Welcome and enjoy!

Big thanks to the new Black Clover discord channel for sparking my interest in the fandom yet again, and, of course, Aesx from AO3 for poking me to update, as well as all the rest of my reviewers who make me write like a maniac :)

Side note: If anyone is interested in betaing this story, do reach out to me :D I often miss my own mistakes or struggle with planning ahead, so I would greatly appreciate a second pair of eyes :D

Chapter 7: When you don't know, research

"Nova," the aloe vera to her left gently poked her, making her giggle.

"Wait, I'll harvest you in a moment," the girl told it, resuming her work on the mint leaves in front of her.

"Nova," the plant wouldn't be ignored, though. It continued prodding her shoulder.

"Okay, okay," the girl gave in, lowering her hands and taking a different set of tools. "If you won't wait, I'll harvest you now."

"Err, what?" The aloe vera moved away slightly, but Nova caught it.

"Don't be sly, let me harvest you," the girl giggled. The aloe vera tried to wriggle away.

"It would appear that you're being harvested," chamomile laughed from behind the wriggling plant. "Just give in, sweetie."

"Nova!" the aloe vera screamed and Nova blinked, looking up. She was met with Will's wide eyes and red ears, instead of the green leaves of aloe vera. "What the heck are you dreaming about?" Nova looked down to see that she'd been halfway through untying his belt, her pen in hand to be used as a harvesting knife.

"Oh," the girl let go of the pants, blushing profusely.

"You were attempting to harvest him," Mary was standing behind Will, cackling madly, her arms around her middle. The healer whose pants had almost been undone quickly rebuttoned them, looking mortified.

"This… never happened," Will murmured, rushing upstairs out of the basement. Nova blinked again, her hands coming up to cover her red face.

"Agreed," she mumbled.

"Oh, but it most certainly did!" Mary laughed loudly, and Nova knew that the healer would never let them live it down.

"Excuse me, Mary?" Nova had opted for the safer choice of mentor after her morning rounds, still too mortified to approach Will.

"Mmm?" The plum woman didn't stop working on the bandages, rolling them neatly into secure pouches.

"How does one go about accessing more books than the ones available here?" That got Mary's attention. She glanced up, inspecting the fidgeting girl in front of her.

"You've gone through the whole library already?" Nova quickly shook her head.

"It just doesn't have the title I'm looking for."

"Well," Mary's hands resumed the work they'd been doing. "I know that Owen has access to the Royal Library at the Palace of the Wizard King, but I'm not sure how you could gain entry. Perhaps try writing a formal request to Julius?"

"Is there a specific form of letter for that?" Nova asked, nodding.

"No, just write him a note stating the reason, the topic and when you'd like to access the library, I suppose." Nova nodded, then turned to leave with a thanks. "What are you looking to research, though?" Mary asked before the girl was out of the door. Nova stopped short, turning around slowly with a strained smile on her face.

"Ah, well, umm, just looking to improve my knowledge of curses," she fumbled, saying. "I know that the Diamond Kingdom uses some and I wanted to be prepared in case our mage came in with a nasty one. I'm not very experienced with hexes and jinxes."

"You've already read the literature we have in the basement?"

"Yes," the girl nodded.

"Well, try writing a formal request then," Mary told her, watching the girl give a small bow and leave. The older healer stopped rolling bandages for a moment, contemplating the request of their new apprentice. Hexes and jinxes. It was certainly an unusual topic to be interested in. However, it seemed to be for a good cause. Mary shrugged, resuming her work. If the girl's interest got unhealthy, she would talk to Owen about it.

Nova was surprised to receive a reply from the Wizard King so quickly. In fact, she promptly fell off her chair with a scream when a kind of space magic window or image projection screen appeared next to her, a blue-haired young man speaking from it as if it were completely normal.

"Miss Goldin?" He asked when she managed to gather herself, standing up.

"Ah, yes?!"

"No need to shout, my magic is the same as if I were in the same room, standing at this distance," the mage explained, making her blush. "The Wizard King has reviewed your request to accessing more books on specific curses and summons you to the Palace to further explain your request. Your audience is to be today at two in the afternoon."

"Ah, yes, sir! Thank you, sir," Nova winced, reminding herself not to shout. "I'm terribly sorry for yelling, sir."

