“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I questioned, never moving from my stance.
“It looks like you’re trying to perform some sort of demon-summoning ritual.”
I stared at Scyla, my eyes dead, until she finally raised her hands in defeat.
“What?” She questioned.
“It’s stretching. All I’m doing is stretching.”
“Well, a human body shouldn’t be able to move like that,” Scyla said, her nose wrinkling.
“Well, I once had a teacher that taught me the importance of not just strengthening my body but also working on all its facets. That includes flexibility.”
“Uh-huh.” Scyla looked as if she doubted me but shrugged after a moment. “So, why exactly are you just starting now?”
“I do this every day. I just wanted to get some fresh air today.” I said.
I was currently mid crane stance, holding it as I let my breath slowly recede between my lips, enjoying the sun. I usually did my morning routine from the comforts of my rather large room, but with thoughts clouding my mind, I’d instead opted to spend some time on the gross knoll next to the lodge’s outdoor terrace.
“So, why the need for fresh air?”
She was clearly probing, aware something was bothering me.
“If you join me, maybe I’ll talk,” I said, aware she wouldn’t relent if she could smell blood in the water.
“You drive a hard bargain.” Scyla sighed, begrudgingly trudging over to stand next to me. “So, I just-”
“Hold the pose I do,” I answered.
Grunting, Scyla attempted to copy my pose, thankfully wearing the looser fitting style of clothes from the desert region.
“Gods above, why do you put yourself through this?” Scyla groaned, her legs shaking as she wobbled about, doing her best to hold her balance.
“Because it’s good for you. Plus, this is just the warm-up.”
“It’s what?”
Smirking, I continued my routine, switching stances and poses, each a little more difficult to hold than the last. Halfway through, Scyla collapsed, huffing as she stared daggers at me, but I continued unflinching. Reaching the end of my stretches, the final stance a perfect high-kick held for five minutes, I wiped the sweat from my brow, content with the warmth I felt from my muscles after being stretched out.
“Are you done now?” Scyla raised an eyebrow at me, seated comfortably in the grass with her legs crossed.
“Yeah.” I nodded before joining her on the grass, taking in the warm morning rays. “So, what is it that brings you here?”
“I was trying to swing through to ask you if you wanted to get dinner tonight, but the front desk person told me I could find you here instead.”
“Well, he wasn’t wrong.” I nodded.
“Yeah, well, not sure I want to ask you after putting me through that.”
“Oh, you’re fine.” I laughed.
“Now, no more beating around the bush.” Scyla flicked my thigh, narrowing her eyes at me. “I can tell you’re trying to avoid the subject of what’s on your mind. Talk.”
“I don’t like that you know me that well,” I grumbled, but I finally relented. “It’s… well, it’s something one of my students said.”
“Oh?” That caught Scyla’s curiosity in an instant. “You don’t usually tell me anything regarding them.”
“Yeah, because I know you. You can’t help being you.”
“So the fact that you’re even saying anything to me-”
“I want your input.”
“My input?” Scyla raised her eyebrows at me. “I’m not exactly a teacher. Not even sure I’d say I’m that good with kids.”
“Not what I was getting at.” I shook my head. “You know how Akadia, this academy, is part of an agreement, right?”
“Well, obviously. Goodwill, the olive branch, take your pick for what analogy you prefer.”
“Yeah.” I scratched my forehead, still thinking about it. “What if it didn’t work?”
“Meaning?”
“One of my kids. When talking to them, he let something slip. He said a lot was on his mind, so he was more than likely overthinking it, but….”
“But you’re not certain.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“So that’s where I come in. How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I didn’t,” I said honestly. “I was really just trying to think it through myself, but when life gives you lemons-”
“Lemonade, yeah. So, what exactly did this kid say?”
“Lumber,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Lumber?”
“Yeah, lumber. Specifically, that lumber orders were up.”
“That’s a strange thing to be worried over,” Scyla said, the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes betraying that her mind was likely already working through the possible meanings.
“I know. But, I also have a limited scope of view. I don’t have a finger to the country’s pulse like you. I hear the lumber orders are up, and all that comes to mind is that maybe there is some sort of surge of construction planned up north.”
“Is it your normal paranoia that has you worried about such an innocuous thing?”
