The same major from last time greeted Sam as soon as he entered the Web Communications building. Murmuring in thanks, Sam followed closely behind him while trying not to feel bad for causing this poor fellow so much anxiety on a Saturday. It seemed that even without the call from the supreme commander being a surprise, just the interaction with Sam’s mentor was enough to rattle the officer in charge of facilitating said call. Sam sympathized, and he could certainly see where the major’s worries were coming from. Even if he couldn’t reconcile them with his own perception of the person causing them.
Or with your own recent behavior, he considered with a half-weary, half-amused smile. You’ve yet to showcase even a single ounce of your old fear of authority figures. Where did that specific branch of your once overburdening social anxiety disappear to? Did your newfound importance get to your head? Or is it because every authority figure you’ve met up till now is so far beyond you that your brain had an overflow? Or perhaps it’s something much more sinister? A change in personality? But what parts of you were changed? And when?
“Ugh,” he groaned once he was left alone in the call room, “I knew I shouldn’t have read that article. Now I’m all up in my head. This just goes to show that nothing good can come from reading academic papers that aren’t part of the syllabus.”
“What academic paper was that?” asked the smiling figure of Farris, this time not in his office but what looked, based on the way his legs were dangling off its edge, a…
“Are you on a rooftop?”
“No. Of course not. This is a spire-top. Very different.”
“Why?”
“Best view of the sea in the area. Hell, all of Larsus, I’d say. I’d turn the picture around if you had a chance to see something.”
“Yvessa told me that there’s a reason why all these rooms are built and painted the way they are. Isn’t having an open background like yours is, pretty bad?”
“Not bad. Wasteful. Dizziness inducing maybe, which is another reason why I’m not turning it around. But mainly wasteful. However, seeing as I’m the one footing the energy bill for this call… you don’t have to worry about that.”
“How is that possible? Are you paying for both ends? Cause I would’ve thought that the majority of the expenditure would come from my end having to convert where you are to visual data.”
“You really want to get into the fine details of how inter-Web communication works?”
“I was just curious. No reason to get all wound up and bossy about it.”
“Bossy?! Listen here”—Farris pointed at him with his leg—“you better change your tone, mister, and fast. I’ve had it up to here with you disrespecting me and my authority. I get quite enough of that at home and I will not abide anymore of it in this weird hybrid professional-personal relationship that we’ve got going on.”
“Are… are you serious?”
“What?! Of course not. It’s insulting that you had to ask that. Now, to answer your question in short: the majority of the energy burden in the call falls on sending, not receiving—don’t bother with understanding why—so it’s agreed upon that the caller pays for the added expenses from the call itself. As for your as yet unasked question. There is a delay between visual connection being made and audio connection being made, so I heard you before I saw you. All clear? Good, now what article were you moaning about?”
“Just so you know, this little clairvoyant act of yours has gotten real old by now. ”
“Whatever. It saves us time from getting bogged down in a discussion of something that doesn’t matter in the least.”
Sam laughed. “And talking about what article I read yesterday doesn’t fall into that category?”
“I won’t know until you tell me, now would I?”
“Fine. It was a paper that a Taken who was a philosopher before the Integration wrote a couple of years after the fact. She was trying to examine some of the different philosophical quandaries that arose from her experience and that happened to bother me as well. Nothing too deep or technical, as it was made to be read outside of just the academic circles. Which might explain why it was so well written. But anyway, it just got me thinking about stuff that I haven’t been giving as much attention to recently.”
“Ugh. Disgusting. What the hell am I going to do with you? Is this the same thing from way back when where you were worried this reality wasn’t real?”
“That’s one of those avenues of thoughts, yes. One that doesn’t bother me as much as some of the others and one that she hadn’t touched on at all, for obvious reasons. But what the hell are you talking about ‘all the way back when?’ That was only a couple of weeks ago!”
“So what? I’m willing to bet those seven weeks felt like seven months to you. By all subjective accounts, it was a long time ago. We were different people then. With different plans and aspirations. I was still hoping my masterstroke of discovering you would go unnoticed by the wider Web. And you were still moping constantly, being irrationally worried about not being able to meet my expectations for you. And look how far we’ve come since then! You’re progressing in breakneck pace, shattering records left and right, handily beating even the best fourteen-year-olds Taken in history. Whereas I’m knee deep in the political mire that my ascending of you has caused.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “Is it my ‘ascension’, or is it perhaps your reforms of the Terran military?”
“It’s you. That’s what’s so great. But enough about politics! I told you already that politics is the one topic that’s off-limit. We can go back to talking politics once you’re strong enough so that we could both use each other as tools.”
“You’re an ass, you know that? And don’t think I missed the line about me beating teenagers.”
“That line wasn’t supposed to be missed. Although I am now regretting the fact that I haven’t made a joke about you physically beating teenagers. That would’ve been funny.”
