Higher Learning



Higher Learning is an Exploration achievement earned for reading a number of randomly spawning books around Dalaran. As a reward, you receive—in a somewhat roundabout manner—a Kirin Tor Familiar companion. Upon completing this achievement, you receive a book titled The Schools of Arcane Magic - Mastery via in-game mail from Rhonin. Using this book will teleport you to Archmage Vargoth's Retreat, at which point you may speak with him to receive your companion.

Locations
The Schools of Arcane Magic have a somewhat complex spawn structure, detailed on that page. Archmage Vargoth's Retreat is high atop a spire in Dalaran and cannot be entered save by the reward from this achievement.

Working theories

 * The books spawn at fixed locations.
 * The fixed locations, when they spawn real books, always spawn the same titles – the titles do not move between the spawn points, so you can predict where to wait for specific titles.
 * Once spawned, the book stays until read.
 * Once someone opens the books, it lasts for 3 minutes. Anyone can read the book during those 3 minutes, and you will not experience a "This item is busy" warning even if you are not the only one there.
 * Once the book despawns, it takes anywhere between 3 - 4 hours to spawn a new book in its place.
 * The spawn points of the books you need are shared with random "junk" books. In order to get the spawn point to reset its timer, read these fake books to start the despawning process. Note this time, so you can return 3-4 hours later to check for the next spawn.
 * The locations always spawn books when a server comes back online after the server goes down for any reason (such as maintenance or server restarts).

Tips and strategies
If you're actively farming for this achievement, consider teaming up with other players, or creating a public channel where you can share locations. Some common channels used for this goal are:
 * bookclub (Book Club)
 * mastery
 * higherlearning (Higher Learning)

Simply type /join bookclub (one word) to join such a channel. Be sure to set the channel color to something that's very noticeable or you may miss it when there's a book spotted! Since the books have a 3-4 hour spawn time, you should be able to get frequent updates on real or dud books with more players using the channel. If you see others in General or Trade asking about the books, invite them to join this channel.

As a courtesy to others in the bookclub channel, make an announcement if you spot a book, whether real or fake. Real ones will allow others to come to your location, while fake ones will help them update their timers. Make sure to give the location, as well as whether the book is real or not (for example, "Violet Gate REAL book now up!" or "Violet Gate fake book spawned 11:00am server time"). Optionally, make an announcement for real books in the General channel (such as "School of Arcane Magic book in Violet Gate portal room up NOW for the next couple of minutes").

Consider installing this add-on:
 * Dalaran University – synchronizes the most up-to-date times tracked by individuals who have installed the Higher Learning addon.

On completion
When you complete this achievement, you will immediately receive the following mail from Rhonin. It will have The Schools of Arcane Magic - Mastery attached.