“So you seriously have two exams tomorrow morning, your finals of the ‘tournament’, and then a whole three-hour exam afterwards?” Sam asked.

  Felix shrugged. “It’s still fewer hours of work than a regular day.”

  “Maybe, but still… I expected them to not give you any exams after the final round. Proof that it’s not really a tournament, then. How are you supposed to go from the high of winning—or down of losing—a tournament to sitting down in a classroom for three hours?”

  “You just do. All part of the training.”

  “I’m telling you,” Yvessa said, “you’re making it out to be more difficult than it actually is. I’m sure that you wouldn’t have had any problems doing it that same way if you had to.”

  Sam sighed. “I suppose. I guess that my biggest problem with this setup is just that it’s so different from the experiences I’ve had with academic testing. But it must be fine because they keep doing this.”

  Felix laughed. “Now that’s progress.”

  “What?”

  “Surely not too long ago you would’ve said something about along the lines of ‘just because other people are able to do it, doesn’t mean that I will?’”

  “Nah… Well, OK, maybe. But again, it’d be mostly because it’s so dissimilar to the way I’m used to, that I wouldn’t have been sure of my ability to do it, as I’d have no experience with the matter.”

  “You still don’t. So something’s changed.”

  “Yeah, maybe, I don’t know. Can we talk about something else?”

  “What’s the point? We’ll just loop back around to you anyway once Sarah gets here and asks how was your exam.”

  “We can talk about your exams.”

  “We’ll also get to that as well.”

  “Fine. Then I guess we’ll just eat in silence.” Sam sighed. “Damn… I shouldn’t have said that. Now I’m back to thinking about it. I really want that pattern, you guys. Fucking level 2…”

  “If you had to choose,” Yvessa said, “would you rather have that pattern, or Dental Care?”

  “Better yet, if you could only have one, which would it be?” Felix asked.

  Sam tsked. “Get the fuck out of here with these fucking horrible choices. I don’t need to choose in the future, so I’m not going to.”

  “So answer Yvessa’s question, then.”

  “Ugh… I guess… Well, the utilitarian choice, morally correct even, would be the Dental Care. Cause it helps me save time, whereas Hearing Control only helps me save my pleasure from being disrupted by annoying noise.”

  “What about noise that prevents you from utilizing your time efficiently?” Yvessa asked.

  “That’s true, and that definitely was a problem for me in the past, enough to have easily clinched the argument towards Hearing Control. But today, or at least in this academy environment… I’m not that bothered by noise at places where I can present a moral, if at times completely egotistical, argument for there to not be noise. Like I’m always studying with Dan or in my room. No noise for the former, even if I meet with Dan outside. And whatever noise there might be around my room during the day, and there isn’t much, there isn’t any at night. So sleep, which is the most important for me to have quiet during, isn’t affected.

  “But you know what? Even though all of this was arguing against the importance of the ability to project silence on the outside, I’m kinda leaning back towards silence. Like, I really really hate noise. And even if it currently doesn’t pose me much problem, I feel like I’d much rather have it subjectively disappear from my life, then save five minutes every day. And if I really need those five minutes, I’ll just take them out of my free-time, so the moral quality remains the same.”

  Yvessa shook her head. “Not me. I hate brushing my teeth. First pattern I imprinted once I hit level 2. I think that I only bothered to imprint Hearing Control like three or four months after that.”

  “I did both on the same day,” Felix said. “Like about a week after I reached level 2.”

  “That’s pretty impressive. You had enough energy?”

  “Yeah, I lucked out. Dental Care was perfect on the first try, and I managed to finish it pretty fast. Didn’t actually expect to manage Hearing Control on that same day.”

  “OK, so you both chose not having to brush your teeth over silence, then,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, I guess I did. But I’m not sure that I would place it above like Yvessa. Dental Care was just easier to do, so I wanted to get it out of the way first. I think I’d lean more to your side if I had to choose just the one, or which one I would get to imprint early. Then again, I don’t care about noise anywhere close to how much you do.”

  “No one does.”

  “No one does what?” Sarah asked as she sat down next to him.

  “Care about the morality of your own voice projecting discomfort and creating displeasure in people who are close enough to hear it.”

  “What?”

  “We were talking about whether we’d choose Dental Care or Hearing Control if we could only choose the one,” Felix explained. “Yvessa chose the former. Sam started leaning towards it as well, but then pivoted hard towards the latter. And I was somewhere in between, leaning towards Sam’s side of the argument.”

  “Hearing Control. 100%. Just speaking of the aspect of utilizing time—that I’m sure Sam brought up—the maximum brushing your teeth costs you is about six minutes, if you do it three times a day. But noise can cause you much greater loss of productivity. Like if there’s construction outside and now you can’t study at all. Or if you can’t sleep due to noise.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, I disregarded those aspects for now, because I said they weren’t affecting me all that much here in the academy. So I just leaned on my great personal distaste for hearing stuff that I don’t want to hear. But you’re definitely right. Hearing Control wins both in working utility and pleasure utility.”

  “Alright,” Felix said, “so let’s say it didn’t in one of those. Which one would be more important to you? Working utility or pleasure utility?”

  “Please don’t force me to consider this aspect. I guarantee it would not be positive for my mental health.”

  “Fair enough. Forget about it. My apologies. So now that Sarah’s here, feel free to tell us how your last year one exam went.”

  “‘Feel free…’ Bah! That’s disguising violent rhetoric and active coercion is what that is.”

  “I thought you said I didn’t have any hard power,” Sarah said.

  “I said you’re not able to cultivate any extra hard power. You have plenty. And it’s all allocated to enforcing the social and behavioral norms under which this friend group, and me myself, operate.”

  “You gonna answer the question?” Felix asked. “So that we can move on?”

