When Gust woke up the next morning, it was with a deep sense of dread.

He was truly stuck in this place. If he tried to go home, he had no doubt the illusory eye would show up and confuse him all over again.

The woman behind that eye was clearly one of his father’s enemies, but did that mean she was one of these so-called Patrons? And why would she send a champion after him, instead of coming herself?

The voice sounded confused and frustrated while her eye bored into his skull and couldn’t find what she was looking for. Now that he had time to look back on that, Gust could only laugh.

Because he wasn’t special, nor unique or powerful. He’d never been at the top of his class, nor was he the best at anything. He’d played thousands of hours of video games, but none of them professionally, and while all his friends went to college or found careers out of town, he was the only one who still lived with his mother.

Gust wasn’t given a quest by some immortal swordsman. He was out for a walk, trying to clear his head, when this world swallowed him whole. Now, if he didn’t learn to cultivate, then he would die.

As he laid in bed, hoping the sun wouldn’t rise, Gust thought of his father. Every time someone suggested that the Swordsman had trained him and sent him to this place, it broke his heart.

Gust only wished his father had trusted him that much. Instead, the man was barely ever home and when he was, he was locked away in his office. Seth Perry was clearly disturbed by something, but no matter how badly his family wanted to help, he wouldn’t let them.

Ultimately, it gave rise to a rift between the father and his children which only grew over time. The worst part, for Gust, was not knowing. For a while, he assumed his father worked for the government as some sort of secret agent who couldn’t share the details with his family.

Near the end, however, Gust worried the man was just insane. Now, he didn’t know what to think.

Gust knew, however, that if he ever wanted to go home, he would need to learn more about the magic this world had to offer. If he returned to that portal when he was strong enough, as Ephraim had told him, perhaps he could go back to his family after all.

As he had some time before the morning bell tolled, Gust found the book he received yesterday and started flipping through it. If he was going to stay, whether he wanted to or not, he might as well learn what cultivation was all about.

It was… difficult to read with a straight face. The book read like a dungeons and dragons roleplaying manual for the mage class.

Even after seeing it demonstrated multiple times, accepting the existences of mana and magic was difficult for Gust.

Like any child, he had loved the idea of magic, and been extremely disappointed to learn that there was no such thing. Only illusions and video editing. Plenty of people in his world still believed in some form of magic, but they were seen as fools. He couldn’t help but feel a bit crazy himself, thinking of the things this book claimed were possible.

So, all he had to do was sit in a certain way, breath in a certain pattern, and he would absorb a bit of the energy that governed heaven and earth? If it was so simple, why would anyone need a book to explain it to them?

He scoffed and was annoyed by the ridiculousness of it all… then he sat on the floor in the center of his room and tried it out.

Gust crossed his legs and clasped his palms to match the image, seeking to clear his mind. The posture was simple, but important to get exactly right and hold. Once he thought he had it, he started focusing on his breath. The breathing pattern was one of the most basic in the world of cultivation, but not to one who had never seen it’s like.

On the first breath, Gust burst out laughing. He felt like a child who had just watched a Spiderman movie and kept thrusting his wrists out, hoping to find some unknown powers. He thought himself ridiculously naive to even expect it to work, but he also didn’t have anything else to do. Once he could calm down enough, he tried again.

As he put the technique into practice, however, Gust found it as difficult as breathing underwater. His eyes shot wide and his lungs struggled against what seemed to be a wall of dense liquid, not air.

For a few seconds, he trembled and tried to take even a single breath but failed before collapsing backward and sending a puff of dust into the air. His hands released each other, and Gust laid on his rug, sucking in deep breaths just to make sure he still could. The boy coughed as his throat dried, then wiped a bit of dust off his glasses as he sat up.

“What was that?” He wondered, despite knowing the alleged answer. It was just as the book led him to believe. Absorbing spiritual energy was difficult and if he wanted to be a cultivator of any notable strength, he would need to practice.

For hours, days, and years.

When the book described millennia-old cultivators with the power of gods, Gust first assumed it was an exaggeration. If they could truly achieve immortality how high could these powers reach? There were vague references to an end goal, in which a cultivator joined the Grand Patronage Gust kept hearing about, but there was no definition or explanation of what that even meant.

Gust spent his time cultivating until the morning bell rang. He managed to max out at a few breaths. They were shallow and quick, but they counted. A very small amount of loose mana was bound within his body, slowly leaking away.

Gust didn’t feel any different, besides tired, but he knew it was a slow process. That was one of the few things he knew about cultivation.

With such a slow start, Gust was already worrying that he wouldn’t be able to pass the first threshold before this world bled him dry, as Ephraim had warned. Gust had seen too much to still doubt the man. While he sat in the center of the room, trying to cultivate, Gust wondered how much time he had before he withered away.

When the low chime rang out over the entire region, people began going about their business. A few still stared at Gust as he emerged from his new home, but most were only concerned with their own duties.

Finding the chore house was simple enough. Most of the traffic was headed in the same direction. As he approached, Gust saw many green-sashed students leaving the large warehouse with various tools.

When he stepped inside, Gust found a narrow room with a large board dominating the wall. It was covered in missions; the likes of which Gust wouldn’t be able to touch for a long time. They were short on details, but Gust saw requests to clear out beasts, collect specific herbs, escort mortals, and many more.

