The morning sun spills like honey through the delicate leaves of the spine-covered tree, casting a weave of dancing shadows over the grass and trampled earth beneath.

  I sit beneath the canopy, feeling the rough bark against my back and listening to the leaves whisper and rustle in the breeze.

  A harsh and hollow call shakes the hush of dawn, rattling me. It sounds like a bird trying to speak through a carved mask. It echoes over the plain in short barking bursts, rising and falling in a rhythm almost sounding like a language I don’t understand. The wind dies into silence. The grass seems to pause to listen to the clipped and deliberate sequence of notes for a second before it resumes its sway.

  I’ve been wandering through whispering grass for weeks. The sounds, the smells, the animals, the vegetation, everything is different from what I’m accustomed to. There also seems to be no end in sight, just grassland and more grassland as far as the eyes can see.

  I look into the distance, searching for a change the new day may reveal. I can’t see the skyline. Soft clouds paint the air in a muted crimson that glows in the morning light.

  I freeze. There is a lot of dust there. Could there be fighting mages again? Kylo and I stumble over groups of them every few days, though we have chosen to keep our distance for now. I don’t want to get involved in whatever nonsense they are fighting over.

  I sigh. If this continues, sooner or later, I’ll have to. Those crazy mages may be the only ones out here who can point me in the right direction. Bae and Master Wen could have given me a map or something.

  As hard as I try to listen, I can’t hear any voices or sounds of battle. I only hear the reborn wind stirring up the dry earth. It’s getting drier the further we advance. Maybe we are getting closer to a desert. It hasn’t rained for a single day since we arrived on this plain. It could also be the season that is changing. I haven’t been here long enough to tell.

  I’m lucky to have some jars and pots in my ring to store water because finding clean water sources is becoming more and more difficult. The last few we came across were stinking mudholes of water losing their war with the harsh sun, covered in clouds of finger-long flies and reeking of decay and half-rotten carcasses. Even the river we came across last week had nearly dried up, and the big cats that made their home around its bank gave even Kylo pause. We walk over other riverbeds from time to time, but they are more like scars of cracked clay patterns curving and bending across the landscape. If this keeps up, I’ll need to find a way to make those brackish pools drinkable.

  The cloud drifts closer, covering me in fine, blood-red dust that stains my arms and filters through the fabric of my clothing. I try to shake it off, but it clings to my skin. I sigh. I must look like a scarecrow, unable to wash myself for days as I have because water is way too precious for that.

  There is not much I can do about it.

  What I can do is work on my advancement.

  I focus on my half-finished first meridian, waiting for Kylo to show up so we can move on. I still haven’t chosen which path I want to follow. By comparing the different manuals, I’ve discovered that some share a few meridians. All rogue-related paths share their foot meridians, for example. After maybe a month, I’m halfway finished with the left foot meridian. It’s supposed to boost agility, endurance, and vitality. Why those attributes and not others, I don’t know.

  I can feel the mana flowing smoothly from my core through my kidneys and hip, all the way to just over my knee, where I’m currently still carving. I push forward with my imaginary blade, gritting my teeth at the white-hot thread of fire drawn through my body with terrifying precision. It isn’t exactly like a wound, though it bleeds in a way, a flow not of blood but of mana and pressure trying to burst and break free. It reminds me of carving a canal or a tunnel for the mana to flow and reach further, a tunnel where my flesh is the soil to give shape. I try to steady my shallow breath and press on, keeping an eye on the blueprint in the manual. The section I’m working on feels bland and malleable, like always, but I know it won’t stay that way for long. As soon as the mana flow increases, the walls begin to harden until you can’t modify them anymore. You have to find the right balance between speed and precision. You have some margin to rectify the section you are working on if you make a mistake. But you have to be fast about it, or you run out of time and get suboptimal meridians with inefficiencies that will accompany you forever, as far as I know. Once you start, you also can’t stop until you reach the next node. Nodes are places where future secondary and temporary channels may flow into the meridians, and techniques are attached. Not that I have any clue how to get one out here. I’m currently working on the section between the thirteenth and fourteenth node, out of twenty-four that this and each other meridian have. I wonder why that specific number and not more. There could be more. According to the manuals, one of the differences between the meridians of different paths is which nodes they connect to and which ones they leave dormant. Maybe it is because you can’t spread your efforts too thin. I sometimes wish I had some scholar around to answer my questions. Or access to a mage library.

  My imaginary spade slips, carving a jagged line in the unseen flesh. My muscles seize. I feel a sharp sting piercing deep into my bones.

  “Shit,” I curse.

  I need to focus. I can’t afford to mess up the process. I need every advantage I can get if I want to survive the shenanigans of those envious nobles. I smooth the walls with careful strokes, patching them together where needed while the section is still malleable until the lines are straight and clean. It reminds me a bit of drawing runes. There is some overlap, and at least I have a lot of practice with that. It seems to be helping me to think of it as just another kind of rune, even if this canvas is more felt than seen. I exhale, comparing my inner map to the blueprint again. My breath rises like steam through the fresh morning air.

