Walking back to the compound after yet another completed commission, the weight of my coin purse worked like an anchor to orient my mind. The heavier it got, the less stressed I felt, and the weight comforted me and reinforced the notion that all of the struggles I was put through in recent times were worth it. I had now saved up over 20 silver crowns, which was a great sum equivalent to four months allowance from the Jenusian government, I could walk into one of those shops where the arms and armor weren’t fairly priced at all, and be able to purchase almost any item now, but I struck down such thoughts almost immediately. These funds weren’t for me to spend right now, but money that I would use sometime next early autumn, when I had decided I would make my journey as far away as possible from Jenusia.
The men who would shadow the movements of the students of the compound had disappeared about a week after we were first given the freedom to roam, and since the guards at the city gates couldn’t necessarily be bothered to check every single person who passed through if they weren’t carrying a lot of goods, I ought to be fine if I just pretended to ride out of the city for a commission and then just never returned. Perhaps the Jenusians would think that I had died on a commission, and that was the reason that I didn’t come back to the compound before curfew.
If that was how my plans would end up, it would be a great weight off my shoulders, since I wasn’t quite sure how far the reach of the powerful Jenusian Empire stretched. The continent of Euphelia seemed to be large from the crude descriptions in the stories in the library, and the worst part was that finding a map was almost impossible too. Maps were treated very differently by the people here, and if I was found to be in possession of a map by any authorities I would immediately be arrested on suspicion of being a spy, as it would be perceived as me having nefarious intent.
I just had a basic plan to head east, as the reach of Jenusian influence was strongest in the western part of the continent. One of the things that I had learned from drinking a few times with Gero’s friends is that the language in the different parts of the continent was different, although sharing some commonalities with Rahlian. Etymology was definitely not an existing science at this point in time, so people don’t really know how languages separated by thousands of miles could have common words, but a working theory was taking shape in my brain as I learnt new information.
In the case of El and her burly companions their mother tongue was Aswang, a language spoken in Eastmont and Westmont, in addition to some of the areas bordering the two. I asked them to teach me to say some common phrases such as hello, thank you, and the like, which sounded very different from Rahlian. But specific words such as the word for ‘forest’ were identical to Rahlian, perhaps the difference here being the pronunciation. They also used a similar alphabet to Rahlian, with perhaps minute differences in some of the written vowels being the most glaring example.
This information did not come free of charge, and I was basically required to regale El with another tale from Earth, this time I chose Jean of Arc. I picked it because it was quite rare to see a female mercenary, which meant that El definitely had more traditionally ‘masculine’ inclinations, and the tale of another woman who managed to achieve great military feats would definitely strike a chord with the impressionable girl.
It felt odd to refer to someone who was older than I as a girl, but my mindset was changing after taking on more personal responsibilities due to my circumstances. I had always thought that the difference between a boy and a man was something that was related to age, but my views on the subject had changed after having experienced the transformation myself. It became clear to me that the biggest separator between a boy and a man was the task of taking responsibility over oneself, and that while physical growth was definitely a factor, it was more a matter of the mind than the body.
With these thoughts rumbling about my mind I returned to the compound, handed my sword belt to the guards, and parked Sorok in the stables. What awaited me as I entered the dining hall was nothing more than total chaos, which while not entirely uncommon, it was unexpected. I sat down in my usual spot next to Max and Louis and began inquiring as to what the matter was.
The reason the students were so chattery today was that news had reached us about our fellow schoolmates: the ‘guardians’. Kevin, at the tender age of 17, had been betrothed to the daughter of the Emperor. In addition to this, Mr. Hendricks had proposed marriage to Ms. Cardoza, which was why so many people were present at the teachers table, showering congratulations on the woman.
While the latter news definitely wasn’t unexpected, the two were both adults who had known each other for a long time so it wouldn’t be odd for the two to fall in love and get married. They might have even bonded over being one of the few people in this vast continent who shared the common heritage of Earth. The former news was definitely the one that made me stop and think for a while, and before making any conclusions I asked for some more details from Max.
While we had our own training and duties assigned to us by the crown, the Guardians had their own schedule which while different from ours in substance, wasn’t of a different theme entirely. They had personal instruction, with Mr. Hendricks accepted as one of the personal disciples of the Magister, along with Kevin. The guardians had a lot less free time than we did too, with their visits to other parts of the Empire taking up a lot more time than our singular visit to Parnam.
On these visits, Kuvira and Kevin had apparently hit it off which resulted in them being betrothed. Mr. Hendricks must have missed Ms. Cardoza while being out of contact for prolonged periods of time, so when he came back yesterday he came to the compound and proposed.
The mood was very festive, with a lot of people happy about the positive news of the first engagement by anyone from our group, and the Jenusians capitalized on this positive news and provided our compound with a much better quality of food and drink than was normal. But while everyone else was being merry, I was processing the first concrete news we got about the guardians and their activities, and what this meant in regards to the plans the Jenusians prepared for us.
