“Magic is as much an elemental force as an internal force. Is it that fact that made Sages so dangerous, reviled, and revered at the same time. A Sage could come from anywhere; there was no requirement for talent with any of the ‘preconceived’ magic, if you will, though it did help. Hey, did you catch all that?”

“No.” I groaned, doing my best to fend for my life as my new ‘mentor’ lectured me.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter that much.”

“Question!” I called, swinging my sword wildly.

“Yes?”

“Is this thing ever going to let up?”

“Of course-”

“Great!” I laughed in relief, my sword arm still trying to catch the darting figure.

“-not. Not until you tap into the first ring.”

“First-? Ahh!” I desperately swung my sword once more, but no matter what technique or style I used to fend off my attacker, it swiftly dodged around my blade like a buzzing fly.

A buzzing fly that hurt like hell.

“Oh, come now, it isn’t that bad.” My mentor chided me once more, a wolfish grin forming as he watched.

“Easy for you to say.” I shot a look at the man, beast, just in time for my assailant to strike me directly from beneath my chin, knocking me to the ground as I felt stars flutter before my eyes.

“Oof. That one looked like it hurt.”

“Yeah, because it did.” I said, groaning on the ground in pain. “Remind me again what the point of that thing is?”

“To tap into your natural consciousness, the flow required before first understanding the feel of the first ring.”

“Right, and none of that makes any sense to me.” I had pushed myself up to a seated position, only to be instantly swatted back down by the object zipping around like a mayfly hopped up on sugar-snow.

“Just this once, I’ll show you.” My mentor sighed, sticking a hand out and catching the object that had been zipping around and slamming into me like a possessed hammer. I took in the sight of my mighty adversary now that it was finally still.

It was a book. A shabby-looking one at that.

“This here is what is known as a Living Tome.”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned it when you first showed it to me.” I rubbed the back of my neck, wincing as I noticed another new bump.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t feel right if I don’t go through the full explanation.”

“I thought only humans liked the sound of their own voices.”

“Nonsense.” My mentor waved the comment off as if it were something silly. “It won’t take you long to realize humans are far from the only things with a self-inflated ego. Anyways, this here Living Tome is the Genesis of Arrival.”

When I had first heard the spiel about the name of the book, a living book at that, it had inspired awe in me.

Now I had to resist the urge to spit at it.

“Within the Genesis, it will showcase the beginnings of what it takes to understand the rings, and how they manifest or form within a Sage.”

“Right, again, you’ve told me all this. Why exactly must it attack me, though?” I questioned from my spot on the ground.

“Because it’s a matter of trial.”

“What sort of trial requires you to get assaulted by a book?”

“A trial created by an author with a bad sense of humor, I would assume.” My mentor cracked a grin, waving the book before me as he continued his lecture. “Regardless of the original author’s intentions for why he put a spell on it to cause it to react so… violently, the book’s contents are important. Before you can begin to look it over, though, you must go through the process of beating it. Either level up your physical traits to the point that you can simply react faster than the book can, such as what I do.”

He waved the book once again as if taunting me.

“Or you can do what Sages of long ago did and begin to touch into their natural mana flow. Right now, the book can read you like, well, an open book.”

“That pun sucked.” I pointed out, only for my mentor to roll his eyes at me.

“The point is, if you want to divine the long-forgotten secrets of the Sages, to tread a path that hasn’t been treaded readily for thousands of years, you must first find that path. Magic isn’t enough. It is about having a conscious touch, awareness of it. And to do that, you must find the mana within the world, within yourself.”

“By swinging my sword around wildly.” I answered with a deadpan look.

“Hey, I’m not a Sage. I’m just reciting what I’ve learned over a long life.”

“Why aren’t you a Sage? If they are so powerful, why not become one yourself?”

My mentor looked to the side, rubbing at his neck as if suddenly feeling out of place. “To be a Sage isn’t just a matter of following some steps. It is a journey, a path. Some take their own deviations or side treks; there is no one direct course. As for me, I’m a magical beast. To reach the elevation stage required me to walk a much different path. To become a Sage at this point, I would need another thousand years at the least to walk back everything I have done, everything I have become. Anyways, I have no wish to tread the path of a Sage past the most superficial sense.”

