Not now. Or perhaps ever.

Those words burned in Theresa’s mind and spirit, freezing her heart. She took another deep breath as a thousand thoughts collided in her brain.

‘Have I been wasting my time, was I just holding onto old sentiment meanwhile monsters couldn’t care less about sentiment since all they want to do is gut me and everyone close to me? Was I being naive, maybe even selfish? It—’

‘ “Take a breath. Be mindful of your thoughts.” ’ The professor’s words came back.

With difficulty, she emptied her lungs, letting those thoughts pass.

‘You’re jumping to conclusions, which won’t help,’ the huntress told herself.

“What do you mean, professor?”

Professor Kabbot-Xin opened her eyes. “Are you familiar with mana to any degree, Theresa?”

“I’d have to be since most of my friends these days are wizards,” she laughed. “I couldn’t be around my boyfriend—or most of my friends here in Generasi—without learning something.”

“Right, so tell me what you know of it? If you had to explain mana to a child, how would you do so?”

“Um…” Theresa paused, shifting awkwardly on the sand. “I…studying was never my favourite thing, so this might not be crystal clear, but…it’s energy. It flows out of mana vents in the Barrens and into the air.”

“Correct. And how do magic items in Generasi make use of this?”

“Um, I think they take mana from the air and use it to power themselves? A bit like how a windmill uses the wind to move its blades and grind grain.”

“That is also correct,” Professor Kabbot-Xin said. “And what does life force do in our bodies?”

“It flows.” Theresa said. “It gathers here.” She tapped a spot just above her navel. “Then it flows through our bodies.”

“Exactly. And much as how we draw in the power of nature to enhance the life flowing through us—” the life enforcement professor tapped her own navel. “—so too can some life enforcement practitioners channel their power into certain objects. Not every object, mind you, and not every life enforcement practitioner. But, those objects that do accept lifeforce…become like us. Enhanced. What they already do, they do better.”

“Right.” Theresa looked at her blades. “So a sword would cut better and be stronger?”

“Yes, and a shovel would break through denser, harder earth. An arrow would fly farther. Chains would be stronger and less prone to breakage. These sorts of things. But, for that to occur, an object must have a path between the cultivator and itself. A bridge for energy to flow in, much like how we use our lungs as a bridge to bring the power of nature into us.”

“Is that like how blood magic can be used as a bridge to make an animal into someone’s familiar?” Theresa asked. “Even if the person doesn’t have mana?”

“Exactly like that.” The professor seemed pleased. “Where did you learn of such a possibility?”

The huntress’ mind drifted back to the Games of Roal, settling on a fond memory of the Duel by Proxy. Those days seemed like lifetimes ago, even though only a few months had passed since the closing ceremonies. She remembered watching the battles between familiars in the lightweight-division, and hearing the roar of the crowd, and feeling the ripple of spellblasts.

They’d all been watching the competitions from the stands when Alex said something that had made her heart leap with joy; it might be possible with blood magic for Brutus to be her familiar. The how was way beyond her since she didn’t have any background in wizardry, but from what Alex had said, the process was challenging but possible; though he’d only attempt it when he’d built up enough skills in blood magic.

But for her, what was most important was that Brutus could be connected to her: cerberi only had a lifespan averaging around thirty years, which while long for a canine, was short compared to the average human life, especially one whose natural years were extended by life enforcement. From the time she’d found her cerberus in the forest, she’d always thought that the gods were cruel to give long life to mortals, but not to their loyal companions, so she was grateful that blood magic offered her something better.

Theresa told her professor as much. Kabbot-Xin nodded, looking at a hairless sphynx cat the colour of lava rock sunning itself on her desk.

“I can well understand that,” the older woman smiled thoughtfully. “However…you might wish to be careful with that. Sometimes, attachments can shake your resolve along the path of life enforcement.”

“What do you mean?” Theresa swallowed. It was the first time she’d heard this.

The professor waved a hand. “It’s not something for you to worry about quite yet. Not now at least, and perhaps not ever. For very advanced life enforcement practitioners though, there are times when a barrier to their own further development can be created by a need or desire for attachments.”

“Wait, really? How?” Theresa’s eyebrows rose.

“The more powerful a lifeforce becomes, the greater level of calm one must achieve to advance further. Imagine yourself drawing a perfect circle. Then within that circle, you must draw another. Then another within those two. Then another.” The older woman formed a circle with her hands, then gradually made that circle smaller and smaller. “Each circle you draw has less space within it, and so you require finer and finer control to draw the next one without making a mistake. It is the same with life enforcement.”

She closed her hands until the circle they formed was too narrow to allow even a pin to pass through. “Eventually, the control, precision and calm necessary to empower one’s lifeforce further, forces one to take drastic measures. Some practitioners in Tarim-Lung retreat to the serenity of a temple, leaving behind all worldly attachments and in this way, errant noise, or even an errant thought of loved ones cannot disrupt their path. Naturally, most practitioners don’t take such an extreme path or such drastic measures for success, however.”

The blades of Twinblade Lu gleamed. “But what can harm you is allowing your attachment to cloud the way you see the world. You might not see the world as it is, but rather as you want it to be. Which leads me back to the point.”

The professor rested the blades on thin air. They rotated before her as though an invisible wheel was turning them. “In life, it is vital to take things as they are.”