"It's not a problem, they all do it in the beginning," the young man smiled, then the screen vanished. Nova let out a sigh of relief, before stopping short, her heart pounding quicker and quicker. She needed to be able to explain why she wanted to access the records about the Surgeon of Death!

She was lost. It wasn't that she had a poor sense of direction. Not at all. Nova could read a map, make a map and fairly easily recall the path she'd previously taken. However, the palace was simply too large. Humongous. Gargantuan. She had a few attributes at the ready to use.

While Owen's Healing Tower was at the very outskirts, at the edge of the massive property, due to the need for frequent trips into the city, as well as into the nearby forest and mountains, the main building was at the very center. Which meant that Nova first had to navigate her way to the main gates, then talk her way through them and finally, which really wasn't finally at all, somehow get through the maze of gardens, palace buildings and to the working quarters of the Wizard King.

So, how was it that she was staring at an obviously lavish art studio, out in the open, in some sort of a garden, when she had been certain she'd been headed down the right little cobblestone path straight for the main castle? Nova wouldn't be able to tell a soul.

"Well, damn," the girl sighed, head dropping as she positively gave up, allowing her tired body to squat down for a brief break.

"Excuse me?"

"Ah!" Nova looked up, eyes wide. There was a young woman in front of her, hands smeared with paint, a shawl draped across her shoulders despite the summer heat. Her hair was dark, complexion a little too pale to be called fair and her lips showed signs of obvious dehydration. However, her eyes with rather bright, questioning and very alive, in contrast to her frail body. "Forgive me for intruding, My Lady," Nova managed to stop her curious staring and jumped up, remembering her manners. Never, ever, insult a noble. Her mother had drilled that one into her. For a split second the girl was torn between a bow and a curtsy, but then realized that her curtsy had always been absolute crap, so she opted for the former. Masculine, but still would work. "I was on my way to an audience with the Wizard King, however I seem to have lost my way."

"Well, you aren't too far off," the lady kindly giggled. "If you take that path, through the back gate," her hand, which wasn't holding the cloth smeared with paint, rose to point with delicate fingers at the iron exit of the small garden. "You will find yourself going down a narrow passage. Take the first right twice, and then the second left, and you will find the main road to the castle."

"I'm in your debt," Nova bowed low, making sure not to look into the lady's eyes. Do not touch a noble. Do not look at a noble. Do not talk to a noble unless you must. Easy rules.

"Take care," the lady gave her a soft smile, along with a wave, and Nova took that as permission to take her leave. She swiftly unlatched the gate open, and then again latched it behind herself as she left. She even dared to glance at the small garden, smelling of lilies and fresh grass, where the lady resumed her work on a painting of a meadow. Nova made a mental note to somehow repay the debt she'd just accumulated.

True to the directions she'd received, the path she found herself on was on both sides bordered by tall buildings of the palace. The bricks were made of dark grey stone, similar to the cobblestones and gave her a sense of claustrophobia. She took the first crossroads to the right, and then another right. The winding path continued. Nova ignored the crossroads and continued straight. Finally, she took the last turn in the directions and in less than two hundred meters she walked out of the narrow passages in between the buildings and into the sunny, wide street. Nova shielded her eyes, looked back for a split second, before grinning wide and running up the road towards the castle.

There was a man at the main gates, holding a book of some sort. Nova walked up to him with a little bit of a skip to her step, which only made him give her a harder onceover. She smiled nervously, the reality of where she was going finally setting in. Sure, she'd met the Wizard King informally before. And, she'd oddly been transported into his study once. Yet, never had she gone there herself, on her own two feet.

"What's your purpose in the castle, miss?" the man asked in a gruff tone.

"I'm here for the audience with the Wizard King," Nova replied, opting to remain polite and ignore his hostility. The man looked her up and down again.

"Name?"

"Nova Goldin," she said. He shuffled through the list in his hands.

"The Wizard King's residence is through these doors and then to the left," he told her, not even looking up at her. "There are guards at the door who will direct you further."