“It would’ve ruined the joke even more. From just not funny to actually painful to the ear. So, what did you want to talk to me about? Or did you call this meeting just to waste its time by chastising me for wasting time during our conversations?”
“No... But that would’ve been really funny.”
“Farris…”
Farris laughed and spread his hands wider. “Patience now, Sam, patience. We’ll get to everything I wanted to talk to you about in due time. And besides, what is the harm in simply spending time talking to me? Am I not an enjoyable person to converse with? Does our social interaction not fall under the time allotted to you for leisure on Saturdays after lunch? Congratulations on the updated schedule, by the way.”
“How do you know about that? I haven’t told you.”
“My niece told me.”
“What? Why the hell would Yvessa tell her that?”
“I don’t know. But they spent a long hour talking about just you, so it came up when I asked Erianna to share some of the information she gained from the occasion.”
“Yeah, there’s no way. Yvessa’s entire call is only about an hour. Dan told you, right?”
“Of course. So how about it? Do I not qualify as an appropriate conversational partner for the leisurely usage of this hour of your free time?”
“OK, so first of all, this hour is specifically geared towards asocial leisure time, so no matter who you were, you wouldn’t fit the bill. And second, are you an appropriate partner? Because it feels to me that, all things considered, we can’t—or at the very least, shouldn’t—use this once a month meeting for just a causal chat.”
“Why not? Are you trying to insinuate that you wouldn’t be interested in having a casual chat with me? Me? The only person in the Web more interested in who you were before you became a Taken rather than who you are now?”
Sam shook his head with a slight grimace. “Were you trying to joke that you care more about Terran history and culture than most people do? Because it came out wrong, and pretty toxic.”
“Yes, that is what I was going for. And you’re right, it definitely came out wrong. But my unanswered question still stands. And while I might be a very powerful and important man, I am still a man at the end of the day. I would be hurt to find out that you don’t see me as a friend. Of course, the truth is what’s most important. Don’t fear that you telling me it will cause irreparable damage to our relationship, which will prevent me from fulfilling my mentor’s duty towards you.”
“Are you trying to make this weird on purpose?”
“Weird? What part of what I said was weird? Just answer my question. Don’t focus on how you’re talking to one of the most powerful people in the Web, or that I’m holding your future in the palm of my hands, or the rumors of how I use my position and strength in order to force my will on other people. Focus on me, Farris, the person. Then tell me if you really have a problem spending just one measly hour every month chatting with me about nothing in particular. With this context in mind, it’s a pretty normal question, no?”
Sam laughed. “You’re definitely doing this on purpose. So, what is this all really about? Are you trying to play for time because you don’t have enough material to cover the whole hour you’ve scheduled?”
“Material? What material? I don’t have any material. I’m just making it up as I go along.”
“That would explain all the time we’ve wasted up till now talking about nothing. But I don’t buy it. I’ve come to realize that you’re taking your ‘mentor’s duties’ way more seriously than I originally gave you credit for.”
“Do you also realize that what you just said is very rude? You’re making it sound as if you seriously doubted my capabilities as a mentor.”
“I didn’t say capabilities. I was just talking about willpower to fully dedicate those capabilities for the purpose of mentoring me. As far as where those capabilities actually lie… Well, we’ve yet to talk about anything of substance and you just said that you didn’t even have a plan for what to talk to me about today.”
“So?” Farris asked. “What’s so bad about not talking about anything of substance? Does the fact that I’m your mentor mean that I’m only allowed to talk to you about your training or magical concepts? In fact, I’m pretty sure that in the, regrettably, limited time we’ve had for conversation, we mostly talked about stuff that doesn’t have to do with your training.”
“I mean, I’m not going to argue with that. It sounds about right. But are you seriously trying to tell me that you didn’t have anything you wanted to talk to me about for this meeting? I realize that we don’t have to only talk shop, but c’mon…”
“Oh? You do? Does that mean that you do consider me a friend? Worth of conversing with on topics that don’t have to do with just your betterment as a future combatant?”
“You know, I’m usually the one making the jokes about other people seeing, or not seeing me as a friend. And I have to tell you, it doesn’t feel nice to be on the receiving end.”
“Who says I’m joking?” joked Farris.
“Whatever. Let’s just say that you are my friend. Will that allow us to move on?”
“Wait wait wait, just hold on a second. I didn’t say that I was your friend. I was asking whether you are my friend. I’m way too cool to be your friend.”
“That’s tough luck because I choose to live in a world where the properties of friendship are transitive. If a friendship exists, then it must extend both ways, and I’m just not willing to entertain the existence of assholes who act like it doesn’t.”
“Woo… hit a soft spot there?”
“Of course. I’m a person in a constant struggle with anxiety, aren’t I? Where do you think all of my jokes about people not seeing me as a friend stem from? But we’re not talking about that right now. I’ve answered your question. Can we move on?”
