Keen amber eyes asses me. Bae flickers her ears at every tiny sound of my dragging feet. The air smells of the earth we stir up with each step and of blooming cherry trees. A soft breeze ruffles the leaves, carrying the distant chirps of excited birds building their nest somewhere in anticipation of the coming spring.
I look at her predatory gaze, trying to anticipate her next strike. She steps to the side to reposition herself, closing the distance. Her muscles twitch and tense like a coiled viper. I exhale sharply and shift my stance, right foot forward, knee slightly flexed, left foot trailing behind. I hold my sword in a middle guard, pointing towards the woman's face, trying not to let it drop from fatigue. We have been at this for hours. My arms ache even harder than those days when she made me carry all that water up the hill. Sweat drops down my brow. The pommel of the sword feels slick between my trembling fingers. I grit my teeth. I refuse to falter.
She strikes forward with a diagonal downward slash. Her blade flashes, reflecting the rising sun. I shift further, trying to deflect it, peeking through my momentary blindness. But she hammers through my parry and hits my shoulder with her dull training sword.
“Ouch!” I exclaim, rubbing my aching muscles to relieve the pain.
She stands at ease, grinning. Her tail sways behind her like a fan. “Again! Don’t fall asleep.”
I step back to gain enough distance to raise my sword unimpeded. “How do you want me to parry one of your strikes when you are three times stronger than me?” I complain. “You hit like the kick of an ox.”
“I’m not hitting that hard. Even if I did, it doesn’t matter. Stop whining and concentrate.”
I scoff. “Are you mocking me?” I feel tempted to leave the valley for the umpteenth time these past weeks. Why am I still putting up with what this crazy woman calls training? Now that I know there is no treasure, I could go anywhere. I don’t think they would prevent me from leaving. Why should I be their apprentice just because they say so? I never asked for it.
“What? No!” answers Bae. “I would never.” She steps closer, adjusting my stance. “Strength doesn’t matter all that much in a sword fight. It’s not a hammer. I told you it is a dexterity-based weapon. It’s all about structure. The trick is to absorb the incoming blows with your whole body behind the blade. It’s all about finesse, timing, and using your and your opponent’s momentum.”
Okay. I am still putting up with it because I am improving. These training methods may be even crazier than those The Crow put me through, but I can’t deny that they work. I’ll need to fend for myself wherever I go after this. Good trainers are hard to find and expensive. If they want to continue training me for free, let them. If there is a scam at play, I’m incapable of understanding it. Maybe I’m still staying because Bae’s cooking is divine. When she is not beating me to death, she pampers me like the doting mother I never knew.
Why am I even questioning it? It may be the best thing that happened to me in my life. I feel like an imposter. I am in a dream that can crash in a heartbeat once someone realizes I am trash, just a street rat, a thief, not who I am supposed to be. Am I who I’m supposed to be?
I sigh. “I don’t know if the sword is my weapon of choice. I liked the spear better.”
“Try it out a few more days before deciding which weapon to focus on. Even if you don’t master it, being familiar with swords will help you react better whenever you encounter and clash with one. Most noble knights use it as their primary weapon in this era.”
“Okay,” I grumble. I readjust my stance again, a bit further to the left so the sun stops shining into my face.
It seems that Bae notices it because she grins at me knowingly. "Step, pivot, cut!" she barks, and I move. My boots scuff against the dirt as I strike forward.
Steel whistles through the air. I clang the lower part of my blade against the weaker end of her sword. It rebounds sideways, leaving an opening. I lunge forward, seizing the momentum, aiming the tip of my sword toward her seemingly exposed neck. She pivots to the side and transitions into a hanging guard, catching my sword and guiding it past her before countering in a twirl. I barely have time to step back and intercept myself. Our swords clang together, sending a jolt through my arms, but my stance holds. I watch my sword, not able to believe it.
“Better,” praises Bae. “But still too slow. Don’t think so much before you move. You need to repeat this until it becomes instinctive. If you hesitate in battle, you are dead.”
I grit my teeth, adjusting my grip. “I’m trying.”
Bae circles me, her tail flicking. “Trying is not enough. You need to put your soul into it. You fight like prey as if your objective is disengaging to have time to run away. You need a shift in mentality. You are not prey. You are a predator. Stop thinking like a street rat and think like a warrior.”
I lunge forward again. Our blades meet with a sharp clack, getting stuck in a bind. Bae presses forward, forcing me to retreat so as not to get impaled. I hold my ground until I stumble over a stone and falter. A heartbeat later, my sword flies out of my hands and skids across the dirt. I gasp, feeling vulnerable without a weapon.
Bae lowers her sword. “Not bad. You are improving, but you need to work on your footwork and awareness of your surroundings. Anticipate the problems. Make the environment work in your favor, not against you. Feel the movement before it happens.
I wipe my brow, frustrated. “Easy for you to say. You’ve probably been swinging swords for centuries.”
