Flyte stopped trying to sleep after two hours of laying down. It was going to waste his time trying, and he felt like he might as well be productive.

That put Flyte where he was now. He had moved away from the little camp Ontin lead and was working on improving his light spears.

Ever since Hilda's injury, Flyte had been working nonstop, trying to get better at the abilities fate decided to give him.

For now, he wanted to increase the amount of lightspears he could fire in one casting. He could only fire around five in twice as many minutes, but if he could fire more simultaneously, like Ithilles, he felt like he could affect a battle much more; however, no matter how aggressively Flyte made his cast, no additional spears ever fired.

Exhausted, Flyte fired one last spear. Again, failing to conjure two, he sat down to catch his breath for what seemed like the eighteenth time since sunset.

"Flyte," Ontin greeted.

"Ontin, you're back!" Flyte exclaimed. "Did the healing go well?"

"Yes, Hilda is back in top shape." Ontin paused, looking at the hundreds of trees that Flyte's spears bored through. "You trying to improve your magic?"

"Yeah, but I'm not having any success."

"Wrong," Ontin said pointing to the trees. "Your spears have increased in potency by a tremendous rate. If you look properly, you see that they even doubled in diameter."

Flyte hadn't noticed that at all, but now that Ontin pointed it out, he could see his improvements.

Ontin spoke again. "I suppose you were trying to make two spears. Given that your spear doubled in size, what do you think might be the key to splitting them?"

"I don't know," Flyte answered half-heartedly. "I've never really had any formal magic training."

"An excuse. Those with real training never have the same creativity as a real mage. Just think up any change that might affect the number of spears you create."

Flyte began to think over that. 'With magic in general, a mage fits the magic word to the spell and the spell begins to activate. If Flyte said Forslo, fire would form.'

'Wait!'

'Fire wouldn't just form. The fire moved according to his desire, or rather his will. Magic is like a contract. He provides the word, and the magic delivers his will.'

Flyte could feel that he had regained the energy to fire another lightspear.

"Nelar," Flyte said aggressively, this time consciously splitting the spear in two.

"Good," Ontin remarked. "Do you understand what you did?"

"Not really," Flyte said. "I recognized that when I cast a spell, the magic bends to my will, but that's about it."

"You're close," Ontin said. "When you cast a spell, spirits as strong as the cast follow your word, and then they do what was asked of them. In all reality, your words only allow spirits to affect the corporeal world, and your intents bind them."

Flyte could imagine the possibilities. Even just his spears could be versatile enough for any fight. 'If I split my spears into sm-'

"Note, Flyte, that it takes more energy to split your spears than to have one spear, and each additional direction will take up even more energy. You won't be able to scatter needles in several directions for a while."

"How did you know?" Flyte asked, terrified of the possibility of mind reading.

"It's typical for a mage to wonder about when they first hear about the 'spirit contract,'" Ontin smiled, as if thinking about a particular moment many years ago. "Don't worry though, Flyte, given your rate of progression, you should someday be able to pelt all directions at once."

Flyte smiled, glad to have a teacher that didn't force their own agenda on him. "Thank you."

"Of course," Ontin replied. "Now go to bed."

Flyte did as commanded and fell asleep shortly.

* * *

As the sun rose, so did Flyte. He, Ander, and Elliot were all sparring against Ontin, who was winning without even using his spells. Thammeus, Hilda, and Jim.

"This is very interesting," Ontin began while dancing between his sparring partners' blades. "While Elliot fights too rigidly, Ander fights like he's in a bar, and Flyte fights like he's copying Ander."

'Well, he's not wrong.'

Soon after his statement, Ontin finished defeating Flyte and his friends as Ander fell to the ground.

"Shall we go again?" Ontin asked. He did refrain from being a complete monster by relenting when Flyte and Elliot vehemently refused while Ander mumbled discontentedly, still laying on the ground.

"Alright," Ontin conceded. "What if I instruct you instead."

As Flyte slowly began to nod his head, Ontin clapped his hands together and smiled wolfishly.

"Out of the three of you, I'll have to start one-on-one training with Flyte. Ander and Elliot, you two can spar with each other, maybe you'll rub off on each other."

Walking to the side, Ontin tossed Flyte a stick and said: "go."

As Flyte ran in to swing at Ontin, his sparring partner managed to block his attack, get up close, twist around Flyte, and trip him with a leg, all in just one motion.

"First piece of advice, Flyte, fix that posture. Your stance isn't wide enough, which both takes power from your swings and ruins your stability." Ontin moved to help Flyte to his feet. "If you can fix that, you can essentially forget about falling during a fight, and you'll also be free to use any more maneuvers with your sword."

For the next exchange, Flyte made certain to keep his stature spread wide enough to ensure stability. The real problem was his advance. As he took a few steps towards Ontin, his mentor was able to track when his foot would be off the ground, and Flyte was hit unprepared.

"This problem should be easier to remedy," Ontin smiled. "If you keep your feet low to the ground, you can always position your sword as well as needed. Some fighting styles achieve this by mandating that soldiers slide their feet, one in the back, the other in the front. I've seen some primitive fighting styles that utilize speed to keep the fighter close to the ground; if you are leaning far enough forward, your feet can't get too far from the ground. Really, as long as you can pursue as slowly as necessary and flee as quickly as needed, you'll be fine; however, that's easier said than done."

Stepping back to the square, Flyte calmed himself, breathing slowly in and out. The spar began.

Flyte waited on his side, analyzing Ontin's approach. Ontin started moving slowly towards Flyte, keeping his feet near the ground as though it were second nature. In an unexpected dash, Ontin nearly snagged Flyte with his dueling cane, but Flyte managed to duck to its side before he could get hit.

