The harder training was exactly what Zerine had expected. Everything took enormous leaps in difficulty and in frequency. Ava, Markilo, Shiya, Gary, and Zara switched up who lead her training throughout the day, leaving Zerine guessing what to expect. Sometimes Gary would have her sensing magic while avoiding attacks. Next Markilo would have her running through the mountains till she could barely breath and every step was an agonizing internal fight just to keep moving. Then she would be back in the household. Zerine would sit in Bernard's laboratory, concentrating on making new concoctions, practicing transmutation, and mana control.

The day always ended with either Zara or Ava running training till Zerine couldn’t go any further. There were only a few days that Zerine found time to visit the dragons. But even their schedule was changing as they took longer flights and hunts. She sorely wished she could join them, but knew she would only hold them back. They managed to work out a schedule to spend time with one another. They would fly, play games, and work on magic. When the Dragons were gone, Zerine missed them when they were out on their long trips, but loved hearing about them when they returned. They would come back with some new ability, spell, or a story to tell.

Varino, during this time, had kept her schedule without her training getting too much harder or changing. That didn’t mean she was slacking off, but rather building upon fundamentals. The only area that did change was that now Varino was joining Zerine on the days she was doing the obstacle courses. She was working on her magic movement, reaction time, and hitting the targets that appeared throughout the obstacle course. That’s right, Varino had already completed the obstacle courses without using her magic and with a reasonable time. This meant the spirit was on the harder the difficulty compared to Zerine.

Both saw progress in their abilities as weeks turned to months. Varino saw the most improvements. Her magical control, capacity, and abilities kept growing. It also helped that Varino was still absorbing energy from a natural treasure. She was still an early D-rank spirit, but with her steady progress, Zerine had no doubt that by the time she was twenty, Varino would be a C-rank.

Over the months, Zerine noticed physical improvements the most. Her endurance, speed, and agility were the most prominent changes. Although she realized she had gotten far stronger when looking back at obstacles that had once been challenging. Her fights, with magically enhanced dummies, were far more intense than what she had started with. Now her fights were with dummies on a higher difficulty level after winning more matches than she lost on the prior level.

The only place that Zerine had seen little improvement, if at all, was her ambient magic. Sure, it was stronger than those without a crest, but her mana bolts hadn’t gotten stronger. The distance it could travel barely increased at all. Her mana barriers were still weak, and her experiments with it had seen little to no progress. She never let it get to her, though.

She still practiced ambient magic when she wasn’t doing anything. Even during training when she was taking a break, she was seen practicing it. During her rare free times, people would find Zerine reading a book that was levitating in front of her while other objects drifted around her. Alchemy certainly helped her refine her control over ambient magic, but her willpower could only control a limited amount of mana. Having better control over the mana that her will could affect was great, but Zerine would love to do what the others could. Naro and Shara could now create multiple mana barriers while under attack and keep them up as they countered with their own magic. When the other adults were doing magic fighting practice, Zerine would sometimes watch enviously until seeing her reaction, whoever was in charge of her training, would distract her with more work.

There were some recent additions to her training, all of which were survival focused. She learned how to create fire in varied environments, basic hunting for small game, creating shelters, and handling injuries. The injury handling part was very familiar to Zerine. Over the years of hard training, she had gotten used to dealing with cuts and bruised or broken bones. Survival training wasn’t just left at that, though. They had Zerine deal with simulated versions of magical creatures, creating traps, and navigation. Zerine knew that all adventurer academies had a trial focused on survival. What she didn’t know was what it entailed or for how long.

Her alchemy studies even got in on the survival training. Bernard’s alchemy lessons that had her foraging in the forest for herbs, plants, and more. He made sure that she could correctly identify plants and other resources. Know when to use certain tools to help harvest plants to ensure their magical properties didn’t fade during transit, while also safely storing the items to ensure no odd reactions occurred. She began even creating basic healing and stamina elixirs and pills. The pills were probably the hardest for Zerine. The process required quite a lot of focus and control over the energies to merge them and the physical parts into a solid swallowable sized pill.

