Ranvir was walking around the field, the others going through their various exercises. Esmund still spent most days working on control, though it changed from hitting a target at range. At this point, his aim was a greater limiting factor than his control. But flinging a line warp energy at something was also the least complicated use of his power.

He was currently working on maintaining one Dustball, chewing away at a piece of wood, while generating another one. Since he couldn’t split his Dagger, he would have let streams of warp energy past the existing Dustball, before he could start forming the second.

Ranvir briefly tried something similar, while Svenar had been instructing the warp generator in the exercise. It had been easy. Even constantly flexing and twisting space was more stable than warp. He’d barely had to try and he doubted his control was higher than Esmund’s after his advancement.

Sansir and Grevor were similarly working on their own abilities. Most of the time, they spent either in meditation or exercising their tethers, but having a solid grasp on your powers was also an important factor of advancing. At least, if you wanted to do it safely.

According to Svenar, Master Ayvir blinding the entire academy with his advancement was considered highly controlled by other Masters.

“Back when I was a student.” The old man paused considering. “Maybe third or fourth year, we had a Master advance. His Mantle tore up buildings and all the earth for nearly a three-hundred feet in every direction.”

Ranvir swallowed nervously as he listened, trying to imagine the scope of a Master’s power. Each stage was a factor more powerful than the previous. Right now, he couldn’t reach beyond a hand’s length from his skin. As a Veil, he would be able to reach up to four or five meters away.

“Did anyone get hurt?”

Master Svenar shook his head. “Yes, but not as many as there should’ve been. I don’t know what it would look like now at the academy, but back then Master Floki was a younger man. He maintained the buildings and stopped the shards of obsidian before anyone got hurt too badly, though there were a few who had been too severely hurt to ever go to the front lines.”

There was a moment of silence, as the group processed what they’d heard.

“Aren’t you like a hundred?” Es asked. “How was Master Floki already a Master?”

Master Svenar let out a snort, raising his hands. “I am not that old! A hundred? Are you serious? I’m barely sixty-five.”

“So Master Floki’s like a hundred-and-five?” Esmund asked, completely unbothered by the Master’s outrage.

“I think he’s in his nineties.” Svenar said. “That’s not important, though. The important bit is being aware of your powers and having an instinctual grasp of their control. If you can’t instinctively reel in your power during advancement it could get a whole lot worse.”

Ranvir noticed Kirs sitting off to the side. She was once again re-organizing her notes.

“It seems like we should start bringing a table out for you.” Ranvir jested, as he approached the librarian, sitting in the sand.

“That would actually be lovely.” Kirs replied, not looking up. “Would make my job here a lot easier, actually.” She must’ve finished some part of her organization, because she looked up at Ranvir with the biggest puppy eyes he’d ever seen.

Snorting, he rolled his eyes. “Please. Go to Esmund if you’re going to pull that trick.”

Kirs hummed quietly, her brows drawing into a frown. “That usually works.”

“That’s not actually what I’m here to talk about.” Ranvir said, changing the subject. “I wanted to talk with you about the Wings exercise.”

“Still can’t get it to work?”

“No. It’s more stable, to the point where I can maintain it without backlash. Though, only for a limited time and I’m barely getting any benefit from it.”

“Hmm, that’s tough.” She lifted her tickling her upper lip with the feathers. “How did you stabilize it?”

“Lots of small progression here and there, and greatly increasing the spin.” Ranvir replied. “I figured out how to keep the energy flowing without it collapsing, though tension and pressure quickly builds up within the tether.” Ranvir raised a finger. “Turns out, when you increase the spin the energy starts behaving differently. It keeps in place more easily generating less pressure.”

“Really?” Kirs exclaimed. Her gaze returned to her half organized books, digging out the one he recognized as her general notes on his exercises. “Do you have an estimate of how fast it has to spin?”