It was an answer that had said a lot and yet continued to be as evasive as ever, my new mentor having shown himself quite capable of such responses in the week we had been traveling together. It had all started back in my kitchen when he had leaned in close and asked me if I wanted to learn magic.

“Me? Magic? But- I can’t.”

“Maybe with that mindset. But Sages are not limited by such simple reasons as reason itself. I, we, can make you something greater than you could possibly imagine.”

I had looked around my kitchen, my house as a whole. Dark, barren.

Alone.

There was nothing left for me here, in the small village that now regarded me with only slightly better opinion than outright hostility.

“Fine.” I answered with a shrug, trying not to think about what I agreed to. “What do I need to do?”

“Well, that’s a long and difficult question. We’ll focus on the first step of your journey. The Pond of Elvermarzon.”

“The pond of Elvetazoonn?”

“No, how did you even get that from what I said? We will travel to the Pond of Elvermarzon, a week south of Theronstead. It is at the Pond of Elvermarzon where your journey will begin.”

A week and while I had asked him many questions in that time, he had found ways to answer every single one about him without ever giving me the soul of what I wanted to know. All I really knew about my master was he was a Black Mane, a magical beast that resembled a wolf, who had lived for such a long time that he had reached the pinnacle of what it meant to be a magical beast. He had transcended, becoming what I saw now.

That was it; that was all I had discovered. He had even somehow avoided telling me his name.

What is it with everything and everyone withholding their names?

Before I could give the line of thought more, well, thought, my mentor clapped his hands, the book set loose once more.

“Well, break time is over. While I may not be a Sage, I can see through your sword you’ve achieved a level of deeper focus, so it will be through your sword that you will locate the starting line of what it means to be a Sage.

I got to my feet once more, just in time for the heavy tome to crack me square in my time, forcing a pained exhale from my body.

Deeper focus. How am I supposed to find a deeper focus when- ack! When it keeps hitting me!

No matter what sword style I used, how fast, or how I planned it out, I couldn’t get the book. It wasn’t even that quick, yet nothing I did seemed to work.

Think.

I lunged forward with a version of a north-style piercing strike, but the book zipped under my blade, apparently capable of shifting its trajectory with no concern for simple things like physics.

Think.

A downward carving strike, but the book shot forward, cracking me in the nose before zipping around.

Think. And not about the bloodied nose.

Everything I had tried failed. What was the point then?

Deeper focus.

The words rang back to me, and like a startling epiphany, what those words indeed meant finally occurred to me.

The deeper focus wasn’t about the sword itself. I had assumed by deeper focus, he had meant the focus necessary to strike perfectly enough to hit the book.

But it had never been about the sword. My mentor had said it himself. My sword was only meant to be the medium.

I closed my eyes. My mentor had told me he had watched me for some time now. Surely he had seen me at my moments of calm when I readied myself before I would go about my practice.

I let the book hit me, or at least I imagined I was letting it hit me, as it would have done so regardless of whether I wanted to let it.

Feel it.

With my eyes closed, the world was a dark, empty void.

Except it wasn’t.

We had senses, feelings, and instincts that would constantly work even within a dark void, seeing what our eyes could not.

I had eyes, but eyes were not enough.

I had a sword, but a sword was not enough.

I had magic, but magic was not enough.

I did something I rarely did anymore.

I reached towards the familiar feeling of the kernels of magic within me, the kernels I rarely touched anymore for the simple heartache they brought with them. The last time I had felt them had been back during the attack on the village.

Alright…. Now what?

Struck by the book once more, this time smacking me in the side of the head and causing my ear to ring, I forced my eyes closed even more tightly.

Feel the magic,

Rather than withdraw from the kernels of magic within me, I imagined myself holding onto the sparse few embers, clutching them as tightly as possible.

And… open.

I opened my eyes on command, breathing in as smooth of a breath as I could, still imagining the feeling of the lightly burning embers as if I were clutching them within my hand.

One strike.

I slid my left foot forward, my back leg holding firm as I altered my grip and stance with my sword.

The book was zipping around, occasionally smacking into me, but I ignored it.

Hold.

I wasn’t sure what I was holding for.

Hold.

This was dumb. I was dumb. I was sure I would miss, as I had every single other time I tri-

Now!

