I woke the next morning and stood up as she feigned sleep behind me. She did a good job concealing it, but I could tell by her heart rate. The mana was flowing through her too fast to be the pace of a sleeping girl.

"Outside. Your bedroom training is finished for now Princess."

I was a bit surprised by the lack of defiance in her eyes when she looked up at me. As if she'd resigned herself to her fate already. I guess last night really took it out of her.

"Your going hunting, grab the dagger."

She picked up the still blood-soaked instrument and a touch of the murder I saw last night returned.

Good, I had enough experience being on the receiving end of being broken, if she'd been taken apart that easy, she likely wasn't worth fixing.

I eyed her carefully. "Pocketing that dagger off the Neophyte was smart. But the next time you pull a blade on me I'll slide it down your pants each night and bleed you till your dead. Then it'll be the Skelton’s turn to have fun with you "

Barely a response at all, she seemed to be getting hardened to my threats. Or else numb. Hopefully, it was the former, if she was going so numb she didn't care then she'd do something stupid, make mistakes she couldn't afford to make, mistakes I couldn't afford her to make.

"Now go clean and sharpen the blade, including removing the rust you've no doubt caused to form by letting it sit out all night caked in blood."

She said nothing, moving off to the supplies where she poured the tiniest thimble of water out onto the blade and scrubbed merrily away with the cuff of her shirt sleeve before grabbing a whetstone.

She brought it back several minutes later, offering it up for inspection. The leather around the hilt was still tinged with red, but the blade was shining and the edge appeared sharp.

"Let's go."

She followed behind me with the skeletons as we circled seemingly aimlessly around the outcrop until I saw what we were looking for.

"Open your eyes." She gave me an incredulous look. "Not your actual eyes Princess. Alright, it's best if you use both at once but for now, we'll focus on one. Close your eyes and focus like you did yesterday on the air in your lungs, but this time, after you breathe in, pick out a few bits of mana and stay with them as you breathe out."

She struggled for a moment breathing out and then eventually in again as she lost track exhaling and had to restart.

I heard her gasp and I knew she'd managed it. A bit quick actually. Seemed almost quicker than when I did it. But then her teacher was much better than mine so that's probably to be expected.

"I can see little dots of light everywhere, it's like a night sky but with stars of every color!" There was a touch of wonder in her voice. I remembered that feeling.

"Oh really? I said "How poetic."

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She looked at me a bit surprised for a moment until I finished.

"Except I fucking hate poetry. So unless you've got another verse on the size of Goddess Luvres tits you'll focus on what I'm saying and not on telling me what things I'm already looking at look like."

I pointed my finger at a narrow crack between layers of rock. "Look there."

She realized she couldn't see my finger, opened her actual eyes to see and having now lost her ability to see the flow of mana stared blankly at where I was pointing.

Sigh.

"Look there using your mage sight." I prodded. Her eyes closed once more and after a moment she said: "There's some kind of green blob."

"That green blob is a snake, it's curled up nice and safe inside there. You're going to kill it."

"How?" she asked.

"With necromancy. If you had more skill you could simply reach into the snake's body and corrupt its blood or weaken it's heart or do any number of things. Right now though you're going to suffocate it. That means we need to corrupt the air in the crevice by pushing your own necrotic mana inside."

She breathed out a huge puff of rich air and I could see her trying to command and cajole it towards the spot. It was a valiant effort trying to force the mana to all stay together. Utterly pointless at her skill level, like watching a house cat hiss at a dragon to behave but also just as valiant.

I continued on after a moment "You don't have enough and what you do have is going everywhere. Even a big breath of air isn't much mana, particularly without compressing it in your lungs first. All mages control mana from their core, which means any mana you want to control needs to connect back to there. Those tiny dots you see are called mota, they are bits of mana. As the ability of your core to bind mota together grows you'll be able to have larger gaps between each mota leading back to your core but you'll still be strongest at your core. The more you expend reaching something the less you'll have left to use once you reach there. "

I walked up behind her and leaned in close.

"Keep your eyes closed, hold out your hand, DO NOT open your eyes, focus on maintaining your mage sight."

"OW!" she yelped.

The dagger pricked deep into the tip of her finger.

I leaned a little closer breathing in her scent. "Now, guide the stream of mana coming out towards the hole."

She'd been covered in the smoke of her burning farm, spent all day sweating in the desert and slept caked in bits of dried blood. The Gods were cruel to allow her to still smell this enticing.

Just one more injustice in a world full of them.

To her credit she didn't open her eyes, instead pointing towards the crack with the now bloody finger and guiding mota until the stream of them along with a few globules of blood began snaking towards the entrance to the lair.

My thoughts began to wander.

Her skin is so pale, I don't even know how she could possibly be a desert dweller. There must be a story there...

No time for anything but training though, we'll be out of supplies soon if we don't find someone to take them from.

But then again she has so many things I want to teach her, perhaps she could be made to learn two at once.

I grinned.

"As a Necromancer, it's vital you be able to maintain focus and never be distracted, even for a moment. Pain is nothing, pleasure is nothing"

Her neck, so vulnerable, I couldn't help it really. I tilted my head and bit roughly down just at the bottom where it met the shoulder. That'd bruise for sure, she'd be marked for all to see...

Her control wavered, she was close to losing it.

"Fail and we'll have to start over," I said as I lightly smacked her ass for good measure. The stream of mana nearly dispersed again.

I exhaled lightly, the gentle breath inches from her skin causing goosebumps on her neck. It also made a long enough connection out from my core to guide a few mota that strayed from her stream back in line. Just enough to keep it all from falling apart until she could get it back together. I smiled. Who'd known training could be so much fun?

As it got closer to the crack in the rock, the stream she controlled grew thinner. Her stray mota near the edge of the steam were being knocked off course in collisions with natural mota blown around in the air.

That was fine, with practice she could bind the mana together with enough force to resist everything short of a hurricane.

The mana finally reached its destination and began to thin even further as it flowed in through the center of the crack.

She'd clearly seen that she would need to leave space for the mana already in there to exit and thinned her own stream even further to allow for it. Smart girl.

I watched as the area filled with necrotic mana until every breath the snake took drew it in, slowly corrupting him until all that remained was decayed flesh and bones.

as I relaxed my eyes wandered, enjoying the view.

I felt one of the skeletons wrap his bony fingers tighter around a rusted blade.

I turned to look and frowned. It turns out you totally can charge across the open desert against ranged enemies and survive just fine. Just make sure the enemy your charging is busy looking down a girls shirt when you do it.

I screamed at the Gods "I just knew this bitch was going to get me killed!"