Our last few weeks in Colkirk were tense but uneventful. I found myself eager to get back on the road, half to explore more of the world and half to escape a city that had started to feel more restrictive than anything. While I did not regret my time here and still felt my plan to ingratiate myself with other mages and learn from them had some merit, it fell short for one simple reason.

I was a nobody.

No one cared to work with me yet because I was, at my core, a commoner with above-average strength for my age but little else. Maybe someday, when I became exceptional, that would change, but I did my best to deal with reality rather than far-away fantasies.

Dueling had served as a decent enough substitute in the meantime, and I had stolen bits and pieces of several dozen other mages' techniques and magical arsenals, but that, too, was an uncertain thing. I might never wholly understand their abilities, and most would likely never become useful, but I still noted each glimmer of wisdom dutifully in my records.

What truly made me eager to set off on our journey, though, beyond anything else, was Vivienne. I had expected, well...something. A threat or unsavory rumors beyond the ones already swirling around the teenage nobles of Colkirk. No commoner turned down an offer from the nobility and walked away unscathed, and I was already in poor standing. But the red-headed woman had seemingly vanished within days of our meeting.

In some ways, I would have preferred a threat.

I did my best to forget those worries, pocketing her hold and the strange puzzle box as I focused on other, more important things. Wallace's progress continued with barely a hitch, his newfound motivation seemingly bolstered after reaching Haze. It struck me as endearing and a touch strange, all things considered.

Our duel had ended with what was effectively a cheat. I had struck Wallace with a punch that was not wholly outside the bounds of our challenge but was certainly violating its spirit. Yet he had not, then or since, seemed to hold it against me. Why? It made little sense, but my clumsy attempts to pry into his mental state earned casual deflections.

I decided to leave him his privacy, both as a show of burgeoning trust and in the hopes he might open up in the future. It did not cost me much when I thought about it. Either he would repay my trust in kind, or he would not, and I would continue my journey alone.

Finally, as the days started to grow longer and the city just a little quieter, I received a message from Darius. He had begun preparing to leave for home and wanted us ready to depart within the week. It had come not a moment too soon, in my estimation.

***

Life as a caravan guard was a mixed blessing. Most days, I sat on the rearmost cart with a swordstaff across my lap as I watched for incoming threats with my eyes and mana senses. My reach had grown large enough to spread out hundreds of feet in all directions, more than enough to cover our entire traveling group without issue.

My job was simple but crucial. If I detected anything magical within range, I was to watch and, if necessary, engage. My armor, swordstaff, and other spells made me the best option to delay it until Wallace arrived to assist me. Meanwhile, the other guards would spread out just in case whatever had shown up managed to get past me.

Darius had actually felt that the arrangement put me at undue risk, and I had to insist that his other guards would do more harm than good. I caught how they looked, from their clumsy grips on their spears to their slumped posture. They were poorly trained at the best of times and would slow me down more than anything. Even Wallace was an uncertainty, as I had little experience fighting with a partner, but I had more confidence in his talents.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Darius was an experienced traveler. Our route passed through the heart of Ferris, sticking close to civilization. More than once, we stopped in villages and towns for the evening, avoiding even the minor risk of camping on the road. All of this meant that the only real "threats" to watch out for were boredom, falling asleep, or a particularly irritable rabbit or bird at worst. I did my best to remain focused on guard duty, but my mind began to wander within three days of setting out.

Thankfully, magic was an eternal giver of tasks. There was always more to do. More skills to learn, ideas to consider, and spells to improve. It was a blessing, a curse, an eternal climb without an end, and one I would gladly make if only to see if there was a peak.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

My skills with Wallace's looping technique progressed, and the results looked promising. Testing had confirmed that, so long as I kept the mana moving, I would gain similar results to my original strengthening spell but with noticeably less waste for the trouble. The dampening effect was not quite as pronounced as I would prefer, but I still had ample room to improve.

Whenever my growth in those regions plateaued for the day, I shifted my focus to force magic. Improving my efficiency with my other spells had rendered telekinesis a far more viable option, and I wanted to get it worked out by spring at the latest.

Hours passed as I levitated stones using nothing but pure mana control and shaped Aether. I started with two stones, but within a week, I had worked up to four or five with a good night's sleep. The practice left me with a mild headache, but I had dealt with far worse since becoming a mage and pushed through without much issue.

Precision and control were the goals, and as I honed my talents in both, my mind wandered to the other applications beyond crude telekinetic blasts or tactile enhancements to my body and swordstaff.

