Quest!

After Yuri woke up, he immediately changed his mind. Perhaps, in part due to just waking up...

There was no way he was taking any more classes besides Enchanting unless he absolutely needed to.

Taking classes for every school of magic would be necessary no matter how fast he learned it if he planned to stay in the College or even Skyrim. Questions of education would arise, and getting recognition from the upper staff of the College while having taken almost none of the classes would be an uphill battle.

Luckily, Yuri had no plans to stick around this world long enough for anyone to get comfortable with his presence.

Yuri strode to the Library, took every basic spell from Expert to Master on Restoration he could find, and was about to make his way back to his room for a few hours while he digested the new knowledge.

But instead, he discovered a group of students sitting down and looking at him furtively, as if about to ask him a question. Yuri recognized this and slowed down slightly while pretending he didn't see them.

"Excuse me!" Said a young man with brown curly hair about Yuri's age wearing Adept robes. Yuri had long abandoned the Adept robes, not by choice. Savos forbade an apprentice as powerful as Yuri from wearing robes below his weight class. His robes couldn't be identified among the grades of a mage, and were solid black but the black pendant with a hand on the right of his chest made sure people knew he was Savos' apprentice.

Yuri slowly turned around and flashed an amiable smile. "How can I help you?"

"You're the Arch Mage's apprentice, right?" It appears word traveled fast when Savos selected his first Apprentice. "My friends and I are having trouble with Lightning control and would like to ask for your insights in exchange for whatever knowledge you want. We have Experts in every school among our friends" He gestured toward the side table he and his friends sat by. Groups like these could be found in every hall, and in his walking days, Yuri passed by hundreds of students he largely ignored.

Yuri didn't truly need help in any sort of magic, but he hasn't spoken to many people besides his teachers since he left the Frozen Hearth, and was in a sociable mood.

"Got any Restoration Experts?" Asked Yuri with a hint of interest.

"Me!" Raised the hand of a freckled brunette with curly hair who seemed very excited to meet him.

Yuri approached the table with the younger man and asked "What are all your names?"

"Bjorn," Said the man who asked for him first while holding his hand out.

Yuri took it in a firm shake, and then let the rest continue.

"Torin" "Aeris" "Harvin" "Cynthia," they all said. The last one was the Restoration Expert, evidently.

"Mine's Yuri" He introduced. "Are you all in the same Destruction class? And why aren't you asking your professor?"

"He's a dickhead" Answered Torin, a blond Nord in Expert robes. "He thinks Destruction is a matter of talent, and if we can't get it with his methods then we won't ever get it."

"Haha, they do seem very vague when it comes to teaching about the elements. What questions do you have about Lightning?" Yuri asked kindly.

"I'm not used to working with a spell that isn't willing to work with me," Said Cynthia. "How do you control Lightning without suppressing it?" Torin and Aeris nodded, seeming to have the same question.

"How does nature?" Yuri asked back.

""Huh?"" Said two of them out loud, Bjorn and the rest were hooked.

"When lightning occurs naturally, it isn't compressed out of nowhere nor does it fall from blue skies. It comes from..." Yuri beckoned.

"Clouds," Answered Bjorn. "You're saying you weren't controlling it, just imitating the process?" Continued Aeris.

Yuri lifted his hand, and the 5 others watched as a fog traveled its way up Yuri's arm and fitted to its form before his hand started showing flashes of light within the fog, not unlike an active thunder cloud. "When you have questions about an element's nature, look to nature itself. It's the best teacher" Advised Yuri.

"How did you change your arm?!" Aeris asked loudly.

Yuri pulled back some of the clouds from his hand. "I didn't. I just covered it with water vapor that had the intent of directing lightning in only a single direction. Lightning never tries to strike above a cloud, right? Just below it. Use that"

[Basic Lightning Spell Taught: 50 RP]

'Huh?!' Yuri nearly said out loud. 'A whole new world' He nearly sang out loud.

Yuri clasped his hands together while his right was still shrouded in dark clouds and looked at Cynthia with a serious gaze.

"Hit me," He said.

"What?!" Cynthia was somewhat alarmed...

