Published at 24th of February 2024 10:33 am

Chapter 55

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I was up before dawn and working on Nermet’s condition. I wanted to get that fixed as soon as possible to relieve the burden on Father’s mana core, and because I thought it would go a long way towards improving my relationship with Karad. Unless I missed my guess, Shel was already on my side since my knowledge was so useful to her job, Solidaire would come around now that the barrier was properly functioning, and Melmir just hated me for reasons unknown. I was unlikely to sway him since I would likely put the Collectors out of work entirely in the next few months.

Maybe the reasons weren’t so unknown after all.

Karad could still go either way. Right now, he was tolerating me as a temporary solution, but that didn’t mean he might not try to find an alternative. His job was also going to become more difficult as more and more people ignited their cores and began to learn magic. I was fully expecting a meeting with him in the next month or so, sharply limiting what spells I was and wasn’t allowed to teach people. Since I planned to ignore any such order, that would probably be when he switched over from reluctant ally to hostile element.

By that point, I’d have either built up enough good will that he couldn’t do anything about me, or he’d start actively working to sabotage me. I wasn’t sure if he’d isolated me now to diminish my involvement with the rest of the village to protect me from the backlash of killing Noctra or as groundwork to keep me from gaining too much influence and authority later on, but he seemed smart enough to have thought up both reasons.

It truly was impossible to escape politics, no matter where I went. The only answer was to become an iron-fisted tyrant who ruled unchallenged by virtue of unassailable power. Even then, there would be problems like insurrections and rebellions. I’d learned my lesson a long time ago: don’t play politics, just be strong enough to prevent anyone else from dragging me into their games. I wasn’t at that point again yet, and I likely wouldn’t be before Karad made his move.

The next few years were going to be annoying. This was exactly why I’d wanted to remain hidden, so I could build my strength back up without interference or interruptions. The only silver lining was that the village was so isolated that I didn’t have much to fear about any rumors reaching the ears of some of my old enemies who were still kicking around. By the time any of them caught wind of my reincarnation, I’d be strong enough to return to the world stage as a power to be reckoned with.

I’d just finished fashioning the first of six shims I would use to hold the framework of Nermet’s subjugation spell stable while I severed it piece by piece when someone knocked at the door. “One moment,” I called as I slid the shim into the spell right behind the cutting blade of my will in one smooth motion, then withdrew from Nermet’s mind.

He would need an hour or two to adjust to that new splinter of my magic before it was safe to put in another one, so now was a good time to stop anyway. Over the next week or two, depending on his recovery rate, I’d eventually isolate the subjugation magic completely and be able to remove it in one whole chunk without causing any damage to Nermet’s mind.

It was something like cutting down twenty or thirty trees all tangled together as opposed to ripping them out of the ground, except in this case, all the displaced dirt would be chunks of Nermet’s brain. I couldn’t just cut down one tree or it would put stress on the others. They might hold for two or three, but eventually there’d be so much weight that they’d drag the whole twisted knot out of the ground and kill Nermet. Instead, I needed to saw through each one in such a way that they remained upright and in place until I’d cut them all loose.

I opened the door to find Shel standing there, blinking as she looked down at me. “Good morning,” she said.

“Is it?”

“Is it what?” she asked.

“Good?”

“I think so. It’s the dawn of a brand-new age for us,” she told me. “Sorry to wake you so early, but there’s a lot to get done.”

“You didn’t wake me,” I said. “Who are these people?”

There were three other people standing behind Shel, not including a pair of Garrison guards flanking the door. The only one I knew was Ayaka, the Collector who was friends with my father. I was guessing the other two were Arborists, just based on process of elimination. They were the ones who most rarely came into town, so it was a good bet that if I didn’t at least recognize them, they were connected to the Arbor in some way.

“Your first class of apprentices,” Shel said. She turned and pointed towards one of the people I didn’t know. “Talik. Vhan. Ayaka. She’s from the Collectors. Talik and Vhan are two of my people.”

“I remember you,” I said to Ayaka. “Good to see you again.”

“I’m really only here to spy on this whole process and report back to my boss,” Ayaka said. “But he’s been a jerk lately, so…”

She spread her hands in a helpless gesture, and Talik started laughing. “That’s my cousin,” he said. “And you’re wrong. Being a jerk isn’t something that started lately. He’s been that way since we were kids.”

“Melmir is a deeply unpleasant person and we’d all be better off without him,” Shel said pleasantly. “But that’s not the reality of our lives, and we’re not here to talk about him. Gravin, this is your class to teach. What would you like us to do?”

It looked like we were just glossing over Ayaka’s confession, not that it was a surprise to me. If anything, I thought she might have volunteered for it. She’d seemed close with my parents when I first met her. It was possible she’d taken the job out of a sense of loyalty to them that extended to me. Or maybe she just liked the idea of becoming a mage and learning magic. I was admittedly pretty biased about the whole thing, but I couldn’t imagine a better career.

