My second day on the road came and went without incident. I saw a few travelers and even the occasional animal, but we rode fast enough that I did not stop for anyone or anything else. Aresford was still too far away, after all.

The monotony of my riding did provide me a golden opportunity to do two things. First, I could practice gathering mana while in motion. I could manage it well enough while on foot, but riding was another matter entirely. For better or worse, this situation gave me a perfect chance to push myself.

After a few hours, I had gotten into a rhythm and could pull in a thimble of mana while riding. Almost all of it went to countering the drain from my spell, but the more I did it, the better I would get. Once I could gather ceaselessly, my progress should speed up even more.

The second was a chance to examine my mount and begin breaking down how his enhanced body worked.

I knew from reading and studying that the first stage was a 'purification,' where mana filtered out the worst of an organism. Impurities, built-up toxins from a lifetime, and various other things that would weaken it were pushed right out. This was a top to bottom improvement but was also far less exciting than the later stages.

My original hypothesis was that it worked similarly to reinforcement. You pushed mana into an object, imbued it with your will, and bound it to the physical structure. However, it was notably different from that process.

Wind mana flowed along in the blood but seemed almost rooted in place in the bones. It felt weaker in more stagnant areas and more potent in moving ones. Was its changing nature lending itself to particular systems more than others? A sleipnir's most notable traits were its speed and agility.

If true, what would my destructive mana do to my body? Would its nature turn me into nothing, or would it erode the weakest parts and leave only the strongest behind? I had no idea but did not want to find out the hard way. So, on the second night, I cut my hand, drained a few vials worth of my blood, and began experimenting with pushing mana into it.

Barely an hour into the third day, a city came into view on the horizon.

Aresford was not an intimidating place at first glance. Volaris had been rebuilt a half-dozen times over the centuries and now cut a figure from miles away. Towering marble structures, swirling magic, and walls high enough to stop an army in its tracks drew the eye, and the wealth was almost palpable.

But our northernmost city was a mining town that had forgotten to stop growing. New buildings had been added on, and the boundaries slowly expanded until it became a short but wide stone place.

Interestingly, the mana around me felt...unbalanced. Earth, wind, and water were most common, but fire mana was essentially non-existent. Not surprising, but it did make me wonder. Was mana affecting the environment, or was the environment somehow altering the mana? Chicken and egg, as the saying goes.

As the city walls came within view, I pulled back on the reins, bringing up my mount short before hopping off. We had made it nearly a full day faster than anticipated, though not unscathed. I was hours short on sleep, had bruises in unmentionable areas, and my distaste for riding had bloomed into full-blown hatred.

Still, the horse had performed admirably, and I ran a hand along his side, resolving to get a reward for the creature when we had returned home. It was his duty to carry his rider, but it had gone above and beyond and deserved as much.

Mana surged under my hand, pulled inside the horse's lungs with each breath to bolster flagging stamina and strengthen its body. I pushed down the twinge of envy at its natural capability. Though it could do innately what humans could not, it did not matter much. What was the point of doing something if you did not know how it was done? False mastery was no mastery at all.

I led the way towards the city gates, noting that the walls were barely thirty feet high and cracked. Two guards stood in attention, and one, maybe ten years my senior, straightened as I approached.

"Name and business in Aresford." he intoned flatly, and I swore I could hear the yawn in his voice.

"Apprentice Vayne of the Academy, here to-"

"Mage business, sure." he interrupted me, and this time he did yawn. I raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he coughed, adjusting the grip on his spear as he continued, "Head on inside."

"Right..." I muttered, still off-put about the guard's nonchalant attitude. Then again, I doubted they got much excitement here. No one stayed visited Aresford for long, and no one stayed unless they had no choice.

I began walking past him but paused, "Any recommendations for somewhere to spend the night? I could use an actual bed and somewhere to stable my horse."

"Pale Pauper about a half-mile up the road on your right. Can't miss it."

"Thanks."

As I walked down the narrow, dusty streets, I could not shake the tension that hung over me like a dark shadow. It was nameless at first, but after a few minutes, I figured out why.

In Volaris, I would have seen travelers packing the streets and had to pick my way through a crowd. There would have been the smell of food, perfumes, body odor, and a dozen other things in the air. I would have heard the shouting of merchants and the muttering of passing conversations.

But there was none of that here. The streets were silent, and I saw only two other people as I walked. It hit me that something I had disliked at first had become almost comforting in the last half-year.