“Something like that,” I said with a sigh, recalling the cryptic warning of the strange old man and the expression on Elios’ face when he’d dropped the tidbit of information.
“Well, if you want my opinion.” Scyla frowned as she thought about it. “Nothing specifically jumps out at me. I mean, at most, it might be the Nochesuki stuff.”
“Nochesuki stuff?” I questioned, unsure of what she meant.
“Oh, you hadn’t heard?”
“No, heard what?”
“It’s really nothing unusual. Nochesuki, or the officially recognized branch of their organization, has been causing a bit of a ruckus here and there, real uppity. It’s usually the telltale sign that the… discretionary arm of their group will be stirring up a bit of trouble. It’s happened plenty in the past, so it could simply be that in preparation, orders were placed on things like lumber in case reconstruction efforts needed to be made at any point.”
“Hmm.” I frowned as I thought about it. It did make sense, but something about it seemed unsatisfactory like an answer thought up to brush aside one’s ignorance.
“I know it probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but just because something isn’t exactly routine doesn’t mean something more significant is at play. There has been no unusual military mobilization, so at least to me, it doesn’t sound like signs of impending unrest. But, if you want, I can keep an ear to the ground and see if maybe there is more than meets the eye.”
“Thanks.” I gratefully bowed my head to her in appreciation.
“Now, as for tonight…?”
“I’d love to,” I said with a weak smile before shaking my head. “But unfortunately, I can’t.”
“You can’t?” Scyla looked at me incredulously. “That’s new. When are you ever preoccupied?”
“I am busy at times,” I said defensively. “Sometimes I’m grading homework, or buying supplies for class, or-”
“I meant with things not school related. Unless this is also school related.”
“It’s not.” I shook my head. “Technically.”
“Technically?”
“I have to keep some secrets, or else I lose all my sense of mystery.”
“Hah, mysterious, my ass.” Scyla laughed out loud. “Fine, well, I guess I’ll have to accept that. A different day than?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” I gave her a smile that I hoped affirmed my desire to go along with her plan.
“Guess that works.” Scyla pouted before shrugging. “If that’s the case, I will be taking my leave. I’m all sticky, and I’m sure I have grass stains on these pants now.”
“Oh no, how will you pay for getting them cleaned. You who is clearly living paycheck to paycheck.”
Scyla rolled her eyes at my teasing, reaching over and giving my hand a quick squeeze before standing up.
“Have a good day Ro- Koor.”
“You as well, Scyla.”
Watching her leave, I reclined fully into the grass, staring at the blue sky overhead, puffy white clouds lazily drifting by.
“If only every day could be like this.” I sighed aloud.
I had the day off. With no classes, I had all the time in the world to simply relax.
Or I almost did. At the end of the school day, I would attend the first extra lessons I had scheduled for Elios.
My mind drifted to thoughts of the boy I’d be offering extra lessons, the picturesque appearance of a storybook hero.
And yet, the boy had roughly the same magical talent as a blade of grass.
I smiled, not because I enjoyed the boy’s frustrations, but in a way, I’d found a kindred spirit. I could still recall being his age, frustrated at my lack of magical prowess. Unlike me, though, Elios wasn’t magically incompatible due to some magical meddling of a long-forgotten sage.
He just really sucked at magic.
Also, unlike me, the boy had an upstanding moral code that I felt envious of, righteous in places where I would have simply shrugged it off. I wasn’t a bad person, per se. In fact, I’d done a lot of good, in my opinion, but much of it had been coincidental. Bad people or things had been put in my way; the only way forward had been to overcome them.
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But Elios? That boy had a heart of gold that I never expected to find in an academy filled with the children of nobles and the most affluent elites.
Of course, Elios barely met the qualification, more by technicality alone. He was ‘rich’ but not by the standards of even the poorest of merchant children here. An agreement had gotten him here. Otherwise, much like me, he was a northern boy trying his best to find his way in the world.
Except unlike me, Elios seemed determined to find his way in the world based on helping others carve a place for themselves in an uncaring, apathetic world.
Really, he was the perfect role model, the very definition of what ‘nobility’ should be like.
It was just a shame he lacked the strength of resources or personal power to back it up.
