Gunbjorn attuned the technique of generating more space of existing matter, to stretch objects out. When he later achieved Flesh, he used the technique to stretch a limb away from himself, then move to that space as he let it dissipate.

Ranvir read over the segment again. Gunbjorn, the tethered, had mastered a technique that looked similar to Ranvir stretching space. In theory, it was more like how he shrunk space to let other space take over. In practice, it would look like a mix of the two in order to both use and direct the ability. He didn’t know if that could work with attuning. Which seemed to be pretty simple-minded, without a lot of wiggle room.

Most of the attuned techniques he found in the books all kept it really simple. There weren’t any fancy tricks using multiple different techniques together until you got the effect you wanted.

Closing the book, Ranvir leaned back in his seat. From where he was sitting at the back of the library, at the space section, he could look out into the hallway leading to the entrance. Coincidentally, that also allowed him to look at the librarian, Kirs. Something he’d totally overheard on accident when a senior librarian had come in with a few books to replace.

Running a hand over his face, Ranvir got up from his chair. He could read on about Gunbjorn, but he’d already read that segment before. The problem with stretching a limb to a useful size was that it left him with a huge target. In the end, the maneuver cost Gunbjorn his arm. From what Ranvir could find, Gunbjorn did nothing of note after that.

He needed a fresh perspective, something that could really work and be useful.

Biting back his swollen yellow pride, he walked over to the desk.

“I’m sorry that we got off on the wrong foot.” Ranvir said. “My name is Ranvir, and I’m actually looking for some help with my training.”

Kirs looked up from her book, surprise clearly etched on her face. “Hi, I’m Kirs.” Ranvir nearly told her he already knew, but managed to keep quiet.

“Well Kirs, you see I’m in a bit of a situation...” He explained his bet against Master Grimar. About how he believed he could do better than a Master, which, after some distance and time, seemed really dumb at the moment.

“So what are you looking for?”

“Partly, I think I’m looking for a path forwards. More importantly, I need to figure out what the best way to train is.”

“Are you- would you say that you’re looking for some kind of insight, on tethered? From another tethered? Or maybe… a scholar?”

“Really?” Ranvir asked, the swollen yellow monstrosity flaring up again. Kirs nodded. “I guess I’m looking for any kind of insight, then.”

“Then you can go look for anybody else’s help.”

Ranvir closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. He’d never thought his pride was that strong, but it fought him tooth and nail as he shoved it down. It yielded slowly, giving room for rational thought. “I could in particular, I guess, use… scholarly insight.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

WhY DidN’t YOu jUst sAy SO? Ranvir quenched another flare up and forced his lips into a smile. A grin, at least. A flash of teeth somewhat similar to a smile. A grimace. Of pain.

“Can you help?”

“Yeah, of course.” She smiled widely, and lead him to the shelves off to the side where the old librarian had taken him and his friends. “We’re looking for…” She pulled out a book. "Ragnhild’s treatise on tethered practice. This is one of her later books, that she admitted, was among her better works. It’s her notes on tethered training practices and how well they work.”

Ranvir frowned. “How could she possibly know how well they worked? She wasn’t a tethered.”

Kirs’ smile reminded him of a cat’s. “Because, unlike your training, which comes from the vague ideas of a single ‘Master’. She compiled hers from interviews with a hundred masters.”

“I guess that could work.”

“For each of the elements.”

“Even space?” Ranvir almost pulled the book out of her hands.

“No manipulators, though.” Kirs willingly gave up the book. “Even in nations such as Ankiria, they are rare. Even rarer are the Masters. Most of them fade into obscurity as another second stage tethered.”

“I think Pashar told me that there’s supposedly only a single space manipulator Master alive.” Ranvir agreed, flipping through the book.

“I know where she got that from. It’s actually an estimate pulled from another scholar’s work, not an actual fact. Based on the average ratio of third stage tethered to second stage tethered and so on, then adjusted down slightly, for lack of information.”

Ranvir cocked his head. “I didn’t know that. I’m going to go read this.”

Kirs nodded. “Don’t be afraid to call on me, if you need any help.”

Ranvir nodded. He grabbed a seat before the element shelves began and cracked open the book. Coming into Ragnhild’s work with fresh eyes was a surprising experience. She was, for one, a far better writer than any other books he’d read, and two, she actually made an effort to be neutral. She saved all of her opinions and conclusion for a segment at the end of the chapter.

Ranvir found himself reading beyond the space portion to all the elements in general. It was a surprising read. For one, Obsidian wasn’t the most popular element everywhere. Elusria, a few smaller nations, and Vargish, were the only countries where it was the most common. In warmer countries, like Ankiria, ice and light were the most common ability.

In addition, she had another idea—one similar to something Ranvir had also been considering. She had a statistic at the end of her book about meditation practice. All the Masters she interviewed meditated on their tether regularly, if not daily. 60% of those—Ranvir had to ask about percentages, but Kirs explained it succinctly—spent at least fifteen minutes with their tether every day. 20%, of the original 100%, spent an hour, or more, in meditation every day.

Ranvir was surprised by that fact. He’d seen the tendency when asking the Masters, but to find it in such widespread use by Masters without it being common knowledge. Which was also something she spoke on, though rather briefly. It wasn’t common knowledge that tether meditation helped someone advance beyond it being a simple exercise, because the ones who practiced it did so to soothe their soul.

Meditation on the tether was known to lend tethered the temperament of Kurri, Face of Benevolence. With the Goddess herself in your soul, how could that not calm you.

