Ambient mana levels depend on several factors. One is the natural resources. We postulate that once upon a time mana was equally spread everywhere, but then changes happened. Mana condensed as manarium or rare magical herbs or infested saurians over long periods of time, with eventually led to an imbalance.

  — Excerpt from On the Nature of Mana

  Day 244, 6:30 AM

  Still in bed, each in his own, Newstar and I discussed the upcoming mission, and I agreed to lend him the money he needed to buy his gear.

  “Thank you,” Newstar said. “Will you help me pick a good short-sword? And the rest of the equipment we need?”

  “Sure, but keep in mind that third and fourth realm frostworms infest the cave system. Your technique, which shields you from fire, should negate the cold, so you will not need as many defenses, but getting struck or bitten by gigantic snakes is no joke. Their jaws are massive and full of needle-like teeth. You could easily die if you get careless.”

  It happened once. A fourth realm frostworm tore Newstar apart before I could intervene when I let him test his limits. And that was certainly an experience we all could have done without.

  He got up and started dressing, but there was still a while before the merchants opened shop, and I honestly didn’t feel like getting up from bed.

  “Is the mattress really that effective?” Newstar asked, his eyes trained on me.

  “Not at all. I estimate it at around three to five percent increase for some ten hours, that makes it an extra half an hour of drawing mana at my average rate at most. Under normal circumstances, I would have made two or three batches of elixirs at the alchemists’ guild, but we were stuck here because of pleasantries, and wasting the advantages you have just because they are slim goes against my religion.”

  As does getting up from my bed with no better options available.

  “It’s because of Lady Frostgrave. You only did it because you had no better alternative?” he asked, and I nodded. “Does that mean you would be doing something else instead of clearing a mission with me, if you had a better alternative?”

  That was the first time he had asked that question, and it was so stupid I blanked for a moment, searching for some hidden meaning in his words.

  “Do me a favor and ask yourself that same question, just switch our places?”

  The boy moved his lips, reworded the question, then blushed. “It was a stupid question.”

  “No, it was an egocentric question.” Blunt blurted out; fortunately, I could build on top of it. “But you are not to blame for asking it; viewing things from our own perspective first is an unchangeable part of our nature. Besides, you are young, and with time, you will learn when to keep your mouth shut and think before speaking. Unlike some.”

  He naturally didn’t realize I was talking about myself, but Blunt’s repeated intrusions made me think about something. The conversation with Iceflow went well, better than ever, thanks to its spontaneity. During the loops we interacted previously, she was reserved because I was. But with a bit of unplanned lines everything changed.

  Higher-realm mageknights can detect something is off about my words and reactions even if I tell the truth. Perhaps Lady Frostgrave followed and observed me in those loops, and planned to keep monitoring me because I was weird. I really can’t take such risks with others. Conversations with people stronger than myself should be one-shot, completed in a single loop whenever possible, preferably avoided.

  I was in my own world, going through the motions as we left the inn and navigated the streets, until we bought some girrettes, fried meat-filled pastry, and Newstar started doing acrobatics while eating them.

  “You rarely eat on the move, right?” I asked, and he nodded.

  “It shows. You are handling them like scrolls ready to explode.” I ate the lower half and chewed. The trick to eating two-bite greasy food was to suck in the excess grease with the first bite instead of squishing it all in the lower half, but I felt that explaining something as basic was more in line with what a parent should tell a child than what adults should discuss. Instead, I took the adult approach.

  “You do know you can just burn grease off your fingers?” I summoned a flame to dance atop my fingertips, burning away the leftover grease.

  “I can do that too, but I would burn the food if I did it with my hands full.”

  Now, that’s an interesting challenge. I picked up another girrette from the paper bag and charred it.

  “There’s got to be a way.”

  Like every mature person ever, I played with my food, trying to figure out controlled incineration. The obvious solution was to shield the object I was holding, but that wasn’t the point. Soon enough the paper bag was empty, and I ate the slightly singed final piece before focusing back on Newstar, who grinned when he saw me looking at him.

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  “The blacksmiths’ guild shop is around the corner.” I burned the remains of the food, and Newt did the same. I sensed silent mockery from him about my failure, so I gave him a sharp look.

  “It can be done. It will take a bit of time, but achieving such a level of finesse will be worth it.” I was probably looking at several loops spent on something seemingly trite, a parlor trick, but the concepts behind it could have much broader applications.

  Newstar turned serious and remained silent for a moment before speaking. “You would have to do something with the heat from burning oil.”

  “I have several ideas. The cheat way of doing it is to shield the object you are holding from heat, but that beats the point. It would be brute-forcing the puzzle rather than applying finesse, learning nothing. I would prefer to redirect the heat, or better yet, to consume it for another process. Anyway, it is something I will handle later, since we have arrived.”

  I presented the building with a flourish, and Newstar was sufficiently awed.

