"What do you mean you can't help me?" Jim asked, voice tinged with annoyance. He looked the offending gendarme up and down. Brown uniform with black boots and a cap to cover the head. No lapels or other rank insignia. Common black hair.

  "As I've already explained, sir. We have a limited number of mages in the force who could get anywhere with just a hastily scribbled note," the man said. "Considering this is a case that deals with the academy, we'd have to spare an even higher-ranked mage to get through the red tape. The amount stolen simply doesn't merit immediate intervention."

  Jim looked around the gendarmerie, with its black iron walls and black iron counters and black iron floors. "Isn't there someone higher ranked I can talk to?" he asked, waving the thief's note in his hand under the man's nose for the umpteenth time.

  The officer behind the counter simply replied coldly. "I'm afraid that's quite impossible."

  "Look, I'm not being unreasonable here. I just don't understand why you wouldn't take this seriously. If you don't resolve this, am I supposed to assume that I myself can just go around stealing smaller sums from people and never get investigated?" Jim asked in exasperation.

  The officer gave him another cold look, not budging in his stance. "The law is the law, but reality is reality. The gendarmerie has limited resources to distribute amongst the many crimes committed in this city, and this is simply not a priority. I will, of course, note down the theft happening. If more of them get committed in a similar context, then we might send someone to investigate this serial thief. However, for the moment, the matter is closed."

  Jim threw up his hands. "I guess it's true!" he shouted. "If you want something done, you have to pay for it! I thought this was already happening from the fact that this place is funded by my taxes, but I guess I was wrong!"

  "From my understanding, you are an academy student and thus do not pay taxes," the officer informed him.

  “It’s called reasonable tax avoidance, I won’t sit here and listen to this slander!” Jim shouted as he rushed towards the door, looking pityingly at the people who'd been standing in line behind him. Old people, cripples, children, and adults. Poor souls who weren't going to get any help. "My father will hear about this!" he shouted once again before he exited the ugly box-like building, leaping out into a run-down street. Once outside, he breathed in and out to calm himself down a bit, cursing the gendarmerie, the crown, the academy and the thief. A few perfunctory curses went out towards Mitelos, despite them not having done anything yet, allegedly.

  Perhaps it was because of this excitement and the leftover anger of the useless gendarme that he forgot his pledge not to use any side alleyways. He rushed into one, two, all in an attempt to get to the academy faster. He was starting to think that it was foolish to avoid them in the first place, when three forms suddenly stood up at the end of the third alleyway he was using as a shortcut and blocked his path. Three men, dressed in rags. Oddly presentable hair and teeth.

  "Hello friend, would you mind-" the leader of the three started, before Jim's scream interrupted him.

  "Fucking again, are you kidding me? Second time in a row having to deal with you fucking bottom-feeders!" the boy screamed, some of the intimidation effect getting lost by the fact that his voice cracked. The three men nonetheless all shared an unsure glance before collectively taking a step back.

  The one in the lead raised his arms and was just about to say something, before Jim interrupted him by quickly forming two magic missiles over his shoulders and shooting them at the trio. The men turned to run, but a red beam of light tore through their path, knocking them flat. It zipped past Jim, striking something behind him with a crackling hiss. A red-robed figure jumped from the rooftop and shielded the now unconscious or dead robbers from the magic missiles. Jim's spell impacted the red mage shield with a bang, but dissipated uselessly.

  "If you kill them, the gendarmes will never get off your ass," Alice said with a strained smile as she lowered the shield and walked towards Jim. "We should get out of here, before the noise attracts more undesirables," she said, gripping Jim by the arm and pulling both of them out of the side street, through the bigger street and into another alley.

  There, they stopped, and Alice flipped back her long black hair with a forced laugh. "Nice magic missile you got there. Crazy how the streets keep getting livelier,” she said lightly.

  "Tell me about it," Jim muttered. "Whole Sredina has gone to shit. My family didn’t not pay taxes for this”

  A spark entered Alice's eyes at those words, and she looked at him appraisingly. "Well, I'm glad you agree. Also, double reflexive magic missiles are no mean feat." She rummaged through her robe and extended a piece of parchment towards Jim, who took it up and put it into one of his pockets, already knowing what it would say. "You know, we could use talented people and free thinkers like you at our next meeting. It's a fun get-together between young mages and merchants. I just gave you the address and time. I'd appreciate it if you came," she said with a wink. Then suddenly, she crouched down, a magical glyph building itself up against the cobble-stoned floor under her feet. She jumped and disappeared from view. Jim watched her go, glad that he'd managed to secure an invitation again.

