Peaks of the Land

The Past

"Savage greed is the foundation for greatness. Restraint shapes it into immortality. Therefore, restraint is the true measure. Discipline your wants and the world is yours." -excerpt from First Principles by Ven Praxus

"However, if something valuable comes to your rightful possession at little or no cost, be bold and seize it." -Ven Praxus' addendum to First Principles

Wick, Vein, and Scout stared in awe at the ten-story-tall monster before them. It was long enough to fit around a small city block, the back end of it buried in the ground. Wooden barricades fit around it, protected by teams of bored guards. The mouth of the giant worm was open, but it did not stink or seem to be breathing.

Corvin's books surmised the giant worms didn't need to breathe since they fed off of residual manna. Rumor had it the adventuring writer had discovered this fact in a drunken stupor, rubbing his face against a worm's skin. How that led to the discovery, Wick had no clue.

At least three hundred people were standing in line for the wormhole. Merchant carts, donkeys, and giant lizards carried goods steadily through the mouth of the worm.

Berrma was busy flirting with one of the many guards ushering people through the mouth-portal. From Wick's perspective, it seemed she and the guard had done this song and dance before. She slipped him a handful of iron pennies, and turned to Wick, waving at them.

Vein and Scout's eyes were wide as saucers, but when Wick clicked his fingers, they instantly snapped to attention. "This way. We're skipping the line."

None of the people in line seemed to take issue with Wick's group skipping ahead. Money was status, and status opened doors locked for those who couldn't afford it. Wick had only been the observer of such casual displays of power. Now, he was quietly enjoying it from the other side.

When they reached her, Berrma gave Wick a once-over, nodding approvingly despite her sour mood. "You've got a backpack, and you're wearing a plain tunic. It means you've done this before."

"Yeah," Wick confirmed. He adjusted the straps of his oiled leather backpack. The sound of small iron balls clinked at the bottom. "My leathers and tools are in the pack, among other things."

Berrma also wore a simple tunic. She held her own backpack with her hand. From the way it swung, Wick wondered how heavy hers was. He planted the butt-end of his spade on the ground, noticing the guards stopping anyone else from entering.

Scout looked worriedly to Wick. "What's happening?"

Wick nodded to the inside of the worm's mouth. The back end of the meat-tunnel was pitch black, save the glowing manna leaving the people walking through it. Soon, those people were out of sight. "The location is changing. We're not going to Heartmark."

They were going to Glimmerrest. Wick searched deep inside himself for the excitement he once held for the city. Six months earlier, leaving Outlast to go to Glimmerrest was all he had ever thought about. Now, it just seemed like any other step in the road.

Back then, Wick's hoard had just been food and money. How small his ambitions were. The goal was always gold, but he had quickly learned that people were the means to get it.

Though his own wonder was gone, Vein and Scout were flooded with it. They watched in awe as the inside of the worm's mouth rippled in waves, first slowly then in rapid rhythm.

Soak it in, Wick thought. Enjoy this moment while it lasts. You'll see grander things than this. Most will come from my hand.

Berrma seemed to enjoy the kids' reactions too. She chuckled darkly. "Let's see how you feel about the worm in a few minutes."

Vein and Scout didn't seem to hear her. The rhythm of the worm's ripples slowed until it was completely still once more. Scout nodded to himself and turned to Vein. He did his best imitation of a patient Wick. "What does Corvin have to say about Vandia's relationship with worms?"

Wick tried suppressing a smile at Scout's attempt to teach, but Berrma seemed to catch it, smirking. Vein was not sharp like Scout, but she was determined as all Hells. She knitted her brow as if taking the largest dump in history, her face going red at the effort.

Finally, Vein took in a deep breath and said, "Uhm. Corvin's Creatures says worms gotta eat. They eat the extra manna we give off when walking through it. Emperor Mataris' grandpa bound the worms to our nation's service with super magics and stuff. We use worms to get from place to place."

Scout smiled proudly at the girl, totally forgetting to correct her for accuracy. "Yep. That's pretty much it."

Wick winced at the poor recitation, but she had the gist of it. Berrma shook her head in dismay. She had made it clear in the half-a-day carriage ride from Outlast to the wormhole that kids were not her thing.

