Days passed with little to differentiate between them. These people used a strange eleven-day week, whose days were numbered instead of named. The only exception was the eleventh, known as Shen after the Patron with the golden eyes. Shen was the closest thing students had to a ‘day off,’ but instead of relaxing, they were supposed to spend it cultivating or studying.

No one explained any of these details to him, Gust had to notice it all for himself.

This was a trend Gust caught onto quickly. Outside of the weekly class, which he had yet to attend, there was very little in the way of guidance. Every member of the school had their own home tucked into the forest. They had their own jobs, their own paths, and even their own secrets.

The school provided some basic guidance, in the forms of path manuals and spell books, but after that the students were on their own. If a student wasn’t diligent in his cultivation, there was no one pushing or prodding them.

They were simply ignored in favor of the more dedicated pupils.

In the mornings and afternoons, Gust tried to cultivate and avoid thinking of the home he could not return to. There was something about sitting in complete silence, however, which always made his mind wander before he could even begin.

The basic cultivation manual gave its reader three key areas to focus on. Matching the posture and breathing rhythm were the first two, and while they sounded simple, they were far from it.

Gust’s muscles grew stiff and ached from staying in the same position for so long. His lungs felt like two balloons that had been blown nearly to bursting, then deflated, over and over. The closer he was to the specific breathing pattern detailed in the book, the more difficult it became.

Those were the real, physical parts of the process. The mental aspect was what he found most difficult. One was supposed to clear their mind to assume a meditative state, but Gust kept picturing himself back at home playing video games or reading a book that wasn’t about cultivation.

While those thoughts were momentarily entertaining, they only made the boredom worse once Gust opened his eyes.

Every few minutes, despite his attempts to cultivate, Gust’s mind wandered. Whether he sat inside, outside, on a soft or hard surface, it didn’t matter.

On one such morning, Gust sighed and relaxed his shoulders as he listened to the birds. There were no clocks around, so Gust found his sleep patterns slowly syncing up with the rising and falling sun. Every morning, as it rose, the birds woke him up, but Gust didn’t mind. It was better than an alarm clock.

His cultivation had been going terribly slowly and Gust wanted to find ways to clear his mind. As he looked over the yard surrounding his one-room home, Gust noticed the blemishes on his lawn. Twigs, rocks, and such debris from the surrounding forest slowly piled up day after day.

Gust wasn’t the type of person to clean his room. Instead, he avoided making messes in the first place. While that kept his bedroom tidy, he was always reluctant to do the less obvious chores, like cleaning his sheets or vacuuming his rug.

So, as he walked around his yard picking up stones, Augustus thought of his mother and how ironically proud she would be of him in that moment. He couldn’t help but smile.

The rocks and twigs piled up on the edge of Gust’s cleared living area, where the grass gave way to roots and leaves. Sometimes, Gust would pick up a rock that fit particularly well in the palm of his hand and he felt the urge to throw it as hard as he could into the forest, seeing if he could hit some chosen target.

The rocks would crash through thin branches, knocking off loose leaves and splintering bark before they tumbled to a stop. Gust watched as one of them rolled and crumpled his eyebrows together for a minute.

He had an idea.

Within moments, Gust found a good, small depression in the forest floor and cleared a circle a few feet in diameter. Then, he sat next to his pile of rocks and twigs, idly tossing them toward that open spot of earth.

Over time, he even developed a points system for this new game. Landing on the edge of the clearing was worth one point. Within it was worth two, and the large leaf Gust placed in the center was worth three points. He tossed rocks in groups of five, trying to rack up as many points as he could.

Whenever he grew bored while cultivating, Gust would take a break and play the one game he had in this place. Even during the day, he used it to distract his mind.

The work carrying vats of water was getting a little easier as Gust’s muscles grew used to it. He copied the grip he saw other disciples use, followed similar paths when they seemed shorter than his. Slowly, his muscles and methods adapted to make the job tolerable.

During one trip, while Gust was filling his vat, he heard several sets of feet walking up behind him. Nothing like it had happened before, so he assumed there was just a lot of people needing water at the same time.

Gust felt strangely cold as the group stopped to watch him. His heart raced and felt tight, but he filled his vat as if he didn’t notice them.

