“Excellent,” Dan said, “and that’s all for magical theory.”

  Sam leaned back with a sigh. “Only forty-something weeks too late.”

  “More than that. At least a year. This is the level of knowledge you’re required to have to just apply to the academy.”

  “You sure know how to encourage a student…”

  “I tried it the other way in the past. Didn’t seem to have any effect on you.”

  “That’s fair. Plus, it’s not like I need the encouragement. I know where I am and I know where I need to be… And,” he said before Dan could manage to wriggle in a supportive reply, “I know that I should be proud of how far I’ve come. And how fast. Half a year to catch up to six years of an adolescent’s studying. Well, almost caught up. We still have tracing and patterns to finish with.”

  “Not quite half a year. We’re still a couple of days short of twenty-six weeks. And while we won’t manage to finish going over patterns and tracing before that mark, we will finish both before too long, and before the next year starts. And you’ll finish with all the first year’s non-magical material before then as well. So we really are ahead of schedule. Which is unfortunate for me because I’ll have to start working on a new one pretty soon.”

  “Hm…” Sam nodded. He was rapidly approaching the end-life of Dan’s self-study schedule. About half the courses were already marked as complete, giving him even more time to dedicate to the other half, greatly speeding up the process (surely there was a formula to be found there, but—as Sam had just finished the math textbook almost a week ago, and got a pretty good grade on the mock exam he decided to do yesterday to satisfy his doubts—that was none of his concern).

  “I’ll be honest with you,” Sam said, “I wasn’t all that confident about being able to get to this point as fast as I did, and as… successfully. But at the same time, I was somehow expecting it to make more of a difference. As it stands, I actually have more studying to do during my ‘second’ year than my ‘first.’ There’s the actual academy level tracing and patterns to do. And all the magical stuff that I wasn’t able to do just yet, a la imprinting, muddling, and fighting. There’s threads, of course. And there’s also a bunch more non-magical courses to tie it all up.”

  Dan held up his fingers. “Only five in total. And four of those you should have no problems studying on your own like you currently do. As for all the other new magical material. We’ll tackle them just like we did up till now, and soon enough you’ll be good enough in some of those to be able to join the general curriculum, which will allow us to focus on the other and speed them up as well. I told you before, my plan for helping you finish your studies in two and a half years accounted for all of this. And all of your progress since then has only reinforced my belief that you’ll be able to finish your studies in two years, having learnt everything you should have.”

  “I know, I know. I’m not doubting that. Mostly. I’m just saying that there was a part of me that thought this half-a-year was going to be the hardest part. That I’ll somehow manage to make enough of a dent in my gap to make the requisites for catching up easier.”

  “I think you have. As things stand, you’re going to have less than half non-magical courses compared to most second-year cadets do. Think about it, how much of your daily schedule do you currently allocate to studying? How much of that studying time goes to non-magical material?”

  Sam cupped his chin. “That’s a good point. Although some of the courses from next year do seem like they’ll give me plenty of trouble.”

  “Trust me. You’ll do fine. All the military science courses sound harder than they really are. After all, student surveys have consistently shown that statistics and math are regarded as the hardest mandatory non-magical courses. And you’re all finished up with those two, right? And with no major problems?”

  “Statistics only next week, but yes. I get your point. My point is that I’m lazy and would’ve liked it if my progress this year materialized in me not needing to progress so fast next year and thus having an easier time, and more free time. Like having extra credits at university, which lets you take fewer courses in your last year.”

  “And my point will be that you are at sole fault for that. I told you already, you are ahead of the schedule I planned for you. It’s your choice whether to pick up the pace, or even just keep it as it is, when you’re able to allow yourself some more breathing room. Your extra time next year will allow you to take some of it as free time. But you’re the one who isn’t going to do that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. No need to preach. I know what I’m doing. I guess I’m just worried whether I’ll be able to keep this pace going for next year as well. From personal reasons as well as academic ones. And even though you’ve done your best to placate my academic worries, there’s still a part of me that’s very much in doubt that I’ll be able to fit everything I need to learn into the next two years. Especially once threads gets into the mix. Neither one of us knows how much time that is going to take and how, after all.”

  “True. But I assume that Farris does on some level. And he’s just as confident as me, if not more, about your ability to finish your studies on time. But let’s leave worrying about the future, to the future, shall we? We still have about an hour and I want us to go over a new tracing. Now, this one technically counts as advanced enough that our students are only required to study it in their second year. But you’ll see that’s not due to its complexity but rather its very heavy energy draw. It will empty your core pretty fast. Luckily, I’m here to refill it at a moment’s notice.”