Perhaps I had imagined it, but it was as if I had seen something, a shimmer in the air before me for a split second. A faint, nearly invisible blue trail that had flickered out the moment I saw it. I reacted, my sword flashing down that had there been a person standing before me, I would have cut them through from shoulder to hip.

There was no person, but what there was at the very last second was a book.

I wish I could say my attack landed true, that I squarely hit the book and knocked it straight to the ground.

What did happen, perhaps by luck, or perhaps by something more remarkable, was that I just barely managed to nick the top righthand corner of the tome. It fluttered around like a drunkard before righting itself once more and zipping off.

“There you go.” My mentor caught my attention with a pleased nod. Holding a hand out, the book flew into his hand, where it opened to the very first page.

“It appears you have been recognized.” My mentor eyed the book, then me, and then back as if gesturing me forward with his eyes alone.

Tentatively, I stepped forward, afraid the book would suddenly shoot out from his hands only to smack me in the head again.

It didn’t. I reached out, grabbing the book before holding it in front of myself.

“Wha- what is this?” I looked from the open page towards my mentor.

“Well, that’s what we would generally refer to as ‘page one’”

“I get that.” I frowned, still staring at the page. “But I’m not sure what I’m looking at.”

“That’s the great thing about learning.” My mentor stretched his arms overhead. As whenever I noticed his hands, I felt my eyes drawn towards his inhumanly sharp nails that bordered on claws. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Shaking my head, I looked back down at the open book. My mentor would offer me no further help unless you called cryptic phrases ‘helpful’.

Still though….

The first two pages were blank. Empty. Pale parchment with nothing on them.

Nada.

Great. A faulty Living Tome. Didn’t even know that was a thing.

I sighed, thumbing the page as I prepared to flip it, to investigate whether the later pages would be blank. Giving it a quick flick, I found myself staring at the page dumbfounded as it remained firmly in place.

“What?” I tried to hook a thumb under the page, wondering if maybe the pages had gotten stuck together, but I found no purchase. The only thing I received for my efforts was a painful papercut.

“Oh, perhaps I forgot to mention, but you were only recognized partially.”

“Partially?” My head snapped towards my mentor, who was grinning once more from where he was seated upon a nearby stump.

“Yes, partially. You think barely nicking the book would grant you full access?”

“I- well… yeah?”

“You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.” My shaggy-haired mentor let out a soft laugh, the sound reminding me of a low woof before he eyed the sun above us. “I was only going to have you work on this for two hours today, but I’ve decided. Until you can get to page ten, we won’t be traveling from this spot.”

“But, but you said the Pond!” I nearly jumped in protest.

“Yes, but there is no point reaching the Pond if it does you no good, does it?”

“I… I guess not.” I relaxed, sighing in defeat.

“Good. Now, I’ll offer you one last piece of advice. This is magic that you are exploring. Perhaps, don’t treat everything just as you see it.”

I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but just like that, he was gone.

Poof.

Gone.

Just like that.

“Uhh, you still here?”

Silence.

I felt a shred of panic begin to form within my gut, but I forced it down. First off, we were only a week out from Junaper. The animals and magical beasts of this area were, for the most part, relatively harmless, at least in the sense that they didn’t usually approach humans.

Normally.

I had my sword, and I was far from a slouch with it. I could fend off most of the things in the area if worst came to worst, so unless an enraged bear or the like decided they had a bone to pick with me, I should be fine.

Should be. Very comforting.

I sighed once more before making my way to the same stump where my mentor had been sitting.

‘Mentor’ might be putting it a bit strongly.

Sitting down, I opened the tome to the single page it would allow me to open it to.

Don’t think of things so routinely.

A magic book with nothing showing. If I were a magic book, how would I reveal my contents?

Right. Through magic. Probably should have thought of that first.

I closed my eyes, once more reaching towards the tiny embers of magic within me, embers I noticed that had died down considerably since my last attack on the book. I imagined the heat of those embers traveling through me, and with a gasp, the book in my hands glowed before a simple print appeared on the once empty pages.

“Great,” I whispered before frowning at the image on the pages. “-now what?”

The images that had appeared were a chart of the human body, but as I investigated it, I quickly realized it was unlike any chart I had seen before. Rather than organs or body parts, labeled within the diagram were symbols.

