“What kind of herbs?” The elderly woman asked in a loud raspy voice. She wore thick brown and green robes and reeked of pungent herbs. The same herbs mashed into paste and potions lining the shelves of her small wooden store.

  “A teacher. Not herbs. For cultivation.” Eres said for the second time.

  “Ah… There’s one. Nice young woman. Keeps to herself. Expensive, but she’ll show the the ropes. No, wait. She died…” The old herbalist sunk back to her thoughts and Eres wondered whether it was worth sticking around to hear the answer. “There’s that one boy. Odo, or something. Lazy drunk. But I hear he gives lessons up by that north manor.”

  “Let’s go.” Banda insisted. Eres paused for a moment in cold thought but taking note of his attitude, decided to not linger.

  “Wait! Buy something.” The old woman called out.

  “Another time.” Eres answered.

  “Everyone wishes they had a potion when it’s too late.” The alchemist called out but the door had already shut behind the duo.

  It took them hardly any time at all to reach the increasingly famous north manor. The town certainly didn’t compensate for its dilapidated state in size. Even accounting for its crowded sprawl of peasant houses, it could likely only fit a populace of 10,000.

  As they finally came across their destination, Eres found the manor equally as unimpressive. Half an acre in size at most, courtyard included. The estate walls, built for vanity rather than protection, were mostly demolished and the modest manor itself was half a ruin.

  With no sign of a guard, she walked through the open gateway of the walls and over the cracked stone path. Lying on the stone steps of the broken building was a man with hands resting behind his head.

  The wide brimmed reed hat of a farmer shielded his face from what little of the sun shined down through the clouded sky. A tall clay jar of wine sat next to a pillar of the manor within reach, and resting on that same pillar were two sheathed swords in broad scabbards.

  “Otto, I presume?” Eres asked as they walked close, stopping at a distance reasonable enough not to warrant hostilities.

  “Depends on who’s asking.” The man spoke through his reed hat.

  “We want to learn how to cultivate.”

  Otto remained still for a bit, then he raises his hat to look at them. His expression casual, though his sight rested on Banda a split second longer than Eres. “10 shards each.”

  “We don’t have money.”

  “Then come back when you do.” Otto let his hat fall back as he returned to his laze.

  Banda started to open his mouth but Eres spoke before he could. “We can’t wait.”

  “It’s double if you pay me after.”

  “We’ll pay.”

  Otto rose sluggishly with a sigh and places his hat on the jar of wine. The man was fairly young. Late into his twenties or early into his thirties at most. He had pitch black hair down to his shoulders and a thin scruffy beard. Thick cloth and leather garb donned his body though there was nothing remarkable about it.

  “Turn around, sit on the floor next to each other in a way you can maintain for a hour or so.” He told them carelessly, as though he didn’t care whether they did it or not.

  Eres sat down first, in a graceful cross-legged posture. Banda was slower to move and simply crouched down. Sitting the way Eres did was too vulnerable.

  “First thing you need to learn is Meditation. How to cycle the mana around you into aura. You won’t get it on your own, so I have to do it for you the first time.” Otto placed his hands on their backs, just between the shoulder blades.

  An act heretical to the very nature of Banda’s life but he allowed the exposure to such risk only because it was necessary.

  “Let the mana enter you first.” Otto continued his lesson, ignorant of the conflict within Banda.

  A warmth began at Otto’s hand and seeped through his back to the center of his of his gut, and a warmth of his own sprouted within Banda, like the barely smoldering embers of a fire. It felt similar to divinity, though far weaker.

  “Image pulling the air around you into your center, just above the navel.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Invigorating air seemed to flow into the embers, growing the pleasant fire within and filling his whole body with energy. Banda focused on the sensation and drew in the air faster, as though drawing a deep long breath. Though soon the mana he had plundered felt stagnant and bloated within him uncomfortably.

  “Stir the mana like I do, as the sun rises from your left and sets on your right, and rises from the left again.”

  Banda did as instructed. The mana within him moved sluggishly at first as he strained his focus against it, but with each passing moment, it grew easier and faster. As Banda spun his mana around and around, he felt more control over it and more able to draw in even greater amounts.

  “Now pull the mana along the path I guide through the body.” Otto spoke as soon as Banda felt full with mana again. “Most of the work here needs to be done by you. Don’t slack off.”

  Banda felt a stream branch off from the rotating mana in his center, up towards his right shoulder. Like blood flowing through a vein he could sense clearly. It was slow and hindered, though it flowing faster once Banda pushed it along the guided path.

