The Sixth School.

Chapter Twenty Five: Rejected…

It’s amazing how the best laid-out plans can fall apart at the first road bump that they meet. Greg had been planning to work diligently with the healer for a few months. During that time, he would show her just how driven a person he could be and slowly earn her trust. In such a way, he would get her to eventually agree to teach him magic. One might be tempted to call him a hypocrite, seeking to earn the healer’s trust when all his attempts were based on the lie that he needed a cure for his disfigurement. To Greg, however, this was just a necessary evil on his part. If there was a way that he could just come right out and ask the healer to take him on as a student of magic without her immediately turning him down, then that is exactly what he would have done. Besides, it wasn’t a lie that he wanted to heal his disfigured face. It just wasn’t as desperately as he made it seem to the healer.

These were the thoughts running through Greg’s head even as he slowly moved through the town toward the infirmary. In the east, the sun was halfway up the horizon, its rays illuminating the morning sky, painting it with bright orange colors. Both his clones had been sent back to the cave. In the time that they would still be around, Greg planned to have them clean and renovate the cave. It would be Greg’s new secret lair. Whenever there were things that he needed to do but couldn’t afford to have any witnesses, the cave would be his base of operations. Not only was it hidden, but, if Olivia’s erasing of Nolruk’s memories was effective, he was the only one who knew about the cave.

Even though the clones could act single-mindedly when ordered to do so, they were still copies of him. As such, they could be trusted to act independently. This was the reason Greg didn’t try to micromanage the clone that he sent to town. His instructions to it had been simple. Get his family out of the house, and have them stay at his uncle’s house until he came back. Counterintuitive as it may have seemed, Greg judged this to have been the safest place that he could send them. Why? Well, because probably the last place that his uncle would have the dark crawler attack was his own house. At least that is what Greg had judged, and Olivia seemed to agree with him.

When his clone arrived at the gate of his house and nothing seemed to be off, the real Greg had stopped dividing his attention between the town and the forest and focused entirely on the fight with his uncle. Had Greg kept on monitoring the clone he sent to town even just half a minute more, he would have discovered the fact that, when his clone entered his house, his family wasn’t there! Instead, after moving from room to room. Greg's clone came across an unexpected visitor seated at their table in what was the equivalent of a dining room in this small house.

***

With a steaming bowl of porridge set before her, the healer seemed lost in her thoughts as she sat there. “Teacher,” The word, naturally full of surprise, had left his clone’s lips.

The healer, who thus far had seemed to be in a contemplative mood, turned to his clone with a smile. Rather than immediately answer his clone, the healer’s gaze turned to his bulging right pocket. Just in case things went south and he was left with no choice but to fight. Greg had given his clone one of the six tier-three contained alchemical bombs that he’d bought from the magic shop. It was this tier-three item that was currently bulging in his right pocket. Given that there was a real chance of this clone blowing itself up, Greg hadn’t thought it necessary to buy it a storage ring.

The healer’s gaze moved from the bulge to the pants themselves. To most others in the town, the pants would have appeared as no different from any other mundane clothing. There was little doubt in Greg however, that to a seventh-tier mage like the healer, the tier-one enchantments of the subtlety pants weren’t in any way hidden. This was the only clone for whom Greg bought the pants to aid him in moving through the forest as quickly as possible to get to his family. The only item that Greg bought for all ten of his clones was the shoes of haste. Which, unsurprisingly, was the next spot that the healer’s gaze stopped on. That his clone was still heavily breathing and covered in a slight sheen of sweat, clearly showed that he had made use of the shoes to get here.

When the healer’s gaze turned back to meet that of his clone, it had immediately become clear to his clone that he was busted. What a mundane human with no background in magic was doing with such magical items was an explanation he would have to give the healer if he hoped to go on as her student. The healer’s next words, however, showed his clone that he’d still been underestimating just how perceptive the healer was. “It’s been a very long time since I last saw someone use the hive scroll,” The healer said as she rose to her feet. “Please,” She said indicating the seat at the head of the table. It was only now that Greg noticed that, the healer herself hadn’t seated herself at the head of the table, despite her power and status as a seventh-tier mage. Instead, she had taken the seat that was closest to that seat. Despite its proximity to the head seat, it was still subordinate to the head seat in terms of the regard that the one seated there commanded.

