Once dinner was done, Karl took Dana back up to his room to relax, away from all the excitement of the Academy on exam day. Rae came out as soon as they opened the door, and went to improve her living space using the new design ideas she had gotten since they left, including the forts they had been sleeping in.
She had the space, and she could attach them to the whole wall of the building, since she didn’t care about anyone else’s windows.
Unfortunately for her, Karl caught that line of thought and stopped her before she could web up the entire side of the Academy to make herself a mansion.
She did upgrade their hammocks, and check on the plants she had been waiting for. Some of them had been picked by whoever was watering the trees, but there was a lot of ripe fruit here for her to stuff in her space for later.
That gave Rae a great idea.
Hawk threw Remi into the space, and they got to keep her.
Rae walked over to Dana, picked her up and then vanished into her space, leaving a very confused Dana behind to drop back to the ground. Three times in a row, she tried before giving up and complaining to Karl.
[If Hawk gets to pick a Naga Egg, why can’t I pick a Dana?]
Karl and Thor both laughed, while Hawk rolled his eyes.
Thor mumbled a response, half asleep in his pond. [Karl is a beast master, not a Dana Master. If you find a way to turn Dana into a puppy or a kitten, then you could probably keep her.]
Karl really wished they would stop giving each other strange ideas. Remi was already wondering if Shaman magic could shape-shift people so they could invite friends over to show off their homes, and Rae was making plans to find a way to turn Dana into a tiger.
[Don’t you think you should ask her before turning her into a tiger?] Karl teased Rae, disrupting her train of thought.
[It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I read that in the ethics textbook.]
While he was fairly certain that Rae had misinterpreted something in that textbook, Karl left them to their own devices and pulled Dana down into the newly expanded hammock.
“It’s good to be home. We can finally get some real rest, and maybe we might even sleep in.” He whispered to the mage in his arms.
Dana just laughed. “Did you forget that Sergeant Rita and Jill are both here at the Academy? We’re guaranteed to be pulled out of bed at the crack of dawn.”
With all the stress of the long trip, they both drifted off to sleep early that night, still sharing a hammock. That was where they were found when Sergeant Rita and Jill came looking for their students the next morning.
Karl woke up to the sound of careful footsteps on the balcony.
“Agent Jill, good morning.” He whispered.
“You have good hearing. I was coming to wake you up, but I didn’t want to wake Rae.” Jill quietly replied.
“She already knows you’re here. Don’t worry, she’s not going to tie you up today.” Karl joked.
Not that she hadn’t considered it.
Karl equipped his new uniform as he swung himself out of the hammock, waking Dana up when she suddenly found her arms empty. Rita shook Karl’s hand when he reached her, and her usually stern look turned to a big smile.
“Well, it looks like you’ve outgrown my tutelage. I remember when we first met, Hawk said that one day he was going to be more powerful than I am, and what do you know, it hasn’t even been half a year, and he’s already there.” She informed him with a mixture of sadness and pride in her expression.
“I take it that you’re being reassigned now that I’ve advanced?” Karl asked.
Rita nodded and gestured to her uniform. “They’ve made me a warrant officer, and I’m being reassigned to the Ministry of Education as a liaison officer. I will be tasked with helping rare classes and special cases make their early benchmarks, in the hopes that I can replicate your success.”
“How much time do we have, or have you already been reassigned?” Karl asked.
“I meet my new student today, a transfer from out of the country who will be moving here. I think you might already know her.” Rita replied.
“I might know a foreign transfer student?” Karl asked confused.
He didn’t know many people at all, so the odds of him meeting a random transfer student in advance were pretty low unless…
“It’s Rose, isn’t it? The Ascended Rank Spellblade?” Karl asked.
“Good try, but not quite.”
Rita stepped out into the hallway, and came back in with a young teen girl who looked oddly familiar to Karl. He had seen her somewhere recently, but it was taking him a second to figure it out.
“The Seminary Academy. You were serving breakfast.” Karl announced once he put the pieces together.
“But how does that make you a foreign transfer, Sister? It’s not that far to the Seminary Academy.”
The girl smiled. “My name is Cora, and I’m not a Sister of the orders. I grew up in a Red Dragon Priestess run orphanage, and I was in the process of transferring to work at one near here when you came through the Seminary Academy with Thor.
Since I’d only missed the injection by a month, they decided last week to give me the shot early instead of waiting for next year. They didn’t want to risk letting me go through training, then losing me if I gained a class marking.
Is Thor here somewhere? Can I meet him?”
Dana laughed. “That’s the answer I was waiting for. Everyone loves Thor.”
Karl nodded in agreement. “What class did you get?”
“Hunter. The one with the bow and the wolf head.” She announced proudly.
That mark should be for a type of Hunter that summoned a companion animal. The summoned pets were not strong combatants in the long term, as they never left the Common Rank, but they could be very useful in many situations.
“Do we have any feathers? If I can get a feather quill and some Ink, I will make you a skill book with my talents as a welcoming gift.” Karl offered.
Rita blinked slowly, staring at Karl.
Right, he had a bird.
[Hawk, have you moulted a feather that I can have? I want to make her a skill book for Rend.]
Hawk pointed to a feather sitting in his space, which Karl pulled out before realizing it wasn’t one of his own. It was a feather from one of the damaged Naga necklaces that Hawk had been hoarding. Broken magical items had been useful before, so he didn’t want to let them go to waste.
“Alright, I have my quill, I have ink in the school supplies, I have paper, and this is an easy one, only four pages. I hope everyone can wait a minute.” Karl explained.
He quickly wrote out [Rend] and passed the thin manuscript to the newly minted Hunter.
It vanished from her hands as soon as she tried to open it, and Cora pulled Karl into a hug.
“Thank you so much. That is an incredible skill, and it’s going to work so well with my Night Vision skill.”
Hawk made a happy noise. That was all that a true Hunter needed. Rend and good eyesight. Every Windspeed Hawk knew that.
“Alright, Commander Karl. I think we’ve taken enough of your time, and Jill needs to bring Dana to be tested for her Ascended Rank badges this morning. We will see you around the Academy, but you are welcome to drop in to give lectures if you have some spare time.” Rita announced.
“I will see you soon.”
The ladies all left, and Karl realized that maybe he really would be expected to give lectures about something. He was a Commander Rank Elite, he knew his skills. Asking him to teach others who had similar skills didn’t seem too outlandish, and they would likely give him school credits for it.
Left alone in his room, it didn’t take long to discover that he had no plans at all for the day. He could go get breakfast, then just relax and meditate, catch up on sleep, and get reacquainted with the pace of life in the Academy. It didn’t sound half bad, and Thor was on board with the idea that there was no harm in a little more sleep.