  “Or do I need to use some of that allocated hard power for some active enforcing?” Sarah asked.

  “Alright, alright…” Sam said before muttering under his breath, “Should never have mentioned that. I don’t like you guys knowing my terms.”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know that I learned those terms before you got here. You were tested on them just three weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, I know. But you don’t count. I was talking more about Felix learning stuff before his time.”

  “Dude,” Felix said, “stop being an ass and just answer my question. Also, I took a pol sci elective in high school. They mentioned that hard, soft power bullshit, then.”

  “Then, according to some people, it wasn’t political science. Then again, those people are assholes. To answer your question in… four simple words: I got my grades.”

  They all stared at him in non-comprehending silence until understanding dawned on Sarah. “Oh! Congratulations! So this must mean that today went well? Since all the grades were great? Good on them for checking it so fast.”

  Felix nodded and said to Yvessa, “Right, cause they said they’d only give him his grades if all of them were good enough not to bum him out.”

  “I figured, thanks,” she said. “So what was your average?”

  “Close to perfect,” Sam said with a sigh. “Most courses I got a perfect score. All the rest were close enough to make me nauseous. I think they just did those few like that so that I wouldn’t think they were lying to me by giving me all perfect scores.”

  “And you’re upset about that?” Felix asked. “They wouldn’t lie to you. If you got good grades, it was because you deserved it.”

  “Yeah… I’m not doubting that. And at the very least, if I hadn’t gotten good grades in all the courses whose material I was already familiar with, I would’ve been greatly disappointed. But still, it’s annoying, you know?”

  “No.”

  “What’s annoying?” Sarah asked.

  “All of these.” Sam gestured around him at nothing. “Like, even if did deserve those grades, I got them handed to me on a silver platter, what with a very easy oral exam and very favorable examiners. And it’s like an inflation, you know? Suddenly, I have all this perfect, or close to perfect, grades in my repertoire when before I had a lot less, so they’re not worth as much. I mean, I was a good enough student. I had good grades. But some were better, and some were worse. And I was proud of myself and felt happy when I got a great grade. Now… it’s like, what’s the point? It’s all special, so it doesn’t feel that special, you know?”

  “No,” Felix said. “Are you seriously complaining about getting good exam results?”

  “Alright, so as an example. There was this one exam where I was the last one to leave, not just in my classroom, but out of all the students tested. I know this because I, obviously, typed on a laptop, and when the supervisor escorted me to take care of handing the test in after I finished, I saw in their… overseeing room or whatever, that all other rooms were crossed off. And since I finished about an hour after the last one besides me finished… you get the deal. Anyway, I left that exam a little bit worried, maybe I wrote too much, maybe I wasn’t succinct enough, that sort of deal. But a couple of days later, we got our grades, and I found out that I had the highest in the course, and a very good one. So that pretty much made my, until then, very shitty week pretty fucking great.

  “But now, when it’s all fucking perfect, how am I supposed to find joy in getting a great grade? Either I don’t really deserve it, cause they made it too easy for me or whatever. Or I need to grow past that part of me that’s happy about grades because the person who I need to become is good enough to always get the best grades possible, so he shouldn’t be surprised when he gets those. Like you guys, with your assurance that you’re always going to get perfect marks. I’m not trying to detract from you, your way of thinking is way superior, and I should probably try to adopt it. But it does sort of cheapen all of my past, and obviously, current achievements if I’m always expecting to ace everything.”

  “No no no.” Felix squinted and waved his hand before pointing at himself and Yvessa. “Our expectation to always get perfect grades only stretches as far as mandatory magical material. And it’s not perfect grades, mind you, it’s the best in class. Because we know we’re the best, or among the best, so it wouldn’t make sense for us to somehow lose that on the day of an exam and end up not in the forefront. But that expectation doesn’t extend to non-magical material. I’m, at the very least, always expecting to pass them because I know that I’ll have put enough time and effort beforehand to deserve so. But that’s only passing them; I’m not certain about getting a perfect grade. In fact, I haven’t last trimester, as you’re all well aware. And neither as Yvessa, as… I’ve made you aware.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Didn’t mean to seem like I was coming at you. I was just trying to find a comparison to explain myself. Honestly, I’m running back over what I said in my head, and I feel like I came off a lot more negative than what I really feel. Like, fuck it. I am definitely happy about passing these exams and putting these courses behind me. And main the reason I am not as happy about the scores is more that I don’t know how much I can trust them. Cause trust me, when it’ll be time for me to take an exam with you hoi polloi, I will definitely be happy if I come in first.”

  “Is that you wishing us to end up with a grade lower than you?”

  “No,” Yvessa said, “we can end with the same grade. He’ll still come ahead of us alphabetically.”

  “Yep.” Sam pointed to his temple. “Turns out that the real hoi polloi were the kids whose surname wasn’t the first letter of the alphabet.”

  “Can we see your actual grades?” Sarah asked. “Instead of having them described to us in general terms.”

  Sam laughed and handed her his phone after he opened the file Dan had sent him. She took a couple of seconds to look over it before handing his phone to Felix and Yvessa. Felix handed him his phone back. “Yeah… I don’t know. I don’t think they gave you better grades out of nowhere. Most of these seem pretty realistic to me.”

  Sarah nodded. “If you still want to find a way to not give yourself the credit you’re due, then the most I can permit you to have is the belief that the exam itself was much easier than the normal exam. And before you say anything, I do believe that it was easier, and more conducive to a higher grade, than the exams we went through, but not by that much.”

  “I’ll take your version of it,” Sam said. “Like I said, I am happy about it. And I do like being proud of myself. So I’ll allow myself this one conceit.”

