Mark’s numbers had grown the next morning. He also tried a simplified readout.
172 → 186 centimeters tall
57 → 88 weight in kilograms
20 → 95 bench
30 → 130 deadlift
25 → 125 squat
He didn’t like the simplified notation.
Mark asked, “How about a gain readout for an increase over the previous morning’s numbers? Add in the previous readout, too.”
Quark provided.
186 centimeters tall, +1 centimeter from previous morning’s measurement
88 weight in kilograms, +4 kilos
95 bench, +5 kilos
130 deadlift, +15 kilos
125 squat, +15 kilos
Good enough.
Mark asked, “Those are good numbers, right?”
“Yes. Though you would never qualify, you are almost at Olympic-level power.”
Mark snorted. “Best of the bases.” He ate his breakfast and then scarfed down a protein shake. As his stomach and insides started to rev up, and energy flowed, Mark asked, “This is the last day, right? Is Addashield going to be here in the morning tomorrow, or something?”
“I would not presume to know what goes on in the mind of Archmage Addashield, and you should not presume either.” Quark asked, “Please inform me if I am mistaken, but you appear to have some knowledge of Xerkona culture and style?”
“A bit, yeah. Grandpa was in the military. He loved the Settlement of Xerkona. It fit with his military life quite well, too.”
“Then understand this:” Quark’s voice was strong as he said, “You must become a perfect adherent of Xerkona, for in the alignment of similar goals and utter politeness, you might find salvation in your work with Addashield.”
For a moment, Mark felt thrust ten years into the past, to hearing his grandfather talk like that now and then. And then some old lessons from his grandfather came to him. To stand straight, breathe softly, and speak clearly without subterfuge.
Modern culture on Earth decried Xerkona sensibilities as too deferential. Too demeaning and hierarchical. But Xerkona’s teachings allowed the armies of Earth and Daihoon to work together well in the Reveal, and then later, when the melting pot of cultures had bled together and what came out the other side was an amalgamation of militaries and power structures. Grandpa had been military through and through.
Mark wasn’t a military brat, but he knew how to act Xerkonan well enough to not get slapped around by those in charge of this world or any other. Mostly.
With a clear voice, Mark meant it when he said, “We do what we can because we must.”
“That we do, Mark Careed,” Quark said.
Mark put in the hardest day of work that he had ever done before.
He ate until he couldn’t eat anymore. He took the white drops every 3 meals, along with giant glasses of water every time. It was almost as grueling to eat as much as Mark ate, as it was to actually put in the physical work, to do the suicide drills and the burpees and the kilometer sprints. The Color Drop treatment made it possible, but Mark was the one that did the work.
At the end of the day, Mark sat in his shower, relaxing under the warm water with a full belly, but knowing he was going to have to go back into that kitchen and eat even more.
Mark did exactly that.
He took 3 white drops before he went to his room to sleep. He almost didn’t make it to the bed, his eyelids feeling heavy and his arms feeling like they were weighed down, but he got there in the end, flopping down onto the bed like a ton of bricks.
The bed broke, three of four legs somehow snapping, one right after the other, the bed slapping down onto the floor.
Mark grumbled, face in his pillow. And then he got up and finished breaking the bed enough to make it lay flat as it could.
Mark slept.
- - - -
Mark woke to the smell of meat grilling, spices in the air and something sweet underlying all of it. Cinnamon rolls? For one sleepy moment, Mark thought Dad was cooking. But Dad never made anything sweet. Maybe Mom was making something?
And then Mark woke up just a bit more, and he knew who was cooking in his kitchen.
Mark got up, since it was that time, and then he made his way to the bathroom and fixed himself up. Hair brushed, teeth brushed, the usual morning ritual. Still nothing out the back end, which was still weird, but the front end took a while to unload. And then Mark went to his room and got dressed in some clothes that would be comfortable for Tutorial. The simple brown clothes, Mark thought. Pretty standard attire. Was today a day of rest for the Tutorial? Or another day of work? Mark wondered what Addashield would say, or do.
