Book 2 Chapter 49

They were about a day's travel from Acerorazon and Willow was only now being given details on who would be teaching him next despite asking his mentor several times in the past few weeks.

Miss Mu let out a sigh. “I’m gonna be honest with you here. There are a couple of different options for martial instructors we could go with, and I’m not entirely sure which would be the best for you.”

Oh, Willow wasn’t used to his teacher not having a clear plan already laid out for him.

He decided to get a bit more information from her first.

“What’s making it difficult for you to choose?”

His teacher tapped her pipe on her knee as she stared at her apprentice intently. “Objectively speaking, considerin’ how your metal spirit is likely to grow, you should have someone who teaches a more defense oriented style. They’d give you the techniques best suited for a fast growing reflection. However, that completely ignores how you’d want to incorporate your other spirits into how you’d fight.”

She took a drag on her long handled pipe and let out a cloud of sweet smoke. “I’ve been wrackin’ my brain for a solution, but the only one that comes to mind is that I’d need someone who I’d trust your secrets with so they’d teach you appropriately. Unfortunately the list of people I’d trust with that is close to nil, and none of them live where we’re going.”

Willow was confused. “Couldn’t this work the same as how I’ve been learning qi exercises? Just have someone teach me the basics and then I go from there on my own? It’s worked well enough so far.”

His mentor considered his suggestion. “So find someone who focuses on the fundamentals…” She trailed off in thought.

Miss Mu’s curiosity burned bright for a bit before she clamped down on it. “There’s no telling how it would work in practice, however. It would be far safer for you to learn an established style then tweak it to your needs or have someone teach you something bespoke for you. Trying to make your own style of combat on top of everything else you’re doin’ is a recipe for disaster down the line.”

Willow shrugged. “Then we might as well go with the defense style if it’s the one best suited for Xandra. Besides, a style focused on protecting people sounds perfect to me. If it doesn’t pan out we have time to try at least one other teacher, right?”

They were planning on staying in the city for a couple of years as far as he knew after all.

His mentor smiled. “I suppose you’re right. Would hate to burn through favors like that, but I’ll do it if it turns out to be a necessity.”

She continued. “If we’re decided then I guess I should tell you about your new teacher. Matias is a rather easygoing man in his personal life, but when he’s on the job he tends to be quite cold and rigid. He used to be a high ranking guard of the city, but last I heard he’s retired and now spends his days trainin’ up the new recruits. He owes me big time so he should train you without a fuss, but you’ll likely be grouped up with children quite a bit older than you if he decides not to personally tutor you.”

Willow scrunched his nose. “How much older?”

“Mid teens would be my guess. That’s the age most guard hopefuls start their trainin’ from my understanding. He might decide it’s not worth the headache to have you with people so much older than you though.” Miss Mu shrugged. “I have sent messages ahead to most of the potential teachers that I might be callin’ in my favors to make use of their time, but I’m unsure how seriously they took those, or if they’ve even gotten them.”

He hoped that he’d be getting personal tutelage. Dealing with kids his own age was already difficult for him. Willow couldn’t even imagine having to deal with a bunch of Roms. His brother’s friend had been incredibly annoying the few times he’d interacted with him.

Thinking about him also brought up complicated feelings about Remy and Miss Sarah, but he tried not to dwell on them.

Something that his mentor said suddenly fully registered.

“Wait, we can send messages far away?” He asked her.

Miss Mu laughed. “I was wonderin’ what you were thinkin’ so hard about, but that was your take away? To answer your question though, yes. Though it can be a bit costly depending on how far. I was able to get a bulk rate since it was going to multiple people in the same city.”

Willow didn’t particularly care about that facet of it. “But that means I could send messages to my family, right?”

He missed them terribly and wanted some way to let them know about the many adventures he’d been on since he’d left them.

Mu’s expression softened. “Aye, you could. Since we’ll be moving around a bunch it’d be unwise to ever expect a reply from them, but I could arrange a letter be delivered to them if you want to write one.”

Willow nodded excitedly, causing his mentor to chuckle. “All right, when we arrive in Acerorazon I can get you some nice paper and ink so you can send them a proper letter. Don’t want your first message home to be illegible because the charcoal smudged too much.”

He gave her a bright smile. “Thanks a lot Miss Mu!”

Mu scratched at her cheek. “You’re quite welcome, boyo. It’s honestly not much, and truthfully I should’ve arranged for something like this a lot sooner. Sometimes slips my mind that others have a family to get in touch with.”

Willow felt a brief pang of grief touch his mentor’s qi before it was quickly buried.

He wanted to question his mentor about it, but knew it was unlikely to produce any positive results. He’d attempted to get some answers about Miss Mu’s family multiple times in the past, but had always gotten the runaround from her whenever he’d tried.

If she ever wanted to share, he’d lend an eager ear, but continuing to prod her about it seemed fruitless and would just cause her pointless pain.

So he instead decided to distract her a bit by getting her to share some knowledge. His mentor always seemed to enjoy explaining things that she knew.

“So what’s Acerorazon like?”

He’d already heard a bit, but wanted a fuller picture.

Miss Mu smiled, likely suspecting what he was trying to do, but going along with it anyway. “There’s a lot of smoke and noise, due to the number of forges open throughout the day. Despite that I’d say it’s my second favorite of the clan capitals. There’s plenty of good food, the people are friendly and the number of tool spirits in the city are second to none so there are some neat edge cases for me to study.”

That grabbed Willow’s attention. “Why are there so many tool spirits there?”

Mu grimaced. “House Herrera has a method of producing them. It’s one of their main exports, though they keep the best for themselves, of course. Don’t worry too much about it. Like learning about the greater spirits of the clans affecting the mental states of the populace, digging too deep into how a clan produces their specialities is more likely to put a target on your back.”

That didn’t sit right with him, but Willow let the matter lie for now.

Tomorrow he’d get to see the city for himself, and make his own judgement.