“Forgive my impertinence,” His clone said with a bow at his teacher. “But I need to find my family,” He replied. “I cannot rest until I am certain that they are safe,” his clone added. Much as his clone had enough sense to remain respectful to his teacher, it was still a clone that had been given a task. Nothing and no one would stop it from accomplishing that task.

“Ah, I forgot how single-minded the hive can be once given an order,” She stated, seemingly unbothered by the clone’s objection. “They are both at the infirmary, sleeping,” She said. “Feel free to go check on them then you can join me,” She granted. “I believe we have much to talk about,” She added.

Had it been the real Greg there, he wouldn’t have doubted the healer. Even if one didn’t consider the fact that she had no reason to hurt them, even if she was a bad actor, the healer was powerful enough that she would have no reason to play elaborate games with him. She’d just kill him outright and be done with it. The clone, however, was ordered to ensure the safety of his family. Until that was done, he wouldn’t be doing anything else. Leaving the house, the clone ran to the edge of the town where the infirmary stood. It didn’t take long for the clone to find his mother and sister sleeping in adjacent rooms. It wasn’t his uncle’s place, but all the same, it was right at the edge of town. It was even further from his house than his uncle’s place would be. So, in a way, they would be even safer there.

When his clone came back to the house, the healer once again stood to welcome him. His clone once again bowed to show the respect his teacher was due before taking a seat. Greg was glad that his clone had the propriety to not take the head seat. Instead, he sat across the table from the healer. Although he would have been in the right to sit at the head of the table in his own house, it wouldn’t have felt right to act like he was senior to the healer, since she was both his teacher and a seventh-tier mage. Though she didn’t say anything about it, the small smile that graced the healer’s lips told Greg that she had picked up on the small gesture and appreciated it.

“Thank you,” His clone was the first one to speak up once they were both seated. Despite being a clone, this was a sentiment even the real Greg would have shared had he been here. The healer had no reason to go out of her way to protect his family or face the danger that a tier three creature like the dark crawler would pose.

“Think nothing of it,” The healer countered with a wave of her hand. “A part of me was afraid that I was the cause of this,” She said, a distant look in her eyes. “Seeing you arrive, prepared as you are, however, makes me think that perhaps there is another explanation to this whole issue,” She relayed. “So, would you like to tell me why there is a tier three monster hiding under your house?” She asked calmly, before taking a sip of the porridge.

Despite the calm manner in which the healer was comporting herself, his clone had known perfectly well that he was being watched very closely. Everything he said would be very closely analyzed for any lies and attempts at misdirection on his part. Whether the healer would trust him going forward, would depend on how truthful he was here. Just as the real Greg would have in this situation, his clone chose to tell the truth. “My uncle somehow became a tier zero mage,” Greg declared. From the way the healer’s gaze went from calm but alert, to concerned and a little uneasy, Greg could tell that even she took tier-zero mages seriously. “He’s the one that summoned them,” He relayed.

“Them?” The healer repeated, catching on to the last part.

His clone nodded once. “Four of them,” he relayed. The healer’s expression grew even more tense making it clear that Greg’s assessment had been right. In her current state, the healer wouldn’t be able to face four dark crawlers and come out on top.

“Is he hostile to you?” The healer questioned. Although it was his clone that was present, they both knew that she was referring to the real Greg.

“He’s the reason I had to spend almost two weeks with you,” his clone replied. “He killed my father as a ritual sacrifice. He then tried to do the same with me but something went wrong with the ritual,” He explained. “He’s trying to finish what he started. “His clone explained.

“Can you win?” The healer asked.

“Fifty, fifty,” His clone replied, unwilling to be overconfident in himself or to underestimate his enemy. A look of confusion had crossed the healer’s expression and it took Greg a second for him to remember that this wasn’t his old world. The expression he’d just used didn’t have an equivalent here. “I mean to say that it’s uncertain,” He relayed. “I have a plan, but this is a tier zero mage we are talking about,” he said. “There is no telling what powers he may have obtained,” he added.

