Crunch… crunch… crunch…

  “How many of those do you have?!” A slightly older man from the next desk over cried. His hair was quite thin for his age, she thought.

  During class, Cira struggled to keep herself awake and the only solution she could think of was to pull fruits directly from Breeze Haven’s orchard while sitting at her desk. In this moment she felt that her months in the faux-void were absolutely worth it.

  “Hundreds…. They’re in season.” Cira replied with her mouth full of apple, tossing another his way, “Want one?”

  He caught it and presumably admired its ruby red skin with faint streaks of green reminiscent of an aurora for a moment before awkwardly nodding thanks and taking a bite, “My gods…” His eyes went wide as he voraciously took another bite.

  Cira smirked in pride. She always knew her apples were the best, but not often did she get to see it first-hand from another enjoyer of sweet fruit.

  On another note, staying up all night drinking was evidently quite the ordeal for a mind which seeks knowledge. Cira may even go so far as to call such activities a hassle. Working to minimize her unsorcerous tendencies was something she could consider later, however.

  “Cira…” Eliza had been very kind to her so far, but there was a hint of exasperation in her tone, “You already missed our unit on essential entropy, but I would not like my permanent student to miss their chance to learn of its counterpart.”

  Using all she could muster, Cira inferred that essential entropy was the dissociation of the body and soul. Corporeal degradation would absolutely contribute to such a condition, so she at least had an idea. Its counterpart would be absolute equilibrium.

  No… Wait, that’s just what the lesson is about. Cira was having a rough time, but essential synergy led to yet another form of synergy between oneself and the world around them, known as absolute equilibrium. This was not only imperative to all operations pertaining to the manipulation of mana, but the very basis behind extending one’s lifespan naturally.

  “Sorry…” Cira replied after mentally checking that she had learned at least most of what the lesson beheld so far, “Would you like one too?” Cira pulled out another apple as Eliza’s eyes narrowed.

  “Perhaps later… But for now, why don’t you tell the class why achieving equilibrium with the world is widely considered the first step to immortality?” Eliza deigned to put her on the spot for disrupting class, but Cira was ready for this one.

  “Well, because there are yet some fools who believe in immortality—” One look was enough to tell this was not the answer she was looking for. Cira straightened up and shook off a couple layers of exhaustion, “I mean, ahem… I can surmise many consider it such because, uh, I guess spirits don’t really age, right? It only makes sense that attuning oneself to the aether would increase the soul’s longevity. So, it’s logical enough to assume extending one’s lifespan a little bit could be the first step to extending it perpetually…? But I’m telling you—”

  “Enough.” Eliza stopped her, “Were we not just talking about the rules of life and death the other day? We are not discussing ‘true immortality’, which everyone in this room is privy to the impossibility of.”

  Cira looked around and many students were giving her tiresome looks. “Ah… of course.”

  “She’s right though, isn’t she?” An excited Emma leaned forward with a quill patiently hovering over her notebook. “About spirits. They don’t age! Because of their aethereal form, right?”

  “Well done, Emma, but they can degrade. This is how we get revenants, goliaths, or even curseborne liches depending on the circumstance. These all eventually return to the aether one day.” Eliza gave the class a moment to take notes, “But sprites and greater spirits, as Cira meant, are the exception. While they do not age, neither do they degrade. Instead, they continuously absorb further mana from the aether or directly from the spatial realm around them. A good example would be how undines commonly live in springs.”

  To find other spirits and bargain for their blessings, Cira would need to seek out areas of high elemental concentration. “But they’re not immortal.” Cira added.

  “Correct again… While undines are quite difficult to kill, there are multiple accounts of slain earth or fire spirits. Starving one of their element thoroughly enough will cause even a greater spirit to degrade to a revenant or worse. Do so even longer, and they return to the aether altogether. Far from immortal, one could say, but it’s about the closest one can get. However, today’s lesson is not about aethereal attunement—it’s about absolute equilibrium.

  “Everyone knows there are methods to abandon your body for pseudo-immortality as a spirit, but through achieving perfect synergy with the world, it’s possible to attune one’s body to the spatial realm as well, increasing your permanence within it. There are also alchemic compounds and various rituals to strengthen or otherwise modify the corporea to promote this effect, but this can be achieved with nothing but time and will at your disposal.”

  Cira found herself taking notes too, and finished out class rather diligently if she said so herself. As students began to file out, she let void lightning sizzle at her feet. In her head, Breeze Haven was already in view and there was meat on the grill.