The guard she flirted with winked at her, ushering them forward past the first in line. Scout nodded to the people in line apologetically. Vein smacked him lightly in the back of the head. She whispered venomously, "They don't owe you nothin. You ain't Mooch. You're Scout."

"R-right," muttered Scout. He took a deep breath and straightened his back. "I'm the head of the Association of Apprentices."

"Not yet you aren't," Wick reminded him. "Rax still has twenty-five days to fulfill that promise."

Berrma said, "Question Rax's word again, and I'll split you in half with my pinky."

Vein's face lit up eagerly. "Is that what you're going to teach us? I'm getting tired of all the push-ups and running. It's boring."

Scout, ever the diplomat, stepped in to calm Berrma. "What she means is we have enjoyed your instruction for the past five days, and Vein is curious when you'll be teaching us how to fight."

Berrma ignored them, slapping the guard's butt as she walked past him. Wick gripped his spade tightly, signalling for Scout and Vein to walk behind Berrma. He'd be behind them.

As they walked through the hard meat-tunnel of the worm's mouth, Wick mused over the past week.

They had endured Lanton's ploys. Wick had spun the bad luck into an opportunity, binding themselves with Graves' organization. In the five days since his meeting with Rax, Wick had managed to apprentice all the other orphans. No problems were encountered. It was as if Lanton had completely forgotten about them. They were under Graves' protection now, and Wick was happy to know his investment was secure.

He felt a slight pride at what he accomplished, but the moment fled quickly as it came. The past was the past. Enough was never enough.

Their small group reached the halfway point down the tunnel, and the light of the afternoon sun from the mouth of the worm faded. Scout and Vein looked reflexively over their shoulders to Wick, but he ignored them, keeping the pace behind Berrma.

Faint blue lights drifted from Wick and the others, melting into the inner walls of the worm's mouth. He didn't bother checking his SP. The manna lifted from him was residual, like heat rising from his skin after a hot bath. It wasn't enough to convert into Source Points.

Despite the light behind them fading out, the darkness ahead did not grow. Instead, it lightened.

"This isn't half bad," Vein said. "Just a walk on the street."

"Uh huh!" Berrma grunted, stifling a laugh.

As if cued, the meat walls around them twisted in technicolor lights. It felt as if time both slowed down to an eternity and sped up. Even with Thymesia recording every detail perfectly, Wick found no pattern in the chaos. He felt like his very being was going to implode.

His body lurched, broke apart into a trillion pieces, and formed back together. The twisting colors and mass confusion vanished.

Wick's face smacked against a large mat cushioned by down-feathers. Just like every other trip through a wormhole, he threw up. He wasn't embarrassed about it since his entire body was covered in a viscous slime that smelled of burnt hair and year-old sewer sludge.

He looked up to find Berrma jumping off the cushioned platform. A few local guards pointed their hands at her, their fingers sparkling with leaking manna. Water gushed out of their hands, spraying the worm slime from her.

Vein and Scout were still screaming incoherently on the platform next to Wick, covered in the slime.

Wick walked over to both, and did what his father had done to him after his first portal. He slapped them on the side of their faces as hard as he could.

After a moment of recovery, Scout and Vein rolled off the cushioned platform. The panic from their expressions began to fade away. Wick looked fondly at the dozens of screaming people as they fell out the invisible butt-end of the worm onto a rubber platform next to his. Their carts and beasts of burdens appeared untouched on the ground next to them, having been bound with complex gravity sorcery which was paid for by the toll fare.

"I love having money," Wick mused, hopping neatly off the platform. He had experienced his face smacking against the rubber platforms before. Of course, they were cushioned slightly with sorcery, but only just so.

Scout was fighting the pressure of water-sorcery from the guards with his thin hands. The attempt was valiant but feeble. He fell back on Vein, who hoisted him from his armpits.

Wick joined them, spade in hand. Once the worm-sick was off and the other kids were done shivering, he pulled out his belongings. He handed Scout and Vein their own clothes, and they all changed on the street.

Scout's expression shifted between horror and wonder. He muttered, "May the Arachs come take me now."