“You’ve answered my question, yes, but did you answer truthfully? One would think that if we really are friends, then you would have no problem pouring your heart out to me about your past social struggles.”
“Is this your first time talking with a real person?”
Farris laughed. “Of course it is. You are the only real person in existence. Every other person is just a—”
“Shut up.”
“Heh, sorry. And I was just joking before, don’t worry. We still have plenty of time before we need to start our deep dive into psychoanalyzing your past.”
“Did you do the same thing with your other mentee? Did it feel weird to be both the person having the trauma shared with while also being the cause for said trauma?”
“I wholeheartedly reject the assumption that I was the cause of any emotional malaise my sweet and talented niece might’ve suffered during her childhood. The very notion is absurd! I patiently waited until she was an adult before subjecting her to the real facets of my personality. But say, is this the chimes of hypocrisy I’m hearing? Or does your continuous insistence to criticize and remark upon everything I say doesn’t have anything to do with why we haven’t spoken of anything, as you said, ‘of substance’ yet?”
“So if I just shut up and let you talk, will you get to the point already?”
“We’re already at the point, my friend. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time. Face it, how much help in your training do you think I could possibly lend you from this far away and in this little time when you’ve already got so many resources allocated towards providing you with such an aid?”
“How would I know? I’m not the Ruler who decided he wanted to mentor someone on a whim. I’m just a level zero who’s yet to reach the point where I’m as knowledgeable as a twelve-years-old.”
“Oh, pfft! You’ve reached that point a long time ago. Twelve-years-old are dumb. You’re giving them way too much credit.”
“Eighteen-year-old then. My younger compatriots here at the academy.”
“There’s not many of them by now, but I get your gist. So let me answer my own question. Not much. Currently, there isn’t anything I can do to help you with your training that I haven’t already done. Sure, I could come down and bunk with you and personally tutor you day and night, but neither of us wants that, now do we? Practical constraints notwithstanding. As far as your training and studies go, my role as your mentor will only begin in earnest in the future; once you’ve got some more of that vaunted knowledge under your cap and a few more levels in your belt. Until then, my only job is to make sure the people helping you train for that future are doing their job to the fullest of their abilities and that their abilities are satisfactory. And I have to say, from the weekly briefings Dan sends me, I’m very much satisfied.”
Sam raised his eyebrow. “So this is really all the mentorship business that you wanted to go over with me today? You were being serious when you said I should consider this a social call?”
“Of course I was! But no to your first question. Remember, what did I say my most important role as your mentor was going to be before we parted so so long ago?”
“Making sure I don’t end up as a whiny loser who doesn’t think we can win this war?”
“That was one aspect of it, yes. But that shouldn’t have been your entire takeaway from that conversation.”
“Well maybe if you tried saying things clearly and not acting all coy and cryptic because you find it funny…”
“Fine. I’ll say it so clear that even you won’t be able to squirm your way out of it and into a joke. My first role as your mentor is to make sure that the training you’re undergoing is as optimal as possible for when I am not there to train you personally. That was done then, it is done now, and it will continue being done in the future. You can trust me when I tell you there is no more room for me to involve myself or change up your regimen.
“Dan is teaching you magic personally, and is there to help you or guide you towards help for every other study subject that the academy or the military life might demand of you in the future. You have one of the best combat instructors the Terran Republic has to offer attending you privately three times a week. And from the reports I’m getting on all of these aspects, your progress so far is stellar enough that I find it hard to believe any of those two are not doing their utmost to train you. You have three of the brightest young Terran talents—I’d say the three brightest, but I’m not allowed to show favoritism—accompanying you on every step of your journey so that any other aspects that’s not covered directly by your tutors, will be covered and caught by your friends in case you fall behind. That is, as far as I’m concerned, as optimal as your training can and should be for now.
“For later, you will have my second role as your mentor coming into play: training you personally. I’m not going to give you any spoilers on what that might entail, but let’s just say that I am definitely going to have a lot of fun. I don’t actually know when this phase of our contract will come into play or just what shape it will take. Sure, I have my suspicions and my plans, but we’ll have to wait and see. What is certain, though, is that from level 8 upwards, you won’t be making any decision on how to further advance without formulating them with me.”
Sam snorted. “So you’re saying that I have to wait until level 8 for you to play the actual role of my mentor?”
“Of course not! I was just giving you the worst-case scenario. Say things spiral out of control and we won’t have any time to interact regularly. Even then, you can rest assured that I’ll keep fulfilling my first and third role as a mentor, and will definitely come back to my second role when it’s time for you to make your plans for Rulership. And like I said, that’s the worst-case scenario. Much more likely is that the second role will come into effect in about two or three years. Once you have enough of a solid foundation for me to actually be able to start fashioning you in the image I’ve envisioned for you.”