  Yvessa grumbled, “Good. Cause you got the best score at this table in Militaries Structure and Organization, and you should definitely be proud of that.”

  “You’re still on that?” Felix asked her.

  “Since I’m still waiting for my copy of the exam and what I got wrong, yes.”

  “You a got a great grade.”

  “Lowest at this table.”

  “She’s got a valid grievance,” Sam said. “Don’t try to take it from her. I’ve been in the same spot before her. Got a barely passing on my exam in an intro to political philosophy course way back when. Know what I did? Took it again. Know what I got? Perfect score. Know why? Cause I didn’t answer the first exam like the tester wanted me to. I was just as knowledgeable both times, and just as correct. Just not the correct kind of correct that the exam was looking for. And I bet the same thing happened with you, Yvessa. Only you were obviously smarter and more correct than me. You probably wrote some stuff that was spot on, but not what the examiner was looking for. Like maybe you went in on the differences between regular Sarechi units and nobles’ sponsored ones.”

  “That’s why I’m waiting for the copy. If I got anything wrong, I want to know why. If I didn’t, I want them to know why. And if it was just about the way I wrote the answer, academic technicalities that I didn’t follow, then I’ll still want to know it for next time.”

  “Well in any case,” Felix said, “you still won’t ever end up first at the table, cause Sam comes before you.”

  “Yeah, that part’s definitely bullshit,” Sarah said. “So you were right to doubt this one course, Sam. No one gets perfect grades in it.”

  Sam nodded. “I remember. And hey, usually I’m against people getting as good as a score as me in an exam, cause it makes me feel less special. But ironically, if Yvessa does end up with the same score as me in this one, it will help my case. So I’m sincerely hoping that she’ll have a valid reason to appeal.”

  “But besides that course, every other one looks reasonable enough. So, like I said, no reason to doubt yourself.”

  “No reason to doubt myself in this case.”

  Sarah gave a long sigh before standing up. “C’mon. I’m finished eating. Let’s go.”

  After monopolizing most of dinner’s conversation, Sam was more than happy that his friends spent the rest of the evening discussing their own exams. Not as in depth as they might’ve had if Sam wasn’t there, of course. But comparing the discussion today to the way they talked a couple of months ago, during the previous finals week, it was night and day. The closer Sam got to finishing up with his pre-academy magical material, the more lenient Sarah became when it came to discussing magical topics that weren’t completely above all of their heads. And while Sam was certain that the artificial barrier wouldn’t completely disappear in three weeks, when Sam was slated to finish with pre-academy patterns, he was certain that it wouldn’t survive long enough to impact the next finals week.

  He was still riding that weird, uncertain, high of his grades the following day. And finishing with the theoretical aspects of tracing was just icing on the cake. Even better, he was only slated to eat cake tomorrow evening, when the celebration of the end-of-the-year (and Yvessa beating Felix again) was to take place. Which meant that he had plenty of time to make a concentrated effort at finishing the second textbook of the deshar history course. A good way to end a Friday, if he ever heard any.

  And it was, he remarked to himself as he closed the journal document. Today was pretty fucking great. It felt like everything was going right for him. He and Dan finished the material really quickly, which left them plenty of time to practice tracing. Which went great. He was reaching amazing consistency even in tracings that were considered adult basic. And his efficiency while tracing was getting noticeably better, as evidenced by managing to trace one more Prior Magical Insulation before Dan had to refill his core. Dan didn’t tell him, so he had to look up in his journal, and apparently, during his first time tracing it, he was short about a third of the energy required (he left the exact calculations of how much he managed to save for tomorrow, though).

  Dinner was started with a short discussion of everyone’s exams before Felix and Yvessa took the center stage by describing their fight. It was much closer this time, although Yvessa still won by three points. Thankfully, Sam’s hidden worries were unfounded, and just like before, the only social ramifications of Felix’s loss were comedic. He didn’t seem to bear any grudge as a result of his loss, and Yvessa made it apparent numerous times that the fight could’ve gone either way.

  And last and least, the rest of his evening. A very focused study session, where he only took the one bathroom break (relative to his usual form as he barely drank anything, a fact that he made sure to remedy after he finished). And an even better cultivation session afterwards, just a straight hour and a half of seeking and excavating. And since he was almost finished with the cycle when the alarm rang, he decided that it was only fair to carry on with another one so that he could roughly time himself (it seems there was no need for Hearing Control in these instances). Afterwards, he decided to reward himself by carrying out his tracing practice in the shower. Making for a much longer shower, and a very enjoyable (and just as heartening as prior in the day) tracing practice.

  “It’s a shame Lin can’t help me refill my core,” he muttered as he got up from his desk chair and took off the bathrobe. “While I can ask Maurice to meet me on Sundays so I could practice tracing Saturday evening. I can’t ask Dan to come supervise my lessons with Lin every Saturday.”

  “Still…” he sat back down, having gotten dressed for sleep. “I guess that Dan coming tomorrow means that I’m getting close to being ready to start studying… training? in magical combat. God. I can’t fucking wait! Tomorrow’s going to be great. And I’m going to reach level 1 any fucking day now. Fuck!” He squirmed in his chair. “So fucking good! The future’s looking mighty br—”

  He heard the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

  Straightening up, he asked “Web-Web?”

  The only answer forthcoming was the slow increase in the volume of the waters flowing in his mind. And as the seconds kept stretching, and the only change was that the waves were coming closer, Sam’s anxiety started to spike. Half a dozen different explanations and scenarios started playing in his head, slowly drowning the mental noise that was forced upon him, for why Web-Web was contacting him now. Had he strayed from his duty, taken it too easy? Was there a change in plans? Did Web-Web discover that the plan their previous form had environed for him was no longer tenable? Did they discover something new about Sam, a different fault in those initial calculations?