  “E-excuse me!” Cira turned and found Emma nervously shouting at her, “Would you like to… eat lunch with me?”

  “Well, I’m sort of in a hurry…” Cira wanted to get back to the village while the nameless second mark’s memoire was still on her mind, and she knew she could cook and eat all within ten minutes if it was a solo operation, but what was a few minutes? “Would you like to join me instead?”

  “Uh, sure—Ahh!” Emma’s timid voice gave way to a terrified scream as they found grass beneath their feet. “Where—what is this place?”

  Emma was a little too scared to feel the full force of wonder in her heart, but her eyes indeed sparkled.

  Two more apples found their way from the orchard to each of their hands, “What are you feeling today? I don’t want to burn myself out on underworm, but fish doesn’t thrill me either.” Cira’s purely inquisitive gaze left Emma on the back foot. However, it was unclear whether the hesitation was nerves or flavor preference, “Sorry, I won’t have much else to offer until I get back to the Boreal.”

  “We… have a market. I can show you around sometime if you like.” Emma took a bite of her apple and was struck with a dumb smile, “So good… I mean, er, we get daily shipments of meat and produce—I’m sure you could find whatever you need there. Uh, also I’m allergic to fish.”

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  “Worm it is then.” Cira nodded resolutely and sat down at her garden table as clattering echoed through the kitchen window. “I might take you up on that after I gain my first mark though”

  “You just arrived, didn’t you?” the girl pushed her glasses up, “Even the Far lord Gazen spent nine whole months in the village before receiving his.”

  This piqued Cira’s interest more than anything else she had heard today. I’ll give myself nine days. Take that, Dad!

  “Thank you for telling me that, Emma.” Cira gave her a warm smile and got to work on a charcuterie board of worm steak and sliced fruit. Spatial sorcery made such tasks a simple matter and she didn’t notice Emma giving her all to not say anything about the fruit which picked itself then floated about like busy bees. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “Er, what?” Emma had found her nerves—in that she was once again very nervous. Cira thought her smile and demeanor was disarming, but perhaps she had to think it over another day.

  “You wanted to speak to me, right?” Unable to suppress a thought in lieu of recent events, Cira chuckled to herself, “Or have you come to join my harem?”

  A board clacked between them, stacked with feathered layers of thin cut worm grilled to a rare char, accented with orange slices, plum halves, and pomegranate seeds. Cira thought the sweet pairing would break up the monotony of all the underworm she had been eating, and the smokey, herbal aroma mixed with citrus undertones had her drooling at the mouth.

  Unfortunately, Emma seemed incredibly anxious as she looked at Cira across the table. She turned around in her seat and realized there was nothing but sky beyond the garden.

  “Oh?” Cira stuffed her face with more food and continued with her mouth full, daintily covering her mouth as her voice came out muddled, “Are you the type to prefer ale with their meal? I have many friends like that.”

  A cup of ice manifested on the other side of Emma’s plate as her water, then filled with a quite golden liquid.

  “Um, hang on…” Emma’s voice came out like a whisper.

  “Elysian draught, I say!” Cira decided to conjure her own glass in solidarity so as not to make the girl uncomfortable. “The genuine article from the second spring of Paradise. Cheers.”

  Cira held her glass up and Emma did not follow. In fact, it seemed the girl was frozen, stumbling on words too quiet for Cira to hear without sorcery.

  “No, no… It’s not that. I actually don’t drink.” A shame, Cira thought, placing both glasses into an airless storage ring for later. “I just get nervous. And… where are we?

  “Ah…” Cira stood up and gestured her over to the edge where they could overlook the whole of Icarus. They were actually on rotation with the village, just outside the outer ring. Cira gave her the gist of it. “This island is called Breeze Haven.”

  “Amazing…” the girl leaned over the edge and stared down into the clouds. After a moment she started reaching for the barrier, “Was your father some kind of famous artificer?”

  “You could say that, but… That’s not important.” Cira’s hunger was partially satisfied, so she had more time to speak, “You sought me out because you wanted to know something specific, yes?”

  “Oh!” Emma pulled herself back in, the curiosity in her eyes replaced to a small degree by embarrassment, “Sorry, you’re right. Er, it’s not really important either though…”

  Trying not to roll her eyes, Cira urged her along, “Good. One less important thing to worry about. Now, out with it.”

  “That… that lightning…” At this reply, Cira couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “What is it?”

