Setting off alone was at once terrifying and liberating. I had never in my life felt anything comparable.

There was a looming deadline and an unbeatable threat. My friends, home, and life as I knew it lay behind me and the path in front of me was opaque. Yet it felt like I had removed water-soaked clothes after a storm. An unexplored world of magic and mysteries lay before me, and I was ready to explore it all alone.

A paw flicked the edge of my ear, and I revised my internal statement to "setting off almost alone."

We had walked all day, swordstaff slung along my left shoulder and vambrace on my right arm. I doubted Duke Estton would bother sending assassins or guards after me since he could have effortlessly killed me without such subterfuge, but it never paid to be too reckless.

As the sun crept towards the western horizon, Cat broached the silence with a meow. I could swear it had a questioning tone, almost like he wanted to know where we were going.

"That is the question, I suppose," I murmured, "And the answer is, 'wherever we want.'"

Cat nipped the edge of my ear with his paw, and I glanced over my shoulder to stare at him. He had once more taken up residence at the top of my backpack and looked back at me with smug confidence. Some magical beasts developed human-like intelligence and an ego. Was he one of them?

After a moment, I pushed aside that question and refocused on the more important one. Where should we go?

The first option was turning south towards the Tinkerers. Our neighbors had stopped Ferren expansion for centuries with their bizarre, impossible technology. What would it do to my magic if I could figure out even a small portion of their secrets? As far as I knew, no mage had ever managed it, and it could provide an invaluable boost to my strength. Besides, I had always dreamed of seeing a city fly through the air unsupported.

On the other hand, they would never hand over those secrets freely to a mage. I would have to bargain, blackmail, or steal their knowledge for myself, and I lacked the wealth, connections, and personal capabilities to do any of those. Until that changed, the Tinkerers would have to wait.

The second choice was heading east, back to the border. Cortos' home lay in that direction, and he was an Aether mage powerful enough to slay Archmagi. Granted, he did it with an ambush, but that was still impressive enough to warrant further investigation. Maybe he left behind something, spellbooks, musings on magic, secret gathering techniques, and the like. Things that would prove useless for any mage but myself.

But that was a gamble. History left no real details about the location of his estate, so I had to move based on inferences gleaned from what little public information I could find. Even if I could find his home, and even if by some miracle something had weathered the centuries, it might end up useless. Cortos was the strongest Aether mage since the Founders, but magic had come a long way in the past centuries.

The third possibility was heading west to the coastline. There, I could find work on a ship and learn to sail. The invaders had crossed the ocean, after all. Maybe I could earn enough to go to them instead, working to stop the invasion before it started or steal their secrets for myself. If I could gain a fraction of that purple-haired man's strength and speed and merge it with my magic, I would be unstoppable.

However, the Azure Expanse terrified me. It was an endless mass of churning blue waters so dark it verged on black, hiding monsters of all shapes and sizes. I had read stories of sea serpents hundreds of feet long with maws large enough to swallow ships. There were sharks that could bite through steel with as much effort as tearing cloth.

And worse still were the stories of the dark, gnawing things that lay deeper. After all, the sea serpents were just the things close to the coastline. What sort of things dwelled within the deep waters?

Much like the Tinkerers, this idea was best left for when I had the strength to brave such a journey. So, I turned my focus to the fourth, and by far the most appealing, option.

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I would travel Ferris, seeking out opportunities within the confines of my home country. When I first decided to leave the Academy, I had begun researching ways to grow stronger; Mages willing to train even disgraced apprentices, magical phenomena that might hold hints to greater mastery, and natural resources gleaned from A Study on Aether that I could exploit.

Of course, I would do all four given time. And for once, it felt like I had all the time in the world.

My first priority was gaining as much Aether as possible. The more mana at my disposal, the longer I could train at once and the more progress I could grind in a single day. While it seemed like I had an excess of time, that was an illusion.

Returning to Aresford was, therefore, the obvious first stop. The waters there would stop being useful sooner rather than later, but I suspected I could reach Mist by spring at the latest.

But rather than rushing there, I decided to make one stop along the way. A Study on Aether had mentioned a tree several days off-course and, with some luck, it would prove worth a detour.