  It would have been unfortunate had his participation been impossible in this timeline. He shook his head, pocketed the parchment, and slipped back onto the main street, steering well clear of the alleys. The academy gates weren’t far. There really was something wrong with this city. He hoped this black ouroboros was discussing some sort of alternative. Jim wasn't quite sure if he could do this for another six months.

  -/-

  Whether in the past, future, or present, checking his exam results had never brought Jim much joy. The academy was too lazy to send a letter to every student individually, and preferred to simply post all the results, rankings and elective spots at the gates of the campus. Before Jim had always known that, despite his talent, he would find himself towards the bottom of the rankings. However, considering it had become incredibly difficult to drop out of the academy, he hadn't really cared. It was somewhat shameful, though, and he didn't enjoy the looks the other students gave him.

  It was dumb. If the academy wanted him to try, they should have given him some incentive to do so, not set their graduating standards so low that someone of his immense talent would hardly have to do anything to graduate.

  As always, there was quite a crowd of students standing around and chattering while looking at the long list of 381 first-year students, all ranked in order. As always, Jim started from the top and went down in search of his name.

  The top ten consisted of the usual suspects: Chemirk, Novak, Waterflower, Blackthorne, Evergreen, Herus, Glaciar, Shemven, Ruska and Jinx. The magical portion was ranked competitively, from 1 to 381, while the theoretical was scored out of a 100. So, while Ruska had apparently been the best in the practical portion, which made Jim curious as to what exactly the dark-skinned boy had shown off, his abysmal theoretical score of 76 dragged him down to spot nine on the list. Waterflower, in comparison, had managed to clinch a 99/100 in the theoretical portion, but was only 17th in the practical one, thus giving her the 3rd position on the board.

  The last information present on the board was a big fat number all the way on the right. It was either a 2, a 1, or a 0. It determined how many electives a student got to take. Despite their odd reluctance not to fail anybody, the academy wanted to limit the burden on the professor's offering electives, which was why there were only a few spots available. The best fifty got access to two, while the next fifty got access to one. Jim had never attended any elective before, having just finished Combat Magic I in time to graduate.

  As his eyes flew down the list, scanning for his name. He grew increasingly angry at the fact that he hadn't appeared yet. Even Krowell was taking up the 87th rank. It just confirmed in his mind that the academy system was rigged, somehow. Eventually, he did find himself, sitting exactly at rank 100, which he didn't quite know how to feel about. While he did merit an election spot, he was the last of those who did. To make matters worse, his scores made no sense. His practical was ranked at 34th, and his theoretical score had scored 42/100 points, which was lower than he'd gotten in the future, past, whatever.

  First of all, how exactly was demonstrating two combat spells at the reflexive level something that only merited 34th place? Were the other students summoning gods, creating water dragons and fighting armies to a standstill?

  Also, how had he scored only 42 points in the theoretical? He’d literally graduated.

  The answer was obvious. Either the academy had randomly deducted points for him being late, or they'd mixed up the exams. His eyes flicked, sharp as a rapier, down the list, coming to the last few spots.

  At rank 376 sat Lebowski Kabaj with a theoretical score of 48/100 and a practical ranking of 380th.

  Jim realized, horrified, that he’d done worse than Lebowski. His friend didn't even show up for most lectures, or when he did, he was drunk. What exactly was happening? He looked around frantically, as if an answer to this cosmic injustice would leap out from the crowd of students and smack him in the face.

  All he got for his troubles, however, was a constipated-looking blue-haired girl walking up to him. "Good job on your practical score.” Dew said, like each word was a tooth pulled. “I guess I underestimated your work ethic if this is how far you got during the summer. Still, your theory needs some work. Perhaps take basic magical theory as an elective, I heard it's an even more in-depth version of what we had to work through last semester."

  Jim's brain didn't really compute with the girl suddenly acting maybe a bit nice to him, so he just reverted back to his instincts when it came to interacting with her. "Good job on your theory, maybe one day your ability to actually cast magic will catch up to your knowledge of useless trivia,” he blurted out.

  Dew flushed with anger, lips parting to retort.

  Jim noticed his friend out of the corner of his eye and swiftly walked off, leaving the girl behind, along with the other students still milling around the results as if they actually mattered in the real world. Newsflash, they didn’t.

