Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Zorian seriously doubted that, but he could see there was no use in arguing with Zenomir about this. Besides, now that he thought about it a little, it might actually be useful to get some elementary proficiency in Aranhal Ikosian. He might need to interrogate the airship construction crew at some point, and that was going to be really difficult if their language was completely opaque to him. Not even mind reading helped in that case, since people’s thoughts were heavily shaped by the language they spoke.

"Very well, I’ll give it a try," Zorian relented.

"Excellent!" Zenomir said, beaming at him happily.

"Still, is it really okay for you to just give me all this?" Zorian pointed at the pile in front of him. "Some of this stuff looks… irreplaceable."

"It’s fine," said Zenomir, waving him off. "You look like a serious young man. I’m sure you’ll return it all in one piece."

Zorian didn’t say anything to that. He just stared at the pile of books and paper in front of him, lost in thought, for a few seconds.

"Well," Zenomir suddenly said, clapping his hands. "Is there anything else you wanted to ask? If not–"

"Actually, yes," Zorian said. "Are you a member of the Cult of the Dragon Below?"

Zenomir eyebrows shot up at the question.

"I’m sorry, what ?" he asked.

"They officially call themselves the Esoteric Order of the Celestial Dragon," Zorian said. "They are one of the newer religious organizations, one dedicated to the worship of the entity that is commonly thought to reside in the center of the world. They have a rather large presence here in Cyoria. Are you a member of the Order?"

"Ah, I think I have heard something about them once," Zenomir mused, tapping his long white beard with his hand. "But no, I am not a member. Why do you ask?"

"Are you an agent of Ulquaan Ibasa?" Zorian asked, completely ignoring the old teacher’s question.

"Now wait just a minute here," Zenomir said, finally getting somewhat angry. "What kind of question is that!?"

Hmm. He was being completely honest. He was not knowingly associated with either the Ibasans of the Cult of the Dragon Below.

With a small sigh, Zorian reached deeper into Zenomir’s mind, casually brushing aside the old teacher’s rudimentary mental defenses, and modified his short-term memory to erase this conversation out of his mind. The whole process only lasted less than a minute, due to the relatively trivial nature of the memory edit, after which Zorian withdrew from Zenomir’s mind.

The old teacher blinked a few times, gradually shrugging off the mental daze that Zorian placed on him so he could work in peace, before giving Zorian a surprised look.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Uh, you kind of dozed off for several seconds there," Zorian said, pretending awkwardness.

"Ah. I guess old age is finally catching up to me," Zenomir said ruefully, shaking his head. "Where were we, again?"

"Actually, I think we’re kind of done here," Zorian said. "But first, let me ask you a somewhat strange question. Do you have any idea why someone would want to spy on you?"

"Spy on me?" Zenomir asked incredulously. "Why no, I have no idea why someone would want that. Frankly, I wish more people would be interested in my work. If someone wanted to know more about what I do, why, all they have to do is ask!"

"I’ll cut straight to the chase, then," Zorian said. "Due to some exotic inborn abilities that I have, I happen to know that there are rats lurking in the walls around your office. And not normal rats either."

"Ah, now that… is quite concerning," said Zenomir. He sat down in his chair and frowned. He tapped on his beard a few more times, deep in thought. "Hmm. Rats in the walls…"

After a minute or so, Zenomir slapped his palm against the table, scaring Zorian back into attention.

"Aha!" Zenomir said triumphantly. "I’ve got it, I think. I don’t think these rats, if they are indeed spies as you suspect, are here for me. As it happens, the headmaster’s office is very close to mine. The headmaster is rarely in it, but a lot of visitors and academy documentation passes through the place."

Zorian had to agree this did make a great deal of sense. As a place of such importance, the headmaster’s office was probably protected by heavier and more sophisticated wards and other defenses… but the corridors approaching it might have been overlooked due to cost-cutting and such. He would have to take a walk through the academy to see if there were other places that cranium rats linger as they did here.

"Of course, this will have to be reported," Zenomir’s shoulders suddenly sagged. "I can already sense a headache coming. So much paperwork…"

"I don’t suppose you could exclude me from the report?" Zorian asked. He would mindwipe him again if he had to, but he would rather avoid doing that.

"I might as well," Zenomir sighed. He apparently didn’t have a single suspicious bone in his body. "No reason for both of us to suffer. Though I have to ask you to keep quiet about this, or else the academy might go after you for ruining its reputation."

Zorian assured him that he had no intention of spreading this around, picked up the stack of books and papers the man had given him and then left. Instead of exiting the academy immediately, though, he took the extended route that saw him passing next to the headmaster’s office a couple of times.

It turned out that, yes, all approaches to the headmaster’s office had cranium rats lurking in the walls. It seemed that Zenomir’s theory was very much correct.

Well. That was one mystery solved! It had been a while since he had solved one of those without raising at least one new question in return.

Somehow, it made him feel like he was finally getting close to a solution for all this.

In an unremarkable, out-of-the-way cave system situated a healthy distance away from Cyoria, Zach, Zorian and two aranea were training their magical skills.

Zach was tinkering with a large wooden chest, practicing his pocket dimension creation. His ability in this area was slowly but surely overtaking Zorian, despite him dismissing some of his simulacrums and focusing more of his energies on the issue. As far as Zorian could tell, this was purely due to Zach’s massive mana reserves and the resulting ability to sustain the mana-intensive training longer than Zorian ever could. Zorian wasn’t any more talented or hard-working than Zach was, after all, and every advantage and training method he had was also something Zach had access to as well. It made perfect sense that Zach was pulling away from him in this regard, but that didn’t stop Zorian from feeling kind of jealous and annoyed with the situation. A petty part of him was tempted to start hiding some of the relevant shaping exercises and tricks he had found while combing through the various spellbooks and training manuals in order to close the gap somewhat, but he resisted the impulse. That would be stupid and self-defeating. Zach getting better was a good thing.

That aside, neither Zach nor Zorian had really progressed far in terms of pocket dimension expertise. The chest that Zach was fiddling with still functioned on essentially the same principles as the marble-storing boxes they had practiced with previously. It was the simplest form of pocket dimension, which involved expanding the available space inside a container. Essentially, it allowed a mage to produce an enclosed space that was larger on the inside than it was on the outside.

There were a lot of limitations involved with this procedure. The pocket dimension required mana to keep existing, so such an item could only be stored in areas where ambient mana was abundant enough to sustain them. Or be provided with an in-built power source of some sort. A complicated, fiddly spell formula had to be embedded into the walls of the container, or else the space expansion would expire after less than a day, just like any other spell. Finally, the weight of the object inside did not disappear, so a chest with several tons of rock inside would still weigh several tons, no matter how small it looked.