Ranvir hesitated. “It’s a little tough to say with any scalable certainty, but it creates a strong draft within the tether-space, and it’s a huge drain on my strength. Like an ambitious manipulation.”

“Like freezing space?” She asked without looking up.

Ranvir nodded on instinct. “Yes, similar. Though, I still think freezing space is harder.” He could either freeze or stabilize space pretty well, within a certain frame and suffer a backlash moments later. Or he could handle a tiny area under very controlled conditions.

“Good to know.” She muttered. “So what have you tried? Can’t you keep up with the small improvements? By next trimester, you could have a revolutionary exercise.”

Ranvir winced. He didn’t want it next trimester. He wanted it now. There were other issues too, because of course there were. “I’m running out of small improvements and into more and more walls. Things I can’t change.”

Kirs finished her writing and put the book down to let the ink dry. “That does sound like an issue. Maybe you should try something radically different than what you’re used to.”

“Like what?”

Kirs shrugged. “How’s the energy flow? You said it moves and stays like you need it to, but does it flow smoothly. Is it more or less powerful? Are there any other changes? Can you increase the amount of energy moving through your tether? What happens when you spin it as absolutely fast as you possibly can?”

“I don’t know if that would work.” Ranvir commented, slightly overwhelmed by her onslaught of words.

“It’s not about if it works.” Kirs argued. “You say you’ve been running into walls, and you can’t clear them. Well, then it’s time to try something crazy. Go completely wild. Step entirely out of your comfort zone. What is the craziest attempt at making the exercise work that you could do? Stuff like that.”

“Most of that doesn’t feel like it’s really important.”

“Fuck what you feel like. Your feelings are bashing your brain into a wall. Time to try something new. What do you have to lose? Speak it into existence, it literally cannot hurt to try. This is the time when you can get to be really experimental with it. You have free rein, there isn’t anyone that’s going to hold you back. You’re not accountable to anyone. You have the time. Fucking try some crazy shit.”

“Okay, okay.” Ranvir replied, backing off from her outburst. “I’ll try some crazy shit.”

“And then you’ll do some crazy shit.” She pointed a dangerous finger at him. The threat clear in her posture and also her wide eyes. The crazy gleam in them made Ranvir fear for his safety.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Good.”

Ranvir nodded. He backed away slowly, until she finally turned her attention back to her books. She’d scrambled them some in her intensity. He heard her mutter about how next time there better be a table.

Ranvir turned tail and fled. He wanted no part of Kirs when she turned like that.

“You okay?” Grev asked, a water-skin in one hand. Ranvir nodded. “That got a little intense, huh?”

“Yeah.” Ranvir swallowed, turning fully to his blond friend.

“I bet it worked, though.”

“Excuse me?”

“Her ‘manic’ speech.” Grev said. “It’s making you want to ‘try some crazy shit’, or however she phrased it.”

Ranvir was about to deny him on reflex, but… “Yes, it did.”

“Sometimes, we just need someone to help us get out of our own way.”

Ranvir nodded in agreement, but didn’t say anything.

“I wanted to talk with you about Dovar joining our team.” Grev said, causing Ranvir’s eyebrows to raise. “I can’t say I’m not a little surprised that you suggested it. Hell, I’m surprised you were even able to talk to him. I don’t think we even knew you had warfare theory together.”

Well, I did have a minor meltdown right in front of him. Ranvir thought, though he didn’t want to tell Grev about it. Partly, because Master Svenar was here today. Partly, because he didn’t want his friends to know about it. It was slightly embarrassing. Just a little bit though, not to an extreme degree. Definitely not.

“I don’t know. I guess we just fell into conversation during class.” Ranvir replied, keeping his voice calm.

Grev looked Ranvir in the eyes for a long moment, before his gaze wandered across the rest of Ranvir’s face. Slowly, his eyes narrowed. A chill fear fled down Ranvir’s spine, in echo of the frozen blue-white rime dancing within him.

“Oh really?” Grev said, his face slowly splitting into a grin.