Chương 20: 19. Larval Form

Marcus gathered all of the students and led them to a meeting spot on the edge of a nearby forest. It was an unremarkable place, with no buildings or markers to distinguish it from any other nearby patch of land, pretty much chosen at random by him and Celer. It didn't feel appropriate for something like this, but his little tower was kind of cramped and he didn't have anywhere else to hold the gathering.

It made him want to build a meeting hall of some sort for these kinds of occasions, but he had so many other things on his plate right now that it would have to wait. Setting up his own academy was way more troublesome than he had initially assumed. Even for just ten students (and one priest), there were so many things to keep track of…

"Are we all assembled now?" Marcus asked, looking over the gathered students. It was a rhetorical question, since he could clearly see all ten of the students standing in a line in front of him. Cassia gave him a look like he was stupid for asking. He ignored her.

"Good. I have brought you here because this is a special occasion. We have a gift for you."

"A gift?" Cricket said, immediately perking up.

"We?" Renatus asked.

"Yes," Marcus nodded.

"Celer, you can come out now," he called out loudly. Celer fluttered towards the gathering spot, having hidden herself deeper in the forest. She carried a large, heavy-looking wooden box, lifting it up with the ropes attached to it. Despite the seemingly impossible load, his butterfly familiar had no issues flying about while carrying the box. It was amazing how well she could manipulate objects with her stick-like legs.

His students immediately turned towards where Marcus was looking, and were taken aback by the giant white butterfly flying towards them. None of them appeared scared or worried, which made Marcus smile slightly in amusement. Celer was probably the most dangerous magical creature any of them had laid their eyes on, except maybe Cricket and Iris. It was funny how Regulus was terrified of simple dire wolves but didn't react at all to a spirit from the Outer Planes.

As she approached the group, Celer wobbled slightly, the box she was carrying swaying from side to side. She then unceremoniously dumped the wooden box in front of them, letting it fall to the ground from a considerable height. Marcus winced slightly at the rough treatment, and apparently the contents of the box weren't too thrilled either, because a veritable chorus of muffled whines sounded from their interior of the container. Celer didn't appear to care.

She landed daintily on top of the box and greeted his students.

"Hi!" she said, her voice upbeat and loud.

"I don't believe we met before, but maybe Marcus mentioned me. I am Celer, his spiritual advisor and patron from the outer planes. Everything he has achieved so far has only been possible due to my help."

"Celer is my contract spirit," Marcus clarified.

"She is a fairy butterfly from Dreamwood, one of the Outer Heavens."

"You have connections with the Outer Planes?" Iris asked, surprised.

"Well, one connection," Marcus told her.

"You're looking at her right now."

"That's right," Celer said, beating her wings and preening at the attention.

"By the way, I have the final say if you can remain here as his students. If I tell Marcus one of you has to go, you'll be sent packing this very day!" The children gave him questioning, uncertain looks. Marcus crossed his arms over his chest, not saying anything. In truth, if Celer did tell him to cut ties with one of them, he would give it a serious thought. She could be very annoying sometimes, but she wouldn't issue such a demand for no reason.

"Anyway, let me take a quick look at you all," she said, lifting up into the air and starting to fly in lazy circles around the gathered students, moving so close her wings almost brushed against their faces. They followed her movements with alert eyes, most of them appearing at least a little disturbed by her antics. After a while, she landed back on her box.

"Well, you all seem nice enough," she said. They all visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm sure you all have plenty of questions, so ask away." Marcus thought they would all be hesitant to speak after she tried to intimidate them like that, but Cricket immediately spoke up.

"Um, when I first met Master Marcus, he sent a white butterfly to guard me," Cricket said.

"Was that…" Celer laughed melodiously.

"No, that wasn't me. That was just one of my lesser kin. They are weak and stupid, but very easy to summon, unlike my glorious self. It is true he can only summon them because of his contract with me, though!"

"I really like butterflies." Cricket admitted.

"What does it take to make a contract like that?" Oddly, even a rank one mage could make a spiritual contract and start summoning the weakest spirits, since they were very cheap in terms of mana. The main issue was that a rank one mage would never be able to summon a spirit authorized to sign the contract, and would never win the acknowledgement of said spirit even if they managed to call them down on the material plane.