Well, not if I can help it. I thought to myself. I had no expectations that even with my personal assistance that the boy would become some mage of famous renown. At best, the boy might gain the abilities needed to reinforce his family’s position within the kingdom, ensuring other nobles or wealthy merchants couldn’t simply walk over them without at least thinking twice about it.
But that’s not the difficult question.
The difficult question was how?
How was I supposed to help the boy overcome his own limitations?
While I’d done so myself, it was only because I’d walked the path of a Sage. While it was theoretically possible for anyone, I wasn’t confident I would be the best person to help guide anyone down that road.
Plus, I wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea in the first place. Sages were taboo, even if they were little more than a myth to even the most astute historian.
So, how?
“That’s the golden question,” I muttered as I stared at the sun overhead.
That’s the golden question, indeed.
-------------------------
“Alright, Elios, happy to see you came.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” The boy said cheerfully, his perfect white smile nearly blinding.
“Right. Well, before we start, I want you to put this on.”
“What is it?” The boy asked, curious as I handed him what looked like a golden finger brace.
“It’s a little creation of mine.”
“What… what does it do?”
“I noticed that you seem to have issues with mana control, as noted by our first day of class when you suffered mana rebound repeatedly.”
Embarrassed, the boy glanced down at his feet, but I continued speaking.
“This little gizmo here should help with that. I suspect that you, for whatever reason, have a weak aptitude for regulating mana through yourself. Don’t fret. It’s no different than someone having a bad knee or others balding at a young age. That’s called life. But, if my assumption is correct, then this will help you level out mana as you channel it through yourself.”
“How?” Elios was a ball of curiosity, poking and prodding the small golden band.
“You’ve cooked before, correct?”
“Yeah, what do you take me for? I used to always help my mother bake cookies.”
“Good kid.” I nodded. “Well, that makes this analogy a lot easier. When you bake, you understand how when you scoop up flour, you must level it off first, or else you’ll have an overly lumpy batter.”
“Yeah, and?”
“That’s what this is. It’s the ‘level’ to your ‘flour’ or, in this case, mana. It will take some time to adjust, as it will forcibly restrict your ability to draw in mana. This will be necessary until your body develops the ‘muscle memory’ to naturally control and regulate the mana it draws inward and expels from your core.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“We try from another avenue.” I offered the boy a sympathetic smile. “I know, it’s frustrating, but the journey of a million leagues-”
“Starts with one step.” The boy answered, finishing my signature phrase for me. “Right. So, put this on which finger?”
“Doesn’t matter. As long as it is in contact with your body, that’s good enough.”
The boy nodded, slipping it on his index finger. “So now what?”
“Now, we start from the start.” I smiled as I reached under my desk, pulling out the Standing Stone from the first day of class. “We especially need to determine your affinity.”
“Why?”
“Because if you want to develop your skills, then you need to address everything with a degree of nuance and intentionality that others have the good fortune of completely ignoring. For others, core refinement involves mana purification, and they can purify any mana around them. You, though, cannot handle mana as they can. You will be limited to drawing on mana matching your affinity.”
“But isn’t that-”
“Much more difficult?” I cut in, interrupting the boy. “Yes, extremely so. Very few mages ever learn how to distinctly differentiate the latent mana all around us, and those that can, even fewer, bother developing the skills necessary to parse it apart, their mana core usually handles all of that for them. And, if you’ll believe it, this is almost identical to how I started out.”
The boy’s eyes widened as if I’d dropped some forbidden knowledge for him and him alone.
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t a gifted mage initially.”
I’m still not, but that’s semantics.
“As a bonus, spend enough time doing this; you’ll develop insight, the ability to perceive mana that is exponentially more advanced than your peers. You’d be surprised at how many mages, even within the ranks of gold adventurers, lack more than the most basic mana senses.”
“Why?”
“For most, there is no point,” I said as I grabbed a pencil, drawing a sketch on a slip of paper. “See this?”
“Uhh, a monkey?”
“What?” I frowned, looking at my picture before shaking my head. “No, it’s a bird.”
“Professor, maybe stick to teaching.”
“Whatever, not the point,” I grumbled, annoyed my drawing skills, or lack thereof, had been called out. “When we look at a bird, what do we see?”
“That bird or an actual bird?”
“An actual bird.” I sighed.
“Uhm, wings?”
