drawing it should be fine here.

Sirmon. Cuskun. Zulilbind. Riwrord. Lakae. I flipped through the pages, rune after rune, looking for a suitably harmless rune, that also looked easy enough to make.

Eventually I settled on Mes, a basic rune of light. The diagram was simple enough, and I opened my notebook to a fresh page. Line by line, stroke by stroke, I copied the figure over, remembering how Lothar had mentioned meta-skills to help with drawing runes.

I didn’t have any of those, and I doubted I’d take one even if I had the slot.

I finished the rune with only a few interruptions, and critically looked at my efforts, versus the original.

Wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t close.

I sighed, flipping the page over, and starting again.

[*ding!* [Repetition is the Mother of Learning]Leveled up! 1 -> 2]

The second time was easier. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the skill, or because I was getting better at it, but there was nothing like practice and repetition to improve.

========================

I staggered back to my room, exhausted and fried after a long, long day.

[*brrring!* Study time! Let’s review everything!]

I mentally cursed past-me, and her penchant for making alarms for everything.

[*brrring!* I know you’re probably cursing me right now, but look. You know we need to do this, and doing it now is better than doing it later. You know I’m right.]

I knew myself too well.

I plopped down into my chair, hit myself with a hefty dose of [Sunrise], and was pleasantly surprised.

[*ding!* [Celestial Affinity] Leveled up! 484 -> 485]

[*ding!* [Sunrise] Leveled up! 411 -> 412]

Must’ve finally passed a stacked experience threshold.

I quickly debated what to spend my time working on, and figured one last quick skim of everything I’d done so far today was the proper way of doing things. Whatever habits I set today, I’d mimic the rest of my time at the School, and I might as well get things done right.

I went over my notes, levels dinging in my ear. The sound was like music, the blessed trumpets letting me know I was doing the right thing, that I was on the right track, and I was successfully improving myself in several areas. After stagnating for so long, it was great to be making progress once again.

The only thing I skipped was practicing transforming my fingers around. I wasn’t quite ready to drop my [Persistent Casting].

I was ready to do wizardry though.

I was skipping ahead a bit. We’d gotten a lecture on how wizardry worked in the larger sense, but not getting into the fine details.

I tore out a piece of paper from my notebook, and packed everything away neatly for tomorrow. I wanted to rush and just do it, but [Organization] was prodding me along to properly plan and prepare for the future. To keep things neat, tidy, and organized.

[*ding!* [Organization] Leveled up! 11 -> 12]

I wasn’t entirely sure how my skill worked, but that’s what experimenting and practice was for. I focused on [Runic Scribing], putting my quill to the parchment, and starting to trace out the rune one more time.

Instead of black ink, glowing yellow lines came from my quill, etching themselves into the paper. Loop after swirl, line after squiggle, curls and slashes, stroke by stroke the rune came together on my paper. My earlier practice paid off, dozens of rejects and failed attempts bringing me to the point where I could neatly trace out a single, well-practiced rune.

My dexterity was pulling its weight as well.

I kept an eye on my mana, and rarely I’d see it flicker and lose a point before regenerating it again. It cost mana to scribe, but at such a low rate that it wasn’t worth mentioning.

The last stroke was completed, and I looked over my masterpiece, glowing on the page.

[*ding!* [Runic Scribing] Leveled up! 1->2]

My only surprise was I got one level, not more. But wait, there was more!

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Butterfly Mystic] has leveled up to level 357->358! +8 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +70 Speed, +70 Vitality, +70 Mana, +70 Mana Regen, +70 Magic power, +70 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Free Stat for being Human per level! +1 Strength, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]

YES! At long last! [Butterfly Mystic] leveled up! Flitting around to the School, taking as many classes as I could, learning and practicing new magics was the KEY! The secret to success, the experience for the levels! I wondered how many levels in [Butterfly Mystic] I could get if I was getting one on my first day. I couldn’t hope to get too many, but learning and experimenting with dozens of different types of magics was exactly what the class wanted to do! All my capped skills also leveled up, which was nice.

I had to wonder if [Student] was siphoning off a chunk of the experience, and my knowledge told me, yes, it was. Still, I had high hopes for [Butterfly Mystic] going forward.

