Volithur woke to the first rays of sunlight. For a moment, his rebooted mind could not process what had happened, why he lay outside in the grass. Feeling so incredibly tired, weak, and empty.
The recollection sat him upright. He had broken through to the next level. Right? Should he be able to tell one way or the other? Volithur felt almost delirious with exhaustion as he wracked his brain for a test he could run.
His best idea was running inside to ask someone else. Volithur made it three steps inside before the Barracks Clerk snagged his arm. “What do you think you are… Ward Harridan? What were you doing outside?”
“I was cultivating.”
“Under the night sky? Have you been reading romance novels? Those kinds of silly practices don’t… oh! By Tian itself, you actually advanced out there.” The Barracks Clerk shut his hanging jaw. “The timing had nothing to do with the night sky, Ward Harridan. You should not take cultivation pointers from romance novels. Listen to the advice of your instructors instead, or take inspiration from cultivation manuals.”
“I actually did it!” Volithur almost collapsed as he spun about in joy. His smile faded as the morning breakfast delivery arrived. He wanted to sleep quite badly.
“Good day, fellas,” Cook’s Assistant Ava greeted them. She slowed as she got a better look at them. “Ward Harridan! Level two already!”
“Just this morning,” he said.
“Then I offer my most sincere and timely congratulations. I still owe you a slice of cake. Today seems appropriate, if you may.”
In the wan light of early morning, Volithur could not see the pox scars or missing teeth, only the animated gesturing of her silhouette. Her friendly demeanor smoothed over the flaws he saw in his mind so that he felt flattered by the attention. “If you can’t, then I’d be content with a friendly chat,” he said.
“Charmer, you are,” she commented as she carried the pot past them into the dining hall.
The Barracks Clerk eyed him. “Don’t get mixed up with the kitchen staff, Ward Harridan.”
“I’m not… it’s not like that.”
“Good. It’s better for you if it isn’t. The head cook is a petty noble and can be a bit… protective… of the women on his staff. Should the two of you quarrel, it’s hard to say if ward status or noble ancestry would hold more weight with the Castellan.”
“The Castellan!”
“Yes,” the Barracks Clerk elaborated, “the cooks fall under the authority of the Castellan, so any dispute involving the head cook would of course be escalated to that office.”
Remembering his last interaction with the Castellan, Volithur hunched his shoulders. “Is a piece of cake really such a big deal?”
“Do you think that girl is offering baked goods for the sake of friendship? She’s got her eyes set on marrying above her station.”
Volilthur couldn’t see how he would be considered above a cook’s assistant in the hierarchy, but for the moment he had a more pressing question. “Do I get a day off from training for advancing?”
The Barracks Clerk laughed so hard he almost fell to the floor. “Sure you can, just advance three more levels and you can have your day off.”
Volithur left to find breakfast before more fun could be made at his expense. He filled a bowl and sat across from Thassily, who was scowling at his own meal. “Why can’t there be some variety to the food? Rice porridge for breakfast every day. Bread for lunch every day. Some kind of stew for dinner every day. I’m tired of it, Harridan.”
“I’m tired, too,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Thassily said. “Hey, did you reach level two? How did you get ahead of me so fast? I thought you weren’t any good at cultivation.”
“You’ve just got to lie, cheat, and steal your way to the top.” His own words didn’t register.
“Lie, cheat, and steal… Harridan, uh, I don’t think you should joke around like that.”
Volithur’s eyes went wide. “Oh, yeah, no, I was joking. Just a saying from back home.”
“Good, good, good.” Thassily glanced around at the other soldiers before leaning close. “You’re my best friend here, Harridan, but if you are up to any ‘schemes’, I don’t want to know about them. Please don’t try bringing me in on anything shady.”
Volithur pitched his voice low. “Why do you think I’m doing shady things?”
Thassily just hook his head. “Anyway, congratulations on advancing.”
“Hold on, Thassily, do I act shady? Does everyone around here think I’m up to something?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Thassily shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I… remember more of the meeting with the Lord General than I let on the last time we talked about it.”
Volithur’s blood ran cold. Thassily knew he had never been promised a position in the Lord General’s retinue. Before he could begin to panic, Thassily shrugged and continued. “I’ll never say a word. Until the day I die, I’ll tell everyone I was too nervous and barely remember it. But I know you’re taking risks to get ahead, Harridan. I don’t want in on that action.”
Before he could formulate a response, the Sergeant began yelling the warning to get outside for their morning exercises. Volithur joined in the mass exodus, only briefly stopping when the Sergeant called his name, looked him over, and nodded in approval.