“Where are we having this class?” I asked. Karad had mentioned a place to be designated later, but we’d never actually discussed where the place would be.

“Right here is fine, unless you think we need to go somewhere else.”

I glanced around at the open space between the homes. There was no reason I couldn’t teach here, at least for the time being. Once the apprentices had ignited cores and needed to practice blowing things up, we’d have to relocate.

“This will work,” I said. “The first thing we need to do is to figure out what you all know how to do already and where you need work. So, I’m going to do a bit of testing, first to check your ability to sense external mana, then on how well you can manipulate it. Depending on the results, we might move on.”

I doubted we’d be getting any farther than that today. Most likely, we would still be working on the exercises I planned to show them for the next week, which was fine by me. I needed to create a few storage crystals anyway. Mine had cracked when I’d ignited my own core and I hadn’t bothered to repair or replace it. Mana crystals were far more efficient anyway, but I wanted something that could be passed around.

I’d been tempted to use the storage crystals I’d found in Iskara’s little workshop, just to save myself some effort, but they were so poorly made that I couldn’t bring myself to inflict that level of transference loss on anyone. I was only planning on making three storage crystals of my own, but they’d be as high grade as I could get them with my limited tools.

“Alright, let’s get started. Everyone line up over here. I’m going to unshield my mana core and start walking towards you. When you can feel my mana, say something. The goal is to train you to be sensitive enough to mana to feel it at a range of thirty feet. If anyone currently has a range better than ten feet, I’ll be surprised, so don’t worry if your range is much lower. Everyone ready?”

With my new students lined up, I let go off the shroud I’d pulled over my mana and started taking slow, steady steps forward.

***

My expectations had been practically non-existent, and somehow I was still disappointed. I spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon working with four adults, some of whom were much better at taking instructions and criticisms than others, and by the time we were done, Shel was the only person who could reliably sense mana at all outside of her own body. Her maximum range was just short of two feet and she had no ability to discern anything other than the presence or absence of mana.

I’d thought that this would be easier for them to learn due to the lack of ambient mana anywhere, but these people were all adults in their twenties or thirties. This was something they should have developed naturally just from being around other people. I’d been planning on showing them how to hone this sense, how to extend its range and how to differentiate between a simple blob of mana and the complex weave of a spell.

That would be a lesson for another day. The group dispersed to attend to other responsibilities shortly after lunch with my instructions on how to continue training their ability to sense mana from a distance. Shortly after that, Shel reappeared with six bags of sand someone had scrounged up.

“You got the mana to make some glass panes?” she asked. “I’d like to swap out all the wood ones as soon as possible.”

“I can do three,” I said. “Do you have a frame for me to size them with?”

“We don’t,” Shel said. “Give me half an hour and I’ll get someone to put one together.”

Three panes used up more than I’d like out of what I’d generated today, but I was keeping a mental tally and I’d get that back when Karad came around to escort me through all the draw stone storage in the evening. I’d see how many hours the remainder could power the ward stone, but I doubted it would last all night, at least not at full power.

I spent the rest of the day doing miscellaneous chores while I worked to generate as much mana as possible. Shel got her glass, and I watched four Arborists work together to replace one of the wooden patches in the greenhouse. Once evening hit, the Arborists gathered together and a draw stone was brought out of what I suspected was Shel’s house. If I didn’t miss my guess, it had been a former resident of my new home.

“Wait,” I said as they all gathered around to perform their tithe. I walked over, watched closely by a Garrison member, and produced the first of the storage crystals I’d made. “This is a storage crystal. It stores mana like a draw stone, but it does so much more efficiently. The catch is that it’s not automatic. You need at least a little bit of mana control to make it work.

“Think of a Testing, of how you had to push your mana into the device. This works under the same principles. If you are able to pour mana into this successfully, it will be a bit more efficient than using a draw stone directly.”

The drawback was of course that the draw stone took everything whether the donor was willing or not, as long as they didn’t have enough control over their mana to resist its pull. A storage crystal would be on the donor’s honor for anyone who couldn’t sense mana in others, which was why I put it in Shel’s hand.

“Use your mana sense to feel each person’s mana as they donate to the storage crystal,” I instructed her. “You should be able to feel it dwindling from them.”

“You heard the kid, people. Same deal as always, but we’re going to use this tonight instead,” the leader of the Arborists said.

One after another, each person gave their mana to the storage crystal. By the time they were done, there was enough mana in there for another sand to glass spell. I let Shel know, and she said, “Excellent! Can you make that for us right now?”

“I can,” I said.

“Maybe we should see about standardizing this for the whole village,” the Garrison guard said. “I’ll mention the idea to Karad when I see him later.”

“If you want,” I told him. “I’ll have to make a few more. Storage crystals only have a fraction of the capacity that a normal draw stone does, but if it’s all going into the ward stone every night, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

It was a small first step, but it was a step. Things were improving.

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