I sighed, shaking my head as I walked closer to Flynn.

"I learned that I've got longer to go than I thought."

Flynn laughed, and I realized it sounded just a little labored. As I came within fifteen feet of him, I realized that a faint sheen of sweat clung to his forehead. His mana signature felt unchanged, but I had pressured him. Not much, but still.

"Yes...and no. Let's talk," Flynn replied.

He waved a hand, and two chairs appeared from thin air. We sat down, and Flynn allowed several seconds to pass before he began speaking.

"Before we start, do you have any problems discussing your magic?" Flynn asked. "If you do, we can wait until we get back to the cart."

I considered his offer, but shook my head after only a moment.

"Not worth the walk. Anyone who would bother spying on me is strong enough to kill me, regardless of what secrets I try to keep."

Flynn nodded. "Fair. Alright, let's start with that armor. It's solid. Definitely your best spell, and I'd go so far as to say it's bordering on good. A few more years of improvements, and you'll be all but invulnerable in a duel."

"You broke the chestplate with one attack," I pointed out, frowning.

"I cracked it with a spell passed down through my legendary family, honed after years of practice, and magnified with a specially made magical focus," Flynn corrected. "But point taken. Now, your enhancement magic is...well, 'passable' is the word that comes to mind. It's decent, but you bleed magic when you're using it."

"My sudden jump in power destabilized my Aether," I explained.

"Right. Remind me to ask later how you managed that. I think I've pieced most of it together, but there are a few things that don't make sense."

I had no intention of telling him the whole truth until he revealed his real motives for everything, but I nodded nonetheless. No point in making things awkward.

"Moving on, your movement spell is worse. I can see the efforts put into refining it, but it's inefficient and very, very easy to read."

"I've worked on improving my control such that I can use it multiple times in quick succession, but that only goes so far."

"Agreed," Flynn nodded a few times. "I can think of some possibilities, but we can go over those later. Now, I've seen the rest of your spells, and I have a good grasp of your overall talents."

"And?" I pressed.

"Your remaining spells are terrible. They're imprecise messes cobbled together without much guidance. You got this far by yourself, and I'd bet a few years of work might get them halfway decent, but they're not there yet."

I sighed and folded my arms over my chest. "I'm aware. What do you suggest I do about it?"

"My recommendation? Guided practice," Flynn replied, gesturing towards himself. "No offense to any of your past opponents, but they did a crap job. The point in a rival is to push you, right?"

"I didn't have rivals," I said. "I had friends and training partners."

"And therein lies the problem. You didn't have someone testing your skills enough, so you got lazy. None of them cared about really pushing themselves."

I stared at him, allowing silence to fall over us. Seconds passed, and finally I pushed my chair away from him and stood.

"Then I suppose we should try again, shouldn't we?" I asked. My core felt refilled, my channels as fresh as they had been before our little sparring match, and I had a fire burning in my chest.

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Flynn's eyebrows rose, and then he smiled.

"Now you're starting to get it."

---

Days passed as we made our way south, heading back to the Sion family estate. I had only a rough idea of where it lay and, truth be told, I had no real interest in learning at the moment. There was simply too much to do.

Flynn and I fell into a habit of training and sparring whenever possible. The noble never stopped our group unexpectedly again, having cost us hours last time, but even restricting ourselves to morning and night left us with several hours every day.

Outside of that, we would spend hours more discussing magic. Flynn became more willing to share some of his knowledge, though nearly all of his familial secrets remained secret. I tried on multiple occasions to pry and learned just about nothing for the efforts.

What I did learn was that the light magic wasn't talented. No, he was a prodigy the likes of which even Sophia Estton couldn't match.

Flynn used three spells from what I had seen, and each was honed to a fine point. The first was that light beam spell, which he could use to slice through wood, stone, and even metal with only moderate difficulty. While easy to read at first glance, he had learned to control the angle from which it was cast, as well as bend the energy to an extent.

This ability was further bolstered by his second spell, which was some measure of physical enhancement. I was relatively confident it wasn't the full-body strengthening magic that I used, and was instead focused more heavily on enhancing perception and reflexes. The end result was that he could more than keep up with me, throwing out attacks with superhuman speed and accuracy.

And on top of that lay his third spell, which involved controlling the lens contained within what I assumed was a spatial ring. I couldn't read the runes on the ringed edges of the magical focus, but the effects were more than clear.

