"Wake up," Father said as he swung my door wide open. The now pulled down curtains exposed my shut eyes to the blinding morning light.

I rolled over from my back to the side, covering my face with the pillow I had my arm wrapped around. "Five more minutes."

"You have five more seconds before I put this broom in my hand to use."

After a bit of grumbling, I tossed the pillow and my blanket to the side and slid off my bed. Noting that I was up, Father left my room.

Syn stretched her body and let out a loud yawn. "What a refreshing night of sleep!"

"How can you say that after you just woke up from a thousand year nap just yesterday?" I grumbled to myself.

"Hm? What was that?" she asked, cupping her hand around an ear.

"Nothing." I cleared my throat and quickly got dressed before entering the kitchen, where I drank a glass of scalding coffee. The blue crystals from last night were no longer present and didn't seem to leave any evidence behind, either. In fact, I kind of wasn't sure if they were ever there in the first place or if I was just having a crazy dream.

Walking into the backyard, father was already there prepping a wooden dummy for use later. For some reason, Syn asked to see what this training comprised.

"You know what to do," he said without turning around.

With reluctance, I dropped to the floor and completed several sets of pushups and situps. This wasn't the troublesome part. It was the timed running exercises that followed which always caused much pain and stress.

"Wow," Syn said, her face in disbelief. "That was... something."

"Just under ten minutes," Father said with the click of his tongue. "Better than before, but nowhere near good enough."

After I finished chugging down an entire pitcher of water, I collapsed onto the dirt ground. Through heavy pants and gasps, I said, "I think I've peaked."

"Only if you keep up that attitude. I will be the first to admit that less than a minute of improvement per year is sub-optimal, but at the end of the day you're still showing signs of progress, which is all I can hope for at this point."

"Like I thought, I'm just not built for this." I clutched my chest, applying pressure to the area around my heart, which was on the cusp of giving up.

Father waved his hand. "Go in and eat. Be back in an hour's time."

I obviously didn't object and slogged my way into the kitchen. And in a curious case, mother and Mitre were not present. Thus, I could only conclude that what I witnessed last night was, in fact, not a dream. Whilst wondering what they were up to, I prepared my usual breakfast of porridge and eggs.

"I hope the torture I underwent earlier allowed you to gain a proper understanding into—whatever it was that you were curious about," I said.

"It was less about me and more about you," Syn said, sitting right across from me. "As I said yesterday, there are multiple ways to become a Weaver."

"Pray tell."

"I'm sure you can already come up with your own guesses at this point.""

"Maybe?" I blew several cold breaths onto my porridge. "But, uh, I've never heard of such a thing happening before yesterday. In fact, it didn't even seem that was the case with Cyrne. It just seemed like he actually had a dormant bloodline that was activated when his life was put in peril."

"That is also a possibility."

"I need a little help here."

Syn closed her eyes and rested her chin on top of her folded hands. After several moments of silence, she spoke. "Do you know what anima is?"

"I know that anima is essentially the life force in the universe."

She opened her eyes and nodded. "Anima is present in everything and even includes stuff like the half eaten eggs on your plate and the cup your tea is in. By consuming them, you absorb anima. However, this is a miniscule amount of anima that makes little difference at the end of the day. The primary way living beings absorb anima is simply by existing. With every breath, you intake anima from the world."

"So we take in new anima from the world and let out the old anima within us?"

"New and old aren't technically correct, but the idea is there. However, you don't release your anima through breathing or such. Instead, it's done by manipulating and releasing the anima within you in the form of what we refer to as—magic. The other way is by dying. When you die, all the anima within you is released back into the universe."

"So anima is everything. Got it."

"In concept, yes. It is that simple. However, in reality, it's much more complicated."

I looked at the hourglass on the table. "Yeah, we have like—fifteen minutes. That should be enough time."

"Understanding and knowing are not the same."

"Fair enough." I took another sip of tea. "Quick question, is anima just stored in our body like blood?"

"Our souls store the anima. However, the absorbed anima is raw and unpure. Our soul then purifies that anima by refining and condensing it." Syn pointed her hand occasionally for emphasis and made sure to enunciate every word. "Now purified, the previous space taken up is now vacant, allowing more anima to fill it up and take its place. But this process doesn't take place until the soul's maximum anima capacity is reached. Subsequently, it does mean that the more anima a soul absorbs, the more the soul expands, which, in turn, allows it to absorb even more anima and expand even more. With ever-increasing anima to purify, it strengthens the soul's resonance, which is what allows Weavers to exist. This cycle continues endlessly until death."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"So if I'm understanding this correctly, in order to become a Weaver, I need to absorb more anima?"

"Yes."

"And you said eating and drinking only gave me a miniscule amount? So besides naturally existing or eating myself to death, what are the other methods?"

"Well, you've actually already been doing it," Syn said, making a running motion with two fingers. "Intense physical exercise increases the rate at which you absorb physical anima."

"Oh?" I tilted my head slightly. "Now there are multiple types of anima?"

"There are many types of anima, but the three primary types are physical, spiritual, and mental. The rest doesn't matter to the majority of people."

