Jack woke up to the sounds of birds and people. The birds were loud but pleasant on the ears, not quite birdsong, but they caught the ear. Getting up, he wetted a corner of his towel to wipe his face off, getting rid of some of his morning grogginess and the dried feeling from his... breakdown, last night. Looking around, he re-examined the space, and aside from the presence of a small note and two crates, there was nothing new.

  Picking up the note, he read.

  To the barbarian,

  I gathered good attire for you, including a bed and travel wear and food. You will leave in three days, so do not cause an issue. The second box contains moving tools, small money, and a list of rules I have written. Read thoroughly.

  Mai.

  Her written English wasn't half bad, a bit awkward in terms of grammar, but still, quite good. Setting the top box down, he reached into it, pulling out a simple white-grey cotton shirt where one side kind of folded over the other side, and a pair of pants also made from cloth. They looked better than the actual rags he had before, but he couldn't stew on single items too long. Looking through the box did indeed show that there were additional sets of clothing within. Moving to the next box, he found it had a sturdy-feeling backpack, knife, and a leather water skin. Pulling out the list mentioned he sat down to read, idly going through each item as he started.

  Most of the rules she wrote were rather obvious: don't kill, try not to steal, and if you must do either, be prepared to justify it to the soldiers. Largely, it was stuff that came with any society, don't x or we'll do y, kind of stuff. That being said, the worryingly detailed law on animal marriage was just a drop in the bucket for how odd some of these got, not even to mention the uncomfortably slavery-like slaves regarding the masses, and cultivators. When a cultivator is present, you must wait on them at all times unless otherwise stated, when a cultivator wants something, even if it's illegal, give it to them, and his favorite so far was that if a cultivator suspects your livestock of secretly being a seductress, you must give them up, no questions asked. It was that kind of stuff that caught my eye, but given the wording, I doubted it was all that common, I hope. The final item in the box was a small leather pouch with a handful of coins inside. They were quarter-sized with a triangle hole in the middle, small script, and ridges were embossed in a circle around the triangle, but they weren't anything complex.

  Looking outside, he found a different guard by the door.

  He opened the door slightly, catching the man's attention.

  "Excuse me, I was wondering if I could speak with the lady who put you here? I wanted to ask her some questions."

  The man looked at Jack blankly before shutting the door back on his face and turning back around, resuming his watch.

  "Ok, guess that's a no."

  Deciding to at least do something, he went back through his new clothes, trying on and taking off different pieces until he settled on a plain outfit made from the leather travel pants and casual linen shirt, the only issue he was having was himself, months of starvation had left him more of a skeleton than he'd like to admit. He tried using his other pair of pants, but they just felt wrong somehow, like the soft texture was lacking a weight to it. Overall, he'd say he looked good, in a starved commoner kind of way; he even had room for his knife on his hip. For the next few hours, though, he mostly just meandered around the small space, fixating on something before sitting on the floor and eating some kind of game jerky; venison was his guess.

  This was until a loud knock sounded through the door, and entering through was the translator with two more soldiers.

  "I see you have made use of your new belongings. Remember, these are gifts from the emperor and can easily be taken back."

  "A-As you say."

  Her sneer softened a bit.

  "I don't know if you understood what I wrote, so I will-"

  "I can read perfectly fine."

  Her eyebrows raised for a moment.

  "Oh-very well then, as I said in it, you are set to leave in three days, during which you will travel to Sacred Bone City, and from there join the other initiates into the sect in the Sacred Bone Mountains. Before that, however, you are to train with a tutor in several matters, primarily you shall be taught the basics of the sage arts as well as what knowledge of imperial common they can shove into your dull head."

  Rude, but exciting.

  "I'll happily take these lessons."

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  "Good, the instructor also speaks some of your crude speech, and so, I will not be here for it. Try not to disrespect them."

  "I'll try my best."

  "Hmph."

  The trio left once again, leaving the guard from earlier by the door. Learning a new language would be a pain in the ass for sure, but the prospect of learning cultivation, actual magic! It was the stuff of dreams if he was honest. But, part of him was also worried, paranoid one could say, what if he couldn't understand it, what if he just couldn't do it, he was an outsider to this world after all! If he's unable to cultivate, they might execute him on the spot, they seemed plenty willing when they thought he was a raider. Jack spiraled into his thoughts, feeling anxiety gripping his chest as the minutes went by, until another knock came from the door, and a man stepped through. They wore a deep green robe with a black sash going from their shoulder to waist, their hair was long and silver, tied into a ponytail by a gold hairpin, the man himself looked to be about fifty or so, sixty at most. The most immediately noticeable feature about him was that he was blind; his eyes were that milky white that came with sightlessness.