A smirk tugs at her lips. Her ears twitch. “True, but you have something I didn’t when I started.”
Aha! Got you! I knew that she was older than she looked. How high is her advancement stage to still look so young? “What’s that?” I ask.
She extends a hand to help me up. “Me!”
I scoff, then laugh, letting her pull me up. “Very funny,” I say, rolling my eyes.
My fingers ache, my muscles burn, but I retrieve my sword again, determined to improve.
“That’s enough for today,” acknowledges Bae half a bell later, once she has battered me black and blue, and I am barely able to move anymore. “We need to start working on your mental and mana attributes. “Come!”
I follow her to a group of benches next to a table in front of one of the many ponds in the yard. I circulate mana through my body to wash the pain and tiredness out of my barely functional muscles. Even though I feel like a beaten dog, I am intrigued about what she may have prepared.
She disappears inside the house and reappears seconds later with a pile of books.
“What are those?” I ask.
“Runic manuals,” she answers, grinning and winking at me. My heart skips a beat. Is this a dream? I watch in a daze how she puts the books down on the table with an exaggerated huff. “As I said, we need to work on your mental attributes. Knowing that you like runes, this seems the best way.”
I leaf through one manual after the other, barely aware of how she looks at me, grinning from ear to ear. “This…, this is awesome!”
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“I knew you would like it.” She sits down a few paces away, next to the pond. “I want you to design five different runes that can condense water out of thin air without repeating a single component between them.”
I blink and look at her. “What?”
“Okay, you can use the same connectors if you need to. I know there is not a lot of variety in them, and they need to be compatible with what you are working on, but the rest of the components need to be different. Be as creative as you want, as long as the result is functional.” She looks toward the sun, shifting closer to the zenith. “You have one bell to finish before showing me the results. Sketch them in your book with non-magical ink.”
The world around me disappears. There are only runes and endless possibilities. Who would have thought that there is such variety? A few of them would help me improve the ones I have equipped. I could make my invisibility two times more efficient, maybe. I need to focus. I don’t have a lot of time. Maybe Bae will let me study these books later. Let’s start. What are those? Filtering runes. Those should work if I can find the right ones. What do I need to make a functional rune based on them?
“Ouch!” A stinging pain in my calf pulls me out of my focused trance. A pebble falls to the ground at my feet. I look towards Bae. She still sits next to the pond, whistling a playful tune. There is a pile of more pebbles neatly arranged next to her hand. I glare at her. “Why?”
She grins at me. “I told you that you need to work on your awareness.”
“Whatever,” I huff. Knowing Bae, it couldn’t be that simple. “But isn’t this a bit excessive? How can I evade your throws when I have to sit down to read?”
She grins like an imp. “You don’t need to move physically to stop a simple pebble. You want to learn magic, don’t you?”
“Sure,” I admit, wondering what she has in mind.
“Well, it is time to improve your mana shaping.” She shifts, leaning away from the pond, angling her body to throw at me even faster. “I know that it is by far your worst attribute. You will probably never be able to become an Elementalist or some other path that relies on it, but that isn’t an excuse not to shore up your weaknesses.”
“Fine,” I groan. “What do I need to do?”
“It’s easy. Just expel some mana imbued with the idea of hardness, impassability, or stability in the direction of every pebble I throw at you. To intercept the pebbles before they touch you until it becomes instinctive. What I want you to learn is raw mana manipulation.”
“Okay. I’ll try.” I’ve never tried something like that. I hope it won’t be too difficult. “But how do you expect me to concentrate on assembling new runes if you keep distracting me?”
“That’s precisely why we are doing this!” exclaims Bae, eyes sparkling. “Multitasking is a great skill to develop and one of the best ways to push you over your limits when you are already close to maxing out your stats.”
“Uff,” I sigh, pouting. Bae snickers.
“I told you that the closer you are to your potential, the harder it is to continue to improve. You need drastic methods, or you will stall. But it is worth it, trust me.”
“Fine.”
I try to concentrate on the runes again. “Ouch!” A pebble impacts my forearm, making me lose my grip on my pencil and smear ink over my half-finished design. I glare at Bae. She snickers again, hiding her mouth behind her palm.
I look up. How does this mana manipulation nonsense work? Expelling mana is easy. “Ouch!” Hardening it enough to stop the pebbles and timing it right is hard. “Ouch!” I’m too slow. “Ouch!” I ought to react before the pebble leaves her hand and anticipate where she is throwing. “Ouch!” Another pebble flies. I expel mana. Harden! The pebble stops a fingerbreadth before reaching my belly. I blink, bewildered. It worked. “Huh?”
“Nice, you are getting the hang of it,” praises Bae. “But the sand is falling.”
Shit! I need to start this design again. “Ouch!” And divide my attention. I can feel my mana dipping lower. Am I being too wasteful? A sudden thought crosses my mind. “Emm, Bae.”
“What?”
“Can you teach me a better gathering vortex for my core? Mine is still tin rank.”