However, with the cooperation of an older and more powerful mage acting as a medium and a guarantor, it was possible for them to sign a contract with Celer right here and now, and start summoning weak butterfly fairies as soon as they mastered the basics of the Soul Tree Technique. Marcus was not going to facilitate any such thing, however. Butterflies were not as violent or malicious as some of the other fairy tribes, but they could absolutely cause a mountain of issues for him if they were left to run amok.

He didn't trust any of his students to keep them in check at this point in time. In any case, Celer immediately perked up at the question.

"Why, that's a very interesting question!" she told Cricket.

"And it has a very interesting answer! What's your name, little one?"

"Um, Livia," Cricket said.

"But everyone calls me Cricket."

"Well Cricket, before I answer your question, we should finish distributing gifts to you. That's what we're here for, after all," Celer stated.

"I guess the gifts are in the box?" Volesus said, eying the object suspiciously. No doubt he'd heard the sounds coming from it earlier, same as everyone else. Instead of answering him, Celer lifted off from the box again, but instead of circling the students again she grasped the lid of the wooden box and unlatched it, flinging it open. The students immediately leaned forward to see what was inside… and the contents also immediately poked their heads out of the box to see what was outside.

A swarm of large, bright green caterpillars, about twenty centimeters long, started pushing each other and looking around them, making undecipherable cooing and whining noises. Nobody screamed at the sight, not even Claudia. That was a good sign.

"Ta-daa!" Celer said triumphantly.

"Just look at this box of cuties! Everyone, hurry up and pick one of them to be your very own fairy caterpillar. It's first come, first serve!" The caterpillars looked interesting. He was surprised how colorful and… expressive they all looked. Marcus had met Celer when she was already a fully-grown butterfly fairy, and had never seen the caterpillars of the species until now.

They had surprisingly human-like eyes, with iris-like black spots that moved and focused on things they were looking at, much like Celer herself. They were all very green, but they also all had different patterns of blue, red, and black painted on their bodies. Finally, some of them had small horns and other minor physical deviations from one another. Were these really all Celer's children? Did she have ten different fathers for them or something? Unsurprisingly, there were ten caterpillars in the box.

"Are these supposed to be our familiar beasts?" Regulus asked.

"Yes," Marcus confirmed.

"That's exactly what they're for."

"They are also my babies, so please keep in mind what I said about me having the power to get you all expelled," Celer noted. Ah, so that was what that statement was about…

"Well no offense Miss Butterfly, but this kind of sucks," Volesus complained.

"We finally get a familiar and it's a caterpillar? What are those things going to do for us anyway?"

"Volesus! Don't be ungrateful!" Julia chastised him. She didn't look too enthused about getting a caterpillar either, however.

"It's true and you know it!" he shot back.

"I bet everyone is thinking it. Why couldn't we get something more impressive?"

"Familiar bonds aren't instant or all-powerful," Marcus told him.

"If I give you something dangerous, you would have to be powerful enough to manage it." Getting a familiar simply meant forging a mystical link to another creature. It facilitated understanding between the familiar and the adept, and made certain magic easier, but the familiar wasn't a slave and wasn't compelled to obey every order it was given. Nor did it erase a creature's innate personality and instincts.

It was precisely for this reason that most mages did not get a familiar until they were at least rank two, if they got one at all. The exceptions to this were mostly warrior adepts who practiced foundational techniques derived from specific animals. For instance, during his wanderings, Marcus had once visited a warrior school that practiced a technique called 'Cat of Nine Lives'.

As part of it, they all formed familiar bonds with a common housecat at the very start of their training, in order to become closer to their chosen spirit animal. Obviously, Marcus could easily get all his students a bunch of cats and dogs as familiars and that would work out fine… but what would be the point of that? A regular animal like that would be of dubious usefulness, even more than Celer's caterpillars. They were practicing a tree-related foundational technique.

"I heard back in Adria that Regulus's family trains magical dogs as familiar beasts for their members," Volesus said.

"Maybe we could-""That's never going to happen," Regulus cut him off.

"Those cost a fortune to raise and train. I don't think I could convince my uncle to give one to me. Giving away ten of them? You don't know what you're saying." Indeed. The spell hounds raised by the Uticensis family were highly prized, but also mostly kept within the family itself. It was possible for outsiders to get ahold of one, but that was as much of a political decision as it was a matter of money, and it basically signaled to everyone that the Uticensis family considered you a friend and an ally.