“And speaking of fashioning you: my third role as your mentor. For they are very much one and the same. In my opinion, the third role is the actual definition of what a mentor should do and be, and that is to guide you mentally. It’s the most important role. It’s what we talked about when I said I wanted you to become a certain kind of Ruler. This is the main reason why I wanted us to meet regularly; why just ‘taking about nothing’ is a good enough use of our time. Because let’s face it Sam, you are a bright jewel, yes, but you’ve got a long way to go before you can shine brightly enough to fulfill the role I have in mind for you.”
“And what role is that?” Sam asked with gritted teeth and a suddenly thumping heart.
“We’ve been over this already. Second in command to Erianna as the realistic joke. Winning the war and killing all the Epiraks as the more far-fetched grand design. In any case, any vision of mine for your future, big or great, calls for me guiding you towards some behavioral and cognitive changes. By the way, before you start taking this analysis of your personality the way you always do, and make some half-joke half-plea-for-help about how you’re obviously not suited for military life and being a Ruler as cool and strong as me. That’s not what I’m talking about. I know you won’t like hearing this, but for making Ruler, for being in the military, you’re already good enough. At the very least, you’re on the right trajectory such that unless someone pulls you out of it, you’re definitely going to end up staying and eventually acclimating to this lifestyle. It’s just the way it is. I know you well enough by now to recognize that you won’t be stepping off the path you put yourself on after only half a day of living in the Web. Cry about it, moan about the hardships you’re going to suffer, rage against the ‘high’ estimation people keep giving you. It won’t matter. The minute you chose to join the academy was the minute you made yourself the only person in existence who will never be able to prevent you from becoming a soldier.”
“You know what? On that, we agree.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Good. Then will you also agree with me that this isn’t your final form?” Farris smiled. “That, leaving your personal strength aside, you can become someone even greater than you are now?”
“Of course I will. The certainty that I can become a better person is one of my few objectively good personal qualities.”
“Oh… leave the good and moral aside for now, will you? I’m not talking about bullshit like never getting angry or always being courteous and willing to lend a hand. I’m talking about you becoming a great person. A person with the willpower to stand against the whole world if necessary. If that’s why you think should be done. You are currently a good person. No need to argue about that, you are. You can become a better one: more ethical or whatever other inconsequential philosophical concept you care so much about. But that journey is up to you. I don’t care about that and neither does the Web as a whole. But what you aren’t yet, is a great person, a hero. You know that great man theory that you Terrans have? That we elves and all the other races also have a version of, only ours is less sexist, racist, and more realistic? That’s the kind of greatness that I’m talking. And before you ask, it’s not about being a leader. You don’t have to be one if you don’t want to and I won’t bother trying to waste time convincing you that you’ll make a fine one because you will end up as one, with or without my intervention. I’m talking about the kind of greatness that comes when a good person such as you does all in their power in order to make the world a better place.”
“You mean imposing their definition of good and better upon the world?” Sam rolled his eyes.
“What did I say about leaving the moral bullshit aside for now?”
“When did I say that I agreed to such a stupid proposition?”
“Look, I don’t care about this or that version of ethics right no. For example, what you believe should or shouldn’t happen to the Epiraks. That’s up to you. I’m sure you’ll end up making the right choice. My question is this: does being a better person help you implement that decision in reality? Leave aside what the right choice is, you’ve already reached it. Only thing that remains is to carry it out. Are you, as you are now able to fight against the entirety of reality, the material and social constraints, if that’s what it takes for you to do the right thing? And not physically. Mentally?”
“No.”
“Of course not. You’re probably thinking that anyone willing to go against the entire world in order to enforce their view of rightfulness upon it is a fucking psychopath. And yeah, you know what? Anyone who is so sure that they’re right that they’re willing to burn down the world around them is most likely either a complete idiot or a psychopath. But, you’re also still thinking about this from an ethical standpoint, from the position of being constantly afflicted by anxiety and insecurity for the entirety of you life and never being sure that what you believe in, much less the way you act, is the right thing.”
“You’re losing me Farris. What does this have to do with anything we talked about?”
“Everything!” Farris lifted himself off of the roof and floated over to Sam, manipulating the connection to make him appear closer. “You said that you’re not sure the Epiraks deserve extinction. Well, everyone else thinks they do. What will happen if you’re the one who led the Web to victory over them and now you’re holding their fate in your hands? Will you betray your convictions just because you will have no one at your back? No one standing by you? Assuring you that you’re doing the right thing?”
“I don’t know. Probably yes? I guess.”
“You don’t need to guess. Because I will make sure that you won’t. Even if it is possible for you to become the kind of person who can lead the Web to victory without becoming the kind of person who will never give up on what they believe in, I am going to make sure that you will become both. Maybe it’s an impossible ideal, but it’s the one ideal you should strive for above all. More than becoming stronger, more than becoming more moral. That’s the kind of person I like to think I am. That if I know something is right, I am going to do it. I might not do it in a day, maybe not even in years, but as long as I keep living, I’m going to work towards doing it. That as long as I believe in doing something, I’m not going to give up on doing it. Maybe I’m not that kind of person yet, maybe I never will. Maybe you never will as well. Maybe anyone who isn’t a psychopath or a complete idiot can’t ever be that kind of person. But, that is the kind of person you should be most concerned with becoming.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I should aim to become someone who’s always sure of himself and never changes his mind? That’s idiotic. And obviously you’re not that kind of person as well.”