The original reason I had started exploring force magic was, well, my Force Step. Mobility was often the difference between life and death, but the spell remained incomplete. I had managed to improve my control over the spell marginally, but it still tended to strain my legs with overuse and left me wide open to counters.

I could always work to improve my force magic enough to perfectly control the range of each "Step," but that was unambitious. Anyone could taper down the raw power of a spell, but I had become an Archmagus once. I could do better.

Instead of simple improvements, I wanted synergy. My goal was to fuse my strengthening spell, force magic, and Wallace's looping technique and combine the result into my mundane martial skills. Such a project would take months, as blending those disparate skills was not an easy task, but I saw it as similar to a puzzle. Each piece had a place, and together, they would create something greater than the sum of their parts.

In this case, I would be able to chain multiple, near-instant "Steps" with next to no delay. My reflexes would be fast enough to cope with any disorientation, my mana signature sufficiently muted that my opponents would have little hope of predicting my next move, and blending it with my honed footwork would only further disguise my movements. I would become an impossibly fast and unpredictable blur, quick enough to move into range and best my opponents without leaving them a chance to raise a defense.

It might not be the secret between life and death against those invaders, but that purple-haired man had moved impossibly fast. The similarities were evident, and bridging the gap in speed seemed an obvious enough priority.

Of course, I had other goals, which only made perfecting force magic a greater priority. If I could further blend the talent into my style, I could push or pull an enemy at will, controlling the distance between us or forcing their guard open with selection applications. I could break limbs without touching someone, stopping a fight before it began. If I chose to do so, I could break a neck or stop someone's heart with barely a thought.

I did not care much for that last possibility. While I understood the reality that I would take a human life—at least, one who had not become a horribly twisted monster, but that did not make it a pleasant thing to consider.

And even still, none of those struck me nearly as much as one other, even more crucial necessity. It was something I had noticed the first inklings of during my duel with Wallace but suspected would only become a greater problem over time.

I was bordering on superhumanly strong, so long as I used magic to enhance myself. Yet despite that, Wallace had managed to resist me, at least a little. I had chalked that up to his own magic, providing him an edge, but that was not the whole truth. Sigmund had, more than once, noted the importance of leverage, and this was one flaw I would likely never overcome.

My body was simply too small, my build too slim, and I had no reason to expect a sudden, late-in-life growthspurt. I might reach average height by my early twenties, but simple physics would forever limit how much of my power I could bring to bear.

So, if I could not rely upon natural leverage, I would need to make my own.

I doubted it was a novel concept. While remarkably few mages bothered with physical combat, enough used it that I would be shocked if the idea had never occurred to anyone else. I was not an idiot, but I was far from a genius either, and it seemed a simple enough logical leap.

Ideally, I would use spatial or gravity magic. Both should provide a more efficient and direct method of holding myself in place, allowing me to exert greater strength, but telekinesis would work just as well. Once I perfected those abilities, I could modify my magic to use them instead.

Days passed in a blur as we traced our way southward, stopping every evening to set up camp. Darius expected everyone, from the traders and laborers to the guards, to pull their weight. Some helped set up tents or gather wood, others assisted in cooking food or unloading needed supplies, and others still helped check over the carts for damage, trying to pre-empt catastrophe and repair anything found.

It was a friendly, communal environment, free of apparent scheming and plotting, and one I found almost relaxing.

Almost.

I doubted Darius was quite as warm and open as he acted, having learned my lesson from Simon's similarly friendly father. You did not gain any measure of wealth and success by acting the part of the altruist, despite what some might hope. Still, it was a nice thing to believe.

After dinner, the rest of the camp would stay up for several hours. Many pulled out cards or game sets, gambling away copper and silver coins as they laughed and shared stories. Others pulled out instruments of wood and string or brass or skin stretched taut across drums, playing them with a strange, slightly clumsy but unquestionable skill that spoke of many years of practice.

I took the opportunity to recruit the other guards for additional martial practice. As it turned out, their lack of skill came more from poor training and habits than disinterest. When I offered to help them shave off the rough edges of their strikes and footwork in exchange for their help, they agreed. I suspected part of that stemmed from getting the chance to try and skewer a mage without consequence.

We would drill forms every evening for an hour or two, followed by sparring in small groups. I took to fighting the other guards two at a time, with a particular focus on my defenses. While I preferred a more aggressive style, leaving such blatant weak points was asking to have them exploited.

And so we traveled further south. Spring arrived quietly, creeping in almost without notice as grass, leaves, and flowers bloomed once more, and Wallace and I, unlikely allies though we were, settled into a quiet camaraderie as guards.