"You're geared up for battle?" Dylan asks as he steps out onto the back deck, covering a yawn with a hand. "Going to the mines today?"

  Nolan and I are out here, Nolan playing with water magic as best he can. Mostly, that's consisting of him drawing it out of a bucket, trying to shape it into an orb, then giving up and throwing the failed orb at himself. He's a bit drenched, but it's nothing harmful so I'm letting him have his fun.

  As for me, I'm dressed in brown pants, an off-white tunic without sleeves, and my leather armor. It's an outfit I changed into after Nolan and I ate, so that I could leave once his father woke up.

  Yesterday was the last day of lessons for the week, and this was the second week of lessons. I didn't do anything outside of chores and some minor crafting since I began teaching all of the younger members of the village. Not even last weekend, when I didn't have any other obligations.

  Just doing chores, lessons, and crafting has caused a sort of mental itch, and I need to go out and do more now. With today's chores something I can put off until later or let Dylan handle, I've decided to gather more materials today.

  "Maybe," I answer. "I might also head to the Mistwood. I want to get some more arcane wood, and maybe some other materials. The mines have a lot of resources in them, but they don't cover everything. I'll have to see what Robin says about the spirits."

  "You didn't already visit him?"

  It's become a habit for me to visit Robin before breakfast and see what he says about the spirits while sometimes giving him a gift. I usually take Nolan with me, but since I was planning on doing stuff after, I opted not to.

  "Not this time," I tell him. "I'll be heading off now. I left some breakfast for you in the stasis bracelet on the counter in the kitchen, and a little bit extra in case Nolan is hungry again. We had biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs on the side today. There's also lunch for the two of you – cheesy noodles, sandwiches, a veggie salad, and a fruit mix. Nol helped me make them earlier; I'll probably be gone past lunch so I fixed some up. There's also a post-nap dessert in there, I made apple pie and ice cream."

  Leaving Dylan to cook will result in either stew, the main thing he knows how to cook, or something burned. It seems that almost all that the locals eat for non-breakfast meals is either some form of stew, steak, or grilled fish. That does tend to be norm in farming communities in this kingdom, so I wasn't too surprised at the reminder of it.

  Though with my knowledge of foods from the various kingdoms on the continent and around it, that might change. Those coming for lessons are getting used to eating pasta, for example, as we have it twice a week for the post-lesson lunch.

  They do have pies for dessert, but not usually using added sugar since it can be costly for them to purchase. That makes my pies sweeter, which the boys really like, and ice cream is a new thing to them entirely.

  "Alright," Dylan says. "Thanks."

  "He's almost out of mana," I add. "But don't let him put his boots back on until after he's dried, and especially not if he's going to be playing in water again after. It can cause the skin on his feet to split if they're soaked in water in the boots, and you'll have to dry the boots out after, too."

  While he does know this, Dylan's mind is still sleepy so he definitely needs the reminder. Nolan loves his boots too much to not put them on when he thinks he can get away with it. With his father still being tired, he knows he'll manage it if no one reminds Dylan.

  "Alright," I say. "I'm heading out now, I'll see you two tonight."

  "See you," Dylan says as Nolan stops playing with the water for a moment to wave.

  I [Teleport] to the entrance to Robin's garden at the tower, then enter and walk up to the tower. Just as I reach the door, the old magus opens it, a warm smile on his face.

  "Good morning," he greets me in the old tongue.

  Ever since fully registering that I know the old tongue, Robin uses it to greet me when I visit his tower. Since indulging him in it takes no effort, causes no harm, and helps build friendship, I see no reason to not use it.

  "Good morning," I respond. "How are you this morning?"

  "Quite well, quite well," he answers. "And you? How does the morning treat you?"

  "Good, so far," I answer. "Was planning on delving into the Mistwood today, or the mines if that's more advisable. Any news of the spirit sort?"

  "Some, yes," he nods. "The Mistwood is a good place to go, though I would recommend avoiding the marshes along the coast. The spirits there feel extra mischievous today. The air spirits above it are calm, so flying won't be an issue. I assume you have some form of magic for that?"

  Flying above Mistlands is rarely advisable due to the aerial monsters and other beasts which take to the skies. Even for a mage as skilled as I am, I personally don't recommend it unless there's a guarantee aerial combat isn't likely. Even if he hasn't seen me fly yet, he's probably assumed that I can due to the vast knowledge of magic I've displayed.

  Most mages don't actually have as wide a variety of spells as I do. They tend to be a lot more restricted.

  "I do," I confirm.

  "Is it only [Flight]?" He asks. "That one has a tendency to draw the attention of certain monsters, as does manipulating air to fly."

  Specifically, wyverns and dragons. They absolutely love going after people who use those magics. As powerful as I am right now, I could definitely manage a win as long as the dragon isn't too ancient. That would still go against the "avoid aerial combat unless necessary" bit, though.

