There wasn’t a hint of warmth or any other emotion in the old man’s voice. He was even more emotionless than the artifact spirit Wolf had encountered months ago. The boy somehow had a feeling that this man would address him the same way regardless of his age, race or sex. He would talk in the same manner even if Wolf was an insect, which in turn made Wolf feel like an insect.

“I wish to learn.” Wolf spoke with a fake bravado worthy of a five-year-old facing something really scary. A Necromancer for example.

“Then I shall teach you. Come. Follow me.” The man turned around and started walking deeper into the cave.

“First lesson is simple and complex at the same time. Using magic without a reason when you have trivial alternatives is hubris. Do you know what hubris is?” The man croaked in that half-dead voice of his.

Wolf followed quietly and after some thought came up with a response. “Hubris is when you use magic without reason when you have trivial alternatives? What are trivial alternatives?”

The old man tripped on a bone and took a good look at Wolf to make sure the boy wasn’t making fun of him.

“Trivial is something very simple and easy. Negligible, small. Alternative is when you have another option.” After a brief pause the man continued.

“Option is one of the choices you can make when choosing one thing or another. And no, what you said is just an example of hubris, not a definition of hubris itself. Hubris can be…”

Wolf followed and listened. The old man that never gave his name kept talking and talking. He taught Wolf a lot of complicated words. During their first year together he didn’t teach Wolf any magic. Instead, the old man taught his disciple big words. Wolf learned how to read and write both in common language and arcana runes, as well as advanced mathematics. What Wolf got to learn seemed to repeat or extend bit by bit everything his father had already told him.

During this year Wolf spent his alone time practicing the spells he had learned from Archibald. Eventually Wolf was able to cast spells of the Fourth Order. Much to Wolf’s disappointment, there were only two tapestries of the Fourth Order in his Mind Hall. Yet, this helped the boy make a conclusion. When he had first learned to cast spells of Third Order he had four tapestries in the third row. By learning them he had increased the number of tapestries in lower rows. The First Order spells went up by one and the Second Order ones by two.

Now that he learned spells of the Fourth Order something similar had happened. The number of spell slots of Third Order had increased by two and for the Second Order it increased by one. This meant that advancing your Mage Order also increased the number of lower Order tapestries. Wolf had managed to make a correlation, but needed a few more advancements to confirm things.

Wolf spent his nights in his Mind Hall patiently carving the fourth column. After four months the long awaited sixth column finally appeared. Seven months after that Wolf completed the carving of his fourth column. When he did he noticed that two more tapestries of the Fourth Order had appeared. Once again Wolf drew his own conclusions about this phenomenon and made his own hypothesis on how magic worked.

The following morning Wolf’s teacher held the first lesson on magic. He spoke at length about refining the columns inside the Mind Hall. He explained to Wolf how this would not only increase the number of spells he could cast every day, but also fortify his soul and increase the rate at which he gathered Soul Force. While Wolf was already aware of all of this on some subconscious level, hearing a teacher validate his hypotheses was very rewarding and reassuring.

As time passed Wolf’s teacher explained a lot of important things. Strangely enough, he was either on the cusp of figuring them out on his own, or he had just recently realized something very similar. What made him extremely happy was that his teacher was paying a great deal of attention to what Wolf was interested in. All of the lectures were customized in such a manner that they dispelled Wolf’s doubts or helped him validate his thoughts. It was as if his teacher was simply helping him formalize his own conclusion.

By the end of the second year, Wolf had started researching Wordless and Motionless spells under the careful guidance of his mentor. His progress was neither fast nor slow in Wolf’s opinion. Every two to three months Wolf would successfully upgrade one of the spells that he already knew. Despite his best efforts the most he managed to achieve was to apply both Wordless and Motionless modifiers while increasing spell Order by one instead of two.

In part this was due to Wolf’s limited capabilities, while in part it was due to the lack of understanding of the fundamental theories behind magic. His teacher assured him that this would improve further once he completed the tenth or maybe even the ninth column of his Mind Hall. This gave Wolf something to look forward to, while at the same time improving his confidence.

During the fourth year of Wolf’s apprenticeship the seventh column appeared in his Mind Hall. A year and a half later Wolf finished refining the fifth column, just a bit short of age eleven. Years passed in a blur as Wolf’s soul steadily grew stronger and stronger.

One thing that struck Wolf as odd was that his teacher never taught him new spells. Not a single one in over five years the two of them had spent together. Whenever Wolf brought up the subject the old man would say that Wolf should figure out these on his own.

Apparently with a sufficiently strong soul learning and casting spells was not an issue. The old man kept teaching Wolf things he more or less already knew from earlier. Wolf often felt as if he had already heard all of these lectures in a hazy dream. Another thing that evoked the same feeling as well as a bit of a heartache was his teacher’s catchphrase.

“If you know how other people made spells you can apply it to making your own spells.” The old man would say that whenever Wolf brought up learning spells. For some reason Wolf felt like crying when he heard those words.

Another thing his teacher often said was to use magic sparingly and never do something with magic that can be done with one’s own hands. Wolf thought about why this was for a long time before drawing some conclusions. Preparing spells expends Soul Force. Refining the columns in the Mind Hall expended Soul Force. Expanding the Mind Hall expended Soul Force.