My thoughts concluded on the idea that they wanted us to be puppets of their regime, with us having to make our way around the whole country as something like ‘proto-celebrities’, which didn’t exactly make me content. A bird in a cage is still a trapped bird, and if I had to spend a lot of my time traveling within Jenusia, then it would delay my plans for escape. I didn’t know when exactly this next trip would happen, but I was hoping that before then I would be able to achieve two things.
The first was to get the grumpy Gaspar to teach me the intermediate Sylrift forms, which would allow me to have a more profound idea on what I should focus on when practicing on my own. The second was to attain a great control over arcane power when ‘strengthening my mindspace’, I didn’t want to have a repeat of the slamming window situation.
If I managed to do these two things, then even if I was sent off to a far-away city I would be able to keep up my training and not have my progress paused for weeks on end. I ate my dinner in record time, and managed to finish before Louis and Max who had both begun earlier than I. I went back to my room and made use of their absence to meditate for a while, this time making sure that the window was left shut.
The issue with being able to meditate properly without disturbing others around me, was twofold. First of all my control over how and when I could ‘force’ the wisps of light into my chest was very crude, it felt like I was having to write something in cursive with my non-dominant hand, while at the same time sitting in a moving vehicle. The second issue was that I couldn’t pace myself properly with how intensely I was forcing the wisps closer to myself, and if the experience in the forests surrounding Krilos was anything to go by, I could end up physically exhausted, and perhaps even dead should I push myself too far.
Stolen novel; please report.
These two concerns would have to be resolved if I were to continue my meditations while on a journey, and I reasoned it would be beneficial if I decreased the amounts of commissions I did while spending more time in the forests meditating. I wasn’t planning on leaving Jenusia right away, so it was more important to be able to train while on a journey than earning enough money as soon as possible for travel expenses. The same went for Gaspar and his stringent requirements for my swordsmanship, I would need to intensify my practice with the basic forms. I would have to at least be able to do them to a level that was satisfactory, which I thought they already were.
The next few days of dull classes passed quickly, with my whole focus being on meditations in the mornings and before going to sleep, and the physical training I was doing in the deserted storage area. And on my very next day off I made my way to Gaspar’s home where I animatedly expressed my desire to learn more than just the basic forms. Unsurprisingly, Gaspar still called my performance inadequate, but he still relented and decided to take myself and Gero out of the city to show us the intermediate forms.
His reasoning for the change in scenery was that he didn’t want anyone seeing the intermediate forms, and that a different environment where he wouldn’t have to worry about us accidentally breaking something would be beneficial. Gero already knew the intermediate forms, with him having learned them many years ago, but he wasn’t allowed by his father to teach me them. It seems while the man cherished his son greatly, his paranoia over others learning Sylrift swordsmanship was greater than his familial affection.
Gaspar had a specific place in mind for our swordsmanship practice, which was much further out than where I usually meditated, and we even had to cross the Alcala river to reach the peaceful grove that Gaspar had chosen as our training venue. He gestured for us to sit down in the grass, as we had been quite tired from jogging all the way out here, this probably served as part of our training too.
Gero and I sat near each other, and focused our full attention on Gaspar who, unlike us, was entirely unfazed by the physical exertion. At my inquisitive expression he explained that on the battlefield there were times when a man had to fight from sunrise to sunset, and on most days he would keep up with his training to maintain peak physical form. I looked at Gero who nodded, clearing any doubts that the man was telling a tall tale.
The swordmaster walked a few paces away from us, and did some stretches before delving into the intermediate forms. When he unsheathed the swords at his side I swear the air in the surroundings became chillier, and when he began to display the four intermediate forms I had to restrain myself from showing a shocked expression on my face.
I had felt that his movements during our first ever spar were far too quick for any human to reasonably make, but watching him do the intermediate forms had rung a lot of alarm bells in my head. I couldn’t be 100% sure, but it looked like Gaspar was performing some sorcery in tandem with his movements to accelerate them, and the ground where he stood had imprints that were far too deep to be a result of just a man’s weight.
That couldn’t be right though, we had discussed that someone couldn’t be a magi and a swordsman simultaneously beforehand, did he just lie to me to hide his secrets? That wasn’t consistent with what I had gathered about his personality after a few months of knowing him though, so perhaps he was doing these things unknowingly?
To confirm my suspicions I decided to take the risk and close my eyes and hope he wouldn’t notice, and try to visualize the arcane power that was surrounding me. This cleared all doubts I had, the wisps of light that were underground, and the wisps of light around him were obeying Gaspar’s will. While I couldn’t see his moves with my eyes, I could see the impact his moves had on the arcane power around him, this could be a very nice trick to detect people outside of my vision huh.
I watched the rest of his swordsmanship display with rapt attention, and at the end I decided to ask the only question I had on my mind.
“I wanted to ask you sir, when we had our first spar, and now when you were displaying the intermediate forms, your movements look faster than any I could ever hope to achieve. How do you manage to move so quickly?” I asked, on the surface my question sounded completely unrelated to sorcery.
“It’s just a feeling, after reaching the pinnacle of physical strength, only technique is what can push your speed and strength that extra step” He answered honestly, still unaware that he was exactly what he claimed was impossible, a magi and a swordsman.