  Sam looked at the diagram Dan had handed to him. Magical Insulation, it read. “Hey, isn’t this—”

  “Yes, it’s the lead-up to Physical Protection, one of the two major bases for it. Making it a proto-basis for Body Protection.”

  “Well why are we starting on this now? I can’t even imprint a pattern, let alone a level 4 one like Body Protection.”

  “Mainly because I’m running out of tracings to teach you while you’re you’re still not level 1. If we’re practicing tracings together, then they ought to be important, or complex enough so that they’ll be worth our shared time. But, it’s also a very good tracing for practicing energy efficiency. And it’s one that you’ll want to be as experienced with as humanely possible when it comes time to imprint Body Protection. Since I very likely won’t be there to help you when it comes time for you the imprint that pattern, the least I can do is make sure you’re an expert at everything that makes it up. Trust me, as soon as you’re able to trace Kinetic Stability, we’ll start practicing it.”

  Sam shrugged and focused on reading the tracing diagram until he was sure that he fully committed it to his short-term memory. He only had to come back to it twice in the next half an hour until he finally succeeded in the tracing for the first time. Half an hour after that, his successes might’ve been few and far between (only managing one Magical Insulation Posterior), but the comparatively simple tracing was fully etched in his memory.

  “How the hell is the pattern supposed to work if even in ideal form this tracing is so heavy?” he asked Dan once the hour (plus some extra ten minutes) was over and the latter was refilling Sam’s core.

  “You’ll learn in due time exactly how it, and body-wide patterns in general, and Body Protection in particular combine together into an effective pattern. But until then, the simple, not completely true but also not strictly wrong, answer is that the draw of Physical Protection, which is, obviously, even more demanding than Magical Insulation, is watered down in the pattern. As for the details of how that’s done, and why it makes sense, you’ll have to wait.”

  “I can’t wait.” Later, as he descended the stairs, he was surprised to discover that he was being completely sincere. He really did want to find out how that pattern worked. To learn the tracings leading up to it. To master them all. Luckily, he could bring himself back down from being proud of himself by reminding him that there was an actual, non-knowledge-pursuing-for-its-own-sake reason why he should want to learn all he could about that tracing. It was a prerequisite for him staying alive once he went into combat.

  And the prerequisite for imprinting that pattern was reaching level 4, he mused despondently as he put on his headphones. And that prerequisite for being able to imprint was reaching level 1. At least that one is in the near future. Just a couple more weeks. Just a couple more weeks and I’ll finally be equal in the number of magical abilities to everyone else I’ve ever met since coming here. Well… not everyone. There’re still Rulers. Long way off from being able to do whatever it is they do. But maybe not from being able to see… And, there is Web-Web, I suppose. No idea what kind of magic my head-squatter employs.

  “Good evening all,” he said as he sat down to join his friends for dinner. “Sorry, I’m late.”

  “It’s fine.” Felix dismissively waved his fork at him. “Gave us time to go over some school stuff.”

  “Oh yeah? What exactly?”

  “Has to do with imprinting, so I’m not allowed to tell you.”

  “Surely you can tell me, it’s talking about it among yourself that Sarah disallows.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “It was about imprinting more advanced body-wide patterns. It has more to with practical calculations that you haven’t learned how to do yet than with any theory that might not mean anything to you. So while you won’t necessarily be confused, you’ll just be bored, and there’s no reason that anyone at this table should be bored by the conversation.”

  “Exactly.” Felix nodded. “So Sam, could you please give us another overly-detailed rundown of a 21st century political event? I’m certain that has never bored any one of us.”

  “Fuck off, Felix.” Sam gave him the finger. “I’m never boring. If you’re bored while I’m talking, the problem lies with you and your faulty neurological wirings. But Sarah’s right, I don’t want to hear anything more today about patterns, or anything magical, for that matter. I just finished high-school level magical theory, and I want to celebrate this momentous occasion by having the next four hours clear of anything that has to do with magic.”

  “Why only four hours?” Yvessa asked. “Oh, right. Cultivating.”

  Sam nodded. “And tracing.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to finish magical theory next week?” Sarah asked.

  “Yeah, but that’s including the recap, slash, testing. Today we finished the textbook, going over all the material together. Technically, I already finished my part of the textbook yesterday evening.”

  “And you’ve never once asked any one of us for help.” Felix shook his head. “That’s annoying.”

  “Why would I need to ask you for help if I have Dan helping me?”

  “You’ve asked Yvessa for help with elven history when I’m sure one of the teacher for it could’ve made themselves available to you. And you’ve asked Sarah for help with patterns before.”

