All living things are prisoners in their own minds. An illusionist needs to recreate this prison to entrap them. Without this understanding, an illusion is a wolf without fangs.

~Gwyddion, God of Illusions

Fire swept through his dreams, and he could feel his hair curl and burn away to ash. It was to the point he could recognize he was sleeping immediately, but it didn’t lessen the suffering or pain. The fire felt very real, even as it burned away hair and eventually flesh.

A change appeared this time. The dark fire raged, but the ruins of a town filled with squat stone buildings. It was no place he’d ever seen or recognized, but there was no mistaking the realism. Burned husks of people littered the streets, all facing away from the town center as if trying to get out.

It wasn’t totally unexpected because he’d seen this place before, just never with this level of clarity. It was always like seeing through thick smoke. The faint outlines existed, but nothing more. It was a massacre, and he could even recognize the shape of children amongst the dead. A chasm opened up before him, and he felt sick and empty just seeing it.

The next thing he saw was the dark ceiling above him. Crow felt the chill from his sweat-soaked clothes and could feel his ragged breath wheezing through his clenched teeth. It felt like the amount of sleep he was getting lessened day by day, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Even the headband that Mugna gave him stopped helping.

With a groan, he stood up and went to the washbasin to grab a towel. While cleaning himself, he never said a word to Otto, who had sat near him during the night. It wasn’t an uncommon thing to see the big guy watching over Crow. Not that he didn’t want to at least greet the guy, but his body was shaky, and his mind rattled. He feared the words that would come out of his mouth, and maybe he feared showing weakness most of all.

After dressing in a loose tunic and shorts, he headed for the back courtyard. At the door, he turned back. “Otto…”

“Brother. No talk.” Otto stood up and smiled with that big goofy grin before tiredly returned to his own bed to sleep. Crow felt better immediately. A person could go their entire life without finding a friend that had their back unconditionally, and in this, Crow felt that luck or karma had given him a treasure that had no equal. “Little sister cry?”

“Damn you! Who is your little sister?” Crow growled and stormed out, but he was smiling as he went to the back courtyard closest to the sacred grove. It was early, way before most people would wake, and the floating lanterns scattered throughout the city were dim at this point. Their brightness scaled back to simulate night.

Training his body using katas his father taught him felt like the right thing to do. Even without his Source, he could still strengthen his body using what he learned when he was four. Ghost Steps didn’t require his Source either, so it was just a matter of focus. Martial training was a compromise in physical ability versus mental control. Initially, he had to focus on keeping his Source contained. Time and practice eased the strain.

Driving through his screaming muscles and depleted energy, he refused to call on his mana. Not even allowing a single iota of it to infuse his body. He wanted to push himself to exhaustion as a mortal would. Through pain and fatigue, he found serenity. Through the violence existed a place that saw similar to the eye of a storm. Warriors from the tower called it the Violent calm, but Crow never expected it to contain this feeling of connectivity to all things.

“Impressive,” a woman said at the end of Crow’s kata. “I’d say you officially qualify as entering the path of a Martial cultivator.”

“Huh?” Crow stumbled from his stance, started by the voice where he expected none. It was only after coming out of his daze that he realized others had arrived, and it was approaching breakfast time.

“The calm you felt, it is something children of my people experience by the time they are ten. And it is something we use to determine the soul of a true Martial cultivator. That you did it without any special methods could be considered impressive.”

“You have a special method for reaching that state?”

“I do. Our people call it Qi Gong, it is mostly breathing, stretching, and visualizing of our movements—or the softer side of the Martial path,” Song Lin dutifully explained. “It is during those times of mediation that a person will find that calm, but your method might be more domineering. It is rare for a person to discover that calm amid violent energy. Talent or luck? Hard to say.”

“Yes, teacher,” Crow replied respectfully, and Song Lin grinned in response.

“None of that, I’m not much older than you,” Song Lin handed him a towel. “Come, I’ll show you where your uncle put us sisters, and from now on, you are to practice there.”

“Th-that is fine, but I wake up very early, is that…?”

“You aren’t sleeping?”

Crow looked around and saw that everyone was focused on their own training. However, with Song Lin’s talent as a cultivator and alchemist, how could she miss his trembling hands and haunted eyes?

