Two months after the funeral, Leith still didn’t know what to feel.

The most debilitating thing was that he didn’t feel as much anymore. He wished he were crying. Sobbing and tearing at his hair. No, instead he just felt numb.

The numbness scared Leith. When he ate food, it tasted okay. When he went to bathe, the water was alright. When he prayed, he made supplications for his father without shedding tears. When he visited his father’s grave, he cleaned it and stood solemnly for a minute or two before going on with his day.

Throughout the day, Leith made medicine. He diagnosed and treated patients. Collected money and purchased groceries.

He knew he was sad. At night when he was too exhausted, the numbness dissipated a little. Only then, within the safety of his blanket and the chirp of crickets masking his sobs would he cry. Sob into the pillow for a while until he fell asleep.

Leith knew that his disinterest in, well, everything was scaring his mother. He used to visit Carrie once a week to learn to bake different types of bread. He used to take Hani with him to the forest, so they could scour for useful plants and so that Leith could teach him everything that he had learned. Leith used to be interested in hunting, too, and he would go listen in on the stories the old and retired hunters would sometimes tell near the market. He enjoyed reading before and would take anything he could find in the dingy library they had, having made a habit of rereading at least one book every week.

Leith was now content with doing nothing outside of what he absolutely had to do. A small part of him was angry, telling him that his father would be irritated to see him behaving this way. A larger part of him, however, whispered in his ear that it was perfectly okay to shut down. To stay numb and not let himself do anything more than what was necessary to avoid burdening his remaining family.

He wanted to avoid thinking about his father and his corpse. Leith didn’t want to face the reality that everything would continue to go on even in his absence.

Leith also didn’t want to reopen old wounds. Unfortunately, memories tended to be rather wily and mischievous, choosing to surface regardless of how hard he tried to push them down. In his dreams he’d see his father’s dead body, and worse, he’d see his sister’s body too, the source of his never-ending guilt.

Hell, he felt guilty about his father’s death too.

This time, he was not directly responsible. He did not wield the blade that took his father’s life. However, Leith might as well have been the one to send him into the Rift to get executed.

Leith’s father only ventured into the Rift so much because of him, after all. To earn more gold, just so he could try and fulfill his idiot son’s dream of achieving an education. If not for Leith, perhaps his father wouldn’t have delved into the Rift this time. Maybe he would have stayed home and their family would still be mostly intact

Leith was aware that this line of thinking was stupid, but he just couldn’t help it. The sense of guilt intermingled with sorrow and pervaded his chest whenever he thought of his father, unwilling to heed logic.

Two more months passed by, and with time, Leith’s grief receded little by little. While it still was nowhere near gone, he also realized that acting as a useless dunce was stupid. His father, if he was still here, would certainly be upset with him.

Leith realized he needed to distract himself, to focus on something that was not death for some time. Thankfully, an opportunity presented itself to him before long.

Leith had just finished delivering a batch of pain medicine to an arthritic patient when Alcide intercepted him. The hunter had left the day after the funeral and so Leith was startled when he appeared before him, accompanied by a woman with shoulder-length brown hair.

“Hey Leith, how are you doing?” Alcide asked, then visibly wincing as if he had asked a stupid question.

It was kind of funny how awkward and unintimidating Alcide was. At first, his reputation as the fearsome Sword Saint coupled with his tall build was somewhat imposing. After just spending a day with him, however, Leith realized that he was oddly normal. Just a man with a life outside of war who just happened to be a warrior of the highest caliber.

“I’ve been alright. How are you? And who’s your friend?” Leith asked, turning his eyes to the woman, who pushed her hood back to reveal emerald green eyes and a smiling face.

“I’m doing great. This here is–” Alcide was about to introduce the woman when she interrupted him.

“Hi Leith! My name is Elea, nice to meet you,” she said while stepping up to Leith and bowing towards him.

“Nice to meet you,” Leith responded, offering an awkward bow of his own.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Elea told him earnestly, her smile curving downwards a bit sympathetically.

“Thank you,” Leith replied respectfully. A twinge of pain resounded through his mind at the mention of his father, but it was less pronounced that it was before. At least, he was pretty sure it didn’t show on his face.

“Leith, Alcide and I wanted to make you an offer. Would you be willing to come with us somewhere private to talk?” Elea asked.

Leith glanced at Alcide who nodded affirmatively. What type of offer could they possibly have for him? Leith was somewhat suspicious, but it was Alcide and his companion asking and the man had proved himself more than once that he could be trusted.

“Sure,” he replied, following them towards the outskirts of the town.

Lily, who was waiting by the wall at the edge of town, immediately rushed over to Leith and nudged her nose into his chest as they approached her.

“Hey girl, it's good to see you again,” Leith told her, laughing softly as she started licking at his face.

“So, what did you guys want to tell me?” he asked, turning to Alcide and Elea.