At this point it wasn’t important though, I had finally seen what the intermediate Sylrift forms were, and stood up along with Gero to try and emulate them. The intermediate forms were much more difficult and intricate than the basic ones, which I felt that any blockhead could do with the appropriate effort. Gero was a godsend in this grueling task, and having him repeatedly serve as a ‘model’ for what I had to do allowed me to iron out the kinks in my moves.
When I returned to the compound that day, I began to suspect that it was providence that I learnt the intermediate forms today. The very next day, we would be attending the celebration of the founding of Jenusia in the north of the country. While Krilos is the current capital of the grand empire, this was not always the case. The ancestral home of Kuvira was actually in the city of Volde, far to the north. Every year in the second month of the year notable people from all over the empire would make the arduous journey to Volde, whose population was in flux depending on the time of year.
During normal times the permanent population of Volde was even less than that of Thacks which was at around 50,000. But in the times before, during, and after the founding celebration the population would balloon to over 100,000 with many merchants, loyal subjects, and nobility gathering to celebrate the founding of the Empire.
We too would be making our way there, and on this occasion it would be not only us but all of the students and teachers at the magisterium, and the guardians as well. This would be the first time in about half a year that Max, Louis, and I would get to see Leigh. We were very eager about that part, but in my mind the biggest concern was more in regards to whether the trip would be even longer than ours to Parnam.
I didn’t exactly trust the servants in the compound to not pocket my hard earned silver crowns so the next morning I was riding in a carriage with my coin-purse fastened to my belt. The scale of our procession was very large, as we were traveling with every single student and teacher, and at the head of the convoy was the court of Blyn Jenusia. The man himself would alternate between lounging in a lavish carriage and riding on a majestic stallion while at the very front of the column, but I could only catch glimpses of him here and there when there was a bend in the road.
The path, while longer than the one to Parnam, had a proper cobbled road throughout which accelerated our pace dramatically. Leigh was somewhere in this convoy of over 3000 as well, but we were still separated at the moment and the earliest we would be able to see him would be at our accommodations at night. Our long-awaited reunion however went very wrong though.
We all had dinner in the same place that evening, in one of the courtyards outside in the chilly weather which was expected of the first month of the year. While I did see snow fall on certain days this winter, it would always disappear as if it was an illusion the very next day, the climate was definitely temperate near the capital, and the further north we headed it actually got slightly warmer.
If the laws of science that I was familiar with applied to this world, then that meant that Krilos was in the southern hemisphere, but I didn’t exactly have any satellite imagery to verify my theory at the moment. These thoughts disappeared from my brain entirely when I spotted Leigh sitting at one of the tables that was entirely composed of students who lived at the Magisterium.
My roommates and I pushed our way through the crowd, and dashed towards him, and if I hadn’t tugged on Max and Louis’ clothes right before we reached him. While the three of us were very happy to see him, and this was very much visible on our faces, he didn’t seem too fussed at our appearance.
“Hey man, how have you been? We haven’t seen you in ages!” Max greeted him, but was met with silence on the part of Leigh.
“You know him Leigh?” Asked the boy sitting opposite Leigh, to which he shook his head.
“We’re his friends, we used to be roommates at the compound before the aptitude test” Max answered for him, not noticing Leigh’s head shake.
“Ha ha! You’re friends with mundanes Leigh, I’m sure teacher Reyneke will have much to say about this” Commented the same boy.
“Shut your mouth! They’re not friends of mine, just people I had to sleep with before, what do you want?” Leigh finally spoke, directing his question to Max, his tone of voice containing none of the familiarity we were expecting.
“Huh? What do you mean we aren’t friends, I’ve known you for six years dude” Said Louis, finally noticing that something was wrong.
“You must be mistaken, leave” Leigh stated, before turning his body back to the table, ignoring our presence entirely.
The unexpected reaction of Leigh stupefied my roommates and I, but I managed to drag both of them away in order to not cause a scene in front of so many others. Our situation wasn’t unique that evening, from what I witnessed myself a lot of others who were eager to catch up with their friends from the Magisterium were met with cold shoulders and scorn. Since the only precedent to such a situation I had was the reunion of Sophie and Lucy I had assumed that Leigh would be happy to see us, we hadn’t seen one another for a long time after all.
But as I was consoling both of my roommates and explaining to them what the word ‘mundane’ meant I began to recall some of the things that Sophie told me about the magi, which made Leigh’s attitude an ‘appropriate’ response if he was taught these things. The magi saw themselves as above those who couldn’t pass the aptitude test, which they called ‘mundanes’. Their belief that they were ‘chosen ones’ led to a superiority complex regarding all others, and any bonds we might have shared before that would have been broken after months of their ‘education’.
While the reunion with Leigh did leave a sour taste in my mouth, the appreciation of Sophie’s kindness and approachability had increased, she had never treated me as anything ‘lesser’ than herself in our time spent together. I made a mental note to see if I could speak to her at some point during our travels, she was going to Volde as well.