Agatha almost felt unsettled when she woke up. The sun grazed her in a lovely manner through the window and her body was perfectly rested, yet those comfortable feelings were the root of her distress. Too many days on the road, the dirty-blond girl pondered as she yawned and stretched her arms.

  “How queer that I’m feeling more tired from sitting my ass on a bench for two weeks instead of walking two weeks for more than half a day…” She looked to her side on the colossal bed, yet Christie was nowhere to be found. All these days of waking up with her delicate and fiery girlfriend as her first sight had conditioned her, so she felt disappointed when she didn’t see the redhead. She sighed. “I guess the sleep is better when you are exhausted out of your mind.”

  The petite girl circled around the bedroom in slippers, but she soon noticed that she didn’t have any other clean clothing besides the light-blue dress that she had worn during the feast last night. As she removed her nightrobe to get changed, her mind wandered back to before she went to sleep.

  “What do you mean that today is your birthday?” Christie had asked her in a mixture of confusion, surprise, and shame.

  “Well,” Agatha snorted, “it is not like I have ever celebrated it.”

  “You have never celebrated it?” All of that surprise devolved into dismay.

  Before she could respond to her pale and worried girlfriend, that lithe father of hers cut in before with a sigh. “It does not surprise me at all.”

  “What? The fact that she has not celebrated a birthday?” The redhead short of howled to her father.

  “Well, also that. Birthdays are not a thing here. Well, not for everyone. Only nobles celebrate them. To my knowledge, only in Intak Solfan does the whole populace celebrate birthdays, but that is because they treat them as a family gathering rather than a gift-sharing occasion. Where was I?” The man squinted in confusion.

  “Something about not being surprised, Hasel,” Miss Diorite reminded him.

  “Right, right,” the patriarch nodded. “I am not surprised because Cordellia and Esmeralda were with child – yourselves, namely – around the same time. Still, what a pleasant surprise that the best friends share a birthday!” He chuckled and clapped.

  While neither of the girls said anything at that moment, Agatha and Christie shared an uncomfortable gaze when the lithe man said ‘best friends’.

  “Now,” his smile stopped and his tone became stern. “I know Esmeralda will never accept anything from me – that stubborn woman – but fortunately for us, you are not her. Are you, Agatha?”

  “No?” The dirty-blond girl affirmed with a hint of perplexity.

  “Nice, nice,” Hasel clapped again. “So what do you think about getting a gift?”

  “Really?” Agatha’s eyes illuminated as if commanded by Light, shame completely thrown out of the window. They were talking about a gift from a very rich person, after all.

  “Of course,” the man smiled in a vulpine manner. “I cannot leave my dearest daughter’s best friend without a present on her birthday, can I now? So, do you have any wishes? I will try to fulfill them to the best of my capabilities.”

  Wish. A powerful and marvelous word, and after hearing it, only one thing came to Agatha’s mind that she wanted to be fulfilled. And it was tempting. But she shook her head, taking the idea out of her mind. No, this is something that Christie herself has to ask, not me. Instead of trying to get accepted out of a moral obligation, Agatha thought of another desire of hers.

  I’ve been putting it off as I was so happy these last weeks, but… I still want to become the world’s best lithorist. And before her stood none other than a miner.

  “Could I… ask for lithorica lessons?” She asked shyly.

  The man’s somewhat somber expression – more vulpine than anything – lightened upon hearing that petition.

  “Hmm,” he hummed with interest. “It is normally forbidden to teach Agatecraft to anyone outside of military instruction, but considering you are a soldier in formation… I guess something could be arranged.” Yet the patriarch’s expression wasn’t bemused, but amused.

  Then Agatha rushed back to the present time in a hurried panic.

  “Oh, depths!” She rushed into the bathroom and washed her face. “Didn’t he say to meet in the garden in the morning?”

  Without even thinking about eating, Agatha broke in a dash toward the bottom floor, her face still wet and her hair uncombed. Much to her dismay, the patriarch was already in the garden, calmly sitting in a white gazebo with a teacup in hand.

  “Where are you going with that haste?” The man chuckled.

  “To, er…, training?” Agatha responded distractedly as she fixed her hair a bit. She knew it was a mess after seeing it in the bathroom mirror from the corner of her eye.

  “Commendable, but if you think this is about the instruction I have informed you about, worry not. I do not tend to work in the mornings.”

  “Oh,” she mouthed and her body just… flopped as all the stress and frenzy on her body vanished. “Uhm… can I sit down?” The girl pointed at the gazebo with her gaze.

  “Be my guest,” the man chuckled. “Well, I guess you already are.” And chuckled again.

  Is this the dad humor have I heard about? Agatha frowned softly as she sat down and took a deep breath. After all, she had never had a father to hear that type of humor from. She had rushed out of her bedroom with such haste that her heart was still beating hard.

  “I actually expected you to sleep in, at least today,” Hasel said after taking a sip of his tea.

  “I… do not sleep in,” Agatha replied with a slight flush.