  "Not only that," I tell him. "I know a few different ways to fly. Give me a sec and I can show you my preferred one."

  "Okay," he says as I remove my upper armor and my tunic.

  Then, I perform a shift with some manipulation of my magic and body. A pair of wings sprout from my back, large and graceful. Deep purple feathers cover them, faint glimmers of gold here and there as the light catches them.

  Robin's eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the sight of them.

  "Those don't feel like a normal magical construct," he tells me. "And I noticed it before, but your body is more… malleable than normal. The way you shifted your form was much faster than I've seen before and it seemed to cost you much less mana than Rose or I would need. You're not human, are you?"

  All humanoid variants of people were originally human. How beings like beastkin, elves, dwarfs, and merfolk came to be was magic. Mana influences a person's body in more ways than just their compatibility with others and their descendants' affinities. If someone possess or uses enough mana, it can even allow their form to change into a new one. Usually, it's just an enhanced or slight variation of the human one.

  That generally occurs by the person's will, so someone won't just randomly turn into a wolfkin. Their environment and habits also influence what they might turn into, if they don't resist the pull of their body. Only humans can undergo this change, as far as I know, and only once.

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  After all, they cease to be human after the shift.

  "Officially," I say. "I'm human. That's mainly as I've never told anyone and it's not like I bear obvious non-human traits like other types of people. It's not like being something else matters, anyway. Most people probably wouldn't believe me since a normal person wouldn't even be able to tell that I'm not. And since most people in the human territories don't even know that other types of people exist, convincing them that I'm not human would be difficult."

  Sure, I showed Patrick and his parents that I can shift into a wolfkin (at least, partially showed them), so they know others might exist. But there would be a loop of "but you look human" if I told them I wasn't.

  "I never intended for a shift to happen," I continue. "So I'm not entirely sure when it did, but I noticed it back when I was learning how to shapeshift from Aluci. My actual species is 'fae', and I've never heard of them outside of that."

  Something anyone blessed by the gods to be an Archpriest or greater can do is view something called "Personal Status". It gives more personal information about a person than the regular Status, including things such as their date of birth and species. No records I've ever seen contain the term "fae", and I actually said it in Oakarvian because there isn't a word for it in Okraviok.

  "One benefit to it," I say. "Is that though my wings are only nine feet from body to tip each, their size doesn't actually seem important for flight. When I shift like this, I have inherent flight magics. It doesn't seem to make monsters want to use me for target practice, so I use it if I'm sure no one else will see."

  The reason I'm revealing it to Robin now is as a sign of trust and friendship. It shows I trust him and view him as a friend, to reveal something more personal about myself like this.

  "Inherent flight magics?" He raises an eyebrow. "Not a spell?"

  "Not a spell," I confirm as I fold my wings up against my back

  Not that tucking them in hides them or anything – they're still fairly large, after all.

  "It takes no mana from me to fly with these wings," I add.

  He rubs his chin for a moment, deep in thought about what to say next. Even without [Empathy] telling me his emotions, I can tell that much.

  "We looked into you," he tells me. "Not immediately, just recently. This past week. We've learned a few things about you, and if we're right, you never shifted but were instead born this way."

  The fact that they looked into me isn't surprising as I expected them to. The fact that they only did recently surprises me, though. I would've immediately looked into the background of a mage who suddenly moved into an area like this, if I were in their place.

  "You know who my parents are?"

  "If Rose and I are correct, yes," he answers. "But I wouldn't worry about them. We've never heard of fae before, but if it's something new, or resulting from the unique circumstances of your birth, it would explain why the spirits have loved you since you were little."

  The unique circumstances? That means they know more than just "a few things" about me. I won't press, though. He's an ancient magus with power and wisdom beyond my own. If he thinks it's important for me to know, he'll tell me.

  I did hope to find out about my parents here, but it's not a priority for me. It never has been. I've spent twenty years without knowing anything about them, I can wait longer.

  "Another thing we learned," he says. "Is your nickname of 'the Archsage of the Endless Flow'. We haven't found the origins for that, though, and don't quite know what an archsage is. That's not a term from our time and we didn't look that deeply yet."

  Of course they found that nickname… and he's right in that it's not a term from over nine hundred years ago. He had to use the modern tongue for the word as it's younger than five centuries old.

  "An ordinary mage," I say. "Typically learns five to ten spells before their deaths. Even in old mage families, they might only know fifteen, twenty spells at most. Their talent lies in their ability to learn and wield those spells, and how versatile they are with them.

  "Generally speaking," I continue. "An archmage, or a powerful and talented mage, is able to cast twenty to thirty spells before their deaths. For a magus, it's usually closer to fifty. This isn't related to their level of power, not directly, but growing stronger does usually translate into learning more spells.

