The next morning I woke up to my stomach grumbling. From the light coming in the windows, it must have already been around noon.

I got up and looked around. No one was in the clinic, and I seem to have slept through fathers service. It has been quite some time since I slept that heavily, so it took a few moments to get my bearings.

I headed to go check the other side, see if there was any food I could grab, or if lunch was soon. As I got out of the clinic though, father was heading over to check on me.

“Ah, Alena, feeling better? I have some food set aside for you, Lily prepared it earlier so it might be cold, but I made sure there was extra for you” He said, directing me into the addition and to the table.

I just mumbled as I entered and could smell the food. It was 2 large omelets. I wish I could have eaten it before it got cold, but I was too hungry to complain. Lunch was probably soon, so I would get my fill.

The omelets were packed with cheese, just like I liked them, with bits of boar meat mixed in. Mother usually used the cheese sparingly so I had to thank her later, she clearly meant to spoil me after my little incident.

After devouring my meal, I turned to father who just watched me eat in silence. “So what happened exactly? I don’t think I ever clocked out like that before”. I asked.

“Dark mana empowers the body, your case is a bit odd but I assume when I cleansed you, your body was overtaxed from it. Light mana empowers others but also counters dark mana, but does not do much for fatigue. The mix left you more drained than you otherwise would be.” He replied.

I nodded, the feeling of having the dark mana was cool, but the drain after was far from it. I also had no idea if it would affect me in any other weird ways so it was best to avoid touching miasma again in the future.

“Alena? How are you feeling”. Alaster called out as he entered, with Rose tagging along behind him. They were wearing casual clothes so it seemed that they didn’t go train without me. Though today I was probably going to have to take a rest day or face the wrath of Mother.

“I feel fine, a bit woozy but that is likely from oversleeping” I replied.

“That’s good, you had me worried. Mother is making lunch at the bar, got room for more?” He asked, seeing that I just finished breakfast.

“Yea, tanks only about half full still, I hate missing dinner, right after a workout too,” I grumbled as I got up from the table to take the plate to the sink. I would have to clean it later, if lunch was almost ready I didn’t want that to go cold as well.

We headed to the bar, but father stayed behind, he rarely went there so it was nothing out of the ordinary. I just hugged him before I left and thanked him for the treatment.

I felt mostly back to normal, just the effects of oversleeping. The empowered feeling was gone, but I didn’t feel weak either, I should be right as rain after lunch if I didn’t go into a food coma.

When we arrived mom was still cooking. Jack was there too, he liked her cooking too so I made no complaint to have him join us, it was his place after all.

“Feeling better Alena?” He asked. Seems news of my incident had spread.

“Feeling much better Jack, thank you,” I replied as I sat down. Mother didn’t say anything yet, just continued to cook. I had a feeling after I ate a lecture was coming.

Lunch was ready soon after and mom brought out some stew. Between that and the omelet, I could tell she was going for things easy to eat for me. Though I didn’t feel like I needed special treatment or anything, I still appreciated the thought.

I took a smaller portion than the rest, didn’t want to overdo it. It tasted like various wild game meat with potatoes and veggies. Likely just leftovers Mother had thrown in the pot, but tasted amazing regardless.

We ate in silence, from the air I could tell that I was in for it once we were done, but I couldn’t eat slowly, it just was not in my nature. I would have to face it regardless.

I finished first and took my bowl to the sink, then went to grab a bucket to go fill it at the well to fill the sink. But as I did mother just pointed to my chair. I was not going to be able to sneak out of this was I?

Alaster smirked, trying not to laugh and get to face her wrath as well. He just quickly finished with Rose and took all the rest of the bowls to the sink and left after mother just told him not to worry about it when he went for the bucket as well. Jack went back to his room on the second floor.

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I sat timidly in my chair, awaiting my fate. Mother came to me and hugged me tight. I was not surprised, she was worried after all. This was just the first step.

“I was so worried when I heard about what happened. You should have just gotten out of the way and not try to attack” She scolded, moving back as her loving demeanor was quickly moving to lecture mode.

In the end, I was effectively grounded after Alaster left. No practice, and no hunting or anything for a month. She was not mean enough to deny the rest of the time that Alaster was here though. At least she was not going to make me eat just bread for a week, so I didn’t argue and just nodded.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I mostly lazed around with Alaster and Rose. We discussed different stances and other textbook topics since we were not going to be out and about today.