  “You had a rough and expedited journey. I would not blame you if you did. But at the same time, I guess I am a bit used to my dearest daughter sleeping in. Neither of us are morning people, I guess she took that from me.”

  “Christie, um, it is true that she has a bit of difficulty during the mornings, but she wakes up at the same time as me. Sometimes she has even woken up earlier than me.”

  “That is a sight to behold if it is true,” the patriarch snorted. “But let us be honest, she is only waking up early because of the academy’s schedule. Has she not lazed around a bit during weekends or this journey back home?”

  “…I guess she did?” She didn’t know what it was, but Agatha felt uncomfortable around the man. No, uncomfortable isn’t the right word. At unease. I feel like I’m with the behemoth all over again. She was well aware that in front of her was a man and not a colossal monster, but her body didn’t seem to recognize that. It only saw a threat.

  The man chuckled audibly out of nowhere. “Good instincts.”

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  “Excuse me?” The girl professed her confusion.

  “Your guard is up,” he commented casually over a cup of tea.

  “I…” Huh, she realized that was the case as soon as she was about to make an excuse. “Can I say something that you might find offensive?”

  “I appreciate the warning, but I doubt that will be the case. So do tell.”

  “You… remind me of a behemoth.”

  “I do not know what world you live in, but that sounds like a compliment to me. I can only think of two outcomes to that comparison. Either I am big – which I kind of am, though I would prefer the world tall – or I am dangerous,” Hasel’s grin intensified. “Which I definitely am.”

  That was it, the same feeling. The man in front of her was kicking her fight or flight response into overdrive. Not even René Dago could get that feeling out of her, but at the same time, Agatha was sure she had never seen the teacher fight seriously.

  “But I am more interested in something else,” he continued and set his cup down. Before anything else, the miner summoned an agate in his fingertips, did something with it, and then recalled it. It happened so quickly that Agatha couldn’t tell what he had done, only that she had just summoned her second agate in her fist just in case.

  “What was that?” The petite asked with a mixture of curiosity and dread.

  “Nothing much. I just called Diorite so she could bring some pastries. You have not had breakfast yet, right?” Agatha blushed at the lithe man’s words. “Outstanding reflexes by summoning an agate in your hand, however.” Her blush intensified.

  “How?” Never before had she uttered a question so genuine and laden with baffled innocence.

  “Experience,” Hasel shrugged. “Agatecraft, especially lithorica, is a discipline that asks for fast reflexes. But most importantly, interpreting the information given to you by those reflexes. Your forearms flexed a bit strangely, and barring a spasm or a cramp – which are totally plausible – the only way for it to have moved that way is because your hand suddenly had to make space for something.”

  “…You really are a miner.”

  “I must admit,” he chuckled, “this might be the most curious way someone has recognized my might. Normally, I have to make massive feats of Agatecraft or participate in a duel.”

  “Would I even have a chance in a duel?” Agatha inquired ever-so-slightly sarcastically.

  “Yes,” the patriarch responded so taciturnly and seriously that the girl couldn’t help but be left shellshocked and agape.

  “Uh…” She needed three blinks before she regained a resemblance of intellect. “Are you… jesting?”

  “No, I am not,” he responded softly but still seriously. “Lithorica is simply like that. We control powerful objects that can even move faster than thoughts and can even take down castles on their own. Reflexes, power, and experience only get you so far. Sometimes the dominant skill is luck. One stray shot is enough for even the mightiest of miners to come tumbling down.”

  “I fear luck is a skill that I do not possess.” Many thoughts came to Agatha’s mind, but mainly, her lone agate and the encounter with the behemoth.

  But have I not prevailed by luck itself too? It is this lone agate that allowed me to get to the Skyscraper Academy, and even Terráquea said that I shouldn’t even have gotten in the first place. And about the behemoth, Christie saved me. Which… brought an even fortunate moment. Is this luck, or simply my misfortune being corrected?

  Agatha couldn’t help but think about that matronly merchant, Nerea, whom she had met basically a year ago in the caravan that brought her to Knight’s Ascent. Blessings and curses go hand in hand, huh. Maybe you were righter than I thought. I wonder where the caravan has led you now.

  “Luck is an elusive skill, after all,” Hasel added. “But I say you have plenty if you have met a behemoth and survived to live the tale.”

  “You…” As Agatha looked at the man’s grin, it became quartz clear to her. “You know about the incident.”

  “Of course I did. I am the father of one of the implicates.”

  “Does… my mother know about it?”

  “Esmeralda? No. René sent me a letter to inform me about the fiasco, but he mostly talked about my Christina and a classmate. He did not specify who, but I guess it is quite obvious who that unnamed classmate was,” the patriarch smiled in a manner that could only be called vulpine.

  Christie has smiled like that before, once in a while. Is it because of him? And… doesn’t Teacher Dago also smile like that? Hasel just mentioned exchanging letters, and René Dago is awfully close with Christie too… Some pieces connected in Agatha’s mind, but she preferred not to mention them as it didn’t change anything.

