"Don't worry, this shouldn't have any 'curious' effects on you," the woman smiled at her, and Kali just grimaced. Why did she feel like a deviant?

"How well do you remember the Rune construct?"

Kali blinked, the entire construct snapping into place in her mind. She went over it, once, then twice and just to be sure a third time, comparing it with the impression she got from her Core.

She felt like the ball of mana was humming in satisfaction, not even once grumbling at her messing up. It was weird; she didn't feel its satisfaction, but she felt an impression of it? Weird stuff.

"I think I got it," Kali stared into those dragon-like eyes. "I know I have it."

"Are you sure?" the woman frowned slightly. "Most need weeks to entirely memorize a structure like this for the first time."

"Why is it so complicated, anyway?" Kali tilted her head. Sure I memorized it, but I know humans couldn't do the same in a hundred years.

"The original was much simpler." The woman blinked. Kali's ears tingled and quivered curiously. "This is the base of it all. Can you feel it?"

"A single Rune," Kali leaned forward, narrowing her eyes and trying to stare at where she felt the Rune activating but she only got an eyeful of boobs.

"Correct," the woman laughed lightly. "Manners young lady," and pushed Kali's face away, who already had a flush until the tips of her ears.

"Sorry," she looked away. "I tried to see the Rune but-"

"I know," the woman patted Kali's knee. "But you sensed right, a single Rune, it was called the Vortex Rune and the entire technique is based on it."

"What does it do?"

"Huh," the druid snorted. "It makes a vortex inside your core, simple as that."

"Can't I do that myself?"

"No, not with the precision and consistency as the Rune can and all of that is needed if you want to base an entire Technique on it."

"I see," Kali frowned. Could I have just … made a vortex in my core? A whirlpool? And sidestep using that dumb Mana Gathering Rune?

'Study nature, Kha'Lythria, it always has an answer to questions we seek. We just have to know where to look. For one look at this whirlpool, such a curious thing, isn't it? Collecting all the water in a pool into itself?'

Her mentor's playful voice echoed in her mind.

Idiot old man. Not hiding a lesson behind a metaphor or a riddle would surely kill him.

Her face twitched violently as she realized she had a way to gather mana much faster all along but couldn't see it. But another thought came to her mind.

Am I dumb?

She was praised for her mind for most of her life. Whatever she wanted to excel in, she did, and she never had any problem with memorizing something.

"Nevertheless, if you've really memorized it already, I can understand why my son took you in as a disciple." the woman smiled at her warmly. "Be careful though, the technique shouldn't let you hurt yourself with a backlash, but you could end up shooting out all of your mana at once and end up passing out."

"Okay," Kali breathed in deeply and then let it out in a huff. "Let's do it." She whispered to herself, growing giddy inside. The first activation should be special, right?

"Activate it if you feel like you are ready."

Kali nodded. The image was solid in her mind, having gone over it another three times already. Avariel fussing over her and telling her it was alright to do it in a week wasn't making her feel any less nervous, but she felt like every damned particle of mana was in place.

She took a deep breath through the mouth and sent it out through her nose a few seconds later.

Activate.

Her ears quivered, and she felt like the contents of her stomach were rebelling against her. But it wasn't her stomach swirling faster and faster.

It was her Core.

The Vortex built up slowly. Mana moved slowly at first in gentle circular waves, but with each passing second, it grew stronger. The small swirling grew into a whirlpool, all mana being sent to the edge of her core but somehow the motion just made it all want to pull to the center of it that much more.

Then she felt it.

Mana from her body — Just from beyond the edges of her Core but still outside of it — started moving, slowly crawling towards her Core. The range grew and before the first minute passed, all mana in Kali's body was collected inside her Core but it was far from stopping.

Kali shivered as ambient mana seeped into her skin and followed her own in a migration into her Core.

Her barren reserves swelled quicker and quicker. It'd still take a while to fill her Core up to maximum capacity, but it went from a month long cultivation session to something she could do in an afternoon.

Or morning, in this case.

"Good," Avariel sighed softly. "Stellar. You are doing it perfectly. Keep focused and keep your mind on your Core, stop when you are around 90% full."

"Why?" Kali croaked out, her voice sounding both weak and dreamy, filled with an ethereal strength by the ambient mana moving through every cell of her body.

"It takes a while for the vortex to stop. I think it should give you another 5% after you stop actively powering it, but it would be careful so 90% is a good place to stop."

"Okay," Kali gulped, biting down the retort that she wanted ALL the Mana, but even in her current state, she knew that was dumb.

She was like a poor kid growing up in the slums who suddenly got adopted by a king, a girl who never tasted sweets having a cookie for the first time. A Mage who never had enough mana in her life, having an abundance of it for the first time.

Her focus held strong, her attention only split between maintaining the Rune structure and feeling her Core slowly fill up. She couldn't see the percentage trickle up, but she always had an instinctual sense of how much mana was in it, so she might as well have had a counter at the edge of her vision.

Her world slowed down as her perception sped up. It was a weird sensation; she felt like both a year and only a moment has passed when her eyes popped open.

