The academy was still in an uproar, and ordinary education had become a lost cause. Professors had grudgingly compressed the daily schedule to a single morning lecture, leaving the rest of the day for frantic planning, rumor-swapping, and would-be hunters sketching half-baked hunting strategies on every available surface. The remaining hours weren't calmer; the faculty spent them fending off students who demanded answers the professors mostly didn't have.

All except Professor Dullmere.

He had delivered a surprisingly enthusiastic two-hour lecture on ancient architectural methods, particularly the tradition of hiding escape tunnels in official buildings, before concluding the class by tossing a smoke bomb and vanishing through a trapdoor behind his desk. No one had seen him since.

In the wake of the chaos, Bookhalla had become the only place where Weylan could hope to think, and Stitch the only person calm enough to help him.

On his way to Bookhalla, Weylan slipped through the academy corridors, letting the chaos fade behind him. Students argued heatedly over spear formations and mana-efficient barrier spells; others debated which beasts could be hunted legally or ethically. Everyone wanted an edge.

So did he.

But unlike them, he couldn't rely on the usual tools.

A sword?

He already had one. And it made him look like every other student trying to be a hero.

A staff?

He wasn't a battlemage and training a new combat style didn't seem a good way to spent the next weeks.

Daggers?

He was good with them… but it wasn't a good idea to bring a dagger to a swordfight. Or somewhere the other students brought siege-level fireball rituals.

Besides, raw damage wasn't what he needed.

He needed something versatile. Something that could strike, bind, distract, or disarm. Something that matched the way he fought. Quietly, unpredictably, from angles others didn't consider.

That was when the idea first took shape. Not versatile… he needed something flexible!

A whip.

Ridiculous at first glance. Uncommon. Not something any student in the academy would think of. Which was exactly why it might work. A whip could coil, snap, tangle legs, grab objects, pull levers, snag artifacts out of reach… or deliver shadow mana spells where he normally couldn't reach.

A weapon that didn't even look like a weapon… unless one knew how to use it.

And if he could control its movement further… Like with a newly discovered rune that bent the material it was drawn on….

To power it, he'd need a beastcore with a suitable affinity. Either to the material he used or one of its concepts. The mimic-land-octopus had tentacles, which would probably mean it

Then it wouldn't be just a whip.

It would be an edge. Something no one would expect from a house-servant who wasn't supposed to stand out.

He exhaled slowly.

Yes. A whip would do.

* * *

The alcoves were quiet at this hour, lit only by thin streams of glow drifting down from the upper crystal clusters. Bookhalla slept lightly, always listening: shelves settling in old wood, distant goblins chittering as they argued over catalog numbers, the ever-present whisper of pages being turned.

Stitch and Weylan sat together at one of the hidden reading desks tucked into the hollow between the main hall and the roots of the living oak. A single reading lantern cast a pool of warm light over their notes.

Spread before them were sketches: leather braiding diagrams, rune placements, diagrams of tension and impact curves. And Weylan's crude outline of something between a vine, a serpent, and a rope.

Stitch tapped the page with a finger sewn from two slightly different skin tones. "It's certainly… flexible."

"It's a whip," Weylan said. "Or will be. If I don't ruin all the leather before I get it right."

Stitch flipped the page and ran her eyes over the sketches again. "I can help with the materials and assembly. But weapon enchantments are beyond my specialty. Unless you want a sentimentality enchantment that ensures the whip always returns to you if you forget it on a shelf." She paused. "Which could be useful if you are forgetful."

Weylan winced. "That's not exactly what I'm aiming for."

"Then," she said with a shrug, "ask this mage contact in Mulnirsheim you told me about. If he's as knowledgeable as you keep insisting, he should know whether such a weapon is possible. Or practical.

Weylan stared at the sketch for a moment. He hadn't expected her to bring up the contact herself. And it wasn't like he needed to lie, she already knew he spoke to someone outside the academy.

He took a breath. "Right. About that mage. There's… something else you should know."