“Of course I’m not always sure of myself. Of course I change my mind. But I’m talking about an ideal. I’m talking about never changing your mind to stop doing B when you think that B is something that should be done. You’re allowed to change your mind and stop thinking that B should be done. But it has to be because of your own independent choice, because you stopped thinking that was the right thing to do, not because the real world makes doing B hard.”
“C’mon, you’re being ridiculous. No one’s really like that. At least no sane person; it’s impossible. What you’re telling me that if you decide you want to kill every baby in the world and that it’s the right thing to do, you’re just going to do it, no matter who stands against you?”
“Yes! I would! And of course it’s ridiculous, we’re talking about an ideal. I’m not really like this because I am a sane, and rational, and intelligent human being who can realize that he might be the problem if everyone around him, people he respects and loves, say A but he says B. But you’re talking about deciding what the right thing is, again. Back to questions of ethics. That’s not my point. In my scenario, you know what the right thing is. You know it in your bones; in every facet of your being. Imagine that instead of the New Terra you know, you’ve been returned to a New Terra where slavery is the basis of the social order and the strong literally eat the weak. That’s fucked up. You know very well that it’s wrong. If you changed your moral opinion on the matter, then you’ve gone through a personality change ten times greater than what I plan for you. So, in that scenario, would you have been able to do everything in your power, as long as you were alive, to bring that world crashing down, even if living in that world had no negative material implications for you?”
“We already covered that I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, and we have also covered that my goal for you is that you will. That’s what I’m getting at. You’re a good person, Sam, I’ll say that again, and you can and you will become a better one just as you’re aiming. I’m certain of that. But that shouldn’t be all that you’re aiming to become. Are you aiming to become a greater person? And if you don’t like the inegalitarian language I’m using, make up your own word for the type of person I just claimed that I saw myself as. In your current mad scramble for power and knowledge, which, by your own admission, includes a change in personality which will make your pursuit of those aspects more mentally bearable, are you also vying to become the type of person who will make use of those aspects against all odds? If that’s what it takes to do the right thing?”
“You realize how ridiculous you’re making all of this sound, right?”
Farris laughed. “It’s not ridiculous, though, that’s the thing. Sure, I’m speaking in grandiose terms; with dogmatic phrasing and ridiculous exaggerations. Name it whatever, it might be an unattainable and impractical ideal, but it’s not ridiculous. You know why? Because at the end of the day, you live in a world where it’s theoretically possible for you to become stronger than everyone else combined. If you happen to reach that material height, will you also have the will to use that strength in order to make the world a better place? I’m not talking about not being afraid of making the wrong choice. That will and should remain with you forever. I’m talking about being afraid—even though you have all that power, and even though you know, without a shadow of a doubt what the right thing to do is—of carrying out that choice after you’ve already made it because it just so happens to be against everyone else.”
“So what? Your gist is, essentially, that I need to become a more confident person? Be willing to force my will upon other people if that’s what it takes for them to listen to me and do the right thing?”
“That you should aim to become a person who will never back down from doing the right thing as long as he’s sure what the right thing is. That you’d be willing to use your strength, your intelligence, your charisma, everything you have in your possession in order to bring your vision to fruition. Self-confidence is just a part of that. But you’re right, it’s certainly an aspect of your personality that we need to work on, regardless.”
“I still think it’s total hogwash. You’ve ever met a twenty-year-old? Most of them are pretty sure that they know what’s right and what’s wrong and have no problem with sincerely wishing for the power to enforce their vision on the world.”
“You mean people unbeset by fears and anxieties, completely assured of themselves and their beliefs despite the rapid frequency that every one of them, by simple virtue of how obtaining new knowledge works, had changed them throughout their life? Yeah, I mentioned them, psychopaths. Or complete idiots. Take your pick.”
“Alright. So you just made a joke in the middle of this very ‘important’ lecture which, as far as I’m concerned, pretty much confirms that neither of us understood what you were talking about.”
“It wasn’t a joke, it was an exaggeration. And I think it got my point across rather succinctly, despite you acting like you don’t understand what I was trying to tell you. As your mentor, my job is to make you become the best version of yourself that’s possible. My first two roles had to do with… let’s call it the material world. The last one is to do with the mental, psychological, whatever. Let’s say that if I succeed in acting according to my first two roles, then you will have become a Chosen. Then, for the last one, it’s becoming the kind of person who’s willing to go head to head with a Chosen, no matter what level you are, if that’s what it takes to do the right thing. The type of person, when after they’ve become the strongest Chosen, will override all other Chosen if they say A, but you think B. From my material roles, you should be getting material strength. And from my mental role, you should be getting willpower and the will to use your material strength in order to act upon your beliefs.”