  "Lebowski!" Jim shouted as his fat friend walked away from the campus entrance and trotted across the compact stone floor towards his dormitory. He started waddling faster once he heard Jim's voice. Knowing that his friend must not have heard him. Jim shouted again, running to catch up.

  Lebowski apparently gave up on going to his dorm and turned around sharply as Jim stopped next to him to catch a breather from the hundred or so metres he'd had to cover. "What do you want, Mr Elective Spot?" the boy spat, his face a rictus of hurt and anger.

  Jim reeled back, surprised at the reaction. "I barely managed it," he said, feeling defensive for some reason.

  "Barely managed? You must have worked the whole summer to do what you did. Since when do you work so hard? You could have warned me this was a competition now; maybe I would have had time to get something done as well. What happened to being the idiot brothers, the negative top ten?"

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Jim did vaguely remember them joking about that. But, to explain his sudden rise in competency, he'd have to explain his prophetic talent, and he'd just decided not to reveal that to anyone. "It just sort of happened," he answered weakly.

  "I'm sure it did," Lebowski muttered before turning around and starting to walk off again.

  "Wait, I also almost got mugged today, and got invited to the black ouroboros!" Jim shouted as he walked with his friend towards the highly built dormitory.

  "I'm sure you were able to fight them off perfectly fine with your new fancy spells. Why don't you go practice with them now, if you're such a hard worker? Take Combat Magic II as well while you're at it," Lebowski said hatefully.

  Jim stopped walking with the boy and stood still, feeling rooted to the spot. He'd never been referred to with such vitriol. Well, not by anyone who mattered.

  It hurt.

  As he watched his friend enter his dormitory building, he thought about the elective spot he received. Hadn't Professor Mirtol, may he rest in peace, said that he should take divination if he got the opportunity?

  Jim honestly hadn't planned on taking any electives until someone forced him, which generally happened after someone graduated Combat Magic I, but… If he took it, he wouldn't have to pay for a private investigator.

  …

  Nah.

  -/-

  Jim warily walked up to the run-down industrial building that he'd been given the address of. It was in one of the shadier parts of town, rats running around fearlessly, human and animal. It was close to the Mitelos port. In a way, Sredina was just as split down the middle as Rotto was. The only reason the young wizard had dared to walk through the district at all was due to his combat magic.

  Also, considering that he was getting mugged even in the good parts these days, it likely didn't matter as much if he explored further than usual. Surprisingly enough, other than getting some respectful and admiring glances for his well-cut robes, nobody but a few beggars had accosted him, and the latter had simply asked for some change, which Jim had graciously given. Mostly out of the fear that they'd attack him if he didn't, but also due to his uncompromising ethical principles and deep, unshakeable passion for charity.

  He looked at the textile fabric with workers in brown tunics and managers in blue coats running out and about, performing an oddly ant-like ritual that somehow ended in a finished product shipped as far as Ezengerd. Jim would know, his family were merchants dealing with the isolated island kingdom, or as they liked to style it, the Empire. Considering they only had one island archipelago under their control, it was a bit questionable what exactly they were emperors of, but it was considered a bit of a faux pas to mention it.

  Perhaps it was his general not fitting in the scene-ness that resulted in one of the blue-coat managers eventually walking up to him and asking him if he needed any help getting somewhere.

  Looking at the expectant-looking middle-aged man with the stubble beard, Jim quickly and eloquently formulated his answer. "Eerr, I was told, yes I heard, that there was a private investigator around here, but it looks like the address is a fabric factory?" he managed to stutter out.

  "That it is, sir, the best fabric in all the city or your money back. We do have that detective in the building, he takes up the second floor all to himself raising them pigeons of his. Best I know he only really leaves at night, so he should be there right now," the man explained and pointed to a pair of stairs built alongside the side of the large factory building, which, now that Jim looked closer, lead to a front door that didn't look like it led to any sort of factory upper management. Too many feathers and runes.

  Jim went up and breathed in deeply, raising his hand to knock. Of course, that was the moment that the door opened, and his fist shot forward to hit an older man straight in the face, causing him to recoil and take a step back.

  Jim stood there, mortified, as the man rubbed his nose, glancing angrily at the student, before closing his eyes and seemingly taking a deep breath to relax. He was a tall man, easily towering over Jim by one head and at least double the boy's width, most of which was muscle. Short brown hair and a long brown coat completed the picture of a well-to-do prole.

  "All right, I probably deserved that," the man muttered with a sigh, before pausing. "Wait, why did I probably deserve that?" he looked suspiciously at Jim. "Is your mother's name Samantha by any chance?"

