Once he was finally freshly showered, and the filthy uniform was sent to the laundry room, Karl headed down to the designated meeting spot, where he found only Dana waiting.

"It looks like the other two cancelled on us. Their combat teacher met them on the way down, and he took them for some additional training after he heard that they were getting so good with [Guard] skills." She explained.

"Well, then there will be more room for us to study. What do you have to work on today?" Karl asked.

"Mana theory. It's one of the big ones for the mage type classes, both to grow our own mana pool and to reduce the casting cost of the spells that we know. At first, we're really inefficient, but it gets better all the time. The idea is that as we get better, most mages will get some insight into new spells or skills, it's just part of the mage class.

Then we can use that to expand our spell book without having to learn the spells in class, which is way faster, and the ones you get from insight tend to grow faster and more powerful, which will help rank up." She explained.

"That actually sounds like a lot of work. Mostly, I just need to practice my fighting skills and my physical abilities so that I can keep up with my growth. At least, that is it for now. They don't know anything about the class marking that I got, so unless I get an insight like the mages do, I will only have the one skill, but it grows more powerful as Hawk does.

My body does as well. The stronger he grows, the stronger I grow." Karl replied with a smile.

"Well, that's both a tough break and a huge win. You get stronger just by existing and training your pet. No intense study needed. But only having one skill would be a bit limiting eventually."

They walked in silence for a few seconds, then Dana pointed to a pathway that led into a garden.

"That's where we're going. There are a bunch of gazebos with tables there, and we can do our study. Once I get a few more credits, I am totally getting one of the Academy laptops, or a tablet. It will be so much easier than handwriting these notes all the time.

I don't think that I've used a pen that much since I was in elementary school, but the mages on the teaching staff are all ancient, and they think that Tomes are the way to go. Just book after book of handwritten knowledge."

Karl laughed. The majority of electronic devices had only come about in the last twenty or thirty years, so anyone who was over sixty tended to favour pen and paper, and some of the mages from the old tradition, before the Divine Injection, were hundreds of years old.

They were not going to change their ways any time soon, even if printing pages made for much more legible tomes, and diagrams that everyone could clearly read. Part of the mystery was trying to sort out the bad handwriting, secret codes and shorthand of the author, it kept magic inaccessible through the ages so it wouldn't be misused.

Now that there was such a huge influx of elites, with a dozen or more new mages every year, that mystery was being lost, but the old mages were in their golden age, teaching spells and skills they thought might never be passed down to people who would be viewed as heroes, not potential traitors to the magical nations, or wealth hoarders.

Like anyone else with power that the nation needed, many mages had only ever been loyal to themselves, demanding exorbitant fees and living in luxury. They weren't viewed horribly, but more like the oligarchs of the tech revolution, as detached by their wealth and power, and not entirely trustworthy if you weren't on their social level.

"Actually, having a laptop sounds wonderful, but I don't know how to type. I came from the mines, and my family couldn't afford a computer, so I never used one before. I know most of the kids from the city use them all the time, but not us."

Dana smiled and nodded. "I forgot that you grew up there. My family ran a clothing shop in the city, so we needed computers for everything. Taking orders, tracking inventory."

That was just one of the many downsides to living in a rural mining town. Infrastructure spending didn't make it to them, except for the railroad improvements that got the coal and metals to town. The twin mines were a core asset of the nation. One was a massive coal seam that ran the power plants, the other extended the other direction across a fault line, and held a load of precious metals.

It was everything that a growing nation could need, but it belonged to the government, and none of that wealth made it back to the people actually doing the mining.

Dana led them to a small gazebo tucked into an alcove in the hedge maze, and when they sat down, the enchanted bushes grew around the small building, blocking them from passing students and giving them privacy to study.

"This is wonderful, and it smells so good." Karl sighed, thinking of both the coal dust at home and the filth of the swamp.

"Yeah, lilacs are my favourite to begin with, so it's difficult to beat this place." Dana agreed with a smile as she set out her textbooks across from him.

Karl set out his current study guide on common monsters around the Academy. This was the book that all the student groups who got to go out on expeditions were required to memorize, and Sergeant Rita had demanded that Karl learn it as well, even though she had no intention of letting him leave the Academy grounds so soon.

What she wanted him to learn was all the abilities of the monsters so that he could formulate a plan for his own growth. Once he had that, Karl assumed she would make good on her promise to find him another monster cub to try to add to his collection, one more durable than Hawk.