Marcus may have taken in Regulus as a student, but he didn't think they were that fond of him. If he raised Regulus into a powerful mage worthy of his potential, then that would change. Until then, though, Regulus was right. It was pure fantasy to expect they would give him such a valuable prize.

"I am not going to force any of you to take this deal," Marcus told them, giving a lingering look to Claudia and Volesus specifically. Claudia looked a little pale, and kept staring at the caterpillars in utter silence, not even noticing that Marcus was looking at her. Considering how much she didn't like bugs, he wasn't particularly surprised at her reaction. As for Volesus, his whining was kind of grating, but Marcus also understood.

In truth, he would have probably felt the same back when he was his age, if he had been placed in his shoes.

"However, there is no point in continuing to complain about this," Marcus continued.

"Pick a caterpillar or do not. You aren't getting any alternatives for a long, long time."

"If we pick up one of your caterpillars, do we get a contract with the butterfly spirits along with it?" Cricket asked Celer excitedly.

"Is that what you were hinting at, earlier?" Celer had up until now been ignoring the argument. Instead, she had been watching over the caterpillars, making sure they didn't escape the box they were in. The caterpillars didn't care, or were perhaps too young to understand, what everyone had been saying, and were instead busy trying to climb over the edge of the box, eager to explore their new surroundings.

However, every time they were about to make it, Celer simply pulled them back into the box, sparking occasional whines of protest that she ignored. Now that someone was finally talking to her again, though, she immediately perked up and focused on Cricket. One of the caterpillars took advantage of her distraction to immediately start climbing over the edge of the box again.

"Not quite, but close! Cricket, was it?" Celer asked. The girl nodded.

"Why are you called Cricket, anyway? You don't look very cricket-like to me."

"It's just a nickname," Cricket laughed.

"They don't have to make sense."

"But usually there is a reason, stupid or not, no?" Celer said.

"Is it something embarrassing?" Cricket seemed taken off-guard that the spirit was genuinely interested in such a topic. However, after a moment of consideration, she decided to answer the butterfly's question anyway.

"When I was little, a wandering poet stopped by at our village and sang a bunch of songs to us," Cricket said.

"One of them was about a cricket standing on the top of a black spruce tree, singing an ode to the sun, wishing for the summer to never end. I really liked the song and told everyone I want to be like that cricket. I even tried to sing it a few times, though I wasn't very good at it. I guess people found it funny, because they started to call me Cricket after that, and the name stuck. So now I'm Cricket instead of Livia."

"Ah. Sun Drinker… I should have known," Celer said. Cricket gave her a confused look. Marcus didn't blame her. He had no idea what she was talking about, either. The caterpillar that had taken advantage of Celer's distraction to climb over the edge finally managed to make it over the edge of the box. With a high-pitched 'whee!' it tumbled over the edge and dropped down on the ground.

Its shout of excitement immediately attracted Celer's attention, but before the butterfly fairy could pick it up and put it back into the box, Cricket stepped forward and reached out towards it, picking it up from the ground. She held the caterpillar in front of her, giving it a good look. The caterpillar also studied Cricket at the same time, curious about this large creature that was holding her. Marcus expected the caterpillar to be terrified, but it didn't even struggle much in Cricket's arms.

"I'm picking this one," Cricket announced after giving it a good look.

"Great choice!" Celer praised.

"I didn't want to bias you, but that's the one I'd pick if I was in your place too! Anyway, as I was saying earlier, you were close. You only need to raise the caterpillar you're holding until he spins up a chrysalis and metamorphoses into a fully-grown fairy butterfly, and you will get your butterfly contract, no question!" Cricket smiled, hugging the caterpillar and holding it close to her chest. It wriggled and whined in protest, not terribly fond of the gesture.

"Alright, who's next?" Celer asked, turning to the rest of the children, who were watching the exchange in silence until now.

"Better act quick or you'll get the runt of the litter!" Celer should be glad that her caterpillars were too young to understand her, Marcus thought. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Almost immediately after she finished saying it, Cassia stepped forward and crouched down next to the box, observing the babbling caterpillars for a second.

"Which one of you is the strongest?" Cassia asked loudly. By now, Marcus was pretty sure the caterpillars didn't understand a word any of them were saying, so naturally they didn't respond to Cassia's question. Well, not with words anyway. The sound of her voice did attract their attention and they all stopped tumbling about and pushing each other for a moment to observe her. A moment later, one of the caterpillars pushed his fellows aside to come closer to the edge of the box.