  “I’ve asked you for help with spearfighting…”

  “That’s true…” Felix tsked. “But it’s not magic. It’s something that you could’ve studied before. Everyone else gets to help you with something that’s modern. I also want to leave my footprint in your foundations as a future Ruler. Leave my mark on history through you.”

  “What about leaving your mark on history through yourself?” Yvessa asked.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Well that goes without saying. But I’m just trying to maximize my marks, here. Like, I want Sam to have in his Wikipedia page a section of… first teachers or whatever, I don’t know. And have me appear there: ‘helped him with his muddling and becoming a better person.’ Then you’ll click on my name and open my own much longer entry. Which is already pretty long, by the way.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked. “You have a Wikipedia entry?”

  “Yeah. So do you. And mine’s longer. I checked.”

  “Of course it’d be longer.” Yvessa scoffed. “You’ve been in the public eye for years. There’s a lot of information out there about you. Barely anyone knows anything about Sam.”

  “Ugh.” Sam half-retched. “That’s disgusting. I feel like an… influencer. You’re not supposed to get a Wikipedia page until you’ve done something with your life.”

  “That’s not true,” Felix said. “What about if something was done with your life? Like if you’re a murder victim. Or the subject of a famous photograph. Like that Great Depression chick.”

  “Don’t call her a chick. She’s famously a mother.”

  “Mothers can’t be chicks? Anyway, my point still stands. Just by virtue of being an adult Taken you would’ve merited a Wikipedia page. Even if you went up and died immediately after returning.”

  “I would think that if he died immediately after returning,” Yvessa said, “that would’ve merited a longer entry than if he just went on to live an anonymous life.”

  “That’s a good point. Further strengthening mine. Straight up dying in mysterious circumstances that are completely out of your control is the epitome of doing nothing to deserve a Wikipedia entry, but having something done to you, enough to deserve an entry.”

  “Fine, whatever,” Sam said. “So if your entry is longer than mine, which one of you three has the longest entry?”

  Felix chuckled. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Yeah, I should’ve known better than to ask and give you extra ammunition.”

  “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t already know that I had the biggest one at the table.”

  Sam laughed. “Fuck off, you lucked into that one.”

  “Did not. It was premeditated. What, you’re the only one who can knowingly make dick jokes? Maybe try making a big dick joke one of these days? You never know, maybe you’ll find that you like them like that.”

  Sam chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll give you credit for this one. Although it’s more of a gay joke than a dick joke.”

  “I’m an expert at handling both.”

  “Speaking of handling two things at once, I just found today that your end-of-year ‘tournament’ takes place during the finals week. Who came up with that brilliant idea?”

  “Are we really going back to arguing whether it’s a tournament?” Felix groaned.

  Yvessa ignored him. “It’s done that way in order to test us both physically and mentally. Going by the assumption that we should always be striving to better ourselves as fighters and officers, in magic and command, but at the same time we should also always be ready to fight at a moment’s notice.”

  “Really?” Sam asked. “Sure, that makes sense, on some level. But I thought the real reason would be something as simple as not having enough time in the trimester.”

  “No, that’s not it. If it was about not having enough time, they could’ve just pushed the finals by a week and take one week off of the break.”

  “They’re allowed to do that? I thought days off were sacrosanct or something.”

  “Sure they can, if it’s a school-wide official decision. They could’ve also had the competition take place during the first week of year two. Like I said, it’s a calculated decision to have both of those in the same week.”

  “Hm… Well lucky for me that I don’t have either, then.”

  “It’s really not that hard,” Sarah said. “You just lose a couple of hours that you could’ve used for resting or studying. It’s not like you need to study for the competition. You just show up and do your best.”

  Felix nodded. “Yeah, you’re making it to be more difficult than it really is. It’s not like they’re testing you while you’re fighting.”

  “So you’re not going to change your training regimen in the upcoming weeks, then?” Sam asked him.

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ll see on Saturday. But most likely I won’t. Not because of the exams, mind you. Just because I don’t really feel like it this time around.”

  “He knows it’s hopeless,” Yvessa said.

  “Fuck off. I just don’t see the point of cramming a couple more training session when I’m already practicing so much. After all, I’m already spending more time sparring than usual on account of training with Sam.”

  Sam raised his eyebrow. “Training with Sam? More like training Sam.”

  “It’s similar enough. Plus, when we train under the watchful eye of an adult, I sometimes also get a few pointers.”

  “That’s true.” Sam turned to Yvessa. “Watch out that he won’t pull one from under you using all of his new Farris tricks and tips.”

