Mirim Distar slammed her fist on the armrest of her chair.

"Fine. If they want war, then war it is. Enough with finesse and schemes. I'm going to make all the necessary preparations to detain and quarantine all the academy staff until the traitors have been found."

"This… this will have terrible consequences for the academy's reputation and the students!" Linjos stuttered in bewilderment. "Cla.s.ses will be suspended, exams delayed. Not to mention we have yet to prepare for Balkor's incoming attack!"

"Not as terrible as more dead students would, Linjos." The Marchioness understood his concerns, but she could see the bigger picture.

"A reputation can be rebuilt, the same applies to an academy. The dead though, have no such luxury. I don't want any more students endangered by political plays, nor the White Griffon to suffer from sabotage like last year.

"Get rid of some of the most useless members of your staff. I'm going to replace them with constables, some undercover, some not. We have an advantage our opponent lacks: we are the ones making the rules of this game."

Linjos opened the Warp Gate of his office, allowing the Marchioness to get straight to her mansion.

'G.o.ds, I hate how right she is.' Linjos held his head between his hands in despair. All his hopes, his ideals were shattering one after the other against the harshness of reality.

'At this point, I can trust no one. Not even my inner circle. I'm completely alone, surrounded by enemies!' He banged his head against the desk, realizing how devious was the human heart.

***

'At this point, we can trust no one. Not even the Professors. We are surrounded by enemies.' Solus thought with a sigh.

'Yeah. Same old same old.' Lith shrugged. 'The trick is to keep our eyes wide open and our b.u.t.tocks tightly closed, so no one scr*ws us from behind.'

Lith took off, flying at break neck speed towards the Mage Knight training hall. Since Wanemyre gave the students a single attempt at Bonding, the Forgemastering cla.s.s ended before the gong resounded.

While she explained to those who had failed their mistakes, the others were free to leave. Thanks to the map in Soluspedia, Lith always knew the shortest path to his destination while his senses allowed him to avoid collisions in mid air with other students.

When Friya and Phloria came out of the hall, they were in the middle of a lively conversation about some technique they had recently practiced. Their faces were drenched with sweat which they dabbed with a towel around their necks.

All the students had an exhausted look. Most had bruises visible on their exposed skin, especially on the arms. Combat specializations were demanding both physically and mentally, often involving getting hit at the slightest mistake.

"Hi, girls." Lith drew on himself hateful looks. Most of the boys hated his guts from the fourth year. Despite being three years younger than them, with his 1.66 meters (5'5") was already taller and with a better physique than them.

On Mogar, youths developed mostly during their thirteenth year. After that, there could be small adjustments until the sixteenth one. It was the limit after which the body stopped growing.

All of them hoped to become elite troops and while being tall wasn't necessary, it sure helped. They could only envy the kind of monster Lith would grow into.

"Hi, Lith!" Phloria was pleasantly surprised. Usually in their relations.h.i.+p it was up to her to take the initiative.

"If you give me an hour to catch my breath, we can train together with the sword before dinner." She knew Lith was a workaholic. Phloria a.s.sumed that after his fight with the wyvern, he was eager to accept her offer to train him.

"Who do you take me for? Some battle maniac? Thanks, but no thanks. I had enough for today. I was more thinking about taking advantage of the lack of homework to take you out for dinner."

Invigoration or not, Lith felt the need to rest. Phloria was the only person beside Solus with whom he was able to lower his guard. He wanted to go outside the academy to relax and talk freely.

Lith also used the a.s.sembly to have Solus scan the students for the mysterious items. He suspected there were more involved in the poisoning who Linjos hadn't managed to smoke out.

He was right. Solus spotted four more.

"Really? I mean, sure." She replied with a dazzling smile from ear to ear.

"I still need an hour to make myself presentable." Phloria drew on herself hateful looks. Most of the girls of the fifth year hated her guts. How such a plain looking girl managed to date a pin wearer was a mystery to them.

From Lith's dating experience on Earth, one hour was an optimistic estimate for an improvised date.

"Sure. I'll go visit Yurial in the meantime. Call me when you are ready. There is no rush." He wiped a drop of sweat that was streaming along her cheek with his thumb. All the bruises on her body healed, her muscles and joints stopped aching.

Instead of getting tired because of the light spell, Phloria felt her fatigue disappear.

"How did you do it?" She was amazed. Lith hadn't used any sign or magical words.

"We are inside one of the great academies, so I'll go with magic." He shrugged.

"What about me?" Friya hadn't missed how Phloria's breathing was back to normal or that she had stopped sweating.

"Sorry, three is a crowd. Find yourself a boyfriend." He said taking off before she could give him the finger.

"I meant the healing, jacka*s!" She yelled even though Lith was already too far.

Yurial was pleasantly surprised to see Lith too. It was rare of him to seek Yurial's advice or help, which made him happy to oblige.

After the fight with Gadorf, Lith understood he needed a better grasp of the power of arrays. Since he was still stuck with Silverwing's Hexagram, Lith decided it was time to ask the opinion of an expert.

"Can you check if this is an array?" Lith asked after materializing a small golden hexagram between his hands.

"Sure thing. It's unlikely though." Yurial's array detecting spell begged to differ.

"I stand corrected. This is an array and an impossible one at that."

"What's an impossible array?" Lith asked.

"Arrays are spells that require a long cast time and that can be placed in a specific spot for a time. This one defies all the above. It disappears as soon as you stop spending mana and appears relatively quickly." Yurial explained.

"There are several recordings of impossible arrays like this one, all left by past Magi. They are only used as training material for multi casting, though. They have no practical use and are considered nothing more than magic tricks."

"How so?"

"Because they come with no explanation, no hand signs, nor magical words. Even if they had a decent effect, they can only be used with first magic. Turning them into real arrays would require to study their properties and then find signs and words to match.

"It's much easier creating a new one from scratch. Also, what use could possibly have an array that requires constant chanting and mana expenditure? The mage couldn't even move, being forced to become an easy target."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Lith pondered.