They still did their best to counter the invaders during the summer festival, of course.
The next two restarts were much the same — the aranea gathered information about the invaders, sometimes asking Zorian to speak for them if they had to interact with someone openly, and started a limited assassination campaign among the cultists and other invasion collaborators that they managed to identify. Zorian learned combat magic, aranea mind arts, and tried to survive Xvim’s lessons without punching the man in the face. Their efforts were steadily bearing fruit, with the invasion going more and more haywire with each subsequent restart, and the matriarch hoped their mysterious third time traveler was going to show up soon.
The biggest surprise, to Zorian, was that Novelty actually remembered their interactions in previous restarts. Apparently the matriarch wasn’t monopolizing the memory transfer like Zorian thought she would, and was instead giving him memories of 6 different araneas in that memory packet of hers. Novelty, being something of Zorian’s personal trainer by now, was deemed important enough to be included in that elite company, something the young spider was very smug about.
Now, though, Zorian was feeling it was time for a change of pace. Two restarts full of Xvim were enough for him, and Taiven had taught him most of what she knew about combat magic anyway.
He knocked on the door to Ilsa’s office and waited for her to invite him in.
«Good morning, mister Kazinski,» Ilsa said with a hint of amusement. «I haven’t been expecting you until Friday. I suppose you’ve heard some stories about your mentor, then?»
«No, I already know what kind of person Xvim is. It’s not why I’m here,» Zorian said. «No, I’m here because I want to learn how to teleport.»
Ilsa blinked in surprise. «That’s… quite ambitious. Leaving aside the question as to why I should spend my time teaching you that, what makes you think you’re even capable of casting such a spell? Even the simplest of teleport spells are very difficult.»
«A fair question,» Zorian admitted. «How about a demonstration?»
«By all means,» Ilsa laughed, motioning him to go ahead. Zorian didn’t need empathy to see she didn’t think he was capable of impressing her.
Well then — challenge accepted.
Every difficult shaping exercise, every complicated spell he learned over the past two years in the time loop — he showcased all of them. Every written test or theoretical question she fielded against him he countered with a perfect answer — sometimes because he honestly knew the topic, and sometimes because she tended to ask the same questions each time he tried to impress her. And then, when she was still reeling from the realization that he was skilled enough to graduate from the academy right at that moment if he wanted, he pulled out several magic objects from his backpack and started explaining his spell formula experiments to her. While not an official spell formula teacher, Zorian knew from previous restarts that she had very good knowledge of the field, and could appreciate the difficulty of feats he was showing her.
«I’m surprised you haven’t applied for a transfer to a tier 1 group with these kinds of skills,» Ilsa remarked when he was finally done.
Ah yes, the tier 1 groups — the academy’s answer to students too advanced for the normal curriculum. Sadly, the prestige of belonging to one of those groups meant that many people did everything in their power to place their child into one of them, and that meant the actual lessons couldn’t be that much more advanced from normal ones, else all the people who bought or otherwise arranged for their presence there couldn’t keep up. Zorian had heard all sorts of things about those groups, good or bad, but the general picture seemed to be of a bunch of social climbers looking down on everyone else. Nothing that Zorian wanted to be a part of.
«I believe I can get more things done through independent study,» Zorian said. «If I truly thought my classes had nothing to offer me I would just test out.»
«Don’t be too hasty,» Ilsa warned. «I’m sure you can find the academy resources useful for another year or so. You aren’t that advanced.»
The academy didn’t like it when people tested out. They publically prided themselves on being able to help even adult mages, never mind gifted children. Graduating early implied that the student had nothing left to learn from the academy, and was considered a bit of a slap to the face on behalf of the student. You didn’t get any money back for finishing early, either.
All in all, Zorian didn’t really intend to test out — that wouldn’t get him anything except create bad blood between him and the academy. Still, he always found that sprinkling some light threats into negotiations helped the other side take him more seriously.
Ilsa continued to think in silence for a while, rhythmically tapping her pencil on top of a folder full of written tests that Zorian had speedily filled out earlier in the meeting. Zorian didn’t interrupt her, although he considered the long silence a bad sign. In all likelihood this attempt was a waste and he would have to try another approach in the next resta-
«Alright, here is my offer,» Ilsa said suddenly. «I will transfer your mentorship from Xvim to myself. I will give you instruction in advanced aspects of illusionism, alteration, animation, and conjuration. If you impress me with your dedication, I will then include lesser dimensionalism spells in that list, and if you prove yourself adept at those… then I will teach you the basic teleport spell.»
Zorian blinked. What? That was way more than he asked for! Not that he was complaining, but…
«That sounded better than I hoped for,» Zorian said. «What’s the catch?»
«Well, first of all, I’m expecting you to be my personal assistant,» Ilsa said. «I’ve been trying to get one for the past two years, but the headmaster refuses to pay for their salary and finding a skilled person willing to work for free is surprisingly difficult. Anyway, you’ll mostly be dealing with the large number of tests and homework I get every single day, and I may also ask you to take over some of my teaching duties to first year classes. Or any other random task I think of that I consider below me, really.»
Annoying, but a fair price for what she was offering. In fact, this whole thing sounded remarkably like-
«And you’ll officially become my apprentice,» Ilsa continued. «If I am going to teach you advanced magic and trust you with my work, I want to have some kind of legal hold over you.»
…like that. Normally Zorian would be very leery of signing an apprentice contract with someone he barely knew, considering their main purpose was to screw the apprentice over if they went against their agreement with their mentor, but this contract was only going to last until the end of the restart so what the hell.
«Oh, and you’ll be taking over the position of class representative for your group,» Ilsa suddenly said.
Zorian winced. Not only was that a thankless, horrible job, it was also already taken.
«Akoja is going to be devastated,» Zorian mumbled. He felt kind of bad at stealing her position, especially since he didn’t actually want it in the first place, but there was no way he was missing this chance.
Ilsa laughed. «Zorian, the reason I’m giving you the position is that Akoja doesn’t want it anymore. She says she hates the position — that everyone shuns her because of it and that I should give it to someone else. Unfortunately, I haven’t received any offers to switch with her. Not from anyone I trust, anyway.» She gave Zorian a knowing look. «You were one of the people she recommended for the position, but I didn’t even bother asking you about it. Everything I heard about you suggested you wouldn’t accept the position.»