“Exactly. And if we look at a fish?”
“Fins. Why?”
“Well, why does a bird have wings and a fish have fins?”
“Because a bird flies and a fish swims,” Elios answered, suspicion on his face as if waiting for me to pull a fast one.
“Exactly. A bird has no reason for fins, nor does a fish have a reason for wings. In that same sense, a mage, more often than not, doesn’t need some well-developed skill at sensing mana. Why would they? The function of a mana core means that if there is mana, the core can draw upon it; you wouldn’t need to personally spend time cataloging it yourself, unless for whatever reason you struggled with regulating mana within yourself.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Good, well, if you understand, it’s time we begin in earnest. Place your hands upon the Standing Stone, and let’s get this show on the road.”
Taking a breath to steady himself, I saw the resolve firmly in his eyes as he raised his hands, placing his palms upon the Standing Stone.
“Journey of a million leagues and all that.” The boy muttered.
“That’s the attitude.” I beamed at the boy, approving of the attitude.
Regardless of whether he means it or not.
------------------------
If the world were fair, or if we existed in the fairy tale the boy looked like he belonged to, I could proudly say that Elios made leaps and bounds worth of progress.
But this wasn’t a fairy tale. In the time I spent working with the boy, to say he made any progress was already all I could ask for.
“On the plus side,” I mumbled, strolling through the well-lit sidewalks; the days had grown short since I’d first arrived in Akadia. “He didn’t knock himself out from mana rebound this time.”
It was technically a plus, but not in the way that I would have hoped. While Elios was no longer suffering from mana rebound during his attempts at filling the Standing Stone, it was because, with my mana suppressor on his ring finger, he could not channel enough mana in the first place.
Did I make it too strong?
It was my first attempt at enchanting, a skill I’d surprisingly never bothered practicing in the time I’d grown capable of magic. The mana marble I’d given Mona was entirely practical; it worked through its physical construction rather than enchanting, the process of inlaying a spell within an object. The mana suppressor was solely functional through the enchantment I’d laid upon it, the inspiration for which I’d drawn from Scyla’s automated battleship. I’d imbued the mana-disrupting effect of null on a simple golden band I’d quickly gone and purchased. In most cases, enchantments were clunky or difficult to utilize, requiring mana to be powered. Without a person powering them with their own mana, it meant the necessity of an expensive mana crystal.
Thankfully through my own intuition, I’d designed the mana suppression band to draw its power from the mana it was throttling in the first place.
“Rather clever if I do say so myself.” I muttered, “but it doesn’t change that I might have overdone it.”
Elios already struggled with properly channeling mana. While a necessity for regulating his mana flow, the mana suppression band also throttled it to the point that appeared impossible for Elios to overcome.
Which wasn’t the intention.
“While I made this to help reduce your mana influx, I might have overdone it. Here, I can make a new one that is less-”
“No.” Elios shook his head, determination on his face. “I can do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not really.” Elios shrugged. “But, if I can overcome this, I can overcome all my handicaps. Like building your muscles by lifting heavy stones.”
I shook my head in amusement, doubtful that any other kid in the school had any experience lifting anything heavy, much less heavy stones like a simple farmhand.
“Whatever floats your boat, kid.”
“Whatever floats your boat,” I repeated the words I’d spoken earlier. “Was that the right thing to say?”
Perhaps I should have insisted and ignored his stubborn fixation with trying to overcome it through pure effort. Sometimes it was better to think smarter, not harder.
Yeah, not like you aren’t basically doing the same thing yourself.
I glanced down at my arm, hidden by the divine cloth wrapped around it, four rings beneath the fabric.
It could be five already.
“Oh, whatever.” I snorted, annoyed with my own thoughts. “It is what it is.”
Stopping after finally reaching my destination, I let my gaze wander to the massive library. It was even more eye-catching at night when the light shone from its stained glass windows.
I’d come here with two primary goals. First was general curiosity. When Elios mentioned the family history of both Rias and Leo, I realized that while I might have thought I had an idea of where all my students came from, I knew nothing more than passing references as to the official occupations of their families.
My second reason came from the standpoint of unease and ignorance. I’d talked to Scyla about looking into… well, whatever might be happening, but I couldn’t shake the uncertainty even after reaching out for her aid.