"Thank you very much," Nova replied and walked through the tall archway. She found herself in a lavish courtyard which showed ways into different estates of the inner structure of the palace. From what she knew, the royals lived there, each in their own separate castles almost. Nova went left, as directed, and found the two guards standing at the entrance of a tall building. They were laughing, talking about some escapade of a mission, and generally seemed much more hospitable than the man at the main entrance.

"Hello, I'm here to see the Wizard King?" Nova told them when they stopped talking as she approached. She was getting a little tired of the whole procedure to even enter the darn castle.

"Sure thing," the younger one, on the left, said. "Just follow the main stairs up and you'll find Master Julius' study. His doors are literally always open."

"Thank you," Nova proceeded inside. She was glad to finally be out of the hot sun. The way that the building had been made, in stone with large open windows and arches, clearly allowed the air to cool off the inside naturally. A tall staircase showed her the way up to the first floor, where she spotted the open doors of the study in question. Finally, something was familiar. Nova knocked lightly on the frame of the entrance, and then went in. Julius looked up from his desk, his eyes instantly brightening.

"Nova, welcome!" The Wizard King seemed beyond happy to step away from his desk and a massive stack of papers on it. "I read your request to explore the Royal Library for more information on curses. Can you tell me a bit about the purpose of your research? Would you like some tea?" Nova couldn't help but smile at his childish energy and general openness.

"Thank you so much for granting me the chance to explain my reasons, Wizard King," she spoke, following him when he motioned to the two chairs away from his desk. "Some tea would be lovely."

"Here you go," Julius poured the drinks himself, sitting down, and Nova followed suit.

"Well, primarily I'm interested in curses for medicinal purposes," she told him. "I've read everything that is available at the Tower, and it's mostly the basics of curse making, not lifting." She sipped her tea, enjoying the pleasant aroma despite the heat. "The Diamond Kingdom and the Spade Kingdom mages do use quite a bit of curse magic, and in our records it says that we mostly deal with those cases without any solutions. So, I'd like a chance to be able to actually lift a curse, or at least direct the afflicted mages to some form of a remedy." Julius nodded.

"That sounds reasonable," he told her. "Do you have a starting point in mind? There are quite a few books on the subject matter."

"I'd like to start with the work of the Surgeon of Death," Nova told him. Julius looked at her for a moment, long and hard, as if looking for a trace of a lie on her face. However, everything she'd said was true. She did want to learn how to break curses and she was interested in the Surgeon. To her, it was killing two birds with one stone.

"Alright," Julius nodded. "It will take me some time to get the request approved through proper channels, so expect to be able to access the library at the end of the week. Does that sound good for you?"

"It's perfect!" Nova was ecstatic. She'd expected to wait a month, at least. Julius smiled at her.

"Now, tell me, how is your work with Owen going? Is the Tower living up to your expectations?" And he didn't need to ask another question for a long time after. Nova was all too happy to let him know about all the work the healer had put her to and express her gratitude to the man who'd allowed her the chance to prove herself worthy.

Magna and Luck came together to the Tower that late afternoon. Nova instantly knew that they were there by the ruckus on the first floor. With a sigh, but unable to keep a smile off her face, she gathered her things and got her shoes on, going downstairs. She managed to enter just at the right time, as Luck was starting yet another fight with one of the mages who was healing on a cot, this time from the Silver Eagles.

"Would you stop issuing challenges?" Nova smacked him lightly on the head with her grimoire, successfully getting both Luck's and Magna's attention.

"But I want to fight him!"

"Nova, let's go!" Magna spoke over Luck's pouting response, walking over. "You're free for the afternoon, right?" It was eerie how well they knew her schedule.

"Yes?" She asked uncertainly.

"Good, we'll be taking her now, then," Luck grinned, waving goodbye to a rather stunned Will, who was fuming from his ears at the mess the two had cause with their entrance.

"You'd better have her back by ten!" Will yelled out as they were leaving.

"What is he, your father?" Luck asked her curiously, making Nova giggle.

"More like mother hen," she told him, which made him chuckle in return.

"I heard that!" Will yelled from the doorway with a grin, waving goodbye to the trio.

