"Hey, Mister Magister!" A young male student approached Will the day after his fight with the foreign idiot.

  "Hm?"

  "Got a moment? See, I saw your fight from the first row. The wolf seemed to both bite your arm and claw your stomach at the same time."

  "I guess so? What about it?"

  "I knew it! You can casually shield two body parts at the same time!"

  Will's immunity spell had been shielding his whole body from spells, but the boy wasn't necessarily wrong, depending on how one evaluated the word 'casual.' Will had expended a precious fourth-level spell slot, after all.

  "Yes?"

  "Excellent! I'll be recommending you to my father," the boy announced brightly and turned around on his heels, leaving behind a confused Will.

  Things became clearer when a servant approached him with a job offer and a written invitation. Will chose to see what it was about, finding a large town estate at the address enclosed in the invitation.

  "Everyone, thank you for taking the time to attend this selection," the nobleman began.

  "All of you are reasonably new magisters, which is why we'll be starting off with an examination."

  "Duke Richford, if I may..."

  "Ah, excuse me, honored Magister Sixtus. You are, of course, excluded from these mundane matters. Jerome! Please escort Magister Sixtus to my study."

  A servant appeared to lead the previous speaker away. It was a middle-aged man who dressed in blood-red robes embroidered with a lot of silvery details.

  "As for the rest of you, please follow me to the training yard."

  Seven well-dressed people followed the duke. Most of them looked to be around thirty, maybe slightly older.

  At the gravel-coated clearing they were led to, an old man stood next to some kind of magical apparatus.

  The complexity of the device reminded Will of Albrecht's floating alchemical setup, but this one was made out of golden wires and crystals of various colors rather than glass pipes. It also sat firmly on a table, like any normal, heavy object would.

  "I assume all of you can shield yourselves to some extent. I'd like to have my court mage put that ability of yours to a little test."

  The mage pulled a lever, and a white beam of light shone from the largest crystal at one end of the contraption, striking a wooden post that had been planted several feet away. A small trail of smoke started to rise from the targeted spot.

  "You are to withstand the beam as long as you can. Now, who wants to begin?"

  Nobody was interested in being the first, so the duke motioned at someone himself.

  "You, step forth!"

  The big, portly mage obeyed and stood in front of the machine.

  "Speak out when you can't stand it any longer, and Kuiper will turn the artifact off."

  The beam was turned on again, and the man raised both of his palms to receive it.

  It shone brighter and brighter, until after fifteen seconds the man shouted aloud.

  "Enough! That's enough!"

  The old man pulled the lever, and the portly mage wiped his forehead on a sleeve before walking off.

  "Next," the noble motioned at a short woman without offering any comments on the previous subject's performance.

  The woman lasted roughly the same time.

  The next guy withstood a full minute before calling it quits.

  Nobody broke his record until it was Will's turn.

  "Can I have a minute to prepare?" he asked.

  The nobleman frowned. "I'd prefer it if you didn't."

  Will shrugged. "Fine," and walked in front of the device.

  Absorb Elements (II) triggered.

  The beam began to shine again. It took a few seconds before Will detected a slight drain on his spell.

  After a minute, Will spoke up.

  "I can keep going, but could you make the beam stronger?"

  "This is as strong as it gets, young man," the old court mage spoke.

  "Fine, but at this rate it's going to take several minutes before I need to give up."

  "Hmm. You seem to be the guy my son recommended?" the duke remarked.

  Will nodded. "That's what he told me."

  "He did say you'd be good at shielding... I guess I'll take your word so we can move on."

  Next, the group was led to an archery range. It was prepared with simple wooden targets painted with the typical concentric circles used for archery.

  "Try to hit the target in the middle and strike it with... let's say two spells. Try to make them strong," their host instructed.

  People obeyed, and Will watched. The first salvo of spells consisted of mostly ice spears, but one person was using fire and one used lightning.

