Headmaster of Shadowfrost Part 7

'At least we'll have plenty of students with corruption resistance,' Mist mused as he walked out of the mad science building, not sure how to feel about leaving a Frankenstein in charge of the minion creation machine. 'Screw it, Tara should be about to keep her from going completely nuts, unless the Teacher's Pet flaw completely screws her over.'

Mist weighed the potential consequences as he walked over to the cluttered folding table in the middle of the courtyard that was surrounded by teenagers. 'Worst case, we'll just send them into the mirror or the forest hunting monsters.'

One of the cultists with tie-dyed shirts that was standing behind the table smiled at Mist, showing off a full set of white teeth. "Mr. Chan said that we could sell some trinkets, I hope that's not a problem."

"Not at all, I was just curious what you had for sale," Mist replied as he looked over the odd collection of figurines, jars, trinkets and scrolls on the table, curious about the figurines that were moving around on the chessboard.

"We're selling Lunar Honey, figurines for battle chess, trinkets of protection and scrolls that teach magical spells. General disclaimer, the scrolls require magic, not qi. Did something catch your fancy?" the young lady asked, hoping he'd actually buy the scrolls since she could sense his magic.

"What spells do the scrolls teach?" Mist asked, hoping he could pick up a couple of new spells since the price tag said they were only two spirit stones each.

"Not sure, Merlin likes changing things up," she admitted as she checked the scrolls. "Looks like Plant Growth, Bestow Alternate Form:Sexy Cowgirl(Transformation), Create Magic Tattoo:Noodle Monster(Upgradable Familiar), Regenerate:(Teeth), Summon Pineapple(Explosive) and Summon Foxfire."

'Merlin? Probably just a copycat,' Mist mused as he counted out twelve spirit stones from his bag and handed them to her. "One of each."

"Pleasure doing business with you," the young woman replied cheerfully as she dropped the stones in the lock box and handed him a copy of each of the spells. "Just open the scrolls and read the incantation, it should burn the information into your soul so you won't forget it."

"Is there a limit to the number of spells that a person can have or remember?" Mist asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't going to get something useless if there was a limit.

"There's no real limit to the number of spells that someone can know or learn other than the mage's ability to remember the important bits. That's one of the reasons that Merlin switched to engraving the spells into souls, you can't forget them."

"Good to know," Mist replied, relieved that he wouldn't have to trust his memory for the fiddly bits.

"Can I interest you in some Lunar Honey?" the girl asked hopefully.

Mist glanced at the rest of the cultists that were hanging around talking to the students that had shown up to see what they were selling. "What's the difference between Lunar Honey and regular honey?"

"We set the honey out to collect the light of the moon in a ritual circle, it probably has some benefits to someone that cultivates lunar energy," she offered as she grabbed a toothpick and stuck it in the open jar of honey then swirled it to collect the honey and held it out for Mist to grab.

Mist shuffled the scrolls a bit so that he had a free hand then accepted the tooth pick and licked the honey, rather enjoying the delicious taste. 'Even if it doesn't have any cultivation benefits, it's good.'

"It's good, isn't it?" she asked with a grin.

"Best I've had in a while," Mist agreed after scraping all of the honey off the toothpick with his teeth and tossing it in the box that had a bunch of used toothpicks. He glanced at the price tag on the honey and handed her another spirit stone, not sure if he was getting a decent deal or horribly overpaying since he wasn't sure how valuable the stones were.

"Thank you," she replied cheerfully as she handed one of the large jars to Mist.

"You're welcome." Mist smiled as he walked over to one of the empty benches and set the jar of honey and the scrolls down except for one of the scrolls. He opened the scroll and started reading the incantation, "I engrave this knowledge in my soul so that I'll never be without magic's blessing."

Mist twitched as the scroll crumbled to ash and he felt someone run their fingers down his spine despite the fact that no one was there. He took a couple of seconds to appreciate the fact that he wasn't on the ground screaming in agony then mentally reviewed his new spell he'd learned.

"Huh, that's more useful than I was expecting," he muttered as he grabbed the next scroll.

"Which spell did you learn?" one of the cultists asked as he walked over, curious which spell he was talking about.

"The spell to create a noodle monster," Mist replied with a grin, knowing he'd get a lot of use out of the spell, even if it was basically useless for combat.

"Did you miss the part where the monster attacks you fifty percent of the time if it gets into combat?" the teenager asked.

"No, I was just planning on using it to eat junk and to act like a scout since I can buy the ability to look through its eyes," Mist replied, figuring it would be perfect for dealing with the rest of the sludge in the well.

"Just be careful, if it gets into combat it will lead the enemies right back to you half of the time and you can't dismiss it if it's trying to kill you," he warned the old guy.