What would the demon do?
Steeling himself as much as he could, Mark walked down the hall.
He arrived at the kitchen.
Addashield was there, as expected. He wore simple brown clothes of a sandy color, just like Mark; basic goods. Addashield was making breakfast, which was sort of expected too, but Mark absolutely didn’t actually expect to truly see an archmage making breakfast. Addashield flipped sausage in the pan, like it was normal. For a moment, it was normal.
Archmage Sloane Addashield turned and grinned. “Hey Mark! You got bigger! Congrats on that. Sit down and I’ll pour you some orange juice.”
He looked much the same as the last time Mark had seen him, but shorter. And yet, he wasn’t shorter. Mark had simply grown taller, so that explained that. Mark seemed to have grown a little wider, too, for as he sat down the chair seemed smaller than usual.
It was easy enough to pretend that everything was okay, so Mark smiled a little and sat down, “Thank you. It smells great, Sir Addashield.”
“I try to cook every now and then,” Addashield said, as the fridge door opened on its own and the orange juice floated out. A glass floated out of the cupboard and the juice went into the glass, before the glass set down in front of Mark. It was a casual display of power that Mark knew was anything but, for Addashield was doing telekinesis, as a metalkinetic, and Mark didn’t see any metal on anything he had just been served. “I’m glad you liked the eggs! They’re some of my favorite, too.”
Mark smiled. “Are they snake eggs? Or something else? I’ve never seen snake eggs in any store before.”
“Basilisk eggs, actually. Hard to come by unless you know people, but they’re some of the best sort of foodstuffs that a baseline can eat in order to rebuild strength. That’s because as eggs the basilisks are baseline, too, but they have the capability to become highly magical creatures all on their own.”
Mark sipped his juice as Addashield spoke, but he almost coughed a little bit and he had to thump his chest when the archmage just dropped magical knowledge on him like that.
Addashield noticed. He grinned. As the oven opened on its own and the cinnamon rolls floated outward, Addashield said, “You’re going to be in high society one way or another soon enough, Mark. You’re going to have to catch up on every bit of magical knowledge you can possibly find, because people are going to take advantage of you. When this is over, don’t sign up for anything with more than a week’s commitment.”
“What about being your actual apprentice?”
Something touched Mark’s left shoulder.
Mark looked left.
His shirt sleeve was lifted, and a knife stuck out of his shoulder. It was one of the normal steak knives that Mark had been using for the last most-of-a-week, and it was about an inch into his shoulder, positioned with the blade into the thickest part of his meat. It pulled out, telekinetically, and not much blood came out afterward. Not much pain, either.
Addashield said, “You should bind that. Here.” Wound-closure bandages and some gauze flowed onto the kitchen table in front of Mark.
Mark felt his heart racing hard, but he retreated into decorum.
Quark’s talk about Xerkona culture suddenly seemed more important today than it had been yesterday.
With hands that barely shook at all, Mark opened some bandages and dipped the gauze into antiseptic, before sticking the gauze down on his arm and then further securing it with the wound bandages. It would hold rather well, even if it was a bit wet from the antiseptic. Mark barely felt the sting.
Addashield began putting breakfast onto plates, using a spatula to transfer sausage to plates, along with eggs and cinnamon rolls which floated to where they needed to be. As he did that, Mark’s white drop bottle landed in front of him with a gentle plonk. “You don’t want to be my apprentice. Don’t ask for things you don’t know about. Stick to your life. Now take a drop of the white. You’ll be taking one drop around every hour until I say otherwise. After you eat, you can sit in the living room and turn on some cartoons or something. Whatever kids are into these days. You’ll probably nap. After lunch, you can do those stretches you’ve been doing and then we can go into the Tutorial.”
“Yes, sir,” Mark said, as he took the eyedropper and plinked a single drop onto a spoon. He licked the spoon, and then he sipped his orange juice.