Then began a long day. Exercising and fighting drew down his already low energy levels. Then in his private lesson with the Sergeant he was given a cultivation manual on domain usage – despite the Marshal’s direction not to use his domain yet – and asked to read the entire thing. There were a lot of visualization exercises and methods of improving tactile sensitivity, but the general idea of a domain was to send a flood of cosmic energy out of the soul aperture connecting to the external world, then manipulate it to form tendrils that could impart kinetic force to objects.
When Ava arrived as his lesson was wrapping up, she presented him with the smallest chunk of cake he had ever seen, which had obviously been stolen in haste and transported in secrecy. Volithur thanked her profusely, aware that her effort probably could earn her some sort of punishment if she was caught. The cake wasn’t anything near as delicious as the donuts that had been sold down the street from his home in his previous life, but it contained plenty of sugar and his sleep-deprived body wanted more than the three bites he received.
Ava regaled him with tales of her dead mother’s culinary delights. Apparently, she had many of the recipes memorized and thought she knew how to substitute local ingredients for those that couldn’t be found in the area. She alluded several times to opening her own bakery if she could get out of service somehow.
When Ava returned to the kitchens, Volithur ate his bread and dragged himself to the classroom. For once, he was glad to be ignored as he wanted nothing more than to survive the next few hours before he could sleep.
“Congratulations, Ward Harridan,” Hazen greeted him.
“What? Oh, yeah, the advancement.” Volithur yawned. “I was up all night.”
“Just don’t grow complacent. Children are expected to reach level two before twelve years of age. I speak of commoner children.”
Volithur’s only response was a wordless grunt. He had reached level two in a little over three months. He might be significantly behind people his age, but he had made excellent progress for someone with no natural talent.
His exhausted state let him notice only a few things in class that day. First, there was a new student in the room, a wiry fellow with hard eyes who sat at the very front. From the intense glow, he was a level six like the Marshal. Based on the deference shown to him by not only the Head Scribe, but the other family members, he was someone important.
The other thing that managed to make an impression on him was the return of Khana. She no longer sat towards the front. Instead, she stiffly walked herself up to the transition point between the nobles and the commoners. Her status within the household had quite obviously dropped. Volithur sympathized with her melancholic mood. Being disinherited and sent to the Evergreen Institute would be nearly as big a hit to her as being dragged into slavery in all but name had been to him. He did take the opportunity to get a sense of Khana’s cultivation. Her soul was only a level four.
Otherwise, the class went by in a haze. If the Head Scribe noticed Volithur drifting in and out of sleep, he didn’t remark on it. No doubt catering to their visitor took priority.
At the end of class, Volithur sagged in relief that he would finally be able to sleep. He would take a nap right there in the classroom if he thought he wouldn’t be punished for it. Yet as he emerged into the library, he found his path obstructed by the form of Khana.
It took a moment for Volithur’s training to kick in. He bowed deeply. “Master Khana.”
“Ward Harridan.”
When he moved to sidestep her, she blocked his way once more.
“Do you require assistance, Master Khana?”
Khana folded her arms and glared at the floor. “I hardly think it’s necessary to call me ‘master’ any longer, Ward Harridan. In the future your status will far exceed my own.”
“What do you want from me?” Perhaps that was blunter than appropriate, but he was tired.
“I’m certain all the servants have spread the gossip already. I am to be disinherited. My uncle has granted me a grace period until I reach my majority.” Khana straightened her back in a fragile display of pride. “They may have stopped supplying me with cultivation resources, but I am determined to make the most of my time before they send me away. Ward Harridan, I implore you to tutor me in the subject of calculations.”
“Tutor you?” Volithur stared at her. He wasn’t sure how she expected that to work when someone of his status wasn’t supposed to spend time with someone of her… well, come to think of it, she didn’t have that status any longer. Which begged the obvious question: what was in it for him?
“Yes. My uncle will fund two years of training at the Evergreen Institute for me. My future prospects will depend on my academic performance there. Calculations are my weakest subject, so I must improve in that area.”
“Couldn’t the Head Scribe tutor you better than me?”
Khana sniffed. “Why would he?”
Volithur let the obvious question slip out. “Why would I do it? I am not very talented, so I need to spend as much of my free time in cultivation as possible.”
“I can trade lessons with you. I have much knowledge of literature and poetry, Ward Harridan.”
“With regret, Master Khana, I have no need to know those things.”
“Mental training. I can help you develop your mental voice.”
Volithur hesitated. “Isn’t that what the last hour of class does?”
“That is mostly training the mental ear. You cannot train your voice in a group setting.” Khana sensed his interest and pushed her advantage. “I promise to trade you equal instruction time. Every noble you ever met has been tutored on their mental voice from a young age. It will be of great benefit to you once you are in the Lord General’s retinue. No one else will offer you such training, Ward Harridan. Please.”
Volithur sighed. “Fine. But not today. I’m tired.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Yes. Fine.”