Chapter 88: The Road To Corinth

“The journey to Corinth, we’ll have to make on foot or riding a beast,” Kadre said as she spooned up the last of the cheese. “Most of it, anyway. I’m not inclined to follow official routes.”

She said it lightly, the way people speak of things they have done a hundred times.

“Checkpoint problems?” Mikael asked absentmindedly.

“Bingo. I’ve got a contact that’ll help get us into the city. There are two towns where we’ll be able to stop by, though. The rest of the journey will be on the road.”

The late November morning was as chilly as any autumn morning normally was.

A thin mist lay over the square, and the first carts were already creaking across the stones.

The restaurant they had chosen was on the district’s central square, the kind that didn’t need large signs to announce itself, because those who needed to know it existed already did. It was already open, despite it being just six in the morning.

The tables were heavy dark wood, the cutlery polished, and the few other patrons ate in the kind of quiet that money buys.

The host-waiter had recommended a quite lavish breakfast featuring poached eggs, smoked salmon, a three-cheese board and glazed bacon, which Mikael declined for his own dish. The rest of the meal included crumpets with ricotta and honey, a plate of fresh fruit cut into squares, orange juice and black coffee.

Mikael was barely halfway through his when Kadre dropped her cutlery. She was quite the eater. For him, eating was merely a necessity his body would betray him for. She, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it. Sybil came to mind.

He pushed the thought away before it could settle.

He passed her what was left of his dishes.

“You don’t eat much, boy,” Kadre taunted, digging in immediately. “Trying to keep your shape for the ladies, are we? Hehehe.”

Not in the mood to start explaining his inclinations, Mikael merely raised his cup of coffee slightly in mock acknowledgement of whatever she had said.

Kadre grinned, taking the silence for a victory, and went back to her plate.

“But are we sure we need nothing else before we depart?”

“Anything we’ll need, we’ll know after we’ve met my broker. No need to literally burden ourselves with unnecessary things.”

She tapped the table with one finger, a nervous habit she had never quite lost.

Just before they had gone for their meal the previous night, after they had come down from the tower’s roof, Kadre had asked him to draw whatever he remembered of the relics: what they looked like, any notable signs or inscriptions on them.

The lad was quite good with his hands, producing well-drawn images of something that looked like a miniature ancient dwarven furnace with writing all over the edges. The second image was a shape she had never seen in her entire life, so she quietly put it away, reassuring herself the boy was a bit delusional. But the image of the furnace gave her hope that the job was doable, that whatever they were going to look for existed!

She would be completely set for life if she finally got those few millions of gold.

The thought was warm, and she kept it there, careful not to let it make her careless.

Breakfast was done, and they rose. The menu bore no prices, which, in the girl’s experience of such high-end places, meant there was an expectation of a specific performance, and her ‘knight in shining armor’ performed, settling the cost without a frown.

They walked across the square and down to the hotel where they had stayed the night before.

“I think I would like to visit the Flaming City for a while before we depart. We could start our journey from there.” Mikael spoke as soon they entered the got close to the destination.

Kadre pondered. The Flaming City was the Limnor family domain, over at the borders. If they went from there, the distance was pretty much the same, as Corinth was up north of it, and the roads were a bit more tolerable compared to their original route. But…

“There’s a toll crossing a couple of days out from here, just before you enter the Limnor domain.”

They entered the inn, which was also situated at the end of the square, barely three minutes’ walk from the restaurant.

The innkeeper nodded at them as they passed and then very carefully looked away.

“And what about the toll crossing?” Mikael asked with a slight frown.

“Boy,” she clapped his shoulder. “Why do you think we’ve only moved around where and when there’s little to no light, and no authorities?” she asked with a mock smile.

“Why should I know? And try not to touch me so casually.” He flicked away her fingers, which were still on him. “For some reason, you irritate me.”

“Tch, talk about being stressed at such a young age. Anyway, it’s the same reason you were able to find me in the first place. Reputation. I may look like an inexperienced thief, but my reputation is the real deal. I swear there is a five million gold Crowns bounty on my head,” she laughed.

She said it the way someone might mention the weather, and Mikael could not tell whether she was proud or merely resigned.

“So we might run into those who’d like to capture you. Quite a troublesome reputation you’ve got. We’ll do something about that when the time comes. So the Limnors are out of the equation. When do we depart?”

He could always see the Limnors whenever he came back. It wasn’t as if they would die off before… ‘Completely forgot they are mortals.’

It was a funny thought, and he set it aside for later.

“Dusk, to keep things a bit less stressful and worrying. Any issues?”

“Not really. We’ll meet in the lounge, then. If you’ll excuse me.”

And with that, he vanished through his door and into his room.

“Meet at the lounge,” Kadre smiled as she opened her own room, which was just opposite Mikael’s. “Funny guy.”

Across the hall, a door clicked shut, and the corridor settled into quiet.

* * * * *

“Begin!”

She felt her mana pulse through her and into her core at awe-shocking speeds! And volume.

The hall around her fell away as it always did, until there was only the rush of mana and the steady beat of her own heart.

It was the second month since her class had become Grandmasters, but the sensation of it never seemed dulled, not to the teenagers!

The professor had described the cores of Grandmasters as being comparable to a river, in that they absorbed much more mana and stored very large amounts of it compared to a Master-rank core. The downside was that they absorbed all kinds of mana, pure and impure alike, which carried the possibility of destroying one’s core. But there was a saving grace, albeit one that required hard work.

She had heard it so often that she could have recited it in her sleep, and still each time it made her a little more careful.

The cores had a refining capability, one that allowed them to purify the absorbed mana before storing it.

All types of mana could be used to cast spells, even the impure ones, but spells cast with unrefined mana would use up more mana, strain the pathways, and risk destroying the mana network in one’s body, and in the very worst cases, could prove fatal.

Luckily, as the genius class, the mana they were provided with was rich, pure and unadulterated. It had always been so, though they were made to try to refine what was almost fully refined already, a task much more difficult than refining noticeable impurities.

Miriselle could feel her core’s storage almost filling up, which signified that the next stage was to begin.

She willed her body to stop absorbing. The mana already inside, she willed to move out of the core and into her channels, which ran like auxiliary veins all over the body.

Around her, her classmates sat in neat rows, eyes closed, each lost in the same struggle.

She pushed the mana outward, where it ran as if to leave the body. That was the crux of the test.

Unlike impure mana, already-purified mana needed little purification, so what they needed to do now was affinity tuning. Running the mana through one’s meridians and pathways allowed it to gain its user’s affinity signature and become more suited to their affinity, so their professor of Magic Theory had taught.

It sounded simple on paper. In practice it was like asking water to remember the shape of a jug.

And so, hours later, the mana supply was closed off, and the circulation class thus ended.

“Listen!” The professor in charge called for attention. “The next practical class we will have will be about Soul Domains. Prepare yourselves!”

For the fifteen-year-olds, this brought a sense of heavy, lively muttering and whispers.

The Soul Domain was a natural privilege exclusive to those of Grandmaster rank and above, and they had all, at some point, witnessed one, and they all desired it.

“And areas of concentration for the exams.”

That killed the liveliness instantly.

A groan rolled across the room, and the professor, looking pleased, did not bother to hide a smile.

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