“I like this one,” I said as I gestured at a finger-sized scalpel, gleaming with a rich bronze across the counter. “It looks good.”

  “You’ll want your scalpel a touch longer than that. Certain species have quite the depth to their eyes,” Radek said, shaking his head. He then reached underneath the counter and pulled out a longer scalpel, resting inside a wooden case. “This one’s the perfect size.”

  I would’ve argued my case if we hadn’t already gone over this more than once. First, it was the bonesaw, then came the iron tongs. Each time, Radek found the particular tools I’d chosen a bit… lacking, to say the least. It was either the size or the quality of the product, which I had to admit I knew nothing of.

  Better to trust a centuries-old Heart Mage, I supposed. I was lucky to have him by my side.

  “So we’re really not going to buy a cape?” I muttered as we walked back into the main part of Kolmin’s Apothecary, through the thick crowd.

  Lined across the wide hall were rows of counters full of syringes, separated by their size and their quality. I was a tad jealous since, even though the semester was to start tomorrow, every first-year student had seemingly bought their capes and was keen on displaying them to everyone else they could find. I, on the other hand, still looked like an outsider.

  “You’re of the special crowd.” Radek pulled me toward one of the cabinets with one hand placed tightly around my left shoulder. “There’s supposed to be a ceremony with the chosen students. They take these things seriously in academies. The bond between the Master and the pupil, and so on. You’ll have to wait.”

  I nodded slightly as we pulled up before a particularly large cabinet, behind a shuffling crowd of students. There were at least thirty people here, varying in size, which made it easier to tell them apart.

  Mages were almost always of a moderate size with clean faces and curious expressions. They didn’t stand a chance against Knights, who towered over them like real adults. So, they had to wait their turn like meek little chicks. Of course, there were some who seemed painfully aware of their disadvantage. They used outside help rather than actually trying to pick a set of syringes by themselves.

  Take this guy smiling from the side as an example. He had long, dark hair tied neatly at the back, a robe of impeccable quality basically shining in the shop’s interior. He had his hands tucked into his pockets, and a robust necklace gleamed right around his neck. He didn’t seem to mind the crowd at all. Instead, his eyes occasionally glanced over a hulking figure forcing his way through the students.

  Soul vision active, I could see that towering man had lines of Diamond mixed about his person. That meant he was a Diamond Knight, a powerful man by any standards, who’d decided to use his hard-earned strength to provide a convenient shopping experience to his little master. People shrank back from him, afraid that they might stand in his way and get crushed by accident. He really looked the type, as well, one that wouldn’t give a damn about relieving a bunch of students from the pain of attending their fast-approaching first semester.

  “You want to mess with him a little?” Radek’s hold around my shoulder tightened. When I looked up at him, I saw that classic sneer stretching his lips. “Might as well go about with this teaching business when the opportunity presents itself, eh?”

  I didn’t get that second part, but I wasn’t about to stop him from messing with that creature of a man, or his Young Master, whose smile had evolved into a haughty grin. These were, to put it simply, scum of the world who cherished every opportunity to bully other people. I myself had my fair share of these bastards, even though in this second life, my Mother sometimes made me feel like I was a part of their crowd.

  “I feel the weight of duty. A sense of purpose. A need to prove,” Radek said soon after, his eyes locked onto that Diamond Knight. “Underneath them is annoyance. Hard not to relate to that, eh? Forced to serve a small shit who thinks he’s the next Alzahtar. There’s plenty to work with here. The question, then, is which particular string we should choose?”

  “Just don’t have him harm the kids. He looks dangerous,” I said, and I instantly regretted it. Thankfully, Radek didn’t seem to have caught my slip. That was a relief. An eleven-year-old child calling a bunch of sixteen-year-olds “kids” could be problematic.

  “Now, what was the lesson with grievances?” Radek asked.

  “They’re venomous worms nibbling at your brain at any given chance,” I answered almost mechanically.

  “What is the solution if you have them in plenty?”

  “Just…” I muttered, my cheeks flushing red as I struggled to push out the rest of the sentence. “Talk with someone. Speak them loud and clear. Seek help if you can. Don’t let them take root in your mind. They’re rotten.”

  “A succinct answer, kid!” Radek nodded happily, then pointed a finger at the Diamond Knight. “Then another question. What would you think if I said that, in matters of the heart, I am the most qualified among us, and that it is my place to reach those who suffer in silence, stripped of the chance to ask for help?”