Also, wait.

[Butterfly Mystic] leveled?

That had to mean Auri had enough experience to be over level 358. Interesting that the System “counted” stored experience like that. What if she took a class that was wildly inappropriate, and failed to level that much? Would I just stop leveling? I couldn’t imagine my experience getting reverted.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to struggle through the feelings of just how unfair Auri’s leveling speed was. How hard I’d worked to get just a fraction of the way there. She was Auri. She was my little friend. One day I’d be the anchor on her absurd leveling. She’d gotten full experience from being in the fae realm, and [Butterfly Mystic] had probably loved traveling through the fae, all of the experience funneled to Auri once again.

I proudly looked at my rune.

Trying to ignore [Something Doesn’t Look Right] nagging me.

I sighed, crumpled up the paper, and incinerated it with a flash of Radiance. Improperly drawn runes could go bad, and I didn’t want to find out how this rune could go bad. In theory, it couldn’t go wrong without mana being applied, but I wasn’t about to trust that.

“Brrrpt?” A sleepy Auri woke up, asking what I was doing.

“Just doing some practice. Wanna burn my mistakes?”

“BRPT!”

[*brrrring!* Study time’s over! Time to play with Auri!]

Well, having Auri burn my mistakes as she watched was playing with her, in a way. She seemed happy and curious, so…

Five more tries, and I finally got a working rune.

Just in time for past-me to ruin my day.

[*brrrring!* Time to sleep! We’ll regret it in the morning if we don’t close our eyes now.]

Regret, smergret, I wanted to see if my wizardry worked.

I wasn’t quite sure how to activate the rune, but I’d gotten a few lessons earlier today. First things first though, I put my finger on it, trying to ‘connect’ to it like I’d connected with my old armor’s inscriptions, and feed it mana.

No luck.

I took out my wand, looking over it carefully. I didn’t see gem sockets on it, which made me think it was the type of wand that worked with wizardry.

I spent a moment thinking about it, before holding it in my left hand. My right was usually where I held a sword or spear, and I was sure I’d need to fight again. Might as well get used to casting with my left hand.

I focused, this time feeling things ‘click’, and I sent a small trickle of mana through my wand, into my rune. It started glowing brightly, then morphing and changing shape as the magic took hold. The sheet of paper I’d written it on burned up.

I had a quick moment to realize this was my chance to impress Auri. I went with a classic.

“Let there be light.” I declared, as the rune finished turning into a bright sphere of blindingly white light.

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 22]

[Mana: 583,290/583,290]

[Mana Regen: 275,561 (+522,957)]

Stats

[Free Stats: 349]

[Strength: 982]

[Dexterity: 2,078]

[Vitality: 14,550]

[Speed: 14,582]

[Mana: 58,329]

[Mana Regeneration: 58,431 (+52,296)]

[Magic Power: 23,089 (+592,233)]

[Magic Control: 23,116 (+592,925)]

[Class 1: [The Dawn Sentinel - Celestial: Lv 513]]

[Celestial Affinity: 485]

[Cosmic Presence: 315]

[The Stars Never Fade: 11]

[Center of the Universe: 451]

[Dance with the Heavens: 513]

[Wheel of Sun and Moon: 513]

[Mantle of the Stars: 471]

[Sunrise: 412]

[Class 2: [Butterfly Mystic - Radiance: Lv 358]]

[Radiance Affinity: 358]

[Radiance Resistance: 358]

[Radiance Conjuration: 358]

[Runic Scribing: 4]

[Nectar: 358]

[Solar Corona: 358]

[Scintillating Ascent: 337]

[Kaleidoscope: 358]

[Class 3: [Student of the Ages - Wood: Lv 32]]

[Wood Affinity: 15]

[Learning Languages: 32]

[Dabble: 12]

[Something Doesn't Look Right: 21]

[Timekeeping: 16]

[Organization: 12]

[Repetition is the Mother of Learning: 14]

[Study: 11]

General Skills

[Long-Range Identify: 376]

[Immortal Recollections: 300]

[Companion Bond between Elaine and Auri: 128]

[: ]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 513]

[Sentinel's Superiority: 513]

[Persistent Casting: 315]

[Passionate Learning: 383]

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