"You'll need something to breathe underwater if you wanna come."

"Isn't it a bit dangerous to go alone?"

"I don't go that deep, he's not asking me for like obeaune eggs or anything like that."

"So you just kinda… do stuff?"

"I mean, yeah."

"How does that become—I mean, what's the, like, path from there to becoming an adventurer."

"No clue."

"...uh."

"I mean, a little bit of a clue, I'm shoring up a bunch of skills that are probably gonna be useful? But I'm, like, not the one with a plan, here, that's a you thing. I figure I'll do some stuff and take on some bounties and when I'm high enough rank I'll see if I can't snag a party."

"Do you not have any candidates in mind?"

"I didn't snatch a hot rogue boyfriend, no," she says with a smirk. 

"—we're not dating."

"But you'll party."

"We might, eventually. But that's for, you know, when we do party."

"Which is when?"

"I... don't know."

"So maybe figure it out, since it's important to you."

"...yeah. You're right."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. This was helpful."

"Wow, I feel like a proper senpai, all warm and fuzzy."

He grins. "I think I need to find out what lectures there are and who else is around doing what and go from there. Form a study plan."

"Atta boy. Oh and don't forget to hit up the Wizard Tower, it's really cool."

The professor teaching the spell development lectures Astrid has been recently watching is probably a very central case of what Evelin meant when she said that mages are often a pile of fabric that sets things on fire. She is a stout woman of average height, long curly grey hair, a very pale complexion, and dark grey robes so shapeless you could imagine the woman is actually three goblins in a trenchcoat wizard's robe.

Astrid and Vallynn are the last ones to arrive, and three other mages—all of them clearly older and more experienced than the two of them—are already seated at the sofa and one armchair and a futon surrounding a round carpet and facing the professor herself, who is erasing the contents of the black board.