The speed at which he refined the columns had nothing to do with Soul Force, but only with the time spent refining them. Mind Hall expanded with excess Soul Force, without requiring any action on Wolf’s part. So the fastest way to expand the Mind Hall was not to prepare spells and not to refine the columns. However refined columns increased the rate at which Soul Force was generated, so refining them had a positive effect in the long run. The only real waste was preparing spells for no good reason.

Wolf figured this out on his own when he was about to turn twelve. The next day his teacher once again verified his assumption. He also told Wolf that, once he legally became an adult, he would have to go out to hunt and forage. No more free meals and while he was at it, he should bring some things for the old man.

It made sense. Here, in the Empire of Human, boys and girls were considered adults once they turned twelve years old. From that age they were free to found their own families, own land and make their own decisions in life.

Once he started going out hunting, Wolf realized that these trips were very beneficial for him. It wasn’t just that he was learning how to improve his tracking and hunting skills. He also had to balance out the use of magic and mundane hunting tools, trying to optimize the waste of Soul Force and time. Years went by in a dreamlike haze. In a flash, Wolf was a young man at the age of sixteen.

The day was no different from any other. Wolf went out hunting, as well as to gather some wild fruits and vegetables. Wolf spent half a day in the forest picking up rabbits from the traps he had set up and plucking some edible greens along the way. Over the years Wolf had discovered that hunting using traps was significantly more time efficient than using a bow or a spear. As long as you didn’t mind eating rabbit and squirrel. Thinking about the afternoon lessons that awaited, Wolf entered the cave. After taking only a couple of steps he noticed that something was wrong.

The walls, which were decorated with human bones, were crushed and scorched by flame magic. Having a bad feeling Wolf started running down the hallway. And after running through the darkness for what seemed to be the eternity, he entered his teacher’s sanctum. To his horror he saw his beloved teacher’s headless corpse. The chamber he was so familiar with had its walls decorated with a large number of unknown symbols. Wolf felt his heart seethe with rage. That headless old man was Wolf’s only family, he was like a father Wolf never had.

Taking in the sight, Wolf didn’t shed a single tear. He respectfully buried what was left of his teacher and caved in the sanctum in which he had spent his childhood. Now, the only thing left to do was to seek justice for his teacher. Wolf knew there was a large city about a week away from the cave. He decided to go there and gather the clues about the strange occult symbols that were carved into the walls of his honored master’s home.

Wolf reached the city after traveling for seven days. He looked at the city walls and as he entered he examined the houses. They were just like Wolf imagined them when he was a little boy. The city walls were exactly like the ones surrounding the village of Muddy River. The only difference was that they were ten times larger. As for the houses, every house in the city resembled the house in which the village elder of Muddy River used to live in. It’s just that they were bigger. The more important a building, the larger the replica of the village elder’s home was. Far off in the distance Wolf could see the village elder’s house that was at least a hundred meters tall and dominated the city. Wolf guessed that that was the City Lord’s castle.

Looking around there were plenty of people walking the streets. They were dressed like the peddlers Wolf saw from time to time in the Muddy River. In fact they only seemed to have a couple of different designs for clothes which were repeated time and time again. Wolf didn’t find it strange at all and proceeded to ask the faceless passers-by about the symbols he had seen back in the cave.

Thanks to them Wolf found the culprits in no time. The symbol belonged to a paladin order that had a temple in this city. Several days ago the paladins had managed to clear out a den of evil where they killed an ancient necromancer. Wolf never imagined that the humble old man would be described as a great evildoer and a menace to society. He was a sweet old academic that treated him like a child.

Now that he had information he needed, Wolf decided on a plan. Well, at least, it was something Wolf considered a plan. He came to the temple building. After kicking down the door he started a massacre. Wolf was slinging spells left and right, frying people with fire or splashing them with acid. Whenever a knight in shining armor managed to get close to him Wolf would use the sword he had taken from the corpse of the first person he had killed.

Unfortunately these paladins were like roaches. When you kill one, two pop out of some back room or a confession booth. In no time at all Wolf had already slain two dozen generic men, maybe even more. At that point their chapter master came dashing towards Wolf. He was bigger than the others and his armor was somehow shinier. A blob of acid struck him square in the face, but the paladin took it like a man and slashed his great-sword at Wolf’s neck.

As his head flew through the air like this, a strange thought flashed through Wolf’s mind.

Heh! Never expected I’d get to see something like this twice. But before Wolf could even focus on that thought he heard familiar words echo in the darkness which enveloped him.

“It’s easy to be virtuous when times favor you. It is easy to praise a god that sends you nothing but blessings. It is easy to be filial before a master when all you know is light and sunshine. How will you act when good times abandon you? Will you curse your god when they send nothing but hardship? How do you treat your honored master when they are in need of shelter as the sky falls and demons reign?”

Archibald's lessons:

Even though they are called Sword-Sages and Sword-Saints, practitioners of Internal Energy Refining use a variety of weapons. The word Sword in their name comes from the fact that the sword is the only weapon exclusively made for combat. Other popular weapon categories have other uses besides murdering other sentient beings.