When he rose and looked at the group, he noticed that none of them were holding anything. There were three boys and two girls, only one of whom he recognized. Her name was Lyth and she had a plain, severe face that always seemed to be measuring someone up.

The one in front regarded Gust with a cold, curious expression. He was one of the palest mages Gust had seen so far, blonde, thin, and handsome despite his sunken eyes. A purple sash with one tassel wrapped around darker purple robes and there was a splotchy green design around his wide cuffs.

“I don’t see anything interesting about this one. What about you Levi?” he asked in a smooth voice.

This other boy had curly black hair, and a large, stocky build with light brown skin and hazel eyes. “Nothing at all. Maybe it’s true, what they say… that the cultivation we’re born with is none other than our immortal soul. What do you call a man without a soul, Isaac?”

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The boy grinned. “A Demon. The coin, Demon. Give it to me.” He spoke with assumed authority and stuck out his hand, waiting. One eyebrow slowly rose as he watched Gust.

The group standing behind this boy all wore green sashes. After a few days of struggling with water vats while everyone else made it look easy, Gust knew any one of them would be too strong for him, never mind the purple-sashed Isaac.

In spite of all this, the boy’s arrogance filled Gust with contempt. “I can’t do that. It was left to me, and I think I’ll keep it.”

The coin didn’t seem useful as anything but an interesting token, but it began to represent more than just his father. It was home.

Isaac, scowled. “I could have just taken it, you know. I chose to give you the option.”

Gust made a shocked face. “Oh, is that right? Why, thank you for not just stealing from a fellow student! It’s not like the Masters would hold that against you, or anything,” he added with heavy sarcasm. He hadn’t actually seen anything about rules but had to assume they existed.

Isaac pursed his lips and tilted his head back and forth. He held up one finger. “That’s a matter of some debate, actually. I, myself, think the prosperity of our school is paramount. To serve the Masters as greatly as possible is my only goal,” he grinned, “as it should be yours. And in that case, shouldn’t you forfeit such an artifact to someone who would make better use of it?”

Isaac started taking slow, menacing steps forward. He was of a similar size as Gust, though an inch or two taller. When the rest of the group stayed behind, Gust let out a relieved breath. Isaac alone would be hard enough to deal with, but a clay vat smashed over his head should do the trick. Maybe that would scare the rest of them off.

Before Gust could even move, Isaac’s body became a blur. He took a few quick steps and slammed a palm just below Gust’s ribcage. The blow carried enough force to lift him off his feet and deposit him in several inches of water.

His glasses flew off. The wind was knocked out of him, and it left a strangely hollow pain in his abdomen. Gust felt the mana he’d been gathering over the past several days disperse. He crouched in the river trying to suck in a breath, but it was even more difficult than cultivating.

“The coin.” A voice came from the edge of the water. Isaac stood there with his hand outstretched, just like before. He didn’t want to get his boots wet, apparently. Gust shook his head and coughed.

With an abrupt growl, the boy closed his hand around empty air and pulled it toward him.

An unseen force seemed to close around Gust’s body and toss him forward. He tumbled through the water several times, bruising himself on the rocky shore before landing at Isaac’s feet.

“That’s better,” the blonde boy said as he bent down to check Gust’s pockets.

While he thought his arm was broken, Gust was more concerned with keeping his face out of the water. His nose was bleeding, as were a dozen other places, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if his arm wasn’t the only broken bone.

“Ah! There we go.” Isaac rose to hit feet and tossed the coin into the air, then snatched it. “I’ll figure out how to bind it to myself eventually. Cheers, Demon. Be glad we let a soulless wretch like yourself live.”

Then he slipped the coin into his pocket and strolled away without a care in the world. The pack of four followed along, with Lyth in the back. She turned and smirked at the boy in the water until Isaac stopped suddenly.

“Wha-? Where’d it go?” He shuffled through his pockets for a minute, then his blurry form stomped back over to confront the man he had just robbed.

“What did you do!” He shouted. Just when Isaac had thought he could use the coin to help his parents, it disappeared from his grasp.