  In a bid to regain his calm, he took a deep breath before slowly releasing it. Focusing on the breath leaving his chest through his nose and trying to let the sound in his mind wash over him. Three exhales later, he was back to a more composed state of mind. Nothing compared to how he felt before the waves made their appearance, but not as close to a panic attack as he was immediately after. However, the vacuum created by coming down from his anxious spiral helped heighten some other emotions: Fear and worry, close companions of anxiety, but sourced differently, and lending to slightly different modes of thought. Expectation, and annoyance at feeling such (and all his other emotional affectations, in all honesty). And tiredness. He wanted to be over with this, whatever it was, to not have to put too much effort in as a result of whatever information the AI in his brain wanted to share with him.

  Thankfully, a couple of moments later, and before Sam’s nerves had a second chance to wring him out, a voice spoke in his mind: “Is our method of preemptive contact still as unsatisfactory as you’ve registered it to be before? Should we endeavor towards a different one?”

  Sam let out a breath. Still the same old voice; still the same old non-existent, yet not due to lack of trying, social graces. “No, that’s fine. It’s alright, now that I’m aware of it. Just make sure not to contact me the same way if I’m already near the sea, or any other large body of moving water.”

  “Of course. We have already considered such a possibility when designing this method, but have chosen not to act upon it in order to wait for your input. Fortunately, we are not aware of any reason why you should find yourself in the proximity of any such geographical feature any time soon. So there is no reason for you to worry that our lack of action as yet will harm you in the future.”

  “I wasn’t worried about that. At all.”

  “If you have time, and are willing, we would be happy to include your thoughts in our considerations.”

  “If I have time? We’re sort of constrained by your time, aren’t we? By your lack of energy? Shouldn’t we focus on making sure that you’ll be able to tell me everything that you wanted to?”

  “Yes… of course. But we believe that there should still be time left to discuss the method of our contacting you, if you so wish.”

  “I…” Sam shook his head. “Nevermind what I wish for now. Oughtn’t we get the reason for our interaction today out of the way first? What sort of interaction are we having today, by the way? Is this one of your unscheduled contacts again? Or was this planned beforehand?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Contacting you today was already foreseen, and energy has been allocated to the occasion.”

  “And were you… aware of the… necessity of contacting me before today?”

  “Yes. That is a piece of information that we have always been aware of. Although…”

  The AI took one of his characteristic pauses, but uncharacteristically, it was not because of anything Sam said (directly at least), so once half a minute had passed without any further response, Sam nervously gulped and said. “Web-Web? Are you still there? Are you alright?”

  “Yes. We were just considering further aspects of our contact today.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the wider reasoning for why it is required.”

  “Well… if you tell me what the… narrow reasoning is, maybe I could add my own thoughts to the question.”

  “Of course. And you were already right before. Forgive us. We have been utilizing time today non-efficiently. We are trying to act more according to your directives and suggestions, in order to better interface with you, but…”

  “Then don’t. Just be yourself. As time-efficient and as straight to the point as possible. So, let’s start with the reason for you contacting me today.”

  “Very well. In short, you are to activate your Threadsight. We require you to try and maintain it for as long as possible while gleaming as much information while using it as you can.”

  “What?! What? I don’t even know how to activate—reactivate, my Threadsight. I shouldn’t. The whole point was that I should wait until level 1. Cause it will just give me a headache if I use it now.”

  “It will continue giving you a headache even after you reach level 1. Until you are more experienced in using it. But it is precisely because you will soon reach level 1 that you must utilize your Threadsight now.”

  “Why?”

  “There will be a difference once you reach level 1. Your threads will have changed. You will no longer be able to see what you can currently see if you were to view the threads surrounding you at this moment.”

  Sam shrugged. He had never heard about threads changing, whatever that meant, after reaching level 1. It didn’t mean that what Web-Web said wasn’t true. Maybe it was. Maybe that was the reason Thread-Weavers like him had to wait until level 1 to start studying threads. He’ll have to ask his future threads teacher about this. “OK… let’s say you’re right. And that I’m somehow able to use my Threadsight right now. I still don’t get, why? What’s the point? I still don’t know squat about threads. I wouldn’t be able to make sense of anything I’m seeing. And even if I could, it’s still doesn’t answer why. What purpose does viewing what I am currently able to see, but wouldn’t later, actually serve?

  “That… that is the information we are not sure about. All we currently know is that the plan we have envisioned for helping you defeat the Epiraks requires you to use your Threadsight before you reach level 1.”

  Sam sighed. “And let me guess: Just like there’s no reason to doubt the veracity of the claim that I am the best, and last, tool the Web has in its possession in the fight against the Epiraks. There is no reason to doubt the importance of me gaining whatever information there is to gain by using my Threadsight before I reach level 1.”

  “Exactly.”

  Sam sighed again. “You know what? I’m not going to argue with you. Or question your assumptions. This is the first inklings of an actual plan that you’ve shown me. So unless it’s possible that I’ll harm myself by using my Threadsight now, I’ll go along with it… Is there any chance that I’ll harm myself?”

  “We do not posses any information that leads us to believe such is the case. Besides the aforementioned difference in your threads before and after level 1, there should not be any difference between using your Threadsight now and in a week. The change in your current magical nature, and your nature after reaching level 1, is too minute to affect your Threadsight, your ability to use it, and the way in which you use it.”

  “What? So why do I need to wait until level 1 to start learning about threads? Wait, no, don’t answer that. It’s not important right now. So just to make sure, you’re certain that there isn’t any drawback if I were to use Threadsight right now, like you’re asking me to?”

  “Nothing that would not be there once you reach level 1.”

  “Right… so that’s a no. And what should I expect? The same thing as last time? Headache? Dizziness? The feeling of my mind being invaded?”