Sam sighed and rolled his shrugging shoulders into a stretch. “OK, so all of that was your third role. Let’s say I got what the end goal and agreed that I should pursue it. What does it actually entail? From a practical standpoint? Besides giving me a half-formed lecture and engaging me in casual chit-chat? I’m assuming it’s more than just giving me pep-talks every time I’m feeling down on myself and telling me that I should have more confidence. Because I have to tell you, I get those from everyone around me, and while l like you well enough, it’s not enough to make yours stand out from the pack.”
Farris spread his hands with a smile before floating back to sit on the edge as before. “Fear not, the lecture was half-formed only because it was formed on the spot. I’ll have a better one for next time. But you needn’t worry anyway. For my third role is the most subtle of my three. If I did my job correctly, you wouldn’t even notice I did anything at all.”
“You just gave me a lecture on what kind of person I should aim to become.”
“That was an explanation of what the role is, not an example of what it looks like in action. I mean, seriously, how do you teach someone to be willing to lay down their life for what’s right? Or give someone the self-confidence to stand before the eight most powerful people in the civilized Web and tell them to do something they don’t want to do?”
“So what you’re saying is that you don’t actually have a plan for how to carry out your third role? And since you stated that fulfilling that role is the main reason for this and any near-future meetings, that really means that all the time we talked today, from a mentorship viewpoint, was pretty much wasted.”
“When did I say anything about wasting either my or yours time? All I just said was that you can’t force a person to become a greater version of themselves. Unlike with physical strength, or with combat or magic, there aren’t any lesson plans, there isn’t homework to dole out. You have to play it by the ear. But I don’t even need to do that. All I need to do is make sure that you’re staying on the path you’re already on.”
“You just said that the road I’m on wasn’t good enough because I’m not aiming to be that kind of person.”
“Not true. All I said was that you currently aren’t that kind of person. I asked whether you think you are trying to become that kind of person, and you, by the way, haven’t given me a negative answer to that question. We have agreed that by choosing to attend the academy, you fully embarked on the path of becoming a soldier and that you were definitely going to see it to its end. That path indeed doesn’t include you becoming a hero like I want you to become. However, you are also on another path: the path of becoming that kind of person. And it is the difference between these two paths where I enter the picture. As, unlike with becoming a soldier, ending up a hero isn’t a guarantee for you just yet, and you yourself could negatively affect your chances of becoming one. My job is to keep you on the right track. And not morally, before you drag us into that bullshit again. I don’t care whether you think A or B is bad. I only care that you’ll end up the person who says and act B, even if everyone else says and acts A, if B is what you think is right.”
“Fine. And how are you planning on doing that?”
“I don’t know. Just be myself, I guess. Say what comes to mind and what I think you need to hear. It worked out so far for Alan and Erianna.”
“So both your niece and nephew are psychopaths? Or is it complete idiots?”
“Look, will you just drop that already?! That was a joke. Besides, they still have a way to go until they reach the ideal, again it’s a fucking ideal, I’m talking about. But they’ve kept to the right track so far, and shouldn’t have a problem continuing along it. So if those two pampered royal snobs can do it under my guidance, so can you. There’s no reason to doubt me and my ability to make sure you’ll come out of my mentorship, the most Ubermench of Rulers there ever was.”
Sam wagged his finger while nodding at Farris. “Yep. And just like that, because you tried to sound smart and connect with me, you completely lost me. No ethics, my ass. It’s all fucking ethics. But fine, those are your three roles as a mentor and it only took us like three hours to cover them. Can we move on to something of actual substance? Or is that you don’t have any to talk to me about?”
“Were all of my words up till truly worthless? Did the premises of my argument really pass unnoticed by your mind? We’ve covered great ground today. In my opinion, even if we were to finish our meeting right now, it would be a good one.”
“Yes, you’ve made that point quite clear. But I, for one, would appreciate leaving here today having engaged you in a discussion that resulted from the application of your mentor’s role, rather than just a discussion about said role. Even if talking about your duties is an integral part of your duties in it of itself, there’s a limit to how much a person can stomach a meta-dialogue about their own future.
“Fine. It’s clear that you’re not fully convinced of the importance of what we’ve talked about so far, but if I haven’t managed to get my point across to you by now, harping on about it anymore certainly won’t change anything. So let’s move on to so-called practical matters, shall we? I’ll start us off. Since the last time we’ve met, your physical regimen has changed twice, correct?”
“Obviously. Why are you asking? Are you trying to verify the veracity of Dan’s reports?”
“No. I’m just trying to keep this from becoming a monologue. Engage you a little bit. Stop being so fussy, will you? So, let’s separate your workout regime into topics: First, physically, how has your body changed in the last four weeks? Scratch that. Let’s go all the way back, seven weeks?”