Yuri smiled cheekily and broke character, "Hit me with a restoration spell. I've never seen one before"

"Oh, haha. Wait, really?" Even the most conservative Nord doesn't mind the School of Restoration, making it the most popular magic across Skyrim.

Yuri put his hand behind his neck with embarrassment, "Really, haha. Before College, I wasn't around magic very much at all".

"Okay!" Cynthia was excited to show off her strongest school. She closed her eyes and stretched her hands out as a warm golden glow erupted from her palms.

Yuri felt it. Her mana was being supplied to him in a steady stream as his cells seemed to drink its energy in a specific way. It seems this way they can accelerate the growth of new tissue without supplying nutrition in other ways. If they did, the spell would be less mana expensive, however. The spell she was currently using could likely cure the average arrow wound and close it before the disease set in. It was pretty straightforward.

"How do you deal with poisons?" Yuri was curious. Cynthia let go of the spell, her freckled face seeming a little flushed from the exertion. Yuri noticed this and grabbed her hand.

"Wha-" She cut herself off when she noticed she was regaining her mana at a rapid pace. Yuri was exhibiting an advanced modification of the spell Equilibrium he had practiced yesterday with Savos.

"Thank you," She said, amazed at such an application. "Ah, poisons. Killing the infected blood with a targeted spell before giving them food and regenerating the lost blood is the way we are taught. Most of the time, it's too late to try that, however. Purify is a more invasive but less fatal spell. Only Masters can truly use it"

'Another school that would do a lot of good with modern understanding. I'll try to donate some easier purify spells later' Yuri pondered.

"How about you, Bjorn? What's your specialty?" Yuri turned to the 'leader'.

"Alteration! I am aiming to be a Grandmaster with Alteration as a specialty," He replied.

"I know a bit of Alteration myself, but Transmutation seems a bit unnatural to me. Any advice?" Yuri passed the baton.

"Transmutation... Well... practice small? I started off with coins that I repeatedly traded over and over again between different metals. I would always imagine I was gambling with an invisible being and I was slowly getting better at conning him. That seemed to motivate me" Bjorn gave not a lengthy description, but a practice method.

"Haha, that's very clever. I'll try it!" Practice makes perfect, something Yuri had forgotten by getting everything easy.

Exchanges in the arts of all schools continued between the five of them for over two hours. Yuri proved quite the expert, but tried to spend time teaching and making jokes more often than not. He only earned about 300 RP, but gained a few friends for the first time in a long time. Apparently, Bjorn and Cynthia were siblings and would soon be heading to Riften. Their father owned Merryfair Farm and would use the upcoming week vacation to visit him. Harvin didn't talk much at all, he was the oldest of the group and was only interested in Conjuration which didn't come up much at all. Aeris was an airhead, go figure. Torin was completely uninteresting, complaining from time to time about classes and his luck with women, eliciting eye acrobatics from everyone but Harvin the Stoic.

When Bjorn and Cynthia mentioned Riften, his thoughts drifted to the Thieves Guild. It was fun to play as a sneaky character but in reality, the guild was in the pocket of the Black-Briar family. The main questline was even a glaring lesson of how there is no trust among thieves, their own guild master acting as an embezzling leach and skimming from the vault.

He decided he didn't want to visit Riften unless it appeared completely different from the original somehow. In real life, the idea of a dock city filled with thieves was unappealing.

"Alright, guys, I'll try to contact you later. I'm going to go practice" Yuri bid farewell to the party of five and let them do the same before teleporting from that very spot all the way down to the secret practice room.

"What the hell?!" Bjorn's eyes widened into saucers. Teleporting was a professor's spell! Only Masters or Grandmasters with special school privileges showed that ability off!

"How envious to be the Arch Mage's apprentice" Commented Torin.

"Oh, shut up" Cynthia bit back defensively, but not aggressively. "He was selected for a reason. You heard him. He sees magic differently than us. We all gained something whenever he gave advice, he's incredible" Her voice drifted off on that last part.

When word spread that Savos had taken an Apprentice, Yuri became one of the bigger topics. No one knew his race, but many were glad that a Man was receiving such an opportunity instead of a Mer. Talking to him was an entirely different story. His ideas seemed so beyond the pale while his attitude was so refreshing and down to earth. It was an odd but beautiful combination. Yuri had no idea how much charisma he had gained after being unbound from the woes of his past life. He was just happy, and it was infectious.

