Blake woke up early the next morning. Last night, purposely he left his Lightning Crucible technique slate on the edge of his desk, ever so slightly leaning off, and after a few hours—at about five in the morning—it fell off with a thud.

  He leapt to his feet, heart racing, until he remembered what he’d done. It was an alarm. He gathered up his staff, put on his clothes, took the Shock Palm slate with him, then walked out into the woods until he couldn’t hear the mortal workers of the pavilion chattering anymore.

  That had to be far enough. Hopefully, no one would hear.

  He didn’t have Ethbin to help him or look out for him, but he was pretty sure he could figure out how to make his staff conduct a palm art.

  But the first order of business was to get the art actually working consistently. It took deep concentration and effort at the moment, and he needed to turn it into a second nature. Even if he had passed the ninth stage of Mana Condensation and the willpower pushes were becoming more natural, the whole loop of his new technique wasn’t natural yet.

  He leaned the slate against a tree trunk for easy access and wedged its base into a bed of fallen leaves, then practiced. Again and again, he launched a ‘blue shock’ out in reverse. He wasn’t sure what was special about the Blue Shock, or what made it any way different from regular lightning.

  The slate claimed, The Blue Shock Palm Art is unique for its ability to call lightning from a locus other than the user’s body. Instead of originating from the user’s hand, it races down from the sky with greater, more natural intensity.

  Which prompted another question that Blake couldn’t answer. If Smite techniques used only the aes meridians, then how come he was able to create lightning with a rare vir aspect? It seemed counter-intuitive, but there was probably a reason for it. He’d have to ask Ethbin when the man woke up again.

  “That’s a problem for future me,” he said, no matter how much not knowing the answer grated on him.

  Blake’s lightning always originated from the ground when he used his Smite technique. He took a wide fighting stance, the one Wind-Eyes had taught, and thrust his hand out as the Honour snapped against the palm of his hand. Instead of racing out from his skin, black snakes writhed out from the ground beneath his palm.

  They were like the black lightning he’d conjured earlier, except they had heads. It didn’t have great detail, and the lightning flashed so quickly that it was difficult to tell, but he was pretty sure each bolt had a black snake’s head, fangs and all, at its tip.

  Every bolt still arced up into his hand, passing just in front of his palm. The harder he thrust his hand, and the better he timed it, the better he could direct the lightning.

  He practiced every morning for a few days until he could reliably use the technique without thinking about each individual Honour movement.

  On the third day, he practiced on a target. He couldn’t make his palm art travel far, but that wasn’t the point of a palm art. It was to enhance a strike you were already making, to hit your opponent with deadly effectiveness.

  He slammed his palm into a tree. Black lightning seared up from the ground, passed through his hand, and struck the tree. It didn’t burn it, but an explosion of force pulsed outward from the impact point. The lightning destroyed the tree’s trunk regardless, leaving behind a cool, frosty pattern where it touched. Wood splintered, blasting to the side, and the tree groaned before toppling over.

  Blake jumped to the side and said, “Woah.”

  He hated to admit it, but his first thought was: What would that do to a person?

  He inhaled slowly, shutting the intrusive thought down. Behind him, there was a watery burble and a bleat. He turned around, coming face-to-face with River. She trotted over, head down.

  “Yeah, I snagged some rice from the mess hall for you,” Blake said, then searched around in his backpack until he found one of the clumps of rice he’d stolen. “There you go. Mooch.”

  River lapped up the rice eagerly.

  “You’re growing, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t say anything.

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  “Oh, you can’t understand me anyway, can you?” Blake shook his head.

  River stopped eating, then glanced up at him. “Name?” Her mouth opened slightly, and the word that came out had a slight gurgle to it.

  “You can talk?” Blake exclaimed. “Why the hell didn’t you say so?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute, your antler has gotten a new branch, hasn’t it? And you’ve gotten a bit more…solid. Real.” He reached out and patted her back. It wasn’t nearly as spongy as before, even if it had the same patterns. “Were you always able to talk? Or is this a weird spirit beast thing?”

  “Name?” she asked again.

  Blake pointed his thumb at himself. “My name?”

  “Your name.”

  “I’m Blake,” he said.

  “I am River!” she said excitedly.

  “I…yeah,” Blake said. “Could you always talk?”

  “You’re making noises I can understand now,” River said. “And I am making noises you understand.”

  “You’re speaking English,” Blake said.

  In reeducation, the Fate Monks had insisted on teaching them Nord. He knew the spoken language of cultivators decently, but most people here spoke English still. It was more convenient, especially for the cultivators who had been here a while, to speak the language of the natives.

  So perhaps that had something to do with how River started speaking.

  “You must have advanced,” Blake said. “The other guys at the sect were saying something about how spirit beasts and monsters and demons could advance. They gain new abilities and a greater level of intelligence as they do. That was probably what happened to you.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” River said.

