The streets began to fill and Res passed various guard patrols without incident. He enjoyed the sense of freedom and for the first time since he had fled; he felt optimistic. When he passed the spot from where he had left the sewers with the three children, a small voice called out. “Mr. Cultivator. Please give me a minute.”

Res turned his head in surprise and stared at a ragged ten-year-old boy with fire-red hair. “What did you say?”

“I am from the Sensei Rebellion. Your name is sensei, isn’t it?”

Res sighed, but continued to answer: “You could call me that.”

The boy’s visage brightened in elation and fear. “Sensei, our leader, Brent, wishes to discuss an important matter with you.”

“Tell him I have no time.”

Res was about to leave, but the adolescent boy clung to his hand and cried out: “Please Mister! Please, Mister! Please, Mister!”

“Dude, something is fishy here. That kid doesn’t sound sincere. It sounds like …”

At that moment four giant and bare-chested giants emerged from the crowd. “It sounds like a signal. Fuck.”

When Res turned around, he saw the small boy climbing down into the sewers. He knew he couldn’t follow the boy and so faced his attackers.

“Bro, it’s baldie from the carriage incident again. Time to test the new powers.” Indeed, leading the party was the now grim-faced leader of the bare-chested perverts.

“We meet again, sensei. The incident with the Osmanian princess will be paid back a hundredfold. I have already thought through thousands of ways on how to kill you. I … ”

Jason talked over the babbling of the muscular thug. “Bro, I have made a plan on how we can make this work. I have merged our aether channels, so power shouldn’t be a problem. To activate the enchantment, let aether flow into a body part with the intent of pushing in a direction. I have specialized the rune, so it works by intent. For now, show that motherfucker who is boss.”

A smile spread over his face as he realized that he didn’t have to run another marathon while a killer was hot on his heels. As Jason had instructed, he willed what he considered a small amount of power into the palm of his hand. He grinned as he directed the power at the still talking leader. But instead of flinging the thugs back, the power pushed back. With a snap, his shoulder got dislocated, and he was flung backward at ridiculous speeds. With a meaty thud, he impacted the wall and his entire vision was filled by a mysterious red liquid.

“Bro, shit. I should have known that. Shit, Shit. You have internal bleeding, cracked ribs, and head trauma. Shit, shit. Of course, they had more mass than you and you would be flung back. That was like trying to push a house only to find out that the only person who is moving is you. Res can you hear me?”

Res couldn’t make out most of what Jason had said, but he nodded in confirmation. “Alright. Keep the aether connection stable, ok bro? I will get us out of here alive.”

Through his red-filmed vision, Res glimpsed Baldie’s mocking smile. Suddenly, Res’s body was flung into the air by the same force that had catapulted Res into the brick wall. The shock of flying thirty meters above ground didn’t even register in his pain muddled mind. Granny’s house came closer and closer.

Jason’s panicked cries resounded through his head. “Holy shit, how do I stop? I can’t push there? Bro, it will hurt a little.”

Res could only stare at the ground in numb horror as he impacted Granny’s backyard with a meaty thud. On impact, two painful snaps from both of his arms rattled his body. Despite all the pain, the graceful darkness of the abyss never came to envelop him. Instead, he could make out Granny’s angry screams about the ‘neighbor kids having no manners’. Which was followed by her horrified scream when she saw his bloody form lying in front of her window. Granny’s shock was only short-lived, and she vanished into her lab. After one excruciating minute, she jumped out of the window with a small box in her hands. She turned Res on his back and cut away all his clothes with a scalpel.

She touched every bruise on his body and then said in a sorrowful tone: “Sorry Res, this will hurt a little.”

Granny stuffed some rags into his mouth and proceeded with setting his bones. Every crunch and snap was accompanied by excruciating pain. Only halfway through, he had already left his voice. A part of him wondered whether the gag had already been used on another patient. Finally, she took out a bottle of golden liquid and had him drink it. He had expected the usual grassy taste, but it tasted like honey and flowers.

“Oh Res, what have they done to you? You were in a brothel, weren’t you? I won’t be mad if you tell me what happened.... No, I will still be a little mad because I had to use a master five potion that is worth five platinum on you.”

He coughed when he heard the ridiculous sum of money. 24 hours ago, life had been so simple to him. Res laughed at his nativity and stopped when another wave of pain assaulted him.

After half an hour, the pain had faded enough for him to speak again: “I wasn’t … in … a brothel.”

