"Flower, watch my Fireball!"
Flower scrambled to summon a water shield, his hands moving in a frantic rune pattern. He ducked to the side, already preparing to dodge the incoming fire—only to get splattered with mud as a clump of loose dirt hit his water shield, exploding into brown sludge.
He stared at the mud spots covering his robes, then turned to Leon with a deadpan expression. "You said Fireball. Leon."
Dahlia doubled over laughing, holding onto a tree for support. "How many times are you going to fall for that? Leon's been mixing up spell names for months. You should know better by now."
Flower crossed his arms, his cheeks turning pink. "It's not funny. What's the point of this, anyway?"
Leon grinned, wiping mud off his hands with a cloth. "Of course it has a point. If you fall for it, other people will too—especially the first time they face me in a spar. It's a good distraction tactic."
His smug expression made Flower want to throw a mud clump right back. "You're going to run out of friends if you keep doing this."
Flower stalked off to the wooden water bucket to wash his face, muttering under his breath. He'd picked up some of Leon's "silly phrases" over the years, even if he didn't get all the jokes. It made Leon feel less like an outsider—like he finally belonged somewhere in Etho.
Im watched from the porch of Moonlight Cottage, his arms crossed. "Alright, enough fooling around. Your mana control has improved a lot, but you still need more practice. Leon, your mana pool is almost big enough for advancement, but I don't want you to rush it."
He leaned against the wooden railing, his voice serious. "You're still young. Wait until you can advance on your own, without using an advancement circle."
Like many mages, Im believed that self-advancement led to stronger, more stable magic. There was no hard data to prove it—high-level mages were too rare to study—but it was a common belief among mages, like thinking handcrafted goods were inherently better than mass-produced ones. "It's better to be safe than sorry," Im always said.
"I understand, Teacher," Leon said, nodding. He knew Im was looking out for him. Even though he approached magic with a scientific mindset, he knew magic wasn't an exact science. Sometimes, old traditions held hidden truths.
Leon was 13 now, and he'd been studying magic for almost four years. His mana pool was already large enough to cast basic formal spells, and he'd been trying to fully analyze the real Fireball spell for weeks. The "Fireball" he'd used earlier was a cheap trick—a modified Flame Palm, where he condensed fire into a small clump and threw it. It was weak, slow, and couldn't explode, nothing like a real Fireball spell.
Flower's water shield was a similar low-level trick. Their sparring was more about practicing precise mana control than actual combat—none of their spells could seriously hurt anyone.
Leon's mana growth had accelerated thanks to Tai Chi. Unlike most mages, who stored mana in their mana sea, Leon's mana flowed through his body like blood, following the energy paths of his Tai Chi movements. This let him recover mana faster and cast spells with more consistent power, even though he spent more time on herbology, invention, and alchemy than pure magic study.
Flower and Dahlia weren't far behind. They were more focused on magic training, so they'd caught up quickly, even without Leon's Tai Chi advantage. Flower was the weakest of the three, but he'd just started feeling the connection between Tai Chi and mana—soon, he'd be able to generate mana in his body too, which would speed up his progress dramatically. Dahlia was already ahead of Flower, with sharper mana control and a better grasp of rune theory.
Im was the slowest to learn Tai Chi. His mind was too set in rigid magical thinking to understand the flowing, meditative nature of the martial art.
Over the past few years, Leon hadn't made many new inventions. He'd focused on learning rune carving, potion making, and magical item crafting instead. His fountain pen had become popular among mages and scholars, though—Valoka Guild had helped it spread across the Aurestian Empire. The guild they'd founded, Hero Guild (named after Leon's old-world nostalgia for a famous pen brand), was now known for making the best fountain pens in the empire.
Im's paper on using charcoal filtration to purify potion ingredients had been even more successful. Potions were a consumable, so Im made more steady money from his paper than Leon did from the pens. Both of them were comfortable enough to focus on their studies without worrying about money.
In Sarneth Town, tofu had become a staple food. It was a cheap, nutrient-dense source of protein for people who couldn't afford regular meat, and Leon had finally figured out how to make fermented soybean paste, soy sauce, and rice vinegar—all fermented condiments that added rich flavor to the simple local cuisine. He'd even tried making wine, though Im had warned him that mages should avoid getting drunk, as it clouded mana perception. Leon's wine was infused with various calming herbs, which made it look impressive, even if the taste was a little bitter and earthy.
"Dahlia, are you ready yet? We're waiting!" Leon called from the cottage porch early the next morning.
"Almost! Stop rushing me!" Dahlia yelled back, her voice annoyed.
She emerged a few minutes later, her hair braided with small blue flowers and her backpack packed to bursting, still scowling. Im was taking his apprentices into the jungle, past Stone Ridge and into the Transverse Mountains. Rumors said there were magical beasts in the mountains, and Im wanted to show his students what real danger looked like, to prepare them for future solo expeditions.