“Before we do, I need to test you with something,” Elea replied.

Alcide rummaged inside a pack attached to Lily’s harness, procuring a faintly glowing pale blue gemstone.

“Why would you want to test me?”

“Just go along with it for now, please,” Alcide requested.

Leith shrugged and grabbed the gem Alcide held out. To his surprise, the faceted jewel began exuding an electric hum, his fingers tingling as he came into contact with it. He had never seen a riftcore so pretty before.

“Alright Leith, I want you to do something very simple for me. Create heat.” Elea commanded.

“What?”

“Use the riftcore to make heat. Alcide said you were good at manipulating chroma. It should be pretty simple, right?”

“Um, yeah, sure.”

A strange request, but nothing particularly difficult. If anything, heat should be easy. Leith practiced heat to cauterize wounds countless times under his father’s supervision and would often quickly boil water with a touch of his fingers to a spare core when he was too impatient to wait.

Leith clutched the riftcore in between his fingers and imagined pushing out some of the energy in the form of heat. Curiously, the riftcore seemed to resist. The electric hum he had felt earlier seemed to almost rebound back into the core as Leith struggled to push out heat. If anything, Leith’s fingers started to feel colder.

Confused, Leith tried clamping more forcefully on the chroma he felt, imagining heat leaving the core, only to feel even greater resistance. It felt as if there was a mental block preventing the chroma in the core from heeding his command. This wasn’t too uncommon– most cores would refuse to obey without a bit of a push. He just had never felt this much resistance.

Leith had to vividly imagine the change he wanted taking place so that energy would leap out of the core, breaking apart the mental blockade, and do his bidding. This riftcore, however, placed a mental wall that Leith struggled to surpass, something that he had never experienced before. He pushed more forcefully, trying to convert the energy within into heat with all of his might, imagining his will breaking apart a thick wall stopping him short of his goal. 

The wall seemed to break all at once, the cold that was resisting him melting away into heat. The riftcore lost a large amount of chroma all at once, and blistering heat emanated outwards from Leith’s hand. He hastily backed away, dropping the core as he felt his face burning from the heat. The core immediately burned the grass it landed upon, setting everything in a small radius on fire.

Elea immediately rushed over and stamped the fire out, picking up the newly dull and presumably blisteringly hot core with her bare fingers. “That was amazing!” Elea exclaimed, grinning at Leith.

“Why was that so difficult?” Leith asked. He was bewildered, never having held a riftcore so strange before.

“Given you live in such a rural area, I don’t think you’ve seen riftcores of such high quality before.” Alcide continued as Leith nodded in confirmation, “Riftcores can be of any color, though white is predominant. Most weaker cores tend to be white and white cores generally can be used for everything. Other cores, however, like this one,” Alcide said, beckoning towards Elea who was holding out the blue riftcore. “can have certain specialties. The riftcore that you just used to create heat is a cold-aspected core. I’m sure you know that riftcores have different specialties, but I don’t think you were aware how powerful these specialties can be. These higher quality cores actively fight against your commands if you try to make them do something they don’t want.”

“Okay, so basically since it's cold-aspected like you said, it’s naturally opposed to heat and was resisting my attempts to manipulate its chroma?”

“Yes, precisely!” Elea chirped. “I don’t think you realize how impressive that is– most kids your age would struggle a lot more to pull that off!”

Leith didn’t really see what was so impressive. He just pushed hard and it eventually obeyed.

“And so, that brings us to our proposition,” Alcide said. “How would you feel about attending the Great Academy?”

Huh?

“You want me to attend the Academy? That’s absurd…” Leith replied, utterly perplexed.

The Great Academy was a school known for creating the greatest warriors and academics of the nation. The Academy’s students were largely nobility and the children of warrior families. Sure, there were a good number of commoners too, but they had to go through a long vetting process of exams and classes before admission… and a substantial tuition fee, of course. Someone like Leith could never attend the Academy. He didn’t have the background or knowledge for entrance. And yet a renowned warrior from the Surge War was telling him that he could.

“Leith, do you know how the admission to the Academy actually works?” Alcide asked. Leith shook his head and Alcide continued, “Well, the Academy has two methods of acceptance. The first is a series of entrance exams. I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories about how difficult they are and whatnot, and all of that is certainly true. More importantly, even if you pass the exam, you owe a massive tuition. Therefore, this method is only open to the children of merchants or lower nobility, along with some commoners who manage to scrounge up just enough funds to attend the Academy. However, there is another method of admission. Recommendations.”

“So, do you intend on recommending me then? Sorry to disappoint you but I highly doubt I could ever survive in an environment like that. Besides, where would the money come from?” Leith said. He didn’t know what these two were planning, but he never had a formal education. There was no way he could survive in a prestigious place like the Academy, not to mention the assuredly extreme tuition fees.