Vein shivered in agreement. She shot Wick a hard look, and hissed, "You didn't tell us slime. You could have warned us about the slime."

Wick ignored her, shrugged his pack over his shoulder, and adjusted his leather jacket. He pushed his glass amulet back beneath his shirt and nodded to himself.

A few nobles hurried past them, clearly embarrassed at the sight of commoners changing in the middle of the street. Berrma, who had already changed back into her fighting leathers, wasn't pink about the whole thing. In fact, she looked more annoyed.

"Hurry up!" she barked. "Training starts in fifteen."

Now that his mind was clear, Wick's gaze swept over the city of Glimmerrest. Tall marble buildings sprawled across his vision. Avenues pointing east to west and streets pointing south to north cut the square-shaped city into neat grids.

It was organized and neat as a clean window, but the streets were filled with chaos. Nearby were some old leatherbacks, the turtle-people of the north, lazily blowing out rings of white smoke from their hookahs while playing board games. Their adult children busied themselves with small chisels and hammers made of crystal, pushing skills into wadescrolls.

Wick promised himself he would one day learn their secrets.

His eye caught a nearby market square filled with his favorite people in the world, plumins. Birds of various shapes and sizes whistled angrily in their aggressive haggles with wary buyers. Instead of vendor stalls, plumins built giant nests of expensive pluminwood to hold their wares.

Wick stopped himself from running toward one of the birds and enjoying a lengthy haggle. He was here to get stronger. Scout and Vein were too awed and confused by what they were seeing.

It was understandable. The sea and Outlast were all they had ever known. This place was foreign to all their senses. He could read their expressions like a map. Faced with so many unknowns in a new location, the two children longed for Outlast, for home.

Wick had always thought his home was the Sprawl's caves or maybe the Guild's libraries. The image of his young father came to him like a stark ghost. Wick didn't have a home, and he didn't give a plumin's hoot to care.

Homes were a place of returning. Wick didn't move backward. He was meant to move forward. Each step he took filled larger boots, his tracks paving away mountains for the sake of his ambitions.

Returning was regression, and that was for fools. Wick was bold and he was here to learn how to be strong. He looked to Berrma, his new teacher, and stepped forward.

--

Wick tasted grass before he tasted blood. That was good. It meant he had finally blocked Berrma's attack. It also meant he'd need to spend six hundred SP every time he wanted to barely survive one of her casual slaps.

"Up, you little sleaze," Berrma barked, amusement tingeing her voice.

"I'm glad one of us is enjoying this," Wick lied, groaning as he pushed himself up with his spade, careful not to step on the several dozen iron sphere-golems scattered on the grass.

To his annoyance, all of his spheres had been crushed. Despite the wheeze in his chest, Wick snarled, "You crushed them! That's thirty coppers total. I'm charging Rax thirty for loss, thirty for labor, and twenty because I don't like you very much."

Berrma brushed away the comment with a flourish of her hand. "Oh, cry me a naiad, genius boy. But do it on the porch. Sally's up."

Her other hand held one of her hundred knives, the end of which was busy picking food out of her teeth. Wick knew the woman hadn't eaten since yesterday. She only took one meal per day, as per her weird religion's demands. So, she was cleaning her teeth just to annoy him.

Vein, who Berrma affectionately renamed every sparring bout, limped over weakly to take Wick's spot. The curly-haired girl widened her stance.

She and Wick had spent the better part of the afternoon sparring with the petite bald woman. Sparring was a loose term. It was more like getting manhandled by an Arach demon. Scout had watched the whole thing silently in a rocking chair on the porch, breathing through his nose in an odd rhythm.

They were in the back of one of Graves' many mansions throughout the country. It had taken two painful tussles with Berrma to get his mind off the fact that nothing inside the expensive building belonged to him. He had practically salivated at the first sight of it.

Even so, the mansion was small compared to many of the inner-city homes.

At the sight of Vein's stance, Berrma's knife vanished from her hand only to reappear back in its place on her fighting leathers. She smiled crookedly. "Oh. Didn't think you were clever, too."

"Don't know what you're on about, you fat pig," Vein spat back with a vile grin. It was clear she favored Berrma.