  He had a raspy voice, either from disuse or too much smoking.

  "Eh, no, her name is Eleanor actually," Jim muttered.

  The man blinked before nodding. Then he slammed the door in Jim's face. The boy's features grew red, and before he could truly consider if it was worth it knocking again, the door opened right back up.

  "Ok, I get it, you were knocking and then I opened the door super quickly. So, technically, while I don't appreciate the smack, it wasn't really your fault, all right. I forgive you," the man rasped, before looking Jim up and down. "What do you want anyway? The robes are too official. You're not a tax collector, are you? I have a deal with the city that exempts me since I clean up so many of their messes anyway."

  Jim was starting to seriously reconsider the decisions that had brought him to this point, and wondered how trustworthy the older student who'd told him about this private investigator really was. "I'm a client, maybe, actually?" Jim asked more than stated, leading to more confusion.

  "Well, are you, or are you not?"

  Jim coughed into his hand and gathered himself. "Sorry for the miscommunication, I'm Jimothy Papillion Savant, an academy student. I was recommended to your services as a private investigator and would like to hire you."

  "Ah, so you're here to give me money, not try and take it! Come right in then," the man said and stepped back, letting Jim glimpse a large space right underneath the rooftop, that was cluttered with more books and alchemy ingredients than anybody could read or use in a lifetime. He wondered for a second if he should turn around and leave, instead of risking his life in the atelier of a man apparently crazy enough to store what appeared to be dried gem root right next to a bowl of fire goblin ashes.

  In the end, he sighed, knowing that if he died, his past self would just get the vision and stepped inside.

  "I'm Harry, by the way, Harry Dogger," Harry introduced himself as he led Jim through the clutter and towards a table absolutely covered in little tin boxes of what Jim recognised as take-out food. It was an interesting new concept where, for a very high additional fee, a restaurant would send a delivery person with the meal to one's doorstep. It might have looked disgusting, and smelled pretty bad, but if anything, the tin-cans signified that the detective was successful enough to afford an expensive, if odd lifestyle.

  There was also the skeleton of some sort of bird at the table, Jim noticed as he sat down in the chair. The skeleton turned its head to look at him, before hopping off the table and going towards what appeared to be a balcony. His heart jumped. He wasn’t sure what disturbed him more, the lifeless eyes that followed him, or the fact that the thing clearly had a routine. The rattle of bones against wood filled the silence as Harry similarly took his seat.

  "Don't mind him, he's a friend with bad manners," the man said as he leaned back in his chair. The pigeon skeleton clucked and disappeared out of sight onto the balcony, from where Jim heard several more animated and alive-seeming pigeon sounds.

  "Are you a necromancer?" Jim asked. It was a dirty and disgusting magic that had originated in Mitelos several hundred years ago. The first necromancer, a lich by the name of Quatzel, had attempted to secede from Rotto, which had led to his capture and to his momentary teaching position at the academy.

  Necromancy had thus always been associated with Mitelos and the rather uneducated and poor people that the region seemed to spawn in the thousands on a daily basis.

  "I dabble, more like," Harry muttered. "It's useful to speak to shades, to feel the energy. Stuff like that, I have to say that I've solved most of my murder cases quite easily with those two little tricks." He waved in the air, as if dismissing the topic. "But enough about me, what brought you here. You said you had a case for me? How'd you hear about me anyway?"

  Jim gathered his thoughts. "Well, I originally went to the gendarmes, and they simply said that they didn't care. When asking around the dormitory, some people mentioned you."

  "I don’t really advertise," Harry agreed. "And I know the story, the gendarmes are stretched thin, especially the last two or three years. Too many cults, criminal organisations and of course, Ezengerd. If they don't consider it important, they won't bother. So, what do you have for me?" he asked, rubbing his arms together.

  Jim pulled out the note left behind by the thief; he'd managed not to lose it this time around. He showed it to the man, who read it and nodded. "I was robbed on the ship here, technically only academy staff and students were onboard, the professor I talked about it with similarly didn't care."

  "What was stolen?" Harry asked.

  "A coin pouch, nothing but money inside. I mostly care about the gesture and the besmirching of my family name," Jim bragged, before furrowing the brows. "Also, it would be good to know the perpetrator, so as to avoid future such attempts." Maybe knowing who did it could even help him prevent it from happening again.

  "First year?" Harry asked, causing Jim to nod. "Thought so, I assume that's why you don't cast the basic spells yourself? Haven't started divination yet?"