Addashield nodded, and then set Mark’s plate in front of him. In a conversational tone, Addashield said, “I’m kinda mad that it took this level of disruption to finally be able to take a student who was allowed to take the drops. Do you know what those are?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have a guess?”
In a flash of realization, Mark caught on to the rules of this interaction. They were pretty simple, and Mark almost cursed himself for not understanding them the first time. He had been absolutely terrified to see that knife in his shoulder, but…
The rules were simple, and in line with normal Xerkona Doctrine. Addashield, as the power in the space, could say whatever he wanted. He could do whatever he wanted, really, though common cause made him look out for everyone in the area, to ensure that everything was going as well for everyone in the area as he could possibly ensure. Mark could only speak when spoken to, and to answer questions. Everything else was an infraction. Mark would have thought that asking to be Addashield’s apprentice would have been the proper thing to do, because… Well. It was the right thing, right? But obviously that was very wrong. Mark also couldn’t ask his own questions at all, unless they were clarifying questions.
And so, the knife in his arm.
Usually infractions were repaid with verbal lessons as to what was done wrong, or, in extreme cases, ostracization. ‘Exile’ was the most extreme form of ostracization, and that only really happened in Daihoon, though even that culture was fading, as far as Mark knew. Ostracization was usually just a snub and a decline to further speak with a person.
Apparently, Mark would be getting injury-based lessons in civility.
With that in mind, Mark considered Addashield’s question about the nature of the drops, and answered, “I believe they must be derived from some sort of herbal thing, as all alchemy is derived.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Addashield said, “You can eat.”
Mark began to eat.
Addashield began, “It’s not that simple, but in some ways it is. Color Drop, also called Emperor’s Child, is a physical cultivation technique done through astral body doping. All of that went right over your head, which is normal for a baseline behind Curtain Protocol, and something I’m glad to see remains true for you. Normally, no one talks about any of this stuff to baselines because to know the words is to begin the process by which a person imbues themselves with directed power. I just said some Key Words, you see, and that unlocked some basic potential. Key Words are words that the demons of Arakino and Stone God Malaqua have imbued with power. Knowing the words is not enough, but it does unlock the potential in a person. Thus the term ‘Key Words’.
“Color Drop is an alchemical treatment whereby you take certain Key Words and you put them into liquid form. Plant and animal-based alchemy is a toy compared to the higher orders of alchemy out there, and Key Word alchemy is one of those higher orders. You have been ingesting words these past 6 days.
“As you are a baseline, the words had their full effect upon you, but they did not produce who you are today. That was your effort, and it was a good effort to see. If you would have been born in a noble house, you would have been a prodigy if through nothing more than effort alone. Do you think you can keep up that sort of effort past the Tutorial?”
Mark swallowed what he was eating, and then spoke with deference, “I doubt I could keep this effort going for much longer, sir, but if I saw gains like I did this last week I feel I could go rather far.”
Addashield nodded, and then he started in on his own breakfast.
Mark resumed eating, too, trying to make sense of ‘Key Word Alchemy’ and trying to understand what sorts of ‘words’ he had been taking with every meal. He wanted to ask questions about all that, about ‘astral bodies’ (which Mark was absolutely sure was a Big Key Word, because he had never heard it before then) and physical cultivation and the demons being the ones to do… what? Decide how magic worked? But those sorts of questions would be a bad idea. Mark didn’t need another knife in his shoulder to tell him that.
When Mark finished his breakfast, Addashield told him, “Take off your bandage and get some more food. Another white drop, too.”
Mark did exactly as instructed. He was surprised to find that his wound was already gone, leaving behind little more than a faint red line on his skin. Addashield said nothing about that, and Mark didn’t either. Instead, Mark got seconds, along with another white drop.
Addashield floated more food onto his own plate, too, as he asked, “What sorts of words do you think the various colors contain? Explain your reasonings, from top to bottom.”
