I should also point out that the way she teases people wasn't exactly on the side of being mean or cruel but edged that line very closely. She liked to pick at people using rumors she thinks might bother them just a bit or things she's noticed about them that could get a reaction if mentioned. To put it bluntly she was terrifyingly good at being a gossip monger.-
"I know you aren't a hermit but that's what everyone else calls you so why not do the same?" she said with a smile.
I just shook my head at her "Keep it up and I'll cut you off entirely." I warned making her pout.
"You're no fun at all. It's like trying to rile up a wall." she said moping.
"Then go bother someone else and leave me be. I have no time to indulge your weird fixation." I said as I memorized the time for the conjuration lesson and turned to leave.
"Ah, But where's the challenge in that? A Nord girl needs to challenge herself properly after all.~" she said back in her sing song lilt.
"You know I just remembered there was a flesh sculpting spell tome I spotted in the library recently that would solve this problem." I said pointedly causing her to stiffen before laughing and leaving at an elevated pace.
'Glad to see threats still work to get rid of her. Honestly.' I thought shaking my head to chase away the annoyance.
I returned to my room and collected the now finished books and headed for the Arcanaeum to return them. The Orc librarian, Urag I learned, had a rule about giving checked out books to him when they were returned since he didn't trust anyone to put them back exactly where they got them. Which was fair given the sheer size and complexity of the library.-
"Consider me slightly impressed boy. I gave you that list fully expecting it to take you four months or more to go through. Then again I expected you to be the same sort of lazy louts we normally get. Clearly I was wrong." he said gruffly and with a hint of respect as he took the books.
"Yeah, i've got a bit of a bad habit of getting hyper fixated on something when I set my mind to it. It's good for learning but equally a curse because I tend to shunt everything else to the side." I say honestly.
"Aye, heard the rumors from others. Be careful not to let that fixation drive you mad, seen it happen before. Usually when you find a problem you can't solve with brute force learning." he says seriously.
I nod "i'm thinking about attending the conjuration lesson tomorrow, any clues as to what I might expect?" I asked calmly.
"Phineas is a fairly steady teacher. He'll probably test you a bit before handing over a spell to master." he said after a moment of thought.
"A spell? Isn't that a bit fast for a new student?" I asked surprised.
He snorts at that "There is no standardized teaching here boy. You'll find most of the masters that deign to teach here do so on an individual basis. A privilege you lot get to have since we never have many students at once. Your "adept" understanding, shaky or not, in every school is common knowledge in the college for anyone who bothers looking. If anything the masters have been impatiently waiting for you this whole time." he said bluntly.
"So that's why Tolfdir came to ask me about it, no wonder." I said understanding the crux of the matter.
"Master Tolfdir is one of the single most respected mages in the college and for good reason. Not only is he nearly unrivaled in alteration magic but he's mastered restoration and destruction both as well. He's also the oldest mage here and his lack of ambition as well as easy to approach personality make him the center point of most of the colleges interpersonal matters. He's a treasure we all value and protect fiercely, even if he doesn't need or ask for it." he said firmly.
I just nodded as I understood the unspoken warning in his words. Basically "treat him well or prepare for the full weight of the college to come down on you". Honestly I could wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment as well. Even my few interactions, brief as they are, with the man had me seeing him as a friendly grandpa figure. The very idea of mistreating such a person was abhorrent to me, like hurting a child or beating a dog for no reason. It had to be a talent in and of itself to so easily become as beloved as he was by so many different personalities.-
Still I thanked Urag for his time and got a book from him that he'd apparently prepared sometime while I was studying these last few weeks. It wasn't a theory book or anything like that but a short book with each "chapter" being a list of other books for a single school. He basically did what he did with the previous list but for every school and in a single tome that I could cross out at will when I finished any particular name on the list.-
I spent a bit putting a small X next to all the entries in the conjuration section but otherwise relaxed for the day. And by relax I mean tinker with a design I had for a gun. The idea of using small localized explosions to launch projectiles was not one anyone in this world seemed to think about as far as I knew. Obviously I was NOT going to share this information but that didn't mean I wasn't going to use it myself. Honestly the biggest problem I had come to with this idea was potency in a small package.-
Gun powder was not a thing in this world and shrinking explosive spells like [fireball] and [firebolt] made them barely better than a firecracker going off at that size. I just bluntly couldn't figure out how to get that massive force in a small enough area to be practical. I managed to make decent enough grenades by forming half a hollow ball and engraving several tiny [fireball] runes in both halves before putting in a petty soul gem. I fused the two sides together while the tip of the soul gem stuck out so it could be triggered but that was much bigger than a bullet, coconut sized really.-
You'd think I could just engrave the runes even smaller at that point but NOPE! That was not only really fucking hard because it takes precision but the power was basically nothing at that size. To be fair even my grenade might not work all that well. I wouldn't know since I hadn't tested it. Like I said before I haven't exactly been getting out very often while I studied. Even the little bit of tinkering I did during this time frame was mostly because I knew I still needed to consider how to deal with dragons when they showed up in a few years or messing about with food.