It rudely stepped onto the head of another caterpillar, ignoring its squeal of protest, using it as a footstool to raise itself higher, all so it could check out the strange creature looking down on them more thoroughly. Cassia seemed to approve. She picked up the caterpillar, which weakly wriggled and struggled in her hands but did not bite, and gave it a casual look, turning it over in her hands.

"This one," she said, nodding.

"Great choice!" Celer approved.

"Just between you and me, but that's definitely the best one!" This seemed to break the ice in regards to the rest of the students, because they all started to step forward and claim a caterpillar for themselves afterwards. First Regulus, then Julia, then the others started to come forward. Celer took the time to inform each and every one of them that they had made a 'great choice'.

Marcus thought that Volesus might refuse a caterpillar, considering his loud objections, but in the end he wordlessly picked one of the two remaining caterpillars, not putting much thought into the action.

"Great choice!" Celer approved.

"That one was always the first to complain. It matches your personality perfectly!" And then there was only one caterpillar left, and only one student. Claudia watched the box with a worried expression, hands clasped together in front of her chest. She looked extremely nervous, like she was about to get invited to the stage to give a grand speech, or get executed. Marcus sighed.

"Claudia… you know you can always say no, yes?" Marcus told her.

"I said I won't force the caterpillars on any of you, if you don't want them." He did think it would be good for them if they accepted the caterpillars, but he also thought there was no point in giving a giant bug to a girl that was terrified of bugs.

"I… I like butterflies… but I don't know…" she said. The last remaining caterpillar in the box seemed distressed. Now that it was all alone in a silent box, all curiosity about its new environment seemed to have left it. It crawled in every direction it could, not even trying to escape the box, constantly releasing pitiful whines and calling for its fellows. The other caterpillars were nearby, but too preoccupied with the creatures holding them to return its cries.

"What… what's going to happen to it if I don't take it?" Claudia asked Celer.

"Oh, don't worry," Celer assured her.

"I'll just dump her back in Dreamwood to fend for herself. Don't be fooled by their appearance – they are pretty resilient. She'll stop crying after a few days and learn how to survive on her own. Or get eaten by something, I guess. That happens sometimes."

"That's too cruel," Claudia protested quietly. Celer said nothing. Claudia bit her lip nervously and, after a few moments of fidgeting, hesitantly reached into the box and picked up the last remaining caterpillar. It immediately stopped whining and gave the girl a curious look.

"I'll… I'll take it!" Claudia announced.

"Great choice!" Celer approved.

"Don't tell anyone, but I saved the best for last!"

"We're all right here," Volesus told her, unamused.

"So transparent. You say that for every single caterpillar!"

"I'm their mother. Of course I think they're all great," Celer said.

"Anyway, now that you all have a caterpillar of your own, I have a secret to tell you all. And this is a real secret, so don't go around telling anyone without my or Marcus's permission, okay?" They all quieted down. Celer urged them to come closer, as if that would actually foil any spying attempts that evaded their notice.

"If you can reach spirit manifestation rank when the caterpillars transform into butterflies, you will reap incredible and mysterious benefits, and your butterfly companion will become extra powerful," Celer told them in a conspiratorial tone.

"You will be one of the strongest mages in your rank for sure!" None of them said anything for a second. They waited for Celer to say something more, but it didn't appear to be coming.

"Um, but isn't reaching spirit manifestation rather difficult?" Diocles asked.

"What kind of benefits are we talking about, anyway?" Agron added suspiciously.

"Are you saying we need to synchronize our advancement to the spirit manifestation rank with the growth of your caterpillar?" Julia also added.

"Asking us to reach rank five is already a stretch, but now we have to time it just right as well?"

"Oh, don't worry about that last part," Celer told Julia.

"The caterpillars will adjust their life cycle to your rate of growth. If they sense you're working your way up to spirit manifestation, they will pause their maturation to match you. You just worry about reaching the fifth rank of power as soon as possible – the little ones will match whatever pace you set for them."

"Even if you don't achieve spirit manifestation, you still eventually get a powerful spirit companion, so it's hardly wasted effort," Marcus told them. He turned towards Celer.

"Why don't you tell them a little about how to care for the caterpillars?"

"There is not much to say," Celer protested.

