In spite of Master Ephraim’s friendly appearance, Gust felt a jolt of fear. He wanted to explode in anger, to berate this man for caring so little about his students that he would let them kill each other, but he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere.

From the first moment he stepped into this world, Gust didn’t trust anyone. Part of it was because of the strange way they spoke of his father, and another part because they refused to let him go home, but most of all: Gust just didn’t trust people until he got to know them.

He was quick to admit that he barely knew this Ephraim, but the friendly smiles and the calm exterior were clearly no more than a front. He may be cleverer than Christos, but Ephraim was no more benevolent.

It was with a deep breath and clenched fists that Gust willingly walked out of the safest place he knew. He peeked back at the blood stain, then met Ephraim’s eyes and bowed his head.

The Master had a confused expression as he scanned Gust’s soul with his mana sense and found a part of it missing. That and the boy’s closed eye made him curious. He spoke coolly, “You’ve had an interesting few days, it seems.”

Gust opened his dark eye and blinked rapidly as he adjusted to the darkness dominating the right side of his vision. Then he raised his head.

Master Ephraim stumbled back as his jaw dropped. He pulled a hand out of his robes and spoke a few quick words into a small gem, then his hand clenched around it. Blue dust flew into the air and zipped around a building.

The old man’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, his eyes and the full weight of his mana sense were focused hard on that strange, black eye.

Gust felt an immense pressure building around his body. He held no mana whatsoever, but his Pathway Establishment cultivation still provided enough strength to remain standing.

“What... is this?” The Master whispered. The pressure around Gust faded but didn’t disappear.

Gust calmed his breathing and tried to remember everything Saith told him.

Then he lied his ass off. “It’s called the Void Eye. My Master gave it to me when he realized I wasn’t safe out here.” His dark and light eye each met the Master’s gaze.

Ephraim’s dark complexion paled, and his eyes widened. “You never did say how he died. But how could he be here? We would have sensed his return.”

As he said this, Master Christos appeared above the building behind him. The purple robed man hopped off a dark, wooden sword and it flew into a pouch at his waste. As soon as he landed, he was scanning his surroundings with one hand poised on his pouch, ready to call out weapons or defenses as needed.

“Where is he?” Christos bellowed.

Gust nodded toward the second floor of his father’s old home. “In there. In the Subtle Blade. He isn’t the Swordsman, though. Not exactly. Just a small piece of his Starsoul.” While he said that word with confidence, Gust realized he had no idea what a Starsoul even was. He’d heard the term plenty of times, and understood it had something to do with late stage cultivation, but that was all.

While the two Masters stared at the cabin in fear and awe, Gust pointed to his right eye and kept speaking. “He sees through this eye, now. I don’t mean any disrespect Masters, but he wanted me to let you know he’ll be watching. The darkness in me is a reminder of his influence. He doesn’t want me to be pampered, just wants to make sure I won’t be held back.”

Ephraim pulled his eyes away and stared at the ground, nodding quickly.

Christos waved a hand through the air. “You needn’t worry about Isaac anymore. Nor anyone else. He will be taking over your instruction, then?”

Gust nodded. “My own cultivation methods and spells will be based on his, but he wants you two to cover the basics for me.”

“Such as?” Christos asked with a sneer. His hands were clenched into fists.

“Anything too basic to bother him about,” Gust shrugged. “Mana sense, for starters. I can’t figure out how to use it.”

The two Masters shared a long look before Christos leapt back onto his flying sword and left in a streak of light.

Ephraim watched him leave and his lips pressed tightly together. This situation had quickly become a mess. It was mostly Christos’s fault, but Ephraim knew he had a chance to stop the attack. Instead, he went to Christos.

Now, he had to be careful. This Pathway Establishment mage was his junior, and yet there was a Starsoul behind his eyes. Ephraim knew little about that stage of cultivation, but it was enough to be sure he was a bug compared to that kind of power. He wanted to turn this into an opportunity, but if Ephraim became this boy’s groveling servant, he would never regain the respect of the other Masters.

He would need to speak with the Matriarch about this when she returned, but for now Ephraim tried to act as if nothing had changed. He cycled his mana and focused on the flow as he returned to a calmer state.

“The mana sense is our third eye,” he began. Slowly, his eyes left the trail of his friend and turned toward Gust. “Have a seat and cultivate. Whatever he did to you drained everything you had. Did he… take that part of your soul as recompense?”

