There was no one at the wheel, but apparently there didn’t need to be. Cira and I sat across from each other in the back clinking glasses and shooting the shit. While at one point she claimed it would not be a long journey, it did not take long for her to refuse to defy the natural laws of water in such a scenario—her words. Though, despite her defying the natural laws of wind and gravity, it took some time to travel upstream.

Granted, neither of us cared too much, I was starting to hit my limit. The camp stove I crafted and her own floated between us and there were constant snacks grilling. My belly was stuffed but this ale was so good I could hardly put it down. I don’t know how Cira, who I begrudgingly admit was much more lean than me, could drink so much.

“—Earth Vein’s gotta go, ya know? But, I mean, only one of three witches I’ve met was bad. I don’t like those odds. Ya know?” My eyes blinked in befuddlement as I tried to tune back into Cira’s ramblings.

“…what?” For some reason my stomach was starting to grumble. I could feel a knot forming. “Why do you keep talking about witches? They’re mean. Does that mean you slept with two and turned one to ash?”

There were a great many rumors going around town, and it was my pleasure to present them to my master.

“N-no! I only burned a hole through her knee… And I only slept with one!” There were scarce few subjects which got Cira flustered, but somehow I knew she was being dumb and saying something she didn’t quite understand the meaning of like usual. Still, I couldn’t help but be curious about what happened between her and that metal woman she always blabbered about.

“Right… I guess if I’m ever gonna be a real sorcerer I’ll need to find a witch to—blughh” My revelation was cut short as bile filled my throat.

“Whoa there,” Cira pat my back as I violently heaved over the edge, ruining the river of legendary ale for miles behind us. The golden waves seemed to bob in unison with each assault my gut threw upon my soul. “Do you want me to sober you up with sorcery?”

“W-what…?” I could not imagine how undainty I looked in that moment as I gazed up at her with vomit dripping from my cheek and an unfocused gaze that struggled to look forward, let alone at her. “You can do tha—blrrghhhghhh!!!”

It felt like a crime to vomit so profusely into such a picturesque river of beer, but it was the river’s fault anyway. The beer was simply returning to its home. Sometimes it was meant to be.

A golden light caught my eye, and I found my belly encased in holy light. It only lasted for a few seconds as I rapidly went from drunker than a thousand nights to waking up in the morning with a tummy ache. My facial muscles felt sore as I finally figured out how to rest them in their repose, and Cira did me the courtesy of cleaning my face off with water and no warning.

“Feelin’ better?” She asked before tipping her glass up, “How do you think I drank Don under the table?”

You know… for some reason I thought she had at least the smallest amount of merit as a pirate, but has it all been a mirage of sorcery down to its root? I might have to start calling her a magician.

“If anything, I’m a little too sober…” My glass had fallen into the river, and the rumble in my tummy was but a distant memory.

“Only one thing to do about that,” Cira cheersed her own in the air as a new, even larger glass materialized, and I frowned at her while my fingers gripped it involuntarily. I was met only with a sly smirk.

“Let me tell you something.” My glass was larger than hers, and I banked on that meaning hers was thinner by scale. I used wind to maximize my speed as I cheersed back her outstretched mug at such speed it shattered on impact, spraying broken crystal and ale all over the both of us.

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“Y-you bitch!” Cira stretched both her arms out in shock, septuple-taking between me and the booze soaking through her pirate costume. “Why would you do that?”

She didn’t even look at the new glass as it formed in her hand, which looked identical but noticeably more opaque than the last.

“Because you have no sense, dumbass.” I took a good, long drink as she actively stewed over my words. “I once watched a mana crystal the size of my fist sell at auction for two hundred gold, and it had plenty of imperfections. Bubbles across the surface, weird streaks within, and it was like a misshapen rock found along the shore. Yours look more like glass than most glass does, and you are using them as disposable cups.” Her face had grown stiff, “If you’re going to Porta Bora and don’t want the entire city to catch on, you need to stop being such an idiot.”

Cira could probably have Shores spread the date and have a thousand people ready to worship her within the week, but I learned recently that Cira valued having someone present to call out her mistakes or shortcomings. As her star student, I hoped she planned to leave me with a lot of treasure.

“Imperfections…?” She seemed confused, and a very faint golden light shone on her stomach. Her next words were marginally less slurred, “I don’t understand. Making a mana crystal is making a mana crystal… If I fail to do it… it crumbles. The nature of pure aether is that there are no imperfections… It’s pure. That’s the entire point. How could there possibly be inclusions in mana crystal?”

This sorcery stuff is confusing, but from what I gather, aether is made up of all primary mana types—mana in its purest form. It could be said one filters the elements out from the aether themselves with willpower as a strainer. Given my master’s own logic… wasn’t she conjuring aether crystals, and not mana crystals?

She swore that if an element were specified, that a crystal’s name would be “appended thusly”. Also, souls are in the aethereal realm? Like, my own that moves around with me forever? She really was a shitty teacher. I guess mana was just what people called it, and everything was always aether… It just depended on what you wanted to do with it.

The weirdest thing was that I existed in two planes at once ever since I was born. Imagine that. Was my body me, or was my soul? Both of these newly significant concepts which made up the one known as Tawny were evidently, “mere components of the essence,” as Cira claimed.

I pounded my glass in frustration, and it filled itself as if to spite me. I cut off her advanced lecture by raising my hand studiously—I also learned she appreciated that.

“Hmm?” She narrowed her gaze, gut glowing gold as her ale tipped back. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to accomplish there.

“Allow me to ask you the most sorcerous question I can conjure.” I tapped my fingers against the glass, thinking of the best way to phrase it, “You… said you could change fate. Is that something your dad taught you? Is that what sorcerers—”

“No.” Her mood grew sour. “Among the many things he taught me, that is not one. Nor is it something you will ever strive to achieve.”

I thought she was drunker than me at this point, but her piercing gaze sobered me right up.

“I… I understand…” I couldn’t muster any other response. It seemed useful in emergencies, but maybe it had some hidden cost I don’t know about.

“Never mind that,” She turned away, looking to the river ahead. “The spring is upon us.”

We crested a hill made of solid gold in our upstream pursuit and were met with a lake of golden froth. It was so massive you could land a small fleet in it, and the conjured miniature boat we rode on steadied out in the calmer waters.

In the center of the lake, there was a massive geyser of the very same ale we had been drinking. For some reason, Cira was sailing in a straight line right for it. I could feel us slow down as the current grew stronger as we closed the distance between us and the lake. Soon there was a fine mist falling from the sky, shimmering in the sunlight.

“What… is your plan—” I tried to ask.

“Shhh!!” She held a finger in front of her lips, “Focus.”

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to focus on, but I took another drink when she did. She seemed incredibly concentrated on the spring, but I couldn’t tell why.

I was trying to sense the nearby wind to discern anything, but it was just a bunch of liquid sloshing around. I could tell there was mana coming from the alestorm’s center, but there was no way of knowing what kind.

A bubbly deluge now fell over us. It had started to hurt my eyes, but I learned to keep it out with wind. Cira was completely dry, of course, but her glass was always filled to the rim.

Going against the current again, this naturally took a long time.

Every time I tried to get a word in, she would shush me.

“Seriously! What are you—”

“Know this.” Cira finally turned to me, “It is I, The Sorcerer Cira, who has discovered the first island in the sky with two springs. A feat not even the Great Sage accomplished!”

She was beaming in the sunlight which broke through the downpour of supposedly legendary ale. Didn’t someone make this island…? I don’t know if it counts. I didn’t say anything, but I was sure she knew just as well. I let her have her moment.