The Field trembled in response to the pact, sealing it.

  What have you done, Wulf? he thought to himself.

  But knew exactly what he’d done, and he’d considered this for a few days. He knew how to advance the tiers, and he could beat an arrogant guild brat. The question was, could he, with a unique crafting class, advance as fast as a Mage?

  No. He had to, so he would. Simple as that.

  Then, as Umoch and his friends turned away, leaving his fallen Fletchers laying in the middle of the hall, Wulf looked down at the paper on his bracer. Once the messages of [Field Pact detected] and [Field Pact sealed] faded, it returned to the message about the Mark he’d just earned.

  [Mark unlocked: Hoard of Strength.]

  He concentrated on it, willing it to show him exactly what the Mark did. At first, he thought he read ‘horde’, which would’ve been interesting, but weird nonetheless. But it was Hoard, like a dragon’s hoard.

  He might have learned how to read in the past four decades, but no one said he had to be good at it.

  [Hoard of Strength] Awarded for using a potion to multiply your strength fivefold and winning a fight. Every physical attribute enhancing potion you use will permanently linger after its effect is complete, at a greatly diminished value. This effect can stack up to ten times for each sub-tier you have advanced through.

  Wulf chewed his lip. That was an impressive Mark, and infinitely better than the other one he’d earned.

  But there wasn’t much time to gloat about it. As soon as he lowered his arms, the crowd parted, and Dr. Langold pushed through, with a trio of brown-coated faculty members close behind him.

  Umoch had already gone, thank the Field, and he wouldn’t admit to getting outmaneuvered by Wulf, so the threat of having to deal with the main branch of the Fletchers (or get in trouble for it) was gone.

  But he’d still stolen a golem again and used it to beat up three other students.

  “Everyone, disperse!” Langold demanded. “Unless you wish to be a witness for either party, move along.”

  Wulf turned to face the headmaster.

  He winced, but he'd prepared for this, too. With any luck, he wouldn’t need to do much. There were plenty of people who saw exactly what went down.

  " 'Evening, sir," Wulf said with a small wave.

  The headmaster put his hands on his hips. "Hrothen. My office. Now."

  "Yes, sir."

  ~ ~ ~

  Thankfully, the golem labs were close to Langold's office. Unthankfully, Langold made him wait for about an hour outside before letting him in. It gave Wulf's shoulder plenty of time to stiffen up from the fight, for the adrenaline to fade, and for his heartbeat to slow. Hopefully, that also meant time for Langold to properly discover what had happened.

  The headmaster had brought along two witnesses from the hallway to discuss what had happened, after all.

  Then the office door creaked open. With a sigh, Langold dismissed his two witnesses, the said, "Hrothen. In here."

  "Yes, sir." Wulf stood up from the bench he'd been sitting on and stepped into the office, then promptly sat down in one of the headmaster's chairs without waiting for a prompt.

  "I admit, I was expecting to see you back here," Langold said. "Just…not so soon."

  "Couldn't be helped," Wulf replied.

  "I'm inclined to agree, and since I doubt we'll be seeing any formal complaints from the Fletchers or the Umoch family, I should have less pressure on my back to deal with you. However, there is the slight issue of you stealing a golem and damaging school property. Again."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "If we wanna be specific about it, the Fletchers damaged it."

  The headmaster gave him a blank stare.

  "Not gonna fly?" Wulf asked.

  "Not going to fly, Mr. Hrothen. “The guild likely won't make a big deal of it, given the more publicity they give it, the more embarrassing it will be. I'd be surprised if Umoch the Elder even hears of this. But if I start punishing them, you can be certain I’ll start getting them breathing down my neck."

  Right. Slave to the guilds and the main Academy branch. Wulf sighed. "But people saw. You don’t think any of them tell the Fletchers?”

  “And risk infuriating the main branch of the largest multinational guild? They make arrows for almost every nation with an army. They have workhouses on every continent. They could make your life hell—remember that.”

  Wulf lowered his head. “So...what's the punishment?"

  "For a week, you will spend your evenings helping Thalin, our mountainwatcher, with whatever task he sees fit for you. Understood?"

  Wulf nodded. "Thank you, sir."

  "Don't thank me yet."

  ~ ~ ~

  The mountainwatcher lived in a hut at the north end of the Academy grounds, at the edge of the fields, and just before the ground began sloping up into mountains.

