The final day of the tournament came and went, mostly without my involvement. I’d already fought my share of matches—some I won, some I lost—so I spent much of the day wandering the fair-like atmosphere around the college, sampling street food and chatting with strangers. Being a dwarf had its perks; no one batted an eye at me hauling around a handful of snacks while exploring every nook and cranny of the festival.


    When the festivities wrapped up, life at Stoneharp College shifted gears. The very next day marked the official start of classes, though “official” seemed like a stretch. From what I could tell, most of the students were either noble kids, merchant heirs, or otherwise well-funded types who treated the school as more of a social club than an academic institution. Sure, there were classes and clubs to join—fighting classes, crafting clubs, advanced magic seminars—but the only mandatory requirements were a couple of history courses and a basic magic user course.


    I wasn’t about to complain. My plan was simple: dive headfirst into the crafting curriculum to see what I could learn about runes and enchantments. After all, I’d already discovered my knack for bonking things back into shape; maybe formal study would help me refine that skill and find new applications. At least, that was the plan. And if the classes ended up being too easy or too shallow, well, I’d figure out my next step. One way or another, I intended to make the most of my time at Stoneharp, even if half the students were here to party rather than study.


    By the end of my first day, I realized something: whether Stoneharp was a glorified social club or not, it still housed plenty of magical knowledge waiting to be unlocked. All I had to do was keep my head down (as much as a dwarf who smacked a prince could) and learn as much as possible. After all, if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that you can never have too many tools in your arsenal—especially when your go-to solution is hammering stuff until it works.


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    I caught up with Grok later that evening and asked him about the magic user course everyone kept talking about. He was in the middle of organizing his books—thick tomes filled with cramped handwriting—when I sat down across from him.


    “Ah, that course?” Grok said, glancing up. “Almost everyone at Stoneharp has some connection to mana, whether they’re tossing fireballs or just making glow-lights. So the college set up a mandatory class to ensure nobody goes rogue and rips a hole in reality by mistake. Or worse.”


    He flipped through one of the tomes, showing me a few pages covered in circles and runic diagrams. “Used to be that magical knowledge was guarded like family heirlooms—secret grimoires passed from master to apprentice, cryptic runes recorded in hidden codices, stuff like that. But apparently, they had one too many necromancer plagues and demon invasions thanks to wizards just fumbling their way through advanced sorceries.”


    I grimaced. “That sounds… messy.”


    Grok nodded. “Messy is putting it lightly. After enough disasters, the Council of Mages finally agreed that magic needed a more formal structure. Stoneharp isn’t the only place, but it’s one of the biggest. This basic magic user course is meant to hammer in the fundamentals: mana control, ethical practices, emergency containment, all that good stuff.”


    “Like a safety net,” I said, picturing a bunch of novice mages setting off little explosions in a controlled environment instead of in the middle of a village.


    “Exactly,” Grok replied. “They teach you the basics—mana breathing, spell formation, how to avoid nasty side effects—so you’re not wandering around chanting random words you found in a dusty book and summoning demons by accident.”


    I leaned back in my chair, letting out a slow breath. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Last thing I want is to blow myself up trying something new.”


    Grok smirked. “That’s what I thought, too. Trust me, it’s better to learn from professionals than to guess your way into a catastrophe.”