During the time that he had spent with the soldiers, Wynd had gotten used to all of the marching and found that the expected at attention pose wasn't dramatically different than the pose he was expected to do for potential buyers and renters. The biggest difference, as far as he could tell, was that formation and how you handled your shield and or weapons were as important as how you handled your body.

Not having been given a weapon, that wasn’t something he was worried about but he wondered if he would have to at some point.

While standing in the back corner, a spot that was only available because of a member who went missing or, a worse possibility, had deserted his post, he watched his owner address everyone for the morning after breakfast.

“These last several days have been a lot of work for those of you not used to it. Four people amongst our ranks have fallen behind and all but one have found their way back. That isn’t as bad as some years, but many you are being shown up by my new slave.”

A fair amount of eyes turned to look at Wynd as his owner reminded everyone of his existence with her words of praise.

“He has had no military training. Nothing related to our marches. He is carrying more than any of you and he is keeping up despite it all. Those of you who had to catch up while a fucking slave managed to keep up are going to have extra training after we return from the capital.”

Three people shifted in place a bit at this realization. It was the same three that Wynd had seen catch up to them at some point after having fallen behind.

“This extra training will not be paid and you will wish to be treated like you were in your first days as a recruit. I think ten-day survival training sounds fun, but so does a non-stop march for a few days.”

While Wynd was no longer the focus of much attention, those in the front saw Elya get a half smile that held a level of cruelty to it, “Or maybe I’ll even let you practice defenses against magic. I’m sure those with a good enough skill would love some more mobile targets.”

A clap of her hands drew everyone’s eyes back to her as Elya finished.

“We are about to continue the march. I believe if we go at a quick pace we will get there about the time the early day bell rings.

If we take longer than the midday bell to get there, you will all have to do one hundred pack lifts with Wynd’s pack.”

Once again the eyes went towards Wynd, or more specifically the oversized pack that he was carrying thanks to what had become his signature magic. An estimation was that the pack held something around three times as much as the packs that they were carrying. That wasn’t including what was seen hanging off of ropes and such that were wrapped around or tied to it.

“That being said,” Elya said to get attention back on her, “We will reach the capital today! I expect all of you to do your job well once there because I didn’t bring you all here to slack off. Now get your asses moving!”

Letting another high ranking member take over in front to lead the soldiers, Elya walked to the back and watched everyone as she followed behind carrying her own pack.

Unlike many, she would carry the same pack that others were expected to without riding or using the horse that she had been allowed to take with her. She did have it carry some extra things, but she had made sure that her pack was just as much of a burden as the others to show that she was someone who didn’t force them to do something she couldn’t.

It wasn’t until a fair amount of time passed before she spoke again, telling Wynd to get to her side.

“You are a better purchase than I expected you to be, especially considering why I bought you. With how things are going I might even be able to get paid back partially if I can prove that you have caused others to be motivated. I doubt many of those who are from noble families or want to prove they deserve a better life like the idea of someone like you proving to be better than they are.”

Even though it felt like it was something of an insult, Wynd smiled and spoke proudly.

“Of course Lady Elya. I may lack talent in some ways, but if I am of any benefit to you for the remainder of my time as your slave I will do whatever I can.”

Wynd didn’t like speaking this way, but his words were honest, even if the reason for them wasn’t quite as they would appear at surface level.

Sure pride in one's talent and work was something a lot of people would want to be able to express, but Wynd just wanted to ensure that he was kept by this woman who was already better than his previous owner. She was rude, harsh, and intense at worst, but she had never beaten him like he had been before and even praised him a little bit.

The worst he had gotten was a hard swat on the rear when she said he was slowing down a bit. He was even allowed the same sleeping accommodations as all the men and women who were marching towards the capital.

It was true that he had to do some work for each night to prepare the campsite, but unlike usual he wasn’t expected to do all of the mundane work. With how much bigger this group was compared to the usual ones he worked with this, he felt, was a true blessing.

Everyone was in charge of their own tent usually, unless you were on another duty. In that case, whoever finished their tent first would set up the ones for those on another duty.

Of course, that was only in relation to each other. Elya would, seemingly, randomly have people set up her tent or some other job that she would do on her own at times. Sometimes she said it was to train the lower ranks and other times she said it was to remind them of her authority.

Once when helping her do some inventory of what he was carrying she told Wynd it was mostly because her mood struck her to do it.

“I suppose,” Elya said interrupting Wynds' thoughts, “That you are wondering what you will do once we get to the capital.”

In a practiced manner, Wynd responded without a second thought.

“I just thought I would serve you in whatever way you needed from me Lady Elya. Someone like me needs to only think of how to serve his owner to the best of his abilities.”

The words almost burned in his throat, but not as much as when he talked to his previous owner.