Gust’s eyes rose above the mission board to find a large mural covering the rest of the wall up to the ceiling. It depicted a group of eleven mages fanning out from a man whose eyes glowed like the sun. Every one of them was covered in extravagant robes and holding a weapon, an artifact, or glowing from the use of a spell.

Theo stepped out of a small office with a ledger in his hand. “Ah, Augustus! Our newest student. How was your first night?”

“Could’ve been better,” Gust glumly replied, thinking of the ghostly eye that prevented him from going home.

Theo followed Gust’s eyes up to the artwork on the wall. “Trying to choose a Patron? Which one are you leaning toward?” He grinned and thought of the days before he had chosen a path, when he and Obadiah discussed their plans for the future.

Gust shrugged, and then it hit him. “Oh! This is the Grand Patronage?”

Theo looked at him like he was stupid. The boy’s brown curls hung beside his tanned face as he tilted his head. “Yeah… don’t tell me you don’t even know about them. Augustus, they’re the most powerful cultivators that ever lived! They’re practically gods! I know it’s not particularly relevant, considering you haven’t even reached the first stage, but pretty much everyone chooses a Patron eventually and then follows one of their paths.”

Gust nodded and some of the information he had heard, but not understood, fell into place. These ‘paths’ people kept referring to seemed sort of like character classes, or different types of mages. Instead of being a pyromancer, they would follow the Path of the Flame, or something like that. He was still getting the hang of this world.

But that reminded him of something else. A bit of accidental advice from his father. Walk your own Path.

Suddenly, Gust wasn’t sure he wanted to choose any of these eleven gods, or Patrons, or whatever they called themselves.

He glanced at Theo, then at the mural. None of the Patrons wore chains around their arms, so Gust asked, “Which one did you pick?”

Theo grinned and pointed toward a woman in green who stood on the left side, halfway to the back of the group. “Mother Nature. The Fallen Leaf focuses on paths from her and Pestilence, but the library might have something else if those two don’t interest you.”

“What’s the difference?”

The other boy raised his eyebrows and pointed to the two figures. One was a serene woman in green robes, the other an ugly man with a noxious aura. “They couldn’t be more different! The Mother is all about living in harmony with nature, hence the name,” Theo rolled his eyes and his voice was laden with sarcasm. “Pestilence paths often deal with diseases, poisons, and alchemy, but also healing. Our forest is a pretty great place for materials, as well as communing with nature, so the sect is split almost evenly. No renegades here. Oh, those are people who cultivate without a path or Patron.”

Gust nodded. “I’ve picked up on that. The Patrons sound… amazing, but I don’t think I can pick quite yet.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just focus on simple cultivation for now,” Theo reassured him. “Mana in, mana out. But mostly in,” he winked.

Gust’s eyes latched onto the open ledger tucked under Theo’s elbow and found some of the jobs. Disciples were assigned to carry pales of water, cut firewood, or help in the kitchens and much more. The list covered the entire page, and Gust was sure several more. At least a few hundred people lived in this little town, by his estimate.

Theo handed Gust a clay pot and a small pouch of rice with vegetables and meat mixed in, then led him out to the courtyard in the center of the town. The white tiles gave way to a mosaic in the center, which depicted two powerful mages. There was a hideous man covered in boils and surrounded by a green aura, and a beautiful woman cradled in the roots of an enormous tree.

A small blonde boy was mopping one corner of the massive open area in front of the grounds’ central cathedral. Despite the cool morning air, sweat was already making the boy’s robe cling to his thin body. He paused and wiped his forehead with a sleeve as Theo approached.

“Got you some help Locke! One of you can fetch the water while the other works. You can sort that out amongst yourselves. Two people means you only have one day to finish the job though, so this place better be sparkling clean by dinner bell, or you can think about how hungry you are while you work faster tomorrow!”

Upon hearing this, the boy shook his head and gritted his teeth. Blue, lidded eyes avoided the two newcomers as Locke sighed.

As Theo turned to leave, Gust stopped him. “When you say this whole place, you don’t mean…” He swept his arm across a courtyard the size of a hockey rink, hoping they were only responsible for a section of it.

The young man grinned, understanding. “Oh, I do. The entire thing. You’ll need to get used to working hard around here. Won’t get anywhere if you don’t. Don’t worry though, I think Locke will teach you that himself.”

As Gust was left to his work, he sighed. The only job he’d ever had was stocking shelves. He’d had to clean up the occasional mess, but never thought he’d see himself mopping floors or hauling water.

Slowly, Gust lifted his clay vat and walked over to join his new partner. “I’m Augustus,” he offered. “Do they really just expect us to work like this all day every day?”

There were the wet, slapping sounds of the mop as the boy returned to his work. “River’s about a quarter mile north,” Locke said bluntly, jabbing a thumb in that direction. “Better get started. If we miss dinner, I’m taking your breakfast.”

Gust grimaced at the other boy’s back and clutched the empty vat in his hands. Locke was pretty scrawny. If anything, Gust would take his food, but he didn’t believe it would come down to that. This world wasn’t that cruel.

Was it?