  As a residence, it was humble, but Wulf could imagine living there just fine. Fifteen by fifteen paces was enough for a bed and a desk. Patinated brick walls formed its circular walls, and vines climbed up the supports of its porch, its gutters, and its windowsills, until they reached the cone-shaped roof. A chimney puffed smoke up into the evening sky, and within the glowing windows moved a silhouette.

  Wulf climbed up to the porch, moving hesitantly, and tapped on the door. Nothing happened, so he knocked a little louder. Footsteps boomed inside the house, and a few seconds later, the door swung open.

  An aging dwarf stood at the door. He wore a dark red jacket with wooden toggle buttons. A braided beard hung from his chin, and his long hair draped down his back, hanging over his broom—he carried it on his back in a strap, like anyone else might carry a sword.

  "You're the boy, then?" the dwarf asked.

  "I...probably am? Do you have other helpers?"

  "One other."

  "Are you...Thalin?" Wulf asked.

  "That's me.” The dwarf—Mountainwatcher Thalin—nodded. “Now, let's not doddle. We have work to do, now that you're here."

  He beckoned Wulf inside with a wave of his hand, and Wulf followed. Inside, the hut was warmly lit. The main room had a small stove on one side, and cooking equipment piled beside it, and on the other side, a couch. At the very center was a table with a map of the campus on it—an enchanted map.

  Thalin must’ve been an Ascendant, because he wore a steel vambrace with a slip of enchanted paper on it, and on the breast of his coat was an iron badge with two lines across it—Middle-Iron.

  As soon as they stepped into the center of the room, Thalin’s other helper stepped out from a room in the back.

  It was Kalee.

  She had her hair tied back, and her uniform was dusty, but otherwise, she was the same as Wulf had seen before. He chuckled. “What did you do, then?”

  She looked just as surprised to see him, but she soon wiped the expression from her face and said, “I beat up an underling of the Perfumers Guild. She was trying to extort our floor of the dorm.”

  Wulf raised his eyebrows. “Nice.”

  “What about you?”

  “I beat up some of Umoch’s henchmen.”

  Kalee snorted. “Nice.”

  “I see we have kindred spirits,” Thalin said in a low, scratchy voice. He pulled a pipe out of his pocket, then, with a flick of his fingers and a Skill, conjured sparks on his fingers and lit the pipe. He must’ve been a Mage. “Now, my plan for the night was to head into the mountains and clear up the weekly infestation of yeti. Have you two learned how to assess a monster’s tier yet?”

  Wulf glanced at Kalee. Surely, they both knew from their past lives. In unison, they nodded.

  “Very good,” Thalin said. “Stick with me, and don’t get yourselves lost—or eaten.”

  “Are the mountains part of the Academy grounds?” Wulf asked.

  “For a little while, yes.” Thalin hoisted his broom off his back and buckled up his coat. “If we don’t clear out the path, you won’t get your weekly shipment of mana-water from the refiners up north, and they’ll eat all of Chef Kennet’s sparkshrooms. Stick with me, and stay close. For today, you’ll just be observing.”

  Wulf nodded. “Doesn’t seem like too harsh of a punishment.”

  “Doesn’t sound like either of you committed too severe a crime, and my old bones don’t care about the wrath of the Guilds anymore.” He spun toward the door, then marched out onto the fields again.

  They walked north along a trail. Wulf tightened his coat, and Kalee had donned a cloak. Though the mountains began abruptly, the well-trodden foot and wagon trail wound gradually up the slope. It passed into a pine forest.

  As the sun dipped behind the western hills, Thalin pulled unhooked a lantern from his belt and lit it with a Skill, then held it out.

  For a half hour, there wasn’t even any snow on the ground. Every once in a while, a glimmer seeped through the tree trunks, either up the slope or down. There were arcane plants through the trees, and he was pretty sure he noticed wild sparkshrooms—conks that glowed a faint orange in the night, and let off glowing amber dust that shimmered in the night.

  Those had to be good potion-making materials, but Wulf couldn’t exactly veer off path to get them. But maybe on the way back…

  Finally, after a full hour of walking, they came upon a few patches of freshly fallen autumn snow. And not soon enough, either. Thalin stopped and held out his lantern. “Alright, you! I can smell your rot from here! Come out, and we’ll make it quick.”

  He was still facing forward, looking off into the woods. Couldn’t have meant it for Wulf or Kalee.

  For now, Wulf deferred to the old dwarf’s instincts. A yeti had to be nearby.