I feel her gaze studying me. She even has stopped throwing pebbles. “There isn’t much sense in changing it now. You are getting close to the next rank already, and it would be a waste of time, considering you will need to change it again once you advance. Also, in high mana density areas, a slower gathering core gives you more control over your advancement, making it easier and smoother, which will help you achieve a better advancement quality.”
“Okay.” I sigh, disappointed. I would love to be able to try out and use more advanced body runes. “Bae, why can’t we engrave normal runes with a gatherer instead of a feeder on our bodies?”
“Who told you that you can’t?”
“What? You can?” I blink. If I could use runes that gather ambient mana instead of feeding on my own, there would be no limit to the quantity of runes I can use!
“Sure, why shouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t people do it then?”
“Because there do are a few problems and drawbacks.”
I knew it was too good to be true. Is she just teasing me? “What kind of drawbacks?”
“Well. First, there is the matter of control. With a feeder, you create a direct connection with your core, which allows you to fine-control the range of intensity of the effect of your rune in an instant. It allows you to achieve complicated effects with very simple and efficient runes. It also trains your mana attributes nearly the same way an engraved technique would, which a normal rune with a gatherer doesn’t do. For most people, this would be the most important reason. Most modern mages are obsessed with maxing out their mana-related attributes, even if they don’t care much about the rest.”
“Okay, I understand. But that can’t be the only reason.”
“Sure, it’s not. There is also the fact that runes using ambient mana may be functional here where the ambient mana is high, but not in other regions. Where the mana density is low, they compete with the mana intake of your core, which can slow down your advancement. At higher levels, normal runes become more and more useless. Their effects just aren’t strong enough to hurt a high-ranking cultivator. Body runes aren’t so limited and can pack more power, even though they still are a bit weaker than techniques. There is also an effect called anti-resonant interference, which would become a problem once you start compressing your mana to build a solid core.”
“Why?”
Bae juggles a handful of pebbles under the attentive gazes of the fishes swimming in the pond. She seems to have forgotten that she was throwing them at me. Good. “At that rank, you start to claim mana as yours further outside of yourself, which some people call aura or domain. That creates a clash with other magic not attuned to you trying to create an effect there. Normal runes fall into that category. That’s also why normal magical equipment stops working how it should for people at that level unless you repress your aura, which you don’t want to do because it leaves you vulnerable, or you use soul-bonded items. That effect is even more pronounced if you aspect your mana core. Because runes usually are designed to work with neutral mana.”
“Interesting. I think I understand why people don’t bother.” I finish my second design. It’s easier without the obstacle of flying pebbles. “That aspect thing. Won’t that be a problem with body runes, too?”
“Yes and no,” ponders Bae. She tilts her head to the side, letting her ears flop down. “It’s not like you need to aspect all of your core. You can keep a part or even all of it neutral. It’s just that the current meta in the empire is that people try to specialize in an element because aspected techniques are stronger, even though there is less variety than neutral techniques give you. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.” A traitorous pebble flies toward my forearm, but I intercept it, barely thinking about it. She remembered. Shit! I see her grinning. “You can also.” Another pebble flies. “Modify your feeders to work with aspected mana of your type.” Another pebble flies. I am too slow this time, and it grazes over my back. “The only problem is that if you do that, every other component needs to be compatible and adjusted to your mana aspect too, or the rune will just burn out.”
“Interesting,” I mutter, my mind whirling with all the implications.
“And stop!” exclaims Bae, dancing closer. “Time is up. Let’s see what you got!”
“Shit!” I groan. I was so close to finishing. I know this will mean Bae will come up with more nonsense to motivate me to put in additional effort next time.
“This…, should work. This one, too. The third design lacks balance between the gathering component and the transformers. It should work but will burn out in a day more or less.” I suspected that, but there are only so many different components. It feels like a puzzle, trying to match each with another with which it may work, bearing in mind that you may need it for another one with which it works better. “The fourth one should work but is very inefficient. What is this? The last one isn’t complete.”
I shrug and look down. “I know. Sorry?”
“Well, well.” Bae grins, showing me her sharp fangs. “We will have to work on your speed and concentration.” She takes a few steps back, opening my sketchbook on the first design. “But that can come later. Now that you have the basics of mana manipulation down, I want you to create each design out of mana in the air before you. It’s called runic casting, an amazing exercise to practice mana shaping.” She steps a few paces over to let the sunlight illuminate every detail of my sketch. “It’s one of the classical forms of spellcasting, even if it isn’t that popular anymore because people are lazy and don’t like to study all those runes and variations when there are easier alternatives.” She rolls her eyes.
“Okay,” I mutter. How much harder can creating intricate shapes be than blocking pebbles with blobs of mana? Ugh! Who am I kidding? It is going to take a while. I can see the suffering coming.
“Huh? Wait!” commands Bae. Her ears twitch and rise, pointing towards the lower entrance of the valley. “We have visitors. Someone just came out of the tunnel.”