"I'll take my chances," Mist replied with a shrug, not particularly worried about the basic noodle monster since it could only lift about five pounds and hit about as hard as wet pasta. He grabbed the next scroll and used it, saying the same incantation and picking up a new spell, complete with the same unnerving feeling of someone running their fingers down his spine after the scroll turned to ash. "What can you tell me about the Foxfire spell?"

"It summons a permanent ball of blue fire that is uncomfortably warm to the touch but it won't actually burn you and it doesn't take fuel or set things on fire which makes it perfect for lanterns," the dark haired teen offered.

"Makes sense," Mist agreed, figuring it was a good way to save on candles and spirit stones.

"The Plant Growth spell is pretty useful, just be careful of spiritual plants, they tend to mutate if you're not careful," he warned him.

"Thanks for the warning." Mist carefully went through the rest of the scrolls he'd bought, picking up the new spells. "Do you know where the spell that conjures exploding pineapples came from?"

The cultist shook his head. "Merlin mentioned something about a tropical island and a witch but he didn't go into details. Just make sure you don't drop it, especially if you've fed the spell a bunch of mana."

"Yeah, no thanks," Mist replied, not interested in killing himself with his own spell. "What about the cowgirl transformation spell?"

The teen shook his head. "It's good for parties but it's basically useless for combat since the guns you can conjure are toys and you're about as strong as a normal teenage girl."

'That's because you have to actually exercise in your new form if you want to make the most out of it,' Mist thought, having picked up the 'basic' details about the spells from the scroll.

"You also end up in assless chaps every time you transform, it's a bit annoying," one of the girls complained. "I asked Merlin if he could fix it but he said that it was a feature and not a bug, something about making sure that your clothes changed with you and didn't just rip."

'Right, feature,' Mist thought, fairly sure the spell just stored the clothes and your body in a pocket dimension and summoned your female form and conjured the chaps which meant that Merlin was lying his ass off. "That just means I'll save it for parties."

"Probably for the best," the girl agreed.

Mist cast his new tattoo spell, creating a tattoo of a weird pasta monster on his left wrist and using up most of his mana. "Is there any way to fix the fact that the noodle monsters can attack you?"

"Nah, Merlin picked the spell up from some eldritch abomination in a game of cards, he signed a magical contract not to edit the spell or help people edit it."

"You couldn't have mentioned that before I used it?" Mist asked in annoyance, reasonably sure that it was safe judging by the information he'd picked up from the scroll but annoyed that they hadn't warned him.

The dark haired girl laughed. "Don't worry about it, Merlin spent a couple of weeks making sure the spell was safe."

"If you ignore the fact that it attacks you half the time it gets into combat," the young man complained, not seeing a reason to invest magic into the creatures.

"There's a difference between a known risk and a spell that randomly eats your soul or pulls you into one of the various far realms," she argued.

"Yeah, no thanks," Mist replied as he picked up the jar of honey. "On that terrifying thought, I need to finish taking care of some projects, thanks for the information about the spells."

"You're welcome," she assured him. "It's nice to actually make some money for a change and not to have to worry about crazy cultivators shouting that we're courting death rather than paying."

"No shit," the guy agreed.

"Take care," Mist told them as he headed for the main building. He tapped his tattoo and looked at the translucent floating window that appeared over his wrist, curious what he could buy since most of it seemed to depend on the user. 'Increased physical and mental attributes, increased combat skill, an ability to purify and clean the surrounding area that doesn't purify qi, increased senses, linked senses, elemental resistances and immunities, durability, One Trick Pony?'

He tapped the icon for the One Trick Pony ability, pulling up a description. 'This ability teaches the noodle monster one technique that the user has on hand and gives them enough of a mana or qi pool to activate it once. It's not exactly a basic cultivation package but I might be able to upgrade it into something useful.'

'What was the old saying? If you can only break one rule, make sure it's a good one,' he mused as he headed into the main building and started walking down the hallway toward the maintenance closet that would give him access to the well. He stopped walking when he saw the mirror on the wall that someone had roped off so no one would accidentally walk into it. "It can't be this easy, can it?"

Mist stared at the mirror for a couple of seconds as his mind came up with a couple of ways to cheat the artifact out of rare components. 'Even if it dies, I can just bring it back.' He spent the mana to give his noodle monster the Sense Link ability, curious what was on the other side of the mirror.

"Okay, let's run some tests." He summoned the noodle monster, conjuring something that resembled a foot tall copy of Cousin It made out of pasta with a pair of sunglasses on its face.

The noodle monster glanced around then went back to 'standing' there doing nothing.