  I think I fixed it. The pain gives way to something clarity, awakening, and a sensation of power and euphoria flooding my flesh.

  Finally, I reach the next node, and it comes to life like a dry well sucking up a stream, sending a shiver of relief through my aching joints. Then, the flow reverses, and a new mana-flood surges through me. The pressure on my core increases, stretching it slightly.

  I sigh. I could have finished my whole network if I didn’t need to rest for at least a day between each session. But no, you need to let it set and harden completely before advancing to the next node, or your half-finished meridian may burst, which leaves you unable to advance further.

  I get that the further you advance, the longer each stage takes, but at this rate, it will take me more than a year to finish. Because of that, I try to start each new session as soon as possible. I try to make a quick mental calculation. Twelve meridians of twenty-four nodes each make two-hundred-eighty-eight nodes to connect with my core. With at least one day to rest between each, that makes a minimum of five-hundred-seventy-six days before I catch up to people like Turstan, that annoying noble boy who believes I’m his rival or something.

  Yeah. I have a lot of work before me.

  I browse through my rune-mage manual, waiting for Kylo to grace me with his presence. It is fancier than the other manuals and has a lot of additional information and historical context that the other manuals don’t care about. I understand it isn’t strictly necessary for their purpose. I’m glad for it, though, because it could help me fill some holes in my education.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I’ve also discovered that I’m not the first owner of this book. Delicate notes unfurl like ivy across the margins of some pages and wherever there is a blank space at the end of each chapter. Who wrote this? A previous disciple of Master Wen?

  Each letter curves and slopes artfully, whispering of the elegance only a noble or someone born to wealth would care about. The violet ink glimmers faintly where it catches the light, betraying the richness of a fountain pen wielded with obsessive precision. I can also feel some traces of mana still lingering in the script. I shake my head. Who would use mana-ink for something as mundane as writing notes? Most of them are simple questions or references to additional reading material. “This is confusing. Von Hagen claims all mage paths use the fourth inner heart node in their left-hand meridian and not in their heart-mind meridian.” Others carry the weight of realization—“Ah, this is an unexpected solution to the Kenarian dilemma.”

  I feel inadequate, as if not understanding everything this other disciple is writing about makes me less, somehow. Some of the notes are so long that they could be essays.

  “This is a common practice that sadly is becoming common across the empire out of fear among some of the weaker-minded of our peers. For some reason, some lesser nobles are afraid of being unable to control their peasants if they empower them too much.

  Everybody knows that even peasants achieve low silver rank at about 13 years of age just due to natural mana absorption. That is one of the benefits of living in a high-mana-density area like our empire.

  They get stalled there until they die because they lack knowledge about cultivation, don't care about preserving their knowledge and traditions, or lack ancestors who reached higher stages as we do, who could guide them.

  Access to a blueprint and techniques needed to carve your meridians are one of the benefits nobles entice free men with to bind them into their service. Even the legions have the soldier path, a lesser variation of the more prestigious knight paths, to make recruitment attractive. It is well-known that volunteers fight more fiercely and train with more enthusiasm than those forced into that role.

  “What I am referring to and can not call anything less than a malicious practice is the trend among lesser nobility to teach their servants and guards broken paths. That is to say, paths they have assembled out of a mix of different meridians that aren’t compatible between themselves. That gives them followers that are forever stalled at ten or eleven meridians, forever unable to open the last one and progress into the mana-condensation rank. They may have achieved greater strength and longevity than the common rabble. But, if we ever have to take on one of the other great powers like the Southern Theocracy or the Clans and Sects of the Eastern Continent, those sworn servants won’t ever matter in such a conflict due to simply being too weak.

  Lesser nobles would find themselves forced to elevate the more conflictive peasants they intentionally left out. Meanwhile, their loyal subordinates would no longer be relevant. That would have the additional drawback of breeding anger and resentment because they may feel rightfully betrayed.

  It is one of the empire’s current most concerning issues I’ll address as soon as I inherit and find a wive.”

  Huh?

  Nobles keeping peasants weak and ruining every chance for them to advance? Figures. I roll my eyes.

  Who is this guy, though? Neither Bae nor Master Wen told me anything about him, and now they are too far away to ask.

  A bunny floats toward me over the whispering grasses that part beneath its passage.

  Maybe I can ask them once I get back if I remember. Well, if I decide to go back. I haven’t decided yet. I certainly don’t feel tempted to after those bastards threw me out like that.

  Wait? Why is there a bunny floating toward me? I rub my eyes and tilt my head in confusion.

  “Cook!” demands a voice in my mind. The bunny drops at my feet, lifeless, its neck turned at an odd angle.

