We left the main building behind, making our way up the slopes of the valley and towards the other buildings.

Of the six, the first two were simple, mundane constructions. One was a combined barracks and servants' quarters, while the second housed honored guests, such as other nobles when they visited the Sions.

I listened, as was polite, but the truth was I barely took in Flynn's explanations. These were mundane buildings with everyday purposes, and I was far more interested in the rest of his tour. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long.

The third building was the one we'd entered to meet with the Duke. Flynn explained that it was filled with isolated training rooms, each designed with a particular purpose. Some concentrated mana of a specific element to aid in progression and recovery. Others held targets or reinforced dummies, similar to the one I'd already seen. A handful contained semi-autonomous constructs of metal and stone that could mimic a real person in battle.

But the most interesting chambers were ones with more...esoteric functions. One dampened the natural flow of mana using some fascinating magical arrays. If you could learn to draw upon and move mana despite that handicap, the strength and range of your will would grow dramatically. A different room was pitch-black and dead-silent, designed to block every mundane sense. The idea here was honing your ability to detect mana, sharpening it to a fine edge.

I made a mental note to return and try out these rooms as soon as possible, as we reached the fourth building. The two-story construction was vaguely square, broken up by several chimneys and what appeared to be drains jutting from the walls.

We walked inside, and I drew myself up short.

The central room was, simply put, the largest workshop I had ever seen, beyond even what I had seen at the Everforge. Crafting stations lay sprawled across the room, separated from one another by stone half-walls.

A blacksmith's forge covered in runes sat in one corner, lit with unnatural white flames. Dozens of hammers, tongs, chisels, rasps, and files of all shapes hung from hooks, and I spotted a wide quench sitting beside an anvil and workbench.

In another corner, someone had erected a complete alchemist's lab. There were the classic crucibles and flasks, but the more interesting bits were complex distillation and filtration systems. My alchemy skills had atrophied since leaving the Academy, but the sheer scale of this layout tempted me. Even a mediocre mage could produce dozens of potions and elixirs in a single day with such tools at their disposal.

The other stations were comparatively smaller than these two. I spotted an enchanting table with the carving tools and specially crafted bowls to hold magical substrates. Needles, spools of thread, glass bottles of dye, and other implements I didn't recognize sat at a different station.

I wanted to take a closer look, but Flynn reminded me that we had more to see. While I followed him back outside with some reluctance, those feelings faded as we approached the fifth building.

This one was the largest of the six and appeared particularly chaotic in layout. The bulk of it was a square section, but multiple adjoining wings had been added on at some point. A two-story tower loomed over the back of the building, the top rounded like a crystal ball atop a staff. On one side, a rectangular addition jutted out, while on the opposite sat a wide, flat portion that looked constructed almost entirely of glass.

We entered, and what I found only piqued my interest more. It was clearly intended as a counterpart to the fourth building, with the central section acting as a storage space. Countless rows of glass cases lined the room, each sitting above a neat label. All manner of supplies sat within these containers, ranging from chunks of metal to leather to cloth to dried herbs and berries.

Flynn led me through the other rooms, each of which seemed designed to create or refine a particular type of material. The wide glass section was a greenhouse filled with an untold number of magical plants. I could sense countless forms of mana, many differing only slightly from one another. Briefly, I wondered what Simon would've thought of the room. Did his family have a similar building on their grounds?

Those somewhat bittersweet thoughts of my former friend fell to the wayside as we moved on to the refinery. Ingots sat atop intricate magical arrays. I sensed the mana flowing up and into the materials, infusing and strengthening them, and marveled at the efficiency of it.

The tower proved the most fascinating of them all. It was unique from the rest in that it wasn't suited towards the refinement of a particular material. Instead, it was an observatory, but not one that watched the stars and moons. Its eyes were turned towards the unseen, dedicated to observing the flow of the mana within the world around us.