"How do I turn it off?"

"Just stop maintaining it," Avariel turned her gaze on her. "Don't crush it or forcefully dismiss it, just stop maintaining it with you focus."

"Okay," Kali did just that. Her focus, which she held for the last 6 hours, relaxed and the structure which was so vivid just moments ago went blurry.

She felt the change instantly. The feeling of being wrapped up in a warm blanket went away just as the structure turned into nothing, leaving her core bare again.

"Congratulations." Avariel gave her a motherly smile, which once again felt like both a stab into an old wound and a bandage over it.

"Thank you?" Kali asked with a head tilt as she jumped to her feet. She felt like one of those knots as large as a fist some people tied their ropes with, a stretch and some moving around was in order.

"It should be the Master's job to congratulate you on becoming an adept when you first cultivate, but I suppose I'll have to suffice for this occasion."

"Thanks," Kali smiled, already moving to do some of those yoga stretches she learned from her sister. 'Flexibility is important for us girls.' She always said that.

"With you doing so well, we might as well move onto the auxiliary constructs next week." Avariel mused as she watched Kali get the knicks out of her joints and muscles.

"Next week?" Kali blinked. "Why?"

"Kha'Lythria," Avariel's eyes narrowed. "It is good that you have such a stellar memory but we have to make sure it stays in your memory after the impression fades from your Core, we will be Cultivating and spending your mana for a week to make sure you remember it perfectly before we move onto the Buffers and other constructs."

"Okay." Kali nodded obediently. Feeling a bit embarrassed at how rash she would have been if she was just given the Technique, she might have even forgotten about it with time. Not that I ever forgot anything before, but this thing is complicated so it isn't too farfetched.

She willfully smashed the part of her that felt annoyed at them going so slowly, the part of her that felt like she knew this. Maybe even better than the Archdruid, she was just better. How could the woman know that?

But that wasn't her.

Dumb mutt.

She shook the annoying intruding thoughts out of her head and went back to stretching, humming as she felt the by now huge whirlpool of mana with her at the center slowing and growing smaller. At the apex of it, when her vortex was the largest — which it reached after around the first hour of cultivation — it covered most of the large hall they were in and that range was just now starting to crawl back down.

Mana was still surging into and through her as her Core hummed in satisfaction like a well-fed cat.

Kali felt full as her stretches came to a stop just as she stopped feeling the mana move in her body. It was a comfortable fullness after an enjoyable meal and not the feeling of exploding from overeating like mana-overload was described.

"It stopped," she said as she sat back down in front of the druid, who kept a careful eye on her until the vortex fully stopped.

"Good." The woman stood up with a slight smile. "Do you have a Spell that needs a lot of Mana?"

"… I do," Kali admitted but she already knew where this was going and the grin was hard to keep off of her face.

"How many of those will it take to empty your Core?"

"Eleven if I want to deplete it from full, but as it is, I could only do ten." She was bouncing on her feet now and grinning like a loon.

"What Spell is that?" the woman asked amusedly, seeing how giddy Kali was getting.

"Fireball," Kali said dreamily.

"Oh dear," the druid giggled. "The first love of many aspiring Mages."

"Mhmmm," Kali nodded eagerly. "Should I umh- exhaust my reserves in here?"

"Feel free, I made these walls to handle Archmages trying to get to me."

"So, this is your fortress?" Kali asked in curiosity, even as she was turning around.

"It is the very heart of it, yes." The woman stepped up next to Kali. "Go ahead, blast it to your heart's content."

The Runes flared in Kali's mind and collapsed into a matrix faster than ever, and the speed with which they surged to her fingertips was even quicker, probably putting some certified mages to shame.

Kali felt the warmth on her palm for a moment and then the heated breeze on her face as the ball of furious flames materialized and shot off in a blink. The thunderous explosion echoed in the closed hall and made Kali flick her ears down, not that it wiped the stupid grin off of her face.

It only grew larger as the second set of Runes manifested, collapsed, dashed into her palm and shot off as another ball of flaming death.

Then followed a third.

And a fourth with the next six following closely behind with subsequent explosions. When she shot of the tenth one, the eighth was only just exploding with the ninth still mid-flight.

Kali was panting, the scorched wood and ashes slowly drifting into her face, but it all felt like heaven at the moment to her. Her core went from around 98% to 4% in less than half a minute. And yet, she couldn't be happier.

With the last three explosions morphing together into a long roar of destruction and a singular roiling orb of flames, Kali felt satisfied. Running away, learning magic in secret, all worth it for this moment.

Even bearing with that annoying old man for five years, if barely.

Thanks Master, couldn't have done this without you.

"That was exceptional," the druid mused as the echoes died down, revealing a scorched black wall.

Kali's eyes widened a bit as she saw the roots making up the walls tremble for a moment as the charred barks fell off and new ones grew in their places. It wasn't much damage, but it was damage.

I damaged something made to protect someone like Avariel.

"Thanks?" Kali felt elated. Drunk even.