“Otherwise, we don’t interact with the world: but with an illusion that’s created by our own thoughts and desires, right?” Theresa said. “That’s when we could misread the flow of nature’s energy as we take it into us, and make potentially fatal mistakes.”

“Precisely,” the professor said. “And sometimes—to accept things as they are—we must come to realise certain truths that we might find unpleasant.”

“Like accepting the death of a loved one,” Theresa said, having a sinking feeling she knew where this was going.”

“Indeed. Or accepting the fact that life is a coming together of natural law and pure chaos, and often—even with the greatest magic, and most towering power and sharpest knowledge on our side—we cannot control it.” She tapped both blades at once.

The air rang. “For example: despite centuries of attempts, even the greatest cultivators have never found a way to create items that accept the flow of empowered lifeforce.”

“Really?” Theresa frowned. “Even though wizards make magic items like a cooper makes barrels?”

Suddenly, Professor Kabbot-Xin burst out laughing, startling her.

“Oh dear!” the professor cried. “I can think of no less than three professors who would immediately wither if they heard you describing their work as being no different from a cooper making a barrel! Oh my goodness.”

She wiped a tear away as her thin form shook. “Oh my goodness. In any case as, uh—amusingly offensive as that was—you do have the right of it. Wizards can craft magic items as they need, but life enforcement practitioners must rely on luck, elements, fortune, or the grace of the divine if they wish to find an item that accepts the flow of enhanced lifeforce. No one knows how it happens. Sometimes one harvests wood from a tree that is ten thousand years old and finds that the wood accepts lifeforce. Sometimes a suit of armour made by a dying smith might accept it. Sometimes a stone that has felt the bite of a lightning strike might accept it.”

“But no one knows how it occurs,” Theresa said. “And no one knows how to replicate it?”

“Precisely,” Professor Kabbot-Xin said. “And—many times—such items abruptly stop accepting a flow of lifeforce, returning to normal with only a lingering trace of what they once were. Especially if the item has not tasted lifeforce in a long while.”

Theresa’s heart sank. “So you think my swords don’t have any power in them? No secrets to unlock? Or if they did at one time, it’s gone now?”

“Actually, what I am more saying is that there is no guarantee, Theresa.” Professor Kabbot-Xin picked up her teacup. “I’m simply saying that there might no longer be any secrets to unlock. And if that is true, then no amount of wishing, hoping or trying will change that, and your attachment to these swords might cloud your judgement and bar your ability to accept certain possibilities. Ask yourself this: why are you convinced that these swords—individually—have secrets to reveal to you?”

Theresa paused, focused on one thing: why she was pursuing this path. “Well, the stories of my great-grandfather’s deeds, they made me think that the swords had to hold some sort of secret. And logically: why would he keep using them if they weren’t special in some way? But when I use them, they cut no better than simple, good, solid steel swords.”

“Indeed. Now examine what you just said. What do you know about this pair of swords? What do you know about them?”

The huntress scrutinised the identical steel blades. “Honestly? All I know about them from my grandfather’s stories is that great-grandfather used them while he sailed the seas. And all I know about them from my own experience is that they’re solid, they never break and never need to be sharpened. …I guess, I don’t know if they have secrets. I just assumed that they do.”

“Precisely, Theresa,” the professor said. “And in order for you to be successful in life and life enforcement, you cannot forge a path based on assumptions. You must see things as they actually are, not as you want them to be. It is only when you observe something’s true form without the illusion of your own wants, worries and desires, that you can truly see it. And only when you truly see it can you engage with it.”

“I…think I understand,” the huntress said glumly. “And what do you observe about the swords, professor? What do you sense in them? You don’t have my wants or my connection with them, so what do you see?”

A smile curved the ends of her professor’s lips. “You said you were disconnected from them when you first got here, didn’t you?”

The huntress went quiet.

“And yet now you say you have a connection with them,” the older woman chuckled. “Which is it, I wonder? Something for you to answer, I think. As for what I observed in them? Much as you said: they are well-made swords. And there is indeed a lingering sort of divinity in the pair, one so sparse, it is quite like a lingering strand of silk thread. I can find no opening within them where they might accept life energy. As they are? They are steel swords with sharp edges. That is all I can tell you.”

With a wave of her hand, the swords floated from between the two women, travelling back to settle in the huntress’ hands.

“I…understand.” Theresa sheathed them.

“If you say that, then you have not understood at all.”

Theresa looked at the life enforcement professor sharply. “Excuse me?”

“I have told you nothing,” Professor Kabbot-Xin rose from the sand. “I have given you no great insight about these swords. There is nothing for you to understand, because you have not completed your own observation of your blades. I am not sure if you truly know them. You say you are disconnected from them, then later you say you have a connection with them. You say you ‘understand’, but what is there to understand? I have told you my observations and nothing more, yet your face is a storm of worries and disappointments. If you left here with your ‘understanding’ then you would observe your swords not through an illusion of wants…but through an illusion of fears. All I have done is said what I have seen. You, on the other hand, have a different vantage point.”

She leaned toward Theresa. “They may hold no secrets. They may hold many. In either case, see these weapons for what they actually are. Not through illusion. But through a clear eye. Only then will you know what you need to know.”