  The wooden targets seemed to be sturdy, and the spears shattered before they could get fully through. The lightning caused some small cracks in the wood to spread out around the impact point, while the remaining target had been set on fire.

  Will cast a magic arrow at his assigned target. It went cleanly through the very middle of the bullseye section. By then, everyone else had finished their second spells. Only Will's hands were still moving.

  He spoke the remaining syllables and made the last gestures. After twelve seconds of casting, a green splash of acid hit the target and began eating through it. It wasn't an Acid Arrow, though, but just another 1st-level spell.

  "Hmm! Remarkable," the court mage commented in his wizened voice.

  "I presume those are your strongest spells," the duke addressed Will directly.

  "No, sir," Will responded honestly. "I chose them because I can cast them pretty quickly. I'm a slow caster, you see."

  "I had thought you to be some kind of warrior mage. I guess the story about beating an elemental to death was a baseless rumor."

  Will didn't bother correcting the man. That particular story had turned out to be annoying, after all.

  "Anyway," the Duke went on. "I've made my choice. Thank you for showing up, but apart from Magister Will, everyone else is hereby dismissed."

  "Excuse me!" the guy who had stood the beam for a minute interjected. "I came all the way from Spiretown on a personal invite!"

  The duke frowned for a second, but soon his face smoothed out. "I suppose I would have ended up hiring you nine times out of ten. Very well, I'll arrange a feast for all of you in the best restaurant in Anth tonight! Let that be a compensation for your time."

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  After the scrubs were sufficiently placated, Will was shown into the duke's gaudy office, where the middle-aged mage from earlier already waited.

  "Tea? Pastries? Alright. Let's talk business. I'm hiring you to act as bodyguards..."

  ---

  Will yawned.

  He knew he shouldn't let his guard down; the area apparently contained shamanic hobgoblin tribes, and even wyverns were often sighted by the local villages; but this particular location just didn't seem too hazardous.

  Three young mages whisked their puny spells at twenty-odd goblins, while five fighters in full plate armor used the shafts of their spears to keep the shorter little monsters from escaping the dead end of a tunnel they'd been cornered in.

  "Are you seeing this, Tomas? I'm up to seven already!"

  "That's nothing. I just killed my tenth."

  When the last of the unfortunate creatures died, the kids moved eagerly in to collect their ears. A nearby baron paid fifty coppers for each felled goblin, and the kids were planning to kill two hundred, which would amount to one gold.

  It was some easy pocket money for them, but the whole of the excursion wasn't going to be profitable at all.

  Considering that Will alone was paid thirty gold for the job, it was clear that the young mages were sent out to the wilderness only to gain some experience.

  Magister Sixtus stood next to Will, leaning on a short staff with his eyes closed. Save for the smell of blood and innards, it was pretty peaceful now that the high-pitched screaming was finally over.

  "What the heck is that?" one of the boys asked, with genuine puzzlement in his voice.

  Will looked up, seeing the boy pointing at a wall ahead.

  One of the fighters moved up to inspect it in torchlight. "Could be an old mining tunnel that's been sealed."

  Detect Traps (III) triggered.

  Will's spell didn't make him aware of anything new, so he just stood back to watch and refill his spell slot.

  Of course, his charges wanted to go through the wall.

  The fighters succeeded in figuring the thing out after a while. The rectangular impression in the wall turned out to be a stone door that hung from crude hinges made out of carved stone.

  When pried open with a spear shaft, it produced a grinding sound that made Will cringe. If there's a dragon sleeping down there, it's probably awake now, he thought pessimistically but couldn't feel any real apprehension.

  "Could there be treasures?" one of the boys entertained.

  "It seems pretty likely. Why else would they put such a heavy door on it?" another offered an expert opinion.

  Their charges wanted to move on, and the guardians reluctantly agreed, judging the risk to be small and mitigable. After all, the place was known as nothing more than an old mine that happened to be infested with a goblin tribe or two.