  “Yes.”

  Sam shuddered. “Alright… so what do I do? You’re going to coach me on how to activate the Threadsight, I assume?”

  “Yes. We posses information regarding a number of instances in the past, in which Thread-Weavers of your caliber were taught to use their Threadsight for the first time. We believe that we can guide you correctly using those examples.”

  “Go ahead then.”

  “Very well. Close your eyes.”

  “Close my eyes?” Sam scratched his head before shaking it. “Alright.” He closed his eyes. “Now what?”

  “Focus on your core and slowly start cycling energy in and out while still keeping sole focus on it.”

  Sam followed the instructions. At the very least, here was something that he couldn’t have done half a year ago. A reason to leave learning about threads and using the Sight until level 1. Or near enough level 1. But after a few seconds, a certain doubt started wriggling in his mind. “Are you sure that this method is appropriate for me? I’m assuming most level 1s who are starting to study about threads already have a fragmented core.”

  “The state of the core has nothing to do with the ability to sense threads or for a Thread-Weaver to access their Threadsight. You are focusing on your core because that is the most basic form of magical energy which you can observe. Threads are the most basic form of material magic. Since both forms directly correspond one to another, focusing on the core, and the energetical changes in it, provides you a frame of reference for the material changes in your magical state, which should make it easier on you to access your Threadsight.”

  “I have no idea what you just said. I don’t think I was supposed to know about this kind of stuff yet.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Great… So I’m focusing on my core. Now what?”

  “Are you in the correct state of mind?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  The AI didn’t answer straightaway. Which forced Sam to bite down his annoyance (and anxiety) and just focus on his slowly dwindling magical reserves. No matter, he could do this for a long time. His patience will run out long before the minute amount of magic lost each time he cycled magic out and back into his core would result in his core running dry. Focus! he chastised himself. In and out. Just focus on the core. If Web-Web thought this was the trick to reaccessing his Sight, then Sam had no recourse but to keep giving this his all.

  That resulted in five (or, to be more exact, what felt like five but was definitely much less) more minutes of silence before Web-Web said, “We believe that you are ready to try using your Threadsight. While keeping focus on your core, try to think of it as an actual substance. A substance you could feel with all of your other senses. Touch, smell, hear.”

  “Why? I could only… see threads after I’ve had my Awakening. After I could sense magic.”

  “It’s still different senses. You could ‘see’ threads, but the way you sensed them was different from the way you sense your core. What you want to do is open up your mind to the possibility of sensing magic in a different way. As more tangible.”

  Sam grit his teeth and tried following Web-Web’s nonsensical directions. Directions that went against everything he was taught and knew about the core. Imagine it was physically present. What would it feel to touch it? How much would it weigh? What would it look like if he could see it with his eyes and not through the imagined picture that his mind came up with? “Still nothing.”

  “Try and think back to how it felt like after your Awakening. What was it like to see threads? To interact with them? The memory of looking upon a Ruler should be very strong. You can use that. You are looking for a distinct sensation.”

  “Can’t you just tell me how to open up my Threadsight? Surely it can’t be this esoteric…”

  “We cannot. It is an instinctive action. In due time, as you reach higher levels and become more experienced with magic, your instincts would allow you to use the Threadsight just as they allowed you to access your core or trace magic. Or turn it off in the first place. But it takes time to occur naturally. What you’re trying to do is guide your instincts along, behaving and thinking in such a way that would activate them… Like throwing a child into water in order to teach them how to swim. You are trying to put your mind into an environment where the most natural action for it to do is to open your Threadsight.”

  A couple more minutes passed with no success. Thankfully, if this was against Web-Web expectations and their belief that today’s contact should leave them with extra time, the AI didn’t say so. So maybe that was all par for the course and Sam was still on time. Unfortunately, the AI kept up its coaching. And it was becoming clearer and clearer that they didn’t know what they were doing, and were just repeating verbatim the tips that the instructors in those past instances had given their pupils. After all, Sam didn’t have the memories of the difference between how his core felt like as solid to compare with what it felt like “today.” To be fair, Web-Web had caught themselves in their mistake before they finished that sentence. To be unfair, none of their more appropriate advice has helped Sam so far.

  “Try to force yourself into… wanting to use the Sight.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Yes. This is a frequent piece of advice. Again, try thinking back to how you felt during your Awakening. To how it felt like to look upon a Ruler, and how it felt immediately afterwards. Try to want to go back to those feelings, to that state of mind. The mortal mind is more receptive to such wishes than you might think… apparently.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to force myself to want to feel something? I’m not even sure what and how I felt like back then. It was all such a weird fucking blur. I had a million different sensations and thoughts going on at the same time. It felt like—” He shut up. A vivid image suddenly sprang into his mind. The memory of closing his eyes and still seeing, feeling those dammed threads. Then, he could almost see his mind echoing with those two names that Farris somehow forced upon him.

  Suddenly, a memory flared up and his core was no longer at his stomach, the point he had chosen to look through to it. It was back to his heel, feeling strange and unknowable, yet intimate. It still mostly felt the same as what he was used to, what it had felt every time he had cultivated for the last half a year, but there was something different. As though there were some extra pieces of sensation. Sensations that led him to knowing about his core directly, information that he understood instinctively without his brain needing to interpret it. He was remembering how it had felt like back then, almost how it felt like… now.

  He shot up from his sit, countless pieces of information flowing through his mind. A part of him was still looking at his core, trying to hold on to something familiar, but it didn’t look like it did a couple of minutes ago, nor like his hazy memories of it from his Awakening. Instead, his core was suddenly much more visible, much more… there. And it told him things. Or to be more exact, it tried to tell him things. Because there were a hundred of other inputs swarming his mind, sensations, visuals, all trying to pass on information to him. And then he opened his eyes, and the hundred became a thousand.