“A practical answer,” Elya said with a bit of praise, “But not the sort I wanted. You are, I assume curious what is going to happen to you once we get to the capital.”

This time Wynd thought for a moment before responding as he finally noticed the castle in the sky.

“I have been, but I also had some ideas of what would be expected of me based on all the people I have spent time with in the past.”

As an afterthought Wynd added, “I didn’t expect the castle to be that big if it was in the air.”

Elya silently indicated for him to keep speaking as she kept up her pace, only saying that many people display shock regarding the castle. She then gave a sharp yell towards one of the younger people in formation when she noticed them getting a step behind.

“I was expecting that I would unpack and organize things. Then I would keep whatever place is called home clean for everyone and possibly visit the bedchambers of people who request it.”

“Beyond that, I’ll likely, based on what is with us, do work along the lines of minor weapon and armor maintenance and upkeep. Buying things for people who need them so they don’t need to waste time and do anything in the house that would take time from you and your people doing more important work.”

“And maybe, if you thought it was worthwhile, take some downtime to learn some skills that you thought might be worth me having? Like say something magical in nature?”

Elya looked back towards the slave, “I do have you for a few years until your punishment is over. You aren’t completely right or wrong on your expectations. I wasn’t planning on letting you learn any magic considering your score is what it is. Your natural mana production, as I'm sure you know, is a concern.”

“My other scores are really good though right?” Wynd interrupted as he kept his pace, “I mean that one member of yours is always working on her mana maybe you can have her work with me to work on my mana production?”

Elya was quiet and thoughtful as they continued marching, leading Wynd to worry about his verbal outburst.

Compared to being rented out to anyone willing to pay his owner enough coin, being owned fully by someone felt different. He wasn’t just a product in a store and he felt that she talking to him, not at him, and treated him like he was a person.

Sure it was true that she spoke to him like he was a person of lower status but at least he was a person. At least that's how he was feeling.

“It is the only form of mana training with no known case of it, directly, causing the person to die. Regardless for now I’ll consider it. I suppose if I do have her help you I could tell her it is a punishment for doing her mana training even when she was told to take it easy.”

As if he had been infused with the essence of a lightning strike, Wynd felt his mind racing at all the possibilities that might open for him if he could increase his mana scores. He considered both the short and long term benefits that could be discovered.

His mana production had always been barely good enough to be considered rank two so there was no reason for people to expect a lot from him overall. His mana storage on the other hand was an impressive rank eight and his mana output was midway through a four.

If his mana had been allowed time to build up he was able to use his body enhancement skills for a long period of time, especially if he was meticulous about its usage. The problem was that without training or a better output and production score he wasn’t seen as anything more than a long term pack mule who could last for a long time if allowed to have a long rest between jobs.

Even the phrase that it will be considered, instead of being told no, gave Wynd some hope and motivation. A drive that he hadn’t thought he could experience while wearing the mark of slavery on his ear.

There was a distinct possibility that he would struggle to keep up with the work if he kept himself mana drained to train, but he was willing to do it.

With how much mana his body was able to handle, and how much he could use at once, it would take him a while before his body was drained of all mana. Once that was done the rest would be fairly simple.

By using the mana his body produces just as fast as it comes in, his mana reserves would remain fully depleted except for a short period after he slept.

It wasn’t typically known outside of academic society why or how this form of training was discovered, but the simple explanation was common knowledge for most people.

By keeping yourself drained of mana, the body would realize it needs something and do what it could to accommodate or fix it. If you get too hungry you will feel the pain, just as if you were sick or prevented something that needed to leave the body from doing so.

In the same way, your body would start to feel a low level of pain when there was no mana within it. It was sometimes compared to a deep piercing itch that wouldn’t go away across the whole body.

But much, in the same way, your body would use itself and, depending on what it needed to recover from, use mana on its own to mend the wrongs the body would do similar when you lacked mana.

It would take time for a notable difference, but when your body starved for mana it would work to strengthen itself in a way that would allow the body to produce more mana. This was the only way, that Wynd was aware of, to get someone to produce more mana.

At the low levels it would be seen as a large boost as someone with a rank one in mana production could go to rank two, usually, within one season and sometimes even get to rank three in that time. Those at higher ranks had a more difficult time going from, for example, rank five to six. When it was actually done steadily it could take as much as a year, or multiple years depending on how well your body could increase its mana output.

That was also assuming that the person trained it non stop as allowing your body to store mana for more than a day would cause it to think everything was fine.

As Elya had stated this training was considered to be the safest and had, as far as anyone who had been part of the conversation knew, never directly caused a persons’ death. The indirect deaths, however, were known by many.

By keeping your body drained of mana at all times it meant that no matter the situation, you had none that you could use in times of danger.

A creature that you would normally have no trouble with so long as you could use some magic in your combat would suddenly become a dangerous fight for your life that many people had lost.