I stood within the spherical chamber crowning the tower, taking in the complex gauges, telescopes, and glass instruments lining the walls. Each one shifted and moved constantly in a chaotic dance that sent my head spinning.

Flynn explained with a proud smile that anyone trained in using these devices could watch the mana flow anywhere within a hundred miles with pinpoint accuracy. I wasn't entirely sure what purpose this particular room served for the family's greater advancement, but what I already understood was more than enough to spark my imagination.

Most of these tools were utterly indecipherable, but that was always the case with new skills. If I could master them and, somehow, learn to adapt and integrate some of their functions into my magic, what would happen? Even talented mages could only detect mana from a handful of miles away, after all.

As with the other buildings, I made a mental note to return and investigate further as we made our way to the sixth, and final, structure. My head already spun with plans, and I was almost buzzing with a desire to get started, yet I did my best to remain focused. This was the place I'd been most interested in, after all.

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The truth was...well, underwhelming.

The Academy boasted the single largest repository of knowledge in Ferris, if not the world. We couldn't say for certain without access to the Wandering Cities, but I doubted they had anything quite as extensive. Generations of mages had dedicated themselves to ensuring as much.

I had long since come to understand that the true secrets of magic were somehow restricted. Maybe there was a section of the Archives hidden from the common apprentices. Or perhaps some strange, arcane secrets left them imperceptible to all but a select few. Regardless, the greatest of their knowledge was inaccessible to me.

The Sion family library was, by comparison, anemic. It consisted of a single, large, well-kept two-story room brightly illuminated by glowing golden lamps hanging from the walls. These revealed, in turn, neat rows of shelves, lined with scrolls, tomes, worn notebooks, rolled up maps, and loose sheafs of paper.

I stood there, turning this way and that, and was about to make for the first shelf when a man came into view. He'd been around one of the shelves and seemed to have been roused into motion by my entrance.

"Oh," the man said as he saw us. "My deepest apologies, young lord Flynn. I hadn't realized you'd returned."

"No apologies necessary," Flynn replied with a laugh. "I was just showing my brother around the estate."

"Your...brother, my lord?" the man repeated, frowning.

"Yes, my brother," Flynn said, placing one hand on my shoulder and gesturing to the man with the other. "Vayne. And this is Arvat, keeper of the Sion family records since my father was my age."

I nodded to the older man. "It's an honor to meet you, Arvat.

"The honor is all mine, my lord," Arvat responded, recovering from his confusion as he bowed at the waist. He appeared to be in his fifties or sixties with dark skin, a shaved head, a thin, neatly trimmed beard, and a lean build that suggested he'd not seen much exercise in his life. His eyes flashed as they examined me, keen insight sparking in their depths, and I found myself liking the man almost immediately. He reminded me of Girem, only without the abrasive edges that had defined my former mentor.

"Sir will do just fine," I replied, waving a hand dismissively. While I couldn't dismiss any and all courtesy, 'my lord' felt a little cumbersome.

Arvat's eyebrow rose, and he glanced between Flynn and me before his polite smile returned and he nodded. "Of course, sir. May I assist you with anything today?"

Flynn gestured towards me in a 'go ahead' manner, and I asked, "I'm not sure, honestly. Can you tell me more about this room?"

"Of course, sir. These are the private records of the Sion family. It is their repository of all accumulated knowledge, magical and otherwise, and consists of everything from spellbooks and treatises on magic to private letters and journals to maps, ancient scrolls, and other, assorted things not so easily quantified."

Impressive. I glanced around again, trying to measure the precise number of works.

"Approximately how many individual items would you say are stored here?"

"One thousand, nine-hundred and seventeen separate items, sir," Arvat rattled off without hesitation.

I blinked, and Flynn chuckled as he leaned over my shoulder, saying, "Arvat's got a mind like you wouldn't believe. Not only does he know how many things are in here, but I'd wager he could identify most of them by memory."

Arvat's smile was confident. "Of course, my lord."

"And am I to understand that I have free rein of these buildings?" I asked without turning to Flynn.