  "Sages are different," I say. "A Sage is someone who know at least one hundred spells. It doesn't matter how strong they are, all that matters is how knowledgeable they are of actually casting spells. The Sages are those who are knowledgeable about magic, so most of them are magi, though not all. Being interested in magic and advancing one's knowledge of it isn't necessary. In fact, you don't even need the ability to cast the spell – all a Sage needs is to know it. If they can perfectly replicate the spell formula in writing, they can be considered a Sage. If they meet the one hundred requirement, of course."

  The only way to truly know that many spells is to understand them on a fundamental level.

  "An Archsage," I say. "Is pretty much guaranteed to be a magus. At least, I've never heard of one who isn't. They're those who know at least one thousand different spells. In other words, they're essentially walking libraries of magic."

  Considering the ages of Robin and Rose being… literally older than any mortal being I've ever met, they're guaranteed to be Archsages.

  "And your title?" He asks.

  "All Archsages who are known to be one are given some form of title by others," I shrug. "Many magi are, too. My Archsage title comes from my ability to perform a seemingly endless flow of spells, so great is my knowledge of them."

  "How many spells do you know?"

  "Do I know or which I can currently cast?" I ask. "Zolbiatz reset my Skills, so there are still some spells I don't have the MP for yet. As for how many spells I know… it's upwards of ten thousand."

  Silence reigns for several moments.

  "You're only twenty," he finally speaks. "How did you learn so many spells?"

  "I don't have a perfect memory or anything," I tell him. "But when it comes to books, well, I can memorize a page just by glancing at it. I tried testing the limits of this and ended up looking through several great libraries. Here in Silveroak and in other kingdoms. Ended up memorizing thousands of books and I'm pretty sure I'm still able to store more of them up here."

  I tap the side of my head at that last part.

  "And I can access the information from said memorized books at any time," I say. "This allows me to pull on the knowledge of multiple kingdoms if I need to."

  It also only works with books, so I actually have to learn other skills and make an effort to remember some things. However, that knowledge does prove useful. While they didn't contain much when it comes to things like companion planting, I did find a few books on things like livestock. That's actually how I knew about what to do for the slime barn.

  "That's quite interesting," he says. "And speaking of learning things, how much do you know about making charms?"

  Most people would consider charms to just be another form of enchanted item, but they're not when done properly. It's an older style of magic crafting which involves shaping an item to draw out its natural magical properties or to allow it to host a magic. They usually have a single effect, sometimes more, but no enchantment is actually placed on them.

  Finding someone to teach me even the basics proved difficult, even with all of my traveling. The art died a long time ago since enchantments are inherently superior. I couldn't even find a book describing how to make them.

  "Nothing," I answer. "Have tried looking into it just out of bored and curiosity, but it's a dead art.

  "Rose has been making charms longer than it's been a dead art," he tells me. "I prefer enchanting, myself, but charms do have their merits. If you ask her for some lessons, she'll be more than willing to teach you."

  The fact that one of them knows how to do make charms isn't unexpected. Asking them about it has actually crossed my mind, but I wanted to wait until we had a better relationship first. I don't quite know them well enough to know how they'd react to me asking to learn from them.

  Since Robin's suggesting it, however, that suggests that it's fine for me to do that. Even if I haven't interacted with Rose, she's probably heard a lot about me from Robin and I know they've both been observing me.

  Making my home shielded against their scrying is proving difficult, but I did manage to figure out how to detect it a few days ago. From the feel of the spell, she also probably knows I'd noticed it.

  "I'll keep that in mind," I tell him. "For now, I want to gather some stuff from the Mistwood. Since you asked about flight magics, am I correct in assuming there was a purpose to it?"

  "Yes, right," he conjures a map of light between us, then points to a spot a decent bit west of here as I move back so that he can make the map larger. "If you're looking for arcane wood, there's a grove of tree fiends in this section. Not the lesser ones you'll find closer in but some stronger ones. It's a bit far to walk in a day, but not too far for flying.

  "That said," he indicates another spot on the map. "These are some floating islands. There are a few of them scattered here and there over the Mistwood. Most of the beasts up there possess an affinity for light and/or stone. There are some rare flora and fungi up there as well. We haven't managed to grow them elsewhere, so that's where we go to acquire them. I'd recommend taking a look, as I'm sure you can find use for them."

  Floating islands can only occur under one of two circumstances. The first of those is where the ground of the islands has a mineral which floats on its own in a high enough concentration to lift the entire thing up. In an area with a dense enough Mist, floating islands can form above it as well.

  Naturally, that includes large enough Mistlands, such as the Mistwood.

  "I'll check it out," I tell him. "Thanks for the recommendations."

  "May the gods and spirits guide your paths," he tells me.

  "May the gods and spirits guide your paths."