"They're curious little devourers that live to eat and sleep. Just give them something to occupy their attention and plenty of things to eat, and you're golden. They're not hard to please. They will feed on pretty much any magical plant you give them, even poisonous ones." Celer didn't seem to know or care, but magical plants were an expensive diet. No wonder people were rarely interested in taking them as familiars. Marcus had wondered about that, when he had first heard Celer's explanation.

Considering the large numbers of them and their eagerness to bond with a summoner, they should be more widely used… but with expensive tastes like that, no wonder few people bothered. Marcus was pretty sure he would have to help his students feed the caterpillars, otherwise they would be sure to starve due to lack of food…

"They're pretty useless in battle," Celer continued.

"They can entangle enemies in silk when they get older, but that's about it. You will have to keep them safe instead of the other way around. That said, they're spirits from the Outer Planes. They don't really die when they get killed here, so it's not a big deal if you get them killed from time to time. You can just summon them back after a day or so."

"No!" Julia suddenly shouted, holding her caterpillar away from her. It didn't take long for Marcus to realize that her caterpillar had tried to nibble on the whalebone medallion that Marcus had given to all his students. It was currently loudly screaming and waving its stubby little legs in protest of having its newest snack taken away.

"Oh!

"Celer suddenly said.

"That reminds me. You might want to keep something hard and magical for them to chew upon when they're bored. I wasn't kidding when I said they live to eat. They're constantly hungry."

After distributing some more advice about caterpillar care – not that Celer knew all that much about that, what with her kind's neglectful parenting style – Marcus moved onto helping his students establish a familiar contract with the ravenous little fey spirits they had just acquired. He drew a magic circle on the ground and had each of them enter and sit down in the center while Marcus went through the familiar binding ritual with them. All they had to do was voice their agreement when Marcus prompted them.

The caterpillars had to be willing too, but that turned out to be a non-issue. They were all incredibly eager to accept the familiar bond when they sensed a person was trying to bond with them. There was probably some instinctual knowledge in them telling them this was a good thing. After that, Celer returned back to her home plane. Her job was done. Once she was gone, Marcus planted a soul seed in each of the ten caterpillars.

He thought their nature as spirits might prevent the soul seeds from taking root, but there was no resistance to the implantation process from the caterpillars. He had no idea if he would get anything out of putting soul seeds in the caterpillars, but he was curious what the results would be. Surely a bunch of fey spirits would offer some truly unique insights? In any case, while creating soul seeds was surprisingly easy, Marcus had been going a little overboard with their creation recently.

He had placed one in Iris after Shamshir left – her powerful blazing soul didn't offer any notable resistance to the process – so now all of his students had one. He had placed a number of them in random wild animals while testing the spells, and he'd used quite a few of them to make the whalebone medallions his students wore. And now the caterpillars too… at this point, the soul expenditure was starting to noticeably weaken him and destabilize his magic, so he would have to take it easy for a while.

Thankfully, the world obliged him on that account, and the next four months passed in quiet routine. The children trained the Soul Tree Technique every day. Helvran also taught them how to read and count, as well as other basic things like history and geography. Regulus didn't need to hear any of this stuff – he was a very well read and educated individual, having been taught by a private tutor since early childhood.

Iris, despite also clearly having been tutored, knew absolutely nothing about Tasloa's history or geography, so these lessons actually had some use for her. However, she knew how to read and write the local language flawlessly, which was strange and reminded Marcus of some of the other oddities surrounding her and Shamshir. Like how her uncle had a bunch of wood magic books that Marcus could perfectly understand, despite being from another planet…

He confronted Iris about it, and her response was completely unexpected.

"You don't know?" she asked him, surprised.

"The Sphere Builders colonized this entire region of space. All of the human societies in the sector descend from them, and many of the elven ones too. Some tribes diverged more from our common roots, some less, but you should expect to understand humans from nearby planets at least a bit. Especially since the gods of different planets talk to each other all the time and exert influence to keep the languages similar."

"I didn't know that," Marcus admitted.

"But still. Our languages are not just similar, they're practically identical. I've been all over this planet, and not everyone speaks the same. Yes, I could sort of understand any human I encountered, but each region has its own distinct dialect and it took time to get used to them. Isn't it strange that I can understand you more easily than someone on the other side of the planet?" Iris frowned, but had no satisfying explanation for him.

"There might be more going on with this planet than I realized," Iris admitted.