  Up to his shoulder, down and back his right arm. Down his right side and leg to his foot and back up to his waist. Then down and up his other leg and the same again for his left arm. Then up through his head and finally down back to his center.

  At each change of direction, there was a point where it felt more difficult to push the mana, twelve in total. Banda focused on the stirring mana and found it had decreased. And he felt that the mana missing had remained within his flesh. It was like rivers flowing from lake to lake, and the water dampening the soil of the banks, remaining in the ground around it after the stream passed by.

  “That’s one cycle.” Otto explained. “Keep going until the mana you drew in disperses. Try and cycle it on your own now.”

  The two sat motionless in concentration for another half hour until finally they could hold on to the cluster of mana no longer. Try as he might, Banda was forced to let go, and the spiralling mana within fled back out into the world in an instant.

  He had stolen much of it for himself, but still less than he had hoped. Far less in truth, but he could feel the small increase in the might of his body, and the slight increase of mana within him.

  “Natural talents.” Otto praised.

  “What you we do now?” Eres asked.

  “This is the first stage of Rank 1, Spirit Tempering. Nothing much to it. Just keep cycling mana like this every day to strengthen your body, mind, and soul until it won’t strengthen anymore. Your Aura capacity will increase too. Ah, but there is something else. While you were meditating, I had time to plant a Soul Seed in you two.”

  The atmosphere fell fell ominous and heavy at his casual words. A frenzy flared with Banda’s mind, but he remained perfectly still. The hand on his back now felt like the paw of a giant beast.

  He couldn’t move, not when Otto’s maw was around his neck. Not when death was certain. Eres showed more grim panic on her face but looked over at Banda with just her eyes to glean his actions. As he remained still, so did she force herself to do the same.

  “Oh? Sharper than the average scum in this town.” Otto praised them both at a glance. Gone was his laidback and irresponsible nature, replaced with an amused tyranny. “I expected this from you, boy, but the noble girl, too? You must have had a hard life. But not hard enough if you made so much noise in a new place as soon as you arrived. You need to be more careful than that.”

  The moment Otto took his hands off as he stepped back, Banda spun away like beast, clawed fingers pressed to the ground for a fight to the death. Eres darted over right after and took a stance, but Otto didn’t react in the slightest.

  “And right after I praised you…” Aura enveloped Otto’s hand and the duo were stricken with a terrible pain.

  Banda clutched his chest as he writhed on the ground. The agony that seared through his entire being was overwhelming but far worse than the pain, was that he couldn’t tell where it came from. And he couldn’t even begin to think of how to remove it.

  Otto disperse the aura of his art and the pain subsided. “If I kept going for a bit longer, it would have destroyed your souls. Don’t worry about payment for the lessons. A small favor for my newest workers. But there is the matter of the fee for my protection.” He sat back down on the stone steps with a smile on his face.

  Otto held up a single finger. “100 shards, every ten days. From each of you. There’s only a week left until the next collection, so you should hurry.” He waited with amusement at the two young heroes who did not dare to move.

  “You’re losing the light.”

  Eres was the first to make a move, carefully backing away and signaling little more than her intent for Banda to do the same.

  Banda held where he was, glaring at human who now held the mysterious means to threaten his life, though his expression now held a trace of reason and realization among the hostility. And he too backed away, until both he and Eres exited the courtyard and bounded away.

  Otto stared at the end of the courtyard in silent thought, and then towards his hand.

  “You were more lenient with them than normal.” A woman in a silk gown unfit for combat spoke as she walked out from the manor. “Is there something special about them?”

  She had light brown skin and long luscious dark brown hair. Most of her body was covered with hard green scales, as were her shoulders and the sides of her arms and legs.

  A thin silk veil covered the lower half of her face. Her eyes were a yellowish-green with vertical slit pupils, and tinged with obvious jealousy.

  Otto smiled as he pulled her into his embrace. “They may be useful.” As he flirted with her behind attentive eyes, his thoughts were only on the duo.

  The girl, who he guessed was some young noble lady, had strange aura that almost rejected his own, despite her not even being a hero. And for a moment, standing behind his fellow tribe bastard felt like standing before a beast in the dark he could not see.

  The glean of a predator who had not eaten in a while started to rise in Otto’s eyes, but he quickly suppressed it. His amusement was a pale second to power, always. And it was not yet time to harvest the seeds he had sown.

  “This dull floor might finally show me something good.” Otto thought, as faint azure wisps flowed from the rest of the world into his clay wine jar.