Chapter 249

“Some of that is true,” Nick replied, stepping up to the counter. He didn’t specify which.“An arrogant noble scion, then,” she said lightly. “What a surprise.” Closing the ledger with a soft thump, the witch eyed him up and down.

He smiled, amused, as spread through the shop. Mana pooled around his ankles, thick enough to tell him he was in a witch’s lair and that he had to tread lightly.

“You noticed the wards, but didn’t run screaming,” she continued, probing, curious. “Most apprentices do the first time they come in.”

“I’ve had worse,” Nick replied. Feeling a demon trying to form a breach wasn’t something that would be beaten any time soon.

“Mmh. All right, cautious boy. What are you looking for?” She asked as she watched him look around.

“Nothing specific, this is my first actual magic shop,” Nick revealed, uncaring that it would make him seem naive.

“You have an exam coming,” the witch threw in, correctly guessing. “I sell many items that could help you with that, from basic primers to casting aids.”

“I don’t need help to pass.”

“Ah.” She leaned closer. “So you’re one of those.”

“What’s that?”

“A kid whose early success in magic makes him think they’ll be able to control the tower, not be controlled by it. I guess it’s the circle of life. You’ll learn.”

Nick shrugged, indifferent to her echoes of past pain, and began searching earnestly.

He examined monster cores sorted by grade and affinity. Many were known to him—hobgoblin, dusk hounds, a troll’s murky gem—while others throbbed in the ether with unfamiliar signatures he hadn’t seen up close.

A shelf in the back hummed with protective and restraining wards, containing older cores. Next to it were wands and staves placed in custom cradles with informative plaques that explained their functions: earth-shapers with oak and copper, water-singers with reed and silver, and a blackthorn-handled staff wrapped in pale hide, which felt like death magic.

Amulets hung next to them, each with a distinct flavor suggesting specialized casting.

Furthermore, stone plates with runic scripts were designed to bind and cast specific spells, such as or . Any of these could have saved him hours of enchanting, but he moved past them.

“Thought so,” the witch said from behind him. “You are the kind that likes to make your own toys.”

“When I can,” he confirmed. His new coat was a statement enough, and from the way the witch was eyeing it, she could tell it wasn’t a mundane one.

“And when you can’t, you try until you’ve reverse-engineered a way.”

“I’ve never stolen an idea,” Nick said lightly.

“I’m sure that record will continue even after you join the Tower,” she said as she joined him by the core shelf, her hands folded into her sleeves. “Looking for a focus? A reservoir?”

“None of those.” He pivoted toward the humming shelf, where a dark green core caught his eye among the many. “What’s that one?”

“It’s from an adult wyvern,” she said. Her tone made it clear she didn’t think it was in his budget. “Grounded in the western frontier.”

The memory vividly flashed through his mind: dust like fog over Floria’s fields, a thunder of monsters that wasn’t a storm, and a wyvern swooping down from the sky while Arthur’s figure rose against it.

“From Floria,” he exhaled.

“From Floria,” she agreed, surprised. “It found its way here a few months ago. I sold most of the parts I managed to get my hands on quickly, but the core is too expensive for apprentices, and not interesting enough for masters.”

He stared at the glowing green rock longer than he should have. “How much?” he finally asked, because that needed to be asked.

“A hundred gold,” she said, without blinking.

He didn’t, either. A hundred gold coins could see him live as a wealthy man for many years, even in a city like Alluria. “I’ll pass.”

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“Good,” she said, surprising him. “This is not the kind of thing you should buy on a whim.”

After a moment, she faced him. “Now, what are you actually here for, little mage?”

“I’ll know it when I feel it,” he said, and then felt it, but from an unexpected direction.

His dagger, asleep at his hip like a cat, woke and whined in his mind, its hunger making itself known.

He followed it to a tray of coarse crystals tucked beside a box of chalks. They looked dull. Dark, glossy, and unremarkable to the casual eye. But his dagger hummed with interest.

“What’s this?” Nick asked, indicating the tray.

“Shadow ore,” she said after a moment. “At least that’s what the dark dwarves call it. They smelt it into bladeshanks or grind it into binders for their runes. It’s very temperamental. You can get what you want out of it once, if you’re lucky, but reworking it is a nightmare. Most people don’t think it's worth the hassle.”

Nick raised two fingers and hovered them over a shard. His skin tingled with the sour-sweet edge of a will pressing against his perception and asking, impolitely, to be let in.

The ore had an abrasive, cutting presence. The dark dwarves he had fought on the grassland had used something similar to this. A focused pressure that bit into the mind, and only fell to his spiritual spells.

“It’s psionic,” he murmured, not bothering to keep the thought quiet.

The witch hummed, “That sounds likely. Dark dwarves like that kind of magic, after all.”

The dagger tugged at him like a dog at a leash that knows the butcher’s door. “How much?”

“Three silvers the shard,” she said. “Five if you want the large one.”

He picked that one up. It weighed more than it looked like it should, and the moment it touched his skin, the dagger whined so loudly that he had to suppress the urge to pat it.

“I’ll take this,” he said.