"Uncle said he came here because it was an irrelevant backwater, but now that I think about it, he was probably lying about his reasons." In any case, since Regulus didn't benefit at all from Helvran's lessons, and since Iris only needed the ones about history and geography, Marcus took it upon himself to keep them busy with something else while the others were attending classes. For Iris, that was running laps around the tower and physical exercises, as she was in terrible shape.

For Regulus, it was taking him on long treks through the forest, showing him basic survival tips and giving him some exposure to wild animals, environmental hazards, and other things to watch out for. Of course, the rest of his students weren't excused from such things either. He just focused on them a little less.

They still had to perform daily exercises, and Marcus made sure to take them into the forest often, showing them how to find common magical plants and exposing them to weak magical creatures like oozes, spark lizards, dread spiders, and dire wolves. Marcus did not yet trust them to wander the forest around the tower alone, but he had high hopes that by the time next spring came around, he would be able to send them into the wilds to gather plants or search for other magical materials.

After a few weeks, he finished a training ground next to the tower where his students could practice their archery, and in the future their ranged spells as well. It contained a bunch of magically-reinforced, self-repairing dummies which Marcus brought from Adria. He also bought a bunch of crossbows and distributed them to his students so they had something to practice with.

Agron was especially fond of the training ground, although he preferred using his bow instead of the crossbow Marcus had given him, and could be found there often throughout the day when he wasn't training, attending classes, or doing his assigned chores. However, Marcus was surprised to realize that he wasn't the only one making heavy use of the training dummies. Julia was there every day too for some reason, practicing with a crossbow he had given her every day without fail. Strange.

He would not have expected that of her. Still, if Julia thought that her unexpected enthusiasm for crossbows would save her from staff fighting practice, she was wrong. He still insisted on making everyone practice that regularly. Agron was dominating in that too. In fact, the mountain boy was clearly experienced in fighting with a staff already, and was so skilled that there was no point in pitting him against any of the other students.

Instead, while the others were practicing basic swings and movements, Agron was sparring with Marcus himself, as that was the only thing actually useful for him. Marcus was a little embarrassed to admit so, but Agron was nearly as good at staff fighting as Marcus himself. Only his greater physical strength allowed him to dominate these practice fights. In Marcus's defense, it had been a very long time since he actually put these skills into practice. The training ground was not the only new area.

Marcus also had new dwellings for the students built so they could stop fighting over the three rooms in the tower. The new houses were small and situated very close to the tower; even so, expanding the tower's wards to cover them all proved to be a challenge. Marcus ended up spending a substantial amount of his accumulated wealth on ward boundary stones and other necessary materials, and the project really strained the local ley lines.

He would probably never be able to strengthen or expand the tower's warding scheme further by relying on local mana flows. No wonder that the founder of Amethyst Academy chose to expand underground instead of building around the tower… Still, his students appreciated his efforts, and eagerly claimed the new houses for themselves. After several months of fighting for space with the other boys, not even Volesus complained about his new accommodations, which was nice.

As for the old rooms in the tower, Marcus repurposed them into a library. After all, what kind of magical academy didn't have a library full of books? He enlisted the help of both Titus from the Great Tree Academy, and his friend and supporter Publius from Great Sea Academy, in order to acquire a great many books, and he enlisted Renatus to help him carry them all the way from Adria and Great Tree Academy and back to his tower.

It was unfortunate that he couldn't make use of Renatus and his ability more often to help him transport things, but alas – it would arouse suspicion if he took him everywhere for some reason. It was actually quite remarkable that Renatus could control himself as well as he did and keep his ability secret. As far as Marcus could tell, none of his fellow students suspected him to have a magic ability of any sort. So now the tower had a library that his students could access in their free time.

It even had a number of common spell books, though these were currently useless to them. Regulus was the one who appreciated the place the most, and spent considerable time here each day. Amusingly, Cricket was a frequent visitor too, though she seemed to be more interested in flipping through the pages and looking at the pictures than actually reading. Marcus made a mental note to commission some paintings in the near future and hang them around the tower. Oh, right.

He took care of a number of small luxuries that his students had been whining about for a while. He built a series of outhouses close to the tower, stocked up on plates and kitchen utensils, bought actual beds for them to sleep on, and so on. Marcus didn't really understand the complaints – he was sleeping on the floor of his office, and eating all his food with his hands, so it wasn't like he was making them do anything he himself wasn't doing.