Flynn could cast beams through them, making them hit hard enough to crack my armor and throw me dozens of feet. If he wanted, he could do the opposite, honing his blasts to a finger-thin slicing blade that could cut through damn near anything. More than once, he'd shifted the lens, causing his attacks to bend in a way that made them almost impossible to predict.

Worst of all, he only ever used one lens with a single beam, and I had no reason to assume that was his limit. If he ever decided to throw out two or even three...well, I was starting to realize that my victory against him back in Aresford was more than anything due to his overconfidence.

And even that wasn't quite as bad as the noble's inexplicable ability to intuitively grasp aspects of magic.

Every time we dueled, Flynn seemed to realize some new flaw in my magic. He would point out how my armor wavered when I used a particular strike, noting that the mana flow in my channels would destabilize for just an instant, or find that my Flicker Step somehow disrupted my strengthening spell when I used both at the same time.

I could have resented it, but there was no point. By this point, I had spent years on such petty things and had come to realize how much it limited me. Instead, I planned to benefit from his talents, just as he seemed to intend.

After nearly three weeks, my spells had taken a noticeable step up in efficiency. There was nothing fundamentally different about my magic, but I had regained much of the control lost due to my sudden leap in raw power.

Unfortunately, I had no confidence in my ability to impress Flynn's father. So, one day as we rode in his private cart, I decided to broach the topic in as gentle a way as possible.

"Your father is going to kick me out of your home," I said aloud.

Flynn, who was reading a thin book, looked up with a raised eyebrow.

"I suppose I'm done reading, then," he said with a sigh. "Oh well. Whatever do you mean, little brother?"

Flynn had taken to calling me his 'brother', seemingly out of a desire to get a rise out of me. I ignored him and instead gestured towards the notebook on my own lap.

"I've spent weeks combing through every possible angle of magical development I could take to impress your father. My best bet would likely be a technique I improved upon during my time at the Everforge, but it's still months from any combat-viable state."

"Right. That 'destruction' thing?"

I nodded, and Flynn rubbed his chin with one hand. His face took on a more serious cast as he considered my conundrum.

"That could work," Flynn said with some hesitation. "My father respects ambition, as I've said. Trying to develop a fourth cornerstone talent in Forging would certainly fit."

"I'm not developing anything. It's a known application that I'm attempting to refine into something more practical," I corrected him.

"Yes, and mind magic existed before Alexandria got her hands on it. No prizes for guessing what earned her the title of Archmagus," Flynn shot back with a shrug.

He had a point. Magic was a refining process. It was a journey of ten thousand miles, and each person could only take so many steps along that path. No single mage had truly reached the highest heights, and I had no reason to think I would be unique in that regard.

If I could blend my destruction technique with something else, such as a spear strike, then it might be enough. Maybe...

Fortnatus, who was dozing next to me, opened his eyes and yawned. I felt something brush up against my mind, the feline's thoughts flowing through our connection.

"You should fight him," Fortunatus projected into my mind.

"Flynn's father? I couldn't. If I tried a hundred times, I'd fail every single attempt. There's no point."

"He respects strength. You don't need to win," the feline retorted.

I shook my head. "You've got a point, but there's got to be a better way."

"You know, it's rude to have telepathic conversations in front of someone," Flynn loudly remarked.

I broke off the connection, looking to Flynn, and inclined my head. "Apologies. I sometimes forget how our bond works."

"Accepted. But I've got to ask. What were you talking about?"

Again, I paused. Fortnatus immediately sent a pulse of emotions, strongest amongst them pride. I knew immediately what the cat wanted me to say.

"Fortunatus has more confidence than he should in my abilities. He...thinks dueling your father is the best option."

"It might be," Flynn allowed with a grin. "Father would certainly respect the ambition, and if you managed to land even a scratch on him, he might make you his direct heir out of principle. Shame we don't have more time to think up something better."

I nodded, and then Flynn's face lightened.

"Oh, speaking of which, my men informed me of something I had completely forgotten about.

"And what is that?" I asked.

"Ordinarily, we'd reach home within another week or so. But as luck would have it, we're passing the lands of a family acquaintance. I've been meaning to visit for at least a year now, and manners dictate we stay at least a few days. What do you think?"

I saw the grace being extended and nodded once. "I think if I'm to be a noble, I should start acting like one. And as I understand it, that involves social visits."

"Far more than you'd imagine," Flynn replied with a long-suffering sigh.

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