To explain why the man was so angry you need to understand two things. First a Jarl was expected to uphold order and honor and take care of their people. The second was that Korir HATED mages. You combine these things and this greenhouse project was like him getting slapped in the face and having to act like he liked it. He really didn't like the idea of relying on something magical to support his people but as a Jarl he had to set aside his own feelings and think of the bigger picture, hence the current situation.-
I personally was far too busy to pay much attention to it beyond checking up on it periodically. The first set of crops was growing nicely by the way, cabbage this time. I threw myself fully into mastering the arcane as time moved forward. I'd gotten a nice rhythm in too. I'd start by solidifying my foundational knowledge in a subject and then start attending lessons for it. It took me most of a year but I fully patched up my foundation and all the masters at the college agreed that I was a qualified adept in literally everything now.-
That wasn't the only thing going on during this time though. There had been attempts of the daedric variety to reach me. Not directly since the hat prevented that but through proxies. Requests by Mephala to the Arch-mage to bring me along on her summoning days. A vampire priest, red robed mages and even warriors of Boethiah's cult all came to Winterhold seeking me on behalf of their patrons. Hilariously they all solved themselves by clashing before they even got a chance to approach me. The "winner" usually got killed by a guard.-
Through all these incidents however I learned that it was the uniqueness of my soul that was drawing so much attention from Oblivion. Unfortunately for all of them I was perfectly happy not dealing with them at all and sent out people if I needed something. I literally never left the college anymore as a result. Beyond the daedric harassments the change in my soul from bonding to Lokjun finally settled and it had some seriously big effects. To start with my body changed from the traits I took from it. Not my appearance but the density of my body was flat out inhuman now. I tested it and my body was like steel almost. -
My strength let me lift boulders like dumbbells with one arm and each full power swing of my blade made the air scream as it was cleaved through. The biggest difference was that my skin was all but immune to iron weaponry. Blades sparked off me with barely anything to show for it and maces and hammers had the same effectiveness as if they were smashed on a cold ingot. The worst injury I got testing this was a mild bruise that vanished all on it's own in half a day from my now monstrous vitality.-
My senses were now as sharp as an aerial predators with my hearing basically unaffected but my eyesight let me count the legs of an ant from a mile away. The honestly most important change in my opinion though was the sharp increase in my natural affinity for words of power. If before I was at one point five now I would say I sat at two point five. Not the solid ten a dragon or dragonborn would have but considerably stronger than any other mortal.-
To be fair though Lokjun wasn't actually a dragon, just dragon adjacent. Speaking of the little monster over this time period it had grown considerably. In fact actually calling it little was VERY inaccurate. The beast stood at the shoulder close to two meters and was twice that in length, not including the tail. It's scales had finally fully formed and were small sharp tipped black things with a thick line down their center and wavy lines fanning out from that line, like a hard feather almost. It's back grew out thick white dagger like spikes along it's spine and two ridged short horns sat atop it's head flowing behind it.-
Honestly if I didn't know any better I'd have thought it a western dragon from back on Earth but with a birds head. I had covered it in a fuckton of enchanted protections as well. The trick was getting special "rings" for it's spikes made that I then enchanted to hell and back to the best of my ability. Enchantments so ridiculously paranoid in nature even the kindly grandpa figure that was Tolfdir was a little weirded out. The reason I went so far was simple, Lokjun hunted it's own food now.-
There was nothing for it honestly. Between the innate pride of it's draconic side and the natural behavior of gryphons to hunt their own prey it was all but guaranteed to happen eventually. The annoying part was that the picky bastard would bring the corpses back to the college to be cooked. Yes the monstrous thing got a taste for cooked and seasoned meat. It was a bit of a hassle but I couldn't really complain as the hide, organs and bones of it's prey were popular items at the college that I actually got paid for. The organs had uses in alchemy and rituals while the bones were used to "safely" practice necromancy. The hides were flat out sold off though.-
It took some doing but I eventually got permission from the Arch-mage to expand my room with the same sort of set up Sergius used as otherwise Lokjun wouldn't really fit. Getting the master enchanter to make the set up and install it drained all my funds however. I had a trickle of income from selling my treats in the college but had to start offering other services as well. Things like tutoring, enchanting, experimental aid and a few others. Having been formally declared adept in every school made me a popular person for my fellow students who struggled as there was literally no school I couldn't help them with.-
It was only at the end of my first year in the college that I was broken out of the rhythm of things. It was a windy day, one where even the enchanted effect of the courtyard couldn't fully get the chill out of the air. I was sitting in the courtyard looking over the sketched out spell matrix for a spell I couldn't quite get right when a courier showed up. Let me tell you about the couriers in skyrim, these fuckers couldn't be stopped.-
Anything short of killing each of these identical "people" only slowed them down. It was practically a rite of passage at the college even to try. I've seen these horrifyingly plain beings go through downright impossible circumstances to deliver simple letters. They all looked the same down to the clothes they wore and vanished the moment you stopped observing them for even a split second. The crazy part was that I'd asked about it and NO ONE knew where they came from.