"Okay, this seems like a good place," Conrad said as he pulled over into the gas station. It was one of those small, roadside establishments with only half a dozen pumps, but with a larger parking lot adjacent to the building itself, which also acted as a minimarket.

  Conrad parked beside one of the pumps, chosen at random since they were all free, and began undoing his seatbelt. "I'll refill and buy some drinks for the road while you guys do your training." He turned on his seat, his head going from Kurt to Mila. "You guys want anything specific, or just water?"

  "Lemonade," said Mila. "Not pink, just the regular kind."

  "Canned tea for me, please," Kurt said, looking through the window.

  Conrad simply nodded, and they all three exited the car, leaving Christopher Robin 'sleeping' atop its pile of dirt in the trunk. Conrad stayed beside the car, while Mila and Kurt quickly crossed the road and entered the forest, the frame of the gas station quickly getting swallowed by the trees as they made their way deeper and deeper.

  "That was kinda awkward," said Mila suddenly.

  " 'Awkward' is underselling it," answered Kurt, sweeping a hand across his hair. "Why the hell did he react so poorly? Did I insist too much or anything?"

  To his side, Mila shook her head. "No, he exploded too suddenly. You barely insisted. I... honestly don't have the least idea of what's going on with him. I mean, he was so upbeat right before that. Giving rousing speeches and all..."

  Kurt pondered on her words and the entire Conrad situation for a moment before shaking his head. "We'll figure it out later," he said. "Right now, we have bigger fish to fry. We can talk with him once the situation has cooled off a bit."

  "That seems like a plan," Mila said. Suddenly, and in a manner that reminded Kurt of a deer, she turned her head to her right and, before Kurt knew it, she took hold of his wrist. "Wait. Let's go in this direction."

  Before he could say a thing, she started walking, dragging Kurt for the couple of seconds that took his brain to catch up. They walked for a little less than a minute before they entered a clearing in the sea of trees. It was a roughly circular space, about 60 feet in diameter, and with a few rocks splashed around its surface.

  "Whoa," softly gasped Kurt. "Yeah, this place will definitely work. Good job finding it."

  "Thanks," she said. "I feel the relative 'void' in the flow of natural magic, and knew it could only be a clearing. I'm gonna try to work on it more, y'know. My passive magic senses and all. Don't wanna get caught by surprise again."

  "I see," Kurt said, observing her face. "Good initiative. I should probably work on my own magic sense, too. I can barely grasp it, let alone use it actively." He chuckled, more forcing the sound out than anything, and smiled at her. "You kinda beat me to the punch with that idea."

  She looked at him, not sharing the mirth at all. Her eyes carried a strange intensity with them.

  "You've had that sense for less than a week. I've had mine for over a decade. I didn't beat you to a thing." Her words came softly, but with a sternness that left no place for discussion. "It's okay to be positive, Kurt, but don't overdo it. I don't need to feel good or be coddled right now. I need you to tell me things as they are, so I can actually advance. Is that fine with you? Because it's the only way I'm gonna be fine with."

  "Uhm, yeah, sure," he said, slightly dumbfounded at his partner's words. "I will, promise. Sorry for..."

  "Don't apologize," Mila cut in suddenly. "It isn't your fault. If anything, it's mine. I'm not gonna start with the self-loathing." She added the last part quickly, in response to Kurt's expression. "I am not, don't worry. I just want us to make the most of this training, and I need you to be as strict with me as you would be with yourself; otherwise, it's not gonna work. Now, with all that said..."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  She quickly gestured at the ground, and from it emerged a root; the rustling coming from a nearby pine told Kurt to which tree it belonged. She made it shake a couple of times, shaking the dirt off it, and then left it frozen while it was at (Mila's) weist height, and she quickly sat on it.

  "...let's start the thinking session," she continued, patting the spot at her side.

  Still worried, but resigned to his current role as a teacher, Kurt closed the distance and sat beside Mila, close enough that their shoulders brushed at times.

  "It's all about impurities," Kurt said, looking at the rustling tree tops, twenty feet above their heads. "And not the physical kind, either. Those are managed by your immune system, your kidneys, lymphatic system... your life force only has a tangential role there. Your life force, your od, moves and stirs based on its connection to your physical body, so much so that both of them are indistinguishable, as far as your own perception is concerned. Grasping Pneuma is all about stirring a response from your Od that is not matched by your flesh, so your brain, soul, will or whatever can grasp the difference between the two."