She and Varino had their suspicions about why their training had more survival parts, while their other training had been ramping up in difficulty. Zerine’s guess was that they would probably send them on some sort of trip where they would have to survive without the aid of the adults. But the only problem was Varino and Zerine simply couldn’t figure out when this would happen. Zerine’s fifteenth birthday was coming up and there were no signs of this trip.

“Zerine, these plants you picked are perfect,” Bernard said back in his laboratory.

Bernard had sent Zerine out to gather herbs for more healing pills and for some kind of poison. She had returned with the items and was now sitting at a laboratory table with a mixing bowl ready for her concoction practice to begin.

“Now, this type of poison you will find quite useful, but you have to be careful when making it,” Bernard said.

Bernard placed a marble size berry in the mixing bowl. The berry shifted through many colors as Zerine watched. He followed up the berry with two types of leaves, one pitch black and another type that had an oily substance on them that glistened from the light of the glow stones.

“Go head and start mashing and mixing the items,” Bernard said.

Zerine took a mortar and began grinding the leaves. She knew to save the berry as the last part. She would have to extract the juice from the berry, then mash what was left with the leaves, then start the transmutation process.

“If you don’t control the energies well enough, there are some problems that can occur,” Bernard said as Zerine worked. “The berry is also used in dyes for clothes and pants. So, if you mess up early, you may just get an explosion of dye. Or if you mess up later, you get an explosion of poisonous dye.”

Zerine paused her mixing and gave him a flat look.

“You don’t have to worry as the potions you make have relative strength to your magic rank. So, if you mess up, it won’t hurt. And from that now confused look you're giving me; you didn’t realize that these potions fall into a status effect. To be specific, this poison will affect your target’s mana and stamina.”

“Ah, and I have no magic, and since the mixture will be incomplete, the stamina drain won’t amount to that much,” Zerine said, nodding.

“Preciously. But that is why we take precautions when creating such things. Like the gloves and goggles you're wearing. When we start working with more potent poisons, we will have to be careful of fumes too.”

“What stops you from making something really strong that I can then use?” Zerine wondered.

“Hmm, well, my healing pill would only heal what you would need, and the large amount of excess energy left behind would just dissipate overtime. So, that is the reason why you won’t use my creations for healing or stamina. There would simply be too much of a waste of energy. A majority of alchemic products you’ve taken were created by mages in E-rank through C-rank. Oftentimes, they are novices like you. Poisons…” Barnard paused, thinking for a moment. “A strange thing with them is that those created by higher ranks don’t tend to act the same when used by those of lower ranks. The same can be said about weapons, too.”

Zerine was giving Bernard a confused look that had only deepened as his exploration went on.

“Alright, so presences and auras interact with our belongings. Its why tracking magic is possible. They leave traces behind and even influence an item overtime. When we intend to use something, an aspect of our willpower interacts with an object and that somehow interferes with higher rank items being used by those of lower ranks. Oftentimes, a lower rank will get weaker poison effect, while magical weapons or tools can’t use their full potential. There are theories, but no solid answer as to why this happens has been discovered. But I have heard those that reach ascendent-rank know more,” Bernard said, then smiled, “So you will just have to get to that rank to find out more.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Hmm, fascinating. Willpower is kinda scary when you realize just how much it can actually affect things we do,” Zerine said.

“I personally believe that willpower is far more of an expression of our soul’s true power. That’s why it’s such a versatile tool. And why it's one of the most critical parts to many aspects of magic.”

“I’ve recently felt like I hit a wall there. My ambient magic doesn’t seem to be improving that much,” Zerine said.

“Hmm, you realize that out of every crestless I met in my life, you are the only one that hasn’t given up or was satisfied with what little they could do. But instead of doing that, you pushed yourself to achieve things I never thought possible for a crestless,” Bernard said.

Zerine smiled, embarrassed.

“I will add, though, gauging your willpower improvement is difficult. Generally, there are very few things that can noticeably improve one’s willpower. But they aren’t things you should ever think about doing or, gods forbid, deal with. Just keep doing what you're doing, and it will improve slowly. Which I know isn’t something you want to hear, but it’s true. Now, let’s get back to crafting.”