"Father told you as much, didn't he? I can go ask him again, but he hates repeating himself."

I nodded, then focused on Arvat. "In that case, I'll be frank with you. I plan to read everything in this room sooner or later."

"An ambitious task, sir," Arvat remarked with a smile. "Not many would be so dedicated to their studies. I must warn you, though. Such a task would take years."

That didn't surprise me. Most mages, Flynn included, seemed to prefer more tactile magical efforts. Many found reading and studying inferior to learning from a master directly or practicing their spells. They didn't see the value in combing through texts on magic theory.

I disagreed. While I wasn't immune to short-sighted pride, there was no point in not pursuing every lead. If there was one thing I had learned over and over again, it was that there was no such thing as useless knowledge, particularly when it came to magic.

Still...that didn't mean prioritizing didn't have merits.

"A fair point, which is why we're going to start small," I said, nodding once. "Let's start with Aether. I want a full account of everything you have on the element. Treatises, journals, spellbooks, scrolls, and anything else you find that so much as mentions it."

"Of course, sir. This will take me some time, of course, but I will make it a priority."

I nodded, and was about to start exploring the rest of the building when Flynn grabbed my shoulder again. He waited until I faced him to jerk his head towards the door.

"Tours not quite over," Flynn said, his smile becoming distantly amused.

I held back a sigh, reminding myself that I had been here for less than a day, before nodding. "Of course. After you."

We made our way back towards the main building where we'd started hours earlier. Halfway there, I felt the surge through my familiar bond. Fortunatus seemed to step out of thin air, padding over with his tail raised high as though these were his grounds. I could sense the haughty pride surging through the creature, though precisely why he felt those emotions was always a question. Cats had struck me as arrogant, but my partner seemed remarkably full of himself even by those standards.

I wanted to ask the cat where he'd been, but before I could reach out through our bond, Flynn began speaking.

"So, what do you think?" Flynn asked, waving one hand as though unveiling the valley.

"It's incredible," I said honestly. "How in the world does your family have this while the Academy doesn't. Surely they should have at least comparable facilities."

"A few things, but the biggest reason should be obvious. A lot of the magic we use here doesn't scale well. Keeping all of this going costs a fortune, and that's with the incredible mana density in this valley taking the burden of it. The Academy has more ambient power, but not much more."

"Still, surely they'd have these kinds of resources for at least the most talented?"

"Whose to say they don't?" Flynn asked with a wry grin.

"I see...so they must restrict these to either the most talented or the most well-connected apprentices?"

"That or the masters who want to get ahead of their rivals. Either way, I can tell you for sure they have these kinds of rooms and facilities because we got the designs from the Academy."

"Is it wise to tell me these things? They feel like family secrets."

"You're family now," Flynn said with another wide smile. "Besides, who are you going to tell? You've burned any bridges and thrown away any goodwill you might have had across Ferris."

"That...actually leads me to something I've wanted to ask. Your father accepted me without asking about what happened. Beyond that, he didn't have me swear any oaths or make any promises. He simply—"

"Because he'll kill you if you betray us," Flynn said bluntly. He must have caught the horror in my eyes, because his smile turned cold. "Yeah, our father isn't the most kindhearted man. The truth is that if you start spilling secrets or abandon us and strike off on your own, he'll turn you to ash."

I wanted to get annoyed, but realized I couldn't complain much. It wasn't exactly unexpected, even if it was a terrifying threat looming over me.

"And," Flynn continued, heedless of my anxiety, "Remember that goes double if you fail. Father doesn't place much value in physical things, but he's not going to let you unscathed if you waste a prince's ransom with nothing to show for it."

"Thanks for the warning," I said, and found that I was almost...excited by the prospect. It was good motivation if nothing else, but it also represented new beginnings.

I had arrived at the Academy eager to plumb its depths, learning every secret and exploiting every advantage possible. And while that had failed, this family might represent a second chance.

And I would make damn sure I didn't waste this one.

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