"You lost the last bout because your center of gravity was off," Wick explained, Thymesia filling in the gaps as he did. "So, you've adjusted your stance to compensate for the loss."

Vein gave him a confused look. Berrma laughed from her belly. It was a surprisingly deep sound for such a small woman. "You're not like Scout and Wick. You think with your body, not with your brain. The body is faster to learn and smarter than the brain in every way. Of the three, you're the smartest."

The girl brightened at the rare compliment, her stance softening.

"Uh oh," Wick groaned.

Vein was on her back before Wick even realized that Berrma had seemingly teleported over the girl, her boot planted on Vein's tunic. Berrma's look was playful, but her words carried an edge. "You lost focus. Okay. Lesson done."

Berrma walked to the back porch, plopping herself on one of the hammocks as if she had just spent an exhausting day in the mines. Wick gave her a flat stare, and the woman rolled her eyes. "What?"

"You haven't taught us anything," Wick accused.

Vein joined them on the porch.

"Sure, I did. I taught you some, ahhh," Berrma managed searchingly. "Humiliation. That's right. I taught you humiliation."

"You mean humility," Wick corrected, only to realize from her smirk she knew the difference. The woman was obviously not in the mood to fulfill Rax's instructions to the best of her ability. She was just using them to pass the time.

Luckily, Wick had expected this and found it was a good time to experiment. So, he summoned Automate, binding Cut with a new command. He tried a new tactic, muttering to Scout, who had been keeping the same vacant expression for hours. "I guess the Limitadi aren't all they're cracked up to be. Oh, and Cut 50."

The hammock twisted. Wick's SP was drained by a hard 500. What looked like a perfect, single blue blade erupted out of Wick's palm toward a pissed-off Berrma. But it was actually fifty Cuts released at the same time.

He knew it wouldn't harm the woman, but it did stop Berrma's rampage. Her eyes widened in shock. Wick laughed, "Take that, you --"

Wick collapsed to the floor of the porch and his entire body seized. A bright path of pain erupted from his lower stomach, through his heart, and up to his palm. He felt like he had been dipped into a smith's burning furnace.

Voices swelled in the background, but he couldn't make them out beyond the pain.

Nothing made sense. Five slow points of pressure along a burning path. The heat in his body lessened until it was nearly cool. Bright pain still lingered.

Wick's vision cleared after he wiped away his tears. Had he been crying? Thymesia filled in the gaps. The position of the sun had changed, and his father's training kicked in. His throat was dry. He croaked, "I was out for two bells and a quarter."

Scout's expression wasn't vacant anymore, no longer lost in the meditation technique Berrma had taught him. He was worried, but cracked a shallow grin. "Show off."

Wick righted himself and noticed Vein was sitting on one of the rocking chairs, her expression pensive. He saw in her fear and disappointment. Of course. The girl had only ever seen him as an indestructible force that saw no stopping. Even in the spars with Berrma, he had adapted fast enough to block one of her blows.

But he had fallen, crumbled by something she didn't understand. In truth, he didn't either.

Berrma leaned against one of the porch pillars, studying Wick. Her face was drained a little of color and held no trace of the playful spite she wielded in their spars. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again.

"I failed," Berrma stated flatly.

Wick snorted. "Don't be a priss. I'm fine. My skill backfired is all."

"Shut up," Berrma snapped coldly. "Won't you and Rax just for once shut up?"

Wick didn't know what to say to that. Her demeanor had changed. He had expected another exchange, a light haggle for her to finally teach them something. But he didn't expect resignation before the fight. This wasn't a haggle at all.

"I don't know how you managed it, Wick, but you burned a chakra path," she replied, half in wonder and half in worry. "If I wasn't here to block your Source from flooding your chakras, then you'd be dead."

In all of his readings, not once had Wick seen or heard of chakras. This was new, and the way Berrma carried that knowledge gave him pause.

Berrma nodded approvingly. She sounded older. "Good. Wisdom always comes slower to the intelligent. It requires restraint."

"What happened, exactly?" Wick asked.

Berrma seemed to digest his question for a long breath, then said, "The workings of the Limitadus is only for Pilgrims like me, or what you may have heard Graves call, a limitadi. The Pilgrims of the Limitadus are those who have abandoned all skills."