Flyte counter-attacked, using his own lower stance to try and strike Ontin beneath his guard, nut it was to no avail, as Ontin pushed himself back and quickly parried.

Abusing Flyte's lunge, Ontin struck him on his back, pushing Flyte face first into the dirt, or rather, he would have, had he not caught Flyte first.

"Honestly," Ontin began. "Good work. Now that you've at least heard the basics, whether by me or by Ander, the best course of action will be to get real world experience. You have a lot to learn, including the incorporation of spells in a fight and how to use whichever weapon you can get your hands on, but I don't have time to teach you everythng and I would prefer that you find your own fighting style anyway."

"Thank you for helping with what you could," Flyte said. Seeing how it was for Ontin to defeat him in a duel was very humbling for Flyte, but it was good that he was given the opportunity to shore up some of his weaknesses.

"Flyte," Ontin suddenly said. "What is it that originally brought you to the sword?"

"Well," Flyte began. "In prison we had what we had, which was loose rock, and Ander knew how to swing a sword pretty well, so yeah, now I use swords."

"Sorry," Ontin said unappeased. "I meant to ask what overarching motive you have that makes you fight alongside Elliot and Ander. I understand why both of them fight, but I don't think just being friends is your motivation."

Flyte waited a moment before responding. "You know, it's not something I talk about often, or even tr to think about, but I never really got to know my family. I lived with a farmer, but he was certainly not my father, see he shared no traits with me; I don't have his eyes, his hair color, face shape. His ears. Because of that, I tried to find something that would bring me closer to my parents, and I figured that if I have magic, they likely did too. Problem after problem occurs, and I found myself at Palantriss."

Ontin motioned for him to continue.

"The screams were horrible." Flyte continued his rant. "i couldn't stop myself from helping the people there, and when I did help them, I finally felt the impression that I was following in my parents' footsteps, that I was becoming someone that they could be proud of. From now on I will never leave someone's call unanswered."

Flyte though for a moment. "Except I already kind of did, with Thammeus and all." Flyte could feel the passion that had burned within his soul dissipating.

"You didn't leave Thammeus' call unanswered Flyte, if it weren't for you, Hilda would be dead." Ontin nodded to himself. "I can understand why you got along so poorly with Telin though. Your aspirations are essentially opposite to his own."

"You know Telin?" Flyte asked.

"Of course," Ontin smiled disarmingly. "Telin was essentially a guide for me and my good friend Albrek when we travelled here from Nareal."

"Nareal? Do you happen to have enough time to tell me about it?"

Ontin smiled. "Sure, I'll tell you the rudimentary details, but keep in mind that I don't want to take away Grall's fun by telling you everything about Nareal, so I'll be leaving some stuff out."

"Nareal, a land very far away, housed only one major group, the Eraics. In ancient times, the Eraics basically worshiped the dragons abundant to the region and they learned a lot from them, the most important being nodes. See, the Eraics didn't have a soul based magic like we do, and these nodes compensated for this heavily. By spending a portion of their renewable life energy, mannah, they could create buildings nearly instantly, or clear tunnels through mountains without even using their hands."

Ontin's tone got darker, "While this quickly made the Eraics the top of the food chain, it also made them complacent. The Scourge arrived at Nareal and rapidly turned the home of the world power into a graveyard, but two groups were successful in escaping the Scourge: one, now know know as Dalmenians, lived near the nesting grounds of the dragons, while the other groups, the Altruins, set up base in a place referred to as the warped peaks."

"Eraics, as a whole, had a very fast adaption speed, so the extreme amount of mannah in the wapred peaks changed the Altruins over time, giving them the innate power to create what we call gates and create and use runes. Dalmenians; however, found the fiery seas around them to be much too hot to safely live, and their bodies adapted over a few generations to become much more dragon-like and also gain the ability to direct the movement of fires around them."

Ontin motioned to himself next. "I am an example of an Altruin," he began. "Grall, on the other hand, is an example of a Dalmenian with his large stature, wings, and scales. Will that sate your curiosity for now?"

"Yes," Flyte said. "I don't know what I was expecting, but I feel like lots of information has just been dumped on me."

"Good," Ontin smiled. "If you'll stew on it, I think I'll be instructing Elliot on sword fighting next."

With that, Flyte began walking over the tent where Thammeus and Jim were celebrating Hilda's recovery. After preparing himself mentally for a moment, Flyte walked in.

Jim sat with his back towards the door and Hilda was laughing while Thammeus was grinning.

Wiping a joyful tear from her eyes, Hilda waved Flyte in. He sat down between Jim and Thammeus, who made space for him.

Thammeus looked uncomfortable and as though he was preparing to say something, but Jim spoke up first. "Was the first day of training as bad as I guessed?" He looked like he was about to laugh.

"No," Flyte said, waiting a moment. Jim looked confused until Flyte added: "It was so much worse."

That got the group telling stories and relating experiences about their worst days training. Thammeus was the only one who was silent.

Jim just finished telling his story about falling off of the same horse three different times in one day of practice with Telin when Thammeus asked Flyte to walk outside with him.

After standing uncomfortably for a second, Thammeus spoke up. "Flyte, I've been meaning to say." He paused for a moment, but Flyte just smiled reassuringly and waited patiently. "I'm sorry for what I said to you back at Ithiles. I was too cold to you and you were also having a tough time. I hope you can forgive me ."

Flyte almost laughed. "Of course I forgive you, I likely would have said the exact same thing were I in your shoes. I had made a promise, and not even half a day later, I broke it. If anyone should be asking for forgiveness, it is me."

"Well," Thammeus said. "I certainly hold no grudge."

"In that case," Flyte began. "Let's get back inside, I'll bet the food is getting cold."

Thammeus laughed and Flyte smiled. The two walked inside and agreed that if there were ever a day for celebrating, it would be today.