Symbols that I recognized as the same characters my mother put up around the house.

“Now why-” I scratched at my chin, voicing my question aloud. “-would the symbols for wild magic be charted within the body?’

Each of the central portions of the body had been divided up into sections, five sections for the five base forms of wild magic.

Kinzar, force, centered on the lungs.

Scorz, fire, on the heart.

Frezess, cold, on the head.

Rentar, earth, usurpingly on the legs and arms.

And finally, there was Aulous, water, which seemed to make up the rest of the body.

I chewed on my thumb’s nail, unable to decide what it meant. The most obvious was that each body portion represented an element.

But what exactly would that even mean? That the elements are derived from them?

No. I shook my head. I had heard from Sarah, the original Sarah, how she drew on her magic. At no point did she suggest that her control of the elements of wild magic originated from specific parts of the body.

So then, what could it mean?

I looked towards the other side of the page, only to be greeted with an even more confusing chart. It was a diagram of what was clearly the arms, but once more, rather than focusing on the anatomy of the arms, the diagram instead focused on what looked to be five bands on each arm.

Not bands. I realized a moment later. Rings.

Assuming I was correct, the second chart displayed the ten rings Sages would manifest. Unlike the prior chart, there were no symbols representing the wild elements. Instead, a single line of script was written beneath them.

What language even is that?

I’d never seen it before, but then I hadn’t seen many languages besides the spoken tongue here in Haerasong. In fact, I’d only seen a few symbols of the foreign language of Varana once when a traveling merchant had somehow made their way all the way north to Junaper.

As far as I knew, these symbols looked nothing like what I remembered of that flowery script.

Right. Shelving that for the time being, then.

I decided it would be best to focus on the diagram of the body. I was sure there was some sort of deeper meaning to it; why else would it be hidden away in a magical tome?

Maybe I had it backward. I scratched at my chin, something my mother had once teased me for, telling me I would stunt my beard growth if I kept it up. If it’s not magic derived from the body, what if it’s something else within the body that is derived from magic?

I stood up, setting the book down gently. Even though I knew the book was sturdier than I, there was something inherently wrong about tossing an old-looking tome without care. Standing tall, I closed my eyes, imagining the chart within my mind.

Let’s start with the most obvious.

Aulous. The most extensive section of the chart suggested it was either the most basic or the most abundant.

Most basic or abundant of what, now that was the question.

Well, what is like water within the body?

“Blood.” I huffed out loud, the idea obvious.

I nodded to myself, confident in my thought process. It made sense if Aulous was referring to the blood of the body. It was both a liquid and ran throughout the entirety of the body, perfectly matching both criteria.

“Aulous.” I whispered to myself, drawing on the magic within me, concentrating on the image of the chart.

Nothing.

“Aulous.” I repeated, a little louder this time.

Nothing.

“Aulous, damn it!” I growled, frustration overcoming me.

At last, something happened.

I fainted.

-----------------------------------------

“Ow.” I grumbled, eyes fluttering open as I looked up at the morning sun above me.

Wait… morning sun?

I shot up with a start, or I tried to, my body screaming in protest as I moved.

What happened?

My mind raced back to my last memory. I had been investigating the old tome when I had tried to figure out the meaning behind the chart and-

The book!

As quickly as I could, which is to say not very quickly, I staggered towards the stump where the book was still lying flat, untouched.

“Thank the Gods.” I sighed. I could only imagine what predicament I would be in if I somehow lost the invaluable ancient tome.

Or at least I assumed it was invaluable. I had never actually asked my mentor much about the actual value of the Living Tome.

Next up, I felt my body. While I ached all over, I seemed perfectly okay, the picture of youthful health.

At least that’s what mom always told me, to appreciate the joys of ‘youthful health.’

The tome was fine, as was I.

So then, what exactly had happened?

“Think it through, Rook.” I murmured to myself, slowly pacing.

I had tried to command Aulous, to use magic that had never worked for me before.

It still hadn’t, but in the process, I had fainted.

But why?

“Oh.” I thumped my fist against the open palm of my left hand. “Oh, I get it.”

I had been told I had magic; no, I knew I had magic. I just couldn’t use it for anything.

