Everyone talks about how skill and experience matter, but few ever bother explaining beyond just saying it. I will give simple examples to illustrate the matter.

  When you are a novice, experience matters in that you will learn how to properly extract the energies from the raw ingredients, making a higher quality product. At the next stage this evolves into knowing the energy patterns in your brew, letting you know what to do to prevent failure, helping you recover from errors and increasing the odds of successfully crafting…

  — Excerpt from Thoughts on Pots and Brewing

  Day 153, 3:50 PM

  “Thank you, thank you! I can’t believe you handled the five of them all alone. How did you do it?”

  I looked at the overjoyed man’s beaming face, which is definitely not how most sane people would react upon seeing my handiwork.

  “Lots of practice,” I told him with a winning smile. “Now, we need to head for Thunderbluff, but that trip would take an entire week, and we might get attacked along the way, so I have another suggestion.”

  Brand motioned for me to elaborate.

  “Go to Hailstown instead, and stay in the library while I go to Thunderbluff, let the heresy hunters and the guild know what happened, and then they should either escort you home safely, or they will let your family know so they can hire some guards for you.”

  Brand considered my words before shaking his head. “The library isn’t an inn, I will have to eat and sleep, and the librarian won’t let me do that inside.”

  He was right. Even I left the library to eat, and while I did sleep with the librarian, it happened outside the library.

  “But the trip to the Thunderbluff is too long, and the odds of the cultists finding you are high.” I had a solution, but Brand wasn’t going to like it. “However, we can make the trip shorter.”

  “How?”

  “I could sprint there with you on my back. I can make the trip in less than sixteen hours. Hopefully, the Blood Cult doesn’t mobilize until then.”

  Brand deadpanned at me. “You want to princess carry me?”

  “Well, I was thinking piggybacking, since it’s easier…” he stared blankly at me, and I realized he didn’t understand the term.

  What? Princess is fine, but I mention a pig and you have no idea what I’m talking about?

  “… I mean, I was thinking of carrying you on my back.”

  Brand nodded slowly. “No.”

  “Look, Brand, you’ve got three choices - The Library Inn and the deadly innkeeper, Dandelion express, or the cultists butchering you while you’re hiding in a bush, waiting for me to fetch reinforcements, so what’s it gonna be?”

  …

  “I think I’m gonna be sick again,” Brand whispered the loving words into my ear, his voice barely registering above the rustle of my mad dash.

  “Brand,” I shouted so he could hear me, “we’ve been at this for three hours now. Your stomach is so empty it’s in debt. You got this. Just stay positive. You will survive, and one day, perhaps even a week from now, this will all be a horrible memory you will try to forget.”

  Brand whimpered.

  “Oh, come on, Brand. Look at it this way; we’ve only got twelve hours to go.”

  The whimpering grew louder, and I sped up.

  I ran all night, and we reached Thunderbluff in the morning. Brand looked like a cross between a whitewashed corpse and a sack of potatoes, and I headed straight for the gate, ignoring the line.

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  “We have an urgent report for the heresy hunters,” I told the guard, who looked me over, then scanned Brand before nodding and demanding payment for entering the city.

  I paid for the two of us, and nobody dared complain or obstruct the heresy hunters. Just like that, I dashed in, heading straight for the not-so-secret police’s headquarters.

  “You again?” the familiar interrogator said, his voice flat.

  “Greetings,” I said with my winning smile, which didn’t move him one bit.

  “Your realm has changed.” The air in the room grew heavy, and I could finally see that the heresy hunter was at the fifth realm. As for whether he was a mage or a mageknight, I couldn’t tell.

  “I destroyed my core and restarted my realm. It cost several elixirs and just about everything I owned, and I was close to death, but it was a gamble for a better future. Better die trying for the top than remain a mediocrity.” Instead of the winning one, I went with a nervous smile.

  The heresy hunter glared at me, his eyes drilling into my being, before the murderous air vanished and the man nodded, showing a hint of respect.

  “Suicidal, but not impossible. Given your aura was the last time we met, you wouldn’t have made it past the fourth realm. Now, why are you here?”

