Warmth presses against my skin. It smells of old books, beeswax, and cinnamon. I blink. I stand in the center of a cozy, firelit room. Did that man teleport us? How? I barely felt anything. It was nothing like what I experienced when I stepped through the portal that brought me into this empire. How powerful is he? Where are we?

  The daylight filters through the windows, illuminating shelve after shelve overflowing with bundles of rolled-up parchment and worn tomes, their spines cracked with age.

  “Where did I put it?” mumbles the man, whose name I still don’t know. He starts rummaging through the drawers of a closet. “Hmm, not here.” He looks up at me. “Sit down, don’t be shy.” He points toward a pair of plump armchairs beside a low table by the fireplace, next to the softly cracking embers. “This may take a while.”

  I should play along until he loses interest in me, and I can slip away. The floor creaks beneath my hesitant steps, the pelt of a carriage-sized tiger muffling the sound. I let myself sink into one of the armchairs with a sigh. The cushions embrace me like a long-lost friend, soft and warm. A faint scent of roses and jasmine lingers in the upholstery, mingling with the crackle of the fire. What the heck is this made of? I curl my fingers over the rounded arms, tracing the smooth texture, my body surrendering to the quiet comfort. I suddenly feel very drowsy, my eyelids heavy, about to close themselves. I bolt up in alarm. What kind of trap is this?

  The man is still rummaging through another closet. I look out of the window. I can see a courtyard surrounded by a low stonewall spiked with thick bamboo pillars painted red. I have seen this before. We are inside what I thought was a temple. I should forget about whatever the compass may be pointing at. There is no way I could get away with stealing from someone who can teleport around at will. Let’s wait until he finishes this test he talked about and leave.

  I glare at the armchair suspiciously. Could it be enchanted to make you sleepy? I sit down, carefully searching for some change in my mood, but nothing happens this time.

  “Found it!” exclaims the man, sounding like an excited child. He walks over, holding a big jade tablet covered in faintly shimmering symbols I have never seen before. He plumps into the other armchair and lays the tablet on the table between us. “Bae, can you brew us some tea?”

  “Sure,” says someone in another room in a high-pitched voice.

  Okay, there are even more people here. I will have to keep that in mind when I do my getaway. I look at the deep green tablet. The pale emerald veins that run through it almost look like branches of a tree, hiding slumbering secrets. The carvings on it seem almost alive. They shift in response to something I can’t perceive, whispering forgotten stories in a language I don’t understand. Are those runes?

  No, they are not. At least not the runes I know of. Some lost language, then.

  “Have you ever used one of these before?” asks the man.

  “No?” I murmur. “What does it do?”

  “Yeah. It would have been strange if you had,” says the man. Instead of explaining what it does, frustratingly. Not that I’m going to complain out loud. “There are not many of these around, you know.”

  “Why?” Maybe asking directly will give me some answers about what he wants to do.

  “Well. That is because you need a dungeon core to make one of these. Nobles don’t like it when someone destroys one of their sources of wealth.”

  Yeah, good answer. As if I knew what the heck a dungeon is.

  “Oh,” I grunt. “How do I use it?”

  “Just put your hands here and here and inject some of your mana,” he says, pointing at two circular spots without symbols. “But wait, I need to create a profile for you first.” He pushes symbol after symbol in a blur until they shift into the common script. “Name?”

  “Hmm? Minae,” I answer, using my crafted persona by inertia.

  “Minae what?”

  “Just Minae.”

  “Really?” He looks at me as if doubting or seeing me for the first time. “Interesting…,” he continues pushing symbols. “You can use it now. Let’s see what we are working with.”

  I put my hands on the spots he indicated. The tablet feels cold and smooth under my touch. I inject some mana, not knowing what to expect. More symbols appear, then flicker and shift until falling still.

  The man whistles. “Not bad… Not bad at all. Your stats may not be at the level of a genius, chosen by the heavens, but they are firmly in the low-superior range for your advancement stage.” He looks at me, taking in my baffled face. “You don’t know what that means? Hmm. Let me explain.” He strokes his chin.” Your attributes are better than those of almost all the noble brats nowadays. That means you are stronger, faster, and more perceptive than nearly anybody at your same cultivation stage.”

