Chadwick was currently about a month away from another required test on the slider. And, as far as he could tell, the Dean was one of those mages that had been sent to the warfront. He certainly hadn’t seen the Dean around. With him assumed gone and Taverish for sure gone, Chadwick didn’t know what would happen or who would deliver his test.

  He had decided there wasn’t a lot he could do about it and questions to Sal about how the slider worked had been shut down very fast.

  “Boy, I admire your curiosity. But no. If you ask me again I will be asking for my book back and you will pass this class.”

  The threat from Sal had been bad enough that Chadwick was extra cautious about his questions for weeks. Passing from Sal’s class was a non-negotiable.

  Chadwick continued with his launching class and settled into his usual routine. He didn’t appear to be making any progress though, as Taverish had been the one gradually tweaking the dummy to make it show a little bit higher in the pipes each time. Without that adjustment, his fake dummy just stalled and always showed the same result at the end of each class.

  This led to the loud young instructor to stepping over to Chadwick halfway through the lesson and demanding to know why he wasn’t trying harder.

  Chadwick tried to insist that he was trying this hardest but was rudely cut off, “you aren’t even breaking a sweat. You have been barely managing two pipes since I got here. Hit it harder.”

  Chadwick gulped and nodded, he focused on firing particles that were more like what he had been using on Taverish’s real test dummy for Chadwick. The armor started to smoke a little.

  “No no, the pipe speed hasn’t changed at all,” announced the teacher, “like this!” He ended his sentence with a huge boulder crashing into the dummy. Then proudly pointed up at the pipe, “see, now the pipe…” he trailed off, “it barely moved. Is this one of those unique dummies or something?”

  Chadwick nodded, “yes, Mage. Mage Taverish said it was a better measure of what I do.”

  “Well, I think it might be defective. I’ll get Sal to come take a look,” said the teacher, then walked off to chase out the rest of the students as the gong went off.

  It was only ten minutes before his next launching class the following day when an attendant found him in Elvera’s office and asked him to come see the Chief Mage.

  Chadwick was dragging his feet, but eventually made it there and knocked on the office door. He heard, “come in,” and then let himself into the office.

  The Chief Mage was sitting at his desk, Sal was sitting in one of the guest chairs and looked fidgety. Not that the bushy man didn’t always look like he was about to spring out of his chair to berate a student. But that usually had more anger to it, instead of the uncomfortable squirming he was showing now.

  The Chief Mage beckoned Chadwick closer and then said, “I’m trying to clear some thing up and perhaps you could help me. Sal here as been under the impression that you are struggling to make progress on your armored dummy. Only reaching two pipes. Is that true?”

  “Yes, Chief Mage,” answered Chadwick.

  “And this dummy, is it one Taverish made for you personally?” The Chief mage continued.

  Chadwick answered the same affirmative.

  “Sal tells me he inspected the dummy and it was rigged to show only a certain amount of growth. It shows signs that Taverish was having to adjust it to keep it growing. Did you know about this?” The Chief Mage asked.

  Chadwick found himself unable to lie, “yes, Chief Mage.”

  “And, do you know why Taverish did this?” The Chief Mage asked.

  Chadwick had his suspicions, but he never really did understand why the Dean and Taverish had wanted him hidden, so he was able to truthfully answer, “no, Chief Mage.”

  The Chief Mage raised his eyebrow at the last, “that’s very curious. Why would they need to hide what an eight small weight mage can do, I wonder?”

  Sal snorted at the last statement, “if he’s only eight small weights, I’m a fairy princess. He built his own light-stick and activated it himself.”

  The Chief Mage shot out of his seat, “you have been teaching him enchanting?!”

  Sal looked puzzled, “I thought you knew? The Dean said it had been approved by the council.”

  The Chief Mage started swearing, “if he wasn’t hundreds of miles away, I would have some very serious questions about why he broke our rules.” Then he paused, “wait, a light-stick is easily something that requires a one large weight reservoir. If not two for those who are imprecise with their carving. And when he was last tested, by the Dean…” he trailed off.

  The Chief Mage turned to Chadwick and asked directly, “just what was your magical weight when the Dean last tested you on the slider?”

  Chadwick couldn’t stop himself from answering the truth, “eight small weights, eleven large…”

  The Chief Mage sputtered out, “eleven!”

  But then Chadwick continued, “and one sack, Chief Mage.”

  The Chief Mage fell back into his chair, “I believe I might have understood the Dean’s misdirection and have a certain… compassion, for what he attempted. But, the rules are the rules. We must proceed.”

  The Chief Mage turned to Sal, who looked a little white, perhaps realizing what he had just unwittingly caused for Chadwick. Even if Chadwick wasn’t fully aware of what was going on. Just that his secret was out.

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  “Knowing he has already produced a light-stick. Would you say he has achieved the minimum requirements for your class Master Enchanter?” The Chief Mage asked seriously.

  Sal gulped, “yes, Chief Mage.”

  “Well then, we best get you down to the target dummies to see if you can fill five pipes, eh lad?” Said the Chief Mage, then continued, “because you might just be ready for a book.”

  The Chief Mage escorted Chadwick directly to the main dummy room. Sal trailed along behind, looking slightly ashamed, but at least willing to see through what he had unwittingly caused.

  Chadwick was ushered through the door into the room first.

  The teacher only saw Chadwick step in and immediately started berating him, “you are late student Chadwick! Just because you have a faulty dummy, you think you can…” he trailed off as the Chief Mage and Sal stepped in through the door as well.

  “Oh, my apologies Chief Mage. I didn’t realize you would attend to this problem personally. It’s entirely my fault that I haven’t been able to get student Chadwick ready for his…” began the teacher.