“Mm.” She pulled out a small box lined with ghostgrass. “You sure you don’t want to buy a pair of artificing gloves? Most who experiment with this end up regretting it.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, tucking the box into his ring. The dagger’s complaining hum faded away, knowing it would soon get its treat.

The witch glanced at his hand as the ring absorbed the box, mildly impressed. “Anything else?” she asked. Noticing his hesitation, she smiled, “I might have something interesting.”

She led him toward the amulets. “Everyone wants speed and safety,” she said. “You can buy both with enough coin, and they’ll teach you all the wrong things. I have baubles that make air easier to bend. I have pendants that enhance fireballs by a third. I have bracelets that help resist charisma.” She plucked a silver necklace with a flat disk. To his senses, it did nothing. To , it lit the room.

He stayed still, letting the aura surround the object, tapping at it until he was sure he got it right. This item contained a significant amount of spiritual energy.

“It’s cursed,” she said, watching his face. “At least that’s what the one I bought it from said, since it makes the wearer too sensitive to foreign mana. For people who don’t know what they’re doing, it means spells slip or explode. For people who do, it means a constant headache.”

“Its price?” Nick asked.

“Two gold coins,” she said. “Which is criminally low for what it might have been, and about right for what it currently is.”

Nick analyzed the necklace, probing deeper. He could feel a block in the mana, a collapsed anchor where a feedback loop should have vented, and knew it was possible to fix.

It wouldn’t be very useful for him, not with allowing him to peer in the eddies of the ether, but it’d be a fine project to attract an Archmaster’s attention.

“I’ll take it,” he said. “Wrap it up.”

Breakfast the next morning was a silent affair. Devon arrived first, hair damp, shirt clinging to his chest, and earning more than a distracted look from Sonya, who slipped in with two plates, placed one in front of Xander’s seat out of habit, and ignored Devon when he poured his tea without looking at his hands and spilling some, his eyes on her.

Xander settled into his seat, observing them like a cat watching birds through a window, with only a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth showing his amusement.

Nick ate quickly because Devon had promised to take him to the public fields after breakfast, where the young lions of the city tested each other’s egos. He wasn’t too interested in the ego part, but the chance to meet the region’s up-and-comers was just too good to pass up.

When the last plate was scraped clean, Xander placed his cup down and said, “Nicholas. A word.”

Swallowing his questions, Nick followed him into the garden.

Xander stayed silent until they were halfway down the path. Then he exhaled, and everything went quiet.

It wasn’t a spell, Nick knew. It was a weight in the ether, an exertion of willpower. Sound remained where it was created, and the wind slowed.

“That’s a useful trick,” he murmured

“Very useful,” Xander agreed as he clasped his hands behind his back. “You’ve come far, for someone so young.”

“Thank you.”

“I could see it in the yard,” the old swordsman went on, tone mild. “The way you wove the elements wasn’t something a novice at the craft could do.”

Nick let a breath out through his nose, somewhat nervous at the praise. “It took a lot of work.”

“I imagine it did, yes,” Xander said. “And you will keep perfecting it, that I do not doubt. But your style has a fatal flaw: it is too wide.”

His words echoed his earlier comments, and this time, Nick had the humility to listen.

“Good,” Xander said, watching him carefully. “Having many tools isn’t necessarily bad, but you should understand that the line between Prestige and mortals isn’t just about power, but about dedication.” He paused and looked at the sky, watching the clouds drift by. “There is a barrier, Nicholas. You will feel it if you stay in the Tower long enough. And it’s much sooner than many expect. Men reach fifty and realize their ways are wrong, and progress becomes a slog rather than a march. If they’re lucky, someone will intervene before it’s too late, but many are destined to get lost in the swamps.”

“And your advice is?”

“Choose one or two places to focus your life,” Xander said. “Not twenty. You can be a skilled cook and a decent mason. But you cannot master the blade, ten schools of magic, politics, and five different martial arts all at once.”

Nick didn’t bristle, though he wanted to. Instead, he stared at his own shoes and thought about the storm he had coaxed from the air and how Xander had dispatched it effortlessly. He thought of the artificer waiting for him at the far end of a year and of the direction that fight would take if he insisted on solving it with breadth alone.

“Most people don’t talk to children about Prestige,” he said after a moment. He kept his tone light and didn’t fully hide his confusion.

“Most children shouldn’t worry about it,” Xander said. “You should.” He resumed walking, this time more slowly. "I once had a friend who could have been great, but only realized his mistake too late. He died because, despite having corrected course soon enough to advance into Prestige, he was too late to fulfill his potential. I disliked that.”

Nick looked up, sharp. “My grandfather?”

Xander’s mouth formed a shape that could have been a thin smile or a controlled mask of grief. “He was my friend,” he nodded. “He marched beside me when I still believed war solved things. He would have liked you, and back then, he would have told you to ignore me. I am telling you not to ignore me in the name of not grieving him twice.”

Nick swallowed hard.

“What I mean,” Xander continued, “is this: whatever your class truly is,” and his eyes shifted to Nick’s face with a certainty that showed he hadn’t been guessing, "embrace it. Let the thing you are grow teeth. Leave the generic tricks to those who are lesser."