  “What? How?” I ask, feeling a bit stunned.

  “Oh! That is easy to explain. You got into the empire’s heartlands only a short while ago and advanced here, and the place where you lived before was sparse in mana, right?”

  “Hmm, yeah,” I admit. How does he know that?

  He strokes his chin again. “You won’t understand anything if I don’t explain what the tablet reads a bit more.” Something clinks in the corridor next to the room we are in. I can hear soft steps and someone humming in a low voice. “You can see that the tablet differentiates between effective and potential attributes, right?”

  “Yes…, I do.” The humming comes closer.

  “Effective refers to a measure of how high one of your attributes is at a given moment. You can increase that with training. Are you following me?”

  “Sure, seems self-explaining. Your potential is the maximum you can reach?” That seems wrong for some reason. I have seen high-ranking mages moving faster than my eyes can follow. How much agility, strength, or whatever attribute is needed to increase your speed to they have? Three hundred? Four hundred? Does this mean I’ll never be able to become like them?

  “Yes and no, potential measures the theoretical maximum you can reach in an attribute without increasing your cultivation stage.” The humming stops a few paces away behind the wall. Each time you advance, your potential increases depending on the quality of your breakthrough and how highly you have managed to train your attributes. A normal breakthrough increases your potential stats by between 20% and 30% of your effective stats, and a peak breakthrough by about 40%. That’s why you should always train your effective stats to at least 90% of your potential before ranking up, and try to aim for a peak breakthrough, or you will slowly fall behind the elite of your peers.”

  The door of the room opens. “I brought your tea, Master Wen, yip!” exclaims an exuberant young woman who reminds me a bit of Yuileen. She has similar red hair, a stubby nose, and big fox ears pointing out over her head. Wait, fox ears? I rub my eyes. Are those real?

  The man, Wen, sighs. “You know you don’t have to call me master, Bae.”

  “Oh, but I do it because I like it, yip!” She comes over and puts a tray on the space left beside the jade tablet and a teacup in front of each of us.

  Steam curls in delicate ribbons from my cup as she pours, the soft clink of porcelain the only sound in the suddenly quiet room. The fire crackles as a log breaks apart under the heat, making her fox ears twitch slightly. She lifts the teapot with practiced grace and moves over to Wen’s cup, filling it with the same careful precision. The scent of jasmine, oranges, and something spicy drifts between us, wrapping around the moment like an unspoken promise of warmth.

  I watch her wide-eyed, hands curled in my lap. Should I reach for the cup, or do I need to wait? Is there some etiquette I need to follow?

  The man takes his cup without hesitation, seeming to have forgotten about me for an instant. He inhales deeply before taking a slow sip. A quiet hum of approval slips past his lips. The woman’s tail flicks behind her before settling again. She grins briefly before looking at me, setting the teapot down gently.

  I hesitate for an instant under her inquisitive eyes. What is she looking at? I lift my teacup. Warmth seeps into my fingertips. I take a cautious sip.

  The taste blooms across my tongue, delicate yet bright, like sunlight filtering through the clouds. My eyes widen. The woman’s ears twitch. She smiles at me knowingly.

  “It’s tasty, right?”

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  Tasty doesn’t even begin to describe it. The floral sweetness of the jasmine unfurls slowly, lingering at the edges of each breath. The sharp and playful citrus cuts through the softness with a burst. Both flavors weave together seamlessly, balanced by the deep grounding earthiness of the tea itself, cradling them. It is also so rich in mana that my lips become all fuzzy.

  “So, after what I have told you. Can you guess why your attributes are better than those of most of the empire’s noble brats of your advancement stage?”

  “What, me?” I ask. Both look at me in anticipation. How should I know? “Err. It can’t be because they are born weaker. Nobles always take pride in their superior breeding.”

  “They do, those cousin-fuckers,” snickers Bae.