Leon pointed to a wooden bowl on the table. "I saved you some warm milk and honey bread. Eat it before we leave—we'll be walking for hours."
Leon had bought a cow a few years ago, hoping to get fresh milk, but he'd quickly learned that a single cow couldn't produce milk without a calf. He'd bought a sturdy bull and two more cows, so now they had four cows total—three of which produced milk (though not year-round, as they needed to calve periodically).
"Teacher, how long will we be gone?" Dahlia asked, taking a bite of the sweet bread.
Im thought for a moment, staring at the hazy mountains in the distance. "A month at most. We can't stay in the jungle too long in summer—the humidity and bugs will become unbearable. If we find good herbs or magical materials, we might come back early."
Summer wasn't the best time to travel—the jungle was hot and teeming with biting insects—but as mages (and mage apprentices), they could handle the weather better than most people, thanks to minor protective spells.
Flower looked worried, his brow furrowed. "What about the valley? Who will take care of the herb garden and the greenhouse? What if someone breaks in, or wild animals get in and destroy the mushrooms and herbs?"
Im waved his hand dismissively. "I set up a large protection rune array a few days ago. I'll activate it before we leave. No one or nothing will get in—wild animals will be repelled, and anyone trying to break in will get a nasty shock."
Leon raised an eyebrow. "Why don't we keep it activated all the time? It would be safer year-round."
Im gave him a sharp look. "Are you going to pay for the mana crystals? This array is temporary—it concentrates long-term mana storage into a short burst, so it's more powerful. A permanent array would cost hundreds of gold coins a year to maintain, which we can't afford right now."
Leon fell silent. They had enough money for basic needs and small experiments, but a permanent high-level protection array was way out of their budget. Most of their money had gone into magic materials and experiments anyway—mages burned through gold faster than any noble's household.
The most valuable thing in the valley was the magic furnace, but it was too big and heavy to move, and it was useless without someone who knew how to operate it. The rest of their belongings were either cheap or easily replaceable.
Leon picked up his camshaft crossbow, polishing the carved wooden stock with a soft cloth. "Good thing we harvested the mushrooms before we left. They would have gone bad if we'd been gone too long."
Leon had mastered mushroom growing over the years. He'd expanded the greenhouse several times, and he'd even found ways to grow mushrooms outdoors in shaded, humid areas. He'd realized that growing mushrooms in the glass greenhouse was a waste—mushrooms didn't need sunlight, so he'd built a separate wooden building for them, with no windows, to keep them dark and consistently humid.
He handed custom-made camshaft crossbows to Flower and Dahlia, his voice serious. "Be careful with these. Don't point them at people, even as a joke. They're more powerful than they look."
He'd redesigned the crossbows a few years ago, using rare magical metals he'd collected and the new magic furnace. The new crossbows were smaller—barely bigger than a sheet of parchment when folded—but they were much more powerful than regular bows. They could penetrate 15 centimeters of solid oak from 30 meters away, silent and deadly. Im had enchanted them to improve accuracy, though the enchantment didn't increase their raw power.
Flower examined his crossbow, impressed. "You finally let us use these? You've been hiding them in your workshop for months."
Leon nodded, handing them each a quiver of bolts. "I was worried you'd accidentally shoot someone. These aren't toys—they can kill a grown man with a single shot."
Dahlia rolled her eyes, but she took the quiver carefully. "I know how to use a crossbow, Leon. I won't shoot anyone unless I have to defend myself."
Leon pointed to a single red-fletched bolt in each quiver. "See that red bolt? That's a special one—Teacher helped me make it. It can only be used once. The tip has a carefully measured mix of water and fire mana dust. When it hits a target, it explodes, causing extra damage to magical beasts or heavily armored foes."
Im clapped his hands, getting everyone's attention. "Alright, finish eating and double-check your bags. We need to find a good campsite before dark—jungle nights are dangerous for unprepared travelers."
They set off around 9 o'clock, when the sun was already high in the sky, painting the jungle canopy in bright gold. Leon still wished he had a clock—telling time by the sun was imprecise, and it was easy to lose track of hours in the dense jungle.
Im activated the protection array before they left, and they didn't take the main valley gate. Instead, they climbed a narrow, magic-carved path at the back of the valley, barely wide enough for one person. A slightly overweight person would have gotten stuck between the rock walls.
As they walked into the jungle, the trees closed around them, blocking out most of the sunlight. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth, growing leaves, and ripening fruit, and the sound of birds, monkeys, and insects filled the air. Leon took a deep breath, feeling a surge of excitement. This was his first real expedition into the mountains, and he couldn't wait to see what they would find.