The next morning, Gust felt weaker than ever. Part of it was the lack of mana in his body, another part the lack of food.

But most of all, he felt his inability to do anything more than send Philo away. He couldn’t protect her, nor even her brother, despite the promise he made. If the Masters decided to kill their newest student when they realized his sister was gone, there was nothing Gust could do to stop them.

He could barely even protect himself, and that was through lies, not strength.

Gust headed to work feeling like there was a cloud hanging over his head. He’d advanced his cultivation state more quickly than anyone could have imagined, but he ruined two lives in the process. Gust didn’t want to be the kind of mage that took advantage of mortals, nor the kind of person whose heedless actions hurt those around him.

It was this idea that scared him about using the new maroon flame he’d summoned from his soul. After thinking about it, Gust was certain he could use the flame to increase his cultivation exponentially. All he’d burned was a rock and a bear, and it was enough to push him into the second level of Pathway Establishment, and fill his soul with mana all over again.

But the flame consumed everything. It broke its fuel down into a strange type of mana, which Gust purified by cycling through his core. If he hadn’t cultivated the new mana and stifled the flames, would they spread forever? How would anyone else fight them if they couldn’t even see them?

And what would happen if he used this new power on one of the Masters?

Before he could give that much through, Gust entered the school’s walls and was soon waylaid by a familiar, wily face. Master Ephraim pulled him aside. He spoke softly, but in a chiding tone. “Considering what you’ve been through recently, taking a day off is understandable, but you should do it the right way, Augustus.”

“Sorry. I ,uh, was just sore. Needed to recuperate. How’s Myles?” he asked quickly, hoping to move away from what he did yesterday.

“He will live and be far better off with us than in the forest alone. As for you, I’ll be deducting three hundred merits.”

Gust’s eyes bulged and Ephraim glanced at the dark eye before Gust controlled himself. “Three hundred? I thought days off cost a hundred fifty!”

“They do, when you purchase them,” he said coldly. His voice lowered, “I want to help you, Augustus, but we do have rules. If your master might provide me with something of value, those rules might bend, but until then…” he spread his hands. “Oh, and it seems you don’t have enough merits…”

Gust grimaced and pulled some goldenseal out of his bag. He had a few pounds which Myles picked while his sister cultivated. The Master’s eyes widened slightly, and he led Gust into his home, where the Demon poured forth a mound of white flowers and green leaves.

“I should hope you left some to regrow,” the Master commented, impressed. “A patch which might yield this amount should be maintained.” He proceeded to weigh the herbs with a smile, and he tossed a bag of mana gems into Gust’s lap. “I’ll round up and call it three thousand merits! That means sixty mana gems. I know you’ve been moving quickly, but I would urge you against using them for cultivation. Spend them on something useful and spend some time on your current abilities before continuing to progress.”

Gust bowed his head. “I’ll take that advice to heart, Master. Can I head to work, now? I’m sure Locke’s already pissed about working alone yesterday.” After a quiet moment, the young man raised his head and saw Ephraim grinning at him.

“You don’t think we’d waste a second level Pathway Establishment cultivator on one of the lowest jobs in the school, do you? We may as well have you standing guard with Jonas all day! No, Augustus, it is time you move on.”

“Move on? But it’s only been a few weeks!” Gust thought of how much of that time had been spent in quiet labor, and how he’d only started enjoying his days rather recently, as he and Locke became better friends.

“I would not have you wasting your days on a task which does not help you grow. Cooking and cleaning belongs to the first level students, but now you can begin to get involved with the school’s core functions. Since you have a friend on the inside,” he grinned, “I can even make sure you get assigned a job that benefits you. So! What would you like to do? We have some farms in the north. Fields filled with magical herbs which might help your cultivation. No? Then how about the treasury? Its artifacts make it the most potent cultivation room in the school. But I suppose it lacks the sword mana your Master prefers. What do you think?”

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Gust blinked a few times and tried to find an answer but failed. He felt like he’d been following orders almost the entire time he’d been in this world. He worked where the Master told him to work, cultivated in the way Saith told him to cultivate, ate what he was given, and followed directions.

Now, he had a few thousand merits and dozens of mana gems, but all he could think to do was ask Saith how he should spend it all. What did he want to do?

“I don’t know,” he answered eventually.

“Ah. Well… in that case I’ll allow you to take the day to figure it out. But only one day, Augustus. If you do not know what you want, I’ll just find a way to make use of you.”