“You’re right,” The healer agreed her tone grave. “Can you link up with the rest of them?” She asked.

“Yes,” His clone had answered with a nod.

“Good,” The healer had expressed. “Just monitor them and let me know if they need any help,” She relayed. And that is exactly what his clone did. With eyes closed so that he could look through those of his other clone brethren, he reported the events of the fight right up until his uncle was decapitated.

The moment his uncle was relieved of his head, the healer’s gaze turned downward. From the look of concentration on her face, Greg could tell that she wasn’t just looking at the table between them. “So it was a flesh summon,” She relayed with a note of surprise. “A mundane human flesh-summoning a tier-three monster, this is why tier-zero mages are such a threat,” She muttered more to herself than to anyone else.

Still, Greg's clone latched on to her words and asked. “Can’t normal mages do the same?”

“You’d have to be a third-tier mage to safely summon a tier-one creature,” She replied. “Summons usually rely on their summoner’s soul strength and mana for their continued existence on the plane that they are summoned to. Flesh summons, on the other hand, subsist on one’s mana first followed by the summoner’s vitality. There is an iron rule for flesh summons to ensure the summoner’s safety. That is, the flesh-summoned creature must always be two tiers below the summoner. That way, the summon won’t drain the summoner’s mana too quickly and can be maintained almost indefinitely!” She relayed. If a first-tier summoner tried to summon a tier-three creature, they would be dead long before the summoning spell was fully verbalized,” She informed him

 “A tier-zero mage, however, can break this rule as they are not using their own mana, but that of a higher being. Even if they were to summon a tier nine creature, it wouldn’t do them any harm as they are not the one’s bearing the burden but the entity to which they are connected,” The healer explained. “And most entities that can produce a tier-zero mage wouldn’t even notice it if a tier-nine creature started drawing on their mana,” She relayed. “In such a case, there would be nothing to do but wait for the mage themselves to die as a result of being exposed to the more powerful mana of the higher entities,” She relayed.

“Luckily for us, the fact that the dark crawler was a flesh summon meant that the moment your uncle died, it was ejected from this realm,” She stated. “This is a good sign, it shows that there is no chance of your uncle somehow making a comeback with some last-minute trick,” She added. There was a genuine sigh of relief from the healer after she’d said these words. Greg’s clone could tell that the woman had been on edge even though she was a seventh-tier mage. 

“It would seem that tier-zero mages are universally feared,” His clone had commented, not really expecting a response from the healer.

Her eyes, which had been closed owing to her sigh, opened to reveal a serious look in them. “I’ve seen a third-tier mage who became a tier-zero, slap around an eighth-tier mage like he was a child!” She declared in a grave tone. “For you, the fight you’ve just had was not easy, and I don’t, in any way, mean to belittle what you’ve just done,” She said. “But believe me when I say that, compared to other fights against tier zero mages, this was among the tamer fights,” She relayed. “Whole cities have been destroyed, the landscapes of whole regions have forever been changed just trying to get rid of a single tier zero mage,” She said. “A hostile tier-zero mage is such a threat that whenever one emerges, regardless of former relationships, whether of love or hate, whether they were lifelong friends or mortal enemies, all mages will unite to fight the tier-zero mage to the death,” She relayed. “That you’ve managed to get rid of a tier-zero mage by yourself is a commendable feat, Roka,” she informed him in a tone of sincerity. She then rose to her feet. “I thank you for your hospitality,” The healer said as was proper courtesy when someone hosted you in the town, before turning around to leave.

All this while, Greg’s clone had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. As a mundane human in the middle of nowhere, there was no way he should have had access to such magical items as the ones he’d shown up at the house with. He had been waiting for the healer to start questioning him as to how he’d managed to get a hold of all the items that he had. And yet, for some reason, the healer had chosen to say nothing thus far. In the end, it was his clone that felt compelled to speak. “Aren’t you going to ask me about the magical items?” He asked.