'At least it doesn't have teeth,' Mist mused as he focused on the monster and found himself looking up at himself despite the fact that he was looking down at the monster. 'Yeah, that's weird, at least it doesn't leave me blind.' He pointed at the mirror. "Go through the mirror."

The monster turned and walked into the mirror without any hesitation, letting Mist see the arena that his pet had walked into and another pasta monster that promptly charged his monster. He smiled slightly when his monster tried and failed to walk back through the mirror that he'd used to get into the arena. "Looks like you can't reach me."

Mist watched the somewhat drawn out fight as the noodle monsters flailed at each other until his monster got a lucky hit on the other noodle monster's glasses, cracking them and causing the other monster to die and turn into a small glass vial that was half full of a blue powder. "Huh, I guess skill and aggression doesn't really matter when you're just a bundle of noodles."

He mentally directed his pet to pick up the vial and head back through the mirror. He scowled as the noodle monster walked out of the mirror and dropped the vial. "At least it didn't break," he muttered as he picked up the vial of power that he was going to have to ask one of the teachers about. 'I need a way to speed this up without increasing its combat ability in case it tries to kill me. Items… ooh, pineapple.'

He cast his Conjure Pineapple spell and handed the innocent looking pineapple to his pet then quickly took a step back. "Go back in the mirror." He smiled when the noodle monster managed to haul the pineapple through the mirror and into the arena, relieved that his pet hadn't dropped it as he didn't really want to test his supposed ability to respawn in the headmaster's tower if he could avoid it.

"Okay, now we just have to…" he trailed off as the more aggressive noodle master tried tossing the pineapple and it only flew a couple of inches and exploded, sending chunks of pineapple everywhere and killing the mirror copy. "That worked-" he winced when the pineapple that his pet was carrying hit the sand when his pet moved to collect the box that had appeared and exploded, killing his minion and leaving him only seeing out of his own eyes again. "Not sure the pineapple would kill someone without spending extra mana but it would certainly hurt."

Mist pulled a mana stone out of his pocket and drained it, refilling a touch less than half of his mana pool. He paid the mana cost to resurrect his minion then summoned it and reactivated his sense link. He conjured another pineapple and handed it to his pet. "Go back through the mirror."

Mist turned his attention to the small wooden box resting in the sand as the noodle monsters 'charged' each other with their pineapples. 'It's obviously learning which means I should probably avoid taunting it. At least the loot sticks around, probably for the next person that wins which means pyrrhic victories are still a win.'

Mist frowned when his noodle monster died because of the pineapple hitting the ground from a lack of strength, letting the enemy noodle monster come out of the mirror. He watched the noodle monster as it charged him, swinging its pasta around wildly. "That's almost cute." He kicked the creature back into the mirror, causing it to vanish.

"What was that?" Sabrina asked as she walked over.

Mist glanced at the brown haired librarian then turned his attention back to the mirror, waiting for the monster to come back out. "A summoned pet, I picked up a couple of spells from the cultists."

"Anything dangerous?" Sabrina asked warily, not sure how much to trust the cultists since they were a bit crazy.

"I figured out how to conjure exploding pineapples," Mist replied with a grin.

Sabrina stared at Mist for a couple of seconds then shook her head. "Anything else?"

"A spell to grow plants, a spell that conjures permanent balls of uncomfortably warm light that don't need fuel, a spell to regenerate teeth that I might be able to use to research a spell to regenerate bones and a spell that lets me give people an alternate form," Mist replied as a half dead noodle monster came back out of the mirror and he kicked it back into the mirror.

"What type of alternate form?" Sabrina asked, wondering what the catch was since disguise techniques usually had issues or were expensive in terms of qi usage.

"Some type of girl with a cowboy hat that can summon toy guns and has questionable pants, do you want to try it?" Mist asked as he pulled a couple of mana stones out of his bag.

"Are there any harmful side effects?" Sabrina asked.

Mist shook his head and stepped on the mostly dead noodle monster that stumbled out of the mirror. "There shouldn't be. The only real downside is that you'd have to work on your physical training in both forms as they're separate."

"Rare components, nasty potions or a lengthy ritual?" Sabrina asked.

"Just mana," Mist replied as he reached down and pulled the child-sized sunglasses out of the mess of crushed pasta.

"In that case, sure," Sabrina replied, not seeing a point in refusing.

Mist used the mana stones to pay the mana cost and cast his Bestow Alternate form spell on Sabrina, giving her the ability to transform. "That should do it…" he trailed off as Sabrina activated the ability, causing a swirl of sparkles to surround her and turned her into a tall busty red haired teenage girl that was wearing a black cowboy hat, a belt with a pair of toy cap guns in sheaths and a pair of black leather chaps that only covered her legs, leaving her effectively naked in all the ways that mattered. "Huh."