Granny chuckled: “That’s what men always say.” The mischievous glint in her eyes made him like Granny and, on a whim, he told her the truth.

“I am … wanted.”

“I figured. A rich merchant’s son or noble fled from his family because of a quarrel.”

“Unique kind … of quarrel. I destroyed a national treasure.”

Granny turned pale and Res already regretted his decision, but her composure returned. “And I thought they were indestructible. How did you do it?”

“I shouldn’t tell you that, because it would do you more harm than good.”

“My boy, I appreciate you being so honest to me. That is why I will be too. When I met the royal alchemist during some herb shopping, I bragged a bit. I told him I had an apprentice who made his own unique concoction within the first half-year.”

”What is the problem?”

“He didn’t believe me and we made a bet that he would give me one of his master craft recipes if my apprentice could beat his. If I lose, I will have to give him the phoenix pill. I am sorry Res, but my pride got the better of me. Please help out a poor woman. You only have to participate. I will give Evudor my old recipe for the phoenix pill.”

Her eyes widened in anticipation and she clutched at his chest. Res winced and replied: “Please don’t press on my chest, it still hurts. I wasn’t interested in the alchemy tournaments as a noble. But even I know tens of people that know me that go to watch them. If it were some sort of private duel, I could at least keep my identity a secret.”

Granny looked at him with new hope in her eyes: “If your identity stays hidden, will you participate?”

“Yes. But … I have another condition.”

Granny’s expression fell at that. “Judging by your expression, I assume that you have a method to keep my anonymity. So, I ask you to … please let me relax for the day.”

Granny’s smile became even wider, and she motioned Res to stand up. “That can be arranged. Stand up now, we need to make your mask. I made the potion. You should be healed by now, else I would have wasted those five platinum coins.”

With a sigh, Res picked himself up off the ground and he was indeed healed. He wriggled his fingers, toes, and hands and all worked fine.

With a shrug, Res followed Granny through the ground window into her lab. “Is wearing masks allowed in the tournament?”

Granny grinned from ear to ear. “No. They even have special artifacts that find alchemical and aether-based masks. My mask isn’t made of magic or aether. I learned this method from a tribe in the north who personate their gods this way. It’s a complex mixture of various rubber trees and antioxidants. The final product looks like this:” Granny pulled out a large pull of a clear yellow and brown goo. “Now, lower your face into the goo until your whole head is submerged.”

Res eyed the bowl suspiciously but decided to trust Granny. When he pulled his head out of the mixture, Granny was already adding various other liquids into the bowl. She waved him away: “Go to your brothel already. I have some sculpting to do.”

Res cleaned most of the residue off his face and then jumped out of the window and onto the moss-covered wall. With a contented sigh, he laid down and watched the early afternoon sky. Jason’s comments interrupted his musings from time to time but Res found that he enjoyed them. Finally, he addressed the topic he dreaded the most: “Jason?”

“Yeah, Bro?”

“You can use the enchantment.” It was no question, only a statement.

“Aren’t you cool with that? I could … ”

“No, it is all right. Before you saved me, I would have been angry, but … Thank you.”

“We are brothers, man. We are more than brothers now. I would always save you.”

“I didn’t thank you because you saved me. That wasn’t altruistic. It is the way you tolerate my choices. You are a kind man, Jason.”

Res thought he could feel Jason turn away in embarrassment at that, but that was impossible. He realized both of them had needed this talk, but he knew wallowing in melancholy wasn’t the way to go. They had taken their time meditating as the sun had already traveled to the horizon’s edge.

Res tried to loosen up the mood a little: “Hey, do you want to try out the enchantment?”

Jason’s voice deafened him: “Darn right, I want to test out the enchantment. Let’s do it.”

He jumped down from the wall and landed with a solid thump. “The most useful ability to learn would be how to fly or at least jump high and fast. How did you do it last time?”

“I catapulted you by using the enchantment on the whole back for your body.”

“Well, that won’t work.”

“Bro, I have a perfect idea. There was this total badass, his name was Iron man, in my world with rockets attached to his hands and feet.” The following five minutes were the most embarrassing and painful of Res’s life. Time and time again, he would position himself to push into the air, only to whirl around and faceplant in the dirt. Jason kept insisting that he had to train harder. The words ‘Training’ and ‘Hard’ just didn’t sit right with him.

