Otherworld Academy Vol. 1 Capitulo 37
Epilogue
His night with Nox was one he knew he’d remember for long years to come. They made love until they were exhausted, and when Tawny returned, she joined them. Sadly, the requirements of the Academy meant that Levi still had to take his practical exams the next morning.
Thanks to his fights against the kirin and the Horrors, he didn’t have to take Combat Magics as a practical—with Nox as his tutor, most had assumed he would complete the test with flying colors. It was only with the help he had received from Tawny during his convalescence that he managed to pass his Common Spell-work course. It was the second term in a row that he’d struggled to catch up on simple, common spells, which greatly frustrated him. Learning to cast incantations helped, but he lacked many words that would be considered basic necessities in more “civilized” worlds. Tawny and Nox both promised that they would help him, offering to tutor him over the break, since he had no home to return to. Levi gladly accepted the idea of spending what amounted to Taryl’s winter with the women.
Creature Lore was the most difficult to pass; the practical exam required him to identify a number of magic beasts and regular animals based entirely on sight and what he could observe of their behavior. Levi got lucky, in that several of the creatures brought in for the test had analogues in human mythology, and that complemented what he had learned. He made the determination to spend more time in the library studying. His grades weren’t spectacular, but he did pass.
With Zuzan keeping track of where he was in his potion making, he found it wasn’t that hard to ace the course. He finally learned how to make one of the lowest levels of a healing potion, and Professor Tanglewood was more than happy to allow her students to keep them. Levi’s attempt only produced four doses, but she insisted they were of a good quality. He hoped so, because his experiences on Taryl had led him to believe he needed them more often than he should. He had been in this dimension less than six full months yet had found himself in near-death experiences far more than he would have expected. While he was allowed to roam the potions room, he made sure to make several more batches of the tonic for beasts, wanting to make sure he could heal any wounds that Zuzan or Flix suffered.
Taming was the last course of the term for Levi in terms of his practical exams. He was required to successfully tame a new beast and store it on one of the plates that could be inserted into the stasis lanterns using the appropriate ritual. They were taken to a different area of Taryl through a magic spell, and Levi found himself moving through rugged hills in a land where the sun beat down on him mercilessly. They had been instructed to bring the food and water they might need to survive, but no one could take more than a week’s worth. Levi realized the greatest part of the test was the fact that he didn’t know what kind of creatures were present in this area. In many ways the experience was meant to test every part of what he’d learned over the term.
While the heat didn’t bother Flix much, Zuzan was another matter. The squirrel hid herself away inside his uniform when she could and chittered piteously whenever she had to move in the direct sunlight. He made sure she had plenty of water and kept her in the shade when possible. The same spell he had used to spot the kirin came in handy, the hovering sensor allowing him to spot life forms. He cast it as often as his baseline mana would allow, then used it to study the animals he spotted, trying to determine what they ate and which might make for a good companion. I’m not going to tame an animal just to do it, I want to feel some kind of connection to it, he thought.
He had spotted a small herd of beasts, herbivores as far as he could tell. They fed on a prickly form of blue succulent that had small yellow flowers in a cluster along the top. The creatures didn’t seem to mind biting through the spikes on the plants, and their broad backs had hard shell plates. He wasn’t quite sure if the animals were reptiles or not; their tails looked like a crocodile, but their heads reminded him of huge sloths with the beak of a turtle. Shaggy fur covered their limbs and they had blunt claws that looked suited to dig, yet he didn’t see any sign of burrowing behavior. What he did see showed him that they were comfortable in groups, and the night a five-headed serpent attacked them, they only lost a single member of the herd. Their shelled plates resisted a number of attacks, which Levi liked. The real detail that caught his attention, however, was that they were large enough to ride. The leader of the herd was old and her fur had started to turn white, but he saw the remains of a leather saddle that had been bolted onto her shell.
He used his cane and a knife to gather a thick pile of the succulents, then cast a barrier to keep himself hidden from their sight. He set up in a shaded crevice between some boulders and hoped the small spring nearby would attract them to where he placed his bait—he assumed the beasts would need to drink eventually. After a two-day wait, some of the herd moved into the area and he listened to the snuffling, grunting sounds they produced. Unlike Flix and Zuzan, his senses didn’t pick up much in the way of intelligence from them, just simple emotions. Once they had drank their fill, a member of the group began to sniff and shambled over to the bait pile. That was when Levi began to infuse his magic into the beast.
He hadn’t anticipated that the creature would be sensitive to magic, so he’d wound up spooking the first three that came over. Each time he had to refine his magic to produce a thinner probe to try and make a connection. His fourth attempt saw success, and a tenuous bond traveled between him and the creature. As it began to eat the plants set out for it, the bond grew, and he cast other strings of magic between them. He was almost surprised when a broad, wet tongue slurped across his cheek and the thing’s wide nostrils huffed hot air into his face. Their connection passed along contentment to him, and then the animal rumbled several times as it shuffled away to drink more of the water.
Levi took his time drawing the circle for his stasis ritual. Three rings were connected by a seven-pointed, star, and it took him an embarrassingly long time to get the rune patterns right, but the beast didn’t seem to care. He activated the stasis lantern and inserted the mana vial to power it. When he tuned the lantern’s knob, the crystal plate held within began to glow and the circle he’d drawn shimmered in resonance. He guided the beast into the circle and a blue light came to life on the side of the lantern. In the end it was a flick of his finger that summoned the beast into the stasis plate, and he saw the image of the animal’s face engraved on its front. Levi had never been so happy to report in to a teacher in his life. Professor Ramshackle sent him back to the school and Levi spent the next hour relaxing in his shower… it felt amazing to be clean.
With that practical behind him, Levi only had to focus on enjoying his life with Nox, Tawny, and his beasts until his second year at the Academy began.