He did intend to tackle these issues eventually, but apparently he was being too slow and weird and his students placed a much higher priority on things like not defecating in a bush or being able to bathe somewhere private where no one could walk in and see you naked. How would they camp in the wilderness for large stretches of time and travel the world on foot if they were so sensitive? Well, whatever.

Most of that had been fixed now, so hopefully they could stop pestering him about the little things and focus on their studies. He also accepted the deal with Dain and the other local adepts who had offered to supply them with basic necessities. Like they had said, they had a really good reputation with the nearby villages, and had the ability to procure or gather just about any simple commodity or material. Soon, the tower had a steady supply of meat, cheese, and most importantly – magical herbs.

The caterpillars were voracious, and their appetites were hard to satisfy. Overall, Marcus thought the children handled their new responsibilities in regards to the caterpillars fairly well. There was a lot of complaints about furniture and other personal belongings being chewed upon, and Renatus managed to crush his caterpillar to death when he somehow managed to tip over one of the library shelves when he was 'looking for secret entrances', forcing Marcus to re-summon it again for him.

Additionally, despite Celer's claims that they fed on magical herbs, the caterpillars seemed entirely willing to try any food they encountered, plant or not, magical or not. Everyone quickly learned not to leave their meals within their reach. Because of the strain of having to feed so many herbs to the caterpillars, Marcus decided to put the small field next to the tower back into operation.

It had been completely overgrown with weeds when they had first come here, and although he'd had his students cut down all the grass and uproot the most rampant of the bushes, it was still just a managed grassland. Now, Marcus wanted to plant magical herbs there and make it actually useful. While it was doubtful it could supply the tower with all the magical plants they would need, it could at least relieve some of the pressure.

The orphans were horrified, as they thought they had escaped fieldwork when they left the orphanage, but Marcus was not deterred, and the field was eventually prepared and planted. It would take some time for the plants to start growing, and he would have to make sure the caterpillars didn't break into it and eat everything before it had a chance to mature, but Marcus had high hopes for the project. Just like that, four months had passed.

Marcus was glad about all the work that had been done, both in making the tower something resembling a proper magical academy and in training his students. He had already noticed that some of the children were able to maintain the Soul Tree Technique for large stretches of time, and were on the verge of internalizing it completely. Once that happened, they would be able to cast their first spells and officially become a rank one mage.

More importantly, the children themselves seemed to sense how close they were to success. Julia, due to her wood affinity and her head start over the others, was already incredibly close to success, and spent every waking moment she could trying to practice the Soul Tree Technique, to the point Marcus actually had to tell her to slow down and relax, lest she accidentally hurt herself. He suspected it would take her less than a week to achieve total internalization. The others weren't too far off, either.

Even the slower, less talented ones like Cricket and Cassia seemed to be more driven these days, determined not to fall too far behind. Marcus suspected that in the span of the next two months, and probably less, they would all be rank one mages. That was impressive growth, but not unprecedented. Normally, it took about a year for new recruits to internalize a foundational technique, assuming the recruit had good talents, compatibility with the technique in question, and trained daily.

However, this process could be sped up considerably if the teacher was very involved with his students and forced them to train really, really hard… like Marcus was currently doing. Most academies didn't push their students as hard as they could, because they had too many students to dedicate their full attention to. And besides, making the student achieve the first rank as fast as possible was not terribly critical.

But if necessary, it was well known among them that a person could be turned into a rank one adept in as little as four to six months. Seeing how his students were so close to joining the adept community for real, and were discussing among themselves what came next and speculating on things, Marcus decided to gather them all for a lesson on how the first few mage ranks worked.

After all, once they became actual mages, they would be expected to mingle and interact with existing mage communities, and they had to know how to judge the powers of those around them and comport themselves properly around their peers. Well, rather than really gather them, Marcus simply decided to barge in on one of Helvran's lessons and take it over for a day. Thankfully, the priest did not seem to mind his sudden interruption, even though Marcus hadn't informed him in advance that he intended to do this.

In Marcus's defense, even he hadn't known he was going to do this today…

"Alright," he said to his gathered students. Helvran mostly held his lessons in the small temple Marcus built for him, so they were all crammed into this relatively tiny space, pushing each other and jockeying for space. He really needed to build that meeting hall…

"I believe that you are finally ready to hear some of the deeper mysteries of our craft. Therefore, I will give you an overview of how the first five mage ranks work, the structure of the heavens, and some facts about our world that are not usually talked about with the common folk…"