  “I’ll get right on that.” She said. “I’m already joining you two this Saturday, no?”

  “Don’t remind me.” Sam rubbed his nape.

  “C’mon, I wasn’t that bad.”

  “Compared to Felix and Sarah? Yeah, you were.”

  “Well I’ll try to go easier on you this time. Make sure to really pull my punches.”

  “No need to be so sarcastic. I’m just saying that Felix and Sarah are able to easily hit and beat me without leaving me with painful remainders of that lost bout. Maybe there’s something you can learn from them? A little bit more finesse? Tighter control? Less brute force and more skillful maneuvering?”

  She waved him off. “Nope. Like I said, they’re just taking it easier on you. Whereas I come at you with everything I have.”

  “Everything you have?”

  “Fine, a larger part of what I have compared to them. It’s two different training methods. They both have their uses.”

  “Sure, making me fear you. Instilling obedience in me through violence.”

  Sarah laughed. “I know what I’m doing next time we spar.”

  “That’s not gonna work for you.”

  “Why not? I can be violent. I can hurt you.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it. But you can’t be consistent at it. You’ll break sooner or later, and since I know that, I’ll also know that your use of violence and threats to use violence are not as credible as Yvessa’s. Like, even though I asked Yvessa, and she promised, to take it easy this Saturday, I’m not fully confident that she will. Whereas if I ask you, even during a sparring match, to take it easier on me, or give me a break… I’m pretty damn sure that you will. Which means that unlike her, you won’t be able to build up any deterrence ex ante or force me into submission with coercion ex post. Honestly, you’re much better off just using your abundant soft power in order to compel me into choosing your favored course of action.”

  “How about I use both violence and charm?”

  “Well that’d be smart power. And uh… it only works on smart people so…”

  “Good for smart people,” Felix said and stretched in his chair, having finished his last bite. “Let’s go?”

  They all got up and started making their way out of the mess hall towards their usual training field. Once outside, Sam gave a deep sigh while scratching his chin.

  “Still haven’t made up your mind?” Sarah asked him with a smile.

  “Yeah… I don’t know. Cause it’s not just about my own ability to workout like that, you know? It’s also about me saving, savoring the episodes. Like, if I can run while just listening to music without problems, shouldn’t I keep doing that? Would help maximize my long-term pleasure.”

  “What’s this again?” Felix asked.

  “I’m contemplating whether to listen to a podcast while exercising today.”

  “Oh, I see. I’d say go for it. At least try, see how it feels like. Maybe you’d find that you actually prefer listening to music. I know I do.”

  “That’s true… And if I won’t try today, then that puts it off for a couple more weeks cause there’s no way I’m going to change something when I’m already acclimating to a new regimen. Alright, I’ll go for it.”

  “We can always postpone the change to next Sunday,” Sarah said. “It’s only been three weeks since the previous increase.”

  “Nah, that’s alright. I feel good enough for another incremental change.”

  “But not good enough to pile on another change on top of that?”

  “Pretty much. It’s all psychological at the end of the day.”

  “As you wish.”

  “So does that mean that you are officially in the best shape of your life?” Felix asked him. “Considering you weren’t able to run while not listening to music before?”

  “Hm… Yeah, I guess it does. I probably passed my past ultimate self a couple of weeks ago already. Still, thanks for mentioning that. I’ll mark today in my diary. Just so I’ll have a date to look back to.”

  “Shouldn’t you have already marked today due to finishing magical theory?”

  “Nah, that’s not a ‘mark the date’ material.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well… OK, so when I mark the day, yeah, what am I trying to achieve? Obviously to have a mark that I can easily look up in the case that I want to read the entry of that day. So why might I want to read the entry of a particular day? Because I want to know about the event that was important enough for me to mark the day. So what I want to know is what was going on during that time; what I was thinking and doing? And, more importantly, how much time has passed since then; where was I in life when that event occurred? So it’s gotta to be events that are important enough for me to record but also have a time component so that I’ll want to know when exactly they happened and how much time has it been since.

  “And finishing magical theory doesn’t satisfy either of those, admittedly completely subjective, criteria. It’s not that important because it’s just the one subject. Maybe finishing all the… pre-academic subjects, so catching up, is important enough to mark. It does have some merit to make measuring the passage of time since I could say, ‘Oh look, I’ve come so far in my studies since then. I’m already at the year two mark.’ But making that year two mark isn’t that important.”

  “I don’t get it,” Felix said. “So why does your physical shape merits marking today?”