“That bad?” Her voice was light, and her eyes softened. Crow nodded in response.

Neither of them said anything else as Song Lin led the way to the residence provided to her, a place Crow was very familiar with. It was his parent’s private lodge. After they climbed the stairs to the front porch and walked through the inner lobby, they went straight through to the double doors in the back, which led out into the private courtyard.

“Let’s start with a proper greeting,” Song Lin said. “Your traditional methods are fine, and I’m not going to ask you to adopt our ways. However, the ritual is important for your mindset.”

Crow placed a fist on his chest and bowed over it. It wasn’t much different from her formal greeting, which was to cup her fist with her other hand and bow towards the other person.

“I greet Lady Song Lin.”

“You can just call me big sister Lin or just Lin.”

Crow thought back to Mara and felt a headache coming on. As long as she doesn’t start calling herself ‘mommy,’ it should be fine. He hoped. It still felt oddly informal.

“You’ll understand why I don’t want to start off too formal with you in due time,” she replied upon seeing my face. “Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you. If anything, you might curse my name by the time I let you leave today.”

It dawned on him that Lin didn’t gain her level of power by a fluke. Her voice had turned hard just now, and she wasn’t the quiet, demure woman in the House of Danu anymore. He swallowed hard enough to make a sound that anyone in the private courtyard could hear.

“Now, hold out your arm.” His hand reached out as directed, and her small cool hand wrapped around his wrist. She pulled, and he stumbled toward her. “This might be uncomfortable, but I’m going to send my Qi into your body to see what is happening.”

Crow tensed up but nodded all the same. While Qi and mana might be the same thing, he felt that what they represented couldn’t be ignored. In fact, a lot of techniques and spells listed the specific energy type, indicating the origin. That origin was a key component of understanding how the ability worked.

For example, Qi meant that the art was most likely relying on internal power, like chakras. It would also indicate body strengthening or martial related enhancements. Whereas mana usually meant explosive power, using the energy inside and out to augment it.

Ice Qi entered his body, filling it with wave after wave of coldness. Deviant elements were rare, and some were purer than the five base ones. Song sisters both had deviant forms of the water element. Song Lin’s affinity was ice, whereas Song Xue’s affinity was toward snow. Crow learned that the Song family had a long history of producing heirs with deviant affinities related to water.

“Mmmm,” Song Lin released a small sound as she focused on the task at hand.

Soul Burn wasn’t easily pacified, and the flames around his Source started flaring—a classic battle between fire and ice. Despite the cold energy pouring into his body, sweat beaded his forehead, and his breathing grew irregular. The only thing he could do was close his eyes and focus on breathing. But the longer she kept at it, the harder it was to hide from the pain. During these times, he realized that pain was fire. It flared like flames and needed time to burn itself out. If he couldn’t withstand it, his mind would blackout, protecting his sanity.

“As expected.” Song Lin finally released the power and her hold on Crow’s arm. He instantly fell to his knees, gasping, trying not to fall unconscious, but the blackness was at the edge of his vision and creeping in. “Idiot, open your mouth next time and tell me I’m hurting you.”

He had no response—hell, he barely had breath in his lungs for breathing.

“Alright, relax. We’ll talk for a few minutes until you recover—well, I’ll talk you listen. After that, I’m teaching you Qi Gong, and you are to mediate using the breathing method until your body can do it without focusing on it. Just nod if you understand.”

Crow nodded.

“Good. I’m not confident in curing you, but that was never my intention. I’m assuming it hurts all the time because your body is passively pulling in energy with or without you drawing or cultivating it. Part of learning Qi Gong is to teach your body another way to absorb energy. Nothing will fully get rid of the pain, but it should be able to lessen the pain.” She let that sink in. “Terms. To prevent confusion, if I say mana, I want you to use Druid methods, and we relate Qi to what I teach you. Now, cultivate a small amount of or mana and once it burns, stop.”

He looked up at her and saw clear, unflinching eyes staring back at him. She was serious, and he could only draw in a shuddering breath while his body lightly shook. He could claim it was the cold energy still in his body, but he knew that was a lie. It made him angry that he feared to draw on his Source.

Song Lin stepped forward and placed her hands on his shoulders, her face so close to his that he could feel her breath on him. Somehow it calmed him.