***

Zerine was heading towards one of the households meeting rooms. Ava had gotten word to them that she wanted Zerine to meet her once she was done with alchemy. She was approaching the door when she heard voices. She leaned closer to listen in.

“The biggest news from my end has been about my disciple. She has resonated with a mythical catalyst. She even got two legendary catalysts,” came Raith’s muffled voice.

Zerine was stunned by the news. Mythical catalysts were incredibly rare, and this disciple got one and two legendary ones on top of that!

That’s insane. How could I ever keep up with one like that? she thought.

Before her thoughts could spiral to depression, Ava spoke up.

“That’s incredible! The only news catalyst wise here is that we got Estel’s set of catalysts. We got four legendary matching her affinities. She already absorbed a pinnacle one too. The queen told us not to get a seventh catalyst as she plans to open the mythical catalyst vault for promising young mages soon. We were planning on getting her a superior one with her concepts, but now we are hunting for a legendary that has her affinities mix together. Luckily, the ley line intersection has flooded the market with catalysts, or it would have taken us years to get that many to get Naro, Varino, and Estel’s sets.”

“Has Varino absorbed any of the other catalyst?”

“She has absorbed another legendary one. That one was solely focused on her lightning affinity. We plan on waiting until she is a little older for her to absorb this rare pinnacle catalyst. It should help with the concepts she is strongly aligned with.”

“Hmm, that’s good. But it just occurred to me that Liliana may have string attached to that mythical catalyst. It might mean she wants your family to be more prominent in the kingdom if you go through with it,” Raith said thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” Ava agreed reluctantly. “She is approaching the peak of gold-rank, so that means the competition will start in the next few years.”

“She can’t expect you to put Zerine or Naro into it!?” Raith said, sounding alarmed, which made Zerine worry.

Competition? She cannot mean the succession one. I’m already behind to compared to the others my age. That would make our family appear weak compared to the other nobles. Which would then lead to political matters being more difficult for them if Naro and I perform poorly, she thought.

“Who knows what Liliana is thinking. I only know ascendents will be involved this time around. But I believe the mythical catalyst vault opening is for her to get her daughter one. She is the only other young four affinity mage in this generation thus far.”

“Hmm, maybe the Trevels at large won’t participate this time around, and that’s why she wants your family involved. Even though autonomy outside political games is something you agreed upon before Cal accepted the title.”

“I know, but we will just have to wait and see.”

“True. At least there are a few years before then. This training plan of yours for them seems to be paying off. As for the island, I’m just surprised the family agreed to-”

Varino’s loud, happy chime made Zerine jump. The spirit was flying down the hall towards her on a cloud. Her glowing silver and blue eyes were brighter than normal from her excitement. Zerine stepped back from the door to make it seem like she had just arrived.

Varino flew closer, then came to an abrupt halt. She burbled a question pointing at Zerine’s hair before giggling, then laughing, kicking her feet.

Zerine just shook her head.

“Hmm, that is a new look,” Raith’s projection said.

She and Ava were standing in the doorway, looking between the laughing spirit and Zerine’s rather…unique look.

“What happened?” Ava wondered, folding her arms, giving Zerine an exasperated once over.

Zerine’s training robes had flecks of purple, pink, red, and yellow all over them. The most affected area was around Zerine’s shoulders, where it appeared as if Zerine had several paint cans dumped over her. This meant that Zerine’s normally deep blue hair, with the tips turning to dark teal, had patches of colors giving her the appearance that a hair stylist had been asked to create abstract art.

“Umm, I was making something today, and let’s just say I lost control a few times. And when I did, it turns out one ingredient makes dye and, well…” Zerine gestured to her herself. “This is the result. Bernard said that the hair will come out over time, and I was just lucky I covered my face…wait it’s not in my ears, right?”

Zerine moved her head for the others to get a look.

“No, you're good. It’s just the rest of you that is covered,” Ava said as Raith tried and failed to hold back laughter joined by even more tinkling laughter from Varino.

“Hey, everyone is already here…what happened to you Zerine?” Gary said.

The giant man was carrying two boxes under his two lower arms with a rolled cloth under one of his top arms. His free hand was scratching the back of his head as he looked Zerine over.