After that, I made full use of the rest of the days they would be here to absorb as much info as I could. There was not much else to do, so they made no complaints. Though I did feel a little bad pushing them into training when they were here for a break.

But all good things must come to an end, and their time here was over. As the carriage left I hoped the visits would be more often now. The main reason it took so long is the order would not allow him to come here unless he had enough skill to handle the dangers on the road. That should mean he can come home more frequently now.

I continued practicing after he left after my month-long punishment ended anyway. Most things seemed to just return to how they were before, letters each week, and rounding up children. Though I did notice father seemed to brood more often than usual.

One major change though was having some knowledge of stances, It opened the door to many more avenues for me. Mom told me I was such a weird girl being so interested in swords and such, but I didn’t have much interest in anything most girls would find interesting at my age.

That was likely because the only other girl born in the village recently left with her family not long after she was born. So I was the only younger girl and only had boys for company. I was also left on my own more often than not since both mom and dad were busy almost every day with various things. I was somewhat mature for my age, at least compared to most of the others.

As the years went by, Alaster managed to visit at least once a year. We often compared our skills but I always fell short of him, though I did manage to get ahead of Rose finally when I was 17. I could not call it a win though, since swordplay is generally used to teach discipline to everyone who would be joining the order, but they didn’t all use swords.

Rose was more suited to support from the rear. If she ended up with good elements she could be an excellent mage. Her skill with a bow was well above me, to the point I didn’t think I would be able to close the gap in the slightest.

Alaster always complimented me on my skill, saying for someone mostly training themselves I was well ahead of the norm. I didn’t have anyone to compare to other than him and Rose though, so I was not sure if he was just trying to make me feel better.

Finally, our eighteenth birthday arrived. Unfortunately, Alaster was not here on the day, and my coming-of-age ceremony was a week after it. The ceremony was only done on the year you turned 18, but was often grouped up with others for convenience. Since there was a need for officials to be present, as well as a paladin squad.

I would be the only one in the village to have one this year. I had seen some others, though no one seemed to ever have much skill in magic. If you did, you would be taken into the order regardless. If you were from an affluent family you would go much earlier, as was the case with Rose. Alaster was a bit of a special case. It was how the order maintained its power.

Alaster had already had his ceremony earlier in the year. We could not go see it but I heard it was quite the sight. He blinded most of the people who attended with the golden light, and he even said his hair and eyes turned gold, though I would have to see it to believe it.

He had a very high light magic affinity and some wind magic affinity as well, there was no doubt he was a prodigy. Rose on the other hand had ice affinity only, but was fairly potent so she could easily be a mage.

Hearing about Alaster's change seemed to concern father greatly, and he was often missing, or rushing around. I tried to ask him what was wrong and he just told me that a change like that is likely going to bring some extra pressure on my coming-of-age ceremony, so he was prepping for that.

I may not have shown prodigy potential, but it did make sense that I could have enough mana to be of interest to the order. I had mixed feelings about that, on one hand, I could be with Alaster more often, and see more of the world. Though it would also mean leaving mom and dad. But unlike when I was 7 I was an adult now, so leaving the nest was normal.

We would not know until the ceremony. In the days leading up to the ceremony, I would be with father, learning more about how it worked, what to expect, and what being an adult would entail. I could already imagine the boring lectures but this would likely be the last as well. So my conflicted feelings only increased.

I could already see work underway at the stage. It was set up in the square and was a fairly strange sight if you did not know its purpose. It was an elevated cobblestone platform, with a mount in the center for the special mana crystal used for coming-of-age ceremonies.

The platform was heavy to carry out of storage, it took 8 men to lift it. The reason it was cobblestone was just in case of stronger fire magic. Lighting the platform on fire was not ideal and best avoided. There were likely better materials, but we were a tiny village, and cobblestone over a wooden frame worked well enough.

Clothes were another issue I was worried about, your mana could not burn yourself. Your clothes however were fair game. There was an ugly robe the others wore; apparently, it was fireproof but I didn’t want to wear it. Though I didn’t want to not wear it either. Father just laughed and told me it would be fine.