  “Yeah…” Blake shrugged. “I can’t help you there. I’m not up on my eiknir cultivation, or how you suddenly learned to speak, but that’s alright. You still hungry? Hey, wait, no, finish your scraps. You can’t just leave scraps of rice in the dirt there—finish your food.”

  “I came because you were doing magic,” River continued. That was a bit of a non-sequiteur, but Blake let it be.

  “At least someone else thinks it’s magic,” he mumbled.

  “It needs a name.”

  “It?”

  “The lightning,” River said. “I have a name, you have a name. What is the magic’s name?”

  “Well, this technique…I kinda made it up.” He shrugged.

  “Then you get to name it,” River said.

  “Black Shock Palm Art?” he tried. “Too long, too long. Uh…alright, god, I can see why the cultivators have such bad names for things now. This is hard. Dark Palm? No, no, it’s not really dark, and I don’t exactly plan on becoming a darkness-wielding psycho. At least, it’s not what I want.”

  “Superior Black Snake Rising Lightning Palm Art,” River said with absolute certainty and conviction.

  Blake sighed. “I was hoping for something shorter, not longer.”

  “Palm.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, that one was on me. Didn’t specify how short. What about Black Palm? Simple, can call it up in my mind, and it pretty much describes what I’m doing.”

  “Black Palm,” River repeated. “Black Palm, Black Palm, Black Palm…”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing that you just keep repeating it?” He paused. “Ah, well, I’m not changing it either way.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Blake’s combat training started getting longer and longer as well. In the mornings, he had rudimentary training with Wind-Eyes, who walked him through the basics of fighting with a staff. The basic swipes, the stances, the different defenses. He focussed a lot on defense and protecting from attacks.

  “I see you using a spear a lot in sparring,” Blake said one day. “How do you know how to use a staff, too?”

  “I know many weapons,” he said. “The spatha, the gentleman of the swords. The battle axe, the glaive. I learned many weapons in my time.”

  “In the…army?” Blake tilted his head.

  “As a Path Paladin,” Wind-Eyes replied, as if that explained everything. Before Blake could ask him anything else, he stood up and said, “Spar with me. Defend.”

  “Really?” Blake hadn’t gotten a chance to spar with anyone yet.

  “No techniques, none of that. Just your skill with a weapon. Show me what you’ve learned so far.”

  Blake lasted about three seconds before Wind-Eyes broke through his defense with a training spear and pointed it right at Blake’s neck. “Dead.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Blake said.

  “Don’t apologize. Do better.” Wind-Eyes crossed his arms, glancing across the training square at the other students, who were sparring with each other. “They have years of training on you. You must catch up to them.”

  “Yes, sir,” Blake said.

  “And remember your flourishes. If you have a moment to spin your staff, do it.”

  “I kinda thought that was just a joke,” Blake said. “You know, like, things they did in plays and such.”

  “Do you base your entire understanding of reality off fiction?” Wind-Eyes shook his head. “A flourish mid-combat helps you focus. It takes your mind off the next swipe, and gives you a moment to channel a Smite technique through your weapons, or just allows you to clear your senses. It is necessary.”

  “Right. Yeah. Sorry, sir.”

  “Senior Brother. Now defend yourself, and improve.”

  Blake lasted four seconds. But it was better than three.

  by Idiot Muffin

  UPDATES: Every Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, & Thursday (Evenings)

  Book One of the Epic Fantasy Series: Sovereign's Silent Path

  Title: Sylas of Cindaleer

  He was exiled as a prince, forgotten by a kingdom, but now, he is bound to a dead queen's will.

  Sylas of Cindaleer doesn’t wield a sword; he wields a mind, honed by ancient philosophies that compel others to follow his will.

  Raised in the shadows of a forsaken past, Sylas was meant to disappear. But a letter sealed in crimson wax, arriving from beyond the grave, pulled him into a world of deceit, schemes, and revenge. His mother’s final message is not a farewell; it’s a command for a grand new beginning.

  As the Holy Kingdom of Halewyn tightens its grip, hidden cults move to manipulate him, and legendary heroes rise to challenge him. Yet Sylas walks neither with tyrants nor rebels. He walks the Silent Path, one forged from recursive imagination.

  In a world governed by Laws and Marks, where Philosophers cultivate to conquer death and dominate souls, a lone Sovereign must uncover his true purpose...

  To walk beside him, you must accept his Mark.

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  (Note: This novel is originally published in Royal Road, so if you are reading it anywhere else, please come to Royal Road to read it and support me. Thankyou.)

  What to expect from this novel:

  1) Unconventional cultivation rooted in philosophy.

  2) Dual protagonists mirrored across two worlds.

  3) 21+ Laws of World and the abstract Laws of Mind, unlocked layer by layer.

  (ARC 4 is the training for Laws of World)

  4) Schemes, masks, and identity plays.

  5) Characters who feel, enemies that think, and tension that bites.

  6) An emotionally charged descent into ruin in search of meaning.

  7) Devoted passion from the author ^^