“She can explain it while you unpack the items,” Ava said, gesturing for them to enter the meeting room.

Varino sat on Zerine’s shoulder, playing with Zerine’s colorful hair. Soon she was trying out different braids, while attempting to make patterns out of the colors, much to Zerine’s amusement.

Zerine chatted with Gary and Raith as Gary unpacked the boxes. There were knives, a pack, belts, ropes, a ball and chain, swords, and much more. Once Gary was done, Zerine just stared in awe.

“Did-did you get me a full set of gear to replace what I lost?” Zerine asked, barely above a whisper.

“Well, yeah, the only things that survived were your some of your knives and your bow. I actually made these weapons this time. They should last till you get your crest and probably into D-rank,” Gary said, shrugging with a huge grin.

Zerine hastily got to her feet, forcing Varino to hold on tight as she ran to embrace Gary, who chuckled.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” she said.

“You're welcome. We should get you used to them before you go off for your trip.”

“My, what?” Zerine wondered, stepping back from Gary, giving him and the others a confused look.

“Gary, that was supposed to be a surprise,” Raith said, chuckling, while Ava rolled her eyes.

“Oooh…surprise,” Gary said sheepishly.

Ava snorted a laugh, then spoke.

“Zerine and Varino, it’s time for your survival training. Every Trevel goes through this around your age. And it’s your turn.”

“Oookay? What does that entail?” Zerine wondered.

The others all grinned and suddenly Zerine got a premonition that this was going to be quite the training experience.

“There is an island that Trevels goes to at your age. We ensure there are a mixture of creatures and monsters there,” Ava said, her grin growing as Zerine’s eyes went wide. “Your goal will be to survive and thrive without needing any assistance. These will be your weapons and supplies for this test.”

“It’s quite the test. My clan back home has a similar thing, but it’s called the Trial of Adulthood,” Raith said.

“Yeah, mine too. But ours is about hunting powerful creatures that get assigned to us,” Gary said.

“How long is this trip?” Zerine wondered. Her mind was already racing with the possibilities.

“A month,” Ava said.

“A month!” Zerine squeaked, echoed by a surprised whistle from Varino.

“Yes, a…month,” Ava said. “You two will be alone on that island. The adventurer academies have trials that are like this too. So, consider this practice for the actual test and it’s also something you often times have to do as an adventurer. In other words, let’s find out if you can handle that or not.”

“The actual test is like this, but held in a dimensional space where time is accelerated,” Raith said.

“Oooh, good to know. But when will this happen?” Zerine wondered.

“Well, let’s just say it’s a good thing you dyed your hair today. And it also just so happens to line up with Falkor’s hatchlings going on an extended trip of their own.”

“Hmm,” Zerine said flatly. “Not a straight answer. And they left yesterday. So today I leave?”

“No, tomorrow. You and Gary are going to work on familiarizing yourself with your new weapons and gear in the meantime. Varino,” Ava said. Varino peeped, raising a hand as if to ask a question. “You and I will work on some things for you to practice while you're on the island.”

Varino burbled a question.

“Yes, new fighting techniques and some healing from Raith.”

Several chimes.

Zerine giggle, while Ava sighed.

“Yes, the new techniques may or may not have you calling down large lightning strikes and doing small teleportation.”

Varino cheered.

At least someone is ready and excited, Zerine thought with a small smile. She was excited about the trip and anxious. Was she actually ready for this? Would she discover she would be a terrible adventurer? But seeing Varino excitedly jumping on to a cloud helped her shove those worries aside. She wouldn’t be alone during this test, and it would be the first adventurer together. One of many.

“Well, we will leave you and Gary to go over your gear. Have fun, you two,” Ava said.

Before she left, Zerine embraced her, whispering, “thank you.”

Ava gave her a light squeeze in return.

“You're welcome. Just don’t get lost in talking about materials and maintenance. So, please actually practice,” Ava said.

“Will do!” Zerine said brightly. “Raith, great to see you again. I would hug you, but you're just a projection. So, just imagine, I’m hugging you.”

Raith chuckled, “we will chat later. Have fun, you two.”