Mage And Wolf
Chapter 152

Chapter 152: Chapter 152

"Song! Get out here! A voice roars from the courtyard outside Elder Song’s library the next morning.

"What? Don’t you roar at me you ungrateful disciple. Tell me what the problem is."

"How could you send us all to a Demon world? And without any warning? Barely half the students there are even human, and the High Priestess is clearly a Demon." One of the teachers who took up the quest shouts at Elder Song through his window.

Both Elders and disciples are gathering around to see the verbal fireworks go off. This isn’t the first time Elder Song has sent people somewhere questionable, and he entirely neglected to mention the presence of non humans before sending the prospective teachers to the cathedral.

"It’s a Dragon Temple, clearly there would be Dragon Kin right? Stop being stupid and go do your mission or pay the failure fee and I will send someone better." Elder Song shouts back at him, waving his hand in dismissal.

"Fine, I’ll pay the fee. I’m not taking part in your damnable demon experiments." The man storms off towards the mission hall in a rage.

"We should go check on the kids. I hope the teachers didn’t hurt anyone." I tell Elder Song, who motions for me to wait.

"Ming is on it. She’s pretty mad I forgot to tell her about the Dragonkin. She at least knows what they are, and the kids were in bed before the teachers arrived. I promised her something good to make up for her trouble though, so you might need to lend me a polymorphism pill." Elder Song laughs.

"You know, we should have seen that one coming." Karl shakes his head. "For the first time in months, the Young Miss has her ears and tail put away, but we never thought to warn the others that not everyone there was human."

"They sweat the little things too much. That’s what happens when you grow up in a world with only humans." Elder Song shrugs. Song himself isn’t from this world, at least that’s the rumor in the sect. They say he ran here when he got in trouble for ethically questionable experiments in the Immortal Realms.

The Elders are chastising the onlookers now, getting them back to their cultivation and studies, but there’s a small group of people waiting outside the library door.

"Elder Song’s residence, can I help you?" I greet them with a smile.

"Hey Young Miss. We heard Elder Song found Dragon Type Demons and we wanted to see what his quest was. We’re all fascinated with the Demon races from legend." the teenage male disciple replies.

"Dragons are not demons, so Dragonkin aren’t demons either, just not human. The mission is to teach essential skills to orphans." I inform the group.

"Essential skills or ’essential’ skills?" One of the disciples asks.

"The second one. You know, alchemy, inscription, martial arts, assassination techniques, personal bodyguard duties. Essentials."

"If the Elders will allow it, count us in." The spokesperson says excitedly. "We’ve got some skills, and we’re all full outer disciples."

I motion them inside to wait and go find Elder Song to see if Elder Ming is going to kill us all when she returns.

"Ming says 4 of 10 will stay, now that she’s clarified the situation. And she threatened to spank me, but she probably won’t follow through with that." Elder Song laughs with a communication token in hand, clearly enjoying the morning’s fallout.

"I thought it was a costume, a ceremonial outfit. How could you do that to us?" comes shouting from the portal area. I hope they closed the door to the alchemy room on the other side, or they’ll wake everyone up.

"It’s show time!" Song laughs in a happy voice and does a strange little solo dance as he heads out the door.

"A couple horns and tails and half of the teachers from the greatest Evil Sect in our world were scared away by a bunch of children? I thought you all had stronger stomachs than that." He scolds the returning teachers with a strict look.

"Calling us Demon Cultivators doesn’t mean you can just throw us into a hell dimension to teach actual demons. That Immortal Realm Demon Priestess that met us at the portal is terrifying." One of the teachers pouts.

"They’re related to Dragons, which are Saint Class Mystic Beings, not demons. Plus, it’s not a hell dimension, it just smells a little funny because those rooms are used for alchemy training." Song is not at all sorry for his actions. So the oversight probably wasn’t accidental.

"But feel free to pay the failure fee and quit, we’ve found replacement teachers." Elder Song motions to the assembled demonology nerds.

The failed teachers leave without another word, and Elder Ming is glaring at us.

"That wasn’t funny."

"I’m sorry, Elder Ming, but it really was." I tell her. "Did you see their faces? I’ll bet they hid in the dorm rooms all night because they didn’t dare walk the halls in the dark to come back early." I laugh and Elder Ming turns her glare at me personally.

"Peace offering?" I hold up a Cursed Polymorphism Pill "I’ve got a good thing for you."

Her love of alchemy takes over and she starts inspecting the pill. "Oh, very good, very good indeed. I shall accept your peace offering, and we can use it when I find just the right look."

"But for now, the two of you are with me." Elder Po steps forward and motions for me and Karl. "This morning is martial arts training. Song agreed to teach Black Dragon here the basics of the Shadowed Blade style with a spell."

Black Dragon? Karl gets to be Black Dragon while I’m Young Miss? How is that in any way, shape or form, fair treatment? I would lodge a complaint if I thought anyone would care.

One of the Inner Court Disciples is going over the essential muscle coordination with Karl, who is catching on quickly after the memory transfer. I’m working on the Divine Dragon style, but the combination of fighting and controlling the twin Dragons is a lot like growing two extra limbs, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

It takes three days before I’ve finally gotten used to using the energy Dragons as extendable extra limbs. But now that I have, I wish I’d had them all along. They can lift me straight to the second floor windows easily, so I don’t have to go through the den to get to the kitchen and bathroom. They can grab ingredients and even cut them while I prepare something else with my hands.

They’re so convenient it’s a shame to put them away. If they didn’t draw so much energy I’d just keep them all day like a clothing accessory.

The progress with the Divine Dragon fighting style is coming along smoothly as well. Another week and I’ll be ready to start trying to blend it with the Blooming Lotus style.

Karl has mastered the Shadowed Blade style to an acceptable level for an outer disciple, so Elder Po released him to Song’s care. There’s entirely too much laughing coming from that library for them to be up to anything that bodes well for this world.

On the fifth day following Karl’s move to work with Elder Song, they announce that they have made an inscription breakthrough, and need to show it off, or ’perform practical tests’ as they put it. Every outer Sect disciple that isn’t currently occupied is gathered near the target dummies, nobody knowing exactly what they are about to see.

"Welcome and thank you so much for coming. We believe we’ve managed to embed a series of Arcane Spells into an inscription, that will let a disciple using throwing weapons greatly increase their lethality. We need 5 volunteers, who will all be given two Rank 3 Qi Gathering pills as a fee for participating in today’s demonstration." Elder Song greets the assembled crowd.

Forget his habit of doing sketchy things in the name of experiments, that’s a pretty good fee he’s offering, and he soon has his 5 volunteers, throwing knives at the ready.

"Now, each of you will have the inscription placed in a different spot, to ensure it works correctly no matter where it is placed. Once your inscription is placed, you can activate it with a bit of energy, and then throw your first 3 knives."

Left Bicep, right forearm, left shin, torso and forehead. The inscriptions are all placed. In not sure what that last disciple did to make Karl slap the inscription on his face though.

One after another, they throw their knives, launching them at unexpected speeds and digging through the targets to stick in the steel back stop. Excited whispers cross every lip in the crowd, regular knives that can cut into steel with a casual throw is a big deal.

"Well thank you all for coming, we’re pleased to announce positive results, and with a little more fine tuning this Rank 5 inscription should be available to the Sect in the next few months." Elder Song announces happily.

So that’s what they were doing, trying to give throwing knives the stopping power of an enchanted 50 caliber round.