“What do you mean, ‘it shouldn’t be possible’?” Was something wrong? Had I fucked it up somehow? I’d dropped out of my trance to look at Colson who wore a pensive expression, considering and calculating. A knot had hastily formed in my stomach at his words, and I immediately felt apprehension and insecurity try to wrestle my sense of accomplishment away from me.

He frowned like he was trying to figure out how to convey his thoughts. “Kid, it’s, a lot you know? It doesn’t really work like that, or at least it’s not supposed to,” he started.

Well, that cleared everything right up and eased my discomfort immediately.

“I’ve heard of fast consolidation before,” he continued, unaware of my sarcastic internal rebuttal, “it’s not that abnormal. But there’s fast and then there’s lightspeed. The amount you’ve managed to trace out in one go is huge, it should’ve taken you days or maybe weeks to trace it that far.”

“Okaaay,” I drew out the word a little, thinking. It was outside of the norm, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a bad thing, did it? I asked him as much.

“It’s not- oh,” he seemed to realise his choice of words had gotten me worried, “I was lost in thought. No, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you take a look at your Sigil, does the colour look consistent all the way ‘round? And the foundational lines?”

Sneaking a peek inside my mind’s eye I concluded that yes, the colour was the same all the way around, as were the lines.

“That’s good, that’s good,” he breathed a relieved sigh. Okay, there was potentially a less-than-desirable outcome.

“Remember when we talked about how you shouldn’t try to trace your Sigil with aether when you were tired? How it could potentially stunt your growth?”

“Yeah?” I recalled how he’d told me that if you overworked yourself while building your foundation, your Sigil might not be able to hold aether as well. The knot in my stomach tightened.

“One of the hallmarks of a Sigil that’s weakened is a lighter shade of colour or unevenly traced lines,” he gestured with his hands as he spoke.

“Imagine building a railroad“–weird analogy but I kept quiet–“but in some places the tracks are thinner. The pressure from the train remains the same right? That means that over time, the integrity of the railroad is compromised until it potentially shatters.”

“What happens then?” That seemed bad. Very bad.

“You’ll leak aether,” his voice was grave. “At first your foundation will work fine, but because the integrity’s weak, you won’t be able to draw aether as well. Then at some point, the weakened part of your foundation can break and if that happens, you’ll continually leak aether. You don’t even have to be drawing on it. As long as you’ve got some stored up, you’ll leak tiny amounts all the time.”

We sat in silence for a while and I thought of my rapid advancement. Closing my eyes, I double- and triple-checked that the colour and my lines were consistent.

“It looks fine,” I offered again, “no irregular lines or weird colouring anywhere.”

“Good, then we don’t have to worry about that. You’ll need to keep an eye out in the future though, okay?” Colson tried to sound upbeat about it, but I could tell that he was still a little worried.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I scolded and blew out a long breath, relief washing over me.

“Sorry kiddo,” he did sound apologetic.

“Didn’t mean to worry you. Was worried myself there for a sec. I don’t want you to work on any more aether tonight, but tomorrow I’d like you to check how much of the green aether’s left,” he informed me.

Acknowledging his reasoning and confirming I wouldn’t do anything else tonight, I decided that perhaps it was time for bed. I stood up, my legs aching with effort.

“I can do that. What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

Getting the hint, Colson stood as well. “Tomorrow we’ll start some basic training and sparring.” He pondered for a second.

“Jasper’s probably got some different weapons stashed away we can use. Like I said, I’m not much of a melee fighter, but I can draw on a little aether, so I can block your blows. It’s not very effective training for you if I just dodge everything.”

Saying goodnight, he departed, and I checked my phone before turning in. There was a request that I join the El-Reno’s in a group chat. I pressed accept.

Chuckling a little, I turned the screen off and prepared for bed.

Wait, do magical bedbugs exist? A shudder ran through me.

I felt a pang of sympathy for Mateo. During all the hubbub and aftermath of our little quest, we hadn’t even gotten around to asking him about his van. That was an issue for tomorrow.

I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next day Colson woke me up at around 9 AM. My body was a little lethargic, but I figured it would wake up when we started our training. We went down to have breakfast at Jasper’s, courtesy of our host.

Afterwards, Colson explained that we’d get started on a regular training routine.

We’d warm up with a 10km (6.2 mile) run, followed by 100 pushups, 100 situps and 100 squats.

Frowning at the rudimentary outline of the training program, I asked if it wasn’t a little basic. He scoffed at me and told me that it was the training regime of one of the strongest people he knew.

Then five minutes later he declared he was now ahead in our little game by seven to five. I’d missed a reference in there somewhere.

In reality, we drove to town and joined a local gym. After a thirty-minute warmup on the treadmill, we then went through the hardest full-body workout of my life.