Thinking about the possibility of trying to get his mana to a score that people could respect, Wynd was glad he didn’t need to do mana burst and knew that it was unlikely that he would be allowed to do any mana discharges.

Wynd had heard stories about both and was hesitant to try either, but knew the results could bring someone barely not good enough into someone who could command at least a base level of respect just from their scores.

Mana burst, in Wynds opinion, was the type of mana training that would be the worst.

When talking about Cylla and her training one of the others marching with him had said that you could imagine your body like a keg of ale. The body can only store so much mana in it just like a keg could only store so much ale.

The way that a person trained their mana to increase the storage was to fill it to bursting. Much like the keg would burst if too much was forced into it, the body would burst in a literal sense as well.

When there was more mana than the body could handle it would build up pressure and eventually the mana would erupt from the body causing it harm.

The location and intensity, as far as those who tried to study it could tell, was entirely random. Even if there was some sort of pattern or logic it wasn’t something they had been able to figure out. That is why this was considered the most dangerous form of mana training.

It was entirely possible for nothing but barely noticeable injuries to occur, normally only if your mana storage was one or two, but that wasn’t the norm. The higher your mana storage was the worst possible injuries you could get due to your body having more mana to expel when it got to its limit.

That wasn’t even taking into consideration the possible locations a burst could occur.

There were lots of places on the body people didn’t mind the injuries happening. Shoulders, hips, backs, and the like were common, but as you couldn’t control where it burst it was always a gamble.

Many stories of people losing fingers, toes, or eyes weren’t uncommon when doing this training. Wynd had even met someone once who tried to train his mana storage and ended up castrated resulting in what was left being unusable.

Beyond that, there were many stories about people dying because the burst left more of a mess than if a powerful beast got to them. The more vulnerable the body part the less of a mana burst it took. This was why some spots, like the neck, were a common reason for a mana burst death.

In comparison, mana discharge, which would train one's maximum mana output, was much safer if you took precautions. Although it would be foolish to actually call it safe.

The most important part of training your output, by most peoples’ standards, was to work in a place where there weren’t other people and that wouldn’t trouble others if there was a bit of destruction.

Of course what constituted this varied from person to person, usually dependent on what sort of magic they were doing to train.

Someone who was skilled in flames would prefer to be in a location that had nothing flammable while those who knew how to control water would prefer to bring water with them somewhere that it wasn’t naturally abundant.

This was because they would use their magical talents and, in terms that could be understood by anyone, force themselves to do better.

Like when one's body demands rest, but you don’t allow it to, you would push your body to use more mana at a larger rate despite the demands of their body and mind.

While a person could often handle it, to an extent, there was always the chance that the magic would go completely out of the persons' control and work in ways they didn’t expect.

Some stories that Wynd had heard from those he was marching with showed that there was a wide variety of things that could go wrong with the training. Each was often added to a comment about how they were surprised Cylla was managing as well as she had with her training when giving an example.

Many of them had a favorite story about the magic going out of the persons' control.

A person trying to manipulate an animal is, in turn, manipulated into thinking they were one.

Attempting to freeze a large collection of water instead formed a scalding hot mist.

Someone that was attempting to remove the rust from a set of armor instead made it crumble into a pile of it.

Of course, there were always the ones whose magic just go wild without purpose and causes destruction and chaos without any sort of predictability. This would sometimes kill the person due to the double-edged effects the flared up.

Depending on what magic they used to train, mana discharge was seen as either dangerous or just an inconvenience.

By the time the troops found their way to the Skies Reach the early day bell had rung some time ago and the midday bell would be ringing before too long. To everyone's delight, they managed to get through the gates and well into capital proper before the midday bell rang.

When they got to the bunkhouse everyone started to claim their beds and put their stuff away.

Elya in the meantime had started setting up in her officers' bedroom with a connected office as Wynd followed her into it carrying the stuff he had been told to bring.

“Lady Elya. Where am I going to be when it is time to sleep? I just want to know what to expect.”

Looking over some paperwork that she had already set out, Elya began to say some of the words she was looking over as she pretended to write in the air with a writing tool that wasn’t in her hand.

“I was going to just set you up in a cot out in the barracks with the others, but it seems that we are missing one person still. Since you made it and he didn’t you can use his bed, but you don’t get to pick. Whichever one is leftover is yours regardless of location, top or bottom bunk.”

“And if he returns?” Wynd inquired.

“If he returns,” Elya started, “He can sleep on the cot in your stead. If anyone complains I think it only fair to punish the slacker a bit and what better way than to have him have worse accommodations than my slave.”

Wynd had to fight to not run up to Elya and hug her. While it might seem like nothing to most people, being allowed a proper bed in the same place that non slaves lived almost felt like he was free.