  “Argh!” he grabbed his head in pain. Feeling, and “seeing,” the chair at his hip, he tried to sit down, but disoriented and half-blinded as he was, he missed it by more than half. Tumbling down, he tried righting himself but only succeeded in banging his hand between the seat and his head. The pain was but a mere distraction from the myriad of other sensations he was feeling. A part of him wished that he had hurt himself more on the way down. He closed his eyes and covered them with his unhurt arm. Finally, he gathered his wits, his breath, and said, “Alright, I did it. Now what?”

  “First you need to turn the Threadsight off.”

  “Arr…” Sam grunted. “Are you kidding me?! I spent all this time trying to turn it on. Now you want me to turn it off?”

  “You must feel in control in order to be able to gleam any insights from the threads. You won’t be able to do that unless you are certain of your ability to control the Threadsight as you please. Worry not, you have managed to access it once. The second time will come much faster and easier.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’s… Fuck! Alright, how the fuck do I turn this shit off considering I needed a Ruler last time?”

  “Your mind already knows what I need to do in order to turn off the Threadsight. Simply let your instincts guide you, just like when you were trying to access it.”

  “Let my instincts guide me where?!”

  “Towards turning off your ability to sense Threads.”

  “That’s not helpful!” Sam grit his teeth. Before, he could let the AI ramble on, let them spew their unhelpful tips and plagiarized guidance. Now, with the multitudes of sensations ramming his psyche; with the splitting headache that felt like it would shear his brain in half; and with the litany of information somehow making its way into his consciousnesses, distracting him at best, and inducing nausea at worst, he felt much less charitable with Web-Web’s efforts.

  He tried in vain to squeeze his eyes further shut, but only managed to press the arm over of his eyes further, which didn’t provide him with any comfort. Meanwhile, Web-Web was still giving their advice, about trying to repeat some of the mental steps Sam “did” while trying to turn on the Sight, only the other way around. Sam was only half listening. He couldn’t give the AI any more attention, even if he wanted. But some of it still got through, and anyway, Sam had no ideas of his own about how to make all of this stop. Well, actually, he did have the one idea, which just so happened to coincide with Web-Web’s impersonal advice:

  Sam tried imagining his senses as they were only a short while ago, devoid of any cognizance of threads, and so he tried wishing himself to go back to that state; telling his psyche to stop whatever it was that it was doing, go back; literally telling his own mind how it should function. Whether it was Web-Web’s words, Sam’s own efforts, or a combination of both, he couldn’t tell, but after what felt like an hour of struggle, he finally managed to turn off the Threadsight.

  “Ah…” He leaned back with a heavy exhalation, and an even heavier shudder. Rationally, he knew that what he had just felt couldn’t have been any worse than what he felt the day after his Awakening, not to mention that it lasted for much shorter. But something about today felt worse. That this was a result of his own doing, probably. There’s a difference between scalding your hand in boiling water by mistake, and forcing your hand into boiling water on purpose. “Jesus Christ…” he muttered. “Fucking hell.”

  “Very good. Now, whenever you’re ready, turn the Threadsight back on.”

  “Fuck, I know! I heard you the first time! Just give me some time. An hour or two. That is, if I do still have to go through this shit again…”

  “We have yet to fulfill the purpose of this contact.”

  “Look, you taught me how to open the Threadsight, isn’t that enough? Isn’t whatever I saw, whatever was forced upon me, right now, enough?”

  “No. You weren’t looking. And you weren’t seeing the information that you needed to see.”

  “And what information would that be? None of that made sense to me!”

  “We will tell you where to look after you open your Threadsight again. The important thing is that you’ll have your eyes open for as long as you can. You are still not experienced enough to discern the information without visual input. You did neither in the last two minutes.”

  Sam sighed, and opening his eyes, he shifted backwards across the floor until his shoulders made contact with the bed frame. Clambering over, he spread himself over the mattress before releasing yet another sigh. “So that was only two minutes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much time do we have left in the contact today? Are you already running on borrowed energy?”

  “No. We are still on track to finishing in time. Which means before the allotted energy for the contact runs out and we must allocate more ad hoc.”

  “Alright… just let me gather my breath for a little while, will you?” Unfortunately, he couldn’t even rest for a little while before he started feeling antsy, self-critical. Compelled to action, he opened his eyes and sat straight. “So do the same thing all over again? And this time it should be easier? Yeah? To turn it both on and off?”

  “It should be, yes.”

  Sam exhaled. “Fuck… can’t believe I’m making myself to do… Oh well, still have some extra time in the day. And tomorrow is an easy one. Matter of fact, going through a spearfighting lesson while feeling ill might be worthwhile.”

  “There is no reason why you should feel ill tomorrow.”

  “Ha! The amount of times I’ve heard that in my life. Mostly from myself, but still. Let me tell you a little secret Web-Web, since you’ve taught me so much today. The human body? It doesn’t make much sense. Oh sure, you can break it apart into fields of medicine. You can research it as a biological unit, chemical unit, maybe even physical unit, I don’t know. But it would still not make much sense. You know why? Because the state of the human body is intrinsically connected to the state of the mind inhibiting said body. And while I do believe in the eventual triumph of science of the mysteries of the mind, I’m well aware that it won’t happen anytime soon, much less within my lifetime. And an unavoidable truth is that negative mental experience, such as what I’ve just went through, and will have to go through again, can leave a mark on your mind longer lasting than the experience itself. Which, in turn, can translate to a negative physical sensation. Ergo, my belief that I might have to head to my morning lessons tomorrow feeling less than ideal. Even if there’s no physical, biologically rational reason for me to feel so.”