Wick's head rocked back. "You can't be serious. There's no way you move like that and with that kind of strength without a skill. You're just forceknights without kami-armor."

Berrma shook her head patiently, as if having explained this countless times before. "Before Morgoth rose to power, there were no skills, no sorcery. What do you think people used during that time?"

Wick knew when it was his turn to be silent. For the first time in a long while, he was the one who had more questions than answers.

"Magic," Berrma supplied. "And not just the general way we talk about it, but real magic. Wild magic, and its secrets were too great for us, though even then very few wielded it. Arachs roamed the surface in those days, thriving in the chaos. Only Morgoth could stand evenly with them. Then one dawn, magic in the world twisted. All at once, the lesser races saw blue screens with words. We learned about Sources and skills. The magic we had feared for eons had been tamed, and so The First Age of Sorcery began."

Wick realized Vein and Scout had huddled next to him, captivated by Berrma's story. He said, "I've read two volumes of Trechior. There were no mentions of wild magics."

"Before there was writing to record history, we told stories, Wick," Berrma answered. "Trechior is not all-knowing. Toward the second half of The First Age, some of us turned back to the wild magics with better understanding. We abandoned outward skills for the wisdom of the body."

"Chakras," Scout whispered in wonder. Wick smiled. The boy had always been the perfect audience.

"Yes," Berrma said. "But unlike the perfect structure of skills supplied by sorcery, we discovered that wild magics had no real pattern. Every human is born with chakras. Some are born with few, others with as many as fifty, regardless of race or blood. More chakras doesn't always mean more power, either. It's just different."

"Why?" Wick asked, completely enthralled.

Berrma shrugged. "The limitadi have been asking that same question for thousands of years. But what we do know is whenever a skill is used, the Source Points are drawn from different chakras. Since everyone's chakras are different, how they react to skills are different too."

Wick's mind stitched the information as quickly as he absorbed it. He muttered, "That's why one person can equip a skill but another isn't able to for the same skill. That fact alone is how the skillmongers monopolize the skillcards."

His heart raced at the idea and what it meant. He now knew why the skillmongers were so powerful. Wick's mind felt like sword on whetstone. He said, "And that's also why manna leak exists, isn't it? Unless we have guidance at the Skillia, we spend decades mastering the feel of the chakra path our Source Points make until we stop leaking manna."

Berrma stood completely still. If it hadn't been for the slight autumn breeze tugging at her pants, he would have mistaken her for a statue.

Wick realized she had said something he wasn't supposed to know. He felt his mouth go dry. Would the warrior-woman kill him over the knowledge?

Berrma relaxed, shaking her head as if convincing herself out of a stupid decision. "That's not completely secret knowledge within my order, but watch where you flick your little viper tongue, Wick. Had a less progressive pilgrim witnessed you piece together excerpts of the Limitadus like reviving a dead language on the fly, they would have cut you in two by now."

Wick gulped. "Got it."

"Yes. Manna leak and a person's uniqueness to equip skills stems from chakras. You were a step ahead of me," Berrma said, continuing. "It's not just the sequence of the paths, but also how much of your SP you flood through each chakra."

Wick nodded in understanding. "That's why using my skill, Cut, fifty times at the same moment hurt so much. I flooded my chakras too much."

"You need to stop doing that," Berrma said, annoyed. "It's impressive the first time, but gets the Hells annoying when you keep reading the future."

Wick didn't care about impressing people. He decided to defer to silence just the same. She was finally teaching them something important.

"Don't activate a skill for a day, maybe two at best," Berrma urged.

Scout had been sitting quietly the whole time. He asked, "What do pilgrims do? I mean, what's the point of knowing this stuff?"

Good question, Scout, Wick thought.

Vein rolled her eyes as if the answer was obvious. "So they could punch bad guys with super fists."

Wick was about to laugh at the ridiculous answer, but Berrma corrected her. "We punch good guys, too. Our order has no teachings on morals. We favor wisdom over intelligence, and nothing is wiser than the body. But there is one thing that would bring us all together from all the corners of the continent."