Another thing Ranvir found telling was the age of mastery went down by almost a decade among tethered who spent a lot of time with their tether everyday. Someone like Master Ayvir, compared to Master Sigurd. Though according Ayvir’s testament, he might be one of the fifteen minutes of meditation but compensated with talent.

Then she went on to what first turned Ranvir off of her. Tether types and Disciplines. She didn’t go into depth in his current volume, but she specifically referred people to read her other book on the subject.

She first talked about the Universal Tether, a type of formation that didn’t lend itself particularly well to any Disciplines, but was equally good at them all. Ranvir felt his skepticism creep back in as he continued on. The Universal Tether was a knot and Masters who had this formation were nearly exactly split between all three Disciplines, with a slight favor towards the more popular Discipline of Wings.

So she went on to the actual tether for Wings, next. Theirs, according to her, was the Splitting Tether. It started like any of the other but in the middle it split up into its constituent threads, creating a hollow space in the middle. With 38% of all Masters of Wings having this tether type.

Which she freely claimed wasn’t a majority, but she noted that 67% of those who achieved mastery under the age of thirty-five had the Splitting Tether. Ranvir had to check with Kirs first, but the average age of a mastery in Elusria was forty-seven.

He had to admit it was compelling evidence. Despite his own initial reluctance, it was worth investigating further.

Lancers had the Braiding Tether, which appeared from both ends of tether space to meet up in the middle and thread together. She had a bunch more statistics for that one, too. But Ranvir was more interested in the next one.

Body had the Looping Tether. It emerged from one side, curved itself through a loop, and ended on the other end of the space. His was a near exact replica of the early stages of that tether, so according to her, his most efficient path to mastery would be Body. Except it wouldn’t.

According to her notes, all the students who attempted Body as their first stage were nearly a year, to a year and a half, behind their peers. A gap that only seemed to grow, as power didn’t develop evenly across the stages. Her research stated that taking the first stage in one of the other two Disciplines, then going back and grabbing Flesh once you had more experience was more efficient.

This was notably backed up by all the Masters he’d talked to, Sansir, Grevor, and nearly all the books he’d read. The only exception he seemed able to find was Dovar, who already had Flesh of Smoke. Then again, Dovar appeared to be an anomaly in just about everything. He looked like he was five years their senior, he fought like it, and finally he, apparently, worked his tether like their seniors, too.

Finally, the last thing she touched on in the book was regarding talent. Or what she believed talent to actually be. Ranvir hadn’t thought of ‘talent’ as anything other than a nebulous shapeless cloud that some people have and others didn’t.

But she believed it to be like a talent for fighting, not a natural inclination for fighting, but the seven foot tall guy, with arms like oak trees and chest like a stone wall. That kind of talent. The notion that there was an item, object, or trait that made some tethered grow into monstrous Twin- and Triplet Masters, while other’s stagnated as second stage tethered.

She believed the tether was the actual display of talent. That the amount of threads making up a tether displayed the connection to the Goddess, or, at least, a quality of it. She’d kept track of a few students who’d quickly achieved their first stage, recording their initial thread count, then picked out a handful moving at normal speed.

The ones with more threads grew noticeably faster. While most students had achieved their first stage by the end of the first year, the ones with thread counts between five and ten had it within the first six months.

When interviewing the Masters, she wasn’t surprised to find the trend kept going. The youngest masters had the highest thread count. A young Master, barely twenty-six, had so many threads he could no longer distinguish his tether shape. It was only from remembering it in his earlier years that he could answer her questions.

This lead her to another discovery. While all tethers grew in thread count as the tethered grew in strength, masters who advanced late in their life and only had a few tethers—something she described as low twenties—didn’t have any trouble distinguishing their tether form. More importantly, they were stronger than their faster advancing masters, despite their slower growth.

While their growth had been slowed down by their lack of threads, it had remained a strong connection to the Goddess, allowing them to wield more power, even against a Master with more seniority than them.

Ranvir leaned back in his seat. That was an interesting thought. From what he’d read, most tethered had around three or four threads, so he was actually a bit on the low end of thread count, but he would be curious to hear how many Esmund had. A part of him told him that the young student would not be found lacking.

He might become stronger than his friend, he realized with a start. When Ranvir achieved mastery, and he would become a Master, he might be stronger than his friend, because of a low thread count.

Biting his lip, he stifled the sudden rush of bright yellow energy and creeping dark green shame. It wasn’t as simple as that. In theory, he could out match his friend while they were at the same stage. But Esmund might reach his first stage by the end of the second trimester, if not earlier. By that margin, he would be six months ahead of Ranvir by the time he reached Veil.

He knew there were gaps in power between stages, not how big they were, but a Veil was not instantly strong enough to advance to Cloak. With Esmund’s superior talent, that distance would grow further between them as they achieved their second stages. By the time Ranvir became a Master, Esmund might very well have done it twice, for all he knew.

I can’t let him do that. Ranvir thought, leaning further back in his chair. His mind flickered to his exercise, stretching his tether with his tweezers, before a chill blue shiver ran down his spine.

The door to the library was thrown open, causing both Ranvir and Kirs to look up. In all their time, only a few third and fourth-year students had entered the library. So when Ranvir saw three first years standing at the threshold, he felt more than a little surprised.

“You’re so fucked!” Esmund exclaimed, half running, half leaping across the floor, fully ignoring the glares of the other students.