Mark had been thinking a lot about that; about everything, from his scanning readout that he had done yesterday with its six different bars, all of him still below the red line which was the Tutorial cutoff, to what sort of words could be used in Key Word alchemy that could do... anything that it was doing, really. He considered the nature of language itself, as well.
And then he set aside his usual choice to never think about that stuff too deeply, lest it affect him, because Addashield was directly asking him to think about all of it…
Oh.
It was, perhaps, Mark’s instinct to blind himself to what he saw, read, and felt, that helped him to figure out where to start.
With a measured tone, Mark said, “Words inherently classify the world into things that are understood in certain ways. But words that mean one thing to one person could mean different things to different people, unless there’s some sort of underlying meaning to everything, and I guess there must be an underlying, imposed truth, if demons and gods can simply decide how things work… Which seems completely ridiculous to me, but I guess Curtain Protocol only works because the Curtain is locked behind actual Keys...” Mark got back on track, though he was pretty sure he was already on the right track to begin with, if Addashield’s careful eyebrow raise was any indication. “So I imagine that each color corresponds to some sort of way that power works under the repaired System that, I think, you created alongside Malaqua… But I don’t really know any of that story. Not really.
“I do know that I was ‘flavored’ with metalkinesis and healing magic, which I think corresponds to two of the bars on the 6-bar graph that I get with every scanning.
“Every scan I’ve gotten before this past week has been more or less the same, with the first bar being nothing, the second bar being 3 pips out of however-many the whole graph covers— I have no idea how large the graph goes, but I assume it goes up to, 50? or something? Anyway. The red line is at 10 pips. I have had a 1 in the first bar, 5 in the second, 1, then 5 again in the fourth bar, and then 1 and 1. The exact numbers change daily, and I think the graph readouts are changed, too, to obfuscate understanding under Curtain Protocol, but the overall shapes of the bar graph are the same.
“Nothing in bars 1, 3, 5, and 6, and something in bars 2 and 4.
“But the biggest change came this last week.
“The scanner started to record the first bar in the graph as something other than near-0 when I started the Color Drop program. At first, the readouts were just 1,4,0,4,0,0, or something close to that.
“But Yesterday, my readout was 3, 5, 0, 6, 0, 0.
“And so, I think the colored liquids are doing a few things.
“Firstly, they correspond to a 6-color diagram, starting with Blue, then going to Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, and then Purple. The drops I have are Blue, Green, and Orange. And then White. The Color Drops actually do something, but the White takes it away— Balances. That’s what Quark said, though he wouldn’t tell me anything else and I did not ask. The white drops balance.
“The Blue drops correspond to the first bar, which is why I have a 3 in that bar instead of a 0. That’s new.
“Green is the second bar, which I think is either kineticism or healing, or some broader category.
“Orange is the fourth bar, which is, again, either kineticism or healing, or some broader category.
“That’s the only information I have, aside from the fact that I healed and got even better.
“Which is another bit of information, I guess. So the first category likely has to do with the body healing.
“Since brawnies heal easily and largely, and they often get bigger, I assume that the Blue is for brawny flavoring. Maybe brawny flavoring is the best way to heal a person, because it works on the base foundation that Malaqua forged out of the System of Arakino? That seems correct, and seems to explain some of my, uh. Increase in everything physical.
“So words like ‘power’ ‘strength’ ‘fortitude’ ‘limberness’ ‘stretching’… More like that? Go into Blue? Not sure.
“And that leaves Green and Orange, for kineticism and healing. I can only guess at what sorts of words go into which, and they are likely wholly incorrect.” Mark paused for a moment in thought, and to see if Addashield wanted to stop him, but since Addashield just ate his breakfast as Mark talked. Addashield was waiting for more, so Mark continued, “And the white drops do… balancing? Maybe that’s just it. ‘Balance’. Maybe the words ‘balance out’, to purge small problems?”
And that was all Mark had.