  The door opened into a narrow tunnel, which finally led to a large chamber.

  On the floor, there were deep grooves that formed a large, seven-pointed star. At each of the points, there was a pile of bones topped by a humanoid skull. From their size, they weren't goblin bones.

  "Aaand, that does it!" Will spoke loudly. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this place," he declared.

  Unlike him, the older mage perked up happily and rushed to inspect the obviously profane ritual setup.

  "This... Could this be ancient necromancy? I have never seen anything like it, except in some historical treatises!"

  "Really?"

  "That's insane!"

  Great. Now the kids are getting excited, too...

  Will shifted uneasily on his feet. "Don't you think we should leave it be and just report it, you know, to some experts?"

  Magister Sixtus sent him a brief glare. "We are the experts, Magister Will!"

  One of the boys went to examine the bones.

  "No! Don't...!" Will tried to interject.

  The boy had already grabbed a skull. It crumbled down to gray-white dust in his fingers.

  Simultaneously, the six other skulls crumbled as well.

  Everyone froze. Will's heart jumped to his throat. Luckily, nothing else happened within the next two seconds.

  "You... Jesus Christ!" Will spoke in a low tone. "This is precisely why I gave you my expert advice to leave it all be."

  "Fascinating!" Sixtus whispered loudly. The man looked like he was fully captivated by the scene.

  "Gorgon," the boy next to the star suddenly spoke.

  Will looked up in alarm. The word hadn't been spoken in any language he'd heard ever before, yet he recognized it.

  "What did you just say?!" he demanded.

  The young mage turned to face Will. His expression was blank, and his eyes looked to be slightly out of focus.

  "Gorgon."

  By now, everyone was staring at him. Will had an inkling of the word's meaning, and he didn't like it one bit.

  "Gorgon, gorgon, gorgon, gorgon. Gorgon!"

  After the seventh repetition, the boy's eyes cleared up.

  "What—? Did I do something just now?" he asked, glancing around in confusion.

  All at once, the rest of the bones crumbled into dust.

  "Let's get the fuck out of here," Will opined.

  Before he could take a single step, a brief red flash illuminated the cave, and there was a collective gasp. The armor of the warriors clattered as they drew their weapons.

  Will turned to stare at a tall humanoid standing in the middle of the ritual circle. It looked a lot like a human male, except in the place of its hair there were writhing tentacles.

  "It seems that I've been summoned somewhere," the thing asked in a man's voice that had a slight hissing quality to it. "What are your demands?"

  Will stared dumbly in its eyes for a moment, then quickly averted his gaze. He consciously decided to keep his eyes on the creature's stomach area instead.

  "Uh, nothing?" Will tried. "It was just an experiment. You may go back!"

  "You are not my summoner! Hmm? None of you is! Could it be..." the creature weaved mana with its hands and pulled out a longsword from a black rift that had appeared in front of it.

  "I see! I'm free to do as I please," it hissed excitedly.

  It gazed around at the fearful humans and one half-elf for a few seconds that felt like an eternity. "I think I should begin... by removing the vermin!"

  The gorgon's eyes flashed in the torchlight.

  "Don't look at its face!" Will shouted a warning somewhat late.

  Minor Spellshield (V) triggered.

  Will didn't feel like trusting Minor Spell Immunity. The level-five spell he chose instead wasn't necessarily better, but it was guaranteed to block at least one high-level spell. More importantly, it should work against other magic abilities as well—not just spells.

  "I... I can't move!" One of the fighters yelled.

  At least he didn't turn into stone! Will consoled himself.

  Two of the fighters engaged the new enemy. They had abandoned the wood-shafted spears they'd previously used in favor of some big swords.

  One heavy strike from a two-handed sword was blocked easily by the slim longsword while the gorgon was looking away. Its eyes were on the other fighter, who froze mid-step and began sputtering something unintelligible within his closed helmet.

