Though I didn't know why or how, the rest of autumn seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I was nearly constantly working on one project or another, or perhaps it was simply the nature of school, but before I knew it, it was time for midterms.

Last year, they'd felt remarkably imposing and dangerous, a marker that the deadline to fight Gerhard was ticking down. Not only that, but there had been the worry that if I did too poorly, then I'd lose my scholarship, which would have been an issue in and of itself, but also would have massively cut down on my odds to learn relevant spells I could use against Gerhard.

This year, they felt a lot less dramatic. For one, with the new scholarships offered through membership in the Coven of the Twilight Grotto, I wasn't at risk unless I started actually failing classes. While I was worried about Yushin, and I wouldn't pretend that didn't weigh on me some, there was also a degree of separation from the situation. Yushin had supported me, I would support her, but the Traitor Wyrm wasn't my father. That let me actually focus in on my midterms.

My hardest by far was in my Alteration course. The mathematical calculations that went into using levitation spells in construction with the theoretical ether drainage rate against the volume of the object and the relative engineering that could be done with that was long and dense. I made several small errors along the way, though I'd gotten the processes generally correct, so I scraped through it with a low B. The practical side of things was a lot easier, however, and I was able to flawlessly perform the shaping exercise as well as masterfully cast my new spells. I only lost two points for mispronouncing one of the words of power for unburning flame. It was close enough that I was still able to cast the spell just fine, but it would result in a minor drop in the ether efficiency of the spell. Given it was already a highly complex and costly spell, that wasn't ideal, but I had ultimately still managed to cast it.

"Have you already imbued the staff to serpent spell into your staff yet?" professor Gemheart asked when I finished the practical, and I shook my head.

"No, not yet. I'm considering bartering with my Wadjetktt ally, Amos, but I don't know how I'd be able to keep his shed skin yet."

We discussed a few ideas for ways I could get my hands on serpents that would be useful to me, before the professor eventually let me go. The next hardest class for me was, surprisingly enough, conjuration. The breaking down of each of the spell arrays wasn't too bad – I'd gotten used to the task, even if it wasn't my preferred way to learn magic. Casting each of the summoning spells also wasn't too bad. No, the hard part was the five names.

"The problem is, you're not committed too deeply to any name. Emrys of White Sands was shed for Emrys Dreki, but you'd leave behind Emrys Dreki again if your family stopped showing progress. You can be Alastor Sinclair or Anders Velcer or Nurrin Lakote or any other identity," professor Toadweather explained, a faint frown on her face. "In some ways, that's the opposite of the common problems. Most students have issues conceptualizing themselves with a different name. Being able to take and discard names freely is useful, and it does offer you some protection."

I must have frowned slightly at her response, because professor Taodweather waved her hand and explained more.

"If I were to purchase your name, and also buy Alejandro's name, you'd be more or less fine. You might lose a few memories you've tied to your name, but you'd mostly remain yourself. Alejandro? He'd be in a terrible position. He really relies on that name for defining himself. He has a hard time creating the masks because he's Alejandro and nobody but Alejandro. You have a hard time because you view yourself as you, irrespective of if you are Emrys, Anders, or Toady McToadface! It helps protect you, but it also means when dealing with horrifying entities, your new name will be paper thin. And that's dangerous, too."

"What can I actually do about that, though?" I asked. "I've practiced the technique you taught us."

"There's a seventh circle spell I could cast on you to shatter your mind into dozens of fragmentary pieces that work together as portions of a greater whole, while ensuring that each shard retains a core amount of individualism!" Toadweather cheerfully suggested. "Each one could take on a new name and focus solely on it, allowing you to have dozens of core identities."

"I… see. What are the risks?"

"Well, if the spell doesn't take right, then your mind is shattered into dozens of fragmentary pieces that DON'T work together, and all fight for control of yourself, rapidly losing all ability to focus and rendering you into a vegetable!"

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"How likely is th–" I started to ask, but professor Toadweather cut me off.

"Hold on, I'm not done with the risks. If it does work fine, then a mental attack de-syncs your fragments, then your entire mind could collapse. And if you do it right and you're the kind of person who desires autonomy and self-determinism more than cooperation, then you risk breaking yourself And if you do it right and your shards get too synchronized, they risk merging into a singular identity that may or may not be the same you as before you were shattered. And if you do it at all and have severe enough psychological issues, you risk forming a shard with a significant percentage of those issues which can… and if… and if… and if… and…"

"Why would anyone even cast that spell?!" I asked after she'd finally wound down with her long winded, horrifying explanation of all of the horrible things that could happen.

