First night back at the books, and it hits me—I haven’t studied like this since high school. College never happened; I spent about a year chasing sparks as an electrician’s apprentice before restlessness shoved me on. So sinking into a marathon reading session feels downright foreign.

  Sensing the smoke curling from my ears, I return to the lab and Koln drags out the burner and slaps on thick slabs of hyena-deer steak. The aroma alone snaps me out of my page haze. We demolish the meat—my idea of a balanced dinner—wipe the grease from our hands, and, brain fried, retire for the night. I face-plant onto my bed before tomorrow’s round can haunt me.

  ***

  It’s now the morning after the second marathon. Yesterday I worked through about a quarter of the books I’d picked out—not bad, considering how thick they are. A lot of it was fluff I already knew from self-study, but at this pace the rest will still take ages.

  Over the next three days I chew through the remaining pile. Only two books offer anything truly useful, and—of course—the history volumes are the least helpful.

  Those histories were written from a New-Worlder’s perspective rather than an Old-Worlder’s. According to them, the New World is every bit as developed as the Old—maybe more so. Two thousand years ago, they claim, the great ruler of the New World—Aresia—gave the continent its name. That means the Aresia I’m sailing toward is actually the Old Aresia, while the land this body hails from is the New.

  Interesting, because the account I read on Brono’s ship told a different story: the people now living in New Aresia supposedly migrated from Hercues, a massive Pangaea-like continent, and that New Aresia is named after its founding ruler, the same King Aresia.

  Both versions agree King Aresia existed; they just disagree on where he began. The books I just finished mostly dwell on his feats: a war-like figure with a flowing white mane and piercing gold eyes, hailed as the greatest mage of Old Aresia. After conquering everything he could, he divided his empire among his twenty children—none as powerful, but each talented. Bored, he supposedly left for New Aresia to colonize it. Notably, these books never even mention Hercues.

  If they’re accurate, colonization skipped Hercues entirely, letting two separate civilizations grow across the oceans—then lose contact. Whether the people in Old Aresia—now called New Alysia—are even breathing is anyone’s guess. The volumes I’m holding don’t look ancient either; their dating system matches the one back home in New Aresia. By that calendar, they were printed barely ten years ago, in the 3,051st year since the Great Awakening. The Awakening marks the discovery of mana—supposedly a mythic turning point—but no one alive remembers a time without it, and the dark-age of chaos that followed means records from back then are sketchy at best.

  I still don’t know which account is true, though.

  The mana stuff I picked up tonight was thinner than I’d hoped, but at least it focused on control—thank goodness. Turns out the “sphere” Koln tossed me is called a Void crystal: basically a mana crystal that’s been bled dry. Because it’s empty, it guzzles mana like water on a desert march, but—if you master the flow—you can use it to store and even refine your own energy. The idea is simple: pour mana in, guide it, pull it back, repeat until the movements become instinct.

  There’s a gentler version of this training—months of silent, solitary meditation—but that path starts with low-purity mana and crawls toward refinement. Since I already meet the purity threshold, I’m skipping the hermit routine and sticking with the crystal. Better to wrestle the beast head-on than tiptoe around it.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  ***

  I spend the next month buried in books. Honestly, I’ve probably cracked less than half the library, but I’ve scavenged enough to start real work with the Void crystal.

  Everything I’ve read boils the process down to three moves:

  Inject. Feed mana into the crystal in one smooth yet forceful push. Sounds contradictory—because it is. The flow has to be steady and strong at the same time, a razor-thin balance made even trickier by my mixed affinities. I have to level out every element first or the whole thing locks up. Fortunately—and unfortunately—this is the toughest step.

  Control. Once the crystal’s drinking, guide the mana so it condenses instead of clogging. The manuals get fuzzy here, so it’s going to be a lot of trial, plenty of error.

  Return. Pull the mana back into my core, now denser and sharper than before.

  The long-term goal is to run the entire cycle without the crystal—refining mana directly inside my body.

  One last distinction the books hammer home: refinement and purity aren’t the same thing. Purity is quantity—the sheer volume of mana you hold. Refinement is quality—the punch each drop carries.