Addashield said, “You’re not nearly as nervous this time as you were when we first met in that office, where you bumbled through your words to arrive at your points. What changed, besides everything?”
“I have a goal now, and this is not a nebulous social visit. I’ve also remembered some of my grandfather’s Xerkona training that he held onto from his army days.”
Addashield grinned between a bite of eggs and the next.
Mark resumed eating.
When they had both had seconds, Addashield began floating the dishes around, washing them in the sink and then drying them right afterward, while he also said, “You remember when I spoke to you about people entering arcanaeum, and what to expect from them? I said, ‘some people you’d expect to do remarkably well in arcanaeum fail out completely, and some that you think will fail in their first month turn into archmages.’
“With the brain you’ve got and your sort of work ethic, I’m rather sure that you could be one of the greats. Hard to know for sure, but I’d give you better odds than most.”
Mark simply said, “Thank you.”
This did not earn him a knifing, though technically it should have… Maybe. Mark was unclear on the exact rules. It had been a long time since he had taken etiquette lessons from grandpa, and Tutorial training certainly didn’t cover that sort of thing.
Addashield nodded, then said, “You’re going to gather a lot of esoteric information in your life, such as the Key Word thing, and the fact that Word Alchemy exists at all. Yes, people have a small-word understandings of Key Words and how certain words can ruin a baseline’s base line. But they don’t know the real truth. You have learned at least 2 truths today, one of them larger than most.
“Outside of teacher-student interactions, or high level person interactions, this information should not be shared.
“It is valuable information. Stick to monetary interactions in your future endeavors if you can help it. If you find a good alchemist— and I mean a really good, young alchemist, or someone venturing down that path, then you could tell them about Key Words and Word Alchemy. Do not tell this to baselines at all, no matter how promising they might be.
“I’ve given this information to well over 50 people, and only 4 people in my life deserved this knowledge. All 4 of them were from Daihoon. All the others, from both worlds, squandered this information, or they caused a disaster that I needed to clean up. You’ll be lucky if you could do anything with this knowledge yourself, but if I were you I’d focus on starter magics before anything else. Eventually, you can use these truths as a bargaining chip to get someone good on your side.
“If someone tries to take your knowledge, through coercion or duplicitous means, then you are within your rights to ostracize them, or worse.”
Mark bowed in his chair, “Thank you, sir.”
Addashield nodded. “What sort of career are you looking at after Tutorial?”
Mark instantly added, “I want to be the center of a team. With healing and metalkinesis, I feel that is within my reach.”
“Good.” Addashield said, “If you would have said anything else, I would have discounted you.” And then Addashield said something that surprised Mark a great deal. Addashield instructed him,
“Ask me a question.”
Mark almost asked him what he thought he should do after the Tutorial, but under normal rules of Xerkona, and if there was a large gap in station, requesting for direction and then receiving that direction thus honor-bound the receiver to do whatever the giver told them to do. If you asked for the guidance of a king, you needed to follow that guidance without hesitation. The larger the gap, the larger the honor binding.
Mark didn’t want to put himself in that position, and he certainly didn’t want Addashield to give him those sorts of instructions, what with the demon clearly in partial control.
So instead Mark asked something similar to his original idea, “What should I know going beyond the Tutorial?”
Addashield sat back in his chair for a moment, then looked back to Mark, and began, “Depending on what happens after your Awakening, your options will be vastly different. If you awaken a true tri-Talent it might be worse for your personal freedoms than if you awaken the bi-Talent that we planned on.
“Three Color Drop is not a normal Color Drop regimen. Two Color Drop is routine, and used to give a kid a second Talent. Four Color Drop does not exist, though some people have always been greedy or stupid enough to try.
“Three Color Drop is the one that they give people who they think will be capable of doing great things. People who are capable of doing great things are often used by those above them before those people have a chance to develop their own ideas about life. The powers-that-be of Orange City and probably a few other places gave you a Tri-Color Drop in order to manifest a third Talent. A brawn-type astral body manifestation. Brawny is the most normal variation and you weren’t already pointed that way, so adding in the Blue Drops, as you correctly identified, might awaken some sort of physical power within you.
