Over the next few weeks neither of them mentioned cultivation, and from my interaction with Tetra it was pretty clear that she felt guilty for letting my secret slip so easily. I figured that a little guilt would do her good, but other than that I wasn’t really worried about it. I did make it clear to both of them that the entire thing had to be kept as quiet as possible, and that I wasn’t allowed (…by myself) to discuss anything about cultivation with them until after graduation.

I was having a much better time in all my classes at Academy now that I had a couple of friends to share the ordeal with. The Master of Fire’s class had to most marked change though: Sylko wasn’t much different, but her and Wulfric started clashing heads almost right out of the gates.

I still had to be careful about showing too much ‘attitude’ or ability because of what had happened (both crippling Alder and then slaying the rest of his quad), meaning that I was trying to blend in and seem as normal as possible… Wulfric, on the other hand, had no such restrictions.

Master Sylko started the day by yelling at all of us, and that didn’t seem to bother him, but then when she started giving Tetra crap because she couldn’t keep up (she was healed, but weakened from the extended bedrest) I decided to pull her attention back over to myself. So I told her to stop yelling, making most of the older students gasp. I knew I would have to pay for that, but I didn’t really mind – I was mature enough, internally, to take a bit of meaningless abuse from someone like Sylko without it really bothering me.

But then Wulfric dropped the real bomb.

“What’s the point of all that yelling? I don’t think you are teaching us properly.”

Wow… now that sure as hell got a reaction out of her. My eyes widened as I looked between them, not sure what to expect. Wulfric was nearly the same size as Sylko, but I had seen the Master of Fire spar with some of the older students, and while she might not be a great instructor she was definitely a heck of a warrior. The end result was that Sylko called for blunted weapons, and then proceeded to beat the crap out of Wulfric…

I briefly considered intervening, but Wulfric was huge, strong, and actually quite skilled with his sword. Everyone was shocked that he actually managed to trade a few blows with her (it seemed) before she realized he wasn’t just some country-bumpkin who had never held a blade before (his father had trained him). After she got serious, though, things went south quickly: It wasn’t more than a few minutes before Wulfric was disarmed and laying on the ground with a series of sword-shaped-welts starting to rise up on his head, legs, and arms.

Sylko was pretty ruthless, but since she had a wooden sword and no armor I’d have had to zap her to help out… and that was not an option.

Wulfric wasn’t even allowed to rest, however, and Sylko started riding him harder than she had ever ridden me before, demanding that he apologize. He refused again and again, only making things worse for himself but apparently completely unwilling to compromise.

Tetra and I looked over at each other, our expressions incredulous. I wasn’t quite sure what to think…

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Over lunch the two oldest students (Barret, who was covered head-to-foot in black fur, and Kragen, who had bright red skin and no visible hair) in our small group of 10 warrior trainees started asking Wulfric a series of questions about what he was thinking, and where he learned to fight. They also warned him that Master Sylko was terrible once you got on her bad side, nodding their heads at me as an example. I simply smiled in return – there was no malice in the gesture, simply a statement of fact.

Wulfric wasn’t happy about how things were going, obviously, but he surprised us by claiming that his main goal was to defeat her in a duel to prove her wrong. I wanted to volunteer to train with him, but I wouldn’t prove much of an opponent. Not only was I a heck of a lot weaker than he was, but I also barely knew how to use a sword as combat lessons had only just begun. I did have an idea that might benefit both of us, but I would have to wait and speak with Master Jaduk about it later on.

The fact that Wulfric was larger than any of us helped lend legitimacy to his claim, but he was still going to need a lot of help if he was going to get good enough to defeat Sylko in a few short years.

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Meanwhile, things were not going nearly as well for my buddy Wolfram over in The City. The only good outcome of what happened to him was that we both ended up learning a lot more cultivation in general, or at least how cultivation works when you have a Celestial Cultivation Technique like what we apparently have.

Wolfram had been practicing some of his spells… yeah, that’s right, spells… which he created from the system he ‘programmed’ as his method of cultivation. He started off with simple fire spells for no reason other than fire is fun (his words). He had spells that could create fire, snuff fire, manipulate and even throw fire, but he wanted to practice his spells without anyone noticing.

He asked for extra wood for his fireplace, and started pretending that he liked playing with burning wood when his tutor or his maids were around. His reasoning was that it would help him explain the smoke, burn marks, or anything else that might result from his experiments.

Then, once everyone left, he would bar the door and start practicing. And apparently this went on for months… until one day he didn’t notice a maid in his sitting room who was quietly folding sheets... She saw him casting his spells, freaked out, and he had to spend a long time calming her down afterwards. She finally promised not to tell anyone, so he opened the door and let her leave.

