First, Smokewell said we needed to go to another room. So we picked Lily's bedroom. Then she made us draw a pentacle with a forty inch diameter on the floor. “Now draw a crown at its center,” she said.

  We did as she instructed. She looked at the ritual pattern and gave a single nod. “Now stand on top of that crown with your hexonomicons in hand.”

  Lily volunteered to go first excitedly.

  Once she was in the position Smokewell said, “Now close your eyes and charge the ritual with your malice. Don't let your focus waver.”

  While Lily focused, the cat hopped up on my shoulder and said, “This is the crowning ritual. We use this to determine how far a witch has come since she began practicing witchcraft.”

  As Lily kept focusing, the pentacle began to glow a smoky black shade. Then a colorless ball of light flickered over her head before it took the shape of a crown. It was perched right above her halo. My gaze was locked on the crown and then it started to change its color.

  “Wait, it looks like steel,” I said.

  “Lily is at the Apprentice echelon,” Smokewell said. I was surprised she didn't sound disappointed or sarcastic. “That's what a steel crown indicates. I was expecting that much. Your growth has been slow but I'm still glad to see you climbed above the Initiate echelon.”

  Lily opened her eyes and beamed at us with a big smile. “Thank you!”

  Smokewell hopped onto Lily's shoulder after she stepped out of the pentacle. “Now, it's your turn,” she said to me.

  Just as Lily had done, I stood over the crown with my hexonomicon. I closed my eyes and charged the pentacle with my malice. I felt a tingling sensation running up the back of my neck. Goosebumps rose on my arms and something tickled the roots of my hair.

  Then I heard Lily clapping her hands. “Miss Elsa, you've gone up!”

  I didn't let my focus dwindle and kept my malice flowing through the pentacle. I opened my eyes and looked at them. “What happened?”

  Smokewell gave a nod of approval and said, “Your crown is bronze. You are not an Apprentice anymore.”

  I stepped out of the pentacle and then we erased the ritual pattern on the ground. While we were at it, Smokewell hopped onto Lily's bed and made herself comfortable. She told me my echelon was called Adept.

  “Is this a tier at which I stop taking orders from you?” I said playfully.

  Smokewell scoffed. “Keep dreaming. Even if you die, your ghost will have to take orders from me.”

  I smirked at the cat and to my surprise she returned the look. Then she looked out the window. A flock of birds was flying high outside but not high enough to go above the clouds. When Smokewell began talking again her voice had a grave tone. “You two may be thinking that you aren't high enough on the witchcraft mountain but I can tell you that you two are leagues better than every other witch that I worked with at the coven. I'm not saying that just because I taught you. I'm saying that because you two actually love what you are learning. That's all I need to feel proud as your teacher.”

  We were done erasing the ritual pattern on the ground. When I looked up I saw that Lily had a faint smile of content on her lips and she didn't feel the need to make a joke at Smokewell. To my surprise, Smokewell didn’t seem to be in a hurry to start barking orders at us either. I realized I didn't feel like asking all the questions I had about witchcraft just yet.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  So just for those few minutes, the three of us sat there, basking in the comfortable silence.

  ****

  Lily and I were in the kitchen, preparing a fairly late lunch while Smokewell sat on the dining table and puffed on her opium pipe. “So, how many echelons are there in witchcraft?” I asked as I chopped some onions and tomatoes.

  “Seven,” Smokewell said. “And as you go higher, the distance between each echelon grows bigger and more tedious.”

  “How big?” Lily said as she set a pound of beef on the board and began punching it with her bare fist.

  Smokewell blew a cloud of smoke and said, “Let's just say right now the difference between your skills and Elsa's skills is as tedious as climbing a stairway to the clouds.”

  Lily squinted and pursed her lips. “Do I get to make meal stops along the way?”

  The cat shook her head. “There are no restaurants on the stairway to the clouds.”

  “What if I packed my lunch?” Lily asked.

  “How many lunchboxes?” Smokewell said.

  Lily squinted again in thought and said, “How about ten?”

  Smokewell blew another cloud of smoke. “Then, when you have finished your tenth lunch box and burnt all your energy, and when you keep climbing even after that, you'll get closer to Elsa's level,” she said.

  Lily looked at me with astonishment and then she nudged my arm playfully. “Don't worry, Miss Elsa, I'll catch up to you because I don't get exhausted or hurt easily,” she said.

  “Yes,” Smokewell said. “Malice of wrath can be useful to keep bruteforcing up the echelons. But you'll also be hurting yourself in many ways if bruteforce is all you rely on.”

  “What about me?” I asked. “How do I go higher?”

  “The tier above yours is Warlock,” Smokewell said. “And since you don't have brute strength like Lily, you'll have to rely on taking creative risks and not get yourself killed along the way. Not to mention, the stairway between you and the Warlock echelon is also a lot longer.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lily said, “Are you implying that it's more difficult to kill me as compared to Miss Elsa even though I'm on a lower echelon?”

  “I mean, I can't think of many physical ways in which you can die.” Smokewell shrugged. “If someone were to stab you in the guts, you wouldn't feel more than a pin prick at your current strength and you'll probably crush the assailant's skull before they take another stab at you. And since malice becomes stronger the higher you go on witchcraft tiers, you'll eventually be at a point where knives won't even penetrate you.”

  Lily's mouth went agape. “I'm invincible?!”

  “No,” Smokewell said bluntly. “You are only invincible against non-magic users and their physical attacks. But witchcraft at higher echelons involves complicated soul manipulation. You wouldn't be able to survive that if all you rely on is brute strength.”

  Lily frowned. “I see.” She went back to punching the beef.

  Smokewell took a longer puff and blew out a bigger cloud of smoke. Then she said, “But just because Elsa is physically vulnerable doesn't mean it's easy to kill her either. Malice of knowledge is a dangerous weapon. She is more intelligent than any average person and can see patterns and make conclusions that others usually miss. But it is also a double edged sword. You’ll need to keep pursuing a deeper and deeper understanding of witchcraft in order to progress. And sometimes it might put you in contact with something dangerous.”

  “Wait, let me get this straight,” I said as I started to stir the chopped onions with beef that Lily passed towards me. “So for Lily to progress, she needs to keep using witchcraft to exert more strength. And I need to use witchcraft to…dig up information that might sometimes even be dangerous or forbidden?”

  “Precisely,” Smokewell said.

  Lily put some rice and water in a pot and set it to boil on the stove. She turned to look at Smokewell. “I'm curious, which echelon were you at before we came to Orowen?” she said.

  The cat blew another cloud of smoke before giving us a look that said, ‘you don't wanna know, kid’.

  “No, really,” Lily said, “I find it weird that we never asked you how high up you were on the witchcraft mountain.”

  “That's because my reputation precedes me.” The cat shrugged. “About my echelon though, it was High Mistress.”

  I paused and looked at her. “How high up is that?” I asked.

  “It's under Arch Master or Mistress,” she said with a smirk. “Which is the highest witchcraft echelon.”