  With this new insight I hunkered down, determined to hammer the technique into shape. A week, I told myself—because I’m such a ‘genius.’ And the sooner I mastered it, the sooner I could reach the crew—scratch that, reach Old Aresia. If they’d even made it off the ship, the storms were bad enough to grind an escape boat to splinters unless they caught a ride on a roaming reef.

  ***

  It’s been a week—no, two months. Turns out I’m less genius and more beautifully stubborn lunatic.

  Just as I feared, the first step—injection—dragged on forever. Balancing every nature in my mana before I could reach equilibrium felt like juggling burning knives while blindfolded. Luckily, the Fifth Dream of Aspiration’s Folly is all about finding that equilibrium, so both injection—especially control—weren’t nearly as brutal. Funny enough, the so-called easy step—return—nearly broke me. My body flat-out rejected the newly refined, harmonious mana the first dozen times I tried to cycle it back in.

  Solution? Build a better vessel.

  I started working out like a fanatic. I’ve never been this fit in my life; I was already handsome, now I’m a walking threat. On top of that, hours of meditation let me circulate raw mana through every vein, toughening each channel so it wouldn’t tear the moment refined energy came roaring back.

  The injection nightmare boiled down to endless trial and error: balance first, then volume. Only after I could keep all natures in perfect harmony did the orb stop seizing up like a clogged pump. Once that clicked, control felt natural—almost easy—because the balance work doubled as target practice. And with my ‘unique mana-infused brain’—the one real gift I’ve gotten in this world, Swart’s realm notwithstanding—I eventually synced every piece: inject, control, return, repeat.

  Now the orb drinks steady, my body accepts the feed, and each cycle leaves my mana sharper than the last.

  As soon as I cracked the sphere’s challenge, Koln showed up to “congratulate” me—with more work.

  “Good,” he said, flashing that faint smile.

  “Thanks. So… am I finally allowed to land a hit on you?”

  “Circulate that for a week—then you.”

  He turns and walks off, same as always, leaving our conversations suffocatingly brief and awkward. ’Damned freak.’

  But I relent to my eccentric teacher’s advice.

  ***

  A week of nonstop circulation later, I’ve already begun refining mana inside my own body—so maybe the “genius” theory wasn’t entirely off.

  Time’s flying, my crewmates are probably fish food, and I’m stronger than ever. Each cycle leaves my mana tighter, meaner: attacks land harder, subtle tricks snap into place faster. The stuff soaking my brain has sharpened too, giving me quicker processing and finer control. My body feels steadier, almost younger—though that might just be wishful thinking.

  One more side effect: my hair’s gone full snow-white, and my eyes burn gold. Great. Either it’s the family bloodline, Aspiration’s Folly working overtime, or stress-induced jaundice with a flair for drama. I’m leaning toward “related to the freak,” but I’ll pencil in the other options… just in case.

  After I finally cracked the refinement cycle, I was sure Koln would let me try my sharpened edge on him. Instead he just nodded and said, “Now—how to apply,” then flowed into what could only be called a sword-dance. It mixed eastern sweep with fencing bite: every cut whispered lethal intent, each step weightless yet coiled with power. He finished a sequence and beckoned me to copy.

  I tried. I failed. We spent four straight days—maybe more—repeating that dance, my limbs knotting while he drifted like smoke. Refined mana kept my stamina afloat, but I still smacked into a wall the orb couldn’t punch through. By the end I collapsed, breath ragged, sweat turning the cave floor slick.

  ***

  Two months blur the same way. I look half-dead, drifting through drills on autopilot. Koln never seems to tire; he just glides, corrects, and starts again. I brute-force the form into muscle memory until I almost carve the air like he does—almost, but not quite.

  In the meantime, I kept pushing against the orb’s wall. Progress slowed the purer my mana became, but every tiny breakthrough stretched my endurance and lengthened our sessions. Days bled together as I trained harder, longer, deeper.

  At last, after those two months of hell, Koln halts mid-swirl, plants himself atop the old stump, and motions me forward.

  Finally—my shot.