  Will's Magic Arrow struck the unarmored creature in the chest.

  While the spell had penetrated wood previously, the gorgon didn't seem to be affected much. Its clothes were punctured, and a few drops of golden blood flew out, but it wasn't slowed down in the slightest.

  The gorgon stared at Will, who felt his protective spell suddenly become significantly diminished.

  I didn't even look it in the eye!

  Apart from its eye attack, the gorgon seemed to be a physical fighter. It wielded the longsword with grace and delivered powerful blows despite its slim arms.

  Three fighters were now on it, while the two others stood still like statues.

  The three young mages were casting their puny spells until the gorgon glanced in their direction, and one of them froze.

  The longsword went halfway through a warrior's stomach, and the victim retreated a few steps before falling down on his rear end. He didn't rejoin the fight and started to panickedly fumble with his chest armor instead.

  In turn, the gorgon also received some wounds from the swords, but they didn't seem too deep. Only a slow trickle of golden blood flowed from a few cuts on its skin.

  Right then, the tip of a big sword struck the gorgon in the head, which dipped down under the force of the blow.

  However, apart from a couple of tentacles being sliced apart, the creature seemed unaffected. It stood up straight again and turned around to release a flurry of blows at the offending fighter, who retreated under the onslaught.

  Two-foot-long ice spears from the older mage struck the creature at frequent intervals, but they didn't seem to cause any greater wounds than the swords did.

  The old man switched to lightning, which seemed to be slightly more useful, given how it made the creature freeze up briefly after each hit.

  This isn't enough, Will judged the efforts of his allies.

  Nobody had their eyes on Will, but just in case, a spellstone seemed to appear in his hand, and an artificial, blue glow lit up in his eyes.

  Inferno Arrows (III) triggered.

  Three big and fiery arrows flew forth from Will's extended hands.

  The arrows couldn't be avoided, and they struck true, just like in C&M canon, although that fact might not be as absolute in this life as it was in a rulebook.

  The creature screeched in pain. Finally, Will could see some serious wounds.

  The arrow shafts had sunken almost halfway inside the creature's hard flesh. The next moment they burst apart in a hot blaze, frying the gorgon's insides.

  The gorgon fell down on the floor, writhing, while the warriors pelted at it freely.

  Minor Physical Immunity (IV) triggered.

  There was no way Will would get close to a monster that exhibited such physical prowess without taking some protective measures. It was only for the sake of his next spell that he chose to approach at all.

  Vampiric Drain (V) triggered.

  As he gazed into the eyes of the monster, Will felt his Spellshield suddenly break down some more, but he wasn't truly afraid anymore. Some of the shield still remained, which was enough. Will also had another, reasonably strong option ready if it became necessary.

  It didn't look like it would, however. The single-target spell was pretty damn strong, and Will hoped that it would be complete overkill after what the creature had suffered so far.

  The gorgon's skin shriveled up under Will's touch, and even its face started to grow emaciated. Stolen life force rushed into Will, who felt like it was bolstering him in some way (as it should, according to the original HP-stealing effect of the spell).

  Finally, the gorgon's eyes grew dull and glassy, and it lay limply on the ground.

  "What was that?!" Sixtus asked while staring at Will.

  "I had to use a spellstone," Will answered. "Thankfully, this thing was already on its last legs."

  "No, I mean the creature," the older mage clarified. "How did you speak its tongue?"

  "Oh. It was a gorgon. I happen to know a little bit of their language," Will explained dishonestly. He had no idea what language he'd spoken to the creature.

  The wounded soldiers drank some orange potions until nobody was bleeding much. Also, a few minutes later, the previously frozen people began slowly moving again, which was a big relief to everyone else and a medium-sized relief to Will.

  He was simply happy that he didn't need to use a certain gimmicky, shit-tier spell to fix them, which would surely have resulted in a huge headache due to its high level.