Two weeks had passed since Ranvir’s first class with the students. Currently, they were spread across the lawn outside the school. They’d been separated into four groups, one from each of the planes. The last group only had an Ankirian and Elusrian, being short a Belnavir and all.

Mostly, the students had integrated well with each other. The Elusrians were stronger on average, each being a second-stage tethered, but because of their background, they needed just as much education as the others.

They were currently focusing on gaining insight into the spirit, something only Morphos had achieved beforehand. The old man seemed more than happy to pass on something he’d learned that wasn’t directly related to violence.

Once more, the man reminded him of Sabas, except this one had actually gotten out of the fighting and combat. Since Morphos had more experience in this area than most of the teachers, Ranvir had him duo up with Estrid. She seemed less likely to rebel when it came from an older man with clear combat experience.

No matter what Ranvir attempted, she seemed to think of him as something of an upstart. Hopefully, he’d eventually figure it out and get the idea knocked out of her head. For now, he was more than happy to pass the responsibility on to someone else.

His conversation with Amalia about her- and Shiri’s fight hadn’t helped much either. The idea that he was ‘an eligible bachelor’ somehow hadn’t occurred to him. He realized they’d been discussing him. Could even refer in what regard, but… why?

However, if he was being honest with himself, that sentiment didn’t ring entirely true. He kind of understood. Somewhere over the last five years, he’d moved from apathy into a tentative understanding. Which wasn’t important right now.

He shook his head and surveyed the groups again. Morphos and Estrid, he skipped right over. Dovar was teaching another group, though uncertainty was writ upon his face. He had the experience of pulling it off. He’d only been training with Ranvir for a couple months, but that was more than enough time to gain his own insight.

Helping others get there would also help his own understanding of the process. Exploring ideas he might have instinctively employed or explicitly avoided. Of course, the others were monitoring them.

Amalia’s group were doing fine, except for an Elusrian boy who spent more time giving her eyes than practicing. The group under Kasos’ leadership was surprisingly unremarkable. Ranvir had partially expected them to soar ahead of the others, already deep into re-framing their souls. Instead, it looked like they were matching the pace of the others.

It wasn’t until Ranvir inspected closer he realized how different they were. Kasos tailor-made exercises for each of them, helping each reach their potential differently. It was highly interesting to watch. Ranvir often found himself going over the old man’s decisions, trying to reverse the reasoning.

The last group was Pashar’s. Outside of Ranvir, Amalia, and Kasos, she had the most experience with the spirit. She had an intuitive grasp on the basics. Despite not getting Kasos to teach her, she’d found others willing to provide her training. That said, she didn’t appear to have much experience training others.

So despite knowing more and being better trained than Dovar, her group was actually struggling more. Enough that the other teachers occasionally stepped in as well. It was clearer than good ice that Pashar’s biggest issue was worthwhile role-models to base her approach on.

Her first instincts led to onerous tasks, severe punishments, and overcomplicated explanations. She was aware of these issues, to a degree, but Ranvir didn’t believe she understood how big her blind spot was. Even her ‘reasonable’ punishments would’ve had students leaving for home within the week.

Ranvir’s own two students were technically doing the worst of all. But they didn’t really count like the others. Laila was still cross with him. More than two weeks after she’d heard about another woman hitting on him.

The girl was extremely protective, something Ranvir hoped to make good use of. Though, he wouldn’t want her with a mana-typing like warp. It was a rare person who was handed extremely deadly powers and forwent its potential in order to protect.

Vasso was doing perhaps even worse than Laila was. Sure, they didn’t have access to their soul stamped into them by some higher entity, but he’d been practicing for nearly a year. Yet now that he was trapped between Ranvir, who was his adopted father and teacher, and Laila, who was cute, the young man struggled. It was hilarious to watch, though Ranvir was hesitant to offer unsolicited advice.

The young man’s focus was shot, and he only rarely reached the appropriate frame of thought for these exercises. The girl’s training was still new, barely a couple months into it, but she was rapidly approaching her first spiritual maturing.

Stolen novel; please report.

The actual maturing took years to finish, but in humans the rate at which it began changed significantly between men and women. Women’s spirit started changing around their thirteenth or fourteenth year, whereas men only reliably began around their seventeenth.

Though this wasn’t information that Vednar, at large, was even aware of, they had noticed that women could successfully undergo the awakening ritual much earlier than men.

As Laila approached this age, her spirit began changing and accessing her spirit would become easier. Ranvir’s exercises should help to strengthen and stabilize it, better able to take the first thread of power from the Triplet Goddess.

That had also meant a very long explanation for Vasso. Within the month, maybe two, Laila was going to get far better results from these exercises than he was. It wasn’t related to him in any way, and his failing to keep up wouldn’t be a mark against his talent and abilities.

