“Yes! It works!” Wolf’s Mental Aspect exclaimed while jumping in the surreal hall.

“I should wake up!” Then Wolf realized that he had gone to sleep not an hour ago and that his father was already fast asleep.

In fact the big man spent the majority of his time sleeping. For regular manlings, the expenditure of Soul Force was minuscule when hibernating. Naturally, Wolf was an exception to this rule. The boy spent his Soul Force like crazy when carving the columns.

Archibald slept to extend his life, completely unaware that by doing so he was traumatizing his son. The whole scene reminded Wolf of the way his mother had been while she was slowly dying.

By now Wolf’s memories of the woman were reduced to a warm feeling against his skin and an outline of a living corpse lying immobile in bed. Those haunting memories and this situation pressed down on the boy like a mountain, adding to his sense of urgency… And now, finally, he had a way out! He could at least stay together with his father!

Wolf patiently waited for the sun to rise. Meaning he was pacing around his Mind Hall, fantasizing about his father becoming the Lord of Thunder once more! Fantasizing about finding his mother and them living together again, even though it would be kind of odd for his mother to be younger than he was…

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity filled with anticipation, Wolf’s Mental Aspect felt that the warm ray of light was brushing against his skin.

The boy opened his eyes and saw the first reddish-gold rays of light bathe the world outside the cave.

What a wonderful morning!

The boy looked at the glorious dawn. To anyone else it wouldn’t seem much different from many others. Yet, Wolf felt excited about the conversation to come.

However, when he looked to the side, Archibald was still sleeping! Before the big man would get up with the first rays of light, but ever since they’ve settled in this cave he started sleeping in.

Wolf fought back the urge to wake him up. Instead he got up and started pacing, not bothering to be quiet. That way maybe his dad would wake up earlier. Then he felt guilty and silly, before proceeding to pace with more care. Half an hour crawled by so slowly that Wolf was under an impression that years went by.

Finally with a stifled yawn and a stretch of his back Archibald woke up.

“Dad I got great news!” Wolf shouted excitedly while the big man moved his hands to rub his eyes.

“You’ve made some decent breakfast that isn’t eggs and bacon? Maybe some vegetables for a change?” Archibald yawned the question sleepily.

Damn! I should’ve fixed us a breakfast while I was waiting!

“No! Something better! I figured out how to convert Internal Energy into Soul Force! It’s not that effective, but it’s better than nothing! I’m sure it will help you!” Wolf shouted excitedly.

“Do you know how to gather Internal Energy?!” He asked.

“Have you ever tried doing it before?!”

“If not, I can teach you the Internal Energy gathering technique I’m using! It’s really simple!”

“As for the technique I came up with, my Mind Hall expanded two percent more yesterday after practicing it!”

“It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s really a lot!” Wolf fired a barrage of words at his still drowsy father, who was busy, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

It took a couple of moments for Archibald to wake up, then a couple more to process Wolf’s words.

Once he finally realized what the string of words meant, the big man thought he had heard it wrong. That’s because Archibald had never really placed much hope in Wolf’s idea.

The theory behind it was sound, but going from theory to practice was always a huge leap. This step sometimes required generations of genius researchers to work on the problem. The fact that Wolf could make this step in just five weeks was remarkable and beyond belief.

Even though the two percent increase Wolf described sounded humble, to the father and son it was as big as a mountain.

That was because Archibald couldn’t regenerate Soul Force naturally. He could draw an even zero out of the environment. This forced his Mind Palace to slowly crumble over the years as it automatically extracted the Soul Force needed to support his day to day life.

The big man’s fate was to watch as his reserve ran out, as Mind Hall after Mind Hall crumbled until finally his soul collapsed. But, if he could actually have an influx of Soul Force, any influx, his leftover lifespan would drastically increase once more.

It would be like a trickle of water in a parched wasteland. At first it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but as time passed it could revitalize Archibald’s soul. Especially considering that his daily usage of Soul Force was negligible. Otherwise he would’ve died years ago.

The man had suppressed his senses to the point that he only used what little his body could offer. He didn’t waste Soul Force in any other fashion either, well, other than remembering things and thinking.

As the drowsy man processed everything he was shocked awake. Archibald’s eyes brightened for a second, full with hope for the future, then he fought back against the urge to be happy. He shouldn’t get his hopes up yet. Not before testing everything out.

He wasn’t a pessimist, but didn’t dare to hope either. He would do anything Wolf thought could help him. Only insane people would choose a meaningless death over life, especially when they had such a good reason to keep on living.