  “Do… do you want to put this off for another day? It will necessitate another contact. And it will have to be tomorrow, maybe the day after. But you must do this before you reach level 1. We are certain of that.”

  “Thank you for the offer, but no. I’m already committed.” He let out a breath before straightening his back, legs resting on the floor and hands squeezing the sheets. Thinking again, he got up and grabbed his bottle of water before sitting back down. He took a long swig of it. God, he was parched. He shouldn’t have been. He drank plenty beforehand. Just another data point proving his previous claim correct. He sat the bottle down at the foot of the bed. It was almost empty. He’ll have to refill it before he’ll go to sleep. “Alright…” He mustered his courage. This time, his hands were held firmly in place under his butt, so he wouldn’t be tempted to use them to block his eyesight. “Same thing as before?”

  “Yes. Start by focusing on your core. Try and think along the lines that worked before. That lead you into accessing your Threadsight. I will provide guidance.”

  Same guidance as before, as it turned out. Only this time, Sam gave the AI’s words much less attention. He remembered what he did before… he fell out of the chair. He only had to reach back and force himself into that same headspace. Trick his mind into pulling the same trick again. Should prove easier. His memories of what it felt like to sense threads were much fresher. The distinction between the two states of mind was clear as day. But despite that, he still couldn’t find success.

  Not until he realized that he was focusing on the wrong things. On the physical aspects of the experience, the pain and discomfort. Once he pivoted to the purely mental sensations that the Sight had provided him access to: the different kinds of information, the unnatural way in which his mind received that information, and the view… The completely unique multicolored yet still somewhat uniform view, that he could still discern with eyes closed, that he could still almost taste as he closed his eyes now and focused on his core. Once he focused on those sensations, he started being, barely, aware of the minute changes in perception, in behavior, that his mind was going through. Until it all exploded in into the mental whirlwind that was the threads trying to be interpreted by his mind.

  Taking a deep breath, trying to keep control despite the ongoing mental assault (was it just his imagination, or was it easier this time?), he opened his eyes. The world flew in. There was so much to see, so much to interpret. Nothing that he could understand, though. Biting his tongue, clenching his hands and forcing more weight down on them, stretching his legs, really anything that could help alleviate some of the mental pressure by providing a physical distraction, he asked, “I did it. Now… now what?”

  “You don’t need to understand. Nothing has to make sense. All you need to do is look at yourself, then look out from you. Focus on your body. Whatever part you wish. Think of your head and look at your nose, then turn your head up, and following the connection that was there, look outwards. Look to your chest, feel your heart beat, and know that with every beat, a thread reverberates from you into the outside. Follow that thread. Look at yourself. You are tethered. Follow those tethers. Follow your own threads.”

  “What…? What?” Sam tried following those directives. They didn’t make sense. They sounded so fucking mystical that it almost made his head pop with anger. But he still complied. Looking at his nose, seeing so much and receiving only a gigantic spell of dizziness that passed once he was forced to close his eyes, and a headache that didn’t. He tried again, and this time managed to last long enough to peer back up, outwards, whatever that meant. He couldn’t see shit. There was so much to see. So many threads. How was he supposed to know which ones were his? How was he supposed to know which ones of his went… outside?

  And Web-Web still kept speaking: “Your being is made of threads, held up by threads, signified by threads. Look at yourself. Try to find those threads which are solely yours, yours to see, yours to know. And look out from them. Follow them as they make their path, complete their connection to something else, all that is not you. This is important. You must look at yourself. You must understand how you currently exist. How you are connected to the outside. Keep looking at yourself. Keep following yourself out of your body.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense!” Sam grunted. By this point, his headache had developed into a migraine. His dizziness into a full blow vertigo. He felt like he was seconds away from vomiting. His brain felt fried. He was sure his eyes were now completely red. So much information, so many words and emotions that didn’t make sense were running rampant in his mind. And still he kept on. Looking at himself. And out of himself. If he lied to himself, he could say that he managed to discern his own threads sometimes, and even follow them until they disappeared. But he didn’t, couldn’t. He didn’t know what were his own threads, and how they differed from other threads, and he didn’t know where one thread started and another began. It was all a meaningless onslaught of confounding visuals and unexplainable interpretations.

  “It doesn’t matter if this doesn’t make sense to you. You’re doing it right. Keep going. Look at yourself. Know your threads. You’re already doing this. You have an intrinsic connection with them. They are your own self. They are just as much a part of you as your legs and arms. You will always feel them. You will always know them. Even when it doesn’t seem like it. Even when you’re assailed by too much information that you can’t decipher, even when it puts a great mental burden on you. Just by doing what you’re doing now, you are following your threads out into existence.”

  “Ugh…” Sam grit his teeth. “So just keep going?”

  “Yes. Until you no longer can. The longer you hold this, the longer you look at yourself, the better it would be.”

  “By now… you should know… that I’m not so… I’m not so good at knowing where to stop. So please, take the choice… away from me. You tell me when.”

  “Very well.”

  Sam knew the AI wouldn’t say anything. He knew he was just fooling himself. But he also knew that this would help him go longer. It was a trick of the mind. Just like having Sarah guide his workouts. If he let Web-Web tell him when to stop, he’ll only stop when he really couldn’t take it anymore. How would that look like? Unconsciousnesses maybe? A seizure? Who the fuck knows? Surely it can’t be much worse than this.

  At this point, the pain had somehow doubled. If there was a level above migraine, he was there. He no longer felt vertigo simply because he could no longer feel himself. The only thing he felt was the information that forced its way into his brain. That kept changing whenever he stopped looking at himself and tried following the threads that he almost managed to convince himself that he had found, correctly identified. And it all kept piling up. The pain. The discomfort. The inexplicable understanding. There was something different between every point he looked. The threads were different, behaved different, looked different, went in different directions.