The young man nodded, and he saw fear in Ephraim’s eyes. He knew the Master would be worrying about losing his own soul if he didn’t comply. Gust counted on that fear keeping him safe as he walked closer to Ephraim and sat on what he hoped was the edge of the Subtle Blade’s sword mana.

He sat down and closed his eyes, extended his arms and tried to emulate the blade with his every limb. When his breathing began, Gust felt sharp pain throughout the surface of his body as sparse sword mana entered his pores and began flowing through his dormant meridian.

Much as he wanted to keep his cool and put off an intimidating aura like Saith, Gust’s teeth clenched and his arms shook.

The silver energy was surrounded by pure, blue mana, but it still felt like icy water was scraping through his body and entering his soul.

The mana naturally pooled in the center of his soul and Gust watched carefully as it approached his core. As Saith had explained, the mana didn’t automatically enter that mysterious maroon core. Instead, it simply gathered and sat there, waiting to be used.

After watching the mana flow without guidance for a minute, Gust paid keen attention to the open meridian and forced mana through it. The new pathway began lighting up at his heart and split as it flowed toward his hands. Gust wondered what he would do to turn the mana around, then realized it wasn’t necessary.

When the mana reached his hands, instead of getting stuck there, it flowed back into his soul through the very same meridian it entered. Gust latched onto this loop and pushed mana through it as he struggled to understand.

Unlike veins and arteries carrying blood to and away from the heart, every meridian was both an entry and an exit point to his body. Mana flowed out through his meridian, entering his heart and heading toward his hands, at which point it flowed back into his soul. Thus, Gust established his first cycle.

“That should be enough,” Ephraim said.

The sudden noise caused Gust to lose control of the cycle and soon his pathways went quiet. The mana flowed back into his soul, where most of it stayed.

The Master sneered, “You’ll need to practice maintaining your cycle. Whether you are fighting, or learning, it should never stop. For your first time, though, that was good.” After waiting a few seconds, he said, “Open your eyes, Augustus.”

When Gust did, something else opened up as well. His mana sense. It was as instinctive and simple as opening his eyes, but it had never happened because he lacked the mana. Now, the world exploded with detail.

There was a faint blue sheen over the trees, as if the sky had come down to Earth. Gust’s jaw dropped as he stared into the forest and found that this new sense was far more deliberate than vision. Instead of only opening it, he could direct it. And so, he pushed this awareness toward the forest and saw birds high on their branches, bugs in the dirt, and every leaf individually.

Then he turned and gaped at the elder as he saw Ephraim with his mana sense for the first time. The man glowed in Gust’s mind’s eye as he were looking straight into a dim light bulb. As he focused and pressed his mana sense into the man, he could slightly make out Ephraim’s soul.

Instead of a blob of energy, the elder’s cultivation base was a mass of roots spreading out from the stump of a tree. It was a pure forest green, but light blue mana filled the space around it. Some of these roots spread out from the center and pressed through the barrier of his soul, connecting to his meridians.

Ephraim suddenly smirked and stopped suppressing his cultivation base.

Gust shouted as his hands flung over his eyes and he clenched them shut. The dull green and blues had erupted into a blaze of color so bright it hurt to look at.

Ephraim grinned and spoke in a lecturing tone. “That would usually be considered rude, but I know you don’t know any better. Try it again.”

After a few deep breaths, Gust slowly and carefully opened his eyes. This time, he sensed something flowing out of his meridians and into the world. His mana sense.

This time, when he found Ephraim, he only saw the man. There didn’t appear to be anything special about him whatsoever; it was no different from seeing him normally. When Gust pressed his mana sense into the man, he found an impenetrable wall. He tilted his head and furrowed his brows as he pressed harder, to no avail.

The Master cleared his throat. “You only saw into my soul because I let you, Augustus. One’s soul is as private as their deepest thoughts, and you should remember to respect that. You shouldn’t use your mana sense to observe anyone’s soul any more than you would use it to peek into a fellow student’s home. Remember to be careful, as some cultivators take offense very easily. Now,” Ephraim slapped the bag of holding at his waist and a pair of wooden swords flew out. He stepped onto one and it floated into the air as he held out a hand toward the other.

Gust blinked and said, “I don’t know how to do that.”

“It’s a good thing I’m here to teach you the basics, then.”

With that, Ephraim moved his hand through the air and Gust felt something shove him onto the wooden sword. As soon as his feet were planted, the pair flew into the air.