“Politically, you do not want this.
“Personally, more power is always good.
“Hopefully you like whatever you get.
“But because you are being played, politically, as a measure to reach me, perhaps... As I said earlier: don’t agree to any contracts beyond a week’s time schedule. Joining one of the larger, laxer guilds does not count. What I mean is this: Don’t agree to schooling, or to being stationed here or there, or to joining a noble’s house, or things like that. Especially don’t agree to something that would put yourself in a position of vulnerability around any sort of Guild or Great House.
“If you awaken a bi-Talent then it should be a lot easier for you to live your own life.
“Either way, go out and fight monsters, if you can. It should be easy for you to do that.
“Even as a bi-Talent, though, you’ll still be recruited heavily…” Addashield looked like he might have said more, but he stopped there and went in a different direction, “The exception to joining organizations will probably be the Church of Freyala. You will have to give them some of your time because they instilled a healing predisposition into you, and they do not normally do this for anyone who is outside of their established family or knightly lines. That said: all of the churches are relatively good people, except for Thrashtalon.
“Kill Thrashtalon’s people on sight.”
The betrayer god? Yeah. That made sense. Kill on sight.
Mark nodded.
Addashield continued, “Freyala’s church will help you understand your healing talent, whatever it might be, though it will probably be the same as Freyala’s healing magics. You’ll find out about those later.”
Mark almost said thank you—
Addashield added, “Ah. One more thing. This deference you're giving me in the Xerkona-style is good and proper, but you have no real skill with this sort of thing. Don’t try to be what you’re not, unless you learn how to be what you’re not. You should endeavor to understand this manner of speaking and doing in a deeper way, though. Do not neglect manners when moving through life; culture is all that separates us from the monsters.
“You will probably fit in better with the superhero culture they have going on over here on Earth, but you should still try and learn proper Xerkonan etiquette before you venture over to Daihoon, and you absolutely should go over to Daihoon sooner, rather than later. Noble Obligation culture is also fine to adopt, and it fits in well enough with Xerkona. Perhaps go to Europe or China and learn from those places. Xerkona is stricter, though.
“In Xerkona, and if you awaken a bi-Talent, with one of them as healing, and if you’re competent at all with both of them, that will put you on the same honor level as a town mayor or a town guildmaster. At that level, you should know how to protect a city of 1000 people, and be expected to carry yourself in such a manner that deserves such honor. There’s more to it than that, with tiers coming into the picture after you Ascend, but that’s a good enough approximation of the honor level a true bi-Talent should experience.
“If you awaken a tri-Talent, you’ll be considered the equal to any city lord, and be expected to carry yourself in such a manner. You will be expected to be able to defend a city against monsters of your tier, and… Well. That arrangement gets complicated.
“That’s only if you actually wear good clothes and stand out in the open, of course. If you present yourself as a power, then you will be expected to provide for everyone around you. So don’t stand out unless you want the responsibility for thousands of lives. Just be a rough-and-tumble slayer, or something like that, and you can somewhat ignore common culture.”
Well that was a whole lot of stuff that Mark only barely knew about. He knew of noblesse oblige and how it was sort of like superhero culture, but not really, and how Xerkona was like both of those and also military-flavored, but not really at all. It was a lot to think about.
Mark waited a moment to see if Addashield was going to say something else, and when the archmage did not, Mark bowed in his seat again, saying, “Thank you for your instruction, sir. It has been most informative.”
Addashield nodded, then said, “Take another white drop and go watch some television or read a book, or something. Rest. In an hour, take another white drop. Eat if you want. Repeat until you want to fall asleep, and then do that. Should happen before noon. When you wake up from that nap you’ll eat a small meal, and we’ll be doing your Tutorial.”
Mark took a white drop, bowed, and then left to the living room.