Mal expined to Nima and Rom that Philo was feeling sick. What surprised Mal was Rom's reaction. His ears had twitched and his eyes had gone wide with shock, and he'd said that he didn't even know draconids could get sick due to their ridiculously hardy immune systems.

  Now, Mal was no master of socializing or really any social things at all. But even so, he was no Lusia. Rom probably hadn't poisoned Philo.

  Probably.

  They ended up having to go to magic theory css without another word, Lusia joining them at some point and snatching Mal's textbooks out of his hand. Of course, when they got to magic theory css, she handed them back and then went off to do her own csses.

  So that brought him to now. Igna was lecturing about something that Mal had already studied extensively from the textbook and from additional reading material while the rest of the css tried their best to keep up.

  "It is the shape of the rune that determines mana's behavior—"

  Mal found himself filtering her out, as per usual. She was talking about how it was ill-advised to try to come up with or modify core runes, as they were arrived at after hundreds of years of refinement.

  This was one thing Igna was correct about. Mal knew because he'd extensively investigated this very subject during his tenure as a dark lord. Wizardry felt like such a constantly moving field, with new things being developed and new techniques being created regurly. But for something as foundational as core runes, there was very little further development to make. Rather than optimizing the runes, you'd be better off focusing on improving your core or creating a custom spell, minimizing the amount of core runes you have to use for that spell.

  A quiet groan. Rom looked like his brain was about to melt out of his skull. He was taking notes, but they were chaotic and nonsensical.

  It was kind of sad—Mal knew that Rom would ter excel as a battle mage. His instincts and his battle sense were second to none. But right now, he had yet to understand his strengths and weaknesses. Right now, he just sucked at everything. Combat magic? Magic theory? Potions? Herbalism? All middling to awful.

  It would be easy to rush his development far ahead of schedule. Teach him to focus on the things that he's actually good at and turn him into even more of a monster than he'd been in the first timeline.

  But it really wasn't any of Mal's business.

  Not to mention, being the teacher of someone who would eventually become one of the strongest combat mages in the world sounded like a really fast way to get an enormous amount of attention. Hard pass.

  Speaking of attention…

  He knew that if he turned around, he would see none other than Princess Savaly.

  He'd more or less phased her out at the beginning of the school year. Once in a while, she fshed into awareness during combat css. But other than that, he didn't even know that they shared magic theory.

  She'd probably been staring at him at the st magic theory css, but he'd had such a killer migraine that he'd completely ignored her.

  Now, however—thanks to the pain relief brew that Cassandra had helped to make—he was far more aware of the whispers and stares he was getting.

  "This is the second day she's been looking at him," someone muttered.

  "Do you think the princess is…?"

  "No way, he has an F-grade core, doesn't he?"

  "Yeah, but he killed the Tungstenbird and got second pce on the practical exam."

  "You think that he got the wrong core examination results?"

  "They must be rivals. The princess and the heir to a failing duchy. Oh, it’s like a story!”

  "You really need to stop reading those weird books."

  These people had way too much time on their hands, Mal decided. And Princess Savaly needed to stop fueling these rumors and focus on the css.

  Igna had to have noticed how Princess Savaly was acting by this point, but of course she wouldn't call her out. Rebuking royalty—royalty with enough potential power to be considered a future super weapon—would probably be a bad idea.

  Mal really hoped that Savaly would lose interest in him.

  "Hey, hey, Mal. Honored leader," Rom whispered.

  "Don't call me that." He gnced over at Rom. "What is it?"

  "Which of this stuff is gonna be on the test? I don't think I can keep it all in my head."

  "This is why you study the textbook ahead of time," Mal said. "You're not supposed to be learning everything from the lecture."

  "You're not?!"

  "No. You didn't know this?"

  "No, he didn't know that. Most new students at Exodi Academy don't know that, in fact."

  A new voice had broken into their conversation.

  Mal turned his head. Igna stood in front of the two, her ice cold eyes gring down with a chilling smile on her face.

  "Professor Igna," Mal said. "My apologies. My friend is having a hard time keeping up with the lecture."

  Rom looked over at him with an expression of pure betrayal. Mal shrugged at him.

  "I heard." Igna looked down at him. "I'm surprised to hear you're so informed about studying techniques. Normally, it isn't until the midterms when my students finally wake up and realize that they need to do things properly—at which point they seek out help and learn these sorts of tricks."

  "It's not really a trick, just common sense."

  "You and I may think so, Mr. Patoal," she said "But many would disagree. Most see the textbooks as supplemental material to be referred to in cases of emergency. Even the people who read the textbook do so more out of a sense of enjoyment than because they actually understand the benefits—like your friend, Mr. Philo."

  Mal guessed that he'd been doing things the right way for so long that he'd pretty much forgotten how people new to the school environment would act.