  “I’d say you’re right.” I scowled up at him, not sure where he was going with this.

  “Good,” Radek said simply. “Then here I go.”

  I activated soul vision. That was a reflex, more than anything else, since I knew I couldn’t actually see Heartforce in action. It was an insidious type of mana that eluded many a Mage. It was said that to even entertain the thought of being a Heart Mage, one had to first stare into the eyes of anguish and pain.

  Radek was that, a broken man through and through. The bits he’d shared with me were nothing short of torture. A six-year-old child left alone in an academy of monsters. It was fair to say that Belfray was right. Heart Mages could be a terrible bunch, especially if you’re against them.

  Nothing visible changed in the soul vision. The Diamond Knight still had his aura clinging strictly about him. A spectator would find nothing wrong with the situation, except for the fact that the guy suddenly decided to stop.

  He stood there before the high cabinet, staring out into the boxes of syringes without a word. The students who’d been rudely pushed back seemed surprised, much like the arrogant prick who waited by the corner.

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  “Dastur, what are you doing?” he called out soon after, sounding greatly annoyed. “Get me the syringes. I’ve spent enough time in this shithole already!”

  Dastur didn’t respond. Instead, he turned with his eyes wide open and the side of his lips twitching. He pulled himself back with a grunt, all the way up to the young Mage, and glared down at him.

  “What are you doing!?” the young prick flinched back a step. “You didn’t get the box. Idiot! I’ll tell Father about—”

  “You can go ahead and tell your father to get fucked!” Dastur said.

  “W-What?!” The young Mage’s eyes widened.

  “I’m done being your servant. I’m done cleaning up all your shit!” Dastur, who understandably worked up something of a courage thanks to Radek’s motivating touches, jabbed one thick finger into the young Mage’s chest. “A thousand nights with your mother’s not enough to suffer your worthless scalp, and I’m speaking out of experience. Go tell your father that. Tell him that it’s not by any mistake that she yells my name during his miserable performance instead of crying her brains out.”

  “That…” I heard Radek mutter. “That’s something else, indeed.”

  “What did you do?” I poked him softly from the side. “What is happening right now?”

  “The complexity of human relations. That’s something even I fail to comprehend from time to time,” Radek said with a shrug. “Turns out our Knight here is not just any protector. He’s spent quite some time with the family of that insufferable little fool.”

  “You did what?!” Unlike us, the young Mage seemed busy trying to digest this sudden rush of information. “You and Mother… H-How dare—”

  The sound of the clap was so clear that it echoed like thunder across Kolmin’s Apothecary. The young Mage was soon sent reeling back into the side wall, bounced back screaming, and toppled to the ground with one hand plastered across his already swelling cheek. Dastur then reached down, pulled a handful of stacks from the young man’s pocket, and scattered them toward the crowd of students.

  “He’s buying,” he grunted as money rained down on us, then turned and took the screaming fool by the collar. We all watched instead of reaching for the money as Dastur dragged the young Mage out of the shop in the manner of a reluctant father stuck with a miserable son.

  “Maybe he’s the real father, after all,” Radek sighed contentedly. “He could’ve left the kid, but he didn’t. That’s something, no?”

  I stared dumbly at his face, amazed at how easy it was for a Heart Mage to manipulate people. Then again, that was what the lessons were for. I’d been through them in person and learned, with painful precision, that no matter how strong a grip you had on your mind, there was only so much you could do against a Celestial Heart Mage.

  “Let’s get you your syringes.” Radek reached down and pulled three notes from the ground. “There’s nothing quite like a treat from a stranger, eh?”

  “You’re right,” I grinned up at him. “Very kind of him, I’d say.”

  ……

  I arranged all the academy-related tools inside my ring of holding, placed neatly across the hardwood boxes, divided by their sizes and importance. I had my scalpels— we bought a spare one after that little thing with Dastur —by the side, with the bonesaw taking up a whole box of its own.

  All in all, it was a good haul. We’d finished the night with a simple dinner, then rented out two hotel rooms by a lush forest. Mother had her own room, while I was to stay with Radek just in case.

  “They didn’t have this in Palark,” I muttered as I pushed a button on the wall to roll up the curtains by the window. They folded silently to the sides, revealing the huge glass pane with a great view of the forest below. “It’s so different.”