"Why else would anyone learn the shattermind spell? To torture an enemy and potentially leave them braindead. The odds of them emerging more powerful are very slim, and even if they do, a simple psychic assault is enough to unbalance it and render them brain dead again."

"And you wanted to use this on me?"

"Huh? No, I don't want to. What gave you that impression? You asked if there was anything to be done about it, so I told you."

"I… see," I said, barely managing to suppress a sigh. "Is there anything to be done that doesn't involve higher risks than ordinary life as a mage presents?"

"Hmm. You could always try coffee shops and restaurants. Craft five illusionary faces, one for each identity, and go around to shops, using the identities, to practice responding to them and make them more real. But I don't really know how much that's going to do for you, frankly."

"It's worth a shot?" I said, though it came out more like a question. Professor Toadweather nodded, and I scooted out of the class with a high passing grade on the midterm, but not as much as if I'd done better with the five names.

The most difficult midterm following that was the Practical Magecraft exam. It mostly involved showing off my ether shaping skills and demonstrating ways I could potentially apply my affinity with the affinity imbuement spell. Professor Silverbark was shockingly quick at picking up on some of the nuances of my specific curse magic, which I supposed made a little bit of sense for a professor who specialized in ether shaping, but was still a bit unusual. I wondered if it was a facet of his own affinity, whatever that happened to be.

The easiest midterm in my opinion was Adept Abjuration. Demonstrating each of the spells was always easy enough for me, as the teaching style of learning by doing worked well with my self-taught magical beginnings. I didn't find the legal questions that we had in the practical too hard, but I seemed to be one of the few that didn't struggle to parse the legalese of the text. It just made a certain amount of sense to me. Sure, some definitions strayed from common vernacular, but once you learned what each definition meant, the wording was very clear to me.

That left only the Applied Mage Combat Year Two midterm, which… I wasn't sure how to rank. It was radically different from essentially any other midterm, which might make it easier, but also made it harder in its own way. I had much higher combat power than the average wizard did, but the Erudite also seemed to be taking a greater-than-usual interest in training our group with stronger challenges. When we got the letter that the midterm would be delayed for a few days, and would take place exactly two weeks before the solstice, I wasn't sure exactly what to feel. It was only a short delay of a few days, but putting the exam on a Sunday was weird, and it forced me to reschedule things at work and get my shift covered by some green haired kid with a destiny mark and a weird accent.

The Sunday two weeks before the solstice, our entire group arrived in the field to find the Erudite leaning against the tree, snacking on what looked like a bowl of rice and beans from a street food vendor. He quickly stored it away when we approached and nodded, standing up slightly. I glanced around, but Wesley and the older students weren't there – I wondered if they had their own exams.

"Good morning professor," I called out as we approached.

"Morning," he said, sighing. He glanced over all of us, then launched into a brief speech. "What do you kids know about gelid crystals?"

I blinked and looked around. The name did sound somewhat familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd heard it before. Salem looked more confused than I did, while Yushin's face was carefully blank, and Jackson's tilted head somehow managed to make him look like a dog hearing an unfamiliar noise.

"Nothing," I surmised, causing Henry to sigh and raise his hand. The illusionary image of a small hexagonal prism so bright blue that it was almost painful to look at appeared.

"They're ultra-concentrated elemental ice magic that look like this, and are found in elemental planes of ice during the weeks before and after the winter solstice. They're incredibly useful for any artifice even remotely related to cold, useful as an ice related focusing material for a mage tool until about fifth circle, or as sources of ice for a druid to empower. The school needs at least ten of them."

The image on his palm flickered and changed, revealing a cavern. It was absolutely massive, possibly larger than the Citadel. All throughout the cavern were stalagmites and stalactites of ice, and located within a few of those frozen spikes, I could see the gelid crystals.

More worryingly, there were dozens of creatures throughout the cavern – serpents of living ice floating in the air, blue gorilla-like monsters twice the size of a horse, and polar bears, some of whom seemed to have grown armor made of ice.

"This is a cavern in Kiliniloth, an elemental plane of ice. It will be your job to acquire the school at least ten gelid crystals. Any extras you find are yours to keep or sell. Now, come forward, let me paint the contingency glyphs onto you."

At that, the illusion vanished, and the Erudite lifted his paintbrush.

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