"Am I in that majority?"

"Unless you put in major work into improving your physical condition, no."

"Look, it's not my fault I was born with such a weak heart," I said with a shrug.

"For real?" Syn asked. "Or are you just making an excuse?"

"I wish I was making a joke right now." I awkwardly smiled. "It was actually so weak at birth that my parents thought I was a stillborn."

"And does your new father know about this?"

"Obviously. However, he said enough effort and dedication can overcome anything."

"If only that were true."

"That's what I said. And that means I should definitely give up on the training, right?"

"What did I just hear about giving up?" Father asked as he entered the kitchen. Being more awake now, I noticed heavy black bags under his eyes.

Unperturbed by the intrusion, Syn still responded. "I'll say yes for now. Though, you'll probably want to continue physical training in the future. However, general sparring practice is never a poor option."

"Nothing," I said, scarfing down the rest of my breakfast before following him back out.

----------------------------------------

"Alright, I have the rest of the day open," I said, drying my hair out next to the river. "What happens next?"

"How would I know?" Syn said with a yawn. "What do you usually do?"

"Reading, researching, working on the blood potion or whatever it was called."

"All good ways of absorbing more mental anima."

"I'm still a bit curious about this whole absorbing anima thing."

"Ask."

"Well, you split anima up into three different types." I hung my towel out to dry and headed back to my room. "So, which one do I just absorb naturally?"

"The unrefined mixture of all of them."

"That's what I thought."

"Then why did you ask?"

"For confirmation."

Syn shook her head and rubbed her eyes with one hand.

"Look, I'm still confused about this whole absorb anima to become a Weaver thing," I said, lounging in my chair. "How do I know how much I've absorbed? How much do I need to absorb? What are the actual differences between them?"

"You'll know once you become a Weaver, depends on the individual, influences your soul resonance. The last part being the technical way of saying what abilities you will have."

"Like how Mitre somehow summoned the crystal ice things last night?"

"Yes. He's the traditional case of having his soul activated by his bloodline."

"And not by anima?"

"No, it still was," Syn said, wagging her finger. "Bloodlines tend to convert general anima into a specific type of spiritual anima at an aggressive rate."

"Great." I rested my head against my hand. "Now we have different types of anima within the different subtypes."

"I already informed you of such."

"I know."

Syn took in a deep breath before continuing. "Souls activated that way are often limited between magic they can cast by their bloodline. However, what they can do, they excel at. And that's just one of the many ways to become a Weaver."

"Yes. Good. Got it. But, now, I must ask, what exactly am I supposed to do? Because I've been researching and doing alchemy for many years now. In fact, Branne has done alchemy for like seven decades now and he isn't a Weaver, to my knowledge. I don't even know if I'm going to live that long in the first place!"

"Good thing you have me here."

"I mean," I folded my arms open, "I spent all that time trying to summon you for a reason."

"I don't think I like the tone of you voice just now."

With great effort, I bit my tongue and stopped myself from saying anything. Instead, I put my hands together and bowed my head. "Oh, great wise and old one, please forgive this lowly being."

"This one forgives you. Also, don't call me old ever again."

"Understood. Also, wow, that was unexpectedly easy."

"You're welcome."

"I didn't say this earlier, but in my head, I thought you would have been a lot scarier after I summoned you."

"And you should feel lucky that not only did I have the option of becoming an eidolon, but I was also the previous owner of this book."

"I know you mentioned becoming an eidolon to live longer..."

Syn shook her head. "It's a long story."

I understood by the general tone in her voice that she didn't want to talk about. Which was fine by me. "That's fine, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time after I become a Weaver." I rolled my left hand for an additional emphasis.

"You're so impatient."

"Then do you have any other ways to increase my lifespan?"

"I assume this whole talk about not living long enough is because you're afraid your heart will give out, yes?"

"What gave it away?"

"Well, in the strictest of senses, becoming a Weaver does increase your lifespan, but if it's a heart problem, you still need to come up with a way to heal your heart," Syn said, ignoring me.

"Why don't I just steal someone else's stronger heart," I said with a sigh.

"If you can figure out the logistics of how to transfers hearts, it could work."

"I said that as a joke, but if you're saying that it could be viable, I'm actually interested in it now. But I wouldn't even have the slightest clue of where to start. Just kidding, scratch that. I could probably use stronger hearts to make some sort of restorative potion."

"While you're on that train of thought, you still need to make the proper potion for my form as well, because as of now, I have zero power to do anything."

"Yeah, and how am I supposed to gather any of the ingredients on that list?"

"Purchase them? Find them?"

"With what money and do you want me to die?"

"Alright, I'll tell you how to become a Weaver."

"About time."

"It's simple. You just have to force the expulsion of anima from within you by casting a spell. Doing so will cause your soul to go into a panic and absorb an immense amount of anima and lead to its activation."

"Ah, yes, how could I have not guessed the simple solution of casting a spell."

"It's really not as hard as it sounds, especially since you completed the ritual. I'm sure you'll manage."