  Not just that, they didn’t even have basic utilities in most of the houses back in Palark. People simply lived a medieval lifestyle, which seemed odd when you got to see how modern everything was in Taraks. Spare the odd fashion styles and the sharp spires reaching from everywhere like vertical gravestones, this city might very well pass for a twenty-first-century metropolis.

  “That’s because Taraks is basically an ungoverned world of opportunities,” Radek said, lying lazily on his bed while picking his teeth with a straw. He seemed to have a lot of straws in his ring, a habit I’d long since gotten used to. “You’re free to explore, or even display your inventions. That’s not something you’d see in Kingdoms or Empires.”

  “Why?” I asked. It sounded strange that not everyone got to share the wonders of modern-ish technology. “How does being stuck with thatched roofs and wooden walls help with anything?”

  “Belfray must’ve taught you that the Planar System doesn’t share a uniform existence,” Radek said. “Cultures differ from one another quite steeply in some cases. It is in the hands of the rulers to decide which influences they want to spill into their backyards. Some have no trouble sharing the fruitful creations with their folk, while others use them to establish a tight regime with absolute control. It depends on the general ideology behind the throne.”

  “So you’re saying forcing people to live like this is just a matter of control for whoever holds the throne?” I asked, shaking my head. “Sounds weird.”

  “Controlled ignorance is the most sought-after commodity, Leo,” Radek said. “The universe is so wide, and so rich with possibilities, and yet you forget that not everyone is presented the full picture right from birth. You had a Celestial Knight for a Mother. You’ve been taught by the best in their circles to think more, to see more. You’ve been told, time and time again, that you’re meant for more. What if, instead, your Mother had never brought you out of that little world? What if she were a normal human? What if you stayed there, as a child of a single mother? Think you could still get to see Taraks today?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You’d have lived a simple life, perhaps that of a farmer laboring day after day and praying to get a good haul from his crops,” Radek said. “By doing so, you’d have been proven useful to your betters. An efficient tool, dedicated to one simple cause throughout his life. Why would any sane ruler take the risk and present you with a wide variety of possibilities when he needs the wheat you grow, the cattle you raise, and the milk you supply? Does that make sense to you?”

  “I…” I swallowed. “I think not? But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to admit it.”

  “That’s because it’s a cruel, but effective mechanism,” Radek said. “History is full of lessons for those who get the chance to leave their names on its dusty pages. There’ve been nations aplenty who refused to heed the obvious warnings and instead picked their own routes. They made Knights out of every little child, thinking strength in numbers would give them an edge against the worlds. Their Mages focused solely on War Magic, thousands of them marching behind armies of men and women raised for the cause. They won battles and invaded nations, but there was nobody left back home. No new children to bolster the ranks, and no color to their lives other than that of blood. There was no home but the grounds razed by their passage. It just didn’t work.”

  “That’s going a bit too far, though, isn’t it?” I asked. “I’m not saying they should make Knights and Mages out of everyone. There has to be a balance.”

  “A balance, you say?” Radek smiled strangely. “Then tell me, who should be the one who sets the balance for everyone else? It can’t possibly happen on its own, right?”

  I thought about Earth when Radek brought that question up. In my mind, it was the most obvious benchmark with which I could judge the general traditions across the Planar System. That… didn’t work as I intended.

  “I don’t know,” I said, in the end. “I can’t think of an answer.”

  “Then I’ll have one for you,” Radek said, then turned and raised his right index finger toward me. “You can be the center of balance. You can bend the world however you see fit.”

  “What?” I nearly jumped back. “Me?”

  “Why not?” Radek shrugged. “Your Father has tried. He was a Paragon of Sword. A man of such strength and dedication that armies would shiver in his mere presence, and yet he ultimately failed. But you are different.”

  “That’s nonsense—”

  “You’re a Runemaster,” Radek said, his smile suddenly replaced by a strict expression. “It is in the very nature of your gift to be arrogant and bold enough to claim you can do whatever the hell you want. So, why not try it?”

  “You’re talking like it’s the easiest thing in the world,” I said, staring down at him. “Shouldn’t you be more careful with your words around, I don’t know, an eleven-year-old like me?”

  “You’ll see it soon enough,” Radek basically ignored my words and turned his back. I heard him mutter to himself after a second. “Once you meet your Master, you’ll see the truth with your own eyes.”