Fast-forward to several days later. Two of the guards assigned to his rooms entered with respectful bows, and told Wolfram that they had detained one of his maids who was claiming that he could create fire. The guards seemed to be pretty damn frightened, and asked permission to execute her and a few other servants who she had spoken with.

Wolfram was suitably shocked, and right away refused. The guards looked shocked in turn, and explained that if rumors of this got back to his father… that things would be bad for everyone involved. Basically, the guards were asking for permission to sweep the whole mess (and maybe a servant or two…) under the rug.

Wolfram again refused, and commanded that the woman be given enough coin to retire and then be sent out of the castle. The guards attempted to protest again, until Wolfram started to become angry with them and made it a command. So off they went.

Fast-forward about a week. Wolfram woke up one day to a new and smiling face, who explained that she was one of his new maids. Puzzled, Wolfram asked what she meant by ‘maids’, plural, when it should be just a single new maid. The young woman seemed confused, and explained that all of his maids, guards, and servants were new and had only been hired yesterday.

Feeling a sense of dread, Wolfram thanked the young woman and sent her on her way. When his tutor arrived he found out that it was yet another new hire… what the hell was going on. The new tutor looked nervous when questioned, claiming to know nothing except that all of Wolfram’s staff had been recently replaced.

It was at this point that Wolfram started sending me a bunch of messages, saying that he might be in serious trouble. But we didn’t think there was anything we could do, at least, not yet.

Then, several days later, Wolfram was sitting in his room when the door slowly opened… and his father entered. His orange fur added a wildness to his visage, but it was his eyes that drew Wolfram’s immediate attention. Then Wolfram’s father raised his hand, palm up, and continued to stare at his son as a clearly visible mini-tornado started to form above his hand. And then he started walking towards Wolfram.

“So… you like fire, do you?” He asked Wolfram, sneering when he said the word ‘fire’. He then commanded his shocked son to create a fire in the fireplace, immediately. Wolfram, understanding that this was anything but a normal visit, rushed to the fireplace and tried to light it against the wind. He ended up cheating, subvocalizing a chant to get the fire going… we both decided afterwards that cheating and using his magic was probably the dumbest thing he had done in years. We both assume that he got lucky and his father didn’t notice, or things would have turned out worse.

Right after Wolfram had the fire started the fireplace burst into a shower of icicles as it flash-froze, nearly catching Wolfram’s hands in the process. Scrambling backwards, he looked at his father and considered casting a fireball… but luckily he decided not too (I was pretty sure his father would have killed him if he had).

His father slowly spoke again, his unblinking gaze not wavering for even a second. “Fire is weak, Wolfram.” The tornado expanded, small objects starting to fall to the ground all over the room. “There will be no more fire.”

He raised his other hand and the Cultivation Technique that Wolfram’s previous (RIP) tutor had given him flew into his grip. “This is POWER.” He said emphasizing the final word as he tossed the book in front of Wolfram, where it slammed into the ground hard enough that the concussive blast knocked Wolfram over, stunning and deafening him temporarily.

When Wolfram finally picked himself up he saw that his bed, his furniture, and all of the extra wood he had been using for his experiments was sliced into pieces. Then he saw the blood pooling on the floor and looked up to see the maid who had seen him practice his spells… nailed to the door, and only recently dead judging from the blood pooling beneath her.

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Sent Wolfram, as we conversed again a few nights later. He didn’t really have a choice, it seemed. His father hadn’t explicitly threatened him, but we both had a suspicion that things wouldn’t go well for him if he failed to learn the technique.

The upside was that we had discovered that he could actually practice it, and it didn’t seem to do much to destabilize his cultivation base! Discussing the differences, carefully, we came to the conclusion that the reason his cultivation was so stable was because he had such a detailed and complicated base. After all, he had spent years writing source-code and defining exactly how things worked before he even had his first spell ready to go.

I, on the other hand, just kind of assumed things would be fine and worked on figuring out powers instead of defining or solidifying the base of my abilities. I was embarrassed that I had let something so important slip past me, but it was a pretty huge breakthrough – what I needed to do was define my cultivation and exactly how it worked… maybe even write a book!

Because as it stood right now there was no way I would be able to learn another cultivation technique like what Wolfram was doing. I was barely holding things together during our conversation, let alone adding a whole new set of rules and complications into the mix.

Therefore, there were two important takeaways from Wolfram’s ordeal.

One: His family is totally psycho.

Two: I need to strengthen my cultivation base.