In their short, but seemingly built to last, friendship, Magna, Nova and Luck had formed some kind of a weird way of walking when they were together. It had all begun rather innocently. Magna, the gentleman, despite the rather rough exterior, that he was, had offered Nova his elbow one day while she'd still been struggling with her cane. And Luck, never the one to be left out, had pouted how he never got offered elbows, so the girl had mimicked Magna's courtesy. This led to the three making a rather odd group, walking together with their arms intertwined in the street.

"Are we going anywhere special?" Nova asked, feeling rather comfortably nestled between the two mages.

"To start some fights!" Luck immediately perked up from her right.

"No, you bastard!" Magna yelled over Nova's head. The center position also allowed for the girl to do one very important job, which was to make certain that the two friends didn't attempt to kill each other during their outings. "We need brooms, and Nova doesn't have one, either, so we should buy them together."

"And some food, too," the girl supplied, her stomach growling.

"Don't start any food fights, though," Magna gave her a dark look. "Cleaning a whole restaurant once was enough for me."

"Then we could just skip to a real fight?" Luck always had his eye on the prize. "The food fight was fun, but nothing beats a death match!" Nova glanced at him, seeing that mischievous glint in his eye. She was more than familiar with it, and knew what came after the boy got that specific look on his face.

"Obviously you haven't been creative enough with a food fight, Lucky boy," she poked his hand, making his grin turn towards her. But, much to her relief, the manic glint was gone from his face.

"Like stuffing a sandwich down someone's throat?"

"Great method of suffocation."

"Poking an eye out with a fork?"

"No utensils allowed." Luck hummed, presented with the challenge.

"Egg is a great projectile weapon?"

"Why indeed it is."

"This is why I can't take the two of you anywhere," Magna sighed, shaking his head. "Let's go this way, you maniacs." What the fire mage either didn't know or chose to ignore, was the fact that while with Nova the percentage of Luck's attention span short-circuiting and going back to challenge-to-a-fight mode was rather low. Their conversations and debates sometimes got borderline psychotic, but the lightning mage seemed entertained enough with the hypothetical violent situations, instead of making them a reality.

"Oh, that shop looks mighty expensive!" Nova gasped as Magna led them into an alley and up to a fancy red door.

"Cheap brooms don't fly well," Luck shrugged, using his free hand to open the entrance. Nova was the first to go in, her mouth dropping in shock. While the outside had seemed fancy enough, it was nothing compared to the inside. The large space, two stories done in red wood and lined with gold, was filled with various brooms on stands. The stairs took the customers to yet another level of expensive travel gear on display. And, the brooms weren't the only thing available there. Cleaning sets, attachable bags, modification items, even books about flying were on display.

"Woah," Nova turned in a circle, taking in every single item in the store.

"I know, right?" Magna stood next to her, hands on hips. "I was shocked when Luck first took me here, too. Just a month ago I couldn't even afford to touch one of these babies. Look at me now coming to buy one."

"You're not alone there…" Nova murmured. She glanced at the price on one of the flying contraptions and felt her breath stop in her chest. "This is worth almost as much as my parents' house!"

"Really?" Luck was suddenly next to her, bending down to check out the price, as well. "You guys sure are poor!"

"Why you little-"

"Are you certain you're not a noble?" Nova interrupted with a nervous chuckle before Magna could start a fight and make them have to spend more money than intended on making up the damages at the shop.

"Quite certain," Luck shrugged.

"Do you need any help, gentlemen?" The three turned around to see a shopkeeper standing next to them. She was a woman in her late twenties, of brown hair and slim figure. There were large glasses on her eyes and she was wearing some kind of a corset which accentuated her hourglass figure, which Nova was sure was extremely uncomfortable.

"We're looking for some long-lasting, mid-range price brooms, Miss," Magna spoke.

"Our mid-ranges are right this way," the shopkeeper nodded, taking them around the other few customers deeper into the store. "I assure you that all of our brooms have long lives and are particularly adaptable to all attributes. Might I ask what yours are?"

"Lightning," Luck was the first to speak up, a little off-handedly, already looking at the different brooms on display.

"Fire," Magna tapped his grimoire.

"And you, young sir?" The shopkeeper turned to Nova.

"Operation magic, the attribute derived from water and wind as far as I know," the girl replied. She spotted the jaw of the shopkeeper going slack for a mere moment.

"Oh, my apologies, miss," the woman spoke, but Nova interrupted.

