(Ryla)

After we had taken all the food and water we could carry from the camp, we intended on going back on our travels. However, a storm, worse than any of the ones we’d seen so far, quickly started to brew up.

The temperature dropped drastically and quickly, we barely had time to toss all our new belongings into the cave before the frost started to creep in. The winds, which appeared to come from all directions, were strong enough to knock over a building and worse of all it carried with it crystals of sharpened sand that nearly pierced through even my mana.

We had barely managed to make a fire with all the wind but now that we had a chance to block and triple reinforce the entrance, it was rather pleasant. Thus the fortunate cave we found has become our home, again. I couldn’t complain, we were lucky to have any cover in this storm. If I hadn’t killed the bandits back then, I doubt they would have survived this. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if that town would survive through this and they had structures.

I was actually thankful for the excuse to stay put, it finally forced me to think of something besides progress through the desert. The girls need to get stronger. They’d be able to handle weaker threats like bandits or beasts that lived close to civilization that normal mages have to deal with, but those aren’t the enemies that the girls will have to fight for long. Not with the targets already on their backs through no fault of their own.

But if these two are to grow stronger, I must guide them. These two can surely become great in strength in one day, probably even surpassing me, but they will need the time and nourishment to grow to such heights.

‘What about you, Kalan? Do you think they could have surpassed you eventually as well? Is that why you took them in? There’s still so much I don’t know.’

“Ryla, are you okay?” Eve’s voice suddenly called out from behind me, Amelia standing at her side.

“Oh, ummm yes I’m okay. Just had a few things on my mind, but it’s actually good you're both here. I have things I want to talk to you about. Take a seat.”

“What is it?” Amelia asked after taking a seat in front of me.

“I know you both want to become stronger, and I haven’t done a good job at giving you ways you can do this, and explaining the dangers that come along with some of these ways. I’m sorry for that.”

Eve gave me a sad smile. “Ryla… I, no, we aren’t worried about that. We are worried about you. I just… I don’t…”

Amelia stepped up and placed a hand on Eve’s struggling shoulder and gave me the same sad expression and swallowed hard before speaking. “We didn’t know Kalan that long overall, me knowing him the shortest amount of time, so if we feel like this… I can’t imagine how you feel.”

She had to take a few breaths before continuing.

“We’ve been sharing about our time and experiences with him. Can you join us?” She finished with a breaking voice.

I opened my mouth to respond but nothing came out. I looked at them to try again and my vision blurred as tears started streaming down my face. I was at a complete loss. I had always hidden everything, veiled myself and my mind in my shadows because it was always easier. But now, I couldn’t stop my tears.

The girls ran up to me and embraced me which unfroze me. Wrapping my arms around both of them I nodded, still unable to speak. Their response was to hug me even tighter. I couldn’t recall a time where I had felt this warm before. Perhaps that day in the forest when Kalan had saved me.

