While the Elders met with Karl and Dana, Opal and Leo were on an adventure.

You see, Leo had found many others his apparent age here, and while he wasn’t close enough to just go to his own classroom, he could go visit them.

So, his sister had volunteered to go with him to make sure that everyone was happy with the new school that she had made. The books were all illusionary, duplicates of the real schoolbooks that Leo used in class.

But that was fine. They weren’t going to wreck them on purpose, so the illusions should be durable enough. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The Lycan children watched the little Tortollan enter the small schoolhouse, accompanied by the Fae that had helped make most of their houses.

"Hi! I’m Leo, one of the Karl’s partners. We’re too far from school for me to go today, can I join you?"

The little ones rushed over, intrigued by the turtle boy.

They had never seen one before, and Leo certainly looked like a friendly sort. Meeting new friends and Pack members was never a bad thing in the minds of the Lycans. So, even before the teacher could respond, he had been welcomed by the group, and they were pulling him into the room to show off their supplies.

"These are our favourite learning blocks," one of the kids explained.

"Learning blocks?"

"They’re enchanted, and they glow when you give the right answer!"

Now, that was a cool function.

"You just give them a bit of mana, and they give a question."

Leo activated the wooden block, and a question appeared in the air.

{If a Lycan pup can swim two metres a second, how long does it take to retrieve a prize that is four metres offshore, in three metres of water?}

The kids looked shocked. That was a hard one.

But after a split second of counting, the first answers came out.

"Thirty seconds."

"No, it’s got to be fourteen."

Leo giggled. "It’s a trigonometry problem. The answer is ten seconds because you swim straight through the water, not across the top then down."

The kids looked stunned, but the teacher looked incredibly impressed as the block glowed bright green.

"I’m a turtle, I know about swimming."

The Lycans howled with laughter, and one of the girls activated the block again.

{If Tommy’s mom makes a snack at four thirty, Dave’s mom makes early dinner at five, and your mom makes dinner at eight, how many times can you eat after school without being rude?}

Leo laughed. He knew for sure that Hawk would know the rules to snack etiquette.

All the Lycans giggled, and turned to Leo. "This is a Pack one, do you know the answer?"

"Two? Leaving so soon after the snack to get to another dinner sounds too fast."

"Oh, you’re good at this!"

Then, it brought out one that nobody knew.

{If the leaves of the Fire Lily are being collected to make medicine, do you pull the whole plant, or just cut the stem?}

There was a moment of silence, then the teacher pointed at a shelf.

"The botany books are over there. James, go get every group a book. Do you remember how to look up information in new books?"

The Lycan boy nodded eagerly and ran off to get a stack of textbooks.

A group formed around Leo as everyone turned to cluster with the people currently near them. That was how the pack did things, as they considered themselves one big family, and the leaders didn’t approve of forming cliques.

At least not in the youngest classes.

Opal landed on the teacher’s shoulder as the kids searched for information on the Fire Lily, and began reading out loud to their groups.

"Do you have everything that you need? I did my best, but I wasn’t sure what else they used to teach the kids other than the books."

The teacher nodded. "You did amazingly well. We brought most of our stuff with us, but we never had all these textbooks before. The Pack has always been traditional, and usually taught things by word and memory.

That’s why we have the blocks.

But having all these books is much easier than having me explain it all to them. I don’t think that I actually know the answer to this one, so it must be responding to Leo. The questions should all be something that someone in the room knows."

Opal flitted off her shoulder, giggling.

"I think it’s reacting to me. I know the answer to this question. But Leo clearly doesn’t, and he didn’t think of asking Hawk for the answer. Hawk knows all things fire related.

But we also picked these once before.

You don’t pick the whole plant, you take a cutting, and don’t kill any of the plants entirely. It lets them grow back flowers at the same strength, and doesn’t cause the other flowers in the area to react.

They can be dangerous if you set them off, and they burst out with Fire Element energy."

The kids found the flowers in the book, and began slowly reading everything about them. Halfway down, they found their answer. If you pulled them up by the roots, the plant would explode with the force of a [Fireball] spell.

That sounded painful to the Lycans. Singed fur would heal, but it hurt and it smelled really bad.

They didn’t stop there, though. They read the whole article on the Fire Lily before putting the books back on the shelf. They had learned a new thing today, and that meant it was time for recess.

Lycan children were even more distractible than Leo was, and needed constant activity to keep them focused.

And that meant it was time to go play tag.

The kids rushed outside, with Opal and the teacher following them. Today, they had a dilemma, as Leo wasn’t as fast as a Lycan pup. Fortunately for him, he had tricks that would help him in a game of tag.

Like the way that he could simply float up into one of the trees to let the chaser run by before he came back down.

The pups howled with laughter as they realized that Leo had tricked them.

They thought he was hiding behind the tree, and the chaser had run a full ring around it before giving up and going after someone else. Only for Leo to drop down from the branches after he was gone.

Their day’s learning was not about to end there. Leo never got tired, not with [Indomitable] in effect all the time. So, while his short legs might not be able to keep up easily, he could run forever.