Stitch set down her quill, folding her hands neatly. "All right. Tell me."

"It has to stay secret," Weylan began.

She nodded immediately. "Of course. Secrets are the natural prey of librarians."

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"That's not reassuring."

"It wasn't meant to be."

He rubbed his temples. "Look, the contact's name is Malvorik."

Stitch waited.

"And the way I talk to him… is unusual."

Still silent.

"It's through Sir Cloverton, Faya's Verdant Hare familiar."

Stitch blinked slowly. Once. Twice. "Through the… hare."

"Yes."

"You are contacting a mage by way of a small green animal."

"Yes."

She leaned forward, elbows on the desk, hands steepled like an academic hearing a delightful dissertation. "I would like to hear the entire story from the beginning, please."

Weylan sighed and sat back. "He wasn't always a communication device. When we left Mulnirsheim, we took a sapling of the dryad's tree with us…"

He quickly told the summarized story. When he finished, Stitch blinked again. "The hare ate a dryad's tree. And became a living magical communication enchantment ."

"Something like that."

Stitch's mouth twitched. Once. Twice. Then she covered it with her hand, shoulders trembling. A strangled sound escaped her, half snort, half suppressed laughter.

"Don't," Weylan warned.

She failed completely. A bright, utterly unrestrained laugh escaped her. Echoing off the shelves, sending two book-goblins shushing from across the hall. Stitch leaned forward, hiding her face behind her arms as she shook with silent laughter.

"A hare," she wheezed. "A hare ate a dryad's tree. And now you're using it to call your mentor like some enchanted… woodland courier pigeon."

"It wasn't funny at the time!"

"It is now," she declared, still stifling muffled giggles. "Oh gods. Does the hare know it is a sophisticated artifact of inter-regional communication?"

"No. It's not very bright."

"Does Malvorik know the hare is… well… an idiot?"

"Absolutely."

She laughed again. So hard she had to wipe tears from one mismatched cheek. "This is the best thing I've heard all week. You poor thing. You risk your life fighting monsters and revenants and slaver conspiracies, and your secret line to a master mage hinges on a lazy rodent."

She pressed a hand to her mouth, fighting another laugh. "All right… all right. I'm done… Mostly."

Weylan groaned into his hands.

When she finally calmed, Stitch straightened and looked at him with genuine warmth. "Thank you for telling me. You seem to trust very few people with your secrets. I'll keep this one."

"Good," he said. "Because if this gets out, people will start asking what other magical accidents the hare might trigger. Or who Malvorik is and why he's helping us." He held up a hand. "Which are secrets that belong to him, so I'm not allowed to share them."

Stitch nodded solemnly. "I shall guard the secret with all due seriousness."

Another tiny giggle escaped her.

Weylan glared half-heartedly. "You're never going to let this go, are you?"

"Oh no," she said brightly. "Not ever."

She picked up his whip diagram again. "So. Let's ask your mystical bunny hotline how to enchant it."

Weylan looked confused. "My mystical bunny what?"

"It's from the Vocabulary of Revenants, Volume II. It's a word commonly used by revenants to describe long distance communication to someone more intelligent than yourself."

"Well, then let me get my hotline hare…"

* * *

The next few days raced by like clouds before a storm.

Much to his surprise, Weylan found himself improving. Both at rune-writing and alchemy. Professor Voynich, apparently delighted to have a student who didn't explode the classroom, began supplying him with rarer materials and new recipes: Squid-Cloud powder that turned water black as night, dyes that shimmered with faint mana traces, and a weaker but cheaper version of the Lightdrinker potion. That one didn't erase light completely; instead, it made the brightest sources pulse and stutter, cloaking the area in restless shadows.

Some ingredients were ruinously expensive, but the professor insisted it was worth it. The northern cities, he claimed, paid good coin for Weylan's high-quality dyes. "If I could get the reagents more regularly," Voynich had sighed, "I'd chain you to a cauldron and make you my full-time supplier."

Weylan couldn't decide if that was a compliment or a threat.