  “What?”

  Hot air washes over my legs. Kylo seems to materialize out of thin air. He must have turned the invisibility rune I gave him off.

  “Cook wrong bunny,” he growls.

  “Aren’t you becoming a bit too entitled? What do you think I am? Your personal chef? Aren’t you forgetting something?” He is becoming too spoiled. If he wants me to cook for him, he could ask nicely.

  He tilts his head and looks at me as if confused. “Kylo not cook. Sister cooks good,” he praises. “Kylo hunt. Sister cook wrong bunny?”

  He looks at me, pleading with his big eyes.

  “Okay, whatever,” I grumble. I pick up the lifeless body, still warm but yielding under my fingertips. “Why do you call it a wrong bunny, though? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Wrong bunny!” he insists. He sends me images of snow-white bunnies sprinting and jumping over the ice in the mountains. “True bunny!”

  I look at him, confused, trying to make sense of his ramblings. My eyes fall on the brown lump of fur in my hands. “Oh! You think bunnies need to be white?” I smile involuntarily. “This is how they all are here. It lets them hide better in this grassland, I suppose. The same way snow-bunnies camouflage themselves in the mountains.”

  Kylo tilts his head again. “Not wrong bunny? Sneaky bunny.” He sounds almost impressed.

  “Exactly, they are all like this here.”

  His eyes open wide for some reason. He turns around and starts to run into the distance in a blur. “Kylo hunt more. Sneaky bunnies!”

  I sigh. There goes the chance to get somewhere this morning. I guess I’ll start a fire. Maybe we can stock up on supplies for the coming days and vary our diet with fresh meat.

  I pick a few dried logs from around the gnarly trees and try to crack them apart with an axe. The wood is stubborn, as all dead things tend to be. My axe bounces back on the spine-covered bark. The handle vibrates in my hands. I grit my teeth and strike again. After a few swings, it reluctantly cracks open, revealing pale, soft, and fragrant layers within, like the bones of an old tree smelling of earth and decay. I continue working, stripping the bark away piece by piece and breaking it into kindling that I stack up to catch the spark once I light it.

  I draw a simple heat rune onto a piece of parchment, rigged to break apart and catch fire once it gets hot enough. I look at it with pride, remembering past failed attempts to create a fire. I’ve come a long way.

  After a few heartbeats, it catches fire, and smoke drifts through the canopy and into the sky.

  Shit, it may give away our position. I look around a bit wary. We haven′t seen fighting mages in a while, anyone. It should be okay.

  The dust has lifted, revealing the land stretching wide in every direction—an ocean of gold and green swaying under an endless sky. The sun is already blazing in the sky again, announcing another hot day.

  I sigh. Those idiots must still be out somewhere behind us, perhaps two or three days of travel away. Maybe more, or at least they stopped fighting. Now that I try to remember, I haven’t seen the lights and thunder from their duels illuminating the night sky for some days. I just hadn’t realized it because these past days have blurred in my mind as my focus was elsewhere. Could we be past them? We haven't seen any of those scorched patches of land they leave in their trail in a while. Better, they were annoying. Now, we only need to find civilization. I sigh, rearranging the burning logs to make a place for the embers to accumulate.

  I start to dress the bunny with practiced ease before searching for a straight stick to spit it on, humming lowly to myself. I wonder how long it will take for Kylo to bring more and what that will mean for the local bunny population. He can get a bit too enthusiastic when he is enjoying himself.

  “Well now… what’s this? A little bird cooking lunch all alone?” Laughter erupts behind me.

  I freeze. Shit! I knew this stupid fire would draw attention. I slowly look up and find myself surrounded by a group of men dressed in a patchwork of dented and cracked leather and metal plates bound by sinew and stubbornness. These guys are not those crazy mages. I almost feel relieved.

  Their jaws are like cliff edges hidden beneath unkempt beards. They look at me with a hunger that goes further than for the sizzling fat of the bunny.

  One with a scar on his cheek points at me with a rusty sword while turning to a wiry man at his side.

  “You think the lass is preparing us something to eat?”

  More laughter erupts.

  “Well, I don’t mind if you have something to throw onto the fire. One bunny won’t be enough for five men,” I mumble. I don’t mind if it is enough to get rid of them.

  “We got ourselves a feisty one, huh?” says a younger-looking one with a snicker. “What are you doing here all alone, girl? Don’t you know this place is dangerous?”

  I roll my eyes. Yeah, sure, whatever. As if that battleground of mages I left behind is any safer.

  “Fancy clothes the lass has for being out here. Don’t you think, boss?” asks another one, addressing the scared one. “Haven’t seen any guards, though. You think she lost 'em?”

  “How should I know? I do know that ring on her finger looks fancy,” he answers, grinning. “It would look even better in my hands.”

  I sigh. It was too much to hope it wouldn’t come to this.