Pausing at the door, the healer spoke. “Your family is no longer in any danger, you should come bring them home,” She instructed. Given that the safety of his mother and sister was his first prerogative, Greg’s clone didn’t argue. If the healer wasn’t going to ask any questions he wouldn’t force her to. It wasn’t like he had a coherent response to give her as to why he had items that he, by all logic, shouldn’t have. It took close to half an hour to get both his sister and his mother back to their rooms. This was mostly because The healer had cast a spell on the two that would make them drowsy and unable to remember what had happened before they fell asleep. She had done this so that they wouldn’t raise objections when she sent them to go sleep in the infirmary. Even though she didn’t have to, the healer helped him in this task of getting them back to their own house and beds. Once that was done, the healer left three final words. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” She had said calmly before walking off.

That’s when his clone reached out to him and communicated all that had happened…

***

Greg walked into the infirmary and moved in the direction of the room he had learned in the previous day. This time, Greg still had on his magical items. The only items he didn’t put on were the title items. He saw no need to test fate. Greg walked into the room to find the healer seated behind her desk as she had been the previous day. Unlike the day before, however, there was a chair set across the table from her. Looking at the workstation closest to the door, Greg noticed that Shalia wasn’t present. Either she had been given the day off, or the healer had sent her on some errand that kept her away from the infirmary.

Coming to a stop before the healer’s station, Greg first offered a polite bow to her as he greeted her. “Good morning teacher.”

“A good morning to you too,” She replied. “I’m glad to see you in one piece,” She added as she held out a hand indicating for him to sit.

“Believe me when I say that it wasn’t easy,” Greg stated calmly. Inwardly, Greg couldn’t help a bit of relief as he noted the fact that the healer didn’t seem angry. Part of him had been dreading that she would feel like Greg had been taking her for a fool by pretending to know nothing of magic. If she felt tricked, Greg wouldn’t have known how to defend himself. Luckily for him, the healer didn’t appear to be in a foul mood.

“After all that your clone told me, I don’t doubt it,” She said. “a hive scroll, five alchemical bombs, a whole host of explosive arrows, and still your uncle wouldn’t die,” She repeated what Greg’s clone had reported to her the previous day.

Greg went silent for a while as it clicked in his brain what was happening. The healer wasn’t repeating all this just to let him know that she knew. Instead, she was listing out all the items that Greg had employed in killing his uncle. Items that he had no way of explaining how he got. Rather than leveling any accusations, she was giving him a chance to come out and explain himself.

A sigh left Greg before he spoke. “Olivia, come out,” he spoke.

A ball of light emerged from Greg’s glabella before taking shape beside him in the form of the scantily clad Olivia. “Yes, master,” Came her melodious tone of voice.

Greg, who’d been about to talk, went silent when he noticed the way the healer’s pupils shrunk to pinpoints and a look of absolute fear crossed her expression when she caught sight of Olivia. Several thoughts quickly ran through Greg’s mind when he picked up on this. Even if she had her own issues with magic, as a seventh-tier mage, a second-tier mage like Olivia shouldn’t have evoked such fear from the healer. The only way she would be this afraid of Olivia is if she knew that this wasn’t the real her, but just her weaker avatar that she’d left behind. Looking back on the memory that the being he’d conversed with the day before had shown him, Greg believed he knew why the healer seemed to know about Olivia’s real identity. Even in the memory, the original Olivia didn’t make any effort to converge or hide her aura. Given that the healer was quite literally in the same building, there was no way she could have missed it. From the memory, Greg knew that the two never really came face to face. The healer, however, seemed to have marked Olivia’s aura and had immediately recognized it. Naturally, Greg only allowed himself to have these thoughts within the secret partition in his mind.

To the healer’s credit, despite the shock and fear that she must have been feeling, she caught herself quickly and made her reaction last only for a few seconds. If Greg didn’t already know about Olivia’s true identity, he may have mistakenly thought that she was briefly shocked by the appearance of a stranger from Greg’s glabella. “Master?” The healer even managed to keep her voice level as she repeated this word, an inquisitive look on her face as she looked between Greg and Olivia.