"Yes … I can see it … " the woman mused to herself as she turned her gaze to Kali. There was something deeper in the woman's eyes now. She wasn't sure what it was, but it mostly felt like she was actually looking at Kali now, even if that sounded silly.

"Are you ready for another session?" The woman interrupted Kali's thoughts.

"Yes," Kali perked up. Her empty Core might as well be growling like her stomach would. She was hungry, hungry for more Mana that is.

"Good." Avariel nodded and settled back down with Kali following along, not long after her Vortex once again started expanding and Mana came rushing to fill in her newly emptied Core.

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

VORGNAR SEVERUS

Vorgnar has been … irritated as of late.

It went beyond mere annoyance a while ago, but what could he do but toughen up and take the punches? He knew — intellectually — that it was all worth it, that going from one of the strongest fighters of a continent spanning Empire to where a girl who wasn't even a fraction of his age could push him was all so very worth it when it came together with his freedom. He knew that.

His eyes tracked her for a few moments as she zipped between the trees like a hummingbird but she grew blurry as she used a damned kinetic spell to boost her speed and he lost her with only the faint sound of leaves stirring left in her wake.

Again.

If only …

He shook his head. He was a were-beast, with his other form being a two and a half meter tall humanoid wolf.

He was used to power that could crush stone beneath his punches, speed that seemed like a blur to the normal eyes, and senses like a bloodhound. The temporary loss of that form hurt him much more than the levels. He could get the levels back if he just worked on it for a few years.

But only if I can heal my form.

He was out of his element, having to get used to fighting in his human again. If he had his wolf form, it wouldn't matter that the girl was closing in on him in levels, it wouldn't matter if she had a hundred levels on him and he'd still beat her up easily but life liked to kick him in the gut when he was already down. He knew he was at a disadvantage.

His nostrils blared as he drew in a deep breath, where he was used to instantly locking onto the scent of what he hunted. He only got a faint scent of ethereal tundra mixed with the normal forest. No trail to follow.

He barely caught the snap of a branch, swirling around and lashing out with a fist as the white form of the Elven girl fell onto him.

His fist went wide, the girl twisting her body around it somehow.

Royals are different.

Vorgnar grimaced inside. He'd fought Blade Dancers, War Mages and Battle mages all Winter Elves and only the veteran ones had reflexes like the girl he was training at the moment.

He glanced at his arm, dark skin was sliced deeply and blood was dripping though, dyeing his clothes red.

His eyes locked onto hers, and for a moment, a shiver went down his spine. That playful grin and those glowing ice-blue eyes reminding him of a fight he much rather has forgotten.

Winter Elves had a weird naming convention, few still held it, but the Royal Family was one of them. The children gained names when they were born, but they had to earn their last names with feats of strength. It was a tradition older than the most ancient human kingdoms.

Vorgnar Severus only had the misfortune of knowing one of those honorary names bestowed upon a royal.

'Ly'Riel Winterwrath.'

Just thinking about that monster made him flinch. Blade dancers and battle mages were both some of the most dangerous opponents to fight, and that woman made the masters of both fields look like children before her.

And I am trying to train her little sister.

One moment he was still and the next he was upon the girl, fingers spread out like claws, aiming to rake through her torso.

She was already dodging and only because of his speed did he even nick her clothes.

Her instincts were almost supernatural. Even if on their first training he easily caught her and landed his attacks, she went from an amateur to a well-trained fighter in a single afternoon. She sucked up knowledge and skills like a sponge and until now, he never saw her repeat a mistake, never saw her forget even a single advice he'd given.

Vorgnar fell and his legs kicked out and swept out the girl's own from under her. She might see the swipe coming, but if she couldn't dodge fast enough, she'd still fall.

He was up again before she even hit the ground and had an axe kick aimed at her fallen form.

She kicked off of his shin maybe half a meter above the ground and his kick hit only leaves and the dry ground beneath them, with the girl already rolling away and jumping back onto her feet.

He was faster than her yesterday.

Today, he was not.

She leveled up … again, and I lost a level. Again.

Winter Elves were far faster and more agile than humans of the same level and with the girl finally starting to Cultivate he was being left in the dust.

"Enough." He spoke with a sigh as he fished out a balm from his pack. He had a healing artifact before, but it broke when his Core did so balms and potions it was. The Elves at least made them taste like berries, not vomit like the ones in the Empire. They were more effective, too.

"Does that mean I won?" During training, he might forget that she was a teenager by Elven standards, but her bouncing on her feet did wonders for his memory afterward.

"Yes," he nodded, showing none of his annoyance to the girl as he knew she would be protecting him when he was at his weakest.

"Yeeey," and now she was throwing her hands up in celebration. And now she is jumping into a pile of fallen leaves.

His gaze softened. She was a child.

I am relying on a child.

I need to start working on my levels as soon as my Core is fully repaired … it should be done by the end of the week.

He sat down on a tree stump.

They'd spent a month in the Village so far, only one more, and they should be back on the road.

If nothing comes along to interrupt our plans …

Centuries of being alive on this treacherous rock called Aetheria, Vorgnar knew things never went as smoothly as one expected.