When collecting the parts for his design, was easy and cheap to get high quality leather strips. He just couldn't quite think of the perfect material for the grip. He'd asked his friends for ideas and when Weylan arrived at the dorms one evening, Alina intercepted him in the corridor, clutching something wrapped in waxed cloth.

"I got this for you," she said, "It's from our last expedition. We found a giant nightbloom… Well, what was left of one. Some beast smashed it to pulp, but we salvaged a few parts to study."

Weylan unwrapped the bundle. Inside lay a length of pale, fibrous stem. Smooth, slightly translucent, and warm despite the cold hallway. It bent with an organic springiness that reminded him of cartilage and bamboo fused together.

"It's almost worthless," Alina added with a shrug. "Professor Trillin said damaged nightbloom stems lose most of their alchemical potency. No one buys them. But they still hold… something. A trace of flexibility, he said. A conceptual affinity."

Weylan smiled. "For a whip, that's perfect. Thank you."

Alina puffed up slightly, trying to hide the pride behind a casual nod. "Good. Now don't blow yourself up."

* * *

Now he sat in one of Bookhalla's hidden study rooms, the Verdant Hare sleeping curled on his lap. Across the desk lay long strips of dark leather. His next project. His financial reserves had melted into a small pot of everdark-squid ink, and before him rested a writing tool of his own making: a shadow-owl feather, carefully shaped by Stitch from a forgotten collector's display.

Malvorik's distant presence lingered in the back of his mind, heavy and patient.

<Your rune work is… acceptable,> the dungeon intoned at last. <It is not a complex sigil, but precision matters. Infuse both ink and quill with shadow-mana until they darken. Not to pure black, just a dark tone. Then begin. And remember, once infused, you cannot stop until every line is complete. The materials will decay once the charge is spent.>

Weylan exhaled slowly. He glanced at the strips. Each was measured and marked in white chalk. A task that had taken three evenings of painstaking work. He counted the varying spaces. Fifty runes. Maybe sixty. All following a complex repeating pattern to take into account their relative position once the three strips were braided together.

He stretched his back, rolled his shoulders, and let his breath steady into rhythm. Then he pushed mana into the quill. The feather shivered, shadows spreading through its fibers until it gleamed with a soft, oily sheen. When he dipped it into the ink, it drank the liquid eagerly, the glow of shadow-mana rippling across its surface like slow lightning.

The first rune took him nearly five minutes. A curling pattern, its lines flowing like coiled ropes. The second came faster. The third felt smoother, almost natural. Soon he lost count.

Hours slipped away. His wrist cramped, his back burned, and his eyes ached from the constant focus. Still, he continued. The moment he stopped, the mana would bleed out of the materials, leaving them ruined.

The air thickened with the smell of ink and burnt ozone. Faint traces of shadow clung to the edges of his vision, curling and writhing like living things.

<Keep going,> Malvorik urged. <You're doing great.>

That core waited in the corner of the desk: a level nine beastcore, faintly pulsating in a glass vial. It came from the mutant land-mimic-octopus. A creature of shifting flesh and writhing tentacles. Even now, the core's surface shimmered with slow ripples, as though remembering the way it once moved.

Weylan had chosen it for its affinity to the concept of tentacles, whipping movement and grasping. Perfect for a whip. The handle would hold the core, which would power the actual movement. With Malvorik's guidance, he'd already designed the binding rune that would fuse both.

Three hours later, the last rune was done. He set the quill down, fingers trembling, his mind buzzing from the prolonged mana focus. For a moment, everything was silent except the whisper of his own breathing.

Then the system chimed softly in his ear:

Skill increased: Resist Pain (Journeyman I)

Weylan blinked, half laughing, half exhausted. "That got it to the next tier?"

<Every mastery has its price,> Malvorik replied dryly. <Now rest. Tomorrow, we will begin the enchantment. You'll spend everything you have on this one.>

Weylan leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting toward the faintly glowing vial. The beastcore pulsed. Slow, steady, like a heartbeat.

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