And what better way to combat those feelings than good old-fashioned learning?
I quickly entered the massive library and took the steps two at a time. Even later at night as it was, there was still a general buzz of activity as researchers and the like filtered about the place.
Now then, where to first?
---------------------------
It turns out history books are actually quite interesting when the topic being researched is directly related to your personal life.
In my case, it was explicitly jarring to read the family names I recognized from students in my classes, many fairly ordinary kids with bloodlines steeped in horrific violence and atrocities.
In particular, the Aizenbern caught my attention for not being as bad as I had imagined.
They were worse.
Elios really did have a point.
Since the foundation of the modern kingdom several hundred years ago, the Aizenbern had been the southern attack dogs of the crown, loyal retainers who had, throughout the several centuries of history of the modern Haerasong kingdom, earned their place by dyeing their name in the blood of those who opposed the crown.
It was bizarre to think of Rias, her ordinarily quiet and unproblematic demeanor, against her lineage.
Her father had proved to be particularly brutal, earning his reputation with the crushing of the Oxtent Rebellion shortly after being named head of the family. While I had heard of references to the rebellion over the years, this was the first time I’d actively investigated the event. Leaning back in my chair propped up near a secluded table hidden in the corner of the library’s third floor, I sighed.
You never really think much about this sort of stuff, do you?
In fairness, as a youth, I’d never had a ‘formal’ education. I’d had a few years as a kid where I was educated by a ‘real’ teacher. Still, that education only went up to twelve years of age. After that, my mother taught me everything I’d known. I was lucky enough to have a mother who was as versed in the world and as well-educated as she was.
Then I’d become an adventurer for several years, where I was nothing more than glorified hired muscle, which wasn’t exactly conducive to furthering one’s education.
It wasn’t until I’d left being an adventurer that I began readily digging into educating myself. Still, you could only cover so much material in three years. Much of my self-education pertained to magic and magical theory.
Which was one long way of saying I’d neglected learning the finer details of the history of our country, such as the Oxtent rebellion from some two decades ago.
As far as rebellions went, it wasn’t exactly new or innovative. Several summers of little rainfall and higher-than-normal temperatures led to food shortages. Food shortages led to discontent. Discontent led to talks of the ineffectiveness of the crown. Talks turned into organized events. Organized events would invariably be put down with force. Like any time in any country’s history, the suppression of discontent and peaceful organization through force only bred violence.
Thus, the Oxtent Rebellion was born, named after the former city of Oxtent that once housed much of the insurrectionist movement.
Emphasis on former.
During ‘peace talks, ’ negotiations were made to send grain and foodstuff into the city, the issue that had first given rise to the discontent that bred the rebellion in the first place; things finally looking up for the people who had been brave enough to stand up for their beliefs.
Rather than grain and food, it was troops the caravans stealthily carried into the city, leading to the brutal conclusion of the rebellion. The entire city ended up burnt to the ground, with thousands and thousands dead by the night’s end.
And the masterminds of the plot?
It wasn’t the crown, as they only supplied auxiliary troops. The operation was the joint effort of the Aizenbern and the merchant family Grucias, their brainchild developed to swiftly end the rebellion, ethics be damned.
It was an interesting peak behind the current of some noble houses and their close allies, but that was all it was. The unease I felt hadn’t settled; even with the history lesson, I felt no closer to putting my feelings to rest.
Maybe I’m overthinking it.
Much like Elios, perhaps the stress of day-to-day life had me searching for things that did not exist and may never exist. The metaphorical monster under my bed.
Things were different now. The animosity between the differing factions had been put aside as they came together to compromise and talk things out.
Hell, that was the entire reason my job even existed in the first place.
Sighing, I stood up, only to freeze in place, my eyes locked with another person as they rounded the corner, a stack of books in her arms and an expression that soured when she saw me.
“Ah, well, if it isn’t Professor Koor.” The woman said dryly.
Cut me a break.
“Hello…. Isania.”
My former adventuring partner’s wife, and my colleague, placed her pile of books down, crossing her arms as her finger tapped on her bicep.
“This is actually perfect.” Isania smiled at me, unnerving me.
“It… is?”
“Yes, in fact, it is.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Her gaze burrowed into me, affixing me to my spot. “I think it’s time we have a chat.”