  “They sell the guild members’ finished products inside. There is a large section on the ground floor where the guild sells what its members turn in, but there are also individual shops selling goods from particular craftsmen who think they deserve better than the guild’s standard rates.”

  Dandelion clapped Newt on the shoulder. “I know a man who makes decent weapons, better than me.”

  As I led the way inside, I had more persuading to do. “Are you sure I cannot interest you in a spear or a glaive? They really suit your physique quite well.”

  “Why are you so insistent about that?” Newstar snapped at me.

  I gave him a quizzical look before answering his question in slow, deliberate words. “Because it will help you and because your body is better made for spearmanship than swinging swords. You should take those things into account over ancestry when selecting a weapon.”

  Newstar bit his lip, ready to argue, but remained quiet.

  “You’re using a staff, a peasants’ weapon.” He sighed, and I cocked an eyebrow but didn’t argue. “You don’t even wield a sword, so you naturally think it’s a bad weapon.”

  I couldn’t help but smirk at the statement. The system ranked me as an expert swordsman, which was one step beneath the pinnacle. Well, technically two, but becoming a grandmaster meant you honed your skill so well, it would follow you through future reincarnations.

  “You know,” I didn’t really threaten him, but the boy was begging for a beating, “the blacksmiths’ guild has a small chamber for testing weapons and armor inside their emporium. We can check how our skills match up.”

  He nodded, agreeing to the spar, and we went into the marketplace as I explained the rules.

  “The rules when testing an item are always the same. If the customer demands a demonstration, then they must pay for any damages. If the seller wishes to demonstrate their wares’ superiority and the client agrees, each side pays for the damage their equipment suffers. The weapons sold here are high quality and rarely get damaged, but armor naturally suffers nicks and dents even during testing.”

  The ground floor wasn’t worth mentioning, except to tell him that there was nothing of interest for us there, save for the humble proving ground.

  Newt looked around the cramped space, barely big enough for four people to test out their products at the same time. “How do we do anything here?”

  “Give me one of your swords. You have ten attacks. If you can make me move from my spot, you win.”

  He gave me a blade with a dubious look, which I ignored while brandishing the sword.

  “So unwieldy.” I complained more than the weapon deserved. Newstar’s swords were well made, but saying that wouldn’t help my cause. “Come on, let us get this over with.”

  Newstar lunged at me with a straight stab, which I deflected before disarming him. He stared at me, failing to comprehend what had happened.

  “Again?” I threw him his sword, and he tried the same attacks over and over until his ten free attacks were up. To call his skill lacking was an understatement. Then again, he was a sixteen-year-old who spent three years in a mine. While pitiful, that was no reason to go easy on him.

  “Use your rock skin, I will riposte, or we can just quit this silly nonsense.”

  Newstar averted his gaze, thinking, and, much to my joy, he decided to give up.

  “Fine, you know how to use a sword,” he grumbled.

  “Newstar, my dear lad, I am the best swordmaster you have seen in your life, and a very long time will pass before you might meet a better one, and yet I still fight with a staff, which is the main weapon of the Thundertitan royal family. And by the way, only three of the ten royal families use swords.”

  With that out of the way, and a heavy glare to help those words sink in, it was time for education.

  “Now, can you tell me why a swordmaster fights with a staff?”

  “You want to lull your enemies into thinking you can’t fight.”

  “I swear I’ll club you,” I rolled my eyes, Blunt didn’t even need to take over for me to say that. “No, even novices can tell my proficiency, which speaks volumes about your skill. The reason I use the staff over the sword is that it leverages my strengths. For a skilled user, the staff is several weapons in one, as is the spear. Besides, the biggest advantage of spears and glaives is that against awakened saurians, swords perform too poorly. It is much like attacking humans with finger-long blades, it can be lethal, but you suffer reach disadvantages.”

  He obviously had something to say, but any experience he might have had was fighting regular saurians, not manabeasts.

  “I am not talking about regular, non-awakened saurians. Saurians may be stronger than humans, equivalent of certain realm knights, but they will always lose, do you know why?”

  Newstar considered the matter for a moment. “Speed?”

  “Yes, reaction speed, and while saurians have instincts, they lack training and intelligence. Manabeasts, however, are intelligent, just as fast as awakened humans, and have a lot of combat experience. And then there is the matter of penetrative force. Creatures like frostworms have thick carapaces. A single-handed sword’s thrust lacks stability compared to a spear.”

  “And why is the staff better than a sword?”

  “Sturdier and greater momentum, delivering much greater force. Most swords would break if I used them the same way I used the staff. And besides my personal preference, it’s much better when fighting against multiple opponents.”

  I returned his sword to him. “I appreciate that you are considering my advice. You should try the spear when you have some spare time. Time you invested learning the sword was minimal, several moons of effective training. Besides, swords are great fallback weapons for spear-users, and learning to wield one is not a waste.”

  With that, we left for the upper floor to find Newstar his short-sword.