  She couldn’t quite figure Emma out. The girl could speak out in class, but when put on the spot she choked up.

  “Do you mean this?” Cira held up a finger and her latest signature magic danced into the air with muffled crackles. A proud smirk crept onto her face, “I call it void lightning. An emergent element I pioneered a few weeks back. Pretty cool, right?”

  She pointed across the garden and disappeared in a tuft of lightning before reappearing at the end of Emma’s gaze.

  “But… but how does it work?! You’re saying it’s a new element? I didn’t know you could make new ones!” Emma shot out of her chair and tried to grab hold of a stray bolt before it disappeared. A glint shined off her glasses as her wide eyes filled their lenses, “Do you have to make lightning first? It doesn’t even look like lightning.”

  “That’s the neat part. It’s not.” Cira summoned Prismagora and a crackling sun formed above them like a tangled mass of pitch-black arcs. “I can conjure it by simply moving light out of the way. Incredibly efficient, mind you. Of course, light doesn’t like that, so I found it’s best to condense the resulting shadow. Crystals are no fun, and I needed to be able to use it quickly, you see…”

  Cira was going to be late to her appointment at the village, but she didn’t want to pass up a chance to talk about sorcery with someone truly interested. They ended up working through most of the charcuterie board by the time their conversation came to a close and Emma’s many questions gave Cira some surprising insights about her element that she never bothered to ask herself.

  “But it does counter lightning.” Emma had a hand to her chin, nodding with each passing thought, “That means it cancels out energy many times greater than itself. What other elements have you tried it against?”

  Cira listed what she could remember off the top of her head and they took some time chatting about it and running a few tests pitting void lightning against the ones she hadn’t pitted it against yet. Surprisingly, fire and holy both found themselves vulnerable against it, while water was hardly affected.

  It seemed this girl came out of her shell when there was something to learn, and Cira got curious.

  “Okay, enough about sorcery for now. It’s my turn.” Emma looked like she hadn’t an inkling of what Cira meant. “Why are you here? On Icarus, I mean. Even those born to the Order are able to leave from what I gather, so why?”

  She went through a range of emotions trying to find an answer, but it came out almost too simply, “Why, to learn of course. To enter the Archive!” She chuckled, “I think most people around here would give you the same answer.

  “Yes, but why?” Cira couldn’t stop thinking about the nameless second mark. Vain is the pursuit without purpose, she almost said. It felt like imparting his shred of wisdom like this would be disrespectful to the years he spent finding it, but she had to ask, “To what end to you seek the archive and the knowledge held within?”

  “Because… I simply want to learn.” A warm smile grew on Emma’s face as she came to this conclusion, “There’s so much I don’t know about this world. They say wisdom comes with age only if one seeks it, but I’m not so na?ve to think it only exists in the Archive. I want to be an arbiter one day so I can see the world as well, but I’m far too weak. So, being smarter than my peers is the only way I will get there. Until I possess at least enough wisdom to seek out the mysteries of this world myself, wouldn’t devoting my life to a single purpose be a waste?”

  An arbiter, huh? Is that such an exciting prospect? I suppose it would be fun to fly around searching for weird phenomena. Would Mac be jealous if I found a new spider friend? It could also be my ticket to more blessings. Hm…

  Emma’s response was quite thought-provoking for how lacking in substance it was. At the end of the day, she still just wanted to learn and find more opportunities to do so elsewhere. Though it could be said devoting your life to something before gaining the wisdom to determine whether or not it’s a good choice could be a waste. Biding one’s time is entirely different from being idle.

  Cira personally preferred following her heart in the moment, but perhaps the sorcerer’s code was one thing Cira had which Emma lacked.

  I already have purpose as a sorcerer… but that sounds even flimsier than Emma’s answer. I can take on as many jobs as I want and help those I pass, but that’s not a goal. Goals have an end. Like how Kazali will die by my hand. That’s certainly something I intend to achieve, but am I so vain as to devote my life to vengeance? What’s more, he is undeserving of such devotion.

  “Uh, Cira…” Emma spoke up, seemingly taking advantage of the silence. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  “Sure.” She smiled in response, “Ask me anything.”

  “Who—or what is that?” She pointed past the house to a spot along the shore.

  “Oh… Oh my.” Stuck against her barrier like a barnacle was the glowing young man, Rilihad. The mana swirling around him seemed frozen solid and on closer inspection, his body wasn’t moving at all. Even his shining hair was stuck in place standing straight up. Not even his chest heaved. “That can't be good.”