  The man rolls his eyes. “True, more nobles are born with higher-than-average potential than the general population.” He takes another sip from his tea. “To give you an idea, 100 is the maximum potential in a single attribute a human can be born with. That is very rare, though. Everything above 80 is considered superior potential in an attribute. More than 95 is peak potential. Most people have some attributes in which they have great potential and others in which they are worse. That is why, to consider someone a genius or not, we take an aggregate of all their attributes. Thus, those born with more than 1200 aggregated potential attributes are considered to be of superior breeding. That is about 5% of the population. You must have more than 1425 aggregated potential attributes to be considered a peak genius at birth. That is very rare. Maybe one in a billion is born a peak genius, and most squander their potential nowadays.” He takes another sip. Looking at me expectantly, like waiting for me to continue my train of thought.

  Okay? But why am I stronger than nobles of my advancement then? Wait! The people I have encountered in this empire all have high advancement stages, even kids. “Could it be because they advance too soon without maximizing their effective stats?”

  “Exactly!” exclaims Wen, eyes gleaming.

  “She is smart,” says Bae, winking at me.

  “For some reason, they only care about the speed of their advancement. The fools! As if a few years more would let them reach further or give them enough time to become immortals before wasting away.”

  “You hear them boasting all the time about their so-called geniuses that reached whatever cultivation stage at eight or ten years of age,” snickers Bae, her tail waving around wildly. “Fools! They are just ruining their foundation.”

  “Well, some of them compensate for it later using alchemy if they are wealthy enough,” admits Wen. “But that has limits and secondary effects. Most importantly, it makes it more difficult to achieve peak-quality breakthroughs. You need to suffer and improve yourself with your own efforts to achieve greatness.” He takes the last sip of his tea and waits for Bae to serve him another cup. “Apart from maximizing your attributes, the moment of your breakthrough is important. You need enough willpower to push hard enough to achieve superior or peak breakthroughs. If you lack willpower, all of your breakthroughs will be mediocre. You could almost consider it a hidden stat that doesn’t appear on any reading. That’s why people have forgotten about it. You need to struggle to increase it. That is why taking too many shortcuts only harms you later on.”

  “Wait,” I feel like gears are turning in my head. “You won’t ever be able to maximize your attributes before you grow up, right?”

  “Go on,” acknowledges Wen.

  “But that would mean that it is bad to be born in a mana-dense region like here because you will almost certainly advance at least one stage before becoming an adult without even doing anything to increase your cultivation speed.” I gasp. “That is why my foundation is better. It is because I ranked up already a grown-up.”

  “Exactly!” Wen looks at me like a proud parent, smiling from ear to ear.

  “But the nobles should know something like that.” This makes no sense. Are they telling me the truth?

  “Well, some of them do. The emperor and some of the older noble families send their most promising scions to be raised far from here before bringing them back when they become adults. But most don’t think it is important and that alchemy can compensate for any shortcomings.”

  I blink. “But why?”

  Bae snickers again. “Because they are idiots.”

  Wen sighs, rolling his eyes. “Because of politics, disinformation spread by the emperor because he fears that others may become too powerful.”

  “Oh.” I drain the last sip of already cold tea from my cup. The sudden emptiness makes me feel a bit sad. “I lucked out then, not being from anywhere near here. Who would believe that?”

  “Wait, you are not Peruvian?” asks Bae. Her eyes whirl from me to Wen and back.

  “What? No.” I wish I could have kept it hidden, but Wen discovered it himself.

  Bae comes over and starts poking and sniffing at me. I let her do it, even if it makes me feel uncomfortable. She pulls at my lips to check my teeth like a horse trader. Then, she looks at the reading on the tablet.

  “Hmm. Steam and shadow aspected spirit root. You are definitively Peruvian and a noble, too. Or at least a bastard.”

  “What? No, I’m not!” I exclaim, finally free from her inquisitive fingers. “I would know if I was some blueblood. I’m from nowhere close to here. I was born in the Solarian kingdom.”

  “The Solarian kingdom? Yeah, right, and I’m some common mutt.” Bae snickers. Then her eyes widen almost comically. “I know! I know.” Her tail whirls wildly. “They have returned, huh? Let me guess. You were raised in some orphanage, supplementing your diet with what you could find in the wilds or pilfering in the streets until some mysterious mentor came along, took pity on you, and offered to protect and train you.”

  I blink and look at her, feeling smaller than ever in the giant armchair. Am I an open book that everyone who sees me can read? “How do you know that?”

  She grins at me. “Those with spirit roots like yours are rare and coveted in certain circles because it is the best for those on a rogue path.”

