“So how old are you?” Powaw and Talo were walking towards the training garden.

“I guess about thirty-nine?” Talo now knew that a year was longer on Mankato, and found it difficult to keep comparisons of time.

“No you fool, how old are you here?”

“I turn three next week.”

“There, now that’s the right answer. You can’t slip up like that. You need to keep up appearances or suspicion will follow you your whole life.”

Great, he’s going to have high expectations without clear directions or straightforward questions. Score one more for reincarnation being just like graduate school.

“It’s for your own good, brat.”

Woh, no one has talked to me like that since getting here.

“And I’d talk to your father and grandfather like that too. Only way I serve anyone, is if I can call it like I see it.”

Why can everyone in this world read minds? It’s like—

“It’s because you have the poker face of a normal three-year-old, which is to say none at all. That might fly for some farmer’s son, but you’re the heir to the Grand Fucking Duke, and that kind of nonsense needs to be beaten out of you.”

“You don’t think I can learn with dedication and practice?”

“No, not with the lilies growing around you. You came from a sissy world of peace. Your grandfather rose to power by the furnace of the tribe lands. The best service I can give him is to show you the same. Your family might baby you, the senile Butterfly wants to be your drinking buddy, but I’m going to be your instructor. Four hours a day your ass is mine.”

“No need to be hostile. I thought you were a healer? Further, I’m a pacifist, and mommy was going to show me how to fight.” Talo felt a little incensed. Maybe having my every need waited upon is affecting my psyche.

“Thinking violence is the only way this world will chew you up and spit you out shows your ignorance, boy. You will have constant challenges to your power. Not to mention getting in your own damn way. And I am a physician, but I’m a shaman first.” Talo was puzzled over the nuance between a healer and a physician, but Powaw cut him off before he could say anything.

“We’re here,” he announced with his first smile of the day.

“Where’s here?”

“This is the Training Garden. I started cultivating it over 200 years ago. It’s been in the tribe for thousands of years. I hope my expansions will be lasting legacies I leave our tribe.” Powaw was one of the few people who spoke of the tribe. In joining the Kingdom, the Axculi renounced their status as an independent nation and people. This led to the inevitable mixture of cultures, but many traditions lived on. When individuals could easily span four generations, it was far easier to keep history alive.

“Are we even in the palace anymore?” Talo was confused. It seemed as though they left the castle proper through a normal exterior archway, but once they exited into the garden, they appeared to be in a remote valley.

“Ha, there’s some hope to you yet. Did you notice how that corridor was slightly downward sloping? Or that we were headed towards the interior of the palace? No, this is a very guarded place for our tribe. We came here through an enchantment at the end of the hallway.”

“But we didn’t pass any guards? I mean, sure, the palace is guarded, but it seems like somewhere ‘very guarded’ should have at least one guard.”

“Anyone without our blood would have walked into a small courtyard. Do you see those mountains? A spirit warrior resides at every ridge, peek, and gully. There’s not more than a kilometer between any two of them. I dare to say that this valley may be better guarded than the palace.” Powaw scanned the horizon with a deep satisfaction.

The garden itself only took up 50 square meters but was still a sight to itself. Myriads of flowers were meticulously cared for in beds. There was a passing stream that split upon entering the garden and rejoined again to exit it. This gave the garden an vesica piscis center that was lined with large, oddly colored boulders.

“Come, let us enter the triangles.” There were two triangular dirt spaces in the interior. They looked well worn and completely level. “The two trees at the width are the anchor trees of life and death. See how on the other side there is the cemetery? Our most honored dead are buried there, including your grandfather.”

“What makes this side represent life?” There seemed to be flowers on both sides, and all around the garden was quite symmetrical. The colors on the rocks were different, and the trees were a different type, but there didn’t seem to be any more life to distinguish the side opposite the tree of death.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s the side we came in on! The entrances to the valley all lead here, the side of life. Life is where we are coming from, death is where we are going. Sit on the center mat to the left while I light the fire.”

Between the trees were three braziers. The middle one was slightly elevated and filled with black logs. Powaw approached it from the left and began chanting. Talo could sense the mana pass by him on the mat and collect around Powaw. The shaman then extended his hands and a great blue flame erupted from his palms. The flames danced around the logs, quickly setting them alight.

Powaw then turned to his newest student. “You, for better or for worse, have a mana-well formed in orenda. That means that you were born with the ability to join in the spirit magic of our people. This is a mixed blessing. When we were a more pure people, about 5% of the children would be so blessed. As our blood dilutes, it has become less than a hundredth of that. We do not look back with longing to the past because such thoughts are wasted on the present. Without the Kingdom, we would not have learned of many of the shortcomings of orenda.”