“Pain is natural and temporary. Your body suffers, but it’ll recover. Your mind struggles, but it’s stronger than this. Your soul quivers, but it grows stronger. The pain is only damaging one thing, your willpower. Is this all you amount to or are you more than this?” Every word she spoke was like a hammer to his heart, and it jolted him out of his despair.

While her face was as cold as the ice she wielded, Song Lin felt shame at provoking the boy. It was a test of her own willpower to put aside her own feelings to help this boy through his own issues. Making these decisions, those over a person’s life, reminded her she too was still part of the younger generation. Biting back her sigh, she kept staring at Crow’s smooth and handsome face. She didn’t even know when he’d lost most of his baby fat, but the defined features of the man beneath had emerged.

“Ready now?” She asked, and Crow nodded. Under her watchful eyes, she saw mana entering through his skin, going along meridian paths she easily recognized. The curse ignited and devoured the mana, but something that had previously gone unnoticed was the tiny speck of pure energy that entered his Source. The purity was overwhelming and even frightening. Song Lin knew it was a curse that some in the tower used to improve their Source and foundation, but she never imagined the benefits were like this. The implications of what was happening inside Crow’s body rattled her calm exterior.

“How is it?” Crow asked, his voice raw, but it held a steely resolve that wasn’t there before.

“It is like you were told. Soul Burn is devouring any mana before it reaches your Source. Every time you cultivate, it’s like you are a spark of fire in a dead forest, and while you scrubbed the land clean, you don’t immediately see what you’ve done. All you see is a dead land where there once was a forest. Imagine your actions left little seedlings. In time you’ll reap your reward.”

“I… don’t understand. Is burning out all the mana in my body good?”

“I think…? Crow, I’m not much older than you, but I think you shouldn’t look at this as a curse. Pretend your body is that dead forest—”

“So my mana is the trees?”

“Yes. Soul Burn is cleansing your body of impure mana. I dare say if you form a Shield with this curse in place, you might form a perfect foundation. The issue is time and your willpower. This method is slow, too slow, and even the strongest willpower will falter from being roasted alive daily. The Druid cultivation method truly deserves to be one of the top ten in the world.”

“And I can’t use it…” Crow said bitterly.

Song Lin just tapped a fingernail against her teeth, creating a rhythmic pattern. It helped calm her thoughts as she weighed options. She’d already offered to teach Crow, but this cultivation technique was tyrannical for men. It was easy to sense the fire energy that poured into his body from Soul Burn, which is precisely what this cultivation method required. Her mother had let a few men attempt this method in the past, but no one has tried it since. It was harrowing, but its benefits were not in question. A person had to survive the fire used to temper their body—similar to Crow’s current situation. It was almost as if this method was made for him.

“Druid cultivation embraces mana in its wild and natural state. So it brings in all surrounding mana without a filter. I want you to keep using it but do so at night before bed. Know your limits.”

“W-why?”

“Tempering. The method I’m about to teach you will benefit you, but based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think it’ll conflict. I’m sure others have tried using two cultivation methods, but I’ve not read anything about it. I’ve seen how you process information and almost instinctively find solutions to problems. You must figure out some kind of balance. Since we both know you have the heart and blood of a Druid, I don’t want to take that away from you.”

“Thank you,” Crow said, seeing a splash of hope. A sapling rising out of the ashes.

“Before we start, answer one question for me. Why do you want to climb the tower so badly?”

“Mugna asked me something similar. I’ve had time to realize what it means to be the shield or the bulwark for people too weak to stand up to tyranny. The profoundness of being a shield is that it exists to provide opportunity.”

“Oh? Opportunity for what?” Song Lin’s arms and back prickled with goosebumps, feeling as if she was about to hear something genuinely profound.

“Retaliation,” Crow hissed, his warm green eyes hardening into glittering emeralds. “I’m going to forge a path to the upper realms and break the shackles holding us back—even if that means destroying the tower. Those old monsters have slept in their silk beds for long enough. Karma wants her due, and I’ll be her champion.”

Song Lin’s mouth dropped open in fear and awe. “By the Seven hells…”

***

Within Father Oak, wild laughter filled the lower chambers. Mugna tapped his staff against the ground in approval. “Retaliation! I love this kid—such insight. Well said. Well said!”