“All right. We can try. Teach me how to gather Internal Energy and then teach me that technique you had come up with.”

“But, I have to warn you. I’m afraid I don’t have much talent for practicing Sword-sage arts. I tried it for a bit when I was young, but it seems my body isn’t adequate for retaining Internal Energy. It was like pouring water into a sieve. Everything I managed to refine leaked out in short order.” Archibald also didn’t want Wolf to have his hopes up only for his effort to ultimately fail.

As expected, the boy wasn’t fazed one bit.

“Doesn’t matter! You can use up Internal Energy as you gather it. We just need to find a way to constantly replenish your energy. For now you have to eat all of that bear meat. Don’t look at me like that. I already used up the Monster Core. If I had only known... That Monster Core could’ve bought you quite a bit of time.”

Seeing that his father rolled his eyes, but didn’t refuse, Wolf continued speaking.

“Just so you know, I will continue to perfect this technique. I want to restore your power back to its peak! Or at least I want you to be able to freely use magic like you did before.”

After finishing his motivational speech, Wolf tried to teach his father the three techniques. However it wasn’t as easy as he expected. It took over a week for Archibald to be able to start refining his own Internal Energy and then three more days to follow Wolf’s simple technique.

The boy wasn’t idle during this period either. Every day he would make subtle changes to the technique. Eventually he improved the efficiency from two percent to five percent. While it might appear negligible that was more than one hundred percent improvement.

When Archibald successfully felt a trickle of Soul Force into his parched soul he started laughing loudly.

“Hahahahahaha!”

Genius! A boy like this is worth living for, even as a cripple! Will I be a burden to him?! Not any more!

“Hahahahahaha!”

Even if we only manage to stop the collapse of my Mind Hall I will still be a Third Order Mage and a Tenth Order Spell Formation Grandmaster. So it’s not like I’m defenseless and can’t earn a living.

As Archibald thought about what he could now do for his son he felt his confidence grow! So far the man lived in a grim, dark world. He believed that he was dying and had a time limit during which he had to teach Wolf as many things as possible.

Not any more! Now he could live and be of great help to his boy! The only issue was that now they definitely had to leave the Northshield duchy, lest Wolf be implicated in Archibald’s problems.

Well, we’ve already decided on Silverhoud duchy, so nothing really changed. I’ll just have to lay low there and not draw too much attention. Either that or become a royal Spell Formation Scribe and live under the protection of the Duke.

Archibald spent hours thinking and planning…

“Dad, you’re not listening!” Wolf said with frustration.

After he noticed that the old technique was working, he tried to teach his father the new one. However the big man was absent-minded and didn’t pay any attention to Wolf’s latest achievement.

“Sorry son, my thoughts wandered. But this is a great opportunity for you. Now you can see for yourself how a teacher feels when they are ignored.” Archibald chuckled, causing Wolf to immediately shut up with an embarrassed expression.

“Um… You knew?” He asked sheepishly after a while.

“Of course I knew. Do you take your old man for an idiot?”

“But it’s all right. I made sure to repeat everything I said while you were having idle thoughts.”

“I’m sorry.” Only now did Wolf realize how it felt to try and teach a person that was ignoring you. The feeling most definitely wasn’t good.

“Don’t be. It’s perfectly normal. People can’t pay close attention to your words all the time. You just have to be aware of it and work around the issue. In our situation it’s rather simple. Please tell me the technique once more from the start.” Archibald said with a benevolent smile and focused.

After that one more time Archibald needed to hear the technique again and then once more. He memorized it completely after the fourth attempt.

Putting it into practice however was a completely different story. Archibald had just barely figured out how to perform the first one and practicing this new one was beyond him at the moment. He knew that if he tried it everything would get jumbled up.

***

Several days passed. Archibald was quite pleased with the result.

Wolf’s technique couldn’t heal the damage he had suffered originally. It couldn’t undo the decay that happened over the years due to the lack of Soul Force. It couldn’t even consolidate what Archibald had left of his Mind Palace. But it completely halted the looming rate of decay, even allowing Archibald to use a bit of his full mental faculty.

Even though he could, Archibald had no intention of abusing his freshly recovered ability. Instead, he allowed the excess Soul Force to seep into the ruined Mind Palace. Archibald’s soul greedily absorbed it, repairing itself at a rate that was so slow that he would probably never even recover the first Mind Hall.

But he didn’t really care. Wolf claimed that he would be able to further improve the art and this had bought Archibald a lot of precious time. Even the damage his body had suffered from casting the spell was mostly healed now.