  He raised his hand, conjuring a wand on it, and quickly poured his aether on the air around it, surrounding his fist in a light green vapour.

  "Physical toxins won't do it. You need something that will be accepted by your body, but rejected by your spirit. Take my case, for example. Wyverns are constantly surrounded by a roiling mass of nature spirits of every kind. Spirits that dwell on the eart, on the air, inside plants... every type of nature spirit, they attract but, unlike proper dragons with developed Dragon Hearts attuned to a single type of spirit, they cannot absorbe these in their body to merge them with their own natural Od to form the Dragon's Breath type of Od that makes 'genuine' dragons so fearsome. No, wyverns' Dragon Heart's are a vestigial thing, like the apendyx or the wisdom teeth are for humans, and can no longer do anything but attract every form of Primeval magic around the wyvern to it, only to leave it all floating around the beast's body in a cloud of elemental power that, at best, acts as a shield against other kinds of purely spiritual energies, like sorceries."

  Humming for a moment, Kurt raised his wand above his head, letting the aetherically infused air dye the light falling on his face a faint green. To his side, he felt Mila stir a bit, but she didn't ask anything yet, probably still waiting for him to make his point.

  "It was that spiritual cloud that roused my life force when that thing was hovering right above my face. Now, we obviously don't have access to a wyvern for you to try and breathe in its essence, plus I'm kinda sure that method would not be all that effective with you in particular, on account of you being a fae and all."

  "Because my Od wouldn't reject the natural magic, right?" Mila asked. "At least not violently enough."

  "True," Kurt confirmed as he brought his wand to Mila's face. "But this should do the trick. Aether doesn't naturally belong in the body, at least as far as I'm concerned, so your life force should reject it just fine. Plus, aetherically charged or not, this is just air, so your flesh has no reason to..."

  "I get it," Mila interrupted as she brought her face closer to the wand, and she formed a cup with both her hands to catch the air that was flowing downwards. "I just breathe it in?"

  Kurt nodded, humming affirmatively. "Try to make it an abdominal breath, from your diaphragm."

  Nodding just once, Mila brought her nose to her hands, where a fair amount of magically charged air had pooled, and took a deep breath that lasted a few seconds, leaving very little of that green vapour on her hands. For a moment, she just held it in, her head tilted back, her face scrunched in concentration. She held her breath until her face began going red, and only then did she release it, and a fair amount of glowing green gas came out of her mouth like the breath of a dragon.

  "Nothing," she said, her voice slightly raspy. "I felt nothing at all."

  "I see," Kurt murmured. He was unhappy with this result, obviously, but he wasn't really disappointed. If getting a hold of Pneuma was as easy as just breathing in some spiritually contaminated air, then every person who worked with magic would not just know about it, but have it. There was something unique about how he had unlocked it, that much was clear.

  But what? Had it been the fact that it was Primeval magic that he had breathed in? It was a type of energy that tended to interact uniquely well with biological bodies. The fact that it could be used to heal was proof of that.

  Or maybe it was because he himself had had no magic of his own, which had made his body more vulnerable to any type of spiritual pollution while also freeing most of his life force to snap just at the right stimuli.

  "I don't know what it is, Mila," Kurt said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I think that aether just doesn't interact deeply enough with the physical to rouse that kind of response, but I just don't know what could do the trick. Sorry."

  Mila remained silent for a moment, her semblance impassive. "I have an idea," she said, pointing at his sword. "Can I have that for a second?"

  Kurt's eyebrow rose in an arch. "My sword?" She nodded.

  Shrugging, Kurt took hold of his weapon, scabbard and all, and handed it to the girl. Even though she grabbed it with both hands, her arms still dropped a bit with the weight she clearly had been underestimating, and Kurt saw her brow furrow in annoyance at this.

  She planted the sword's tip on the ground, and unsheathed the silvery blade, letting the scabbard fall on its side before planting the now freed blade on the same spot. Then she stopped to observe the glimmering edge, and her breath grew a bit shallower, and a bit quicker.

  "Mila," Kurt called, worry clear in his voice. "What are you planning to..."

  Slash.

  Before he knew it, Mila pressed her right thumb against the blade just enough to bend the skin, and immediately after, brought her arm down, throwing her body behind a little bit, leaving a trail of red in the sword's edge that was four inches long.