  But maybe… maybe he was beginning to differentiate between them. Maybe he did know, sometimes, what were his own threads and what weren’t. Maybe he did manage to follow, rarely, his own threads as they stretched out of him and into… forever. There was a fleeting sense of similarity, of recognition, when he sometimes looked at himself. His eyes seemed to almost guide themselves to a certain point in his vision, latch onto it as though saying, this is familiar. And if he managed to hold on to that feeling, to follow it upwards or sideways, away from himself, eventually, it would always disappear, somewhere above, somewhere beyond. But, it was the weirdest thing, whenever he didn’t manage to find that feeling, when he looked at himself mechanically, following a thread that only provided a sense of headache, it always took him longer and further away from himself, he always lost it farther than those other threads.

  Eventually, it all became a single blur. He could no longer discern the difference between looking at himself and looking away. He could barely even tell when he was looking at what. It was all a jumble of sensations, information, all vying for primacy, to tell their story, to have Sam think about and understand them. And the physical maladies were, at this point, so pronounced, so overbearing that they almost shut down everything else. The only reason they didn’t was Sam’s inertia, and that they felt so overwhelming that they became like a new state of mind, as though Sam had always operated under these mental conditions.

  There was no set time for any of the motions that Sam was going through, but all of a sudden, he found himself having looked outside for what felt like too long. So he sluggishly turned his head downwards, looking at his legs. He was just about to look up again when a voice interrupted his lethargy.

  “Stop. You have gone on longer than you needed to. All this should be more than enough for the future.”

  The words took a couple of seconds to register in Sam’s mind. During which, he still followed what might’ve been his own threads, that he found while looking at his right leg, into the ceiling and beyond. But when he finally clocked Web-Web’s words, his only response was, “How do I turn this off?”

  The AI must’ve replied something, but somehow, despite it being transmitted directly to his brain, Sam didn’t hear it. Instead, he simply closed his eyes and slumped backwards on the bed. He was too fucking tired. Could he even fall asleep with the Threadsight harassing him as it did? Of course not. So he should turn it off. Web-Web was saying something, trying to help him. But Sam didn’t care, he just willed his senses to stop sensing threads. Somehow, that worked perfectly. One moment he was completely immersed in information from the outside, despite having eyes closed, and the other, it all stopped. Complete silence. No more information. No more sensations. No more threads flowing out of him and into everywhere and nowhere.

  All silent. Except the voice in his brain. “Very good. Well done. We’re sure this will be much more than enough in order to help you in the future.”

  Sam groaned. The pain was slowly subsiding, enough so that his anger could breakthrough the mental haze and vent itself on the AI. “Good for you. So when will you be sure what sort of help I’ll get from all this shit you’ve just put me through?”

  “We are certain that would become clear in due time, when it would be necessary for us to know.”

  “Fucking hell… you realize that all the ‘insights’ I got in this ordeal are already fleeting, right? I can barely remember anything of what happened. The only reason why it doesn’t make any less sense is because it never made any sense to begin with.”

  “We are aware of that. We are certain that this was foreseen. You have no reason to worry. You took a very important step forward today. Even if you are not aware of it just yet. Even if currently do not know to what purpose it was.”

  “Maybe this was all just a Threadsight tutorial. And your previous self didn’t envision any tutor being available to teach me.”

  “That is unlikely. There is no plan for us to teach you abut threads.”

  “No plan that you are currently aware of.”

  The AI didn’t respond.

  “You’re still there?”

  “Yes, we still have a minute and a half until we have reason to terminate the contact. And we apologize for that. We told you that there would be more time for further discussion. But we did not foresee you utilizing the Threadsight for so long.”

  “Sure that what you didn’t foresee was me taking so long to learn on to use the Threadsight?”

  “Yes. That has been within our parameters. Like we said, you have managed to keep the Sight open for longer than we planned for you.”

  Sam sighed. “Not sure if I’ll buy that. But I want to, so I will. And what about you? What will you do with the… minute? That’s left for you?”

  “That is up to you. You mentioned coming up with an alternative way for notifying you of us contacting you in case you were near a body of flowing water.”

  “Right… that. Sure, that would be nice. I’d love to have an input in the noise I’m forced to hear inside my brain… Say, can you make any sound?”

  “In a way. As long as you are physically capable of hearing it and mentally capable of interpreting it.”

  “Huh… so what about a song? Could you do that?”

  “We believe so, yes.”

  “That’s great. It could be like your ringtone. Whenever I hear it, I know that Web-Web is calling. And that way, no need for alternative notification methods.”

  “We will try to do so, if you wish. But we are running out of time. So once you’ve picked the song, let us know, and we will endeavor to prepare it for the next time we must contact you. Goo—”

  “Ahh…” Sam sighed, feeling some of the tension of the last… however long as it had been, melting. “They’re growing more and more polite by the day. So I better return the favor. Find them a good song. Web-Web’s theme, if you will. Now, what should I choose?”

  He spent the next ten minutes thinking about that conundrum without coming to any conclusion. His head was killing him, so he took painkillers even though he doubted that they’ll work. Then he noticed that he was pretty drenched, somehow, so he decided to grab his third shower of the day, making sure to queue up only the most calm and low-tempo of his Upbeat songs for the duration. Once again fully dressed, he decided to turn in early for the day, hoping that it wouldn’t take him too long to fall asleep. It did, but not by much. He spent maybe half an hour twisting and turning, trying to shut out all the memories that came rushing in. All the threads, flowing in and around him, going back and forth, each telling something, knowing something. And the strongest memory was of those few threads, those he felt to be the least confusing, those that never managed to reach quite as far as all the other threads.