He delivered more supplies to me shortly after that.
I was getting more confident in my overall enchanting abilities at that point, so I decided to make a couple more items for myself. My resources were still pretty limited. Jin had helped considerably, but he was still only giving me small and medium cores, and the majority of them were a handful of specific types: mental mana, image mana, transference mana, and gray mana.
The attunements he wanted me to “fake” for him were the Shadow, Diviner, and Guardian. Since he was giving me “extras” of the same materials used for those, I could build some additional items of those same types for myself.
I headed toward the old university grounds to pay Lars a visit at the Climber’s Court. I had some ideas I wanted to ask him about.
From what I’d heard, the original campus had been dedicated to direct study of the tower, so it had been as close as physically possible. After the first time that monsters had escaped the tower and attacked the nearby students, the old university had been evacuated and the new campus had been built.
Funny, considering the monsters had zero difficulty in flying over the new university’s defenses and getting to us.
The older buildings had been repurposed for any number of different things. Overflow housing for students that didn’t fit in the dorms, a few scattered remaining research facilities, and dozens of buildings dedicated to serving the needs of climbers who entered and exited the tower regularly.
The Climber’s Court thrived on that close proximity to the tower. Other magic shops might have been cheaper, but Lars was convenient.
The front room was littered with tables and shelves carrying dozens of items. Prices weren’t listed; Lars consulted a list behind the counter before buying or selling anything. I assumed that was a tactical move so that he could vary his prices on a per-customer basis.
The retired climber was up on a ladder when I came in, putting a vase on the top of a bookshelf that was laden with non-book items. I didn’t know why anyone would ever want to put a vase on the top of a shelf, but he managed to get it up there without incident, waving to me as I closed the door behind me.
It was early in the day, but there were already a couple other customers. A boy with glasses was thumbing through a stack of books on a table on the left side, muttering something to himself. A blonde woman was tossing a glowing dagger up and down, apparently testing the weight.
But it was the masked swordsman that caught my attention.
I felt a moment of panic before I processed that he wasn’t Keras — his hair was shorter and he looked closer to my own age and build. The mask was the wrong color, too. He carried an impractically huge sword like it was weightless. With the blade rested against his shoulder, it almost brushed the ceiling of the shop.
The swordsman had a blonde-haired doll in a powder-blue dress poking out of a pocket in his cloak. That was unusual enough in itself, but I could have sworn that when I looked away and looked back the doll’s expression had changed.
Is there something about this tower that attracts eccentric masked swordsmen?
I shook my head to dismiss the thought. I had bigger things to worry about.
“Corin!” Lars closed the distance between us in a few steps, slapping me on the back. “My favorite customer!”
I definitely wasn’t his favorite customer.
“How can I help you, lad?” He had a cheerful grin behind his voluminous red beard.
“Thinking about picking up some more supplies, and I was hoping you could give me some advice on what might be useful in the tower.”
Lars nodded knowingly. “Ah, sure, sure. Getting prepared for your practical next week?”
I blinked. “My what, exactly?”
“You don’t know?” Lars let out a deep belly laugh. “Oh, goddess, boy, you’re killing me. Your first practical exam is next week and you didn’t know?”
I drew back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about; we’re not supposed to make our first trip into the tower until the end of the year.”
He nodded, still chuckling. “Right, right, course not. But you get to go into the fake tower next week.”
Oh.
That made a lot of sense.
I knew the academy had a building they used to set up tests that were similar to the rooms in the Serpent Spire. My brother had taken a mock Judgment in a similar facility for practice, but I’d never had the chance.
When I’d heard we were going to be having tests periodically throughout the school year, I’d assumed they were the traditional written kind.
But of course not. Not at a school where professors liked to ambush me in my room in the middle of the night. No, nothing could be simple here.
Did the others already know? Was I the only one who’d so thoroughly misinterpreted things?
I’d find out, but first, I needed to get myself prepared. I was nowhere near ready for another encounter with the tower — real or otherwise.
I had planned to start gradually putting together an inventory of magical items that would be useful for going through the tower in the middle of the year, but if I had to plan for next week, I’d need to prioritize whatever my first items were much more carefully.
I needed to make sure I scored well enough on the test to make it through the rest of the year. If I failed out, it would be years before I could get another chance to start climbing the tower. I couldn’t afford to wait that long.
“Right, um, of course. So, I need to get ready for that, and I could use some ideas.”