We didn’t train that day or the next, we didn’t even look outside to check on the storm. No, we did something more important. We grieved, we shared, we laughed, and we cried.

~~~~~~

“Are there really methods to advance quicker?” Eve asked, still skeptical.

“ As I was saying, I’ll tell you a couple of the methods that I know or have heard about, and I’ll let you make your own choice after that. The first method can help you increase your power quickly, but is extremely dangerous. Have either of you ever heard of Soul Eating Arts?”

They both shook their heads quickly in reply, then eyed me warily, cute.

“This art is the act of absorbing the mana hearts of other humans. As I said before,it can help you grow extremely quickly as you’re absorbing the pure mana from other’s mana hearts, but it has major drawbacks as well. The first major drawback besides being extremely difficult to successfully do is that you can end up absorbing the soul of the one you killed, which can cause all sorts of problems from losing your own sanity, your soul being destroyed, and many other things. The second problem is that it will often cause your aura to change, having traces of black and being chaotic. These are known as demonic auras and are extremely considered a taboo across the continent.”

“Yeah, let's not do that one.” Amelia said, with Eve quickly nodding in agreement.

“I figured you’d say that, but it’s still good to know about. Now secondly is the attribute art, this one allows you to use mana affinity to increase your strength quickly, but this is hard to master to actually provide much benefit, and you need to increase your efficiency in it as you get stronger.”

“How would we manage to learn this?”

“Well unfortunately I can’t teach you, the person who teaches you would need to be proficient in the affinity you’re trying to learn. But as we know none of us share an affinity currently and I’m not a master in this technique anyway, because of how unique my own mana is, so I wouldn’t be able to teach you.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe one day this one will be a good thing to try out.”

“I think you can find someone eventually to teach you this, so if you get the chance in the future don’t turn it down. Now for the third is the monster crystal art, this is basically the same as the crystal absorption art, but with the main difference being that you use the crystals from monsters instead of humans. Another main difference is that it doesn’t have the drawbacks of the other one, but it also only has a fraction of the growth.”

“I’d say with our current strength, any little bit would help, but I can see why this wouldn’t be that useful later on. Speaking of that, Ryla, where would you say we rank currently?”

“Well for you Amelia you’d probably rank at C, while Eve would rank at D. But there’s a lot that goes into determining rank. The most important is the strength of your mana which is all about mana storage, mana purity, and the strength of it. Second is your ability to fight with weapons, or in hand to hand as well as your speed and durability, third is your awareness, and intelligence. There are of course other factors that tie into it, but they are minor things that with or without won’t affect your rank much.” I finished, as I saw Amelia patting Eve, who was pouting, on the shoulder.

“Are there any other methods to increase our rank quickly?”

“Ah yes, there’s one where you can forcefully increase the size of your mana heart by weaving a new layer around the already existing one, and then forcefully get rid of the older one, but if anything goes wrong or if it’s slightly off you’ll lose your mana heart for good.”

“That’s another one, we definitely aren’t trying. Any others?”

“There are, but these are the only three I know well enough to really talk about. There’s always the methods of continuing to do what you’ve been doing and increasing your strength through practice, sparring and a big one would be meditating and constantly refining your mana veins and mana heart. So I’ll let you think about this for now, and we can talk more about this later.”

“Thank you, Ryla.”

“Of course, I’ll do anything I can to help either of you.” Watching as they quickly went back to meditate.

‘I guess I should go do my own thing as well. When was the last time I really trained?’ I pondered as I quickly retreated to the area in the cave I had made my room.

~~~~~~~~~~~

(Eve)

After the talk with Ryla, I knew I should listen to her advice and meditate while improving my mana veins, but I couldn’t get what happened at the camp out of my mind.

Back then I had thought my legs were shaking from fear, but even now that I thought about it. I couldn’t help but feel excitement well inside me. It wasn’t the first time I had seen displays of power, after all I had seen Kalan fight and he was much stronger than Ryla, but I had never seen power wielded like that. Kalan was a force of nature, while Ryla felt like she was controlling a force of nature.

‘If I become stronger will I be able to do that? Could I make those who killed my family suffer the same? Make the satanists suffer for all they’ve done?’ I thought, as a chill up my spine.

Can I become stronger than Ryla? Stronger than even Kalan and Shezmu? What would it feel like to wield such power? To be at the peak of mortals, it must be nice.

I’d never have to live in fear again, nobody could ever take from me again. Ryla and Amelia, I could protect the both of them from anything and make a display of anyone who dared to try and hurt those I cherish.

But for now that’s just a dream for a distant future. I mean I’m only in D class, how could I even hope to become the peak of mortals when I’m barely above the lowest of the low.

No, I can’t get down on myself. I will train to become stronger. I may not be much now, but one day I will rise to the peak of mortality and on that day I’ll make sure no one ever takes from me again.

And to start that, I’ll train everyday. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll train every hour of the day until I reach my goal.

I’ll surpass Amelia, I’ll surpass Ryla, and even Kalan. But that won’t be my goal, no my goal needs to be something even higher. Something that will fully represent everything I’ve been through and my- .

If he’s still alive, he will be my goal.

Shezmu, if you’re still alive.

I will kill you.

A clap from the entrance to our cave cut off my thoughts. I turned towards it and hand to cover my eyes as Ryla let in sunlight though the drapes we made.

“Storm has finally cleared.” Ryla announced while basking in the warm light. “Break is over, I want to see what you both can really do. It’s time for your spar.”