He stopped one of Jason’s motivational speeches and said: “Train smarter, not harder. If we look at the center of mass of a person, it is in their pelvis. Let’s try having most of the enchantment streams on the pelvis. Eight on the upper and lower body to allow for movement in the air.”

With this new configuration, Res lifted off for a moment before crashing - Progress. The underlying problem was balancing the estimated distance with force. The closer the object, the less power he had to use to get the same force. If one would only fling out force streams, they could impact an object that was too close. The imbalance would set him spinning. Which meant that he had to always search for spots against which he would push to propel his body. Res had to find out firsthand that spinning in the air wasn’t an experience he wanted to relive. “Bro, I have the perfect next enchantment … ”.

A singing call from Granny interrupted them: “Reeees, come here for a moment. You have to get dressed.”

Confused, Res entered her lab through the window and froze when he saw a disembodied head lying on the table. “Why is there … ”

”Don’t worry. That is your new face as Leonard, my apprentice. I have also prepared an extra set of clothes. Getting clothes fitted is always time-consuming. The carriage arrives in half an hour.”

“Why would we need a carriage?”

“The alchemy tournament, you oaf.”

“Wait a minute. You have never told me that the tournament is today.”

His plans of training with Orson tonight went up into shambles in an instant. Granny adopted a nonchalant look and replied. “It seems like I must have forgotten it. Forgive an old lady for her lacking memory.” Jason felt the same as Res did and shouted in his head: “FORGOTTEN? She has played you, Res. Besides, she is a fucking brain core!”

No matter how much he wanted to tell Granny how he felt when she manipulated him, he owed her this much. With a defeated grin on his face, Res answered: “Ok, Granny. Do what you have to do.”

Granny’s face split into a wide grin. “That’s grand. Here, put this shirt on.”

While undressing, Res inquired: “So, what am I going to make in the competition. Nothing?”

“No, you would shame me that way. Put on a good show.”

“What ingredients do they provide?”

Granny smiled slightly. “Boy, you have every ingredient you can think of.”

Res’s heart began to faster, by the new possibilities that now flooded his head. “Can you take … Let’s say a little sip from one of your crafted potions.”

Granny’s forehead creased in thought. “There is no rule that forbids you from drinking your own potions.” In a flash of inspiration, he retreated into the black abyss of his mind and circulated aether in his brain. After thirty seconds, his eyes fluttered open again.

He grabbed Granny at her shoulders: “Please tell me you have a lexicon for alchemists.”

“Yes. It is in my sleeping chamber. Do you want to create a potion as a complete novice that you then drink? Are you crazy? The failure rate for complete novices is at 97%.”, Granny sputtered out. “I have made my decision.”

“Boy, I see where you are going, but stop that line of thought. Master-level potions need such a deep understanding of aether you won’t be able to match. Even if you could do all the complicated processing steps, you would need several days. At the tournament, the finalists will make potions that are Novice four to five, up to apprentice one.”

Seeing that Granny wouldn’t budge on that point, he stopped that line of questioning. “What is the most effective brain core cultivation potion within the apprentice rank?”

“All participants have trained for over eight years … You know what? Fine, if you want to stay that stubborn. By the way that you throw around aether, worry about reinforcing your channels. The simplest potion on that level is called wyverns shadow. This way you at least have a tiny chance of surviving. I don’t want you to come running to me if your arm gets paralyzed by a misstep.”

Jason sent feelings of excitement through their bond and added: “YES. I don’t have to feel pain? Bro, make at least a hundred of them.”

Granny continued her explanation: “The difficulty in the potion lies in extracting the aether. The black wyvern leaf will eject poison if you break the delicate aether channels. You have to drag the aether out through the tiny aether channels of the plant. It is a perfect indicator of one’s aether control. If you want to join the Alchemy alliance, they will require you to extract their lifeblood.”

“Are there any special techniques that make it easier?”

Granny laughed and picked up a mirror from a workbench. “There isn’t. How do you think you look?” Res barely even recognized the young man that was staring back at him. With his new luscious clothes, he resembled the prince.

“I liked my original appearance better.”

A loud knock sounded at the door and a deep voice shouted: “Ms. … ahhh Ms. Granny? Your carriage is here.” Granny fuzzed about with his clothes and then grunted in a satisfied tone.

“Come on boy, we have no time to spare. If you pull off the wyvern potion, I will consider you free of any debt.” Res followed Granny outside and took a seat in the carriage.

It was time to prepare himself for a role.