He knew, of course, that he was still just a slave, but Wynd felt as if he could live without fear here. He felt that he could trust his new owner and, while he hoped she would take his requests seriously, he thought he could trust her decisions more than he could his last owner.

Especially from what some of the other, less rented, slaves had to go through.

Giving a soft bow Wynd couldn’t hold back a smile, “I thank you for the sleeping arrangements Lady Elya. Is there anything I need to know about living here and the expectations?”

Letting out a sharp whistle, Elya sat at her desk and motioned for Wynd to sit across from her so he did.

“The first thing is you are to keep an eye on everyone else to an extent. There are certain rules I will explain to you that you will help me make sure they obey by telling me if they don’t. They are smart enough they will probably realize that’s the case and if they go after you they will be punished.”

Wynd nodded lightly. It seemed that part of his job would be to snitch on others around him. He didn’t think that Elya seemed especially harsh, but at the same time he had seen that she could be quite strict as well. Something like the darkness of the night and the light of the midday sun all at once.

“I understand Lady Elya. Is there anything speci…”

Before he could finish his thought another woman came in who looked like she was a couple of years younger than Elya.

“Did you call for me miss?”

Holding out some papers Elya didn’t even look at the young woman.

“Yes, tell Rahnlin that we are here. Give him this report and make sure to tell him we are missing one person so he might want to look at those pages right away even if he ignores the rest of the report.”

The young woman took the papers and curtseyed, “Of course. Is there anything else that you need or are expecting?”

Elya shook her head and ignored the woman at that point, speaking instead to Wynd. The woman stood just for a bit before leaving as she realized she wasn’t needed.

“The main concern I have right now is that they can only leave after dark with permission. If you see anyone leaving after dark make note of who and tell me the next day. As of now, I will give anyone permission so long as they ask until three days before the big events start. I won’t let them know I am willing to give them permission that freely but that is all I care about. That they ask so we know they will be gone. If the person you tell me about had permission I won’t worry about it.”

Tapping at a piece of paper Elya was silent for a moment, “Also no drinking or eating in their beds. They can do both right next to their beds, but not in the bed. Causes too many hassles for the cleaning staff which you will be helping to an extent.”

“By to an extent,” Elya clarified, “I mean you will clean my office and personal room and that is all that is expected of you personally to do as far as cleaning the barracks go. The staff will still come to clean it because it is their job so you will just help them as they ask. If they try to make you do it all then you have my permission to not help at all.”

“Lastly,” Elya mentioned almost as an afterthought, “You will be expected to help me do minor things here and there when we aren’t out and about in the city. You have neither the training nor the authority to do anything so at best you would be a beast of burden or a witness and I would rather you do something to better yourself. I will give you two days, well today and tomorrow, to decide if you want to learn something and if so what.”

“That basically means except for the cleaning, unless I tell you specifically to do something, you can do as you like when you aren't busy as long as you stay within the soldiers' buildings and I haven't forbidden the subject you wish to improve in. If anyone asks tell them who owns you. They might bring you back here until they can verify it depending on who they are. Now. Any questions?”

Wynd immediately knew one thing he wanted.

“Does that include mana training?”

Elya tapped her finger on the desk, “I will have an answer for you in that regard later. I make no promise that my answer will be to your liking or that there won’t be certain requirements or stipulations if I do give you what you requested. Now, do you have any other questions before I tell you to leave?”

Thinking hard about what he might need to know, Wynd’s stomach reminded him of something important.

“I should know where to get food and where to use the bathroom. We haven’t eaten since breakfast and if you would allow it I would like to have something to eat.”

Looking up at him, Elyas' face looked as if she had just realized something important.

“Right food.”

Standing up she left her office and went to where everyone was getting their stuff put in their storage lockers and claiming their beds. Upon her entry, everyone stood up, but not at attention.

“Alright listen up, Wynd here reminded me that nobody had food today since breakfast we were trying to make it here before the midday bell.”

A small general muttering was heard from the people as she continued.

“Since a lot of you are here for the first time this year you don’t know the layout of the premises. I’m not feeling hungry but I assume many of you are and I know I should have something to eat. If you want to eat follow and you can finish this after. If you don’t want to eat now well ask someone where you can later or follow me now anyway because I’m not showing anyone twice.”

Leaving the bunkhouse, Elya led everyone to the building where they would be able to eat. It was a mostly simple place with a lot of tables and on one wall there were trays and an open section of the wall where they could see the kitchen staff working hard.

When he went up, Wynd was a bit surprised that he was asked how much he wanted and what he wanted, instead of being given food without any input on it.

Using this opportunity, Wynd gorged himself more than he normally would have and the rest of the day blurred together for him. It was a mix of relaxation, sleep, and eating with only one request from Elya to grab her some ink from a closet so she wouldn’t run out.

That night he slept especially well with more comfort than he thought he would experience until his freedom was returned to him.