  The Chief Mage just waved a hand at him to interrupt anything further, then asked, “which non-unique dummy is unused today?”

  The whole class had stopped now. The room had been filled with the normal crashing noises as various types of projectiles smashed into armored dummies. It was suddenly quiet as they all stopped, half of them had never even seen the Chief Mage before.

  In the sudden silence, the teacher answered, “um, this one on the left is standard and untouched today Chief Mage.”

  “Good,” said the Chief Mage then turned to Chadwick, “no holding back lad. Fill five pipes as fast as you can.”

  The young teacher stood back out of the way, looking slightly worried. None of the students in here could fill five pipes within an hour, or they wouldn’t be here. And Chadwick was by far his weakest student, with only half the class period remaining. A bare 30 minutes to meet the requirement.

  The teacher wasn’t sure why it would be his fault when Chadwick failed, but from his face, he was certain he would be to blame.

  Some of the more unpleasant students looked amused by this, thinking they would get to see Chadwick getting embarrassed and the teacher disciplined with everyone watching.

  Chadwick sighed, the ruse was blown, so he might as well correct all the false assumptions that had been made about him because of the Dean and Taverish’s lie.

  He started with one tiny particle as fast as he could and then added in more and more particles at a rapid rate, pulling them from dust and various things that had become lodged in the floorboards over the years. Until there was a beam streaming out of his outstretched hand.

  The particles themselves were too small to see, but the air in front of him was shimmering like a mirage in a desert. A solid tube of wavering air as heat came off the blisteringly fast particles.

  Chadwick put his full concentration into it, adding more and more individual particles into the stream. A breeze was ruffling clothes of the nearby people as Chadwick had to pull more particles from the surrounding area to fuel his beam.

  He was so caught up in trying to get as much out as he could that he jumped a little when Sal’s hand came down on his shoulder.

  “I think you can stop there lad,” Sal said quietly.

  Chadwick looked up, barely 4 minutes had passed and he had made it well into the sixth pipe.

  The whole class was stood in awed silence, staring at the pipes.

  The Chief Mage just shook his head and said quietly, “what have you done, Dean.” Then he looked directly at Chadwick, “let’s find you a book lad.”

  The walk to the library was filled with Sal attempting to give Chadwick a crash course on how the training books worked. First step was to find the book that called to him, somewhere in that library would be a book written by someone with a matching affinity to his. Or, at least close enough that he could learn from it.

  Once he found a book, he would bring it to them.

  Before entering the book, he was to pack as many supplies as he could carry with him. As, even though almost no time would pass outside the book, it would pass as normal inside and he would still need to eat and sleep.

  The amount of time spent in the book varied by the complexity of one's affinity and the demands of the trainer that they got.

  They paused on the way to stop at Elvera’s office, as his pack of belongings from home was stored there and no assistant could get into the office.

  Chadwick unlocked the office and set about packing up his bag, it still had travel clothes in it, so he replaced those with a few of his student uniforms — since they were much nicer material and it seemed like a good idea to show a more professional look to whoever would be teaching him.

  The pack was then handed off to an assistant who would stock the remaining space with travel foods from the kitchen.

  On a whim, Chadwick grabbed the bag he had been building for Sal and chucked the remaining parts into it that still needed engraving. Then added the few books that he still hadn’t read from Elvera’s list. He also included his tools and fishing gear since he had the space.

  He had a moment of concern as he looked at his fishing rod, but realized that his ability to reshape any material meant he could neatly snip it into sections and would be able to rejoin them as if they were new. He neatly divided it and chucked the bundled pieces into his bag.

  Sal saw him carry out the partially completed bag and said, “keep in mind that any work you complete in there will only be for learning’s sake. It will work as expected inside the book, but will need to be re-done here.”

  Chadwick nodded, “I’m mostly using it as a second bag, but good to know. I will focus on knowledge and not end products.”

  They got to the library and Chadwick was sent into the stacks of books by the Chief Mage with the instruction, “find the book that calls to you.”

  The library was surprisingly large and it took 20 minutes of wandering and trailing his hands along the shelves. Waiting for whatever “call” he was meant to hear. Sal was even sent to check on him at one point. The Chief Mage wanted to make sure Chadwick was still back there amongst the shelves.

  He had to go all the way back into a section that was so dusty it almost looked like no one had ever been there before he found a slim black volume labeled, “Vander — Particle Mage”.

  The sensation was much like seeing a horrible accident. He just couldn’t look away. The book was dusty and unremarkable, but to Chadwick’s eyes it was the only thing in the room. He carried it back out of the stacks, staring at it the whole time.

  The Chief Mage looked over the book carefully and said, “well, now we know the correct title for what you are, I suppose.”

  Sal helped Chadwick load up his two packs. One strapped to his front and one to his back. Then he carefully balanced additional paper-wrapped packages from the kitchen on top of the pack, stuck some under his arms to hold and finally said, “I guess that’s the best we can send you in with on such short notice.”

  The Chief Mage had been watching this with amusement, “I hardly think he needs all that, even if he spent over a month in there, that is plenty of supplies. Which only happens for the really tricky conceptual mages. We already know he isn’t one of those.”

  Sal nodded, “just a precaution, or a suspicion. Call it what you will, I would rather the lad have too much than not enough.”

  “No arguing with that I suppose, it’s not like it goes to waste regardless,” said the Chief Mage and then carefully handed Chadwick the book so as not to upset the delicate balance of things he was holding. All he said was, “open it.”

  Chadwick complied and the world disappeared for him.