The woman paused, her expression grave.

"A guntus," Berrma said. "The pilgrims are sworn to reach the pinnacle of strength without skills. We do this all in preparation for the appearance of a guntus."

Wick sucked in a breath. "Corvin wrote the last guntus to appear was hundreds of years ago. No one knows how to summon one anymore."

"What's a guntus?" Scout asked.

Wick shook his head. "I've seen monsters, real ones like divali in the Sprawl. Those are puppies compared to their ancestors, the Arachs. A single guntus on its first day is to a hundred Arachs what Berrma is to an ant."

"Deepest Hells," cursed Vein.

"You said a single guntus on its first day," Scout asked, confused.

Berrma answered, "Guntus were summoned from who knows where or how. They absorb bodies, whether it is a living Arach or the corpse of a human. With it, a guntus gains its physical abilities. Every day it grows, the guntus gets stronger."

"In recorded history, no guntus has ever been allowed to live more than three days. That's from Trechior," Wick stated.

"So pilgrims just get super strong and do whatever they want until a guntus shows up?" Scout asked.

"Yes," Berrma said, unashamed. "Strength is the only truth."

"That's all well and good," Wick interjected. "But how? You talk about wild magics and chakras, but what does that mean to us?"

Berrma nodded to Scout. "Boy, why do you think I had you breathe the way I taught you with a clear mind while your two friends fought?"

Wick wanted to remind her that Scout wasn't his friend, but his subordinate. Scout shrugged and said, "Don't know. I just do what my teachers tell me to."

Despite Scout's reply, Wick had seen the greenhair twitch during his meditation. Scout clearly had wanted to be a part of the action. He had already spent most of his life on the sidelines. When he was finally given the opportunity to participate, he was pushed back once more.

Berrma's expression softened at that. "Wise answer. It was to teach you restraint. That is the first lesson. As a gross oversimplification, limitadi purposefully put restraints on our actions, bodies, and choices so we may become stronger."

"Huh?" said Wick, Scout, and Vein at the same time.

"The Limitadus' most fundamental teaching is limitation," Berrma explained. "I asked Scout to do the opposite of what he desired most, which was to prove himself through fighting with me. However, to do so without the guidance of a true Pilgrim can cause irreparable harm on your body."

"Lanton's favorite stories always had heroes proving themselves to their masters," Scout muttered. His face soured at the name.

"Exactly," Berrma said. "Scout, you did better than both Wick and Vein combined. You stopped yourself from getting what you wanted. That requires an iron will."

She paused. "You need that iron will if you are to get stronger like I did. The Limitadus teaches that if you are given two paths, deny yourself both. If you have lost an arm in battle, fight with no arms."

Wick was almost quick to dismiss the whole idea of an ancient order of superhumans who could stand against forceknights as laughable, but he had witnessed Berrma's strength and speed first-hand.

Her power rivaled at least that of Zata, the monstrous bat from Grey Forest. He frowned at the memory of the camazotz. The old bat had vowed to kill him if he entered Grey Forest again without going straight to the Misonians' trial. On top of that, Wick owed it a favor.

It was why Wick hadn't stepped foot in the amnestic zone again. He knew he wasn't ready. Maybe this Limitadus would change that for him.

Wick asked, "How does that theory apply to the chakras?"

Berrma answered, "We gain strength from not using skills. Through meditation, we learn to master the feel of all our chakras. After that it's up to the limitadi and their master to determine their best path for power. For those like me who seek only strength, we lift something just above our level of strength and flood our chakras until we have the strength to lift the object."

"Then why aren't you super muscular?" Vein asked.

"Because we use our chakras to empower our bodies, not our muscles," Berrma explained.

She added, "Of course, flooding chakras without skills is dangerous because it depends on feel alone, not the hard numbers of skill screens and SP. Channeling a chakra path that powers your legs while punching a stone wall will only result in a broken arm and shattered chakras."

"So there is no set formula for chakra points because everyone's chakras are unique," Wick concluded.

Berrma swayed her head to the side in a doubtful gesture. "Our order has had a few hundred years of data to go off of. We've found patterns and themes, but it is more art than exact science. Flooding your channels again and again in a safe way will eventually make them grow. Your body will adapt to become a stronger vessel."