  “Because it’s a binary change that’s connected to both my past and my future. And it’s something that I thought about a lot in the past. It’s pretty important to me and has significance to my future self because I might want to look back and find out when I was in the best shape of my life and compare with my current, hopefully, much better shape. But I’m not going to mark any other difference in my physical shape. That’d be meaningless. At least if we’re talking about the continuation of the positive trend.”

  Felix shrugged. “I guess so. I still don’t get it. Like you’d mark reaching level 1, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “And reaching level 2?”

  “Yeah. Because they carry a temporal competent that would matter to me in the future. Even if it’s ‘just’ level 6, I’ll still mark it so that I’ll be able to look back after I reach level 7 and know exactly how long it took me to make that one level. I’ll give you another example: I marked the day of the first time we sparred together. But because it was only with our hands, I also marked the date the following Saturday, as I had a ‘real’ sparring matches against you. I also marked the day for Sarah, following that same logic. Now, if… when, when, I’ll beat either of you in a spar, I could look back and see how long it took me to be good enough to do that.”

  “And would you mark the date of our defeat?” Sarah asked.

  “Hm… I’m not sure. I don’t think so. That won’t matter to my future self. Because it’s not a binary value anymore. What possible change or event in the future would make me want to look back and see how long as it’s been since I first beat you?”

  “Maybe ten victories in a row?” Felix suggested. “Or becoming obviously a better fighter than us? Impossible, I know, but logically coherent.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. But it’s still not exactly a binary change. And I wouldn’t care about that all that much. It’s not beating you that makes me want to look back and see how much time has passed. It’s all about me. And my own personal road of improvement. So if compare the time it took me to beat you to the first time we fought, I can clearly see how far I’ve come. But if just look at an arbitrary point when I decided that I’m a better fighter than you, and compare it to when I first managed to beat you, what exactly do I learn about myself? Not that much.

  “Honestly… it’s all so very fucking subjective and subject to my heat of the moment whims. There are probably dates that I should’ve marked but didn’t, and vice versa. I’m not the most consistent when it comes to this shit. I wouldn’t try to find any logic in anything to do with my interaction with myself.”

  “Still, I get most of the logic behind it.” Yvessa said.

  “Really?” Sam and Felix asked at the same time.

  “Yeah. What’s so complex about it? He just wants to know how much time has passed since certain events. We all do it in one way or another. I don’t have a journal but I keep a list of dates of some of my milestones and achievements. Obviously reaching new levels. My core becoming fragmented. Starting my studies here. Finishing my studies. Winning all three of the competitions.”

  Felix snorted. “Nice one.”

  “See,” Sam said, “now I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Because you’re not going to winning the competition?”

  “What? No, I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about marking the date of when I started my studies, or finished them. In my mind—again, twisted, so don’t try to find any logic in it—there’s no point in marking the date of an event that you can easily look up the date for, or that you can easily remember. Like, if I were writing the journal from day one, I wouldn’t have marked the date for the first entry. Obviously because it’s the first entry and thus unnecessary. But also because… the date for it is literally my date of birth.”

  Sarah grumbled. “Don’t remind me.”

  “So you wouldn’t mark the end date of your studies because you could simply look it up online?” Yvessa asked.

  “Yeah. Or ask you.” Sam laughed. “But no, look it up online. Maybe, if there was like a paper that I needed to write. And it would’ve been my last paper of the degree with a due date a couple of months after the official end of the year, then I would’ve marked the date after I finished with it. Sort of an unofficial mark of when I completely finished with my academic obligations. But I’m not sure that I did that in the past, and this time it’s not relevant.

  “Although… yet another proof that my behavior is completely nonsensical is that I will probably mark the day when I get to my first posted assignment. Even though it’s all in my military records. Will definitely mark the date of the first time I’m at the front and see an Epirak in the flesh, in the case those two won’t fall on the same one. Those are good events to mark.”

  “What about your wedding?” Felix asked. “That’s an important enough event that you should remember its date at all times. Will you mark the date then? Or the birth of your child?”

  “Well neither are going to happen in practice, so… But in theory, I don’t think that I’d mark my wedding. Will mark the date where we made plans to marry, got engaged or whatever. Not sure about the birth of my child, but definitely will mark when I learned my partner was pregnant.”

  “Or surrogate.”

  “Why are you making my theoretical and unwanted future family life even more complicated?”

  “I just don’t want you to be a slave to your old-fashioned twenty-first century notions.”

  “What about adoption, then?”

  “Oh, there was no need to ask about adoption. It was pretty clear to me that you’ll mark the date of when you first met your adoptee, since it wouldn’t be their birthday.”

  “Yeah… that’s true. Did my incoherent and illogical logic somehow make sense to you guys?”

  “No more than usual.”