But, I had never considered that it wasn’t as simple as imaginig it as a damed river. Attempts at drawing at magic would still drain me whether it worked or not, something I had just never bothered to test.

Well, only one way to know for sure.

Closing my eyes, I imagined the chart, replicating what I had done yesterday that had led me to faint rather ungraciously.

“Aulous.”

Keeping my attention focused on the embers of magic within me, I felt as those same embers began to dwindle in response to my call.

I opened my eyes, sure that the magic had ‘worked.’

Worked, in this case, meant nothing had happened, but I noted as a small wave of exhaustion washed over me after the fact.

“I did it.” I smiled briefly before my smile was replaced with a frown of uncertainty.

What exactly is ‘it,’ though?

Perhaps it was because with magic, it was either you had it and could use it, or not at all, that I had never really heard any talk of this process I was going through, trying to decipher a more profound meaning that no one realized existed in the first place.

Or, well, at least no one that I had known.

Whatever I was discovering, I was making progress, that much I was sure.

I hope.

“Now what then?” I questioned as I paced around the small clearing in the woods that I, that we, had been camping out in for two days now.

Where the second part of that ‘we’ equation was right now was anyone’s question.

“Magic drains your body physically, even if the magic doesn’t ‘activate.’” I was murmuring out loud, trying to catalog everything I had discovered so far. “That suggests it’s going somewhere, doing something.”

So what exactly, where exactly is it going?

I thought back to the diagram of the body once more, walking over to the book to see if there was anything else I could glean from it.

“Scorz for the heart. Frezess for the head. Aulous for the blood? Rentar for the arms and legs, and Kinzar for the lungs.”

I raised a hand, hoping the act of miming epiphany would cause me to stumble upon something.

“Yeah, no.” After several seconds of waiting for some mystical insight to strike me, I lowered my hand.

“Scorz, Frezess, Aulous, Rentar, Kinzar…. Heart, mind, blood, appendages, lungs.”

I paced around for several seconds before flopping onto the ground, exasperation taking over.

“Ahh! I don’t get it!” I shouted out, startling some birds.

I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Page ten. I had to get to page ten of the tome, but I failed to understand even page one.

“Whatever.” I grumbled. Getting to my feet after a minute of pouting, I made my way back towards the stump, reaching out not towards the tome but my sword leaning against the same stump.

If I can’t figure out what the chart means, I might as well get my daily sword routine in.

Frustration was the day’s theme, so I opted for second style, the motions all about heavy swings full of power that would be perfect for exhausting myself so that there wouldn’t be enough energy to spare for thinking.

---------------------------------

Two hours.

I swung my sword around for two hours until I was positively dripping with sweat, my body feeling the burn of an intense session that always accompanied my Second style training.

I was sweaty, tired, and feeling only partially better.

I needed to cool down, wash away my aches, and then just maybe, I could put my mind back to work.

Bath first.

There was a shallow nearby river that we had purposely chosen to set up camp near, and so after only a short walk, I was tossing aside my shirt before I flopped into the thigh-deep water gently coursing around me.

Bliss. This is what bliss is.

I had been mentally and physically taxing myself, so to finally relax in the water felt like I was a new man.

“I might even be able to do the impossible right now.” I sighed, letting out a quiet snort at the thought.

It was stupid, but then I felt so good; what was the harm? Closing my eyes, I reached toward the embers of magic within me. It had been several hours since I had last tried tapping into them, so the few sparks of magic I had managed to use up earlier had already recovered. Full of magic, or as filled with magic as someone of my caliber could be, I was in no danger of passing out and drowning in the shallow river.

Because wouldn’t that just be the noblest way to go out.

Eyes closed, I thrust my hand out, whispering without a hope in the world.

“Aulous.”

I opened my eyes, nothing appeared different from what I’d expected. I took a deep breath, looking to further catch my breath and relax my body when I noticed it.

It was slight. Oh, so very slight, but I felt as if I was just a tad lighter, my body looser as if I had taken a short but refreshing nap.

Realization hitting me, I pressed two fingers to my neck, counting to fifteen as I separately measured out the beat of my heart.

“Oh.” My eyes which I had closed while checking my pulse, snapped open.

“Three days,” I stated confidently, to no one in particular. “-give me three days.”

What I had stumbled upon wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

But it was a start.