  “I’ve never trained a rogue. The Peruvians have never managed to send me one of their scions,” interjects Wen.

  “Everyone knows that old man!” exclaims Bae, glaring at the interruption. He hides his face behind his cup. “As I was saying.” She continues, smiling at me. “The problem is that everybody born with that spirit root comes from one of the Peruvian noble lineages and tends to be loyal to their clans.” She starts pacing towards the fire and stokes the flames with a stick. “A few centuries ago, it became popular to kidnap Peruvian noble children and bastards right out of their cribs and then raise them somewhere far away to create loyal followers and assassins for this or that gang.” She looks back at me. “Does it sound familiar?”

  “Yeah.” Disturbingly so. The Crow, that bastard. It can’t be, can it? I can’t believe it. He definitively would do something like that. Judging by his takeover of the gangs in Minas Kalin, he also knew this region. I can feel the anger crawling up inside me, slow and insidious, like magma pressing against the fragile earth at the bottom of a volcano. I can’t believe it. I could have grown up as a pampered noble instead of fighting with the rest of the poor bastards of the orphanage for the few scraps they gave us and the best forage spots in the forest that surrounded our city. That bastard! The burning sensation flares up in my chest, a wildfire catching dry kindling. I tense, teeth clenched. The world around me seems to blur at the edges, swallowed by the pounding in my ears, the rush of blood demanding action. I’m going to kill him. Some day, I will kill him.

  “Hush, hush. It’s over now,” whispers someone in my ear. Bae. When did she come so close?

  I melt into her warm embrace, sobbing like a child. “Sorry,” I mutter. My hands shake.

  “Don’t bother, yip, let it out.” She smiles at me like a scheming villain. “Who would have thought someone would be brave enough to do it again after the Patriarchs rooted out the last bunch who tried? At least, now that you know about it, he will never beguile you again, and you can plan your revenge.”

  “Sure,” I mutter. “Sorry.”

  Bae grins. “I wonder what you will do. Will you expose him to the patriarchs or end him yourself?”

  “Ahem,” Wen lets us know that he is still here. “Can you train her until she maxes out her attributes as far as she can, Bae?” he asks.

  “Sure!” exclaims the fox girl, embracing me harder. "She will be my new little sister, the greatest rogue ever.”

  I will be your what?

  “Great,” says Wen, standing up. “We have about a month for her to rank up. I need to prepare some alchemy…” He looks at me. His eyes seem to pierce my few remaining secrets like a judge or a scholar studying some exotic bug. “The crucible pills should do the job.”

  “We are going to have the super-duper-best time together, yip!” Exclaims Bae, wagging her tail like a hurricane.

  I blink, dumbfounded. “Why are both of you trying to help me.”

  Wen stops at the door and looks at me. “Because you won the competition to become my new apprentice.”

  “I did what?”

  “Wait? You didn’t know?” Wen bursts out into roaring laughter. “How did you even get here? This is going to be so much fun! I can’t wait to see the faces of all those scheming idiots.”

  Bae starts laughing out loud, too, holding her belly.

  I look at them, not understanding anything. “How did I win some competition?”

  “Oh, that,” says Wen. “You are the first to arrive at my doorstep with one of my beacons this cycle. Thus, you won.”

  I blink again. “Your what?” That explains nothing.

  “My beacon, you have it hidden in your spatial ring. It looks like a compass.”

  Shit, he knows. Oh. Oh! Wait, this isn’t bad. Is it? They don’t seem to want to kill me for it. This is so confusing. I take the compass out. The needle quivers and points toward Wen. I move the compass to the side. It still points toward him. Huh?

  “Wait, you said one of your beacons. Are there more of them?” If there are, why was everyone so crazy about getting mine?

  “Sure, it wouldn’t be a race after all if there was only one,” he explains. “Let’s see where the others are?” His eyes seem to glaze over for a second. “Hmm. One is mired down in the mud at the bottom of some river, and the other is hidden in some vault in Minas Kalin. Huh? Strange, what are they waiting for? They must be related to those guards blocking up the tunnel. Whatever. One day, you must tell me how you managed to slip past them without being noticed.” His eyes turn normal again. “Now it is time to start training, hop hop!”