Ranvir intended to reinforce this idea over the next week, but he knew how hard it could be to avoid comparison. He was just happy Vasso and Frija weren’t so close in age that she would experience it before him as well. That might have been too much to bear for any older brother.

Currently, they were both practicing a basic thought-exercise that would increase their control over anima within their spirit. Ranvir had come up with on his own, then showed it to Kasos. The old man had pulled a far improved exercise out from one of his books, but the base structure was the same.

They sat with a pad of paper in their lap, starting with a random shape. They then had to pull out certain facets of that shape and bring it together into something new. The shapes weren’t as important as the process behind what elements they refined.

Laila spent as much time pointedly ignoring Ranvir as she did working on her exercise. Vasso spent a third of his time casting nervous glances towards the girl and Ranvir. The next third worrying if he was sitting too close to her. The last third sighing with a far-off look on his face after looking at her for too long. Whatever dregs remained of his focus was wasted on the exercise or whatever.

Ranvir could yell at them and demand excellence, but that would hardly help any. Any overtly hostile behavior would only strengthen Laila’s unfounded dislike and he could yell until he was blue in the face and that still wouldn’t change Vasso’s behavior. Laila would eventually come around. She was already a lot better than last week. Once she started leaving Vasso behind, he too would regain his focus.

Ranvir noticed Kirs stepping out of the school. She stopped briefly before heading in his direction. Perception enhanced his eyes, noting the stains of chalk on her clothes and fingers, the slightly baggy eyes and slouch to her shoulders. As she got closer, he also noted the unwashed smell on her. She’d been working all night.

“You look like you’ve been dragged down the worst street in the capital,” Ranvir said as she slumped onto the grass next to him. Laila and Vasso briefly looked up. Vasso returned to his work with a renewed fervor, but Laila gave Ranvir another suspicious glance.

“Hilarious,” Kirs muttered, falling onto her back to look at the sky.

“Your project giving issues?” Ranvir asked. He didn’t know the specifics, though he’d come down to look a couple times. Her experimentation had grown too complex for him to easily follow. She’d stepped far beyond their early and simple rituals. He knew Es was currently out gathering resources for her.

“It is, but isn’t.”

Ranvir nodded. “Obviously, that makes a solid sense. Like clear obsidian.”

She didn’t even bother to reply. “I need to focus on something else. This thing is melting my mind. I thought I was so close, Ranvir. I almost had it, but then…” she threw her hands out to the side. “Something went wrong. So I came to find distraction.”

“Okay,” Ranvir said, turning back to his students.

Eventually, Kirs sat up to glare at his back. “Why aren’t you distracting me?”

Ranvir shrugged and focused on the drawings. “Pretty good. Laila, you’re catching on,” he said as he handed them back. “Deep meditation, I think.”

They grumbled but settled down. Ranvir lowered his tether-sense over them, placing a bit of calm. Soon, the assisted meditation turned them inward, away from their other senses.

“Any news on the Purist front?” Kirs asked. Once she saw the kids were completely zoned out.

“Sansir and Grevor both pulled some strings. It should be a lot harder for them to get so many armed operatives this deep in the country.” Added to that was the effect of Kirs and Dovar’s preparations, which were quite effective. A thin circle of obsidian covered the ground a few hundred meters out. If enough broke, the ritual would tear the entire thing apart. The whole thing was loud enough that most would notice, even from the depths of the school.

“So that’s it?” she asked. “We’re not going to do anything more?”

“If we become too proactive, they will think we’re hiding something and work harder to get at it.”

Kirs shook her head. “Doesn’t feel right to me.”

“Me either,” Ranvir agreed, but he had asked Pashar for advice and she explained her position well. If they took a hundred measures to protect the school. It would only suggest something valuable was being protected, resulting in the Purists going for it all the harder. By seeming to not worry about it, it seems like it isn’t worth the effort and, therefore, is less valuable.

“And what about… her?”

Ranvir didn’t need to ask Kirs who she was talking about. The tension in her voice was more than enough.

“Saleema hasn’t moved in all the time I’ve been here,” he licked his lips as he considered. He still went through his training every morning, which included following the Lines to check on her. “I don’t think she’s moved for more than a year. I haven’t checked, of course, but she seems to be.” He struggled to find the right word for a moment. “Hibernating.”

“Of course, she ‘hibernates.’ Why wouldn’t she? Is she even human?”

Ranvir hesitated, glancing over at her.

“Ranvir, that was a joke…” Kirs said warningly, holding up a hand. “You know what? Consider me distracted.” She got up quickly and hurried back inside.