The reason Greg brought out Olivia, wasn’t because she was trying to intimidate the healer in any way. Rather, it was because he was left with no choice. No one stupid would make it to the levels of power that the healer had. Greg knew that if he offered some half-baked excuse for why he’d had all the items that he did, he would lose the healer’s trust, and any chance to learn from her along with it. So, instead, he chose to approach this dilemma from a different angle. Rather than reveal the system, he’d reveal Olivia’s presence and blame everything on her. Although it may sound a bit too convenient, claiming that his familiar gave him the items held enough plausibility that the healer wouldn’t be able to call him a liar. Besides, it was a lot more believable than saying that he had a store inside of himself where he could buy everything he needed just by spending mana in the form of magic points. Furthermore, if one really thought about it, it wasn’t a lie to claim that Olivia was responsible for everything seeing as she was the creator of the system.

“A few nights before I was discharged from the infirmary, for reasons I am yet to puzzle out, I woke up to find that I had gained a familiar,” He straightforwardly revealed. Just a day prior, this would have been a false statement. A day before, Greg would have believed that Olivia was here because he bought her from the magic shop. After learning about the familiar’s true origins, however, the statement morphed into a true one. Greg truly had no idea why the primordial had chosen to act as a familiar that one can buy in the magic shop. Greg’s guess, so far, was that when one became powerful enough to access the highest tiers of the shop then they probably would have become powerful enough to be useful to her. By buying the familiar, they would be unwittingly alerting the primordial to this fact.

“I named her Olivia,” Greg continued to explain. “She’s the one that introduced me to a whole new world that I was so far ignorant of,” he stated. “The world of mages and magic,” he relayed. “She’s also the one that alerted me to the danger that my uncle posed and granted me the tools I needed to eliminate this threat once and for all,” He declared, choosing to keep his explanation brief. 

Greg knew that the easiest way to get caught in a lie was by giving overly-detailed explanations. Although Greg hadn’t told any outright lies thus far, he knew that each of his statements was only true based on how one interpreted them. From the time his mother came to visit him in the infirmary, Greg had already been wary of his uncle and the danger he posed. This, however, didn’t change the fact that Olivia had alerted him to the threat posed by his uncle when she had revealed the fact that he was a tier-zero mage and what that entailed. Again, Greg had bought the magical items from the system by spending the magic points he already had. By creating the system in the first place, however, the familiar was responsible for giving him the main tool he employed in defeating his uncle.

Greg didn’t like having to play such word games. Whatever her motivations, however, Greg knew that Olivia had been right when she said that he couldn’t afford to reveal the system and its abilities to anyone. Familiars, while rare, were not entirely unheard of in this world. This was as close as he could come to revealing that dangerous truth without compromising himself.

The healer was quiet for a while as she contemplated his words. “I doubt that someone that can help you deal with a tier zero mage, can’t help you recover from your disfigurement,” The healer, in one statement, cut right to the heart of the lie that Greg had told.

Greg didn’t try to hide his shame at this. This was one part where he planned to tell the truth and hopefully, start to build trust with the healer. “When my familiar told me about the world of magic, I immediately wanted to learn all I could about it,” He revealed. “I was willing to take her on as my teacher in magic right there and then,” He stated. “She, however, told me that I would be losing out by taking her as my teacher. After all, she’s only equal to a second-tier mage in terms of power, whereas, there was a seventh-tier mage close by,” Greg stated. “With the new understanding I had of the world of magic, I can’t tell you how shocked I was to learn that you are a seventh-tier mage,” He relayed.

“However, once the shock subsided, it slowly dawned on me that something was wrong. Firstly, there was no reason a seventh-tier mage would be in this godforsaken little town. Secondly, while you hide it very well, after almost two weeks of being healed three times a day by you, I did pick up on the fact that using your magic becomes a struggle for you after a while,” he said. “I’m still not sure what’s going on with you, however, I suspected that if I came right out and asked to be your student of magic, you would turn me down,” he confessed. “I chose to learn potion making from you with the excuse of seeking a cure for my disfigurement. My plan, however, was to show you how diligent I am in the pursuit of magic. I hoped to slowly win your trust as time went on. That way, you’d at least give me a chance to learn from you,” He confessed.

There was a long silence between the two as the healer quietly assessed his words. At last, she spoke. “The answer is no,” Came the succinct reply from the healer…