Karl checked on the plants that filled his balcony and found them freshly watered, then changed and showered quickly, before trying on the two new suits. As promised, they bonded the same way that armour did, allowing him to dismiss them with a thought, and get dressed again just as easily. Now, he wouldn’t have to worry about the spare clothes in his bag, as he had something to change into other than armour for when they got back to town, but he did notice that there was one oddity about these two outfits.
The badge, the golden emblem of his Commander Rank, bonded separately from the suits. He could take it out and show it to people without changing, or put it on whichever outfit he wanted.
That was truly convenient.
It still marked him as a student of the Golden Divine Academy, which should be no shock to anyone, given his youth. However, the mirror on the wall was showing him a much less childish face than he was used to.
That babyish peach fuzz was becoming a proper beard, and the childish look was fading toward what he would call young adulthood. Like his beasts, the advancements had helped him through the adolescent awkward phase, and he was looking more like a proper adult.
He quickly shaved, and put a bit of pomade in his hair as he brushed it, keeping it in place now that it was beginning to grow out from the crew cut that he had finished middle school with. His parents would be proud of how far he had come, so Karl sent a message to them, as both would be out of the house at this hour of the day.
When he went downstairs in his suit, none of the students recognized him right away, they simply nodded politely as he walked by, mistaking him for one of the part-time teachers’ assistants that came and went.
But the cafeteria ladies weren’t nearly as easily fooled.
“Student Karl, welcome back. We’ve got some Ascended Rank bear meat in, if your wee beastie would like to give it a try?”
Hawk wasn’t feeling enthusiastic about the prospect with all the meat he already had, and Remi wasn’t sure what a bear was, so Karl shook his head.
“We were lucky enough to stock up on meat while we were out. But I could use a double serving of your Shepherd’s Pie, and a coffee.”
The worker nodded happily, and gestured toward the seating area. “You can take a seat, we will bring it out. Or are you going to be in the staff lounge?”
“I’ll sit here. I must say, I’m getting all the special treatment today.” Karl replied.
“You’re all fancy now, you get the privileges.” She laughed, then waved him over to the tables.
The students were beginning to realize who he was, and the excitement to talk to him was building. To prevent utter chaos in the cafeteria, Karl picked a table in the corner, where he would be able to talk without being surrounded. Having to turn around to answer questions from behind would be a pain, as well as blocking most of the room, so it seemed like the best option.
At first, it was the generic congratulations on having made Commander from people whose faces he barely recognized, then some of the mages from Hawk’s training class came in to have dinner and saw Karl in his suit with the gold badge.
“What the hell? How is that even fair? I haven’t made it to ascended yet, and he already made Commander.” One of the water mages complained.
Karl felt hawk’s smugness in his mind at the man’s comment. The victory over that particular bit of water was complete.
“What are you going to do now? I mean, once you are as good as the teachers, is there really much that you can learn in the Academy?” One of the other mages asked.
“There’s always more to learn, and combat isn’t the only subject that we need to know. Sure, I could and will likely spend a lot of time doing mercenary hunting jobs because I have beasts to feed, but the other courses, martial arts training and theory classes are all still valuable.” Karl replied.
The mage laughed. “I suppose that’s right. They’ll expect big things of you now. But did you hear the news while you were away? There’s a big thing happening with the Frost Giants’ nation. Apparently, they’ve been using some sort of Ice Magic to attack neighbouring countries and spread their borders. I saw it on the news the other day.”
That got Karl’s attention. When they were sent, the thought was that the anomaly was what was causing the cold in the region, but the anomaly ended up being some sort of Dark Elf village trial, and a Naga Dungeon.
Neither of those was of the Ice Element, though there were frozen battlefields in some of the trials that they faced.
Finding out that it was most likely the beginning of an attack by the Frost Giants along that border made sense of a number of things. Like the fact that when they came out, the mountains had been evacuated, and the people left behind were feared dead.
With an ongoing conflict between them and the Frost Giants, it wouldn’t be safe to go train there for the foreseeable future.
The staff brought his dinner while Karl answered questions, and after a few minutes, Dana came to join him at the table. So far, nobody else had been brave enough to take a seat, but Dana looked more concerned about the meal on her plate, while her curly hair slowly dried and turned into a giant mass of frizz.
“We’ve been in the field too long, it’s weird seeing a meal with no rice and beans.” She commented as she began to eat.
It was, actually. They were such a common staple in Lotus and Tessa’s cooking that he didn’t even think about it, but they were missing from the Academy meals.
Karl cut up a bit of roast chicken and wrapped it in lettuce, then brought Remi out of her space to say hello to everyone.
The baby Spirit Snake was growing fast, now over thirty centimetres long, and starting to take on more of a dull sheen, which Karl suspected meant that she would be shedding her skin soon.
“Is that Remi? The baby Naga Spirit Snake, or whatever she was?” Dana asked.
“She is. Remi, this is Dana. Would you like to say hi?” He asked as Remi grabbed a chicken ball and manoeuvred it toward her mouth.
Remi flicked her tongue in greeting and used [Minor water control] to make a pair of tentacles to wave at the mage before filling her mouth to prevent any more questions.
“Wow, I didn’t think that you could bond a Spirit Snake. They’re technically magical beasts, since they can’t speak a language, and they’re not much smarter than dogs, but still, when they evolve into Naga, they grow up to look partially humanoid.” A mage from the morning training commented.
Dana looked up. “The ones we saw in the dungeon could communicate well enough.”
That startled the mage. “They were speaking? Like hissing at each other to coordinate attacks? I grew up near the swamps, and there is a theory that in ancient times, Naga were semi-intelligent beings, but now they’re basically snakes with arms. They can’t even be trained to perform labour tasks.”
Dana nodded. “There was a whole village full of Naga in the Dungeon, complete with tents and furniture. That’s wild, I wonder if Remi will be that smart or if it was just the magic of the dungeon making a home for them?”
Remi looked up at Karl. [Slap him for calling me a snake with arms.] She demanded.
Karl chuckled, catching the mage’s attention. “She is quite insulted to hear the Naga called snakes with arms. But I can communicate with my beasts much more clearly than with regular animals, so being bonded to me most likely brings up their intelligence level.
Hawk speaks in my mind, speaks in a human language which his body could never make, so it’s hard for me to say how smart the other Naga actually are. But Remi, for certain, knows when people are insulting her.”
Remi nodded as she ate, and took out her spear to wave it at the mage using the water control tentacles.
It should have been menacing, but given her size, it was smaller than a chopstick, and much of the effect was lost in translation.
“Got it, no insulting the tiny snake girl. Is she a warrior, then? I see that she has a spear already.” The warrior beside the mage asked.
If Karl was going to be sending his pets to train with the other students again, he wanted to know how long he had before some crazy snake girl with a spear was coming to beat his classmates up.
“She’s actually a Shaman. The spear was a birthday gift.” Karl replied.
Dana hid her laughter with a mouthful of food. Yes, a birthday gift. On the day that she was born, from the dungeon that she was born in.