  He cursed himself in his head.

  Igna stared at him with an unreadable expression before she turned around.

  "Take Mr. Patoal as an example, students. Although his core leaves much to be desired, his work ethic is commendable."

  With that, she resumed her lectures.

  When they finished up with their csses for the day and arrived back, they came back to the surprising sight of Philo stretching his arms in the common area.

  He looked over at them and grinned. "Mal, you'll be pleased to know that your brew worked wonders."

  Mal looked closer at Philo and blinked. Philo was right, the brew had done an amazing job. The sheen of Philo's scales was back to a bright iridescent tone. His eyes were no longer bloodshot or teary. There was no trace of weakness in his movements. Indeed, it seemed like he hadn't been sick at all.

  "It seems as if you've done an honorable job, honored leader,” Rom said, though his eyes lingered a bit longer than necessary on Philo.

  "Don't call me that," Mal said. "But yes, it truly was effective, wasn't it?"

  The textbook had said it would bolster the immune system and help cut down on recovery time. But Mal was pretty sure that if it could take out a serious cold and fever in six hours, the book would've mentioned it.

  No, he'd made some sort of super tonic. All of the effects had been increased by a factor of 10 if not more.

  And what's more, unlike my earlier experiments with tripling the ingredients and screwing around with melting infusions, this had no side effects. All it did was increase the main effect by a significant margin. I should be able to do this with other brews without issue.

  Mal imagined getting his hands on an infusion for increasing strength or speed. What would be a minor increase would suddenly turn into something that would turn him superhuman.

  Already, the path of the witch is showing significant benefits. I'm beginning to believe that I did make the right decision, after all.

  "Mal?" Philo's voice broke Mal out of his thoughts. "Although Philo’s grateful, in the future, can you ask for his permission before force-feeding him a mysterious, untested brew?"

  "Sure."

  Absolutely not. What if you say no? I need all of that sweet, sweet data.

  "Thanks, Mal. For that, and for the brew. It was a lifesaver. Imagine if Philo had missed any more csses." Philo shivered—an action that looked ridiculous on a hulking draconid. “Philo doesn’t know what he’d do with himself. The idea of disrespecting such a fine educational establishment such as this is greatly disquieting. Given Philo’s immense luck in being here, testing the waters would surely be an ill-advised mistake."

  Rom's eyes had started to go empty with ck of comprehension about halfway through Philo's rant. Nima sighed. Mal ignored the comedy routine happening in front of him and headed back to his dorm room.

  "Good night," he said, then shut the door behind him.

  Over the next two weeks, Mal continued to attend csses and exercise regurly with Philo. Despite the pain from his nonexistent core, Mal had quickly recovered his physical capabilities and, in fact, surpassed them. By this point, he was comfortably keeping pace with Philo without too much strain. Although, he knew that Philo was still slowing down for him.

  It was after one of these runs that Philo had asked for a sparring session.

  Mal, before he could think better of the request, accepted.

  The two of them were in the middle of the field behind the dormitory. It was still before dawn, and only a handful of students were making their way across the campus.

  Mal walked over about 20 paces from Philo, who did the same.

  Mal bowed his head in the traditional way of beginning a wizard's duel. Philo paused, stared at Mal in confusion, then his eyes shot open and he jerked his spine to a 90-degree angle.

  "Never done this before?" Mal unbowed his head. "It's all right, I'm sure you'll run across more chances to practice your duel etiquette."

  Philo unbowed his own head. “Philo’s more surprised that you know the rules so well. One would think you've done this before."

  Mal couldn't resist the smirk at the edge of his lips. "Let's begin."

  The two stared at each other. Both of them brought their left foot back in the stance that had been taught to them by Norin.

  Mal was already fully aware that he was going to lose this fight.

  There were a couple of reasons for this. For one, Mal was avoiding using his Bramblevine bracelet—pretty much the only thing that would give him a fighting chance. Why?

  Because he really didn't want Philo asking questions about how the item worked. Mal might be able to pass it off as a magic item he received as a gift, but then that would raise more questions about who made it and where its maker was, and if Mal lied, Philo would ask more questions—not out of malice, but purely out of curiosity.

  So that limited Mal's options. He could only use the most basic spells: Arcane sphere and shield.

  Mal could see the mana gathering to the tips of Philo's fingers. He was preparing to cast something.

  Normally, against an opponent of roughly equal skill and power, the rock-paper-scissors model of wizard combat held true. Given that Philo so heavily relied on spellcasting, normally Mal's strategy would've been to close the distance and try to force a submission using a physical attack.

  The problem, of course, was that they weren't equal. Philo was a draconid with ridiculous levels of strength and endurance.

  Which meant Mal's only shot would be to rely on a lucky strike with an arcane sphere or to hit a runic backsh with the shield spell.