The Pale Pauper was a small inn with a splintered sign hanging near the door from a rusted metal bar. I briefly considered finding somewhere else to stay but shook my head and led my horse towards the attached stables.

"Mornin', ma lord," came a voice, and I turned to see a young man a few years younger than me approach. He smiled, and I saw crooked but white teeth.

"Good morning. How much?" I asked, gesturing to my mount and injecting a bit of the detached aloofness Girem typically used. This was the first time I was on my own, and it seemed prudent to follow his lead.

That, and this boy was a few inches taller than me despite being at least two years my junior. I tried not to chafe at it, but I would be lying if I said it did not bother me at all.

He straightened and replied, "Two silver a night, my lord." pronouncing every word carefully. If he was trying to get rid of his accent, he was only partly successful.

I nodded, handing over six silver coins and saying, "Take good care of him." with a brief smile before heading into the inn.

It was a small place with a few tables close together, and a bar doubled as the main desk. The room smelt of stale beer and ash from the fireplace in one corner, with a sharp, metallic undercurrent.

I shivered before drawing my cloak a bit tighter around my body. The fire kept it from being frigid, but I had forgotten how cold it could get without magic to keep me comfortable. If I was not trying to keep my mana topped off for later today, I would have solved that issue.

A man popped out from underneath the counter, holding a cloth in one hand. At a glance, he looked like the boy from outside, only thirty years older. His nose was crooked, and a scar cut across his lower lip resembled the sort of wound I would expect from a knife. His exposed forearms were corded with muscle, and though his torso was rounded around the middle, he was still a massive man.

"Good day, my lord. How may I help you today?" he asked in a warm tone. His accent was less distracting than his sons but still crept into his words here and there.

"I need a room through to tomorrow night. The largest one you have, preferably. Food as well." I responded. After a second to think, I added, "And a hot bath."

"O' course, my lord. Everything would come out to around forty silver for everything each night. Food can be up within an hour, but the bath will take longer."

A gold coin was worth one hundred of the smaller silvers, which meant that giving him one was technically overspending...but I wanted to remain in the man's good graces. It was never a smart move to anger the people who you were sleeping near, as I had learned from living with the servants. More than once, someone had gotten a few bruises from insulting the wrong person.

The innkeeper took the coin, giving me a warm smile before leading me to my room. After assuring me that he would send up food as soon as possible, he left me alone to my devices.

I moved fast, grabbed the maps from my pouch, and laid them onto the floor, weighing down each corner, so they did not curl. The left was of Aresford and its surroundings, only a few years out of date, while the right was a diagram of ley lines in the same region.

The particular resource I had in mind was a spring that had absorbed Aether from a ley line over the centuries and could effectively replicate months of careful mana gathering. I could only use it once or twice before risking unbalancing my energy or damaging my channels, but even so, it could save me painstaking work.

Unfortunately, I had limited clues. Because it was suited to only Aether mages, no one had bothered doing much digging into it, and all I had were old journal entries. I knew it was near the mountains, located in a clearing and in a dense patch of the forest, but that was about as useful as saying, "It's outside," considering my surroundings. Everything near Aresford was next to a mountain and in forests.

A few hours of work later, and I had narrowed it down to a half-dozen likely spots. If left on my own, I could probably track it down, but that would take weeks. All things considered, I would rather find it on my own and keep things relatively quiet, but the best option and the preferred one were rarely the same.

"Apologies, my lord. 'M afraid we haven't gotten to your-"

"Yes, yes. It is fine. I had a question to ask you." I interrupted him, waving a hand dismissively. The bath was a luxury that could be set aside for now.

The innkeeper set aside the glass he was cleaning, placing both hands onto the countertop and asking, "What can I help you with, sir?"

"I am looking for a spring near your mountains. It will be unusual. Popular with local wildlife, in a clearing and possibly with a faint glow."

He gnawed his lip, considering my question before replying, "I've heard some stories here and there when I worked the mines, but nothin' sure as stone. Never much cared to dig into things that weren't my business, my lord. But...

"But?" I pushed.

"But I know a few who might know more. I can ask some o' the boys when they get back tonight. That's the best I can do, my lord."

It was a start, and I nodded, smiling and responding, "Thank you." and placing a few silver coins onto the counter.

With any luck, his friends would come through, and I would have the location of my prize. And if not, maybe our mythical Founders would see fit to bless me with some good fortune. Crazier things have happened.