“Well you see, after the Surge War, certain influential figures were bestowed the ability to recommend one student every year to the Great Academy. It was essentially a way for nobles to make sure that their heirs can attend the Academy. A recommendation is equivalent to full scholarship, exempting you not only from tuition but also exempting you from entrance exams. I happen to be someone who can grant a recommendation,” Alcide replied, smiling faintly.

“Also,” Elea interrupted. “You are more than sufficiently skilled to attend the Academy. Yes, it will likely be difficult, given you probably don’t have much experience in general subjects, such as math or languages. However, you’ve proven yourself talented in controlling chroma. Alcide here tells me you have good instincts and the characteristics of making a useful hunter.” Elea walked up to Leith and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You must remember, the Academy is primarily a nurturing place for warriors, and you have all the makings of becoming a great one in the future.”

Leith stared at the two of them, growing more and more confused by the moment. “Look… I think you’re vastly overestimating me. There’s no way I can hold a candle to anyone at that place. I mean, I’m just a kid from a village in the middle of nowhere.”

“You’re talented, Leith,” Alcide said quietly. “Do you know how exceptionally difficult it is to override a riftcore and use it in a way it opposes? The purpose of that test was to see if you truly have the talent to thrive at the Academy. Elea is a prodigy herself, and since you’ve impressed even her I’m confident that you will do well. I can assure you that almost no one else your age can pull off a feat like that. In fact, most adults can’t either. It would take the average person years upon years of training to build up to that level, and to do it so quickly? We’re talking decades of experience unless you’re unnaturally talented. I’m willing to bet that your control over chroma will become one of the best in the nation let alone just the Academy. Yes, you are lacking in almost everything else. Yes, it will be extremely difficult. But what we are saying is that you have the ability to succeed there if you try, even if it takes immense effort.”

Leith didn’t know what to think. He was suspicious– they had absolutely no reason to give them this opportunity. There must have been some catch, something that they could gain from offering something like this. Unless they were truly doing this out of the kindness of their hearts? No, it's better to be suspicious. Easy trust killed his father, and he refused to make the same mistake.

“Why would you do this for me? I find it difficult to believe that you would just grant me something of such value without wanting anything in return.”

Alcide and Elea looked at each other, and some sort of understanding seemed to pass between them.

Alcide sighed and began, “I truly believe you deserve this opportunity. And, I understand you don’t want to trust me so easily, but I have a reason to want to help you. I’m indebted to your father and I believe granting you this opportunity is the best way to repay that debt.”

“You’re a lot younger than my father, aren’t you?”

Alcide shrugged. “I am younger, yes, but I’m not that much younger. Besides, the Surge War recruited anyone regardless of age. If you were useful in any way, you could consider yourself a part of the army. At any rate, your father looked over me and saved my life multiple times.”

“While I wasn’t that close to him, your father personally tended to me once, treating me for an arrow lodged in my stomach. I owe him my life as well,” Elea added, smiling faintly.

Leith had no reason to doubt them. It checked out, his father had served the Royal Hunters during the Surge War as a medic, and that Alcide had served during the same time was a fact recorded in history books. The Sword Saint was well-known, and he had no reason to lie about something like this. That he brought along a friend to test Leith who had also served during the same war reaffirmed his credence.

Not only that, unless Alcide personally knew Leith’s father, there was no way he’d be able to recognize the man from just a bloodied corpse.

The longer he thought about the proposition, the more enticing the idea grew. Graduating from the Great Academy would certainly net him a well-paying job. He could work as a hunter or a medic, or maybe even both, and he’d be well-respected at that. The money could be used to send Hani to school. The boy had always expressed an interest in education after all. Leith could even make sure that his mother would never have to work again. Perhaps they could even move to a better town.

Besides the money… Leith couldn’t help but feel a little excited at the prospect. He didn’t forget how Alcide had beheaded those fiends in an instant with a gust of wind turning him into a blur. Could Leith do things like that too with a proper education?

What tempted Leith most was the memories of his father recounting stories of his past. Leith recalled these memories with a pang of sadness, but also with an odd sense of wistfulness. He could now follow in his father’s footsteps if he wanted to, even if it wasn’t exactly the same.

Leith wanted to say yes, but decided against it. It would be best to discuss this with his mother first, he decided.

“Thank you for the offer. I have to talk to my family about it, but I think I’ll consider accepting it,” Leith answered.

“Good,” Alcide said, smiling. “Talk it over with your mother. I hope you decide to take this opportunity.”

Elea handed him an envelope with an address already written on it. “Alcide and I will be staying at a nearby town for the next month or so. Mail this to us when you make a decision and we’ll come and get you.”

Leith accepted the envelope and bid them farewell. Walking back home, he realized that he was actually eager, an emotion he hadn’t felt a single time in the past several months.