  Not exactly great odds given that his spellcasting time was abysmal.

  You know, because of his missing core.

  There was a loud whoosh of air and an arcane sphere formed in front of Philo. He held his hand out and it unched forward in a straight line. Mal stepped to the left, careful to conserve as much energy as possible. The sphere bsted right past his ear and dissipated into the air.

  Mal ran forward. He needed to get within medium-range for a chance at a mana reversal.

  Another arcane sphere appeared in front of Philo. Mal watched Philo's eyes and saw where he was going to shoot it. At the st second, Mal dodged out of the way of it.

  The third one was coming up. Mal stopped in pce and held out his hand like he was going to make an arcane sphere.

  In reality, he was preparing a shield spell.

  At the predicted time when the arcane sphere would summon, Mal threw a shield spell in front of him—only for no arcane sphere to appear.

  Philo grinned.

  The shield spell dropped, unable to maintain itself for long due to Mal's horrific mana throughput. In that instant, an arcane sphere bsted out. Probably one equipped with a push or pull effect!

  Mal jerked back, already figuring out the best way to dodge it—when it… sputtered out and dissipated in front of him.

  Mal blinked. What had just happened…?

  Philo's eyes were as wide as saucers. He pressed his hands into his face and groaned. “Philo completely messed up how much mana I was supposed to put into it!"

  Mal raised an eyebrow. "Are we… done?"

  Philo groaned into his hands.

  "It's your victory. Philo doesn’t even care anymore."

  Well, messing up a basic spell was very embarrassing. Mal understood how he was feeling.

  “Philo can't believe he failed like that in front of you," Philo whined. “Philo was so proud of his expertise of that spell, too!"

  "The stresses of combat make spellcasting much more difficult. That's why it's important to have it down to the point where it's instinctive."

  Philo pulled his hands away and sighed. "You're right. We've only been on that spell for a little over two weeks. There was no way Philo would have it combat-ready in that time."

  Mal shrugged. He'd said his piece, there was no need to say anything else. He looked over toward the trees where the light of the sun was starting to hit them. It wouldn't be long now before dawn.

  "You know, you really do confuse Philo," Philo said.

  Mal looked at him and tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

  “Nothing about you really makes sense." Philo scratched the back of his head. "Your spellcasting was abysmal. You didn't even try to hit me with any ranged spells. During the examination, you were much the same way. But despite that, you're leaps and bounds ahead of us when it comes to learning new techniques."

  Oh, that wasn't good. Mal kept his expression neutral. "It's really just a lucky fluke."

  "Despite that," Philo continued as if Mal hadn't said a thing. "You're ridiculously calm and collected in the middle of battle. During the fight against the Tungstenbird, you managed to keep everybody else on task. So then Philo thought that you received some kind of physical combat training. Maybe you were going to be a Spellsword instead of a traditional wizard."

  "Yes, that's exactly it—"

  "But that doesn't make sense either, because your body is weak."

  Thanks, Philo. That did wonders for my ego.

  "Maybe I'm on an extended sabbatical from warrior training."

  "Maybe. But Philo thinks there's another, more likely expnation."

  If another person had already figured out that Mal was a time traveler, he was going to rip out his own tongue.

  "You're a delinquent, aren't you!"

  What.

  Mal squinted his eyes. "What exactly makes you think this?"

  "It just seems like the most obvious expnation," Philo said. "You're not formally trained, you're terrible at wizardry—but you have a ton of experience in fights. Therefore, you were a delinquent who used to spend your evenings fighting in bars! This even expins why there are all those rumors about you beating Hypode up!"

  Philo put his hands on his hips and grinned as if he'd just solved all the world's mysteries.

  Mal stared at him, trying to figure out if this was some sort of eborate joke. When he determined that Philo was most likely telling the truth, he nodded.

  "Yes. You're exactly right."

  “Philo knew it!" The smile slipped off his face and he frowned. He pointed at Mal and wagged his index finger. "Understand, Mal. Though Philo may respect you greatly despite past conflicts, I will not tolerate that kind of behavior from one of my circle mates. From now on, Philo doesn’t want to hear any news about you getting into a fight. Understand?"

  Mal nodded. "I'll do my best."

  The smile returned. "Good! Gd we could get that settled."

  As they walked back to their dorm room to collect the rest of their circle mates, Mal wondered about Philo's conclusions.

  In a sense, the draconid wasn't wrong. Mal was a delinquent. A criminal delinquent. A criminal delinquent who tried to conquer the world.

  It was just that his crimes were a whole lot worse than starting a fight in a bar.

  …There was someone he needed to talk to.

  She’d been worried about him—at least, that’s what he thought—and he’d been wanting to check on her for a while, anyway.

  Plus, if I py my cards right, I can finally learn what her wish is and absolve myself of my debt.

  But first, he had to get through the rest of the school day.