There was something in the man’s tone which made Gust very unwilling to be put to use. Before leaving, he asked, “What about Locke? He’s back to working alone?”

“Of course not! We have a new honorary student to take your place. As soon as he is able, that is.”

***

“Hey!” Gust called out as he reached the courtyard and found Locke mopping lazily.

The blonde mage didn’t look up from his work as he spoke. “Don’t you have something better to do?”

Gust shrugged and said, “Not really,” as he walked over to an empty vat. He reached down to grab it and Locke quickly slammed the mop’s head down on the clay vessel.

“I’ll take care of that myself,” the boy snapped. “Go pick some herbs or use one of the Swordsman’s secret methods to open another damn meridian! Keep every advantage to yourself, just like the rest of them…”

“Keep it to myself? Locke, I let you cultivate near my coin a bunch of times!”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “I should have realized sooner you were just throwing me a bone. Using me to learn whatever you needed and offering as little as possible in return. Well, now you’ve passed right over me. Happy? I’ll be cleaning this place for another few years, while you become the Masters’ new favorite.”

Gust’s fists clenched as he thought of his destructive maroon flame. “This isn’t the kind of advantage I can share with someone, Locke. I don’t even fully understand it.”

“Oh, you don’t understand it, but you know you can’t share it? Sounds like bull shit to me.” Before Gust could say any more, Locke held up a hand. “Just save it. Let me go back to how life was a few weeks ago, before a Demon tricked me into thinking he was my friend.”

As he absorbed those words, Gust grew angry. A part of him wanted to set the courtyard on fire and let Locke see if he can get anything useful out of the flames, but he knew better. It might show Locke why he was wrong, but it would also let the Masters know too much. The only person Gust felt like he could truly trust was Saith.

And that was where he headed next.

Once he was in Saith’s room, Gust pressed his hand against the flat of the massive sword’s blade. The metal was wavy, as if it had been folded and beaten flat too many times, and slick. After a moment, Gust’s hand sunk in, and he walked into the blade.

Saith’s library still filled him with awe. The extravagant chandeliers, the walls covered in books, and the desks and pedestals holding artifacts all served to give the room an air of mystery and power. Gust couldn’t even open his mana sense, here; it was like staring into the sun.

A door creaked open behind Gust, and Saith walked out lazily with a book in one hand. His eyes didn’t even leave the page. “What did I tell you, boy?”

Suddenly, he stopped in place and his eyes snapped up to look at Gust’s abdomen. The boy groaned as he felt a gigantic weight pressing against his shoulders. Gust was forced to his knees, and he growled, “Why do you people keep doing that?”

Saith took a knee next to Gust and gave him a firm look. He spoke slowly. “Apologies for the rough treatment, but I had to know. Why are you back so soon?”

“Because I reached the second level of Pathw-”

“The fourth stage of qi condensation, you mean,” Saith grumbled. “And I know that, but what I want to know is how?”

The weight disappeared and Gust gritted his teeth. Did all that vocabulary bullshit really matter? To him, they were just words. He nodded anyway, just wanting to move on. “Something happened. I found this girl who can see mana. With her eyes. All the time. She helped me find some herbs for a mission and her brother got attacked by a bear. It nearly killed me.”

Saith’s eyes were closed now, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “Qi, Augustus, qi. I have heard of such abilities, but it is strange to find one here. Go on.”

“Ah, right. Qi,” he tried to avoid rolling his eyes. “Well, I don’t know if you heard about the bear that tried to eat me, but that’s pretty important too.” Saith shot him a cold look and Gust moved on quickly. “It came pretty close, you know? The thing’s teeth were this close to my face,” he held his hand up in demonstration. “I fought, but when I ran out of mana… I panicked. There wasn’t anything around, so I reached… inside myself. Some kind of maroon fire shot out of my eye.”

Saith’s breathing slowed and he tilted his head as he stared into Gust’s dark eye.

“It… burned through the bear in less than a minute and started spreading over the ground. Anything I used to put the fire out only made it bigger. Even solid stone! It was only when I realized it was the same color as my core that I tried cultivating.”

As the explanation went on, Saith focused intensely. His grey eyes bored holes through Gust’s skull and his qi sense delicately probed Gust’s soul as he analyzed the information. There was only one thing that fire could be, and the fear that shot through his heart made Saith consider some very desperate alternatives.