  “I am… at ease if my mother does not know about it yet. I would rather inform her of it myself.”

  “But of course,” he bowed slightly with a twirl of his hand. “But I think we must stop our conversation for a while. Breakfast has arrived, you see.”

  Agatha turned her head and saw Miss Diorite pushing a cart full of… everything. Pastries, fruits, juices, and even a kettle. There was nothing lacking there. Well, except for gruel, and the petite girl was thankful for it.

  “Eat whatever you please,” the head maid said with a grandmotherly smile as she set all the plates on the garden table. “Do not worry about the leftovers, they will not go to waste. Fran?ois has quite the appetite.”

  “Still, is this not too much? Will he not grow fat?” The girl inquired.

  “Stoneshells do not grow fat, girl. They grow big. And if he does, then that is an advantage for us. He cannot get any slower, only stronger.”

  “I must concede to you there,” Agatha chuckled as her eyes moved from plate to plate. “Fran?ois is in a league of his own, where slowness is concerned.”

  The old woman dedicated her a smile before she took the cart away and went back into the mansion. Agatha started eating, trying a bit of everything, and Hasel seemed to be at peace with his tea, so they spent the rest of the time in silence. At least until she filled her stomach to its absolute limit.

  “For a girl so small, you certainly eat. I have not forgotten the feast you had yesternight,” the patriarch set his cup down, the liquid still steaming. It wasn’t because he had refilled it with the kettle Miss Diorite had brought – which he did – but because the bottom of the cup was made out of brass, easily transmitting the heat from a Heat command.

  “How is so that you – as a stand-in for everyone – always do that?” Agatha said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.

  “Do what?”

  “Changing the status of people arbitrarily,” she said with a squint. “Last night you informed Christie about how she was an adult, had been for a while, and yet, we are still girls to you.”

  Hasel chuckled. “I understand your annoyance. I was young once too, but one thing does not cancel the other one. You might legally be an adult, but you still have some growing to do. You are still studying and are not a soldier yet, when you complete either of the two, you will have enough experience under your belt to call yourself an adult. You will know when that time comes.”

  Agatha continued squinting at the man, but finally sighed in defeat and let the subject drop as she realized that – while he was partially right – she couldn’t do anything to change Hasel’s mind.

  “Well, now that we have had breakfast, could I ask for a demonstration of the might of a miner?”

  “The minor minor wants to see the might of the miner?” Hasel grinned.

  Agatha just squinted at him. Dad jokes or dad torture?

  “Alright, it seems my humor is not appreciated, so let us get down to business.”

  “Well, it is not that it is appreciated,” she corrected as the man deflated significantly. “I just do not cope with that type of humor. Same with René Dago.”

  “Ah, young René. It is true that his humor is… drier than mine. I cannot blame him; however, I would not like to be in his boots.”

  “His boots?” Agatha frowned.

  “But I digress!” The man haughtily changed the subject. “Follow me, Agatha. I will teach you some common things that you will not see until your teacher trusts you a bit more.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Patience, girl.”

  Agatha scowled at being referred to as ‘girl’. She was an adult, perhaps a young and inexperienced one, but an adult, nonetheless. And even if it wasn’t the case, he still knew her name!

  Hasel guided her out of the garden and into the woods that surrounded the estate. She didn’t say it aloud, but she noticed how there was a clean perimeter devoid of trees between the estate and the forest. Even though there was literally nothing, it felt more potent of a defense than the ramparts that surrounded the academy’s crater.

  Once in the woods, the patriarch guided her into a clearing big enough to fit a whole training ground. The man tapped on the earth with his foot, and the ground trembled. Agatha was well aware that it was lapiloquia that she was seeing, but the sheer magnitude still surprised her. Suddenly, all the grass on the clearing was uprooted and swallowed by the same earth that had fed it, only now leaving bedrock in front of him.

  A casual display of power. No shortness of breath or bead of sweat.

  This was a miner.

  “So you are going to teach me lapiloquia?” Agatha crossed her arms and tried to act confident, lest the man notice she was scared shitless.

  “No,” Hasel swayed his head and put his hands behind his back. “It is not going to make much difference if I teach you here or René at the academy. Lapiloquia is an endeavor that will take you years. If you think increasing Strata is slow, you are in a world of pain to even get bedrock to listen to you. No, what I want to lecture you on is series.”

  “I know about them,” she answered, still keeping a fa?ade of confidence.

  “That, Agatha, is the issue. You know about them, but you really do not understand them,” the miner summoned an agate. Dark as night. Onyx. “You are in the Third Stratum with that agate of yours, and I can tell you have been exploring the application of Control and Amplify in series…”

  “Wait, how can you tell that?” Agatha interjected.

  “Experience,” he taciturnly answered before returning to his explanation. The villager was starting to hate the word. “But that is all you have been doing. Exploring. And with only two commands at that. But there are far more commands that do a great job at combining into powerful series. Let me tell you about the Protect and Invert commands.”

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