Gust was on all fours, coughing and counting his bruises. The pain in his arm was a dislocation, luckily, and not a broken bone. “Not a damn thing.” He fell backwards onto his ass and reached his good hand into the pocket he where always found the coin. “Oh, is this what you were looking for?” He wiped away a trail of blood that started in his left nostril and ended somewhere under his chin.

Isaac outstretched his hand, and the strange force ripped the coin away. He looked over at Gust and then at the coin. He turned around and walked away, keeping the coin held up in front of his face the entire time.

When it disappeared yet again, he howled with anger. The other boys tried to hide their amusement and the girl Gust didn’t recognize tried to comfort Isaac, but he pulled free from her grasp.

“What the fuck is this? Why does that keep happening?”

Gust shook his head. “Shouldn’t you know how this world works better than I do? Haven’t even been here a week.” He spat out a bit of blood. “The coin’s a part of me, or something like that. It’ll always come back. Because it’s mine.” With that, Gust rose to his feet and looked into Isaac’s eyes.

Isaac gritted his teeth and looked back at his friends, when he happened to see a girl trotting in their direction with a pair of vats. He shook his head and walked toward Gust. “When I figure out how, I’m coming back to take that from you.” He leaned in and whispered, “Or your corpse.”

When the girl named Keziah saw the crowd she approached, she slowed to a walk and scanned her surroundings. The group didn’t seem to have any animosity towards her, but with Isaac and his friends, one could never tell.

Isaac grinned and gave her a slight nod as they passed each other. He muttered, “Junior sister.”

Keziah returned with a dry, “Senior brother.” She took shallow breaths and hoped they wouldn’t harass her. She didn’t need her mana sense to know that any one of them was as powerful as she was.

When they were gone, she walked over to the water and filled her vats. Upstream from the bleeding boy. She didn’t say anything to him. Didn’t want to get involved.

“Thank you,” he said, out of nowhere.

She ignored him at first. When the buckets were full and she stood up, she let herself get a good look at him. The outsider was about the same height as her, with squinted teal eyes, and slick bronze-colored hair that stuck to his head, just as his robes clung to his body. He wasn’t large, nor small. Neither was he particularly handsome, nor ugly.

“I didn’t do you any favors. Just needed some water.” After a few seconds, she added, “If you give them what they want, they’ll leave you alone. It’s what this place is like. The strong prey on the weak and the Masters don’t care because they need strong disciples. The rest of us are only here to serve them,” she added bitterly.

She was a bit blurry, but Gust recognized the girl from other days when they passed each other. One arm hung painfully limp while he struggled to his feet. Gust’s eyes were scanning the riverbank. He began to panic as he couldn’t find his glasses, but he didn’t let it show. “How are we supposed to be strong if we don’t stand up to them?” he asked, frustration leaking into his voice.

“How are we supposed to be strong when we’re dead?” She snapped back. Her eyes were cold. “Because I have seen them kill, or even turn other students into their slaves. They’ve learned how far they can go without getting in too much trouble.”

“Maybe if we stick together, they’ll think twice. Talk to Theo, maybe you can come work with me and Locke.”

Keziah looked at him and snorted. “By my count, we’d still be short two people, and that’s not even considering their paths or levels. Open some meridians, then we’ll talk. Maybe.” With that, she walked away and soon picked up her pace to a run.

Gust was left alone and disappointed. After getting his ass kicked, he didn’t see many options: either he had to make friends, or he needed to unmake his enemies. But before he could do that, he would need to set his injured arm.

His glasses, however, were lost forever. Gust wouldn’t walk into walls, or have trouble recognizing people, as long as they were no more than a dozen feet away, but he knew the huge inconvenience his poor vision was about to become.

The trees became blurry bursts of green on long, gray, undefined sticks. He couldn’t see the stones beneath his feet, nor the blades of grass; they all just blended together.

A quick, albeit painful trip to the chore house resulted in Theo taking care of Gust’s arm while he sat in silence. The school had a medical ward, but Theo knew what to do. Soon, Gust returned to his work.

Neither Theo nor Locke asked a single question upon seeing Gust bloodied. Fights were common among students, and everyone knew Gust’s time would come eventually.

As he slowly realized how little help he would get, Gust knew there was only one thing he could do to solve all his problems.

And it was terribly boring.