“Anyway,” Theo turned back to Gust and grinned. “Those of us that aren’t perfect head west when we want to use our days. To Honeycopse. It’s a half day’s journey, so we stay at least one night to make the trip worth it. The food here is fine, but a man needs to drink more than just water! At Honeycopse, they serve mead. Heard of it?”

With every word of Theo’s explanation, Gust’s mood brightened. He nodded. “Honey liquor! How much is it? And if the school pays us with merit points, how are we supposed to buy anything?”

“Ahh, no one’s told you where mana gems come from, have they?”

Gust’s eyebrows wrinkled. “They’re little blue gems. I figured you mined them.”

Theo held up a finger. “That is one option, but mana veins are hard to find. All the easy ones were mined years ago. Watch this,” he smiled as he sat cross-legged on the ground and closed his eyes. The chains on his forearms clinked as his hands rose. The fingertips pressed against each other, leaving a small open space between them.

Theo took a deep breath and wrinkled his brow. Gust couldn’t tell what he was doing, but soon a faint blue light appeared in the space between Theo’s hands. Theo peeked at it with one eye, which flicked up to Gust to make sure he was seeing it. Then, he released his hands and sucked in a few deep breaths as he leaned back against the chore house’s wall.

“That… is how we… make mana gems. It’s exhausting, and uses up a lot of mana, but well worth it. I can create a rank 1 mana gem in an hour or so. After that, I need to cultivate for a while to bring my reserves back up. I forge a gem most nights, then recover in the morning.”

The young man eyed Gust for a moment, then he slapped the pouch at his waist. A small blue gem landed in his hand, which he stretched toward Gust. When Gust hesitated, Theo nodded and thrust his hand out again.

“That took an hour of hard work, I can’t just take it. I’ll make my own!” He waved a hand and sat in front of Theo. As he copied Theo’s pose from a minute ago, the chain-user snorted.

“Sorry Gust, you won’t be able to make them until you open your first set of meridians. You can exchange your merit points for mana gems, though, at a rate of 25 to 1 first rank gem. Oh, and days cost 150 merits each. Anyway, we cycle as much mana as possible into our hands and concentrate it between them, slowly condensing it until the gem snaps into shape. I can keep adding mana to it until a second layer forms, but I always get too tired before it completes.” His other hand slapped the pouch again and a slightly darker mana gem that was only about 10% larger than the other flew out into his other hand, which held close to his chest. “They look like this and are worth ten first rank gems. You can’t have this one,” he joked.

Nodding, Gust took the smaller gem from his friend’s outstretched hand. It was this moment that confirmed it for him: Gust had at least one friend in this new world. “Thank you,” he whispered, cradling it in one hand as if it might dissolve at any second.

Theo nodded as he put the more valuable gem away. Then one of his hands rose and grabbed onto Gust’s, forcing it closed so hard that the gem was crushed within. Gust made a choking sound! “Hey! I was gonna buy some drinks with that!”

Chuckling, the other young man replied, “One drink, Augustus, but a big one.”

Even as Theo spoke, Gust saw and felt the blue mana enter his hands. Soon, it was added to his cultivation base. That one gem helped his cultivation grow a noticeable amount, as the mana in his soul grew a little denser and broader. It was a long way from filling the space, though, never mind breaking past the barrier that represented stepping into the Pathway Establishment stage.

Theo laughed even louder. “Impressed? You don’t absorb as much mana as I put into the gem, some of it gets used to create the shape and maintain it’s solid form, but it’s still a great way to increase your cultivation without cultivating. You might even want to keep a stockpile of gems. That way, when you’re ready to break through to the next stage, you can absorb a lot of them and push right through!”

As exciting as that information was, Gust’s expression drooped. “But I only earn 50 merits per week. If I want to buy days outside, and mana gems to spend while I’m out there… ugh, it’s going to take forever to save up enough merits!”

“Oh, a few weeks won’t kill you. Besides, for now you should probably focus on catching up to the rest of us. You’ll get more merits each week with every increase in your cultivation, and once you’re a mage you’ll be able to take on missions. Those are the real merit makers.”

Gust sighed and focused on the mana in his soul, wishing he could will it to grow faster. “Is there any chance you could bring some mead back next time? I’ll pay you back!”

Theo grinned, “I could. If you really get tired of water, though, you could always just buy some wine. It’s a bit expensive, especially spirit wine, so I always avoid it.”

“They sell wine?”

Theo gave him a flat look. “Augustus, how much of our school have you explored?”

The young man shrugged. “I don’t really go anywhere outside my usual route. I get up, head to the chore house, the courtyard, the river, and then back.”

Theo nodded. “Well, if you crossed the river and kept heading north, you would reach our farms. Where did you think all the rice and other food comes from? We trade for some, but most of it is local. A few dozen students live up there. The school gets all the money we need from the king, and other donations, but the wine makes a lot too. A regular jug costs 200 merits, but you can get drunk a good few times with a full jug!”

As Gust listened, he made a note to visit the treasure sometime. It might be a long time before he had enough merits to buy anything useful, but it would be good to know his options.

“What about the spirit wine? There’s mana in it, I assume?”

Theo nodded as if that were obvious.

“How much is it? And how does all this taste?” Gust thought of the liquor he’d tasted in his own world and had to assume that the filtration and distillation processes here were lacking. Did they even have sugar around here? At least the mead would be sweet. Gust hoped.

Theo scoffed. “A thousand merits! And that’s for the weakest kind! I’ve never tried it, obviously, but the mead and wine are great! Almost as good as the women,” he grinned. “The mortals love mages! They could listen to stories about our school all day, and all night,” his smiled grew wider.

Gust couldn’t help but laugh. With everything else going on, women were the last thing on his mind. He’d noticed that a lot of the Fallen Leaf women were attractive, and assumed cultivation had something to do with that, but hadn’t even considered approaching any of them.

After thanking Theo for the gem and nuggets of information, Gust headed back toward Saith’s home. The sun was high and hot, but Gust noticed that he didn’t mind. The robes they all wore breathed well, but they still grew uncomfortably hot as the sun beat down all day.

This was yet another benefit of cultivation, he realized. Even his body’s way of regulating its temperature had improved, and now he could endure greater heat, or cold, without any discomfort.

As he passed the school’s tall stone cathedral, though, Gust grew more uncomfortable than any physical feeling could justify. He avoided looking up at the colorful stained-glass windows.

Gust didn’t want the reminder of the grand quest he was just beginning. Every time he thought of the eleven godlike Patrons and imagined himself facing off with any one of them… he saw himself dying just as soon as the fight began.

He felt something similar to the few times he visited North Carolina’s capital, Raleigh. It wasn’t a huge city, not even half a million people lived there, but when Gust walked through downtown, along a bustling street surrounded by tall buildings, even a few skyscrapers, he felt dwarfed by their immensity.

There was a tense, unpleasant feeling which grew in his chest when Gust looked up at the tip of a skyscraper, and soon grew disoriented.

A much worse version of that feeling took residence in his chest as soon as Gust agreed to take on Saith’s quest. It was a deep mixture of anxiety and fear. It was like walking into a calculus exam and realizing he’d been studying history.

It was a total feeling of impossibility.

And Gust preferred to avoid it.