  The two of them stared at each other for a second.

  "I appear to have my work cut out for me, then?"

  His voice was old, but had an odd vibration feeling from it, like the words weren't quite coming from his mouth.

  "I- what?"

  "Never mind that boy, we have much work and few time to do it, sit."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you shall call me master while you are my student, understand?"

  "Yes, master."

  Yeah, Jack didn't think he'd ever get used to saying that to someone else.

  "Good, now let us begin with a test, and no, I have been informed of your lack of education, so I must say that it is not that kind of test."

  He pulled out a small multi-colored seed.

  "We'll be having an aptitude test, just hold this seed and listen to my words carefully, this process is somewhat dangerous, so we should only do it once."

  Jack took the seed and sat as the man motioned for him to do.

  "It will hurt at first, but when I infuse my spiritual energy into you, you must imagine that pain flowing into the seed in your hand, closing your eyes helps."

  Following his instructions, he nearly doubled over from the pain. Harsh winds and a cutting force were what he felt enter his skin, how it wisped and flowed into his veins, from there he felt it rest into a strange place in his belly. A spot just below his sternum, maybe even near his heart.

  "Inject the energy, now!"

  Jack's face scrunched up as he pushed the energy through him; this time, the pain became euphoric, traveling along webs and strings in his hands and into his fingers. That energy was greedily pulled into the seed, consuming so much in that moment that he felt part of himself flow into the seed when all of the energy had run dry. He felt his new teacher's hand lightly palm his head, somehow forcing Jack's mind to clear and be brought back to focus. As soon as this happened, the seed stopped pulling at Jack and started glowing. Opening his eyes, Jack saw an amused smile on the man's face.

  "You did well, perhaps even too well; in fact, you nearly died infusing into that seed."

  "Sorry..."

  "Bah, don't be, few can do it their first time, but eventually we all get there. The interesting thing is that your dragon veins are unusually good at this, given your background."

  "I, uh, don't know what to say."

  "Hm, then say nothing, we still need to wait for your infused seed to sprout."

  They looked to the small glowing seed as it opened and began to grow a multi-hued flower, changing between a dozen different colors and hues before settling on three. Each color occupied a ring around the center bud; a deep midnight blue took the center ring, having a metallic sheen to it. The middle circle was papery and glowing ever so slightly; from it, Jack could almost swear he smelled ozone. The final ring, the outermost, was a dull grey, looking more like stone than a flower petal.

  The man looked confused. For some reason, did he do something wrong?

  "Is everything alright?"

  "Possibly, you did everything correctly, but it's the results. Let me show you."

  He took the flower and pointed to the center ring.

  "This represents your innermost element, the power that will define your life as a sage; yours is the element of metal with a staggeringly high connection for it."

  He skipped the middle and went to the outer ring.

  "This represents what style of techniques you are best suited to. In this case, the dull stone-like appearance means you are suited to the techniques of bodily cultivation."

  Ha, he said the thing.

  "The source of my confusion is this middle one."

  He pointed to the middle circle.

  "To understand, the elements interact with each other differently according to how they interact. Metal is derived from earth, and lightning, which is what yours is, derives from air. Because of this, they should not present themselves like this."

  "Is it supposed to be impossible, or bad?"

  "Not really, most sages learn a trick or two from the element that opposes theirs. Earth sages learn to move like air ones, and air sages learn to sit still like earth ones do. It's a common thing amongst us to learn from other techniques and elements. The issue is that they should not manifest like this; at their core, the earthly nature of metal and the air nature of lightning should be repelling each other."

  Jack frowned at that; surely, metal conductivity was a known thing, adding to the whole learn from each other statement.

  "I don't see why they wouldn't work together, though, and didn't you say that cultivators used other elements?"

  He pushed Jack's shoulder.

  "Don't talk back to me, but yes, SAGES, do learn to use other elements, but that's the difference, they LEARN to use them. Their innate talents should be so contradictory like this."

  "So, what does that mean for me then?"

  "Sigh, most likely you'll either have to abandon your lightning talent or be satisfied with an impure foundation by training both talents."

  "Impure, what are you talking about?"

  "We will discuss that eventually, tomorrow most likely, for now I must consider this, sleep, and I will return in the morning."

  "What do you mean, it's only..."

  The midday sun had become the dead of night, and just as he realized that more time had passed than he thought, he also felt a deep exhaustion seep into his bones. Stumbling to bed, he saw that his new 'master' had already left, leaving him alone with the strange flower that was causing him problems already. As he quickly fell asleep, he wondered, even if he could cultivate, would he even want to if all he could expect was to be substandard, if that?