"It sounds like switching out a small paper cup of water for a big gallon," Scout said. "But paper won't hold it, so I gotta get one made of stronger stuff like metal."

Berrma shook her head in disbelief. "By the Crawl. Where do you three come from? It took me weeks to barely absorb this stuff."

Vein spoke up, waving her hands in front of her face. "Being strong is cool, but how do I get to be all blurry like you?"

Berrma turned to Wick and gave him an expectant gesture. "Well, genius boy? You got anything?"

Wick, in fact, did. He let the smug in his voice for the fun of it. "Speed comes from strength. People think forceknights have separate skills for speed and strength. It's a common misconception. Their skills are a draining type, constantly sapping their SP to give them more strength. What protects them most is their kami-armor."

Berrma seemed annoyed at Wick's quick reply, but added, "The benefits of flooding your chakra every day under stress also hardens your skin."

The woman brandished one of her hundred knives and stabbed the back of her hand. The knife's edge stopped as if colliding with steel.

Wick's throat dried up. How could he ever think even draining all of his SP for a thousand Cuts could harm the woman? This was another level.

He needed that power, and the thought tasted like gold. Curious, Wick asked, "You said the Limitadus teaches to cut off all roads when given only two. Basically, when things get bad, you purposefully make it worse for yourself?"

"Yes," Berrma answered.

"Crazy," Scout muttered, but something gleamed in his eyes.

Wick asked, "That has nothing to do with chakra points. It just sounds like an easy way to make things needlessly harder for yourself."

Berrma twisted in doubt. "Honestly, I still don't completely understand that bit myself. Maybe that's why I've hit a roadblock in both my skill and strength. My chakras stopped growing about a decade ago, no matter how many weights I lifted or mountains I jogged up in my spare time."

"Who jogs up mountains for fun?" Vein blurted. Everyone ignored her.

Berrma sighed. "It does have merit. All limitadi initiates are forced to spend a year sparring blind or one-handed in the Simmerest temple before graduating. After my limitation year, I could see a person at the bottom of the mountain while I stood at the top. Mind you, it was a small mountain, but it surprised the Hells out of me. People seemed to move slower too. My own master returned from his pilgrimage and could spot a flower of grass the next mountain over."

Wick could practically read Scout's and Vein's thoughts on their faces. He was certain they'd walk around the next few days with blindfolds on. Hey, if it worked, it worked.

Berrma stretched leisurely. "Look. It's been a long day. I don't think I hate you as much as I thought I did, but I still hate kids. The lesson to take away is this: most spend their lives staring at the mountain. A few attempt to climb it and never reach the peak. Only the great summit the mountain."

"I know we're all tired, but this is the last question, I promise," Wick said. "Why don't pilgrims use the techniques of the Limitadus and also equip skills?"

Berrma rolled her eyes, as if expecting the question all along. "The way of the limitadi expends your Source to grow your channels. Even if your manna absorption is legendary or you have a very convenient Source, then you'd need every SP you can get just to make it to my level."

"So you're saying it's just a matter of how much," Wick said, excited at the thought.

Berrma was angry now, but seemed too tired to deal with Wick. She stomped past the kids into the threshold of the mansion. Before walking through, she said, "Climbing one mountain is hard enough. Climbing two is foolish. Climbing both at the same time is impossible."

Wick gestured for Scout and Vein to follow her to their own separate bedrooms. He watched them go, sitting on the floor of the porch, ambitions stirring his thoughts.

Berrma's long lesson had jolted something in Wick's mind. The Misonians' script from the puzzle dungeon appeared in his vision. He reached inside his leather pocket and produced a small iron ball.

She was right. Climbing two mountains at the same time was impossible. The peak of one mountain had captivated Vein. The struggle of climbing two had enthralled Scout.

Wick had no interest in needless struggle. His greed was too savage to settle for peaks of the land. In the ancient days, did the dragons climb the mountains they ruled? No. They took flight.

Iron ball pinched between his fingers, Wick muttered to himself, "Why bother climbing mountains when you can fly over them?"

His insides still burned, but come dawn, he would soar.