“What’s there to say? I’ve started from a physical position I’ve never been in all of my life. Sure, maybe I wasn’t in shape, but I didn’t carry any negative physical influences besides that. I won’t say that I’m in shape just yet, although I’m quickly catching up to what was my ‘peak’ physical shape back when. But still, it’s going to be sometime until I reach the point I was aiming for in my previous life. And way longer until I’m in actual combat shape.”
Farris laughed. “Nah. Getting in shape is easy. You’ll be good enough in half-a-year with how much you’re exercising. Still worse than most other cadets, probably, but good enough for ‘combat shape.’ Really, working out is just a tool to get your body nourished and as fit as possible for combat. It shouldn’t be a goal in it of itself. In fact, I’m still debating with myself whether to keep you on your current daily regimen even after you’ve got some patterns to help you work out twice a day, slotting you in for combat practice instead. It’s not ideal; there’s a reason why your friends are working out as much as they do. But maybe for you, with your time constraints, it’d be the best choice. We’ll see. I’ll need to consult a bunch of people.”
“Now that’s sounds like actual mentor work. Where has that been all day?”
“With the rest of my future plans for you, in the back of my mind. It doesn’t affect you currently, now does it? So why would I bring it up today?”
“To give me some idea of what my future might look like? Instead of just talking around it in a futile attempt to describe what it actually looks like.”
“Are you really dragging us backwards in conversation?”
“No, continue.”
“Good. So that was for the physical aspect of your physical regimen. And now for the mental, how’s it going? Just concerning the workout, please, not in general. We’ll keep that for later.”
Sam sighed. “It’s fine. The hardest part is dealing with the physical pain, and that’s been lessening. For all the other difficulties, I got Sarah to keep me coming to the workouts and to keep me exercising correctly. So there’s not really a lot for me to struggle with in those departments. I don’t want to sound smug, but I do believe that as long as things keep progressing as they have, that my physical body is the least of my worries for a change.”
“Splendid. I’m glad to hear that. And I must say, that in my opinion, as long as your progress in all departments remains the same, that you have nothing to worry about at all. But of course… keeping that rate of progression is your biggest worry, hmm?”
“Again with the questions you already know the answer to? If it’s between me nodding my head dumbly and you monologuing, I’ll take you talking uninterrupted.”
“Well I won’t. I must take care to avoid making such an exclusive use of my voice, lest I become entranced by it and fully slide into narcissism. Back to what I was saying: your progress so far, as you’re already well aware if not assenting to, has been stellar. It’d be, of course, impossible to keep it up in perpetuity, but just maintaining some of that comparative edge in progress speed will be more than enough to see you up to snuff by the time you graduate.”
“Are you seriously saying that I’ll be level 4 by then?”
“Pish-posh. Levels aren’t everything. You’ll be somewhere around level 3 and that’ll be good enough. What’s important is that in every other department, you will be the brightest shining star. Of course, with you overcoming my expectations for you by a whole three percent… who knows? Maybe getting close enough to level 4 to reach it long enough before your first real combat isn’t out of the question. But cultivating is the one area on which don’t actually have anything to talk about right now, don’t we?”
Sam bit his lips. Don’t we? When did I stop believing I could make level 10 in five years? Or if not believing, having it as an impossible to meet goal? He shrugged. “Everyone keeps telling me that. Saying that I don’t have anything to do differently about cultivating for now, only to keep at it. If that’s really the case, then no, we don’t have anything to talk about cultivating-wise.”
“Are you trying to needle me for some secret seeking or excavating technique that will let you leap over the competition in one jump?”
“No. Because those don’t exist.”
“Quite right. So quit worrying about your level. All roads lead to Ruler, so you will eventually catch up to those of your peers that you didn’t manage to pass the first time around. Right now, your ability with cultivating is stellar, you’re punching way above your weight. The benefits of being as talented a Thread-Weaver as you are. Currently, the only way to improve your seeking is by using it, as you’re still not good enough to use a more advanced seeking technique, even were your core fragmented and you were able to. As for your excavating: it’s obviously better than anyone in history who’s only known about cultivating for seven weeks. The benefits of your age and the quality of the private tuition you receive. It has a lot more room for improvement than your seeking, true, but the only way to do so is by rote repetition, so just the same. All this brings us to conclude that the people around you are indeed right and we don’t have anything to talk about cultivating-wise. You can just keep as you’ve been doing, which is above what is required of you to meet your graduation goal.”
Sam scratched his stubble. “Have you taken into account the fact that I’m not cultivating and practicing gathering as much as I did before the test?”
“I have, of course. But you’re still cultivating more than any other of your fellow cadets. Which should be enough for you to start closing the gap in levels while allowing you to focus on what’s really important. Closing the gap in knowledge and skills. And I’m led to understand that’s been progressing just as well.”