  “I was near Summersweald, and I decided to pick some berries for extra manarium since I was nearby…” I served him a censored, child-friendly version of my adventure with Brand. Lots of rainbows, some dead cultists, and a very confused alchemist carried by a mageknight some fifty miles per hour.

  He asked me how I knew the five men were cultists, a great question. Meeting strangers wearing hunter clothing when walking out of a jungle and judging them as cultists and attacking immediately wasn’t what normal people did.

  “Brand confessed that the ones who attacked him and his guide or bodyguard, whatever he wants to call him, were cultists. And when I left the jungle, five men immediately surrounded me. They said I’m not their mark, and that the one they were looking for was nearby in the jungle. While I admit I had no damning evidence at the time, their words, five third realm awakened talking about someone a mile away in the jungle, and everything Brand told me kind of implied who they were.” I grinned. “Besides, you can bury your mistakes, but I was positive I wasn’t making a mistake.”

  The heresy hunter, whom I mentally labeled as Herr Hun, gave me the look I’m more used to seeing from women. And I bet it would’ve been worse had he known what I was calling him inside my head.

  “Do you know why the Blood Cult is after Brand Coldridge?”

  “No.”

  “But you have a theory?” Damn, Herr Hun was good at his job.

  “I have what you may call a conspiracy theory.” The man cocked his eyebrow, probably the first time anyone had mentioned a conspiracy theory in his life, if not the history of his culture.

  He waited a moment before motioning for me to continue speaking.

  “Brand is a talented alchemist despite not awakening. What if the Blood Cult is using a Seer and they either want to stop him from making something or inventing a technology which would allow non-awakened to make alchemical concoctions?”

  Herr Hun smirked. “And now you’re avoiding the answer.”

  “I,” I nearly lied to an inquisitor inside a chamber for inquisiting people and reading their lies, but stopped myself in time, “believe it’s something along those lines.”

  “And yet you’re not entirely truthful.” I didn’t move a muscle, but he still nodded. “You have a specific invention in mind.”

  He somehow homed in on the answer despite me remaining silent and not moving. He has a way of detecting something, bodily changes of some sort. I need to somehow spend a bunch of loops fixing that problem. But how? It’s not like I can rent out the heresy hunters’ branch for two weeks to train breaking their lie detection.

  “Tell me plainly, what do you think is his invention?”

  “Something about getting a second chance at awakening.”

  A bark-like laugh escaped Herr Hun before he once more became professional. “You are free to go.”

  He didn’t even bother telling me not to run away; the case was obviously deemed lower priority than the attack on Flake Frostgrave.

  Brand was waiting for me in the corridor, and together, we headed for the adventurers’ guild.

  “So,” I started, dragging out the word, “how are you feeling?”

  “Much better when not riding a crazy mageknight running so fast I was sure my hair would fall off.”

  “You know I’m at least twice your age, giving you rides like you were a kid, you should show some appreciation.”

  He looked at me in shock. Brand appeared older than me in outward appearance.

  “You know most normal awakened hate discussing their age?”

  “Why wouldn’t I discuss it?” I made a mental note not to make the same mistake again. “My age is proof of wisdom, and my rugged good looks despite the said age a show of vitality and power.”

  He chuckled at the bullshit, but the topic clearly upset him. Brand was bound to live another eighty years at most, and the quality of life in his latter years was highly questionable. Then again, his unique physique might give him a longer life expectancy.

  “How old are you, anyway?” I asked directly.

  “How rude.” He glared at me. “Sixty-three.”

  “Sorry I called you half my age, it wasn’t true. You’re damn old and have rugged good looks yourself.”

  Brand chuckled and shook his head. “Let’s go to the guild and get this over with. Talking with you makes me feel dumber with each passing breath.”

  “Oh, come on, I can’t be that bad. I know alchemy.”

  “I guess that’s where all your brain went,” he joked back, and we went into the guild. Him in search of safety, me in search of money and shocked looks as I complete a mission labeled as for fourth realmers while at the second realm.