A week passed as Cat and I walked, sticking to the roads and stopping only at night to rest. I could not say what I expected traveling on my own, but the truth was shockingly banal. It was lonely, almost boring, and the only thing breaking up the monotony was the chance to practice my shrouds.

Shrouding was best known as a stealth skill, allowing a mage to avoid trackers, confuse the senses, and disguise their spellcasting to an extent. However, because it relied upon reducing expelled mana, it had secondary benefits, namely increasing efficiency and speeding growth.

Most importantly, I could practice without draining my core dry. The roads might be safe, but there was no point in leaving myself exposed to attacks if I could help it.

On the morning of the eighth day, we reached the edge of a small forest. My experience with the Aether pool led me to think tracking down the tree would require days or weeks of careful searching.

However, the mage who discovered this particular resource was far more considerate—or diligent. She had left intricate notes detailing the precise location, including the distance walked, in what direction, and surrounding natural features.

We found the tree beside a small, twisting stream inside the forest. It was massive, thicker across the middle than two men standing shoulder to shoulder with gnarled roots digging into the ground and branches wide enough that I could stand atop them without issue. The leaves glowed a green shade that straddled the line between natural and magical. Even at a distance, I could sense the Aether packed within it, dense and pure.

I almost ran up to the tree but held myself back and cast my senses out. This time, I searched the surrounding forest, seeking out any existing mana signatures. I looked for abnormalities in the tree's branches, roots, and trunk that might indicate a hidden predator.

And I found nothing. If there was any living thing nearby, it was either too weak to pose a threat or so skillful at disguising its mana that I would never see it coming until it was too late.

I walked closer to the tree, mentally crossing my fingers for the first possibility and bracing myself for the second. For once, luck seemed on my side.

The researcher who found this tree theorized it started life as an apple tree. It grew, and eventually, its roots encountered the ley line beneath it and transformed from a mundane plant into a magical one. Exactly how it had done this was unknown, though the woman had left behind several hypotheses I might examine in greater detail in the future.

I cared far more about the mechanics of its fruiting process.

As the tree drew Aether up from the leyline, it used that energy to strengthen itself. However, a part of that went towards growing a fruit, as any mundane apple tree would. Eating just one would grant a massive portion of mana, far more than drinking a vial from the pool near Aresford.

Of course, the tree also took years to bear fruit, and digesting even one took days, but those were negligible flaws when weighed against the progress I might gain.

I had not expected to find any fruit, and unfortunately, luck did not turn in my favor this time. According to my readings, each "cycle" took approximately two years, and the first signs we were drawing close would be tiny buds along the lowermost branches. I could see none, which would indicate it had recently borne fruit which were likely already eaten by other creatures or had rotted away unused.

"Figures," I murmured, then shook my head and reached out to place my palm against the trunk. Since I was here, I might as well try to glean a little more from the tree. It was a species that used Aether and did not die, which made it a valuable research opportunity.

So far, I had four examples of Aether merged with physical matter, each distinct in its own way. The water felt placid like it had reached a quiet balance with the energy. The monster was akin to shoving too much of something into too small a container, cracking it in the process. Cat seemed the perfect version of a similar process, with Aether flowing through his flesh in smooth, interrupted cycles.

The tree felt like none of the others. If anything, it felt more like, well, me.

I could sense Aether coming from beneath, drawn up through its roots and into its 'body.' There, it hung for a moment before the tree seemed to divert it into three distinct streams. I could not say where two of these went or what they did, but the third felt like it was taken and pushed out of its leaves.

Did trees breathe? That felt like the closest analogy, but I was no botanist. The Academy did have classes on magical plants, but that was a second-year class, one I had never thought I would find helpful for my future growth.

A phrase about making assumptions came to mind as I pulled my hand away and laughed. Cat meowed behind me, and I turned to see him poking out from my backpack again.

"Well," I said to the feline, "Not much else I could do here. What do you say we get back on the road?"

He meowed, and I could almost hear my friends chastising me. It likely did not bode well for my mental well-being if I was already talking with my pet like a person. Some of them might be quick to point out that my social skills were already lacking.

As I made my way through the forest and back to the road, I tried to ignore the tight feeling in my chest as I thought of my friends. And I failed.