Lleu wove his way through the broken remains of a building currently being used as storage by one of the societies. He was heading back to the building he had been staying in alongside the others as he had finished his exploration of the camp for the time being. It was fast progress as when he came to walls or buildings that barred his way Lleu lifted himself with wind and leaped over them without ever breaking stride.

Recently, his technique for lifting himself had changed from how he had done it initially. Instead of creating a platform to stand or sit on Lleu now created a very thing suit of condensed wind around himself that he could mentally raise without interfering with any of his normal movements.

Possibly due to the practice meant to bolster his mental fortitude, the height he could lift himself had also increased although trying to hover for more than a few seconds would cause Lleu to come crashing down with a headache. Thankfully, the short bursts needed for traversing terrain were no issue at all.

After hopping over a few more walls Lleu reached the pathfinders building but did not slow down. Instead, he propelled himself onto the roof and dropped through the hatch that stood open for him. As he dropped inside he made sure to let go of the shroud that surrounded him as he felt no need to sneak.

Inside everything was just as he had left it. The air was slightly smoky due to the constantly burning fire in the room's center and a quick look around showed a number of Pathfinders doing simple things such as napping, eating, or just socializing. Aelan, Ria, and Manix were together as was normal and were currently in the midst of a card game of some sort. Judging by how Aelan was running his hands through his mane of black hair he was losing badly.

“You’re back. We didn't see you come in.” Aelan stated with a raised eyebrow as Lleu hopped over to him and the others.

“I went through the roof” replied Lleu pointing upwards.

“Of course you did, how was your walk outside? Any trouble?”

“No trouble, people are usually friendly enough once they know you aren't trying to steal their land or whatever it is they are guarding against. I do have a couple questions about some things I noticed though.”

Not letting Aelan interrupt Lleu asked his first question. "Throughout the camp, I saw lots of people practicing their magic but they did it differently than we do. They were always using what looked to be something similar to Jestix's mental exercises while casting, why do they do that?

The three pathfinders looked at each other briefly and Manix was the first one to answer, “What you saw were arts.”

Ria followed up on Manix’s lack of description, "Every society has its own set of magical arts they developed over the years. They are a set of physical motions that enable casting without the need to form a proper mental image of what you want the magic to do. Initially, arts were just a tool that let weaker members use magic beyond their normal capabilities but that changed as they became more developed and widespread over generations. Now, almost every society uses them exclusively, only we and two or three other societies stick with the traditional way of using images."

"It has to do with flexibility," said Aelan, "Arts make people very effective and powerful at doing specific things but it also greatly limits the variety of things they can do. We need to improvise often which is why we stick with the traditional method even if it is harder."

"So if they want to shoot a rock they need to learn the specific art for that? And its the same for everything else they want to do? "

"Exactly. It does have its benefits though, a well-practiced art will generally overpower magic made with an image, but since what we require is speed and versatility arts have no real benefit for us."

“I see... and what about how fast people usually learn to use magic?”

“Now that is a difficult question, it really has to do with both talent and affinity,” Aelan said. "As you could probably guess a high affinity means a master rate of mastery but it really is different for everyone. Your progress is among the fastest I have ever seen, not really surprising though considering how much power you can draw on"

"The reason I was asking is that I met someone who had been training for much longer than I but was proud to just be able to throw a rock pretty fast."

“Well, that sounds like a someone with a middle to low rated earth affinity. It actually is fairly impressive if they were able to do that within a year of training as earth is typically slow to learn but still nothing much compared to anyone with a high affinity.”

“Sorry to interrupt but since we are talking about training speeds I have something I think needs to be brought up,” said a slightly uncomfortable looking Ria ”It would be best if you don't show your skills too openly or at the very least don't mention how long you have been training. It would be best to let others assume that you are just a prodigy we have been keeping hidden up until now,”

“That's for political reasons, the royals in the upper district might not like hearing about you too much. Since they base their right to rule from being the most powerful totem users around anyone with notable talent will be drawn into their games if they aren't careful.” Aelan bluntly said.

“You shouldn't have to worry about all that though” chuckled Manix, “One advantage of being part of us is that we are very good at not being noticed and operate mostly alone. Anyway, the expedition will be moving on tomorrow so you should finish up any evening training quickly and get some rest for the journey.”

Taking that advice Lleu intensively worked through his routine as the rest of the pathfinders slowly trickled in. Soon, most everyone was present and the room fell into a silent slumber.

Lying next to his mentors and new friends Lleu went to sleep while deep in thought. He had decided to take not being noticed to heart since being sucked into the political games of the upper district was the last thing he was interested in.