“Why the hell are you asking? You already said that it does.”
“I wasn’t asking. You’re just reading questions where there aren’t any. Wonder what personality traits we might gleam from that… Anyway, I really don’t have a reason to interfere with any of those other subjects right now. Lin Jingway’s doing his job admirably. I saw a compilation of your mock spars from the last week and you’ve certainly improved. And according to the reports from the people who watched the whole videos, the training you’re receiving is more than adequate.”
“You’ve actually got people watching hours of me training?”
“Yes. Way down the chain of command, don’t worry.”
“Hm… I really don’t know how to feel about it.”
“Pride? Happiness? Or let me guess, you’re feeling bad because you don’t think someone out there ought to be spending so much time on just watching a video of you training. Well let me tell you something mister, those two have received extra compensation for their efforts—courtesy of my own private purse—which goes much further than their actual efforts. But even if they did not, are you really trying to tell me that the time of some two mooks, is worth more than making sure you will become the best fighter you can be? And in case you don’t know who you are, remember that you are my protege, destined to become one of the strongest Rulers in the Web in the worst-case scenario.”
“If they’re just mooks then how do you know their reports are actually accurate and worthwhile?”
“What? What is this? Why do you care so much about that? Silent Waves, just accept something someone tells you for once without digging too deep into it, will you? If you must know, those two mooks are retired combat instructors. They’re really old so they can’t teach, let alone soldier, anymore, but they don’t have much else to do with their life, so they still volunteer to help us out in a less demanding capacity: reviewing other teachers. Are you satisfied now?”
“What are their names?” Sam asked.
“I’m not even going to dignify answering that with a joke. We’re moving on. So, since your physical progress with spearfighting is clearly evident, are you now finally willing to admit it to yourself?”
“Yeah… I’ve been getting better. I think that by now, Lin doesn’t have to go over some of the basics again at every session. But you know… it still feels mechanical, for lack of a better word. Like I’m learning an alphabet, but I won’t really be able to speak or read the language if you’d ask me.”
“That’s an awful analogy, but I get what you’re saying. You still can’t see yourself actually fighting while understanding what you’re doing and making conscious decisions, let alone winning a fight. That’s understandable. It’ll come to you in due time. Every time your train, your abilities as a fighter become more and more instinctive. Once the process reaches a critical point, your abilities will become instincts like any other. From that point, it is a short way to seeing fighting as any other field of study and having confidence when partaking in it. Now, actually killing your opponents is a whole different story. But you have plenty of time before you need to worry about that.”
Sam snorted. Less than five years? “I thought you said that killing the Epiraks won’t be difficult at all.”
“I said that seeing them as pure evil would be pretty evident. Killing them will still be an ordeal. But like I said, we can leave this whole grim subject of where combat strength naturally leads to a different conversation, very far off in the future. For now, I’m more than satisfied with you finally willing to admit that your combat strength is increasing each and every day. That’s a big step.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t you ever getting tired of acting like you understand me on such a deep level?”
“Acting? Hmm… I don’t know. I think my understanding of who you are as a person, while, obviously and understandably, not as deep as I’d like it to be, is still pretty through. Of course, that is just one other thing on which we will both have to work on and continuously strive to improve as mentor and mentee. Still, I’m willing to bet that I know you better than you know me.”
“Well only one of us can see—what was it that you said?—the other’s ‘unfettered existence.’”
“Full and unfettered, yes. But you are once again trying to gleam from me information that I’m not going to be the one to teach you about. So I’m not even going to bother rejecting your claim that my Threadsight has anything to do with my understanding of you.”
Sam waved him off. “Whatever. You’ll want to move to my actual studying now, no? Some more platitudes coming my way, then?”
“My, but if you are already confident enough to expect praise for your achievements, then you really have come a long in just this short conversation today. You can rest easy, though. You’ve only just started your studies of all things magic, so I don’t really have anything to add that you don’t already know or a comment to give that you weren’t already told. Your rate of progress is great, blah blah blah, you know the drill by this point. Honestly, the only way I can think of interjecting myself into the subject for now is to grill you on whether your reporting to Dan on your independent studying is accurate. But obviously it is, so that’s pointless. We’ll talk more about tracing and patterns and other stuff when there’s a reason to. Like I said, I don’t really have much of a role to play in your education for the time being. I’m just here in a supervisory capacity for now.”
“Alright. So supervision successfully completed, then, I assume? We’ve covered every aspect of my training I can think of. And if you don’t have anything more… relevant to talk to me about, should we just split for today?”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous. We still have a couple of minutes. It’s time for you to pay back for all the goodwill I’ve shown you.”
“Oh no…”
“Oh yes. It’s long overdue, but I believe you owe me a list of your favorite TV shows. Which gets me thinking: we have so much to talk about, maybe I should increase the frequency, if not lengths, of our meetings.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Farris smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to tell you my favorite TV shows as well.”