“If you can’t use magic to skip the stairs sometimes, why start cultivating in the first place?” Laurel joined her friends as they joked over tea, waiting for the rest of the aspiring cultivators to arrive. Theresa’s position as a known magic user and member of the king’s council meant she was a constant source of gossip from the upper districts, and Adam’s commentary had them laughing so hard they could barely breathe when the rest of the students showed up.
With everyone assembled, Laurel announced she had a new exercise they were going to try today. “Cultivation methods can be anything,” she began the day’s lecture. “It's just the intentional movement, control, and refinement of mana. The actual actions you are taking or the way you get there is not important. I met a man once who would cultivate by orating. He would lecture, sing, recite poetry, and he claimed the variation in breath and the concentration it would take to keep on topic while looking internally helped him connect to his mana flows. We hated that guy, but it did work.”
“I’m sorry but if today is singing I think there is an emergency back at the fort that they need me to help out with”. Reynard had taken most of the meditations with good humor, but the man had apparently found some lines he didn’t want to cross.
“Hah! No, we'll save that one for later. I did think we might mix it up and try something more active today.” They retired to the tent the soldiers had commandeered near the beginning of the cultivation lessons. A structure easily constructed by a few soldiers and large enough for command in the field, they could roll up the canvas sides to let in light or the breeze, while keeping the sun off their backs. With as cold as the days were getting, they mostly kept it closed up with some heat crystals tossed in the corners to make it workable.
As Laurel hurried everyone inside, the students were confronted with a confounding array of materials. There were several clocks in various states of functionality arranged next to a tiny cart with a candle-powered steam engine. Around these were a random collection of nuts, bolts, other bits of metal, gears, some jars of glue, and a handful of tools. As they moved further into the tent they saw a table with piles of myriad beads and wires, another that held small blocks of wood and some knives, and still another with paints and a few canvases.
“Pick a craft or project to work on! Try to lose yourself in the work. With luck this will get you close enough to your mana that when I come around and give you a little jolt, you’ll be able to sense it actively.”
“I thought you said fighters didn’t use crafting to cultivate,” Reina asked. The normally reserved soldier looked overwhelmed by the choices.
“Not usually, but there’s no rule against it. And for now we just want you to be able to touch your mana. We can get into what works best for your advancement once you reach that step.” Laurel was heartened by the evidence that the students were paying that close attention to her lectures.
They spread out to investigate the options. Trip went right to the table with the mechanical bits and pieces, as everyone had expected. Ultimately, this exercise was for him, not that Laurel would admit it out loud. Seeing the way the young man’s face lit up as he began poking at the expensive toy cart, she congratulated herself for coming up with this plan. The pilot was the only one of the new students that had subconsciously touched on his mana before, and Laurel was convinced this method would tip him over the edge.
Everyone started on their craft of choice. Even Laurel decided to give the jewelry crafting table a try and let herself get lost in the task while refining the mana flows in her hands for a few minutes. Once they had reached a rhythm, she got up and began her usual routine of slipping some mana into their spirits to stimulate the natural movement. On her second time around the tent she realized Trip was deeper into a trance than she had yet seen him. Holding onto her wise teacher persona by a thread, she resisted punching the air in triumph.
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As gently as she possibly could, she repeated her infusion, stepped back, and focused on her spiritual sight. The webs of mana in Trip’s hands were remarkably fine, though the rest of his body’s flows were rougher or nonexistent. She held perfectly still, fully focused on the spiritual plane as Trip realized for the first time how to actively touch the magic he had been vaguely aware of for years. He lasted for almost a minute, until with a shuddering gasp his focus and control dissipated and he slumped back in his chair.
“Congratulations!” Laurel leaned against the table and studied the young man, who was sweating and panting as if he’d just finished running here from the fort. “You’re officially a novice now”. She pulled a water pitcher and a glass out of her spatial storage and offered it to him. “The most important thing for the next few days is to pace yourself.” Her expression turned serious. “You won’t want to. You’ll think ‘that wasn’t so hard’ or ‘I can keep going’, and then General Ridge will have to send someone to come find me because you’ll have passed out and they can’t wake you up.” Trip’s eyes went wide. “When you drop out of active cultivation, wait at least two hours before you try again.”
Trip nodded and asked the first of the approximately ten thousand questions that she could see ready to burst out of him, “Do I need to set up a mechanical exercise like this every time?”.
“It might be helpful to start, but isn’t necessary. For now, any way you can get yourself to active cultivation is acceptable. You can take the cart with you if you promise not to go overboard.” Trip assured her that he would be the epitome of caution as his eyes and hands drifted back towards the table. Laurel flicked him on the ear. “I swear on this sect Trip, if I hear you are not following my advice I will find a way to make you run laps of the Fort while dragging your plane behind you.”
Trip gulped and very deliberately pushed himself away from the table and turned to see the rest of the tent. At which point the rest of the students erupted into cheers.
“Our boy’s an official wizard!” Reynard shouted while elbowing Reina in the side. “We need to celebrate, drinks on us at the Rifle and Crown!”
The soldiers stood up to leave and then guiltily looked back at Laurel. They were met with a wide grin. “I agree! The first steps down a new path deserve to be celebrated. Lead on.” Practice was set aside and the tent walls tied down as they went off into the city, to a rundown pub that catered to young soldiers. They ordered food and beer and took turns toasting Trip for his accomplishment.
Laurel joined in with the rest of them, but found herself disconnected. Celebrating milestone achievements was a regular event in any sect, this should have felt normal, even comforting. But she kept thinking about the people she had known, and the celebrations they would never have. The loss, and the insane amount of work ahead of her to recover anything close to what they had before, threatened to overwhelm her. Greater masters than her had founded the sect, and a thousand years of cultivators had nurtured it. Who was she to think she could build anything even remotely similar?
Adam settled next to her, gently bumping shoulders to break her out of the spiral. “You’ll be alright. Sometimes it will hurt more than you think you can stand, but you’ll come out the other side. And if you have trouble, you have people around you to lean on.”
“That obvious?” she asked as they watched Reynard bait Trip and Reina into a drinking game.
“Only to others who have lost something precious” Theresa sat down on her other side after joining the conversation. “If raising a family has taught me anything, you can be happy and sad and a million other things at the same time.”
“Thank you.” Laurel said simply. They sat in comfortable silence after that as the afternoon wore on and more people filtered in to enjoy an end-of-the-week drink, and instead got looped into their celebration. Even Ridge and Madam Cursan dropped in around dinner time to express their congratulations.
As the sun set and everyone started eating the roast dinner and thankfully soaking up the ale, Laurel stood up. “I don’t know when I started sitting at the boring old people table but it's time to fix that.” She stood on her chair as everyone in the increasingly crowded pub turned to look at her.
“Reaching beyond ourselves and into the wider cosmos is a feat many dream of, and few ever attempt. To achieve the first steps of one’s spiritual path is an act to be proud of. This world was dealt a viscous blow many years ago by those too cowardly to embrace something beyond themselves. Today we see that despite their efforts, humanity will continue to move forward and push beyond our limits. To Captain Trip may you be the first of many, and may your path lead ever onward!” She lifted her glass and then drained it to the drunken cheers of the crowd.
The rest of the evening was spent in a pleasant haze of alcohol and friendship. Laurel was a strong enough cultivator to mostly ignore the soporific effects, but allowed herself to be carried on the energies of the crowd as she embraced her new people and her new purpose.