As soon as Yuri found himself in the practice room, the lanterns on either side lit up in succession and didn't stop until the entire field was awash with blue tint even in the middle of the morning. He was alone, so he decided to start practicing Restoration until he had a good enough hang of it.

He didn't find Restoration too interesting, but he knew that Savos had something for him to do and Yuri wanted to be prepared for two things.

He didn't want to keep buying potions for every wound, and he didn't want to be caught unprepared against his first wild vampire. Restoration held a wide array of anti-undead spells for that very purpose. He did like the sunlight spells, though. If he never needed them to fight, they could certainly help him make a glorious entrance.

In two hours, Yuri was a master at healing himself, others, and bringing daylight to any possible nightwalkers, and decided to head out.

He had extra RP after that, especially. 8620 to be exact. Yuri didn't even make his own spells for it, there were just so many. When he made his way back to the Arcaneum to drop the books back off, he was searching through the exchange for a good base sword to enchant. He wanted to enchant his own weapon. He also got himself some new drip!

He was left with 8320 RP and got himself two sets of black robes that each had a built-in mask he could pull up to hide his identity for 300 RP.

'Life is temporary, Drip is forever' Yuri chanted like a mantra. The robes were simple but still elegant. Black fabric hood and cloak, black mage robes with golden detailing along the seams. With his gauntlets and boots, it would be a complete set. He was tempted to go get Ebony armor pieces instead of the leather stuff he was using, but that could wait. Plus, he likely didn't need it.

Yuri would wait until he was in his room to pull them out. He made his way to the Arcaneum, returned the borrowed books while eliciting eyebrow action from the orc clerk, and borrowed 25 more books solely about enchanting and runes before stuffing them in his disguise bag. He periodically moved some to his inventory when the bag got too full.

'I need to get a new method to hide my inventory. Maybe I could enchant my space storage or make a spell for it. Wait, does a spell for it already exist?'

He pushed those thoughts aside for now and tele'd to his dorm before setting all the books into his inventory along with the bag. He was pondering about a weapon he could use in the future when his pendant started to ring.

'I forgot this thing was Savos' way of giving me his phone number'

Yuri mentally accepted it and said "Hello?"

"Yuri, I have your job details ready. Do you want to hear them now or later?"

"Now is fine, Master"

"My predecessor made a deal with a certain guild in Riften in exchange for several clandestine services to help him get a firm grasp on Winterhold. In exchange, we gave them several enchanted security measures and a single blade that gets passed down to every guild leader and represents our bond with them. The problem lies therein. Their guild leader, Mercer Frey, has taken the blade along with almost all their coin and ran for the hills. Generally, I wouldn't care for their decline, but that blade cannot land in the wrong hands Yuri. We made a magic contract with the guild to keep that blade within their possession, but if it escapes it may end up in the hands of people who we don't want it to. I have no idea how the guild master broke that contract, but it must be retrieved."

"We made a deal with the Thieves Guild, Master?" Yuri was troubled. It turns out his first outing will be the last place he had hoped for.

"Back then, my master used me as a proxy to not be seen with the Guild. I have the same issue now, and I need your help to make contact with them. Do whatever you need to do, kill and coerce whoever you must, but make sure you take that blade back to us. The Guild has proven they can't be trusted with it, and my master was a fool to trust that much power to them. See what love does to a man..." Savos went on a tangent while showing a new ruthless side.

"So I'm going as a 'rogue mage'" Yuri implied. He was ready for some adventure and had the perfect outfit to do it.

"Haha, now you get it. If you do well in this task, that sword might be yours in the future. I'll give you 1200 septims for travel expenses, make sure to retrieve them before you go and get there within a week. Oh, and be sure to investigate why our contract and security enchantments failed if you can." Savos added.

"It will be done" Yuri acknowledged as if he was Starkiller addressing Darth Vader.

"...Right. Toodaloo!" Savos ended off.

"Pfft" Yuri couldn't stay serious.

"Riften, huh. Time to bust some heads. Wait, I wonder if I can hitch a ride with Bjorn and Cynthia?"