Sabrina looked down at her breasts then looked at herself in the mirror, seeing a girl that could have won a country wide beauty contest. "Damn! I'm smoking hot."

"Yep," Mist agreed as he stepped out of the way so that she could get a better look at herself.

"My available qi dropped to almost nothing but I can probably fix that with enough time and spirit stones," Sabrina mused as she turned around so that she could get a decent look at her behind.

"Do you have any modesty or is that a function of the spell?" Mist asked, fairly sure the spell shouldn't have decreased her modesty that much.

"I didn't have a lot to start with but the fact that it's not really my body helps," Sabrina replied as she bounced on her heels, causing her breasts to bounce. She took her hat off and handed it to Mist. "Hold that."

"Sure," Mist replied as sparkles swirled around the librarian and she changed back to her normal appearance, complete with all of her clothes.

Sabrina glanced at the hat that Mist was holding. "I'm a bit surprised that the hat didn't vanish."

"That only happens if you're wearing them when you change back," Mist replied as he put the hat on.

"What happens if I put something on?" Sabrina asked.

"You end up wearing it when you change back or it just drops to the ground if it would cause a problem," Mist explained.

Sabrina smiled as she 'stole' her hat back and put it on. "I'm going to have to put some work into cultivating in that form but having an alternate form is awesome, thank you."

"You're welcome," Mist assured her, happy that he could make her happy and that he'd gotten a show out of the deal.

"Are you going to cast the spell on Dawn?" Sabrina asked with a grin.

Mist shook his head. "Maybe later, she's getting her mad scientist on, summoning people and I want to finish cleaning up the well since I can give the noodle monster the ability to clean things."

"How many people has she summoned?" Sabrina asked, wondering how many more students she'd have to deal with.

"She was up to eight people when I left and she'll probably end up summoning a couple more cousins before she starts summoning the local version of Julia's family. I wanted to make sure the water was safe to use before I got carried away but I ran into the cultists and they were selling magic spells and then I got distracted." Mist handed her the vial of blue power. "Do you know what this is?"

Sabrina studied the dust for a few seconds. "It's Azure dust, it's a somewhat rare cultivation aid for certain types of metal spirit roots, where did you get it?"

"My pet managed to kill its duplicate a couple of times," Mist replied as he paid the cost to resurrect his pet. He summoned his minion and pointed at the mirror. "Go through the mirror and grab the loot."

Sabrina watched the noodle monster walk through the mirror. "Can I keep this? One of the students would get a decent amount of benefit from it."

"Sure," Mist replied, not particularly worried about it since it wasn't useful to him. "You're the expert or is that Dawn?" he asked as he watched his pet fight another duplicate.

"A bit of both," Sabrina replied as she pocketed the vial. "Can you cast the monster spell for other people or just yourself?"

"I can give other people a tattoo that lets them summon a noodle monster but they'd have to use mana stones to pay for upgrading the monsters since it takes mana rather than qi and they'll attack their summoner fifty percent of the time if they get into combat so it's not really worth it until I can fix that particular problem."

"Damn," Sabrina complained. "Let me know if you figure out a way to fix it, I'd love to have another pet. Can it do anything useful?"

"I can spend mana to improve its abilities and to give it some new abilities. I bought an ability that lets me see out of its eyes, which is useful because now I know what the arena looks like and that the loot sticks around between fights," Mist explained as his pet walked out of the mirror carrying several small objects.

"That would be nice for scouting and I'm a bit jealous, it took awhile to pick up that particular ability with my fox," Sabrina admitted.

"Your fox is probably a lot more useful considering she doesn't try to kill you," Mist pointed out as he collected the loot and handed it to Sabrina.

"She's generally pretty well behaved," Sabrina replied with a grin as she looked at the loot. "Oh, that looks like Grim Tears, you can tell because of the shimmering, or it might be water from a tree of life but that's unlikely. That's a misty rose and that's blue thistle, probably. I might need to look a couple of things up and ask Dawn about a couple of these."

"Have fun," Mist told her as he handed her the collection along with the jar of honey. "See if you can figure out if the honey is useful for cultivation or if it's just really good honey."

"Sure," Sabrina replied. "I should probably check to make sure Dawn hasn't gotten into too much trouble."

"Wouldn't hurt," Mist replied as he started walking down the hallway, figuring the corrupted qi in the well would give him plenty of mana to improve his pet in ways that wouldn't put anyone's life at risk but might make it easier to farm rare resources.

'This is going to be awesome if we can get free cultivation resources, or nearly free,' she mused as she headed for the door so she could check on Dawn.