The problem was that Archibald required a constant supply of energy to convert into Internal Energy, which he then converted into Soul Force. The whole process used up around ten hours every day which Archibald had to spend in meditation.

***

By the end of the third month Wolf managed to come up with a technique that had five times the efficiency when compared to the original one. Archibald felt extravagant and dared abuse some of the Soul Force he now had access to. Learning and practicing the improved art took only one try, paid with a minimal amount of Soul Force.

Now he needed to spend five hours a day in meditation to achieve the same result as meditating the whole day with the second technique he had learned. The rate at which Wolf improved it was staggering.

Unfortunately this was Wolf’s limit. It wasn’t because he wasn’t smart enough, but rather that he lacked comprehensive knowledge on various aspects of Sword-Sage arts. Talent without practical experience or theoretical knowledge could ultimately only get him to reach the ten percent conversion rate.

“Son, it’s time to go. We’re running out of the energy rich Monster Beast meat and need to buy potions. Besides, we can’t spend the rest of our lives in this cave. The technique you made is already one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard of!” One morning Archibald nudged Wolf.

It was time to go back on the road. Aside from Archibald’s gains, Wolf had also advanced quite a bit as a Spell Formation Scribe and confirmed his status as a Third Order Sword-Sage.

Gazing at Wolf, Archibald still couldn’t believe how talented his son was. Wolf wasn’t even nine years old and yet only a limited number of people in Northshield duchy could compare with him.

Even across the whole Empire of Human Wolf was probably the most powerful person under the age of thirty, maybe even fifty. And all of this despite the fact that he had no resources to use for self improvement.

The boy was a Seventh Order Mage, a Third Order Swordsage, a Spell Formation scribe, a genius researcher and even a decent cook! His achievements were beyond the realm of genius. As far as Archibald was concerned all of the so-called geniuses weren’t fit to carry his boy’s shoes!

Wolf slowly got up. After a moment he nodded without saying a word. All of their belongings were already stored in their Rings of Holding, so father and son silently left the cave inside of which they had spent the winter. After a while they started chatting about their plans for the future. Archibald wanted them to settle down in Silver city, the capital of Silverhound duchy.

There he would continue educating Wolf until it was time for him to enter the Mage Academy. Meanwhile they would make a living as Spell Formation Scribes. Given his skill, Archibald was certain he would quickly become wealthy enough to support Wolf through his studies.

As for how to reach their destination, that was even simpler. All they had to do was hike to the nearest settlement and then use a carriage to get to a town that was on a trade route between Silver city and Northshield city.

At that point they could just pay for a fare with the first passing caravan and they could already consider themselves in Silver city.

The fact that Wolf and Archibald were near one of the duchy’s danger zones worked to their advantage this time. Due to potential danger there were no small settlements in the area. However, about seventy kilometers away was a supply stop for all adventurers that went to the danger zone called Honest Man’s Place. Once there, Wolf and Archibald could either hitch a ride, or hire a carriage to take them part of the way.

Centuries ago the Honest Man’s Place was just a store run by an old man and a couple of youths. They had everything you could possibly need and all of it cost at least twice as much as it did in a city. The Honest Man’s motto was You were stupid enough to forget it. Here we charge a stupidity tax.

At first people mocked him. But all it took to be taken seriously were a couple of broken bones and cracked skulls. The word quickly spread that Honest Man shouldn’t be pushed around. Because he pushed back. He pushed back hard. As soon as the trading post proved to be profitable somebody else opened a tavern, followed by a brothel. Building by building a settlement of adventurers for adventurers came into existence.

This was a place where Archibald was certain they would find whatever they needed. What he believed was the most immediate concern was not the means of transportation. No, it was the information about the current state of affairs in the Empire of Human.

Before, when they visited Iceowl, Archibald was just a dying man. He didn’t care about the news and the state of the empire.

Now however, he was a Spell Formation Scribe, a father with a son to take care of and watch grow up. Problems of the empire greatly affected such a person. Every problem was an opportunity for him to earn money and status, to earn backing and a smooth life for his boy…

***

End of part 1 - Adventures with Dad

Archibald’s Lessons:

Priests call their spells miracles. Miracles are divided into Orders, just like spells. There are ten Orders of miracles, just like spells. Who are those Priests kidding? They cast spells and just use a fancy word to fool the naive illiterate masses. As for the educated Mages, there’s no need to fool us. We already know gods exist.