Imara had been right. Colson was a rough taskmaster. When we were done–two hours later–I was completely wiped out. Colson had worked out alongside me, and he hadn’t seemed affected in the slightest. Of course, he’d been awfully smug about it too.

When we eventually returned to Jasper’s—after eating a nice brunch at a buffet—Colson told me to use the ring for the first time.

“Won’t get anything out of a spar if you’re all tuckered out,” he told me, “I’ll fill it up after we’re done, don’t worry.”

I wasn’t sure how to proceed, however. Imara had told me to just will the ring to activate and it would ease my discomfort and heal any minor injuries. When I asked Colson about it, he told me to stare intently at the ring and think out the word “heal”. Being halfway sure he was playing another one of his pranks on me, I eventually caved and concentrated on the ring until I was blue in the face.

Heal.

The scents I’d experienced in the wake of dying hit reached my nose first: wet earth and freshly cut grass.

Then, I felt the ring expend its aether and it soared into me, easing my discomfort immediately. It felt like a good night’s sleep, a nice hot shower, and sitting under a blanket drinking a warm beverage—all bundled up into one. My sore muscles relaxed, the fatigue lessened, and my mind became clear.

“That’s fucking brilliant,” I exclaimed, looking at the ring in wonder.

“Told ya it was a nice little item,” Colson said and beamed at me, “you won’t find many of these going around. It’s a good thing Imara’s wise enough to inscribe them on the inside, or we might just have to fend off other Holders.”

Good thing, indeed. I nodded.

While I’d been fidgeting with the ring to get it to work, Colson had gone inside Jasper’s and borrowed a couple of weapons we could use, a shortsword and a bō staff. Since there weren’t a lot of people, or traffic, around these parts, we were going to spar out in the open. If anyone thought to confront us, we could just tell them what we were doing honestly. There was nothing illegal about it.

Colson wasn’t the best sparring partner I’d had. His ability to match or exceed my speed was great, but his technique was awful. He flailed the sword around like it was trying to bite him and almost tripped himself with the staff when he tried to twirl it around. Skill notwithstanding, I still had my work cut out for me trying to hit his bulky frame and I used every trick in the book in my attempts. I hadn’t hit him once and he’d felt no need to draw on his Sigil.

When we moved to unarmed combat, he was a different beast entirely.

He used a martial arts style I’d never encountered before. Elusive and tricky, it consisted of feints and counterattacks that were so effective that it felt like I was seven all over again.

His style favoured punches heavily and there were only a couple of times where he kicked at me.

If I threw a punch at his face, he’d move to block it with one hand while simultaneously using his superior reach to tab me in my stomach or on the side of my head, faster than I could blink. Because I was committed to the movement I was doing, he managed to get inside my guard before I could do anything about it. We broke off and re-engaged half a dozen times, to no avail on my part.

It was so frustrating that my irritation started to bleed through the tranquil mind.

“I’ve got years of experience on you, kid,” he told me during one of our breaks, “with your mix of skills you’re a bit of an allrounder—a good one—but an allrounder nonetheless. I’ve specialised in hand-to-hand all my life.”

“You haven’t used any of it so far though, right?” I asked, dousing myself with half a bottle of water.

“Ain’t been necessary. I can draw on my Sigil and overpower many Holders or creatures through brute force alone,” he explained.

“But if two Holders of roughly the same power square off, where one has technique and training and the other only has power, who do you think’s gonna win?” he asked rhetorically.

“Easy, the one with experience,” I answered promptly.

“Exactly. Even if one Holder is weaker than the other, they’ll often come out on top—depending on the power difference—of course. And it can make a big difference if you’re fighting some other creature.“

During our small breaks, we also kept up-to-date with Sally and the others on ParaWeb. They’d all gone home to get some rest and recuperate and told us they’d be back when the E.I.S. got here.

In the evening we repeated last night’s procedure. Colson urged me not to use the green aether since we didn't know how much was left. He explained that mixing the two types wasn't fatal, but if I did it, I'd probably be out of commission for a day or two.

Entering the tranquil mind was becoming second nature at this point. I filled my Sigil with ambient aether first, then absorbed what I could into myself. Before I started tracing out more of my foundation, Colson asked me to check on the green aether, so I pooled some around my eyes and enabled the sight.

The baseball-sized green aether had shrunk down to the size of a walnut. Colson didn’t seem particularly surprised at my revelation and simply told me that it was to be expected given the nature of my Sigil’s advancement. Not using the life-aether, a term I asked if we could use instead of "green aether", had been the right choice.

We repeated our routine for two more days and I was seeing definite growth in my Sigil. Not as much as when I'd used the life-aether, but still faster than average, according to Colson.

When Colson knocked on my door to wake me on the fourth day, he told me to get dressed and head down to Jasper's quickly.

The Board's representatives were finally here.