  Jim slowly nodded. He didn't feel like mentioning that he'd elected not to take divination. He already had a lot going on with his visions and newfound skills; he didn't really have time for an elective. Also, money was there to pay people who had invested the time.

  "I'll be frank. This piece of paper you gave me, and the associated crime," Harry waved the parchment in the air. "It's either going to be really easy and cheap, or ruinously expensive."

  "How come?"

  "Right, no divination," Harry muttered, seemingly thinking how to best explain. "I don't have any other clues, and neither do you, so this piece of paper is the only thing we got, right? This means we are relying entirely on scrying here. Writing something down is not the strongest symbolic connection, but since this happened fairly recently, it's probably enough. If the thief didn't defend themselves against these basic methods, they'll be found in a second. However, if they took basic precautions and went through the dissociation ritual, then it will become very, very tough."

  "What is the disassociation ritual?" Jim asked.

  "It's quite simple, really. Just like how warding your own house is easier than warding the house of the neighbour due to the innate connection you have to the structure and the space, scrying is centred around finding the person who has the strongest connection to the object. The issue is that a person can go through a ritual to reject the association. It's very common amongst thieves to go through it after every heist to prevent being found out by a dropped hair or something."

  "And if that's the case?"

  "Then I'd have to keep an ear out through my information network, which costs a lot more than just a simple scrying attempt. If I hear something, I start looking for clues, following leads, piecing things together, basic detective work, really. The kind the gendarmes used to do before they became budget cuts in uniform," Harry explained.

  Jim slowly nodded, absorbing the knowledge. But the question, of course, was, while naturally the cost wasn't an issue for the Savant's, it was still better to know. "How much is scrying?"

  "One gold, then a silver for every repeat, of which I don't do more than three a day," Harry said. That was more expensive than a night at the Red Lantern. Several times as expensive, in fact. Well, Jim, too, would one day belong to the class of mages charging through their nose for their services.

  "All right, I'll buy the scrying," he said decisively.

  "How much was even in that pouch?" the detective asked. "Is it even worth it to go through with it?"

  Jim waved him off. "There were four gold and a few dozen silvers. Let's just do this."

  Harry shrugged and stood up. "Sure thing, boss," he said and went over to one of the cupboards, which held several different items that Jim recognized as being relevant to divination. A scrying glass orb, white chalk, a bowl full of eyes and some candles. From all those objects, the wizard only took a piece of chalk and one of the eyes.

  From there, Jim followed the detective into a corner which had previously been blocked off from view by a partitioned door. There, he saw several small ritual circles with some sort of liquid smear in between the chalk lines. In the middle were a variety of objects.

  Quickly and efficiently, Harry drew another one of those exact circles on the floor, and Jim was struck by the industrial production of it all. It demystified the whole process for him to see several of those scrying circles in the same room.

  A squishing sound resounded through the room, and Jim grimaced as he saw that the detective had crushed the eyeball in his fist and was now sprinkling its chunks alongside the circle, in the middle of which he then put the note so rudely addressing Jim. He tried not to gag. Apparently, proper sanitation wasn’t part of the standard divination curriculum.

  A flex of mana from the side of the detective and a short, muttered chant completed the process, and the ritual lines glowed a bright light blue. The lightshow only lasted for a second before the light died out. The tall detective turned to Jim and shook his head.

  "They've cleansed it," Harry said with a slight hint of apology in his voice.

  The younger of the two sighed, not from surprise, but from the tired confirmation of something he’d already expected. He flicked the gold coin like it was burning his fingers. He considered for a second if he wanted to pay for an update of the situation but decided against it. Rather than worry about that now, he could simply come sooner if the situation ever repeated itself. He'd tried, which had been the minimum that he owed his family name.

  "I don't think anyone in particular is targeting you, since they only stole money rather than valuables. I'd just say scry sooner if it ever happens again, but I doubt it will," the detective advised as he lumbered towards the front door, Jim following in his footsteps.

  "But the fact that they were cleansed does give you some information to work with. They're definitely a mage, probably from the academy, too. Maybe just think of who in particular would have it out for you, or even simpler, who was in the vicinity at the time of the theft," the detective proposed before the two mages said their goodbyes and Jim left back for his dorms.

  Sadly, the entire endeavour had been useless. Although, in case the cycle repeated and Jim ever died again, he could simply go to the private detective immediately after the ship docked in Sredina. For all intents and purposes, he’d done what he could. Nothing more could be done, so he would do nothing more.