“Precisely,” Mage Teft told Damion. “By pressing on with a low Rank team you endangered your team and yourself. Knowing when to quit is important.”
“I just wanted to pass. I wanted to make you proud,” Damion hung his head as he answered.
“I did not tell you previously, but there were multiple ways to pass. The best solution was knowing when to retreat.”
“Well, I did manage to take out the C Rank guardian of the tenth floor. And no one on my team got injured. That has to count for sothing. Right?”
“It does. And you did pass. Doing so with such a weak team is also quite extraordinary. But my goal was to teach you discretion. Just like your first ti in the battle simulator, fighting is not always the answer. Labyrinths and dungeons tend to force you to fight your way through. But that may not always be possible. You need to look for other solutions to problems.”
“Do you think I will be strong enough one day to be able to take down S Rank Demonic Beasts?”
“You have the potential, but don’t forget that it takes hard work to advance. Natural talent is a bonus, but if you don’t keep working hard you will end up falling short of your goal.”
“I understand,” Damion said. With the help of the Magic System, he could see his progress more clearly than other mages. Step by step he was growing, and he was determined to reach the top.
“Now go write an essay on what you learned and how you will do better in your next attempt.”
“Next attempt?” Damion questioned. He thought getting access to the labyrinth this ti was a one-ti occurrence, if he could go in again that would be amazing.
“During term breaks students are allowed access to Argentum’s dungeons and labyrinth. Your midterm break is coming up, so I suspect you would like to go into the labyrinth again.”
“Yes!” Damion shouted excitedly before controlling himself, “I an, yes I would.”
“Good. Now get to work on your essay.”
Damion got to work on his assignnt and after turning it in and heading to the rest of his classes, he thought of little else aside from his next foray into the labyrinth throughout the day.
As important as the lessons in his other classes were sure to be, Damion paid little attention. At lunch Gene and Josephine sat with him and the group discussed their dungeon run, what they had learned and what they could do better. However, when Damion brought up the possibility of another run the situation beca awkward.
“I don’t understand why you don’t want to join for another run during the break,” Damion questioned Gene.
If Gene and Josephine did not join him that left Damion with just Elicia as a teammate. He was sure he could ask Arica again, but her traveling all the way to Argentum, even if it was a profitable run and her master opened a portal for her to minimize the travel cost, was still a long way travel.
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Damion was not sure if he would be allowed to go into the labyrinth without a team, and even if he could, Mage Teft would surely tell him to stay on the lower floors, where nothing could really threaten him. There were four D Rank dungeons in Argentum, and while Damion was curious what kind of dungeons they were, he was more interested in finding challenges in the labyrinth than a dungeon where he could probably kill the guardian with a single attack.
“We can’t keep up with you. And if you go into a weaker dungeon just for us, it will do nothing but hold you back,” Gene explained.
“What are you planning on doing then?” Damion questioned.
“Josephine’s family arranged for a full team to take to each of the different D Rank dungeons to train.”
“I get it,” Damion said feeling a bit disappointed. “But now I have to build a new team. And I don’t have a lot of ti.”
“You are a licensed adventurer right? Why don’t you post a mission in one of the Argentum Adventurer Association halls. I’m sure you will get people willing to do the C Rank floors with you.”
“I guess I can do that,” Damion said with a sigh. “I just don’t like doing runs with strangers.”
“Isn’t that how you t Arica?” Gene questioned.
“I guess you have a point.”
Damion resigned himself to posting a mission in the Adventurer Association for his next team. Since he had ti before the midterm break, Damion hoped he would get a few applicants to choose for his run. It was not until his final class of the day, Thaumaturgy, that Damion’s mind paid attention to sothing other than planning for his next labyrinth run.
“Today, I have a special treat for all of you,” Professor Holden announced when class began. “We are going on a field trip.”
“Where are we going?” Damion’s fellow students from around the class suddenly started asking.
“We are going to the library.”
Professor Holden’s announcent was t with sudden disinterest. The library was hardly anywhere special. They all went there at least once a week, usually once a day to work on assignnts.
“At the library,” Professor Holden continued, ignoring his students’ disinterest, “we will be accessing the Tier 2 level of the Repository, where each of you will be allowed to select one magic seal to learn.”
As soon as Professor Holden ntioned the Repository everyone in the class erupted in cheers. Most of the students in the class were like Damion and did not know any tier 2 magic seals. The chance to study and learn a tier 2 spell was a great opportunity. One that Damion had been saving his weekly school points for. He was up to 70 points and was quite close to being able to go into the Repository on his own.
“All right everyone, follow ,” Professor Holden called out as he made his way out of the classroom.
Everyone in the class rushed after him. No one wanted to be left behind and they all wanted to be the first to learn a new magic seal. As they walked Professor Holden continued his lecture regarding magic seals.
“As all of you I’m sure know, the number of spells you can learn is limited. Each magic seal you learn becos a permanent part of your magic core. Once you learn a magic seal, you can then reveal that magic seal to others, even allowing them to learn it if they share your affinity. Please be aware that sharing school spells in this manner is strictly forbidden. If you are caught sharing school spells, either freely or for profit, you will be harshly punished.
“To this end, the school tracks what spells each student knows and if you suddenly know a spell that you did not acquire through the Repository, expect an investigation into how you learned the spell. Those of you with spells passed down through the generations know that your families have already provided a list of your spells as well to the school so we can keep track of your spells. While the school has no say in how your families share knowledge I’m sure each of you are aware of the consequences of sharing your families’ secrets without permission.
“Here we are,” Professor Holden said as he opened a set of doors in the library. “This is the Repository.”
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