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“If there are so many shortcomings, and spirit magic in general is taboo, why don’t we just skip it? I could take a more mainstream approach.”

“You might be able to, but it would likely be very difficult for you. Few have been able to walk the ways of the West and of the East. So few are even able to begin the Western Trail that we don’t fully understand the difficulties in walking both. At the very least it requires twice the training.”

Talo found all this talk of styles to be quite confusing. He clearly didn’t receive the knowledge of such things from Brother Caloner. He didn’t know if that was because Caloner himself didn’t know, or if because he didn’t manage it in the transfer.

“There are several advantages to orenda as well. You should have a much better ‘feeling’ of the mana around you. I think that was made evident during your floating expedition.”

“But what are the drawbacks? I want to know the downsides before I choose.”

“It is sad how focused you are on the negative, but hopefully it will suit you well in court. There is no choice, it has already been made by your body. You will certainly have to begin the Western way before you attempt the Eastern.”

“I’m still waiting on the drawbacks.” Talo was getting impatient with all the flowery talk. He was a man of science and was uninterested in the cultural fluff piled on him.

This, in turn, filled Powaw with a desire to make Talo respect what he considered the core of his power. Powaw raised his right pinkie and a blue flare streaked out of the brazier and struck Talo’s check.

“Ow! What the hell was that for. No warning, you just up and attack me? You’re supposed to be teaching me about mana manipulation, but so far I’m not learning anything.”

“You’re right, you’re not learning anything. You’re still too filled with pride over your old world. You didn’t even notice me answering your question. The chief difficulty, with all the Western Ways, is abstraction. We work at a more base and natural level. It is harder to build upon, to predict unnatural actions. Eastern manipulations of mana can often come as quite a...surprize.”

“And you couldn’t just say that? I think you’re just enjoying picking on me because I’m weaker.” Without even being aware of it, Talo began to full on pout.

“If you think I’m enjoying any of this, then you need practice reading people. I think your biological age is affecting you more than you know. I’ve never seen a man pout like that before. Now stick your fingers into the bowl before you.”

“Bowl, what—Hey! Where did that come from?”

“It’s been in front of you the whole time. You were just too distracted to peel back the mana around it. Your subconscious couldn’t register that it was there. Now put your fingers in the bowl.”

“Wait, what is that liquid, it looks like blood.”

“It is blood. Blood from the gandari bird. Or Angond’s Doves as they call them in the East. You bathed in their bone water, so we will begin your path in orenda with their blood.”

Man, I wish I had some nitrile gloves. Nothing says you’re about to get a bloodborne pathogen like sticking your hands directly into a bowl of bird blood. Talo slowly dipped the tip of all 10 fingers in the bowl. He could definitely feel some kind of power moving in the blood, but it was unlike any mana he saw before.

“What are you doing, washing your hands? Get your middle and index fingers in there, then streek their blood-gift under your eyes and around your neck…. I’m waiting, or do you need more motivation?”

Talo grumbled and slowly complied. He made even lines of blood under his eyes and did the best he could with a circle around his neck. “Please tell me we are getting to the point of all this.”

“The doing is the point, but you’ll come to understand that later. Now we are ready to begin. With all your questioning, you’ve failed to ask the important questions, like why are we training here. I do hope Caloner can frame your mind, because you are still far too loose in your thinking. And you and I won’t have the time.”

“It seems like you care far more about common sense than he does, so why don’t you take over teaching it?”

“Because, runt, we’ll be doing this.” Powaw reached forward and tapped the streaks of blood. They immediately began glowing white.

“The hell, man! Some warning.”

“Quite. You’ve already gained some control of your internal mana. I want you to take it from the mana well in your gut, and run it along the blood-gift. Join your mana with the essence in the blood.”

Moving mana was still quite the struggle for Talo. It felt like trying to wiggle your ears. It was part of him he could move, he just wasn’t quite sure how to make the connection. He managed to lift his mana to his neck, and the light emitted by the blood changed to a blue frequency.

“Don’t pull the mana through your body needlessly. Circulate it with your blood. Force it to rest under the blood-gift.”

Powaw’s guidance broke Talo’s concentration and his mana crashed back down. After fuming for a bit, he tried again to concentrate. Wait, the mana-well isn’t an organ, right? It’s not in my peritoneum somewhere, right? The god said through the gut was one of the best ways to distribute power in mammals. What if I move everything around my small intestine first, then try to send it to my heart.

Slowly Talo began to move his mana along his circulatory system. The streaks of blood all began to glisten a blue color.

Suddenly everything around Talo turned white.