"It's alright, happens." With Nova's work attire and her habit of tying her longish hair up in a bun as she worked, especially with that hat she'd tossed on due to the bright sun, she did look like a young lad. Nova wasn't particularly boyish-looking, in all fairness. In fact, she liked dressing up when she felt like it. However, when working at the Tower there was simply no use in being fancy. Patients tended to puke, bleed and toss other bodily fluids on her. Also, when she was doing her chores in the herbal garden she couldn't really watch out for her fancy clothing. Nova still had no idea how Mary managed to keep a clean dress on at all times. The younger girl instead opted for brown, in case of dirt, baggy pants and whichever shirt was clean. It had led to quite a few Knights mistaking her for a boy.

"Well, then," the vendor seemed to gather herself. "If I might direct your attention here," she pointed delicately with both hands towards one of the brooms. "Model 75, one of the newest we have, eighty percent sycamore, ten percent oak and ten percent copper. This is a great choice for lightning mages as it conducts well and offers unparalleled smooth flight." Luck frowned. Nova's eyebrow rose when she saw that smile, the one she'd become so accustomed to seeing on his face, slip off and then appear once more. Somehow, the second time around it looked much more menacing.

"Magna, Nova, do you know anything about brooms?" He asked conversationally.

"Just some basics," the girl replied, Magna already drawn in by a gaudy looking decoration item on display.

"In reality the major component is usually about ten percent less of anything that the company says it is," Luck told her, turning more to her than to the shopkeeper. "And buying a broom that's less than seventy-five percent base wood is simply a waste of money. It won't last long and it will likely break under a constant channel of strong mana."

"Oh, so this one ain't any good?" Nova could literally see the shopkeepers face losing color by the second.

"Not for the price of five thousand yul," Luck shrugged. "We'd be better off going to the shop down the road and seeing their goods. Same quality and much cheaper." Nova heard the lady gulp nervously.

"Aspen, ninety-five percent," she spoke, moving away from the current broom. "Silver alloy five percent." She took a deep breath and then released it. "This is the best conductor for your mana you will find in this shop. If you're not satisfied with it, you are better off going somewhere else." Luck gave the shopkeeper a rather chipper look and satisfied grin.

"I was planning on getting an aspen broom anyway," he told her. "Now that we're all being honest, why don't we actually help these two find good transportation for their mana types?"

"Ah- I- Yes, of course, sir," the shopkeeper seemed to have lost all will to fight, walking over to the next rack of brooms. Nova caught Luck's loose sleeve before he could follow her, pulling him back.

"Thanks, I had no idea we were being cheated," she told him with a slight frown. His gaze dropped down to her fingers on his shirt, then back to her face with a grin.

"No problem, Nova," he told her easily. She was about to give him a rewarding smile, and maybe even a nice kiss on his cheek, when a telltale crack reached her ears, mana flowing in the air. Simultaneously, Luck zapped both her fingers and her behind, making the girl yelp and jump up.

"For Wizard King's sake! Can't you ever just be nice?!" But she already knew the answer to that question, as well.

Hope you enjoyed this one! I loved writing it :)

Reviews:

AmericanNidiot:
On the topic of the scalpel, I promise that there will be more explained in the future. For now, it was just bothering Nova too much and she was kind of borderline afraid of it, hence bound it. Mummy scalpel seems about right xD
Luck… Ah I'm always worried I'm missing the mark with his characterization, to be honest. I needed him to realize that while Nova isn't strong in the traditional sense, she is in another way. She fights on a different battlefield than he does, and is pretty good at it :D As for him allowing her to rope him into stuff, I consider him to be a curious individual, so as long as something is interesting, he isn't opposed to doing it? If that makes sense? I hope this explains why I made the choices I did :)
Best!

girigurl:
Hiii and thanks so much for the review! I'm glad that you're enjoying yourself :)
Nova is not the boss woman yet, I promise xD But, hopefully, she will learn with time and be able to hold her own :D
She definitely managed to get through to Luck, at least in some ways :) I reckon that he is rather smart, at least in my mind, so it wouldn't take long for him to make a distinction between two types of fighting, in a sense. I hope I'm making sense with that hahahaha
Hope you enjoy the update! Best!