Ashan returned to the counter to find the woman yawning.
Her mouth stretched wide, her eyes half-closed, the picture of someone who had been sitting at this gate for too long and expected to sit there for much longer.
She glanced at him lazily, her gaze moving over his torn clothes, the fresh cuts on his arms, the way he leaned slightly to one side where the Vyper had constricted around his leg.
She extended her hand.
He surrendered the storage ring, feeling its weight leave his finger. She clicked it twice—a sharp, efficient sound—and with a flash of white light, the Vyper corpses materialized on the ground in a tangled heap of scales and drying blood.
"Three adults and two young ones..." She gave him an appraising look, her eyes lingering on the bodies, then moving back to his face. There was something in her expression now that hadn't been there before—a flicker of interest, perhaps, or the first stirrings of respect.
Ashan shrugged. "Do the young ones not count?"
"It's not that." She waved a hand, dismissive. "They're just usually used for making snacks."
Ashan's eye twitched.
Snake snacks. He let the words settle, turned them over in his mind. I remember Instructor Sorni mentioning leeches. I suppose the palate of a sadhaka is... broad.
"Here." The woman reached under the counter, produced a small pouch, and tossed it to him. "You can keep the vestiges and the storage ring. You can always buy more storage rings later." She passed back his ring and five bronze coins, the metal warm from her palm.
Five bronze coins and three vestiges. He weighed the pouch in his hand, felt the coins shift against each other, and tucked both it and the ring into his robe.
A decent haul.
He did not move to leave. "Are there larger storage rings available?"
The woman's lips curved—not quite a smile, not quite a dismissal. "Become a higher-ranked or senior Sadhaka, and we can talk." The words were professional, final, the words of someone who had answered the same question a hundred times and would answer it a hundred more.
Ashan didn't linger. He took the road directly to the restaurant, his steps quick, his stomach reminding him that he had not eaten since before the hunt.
The restaurant was quiet at this hour, the lunch crowd long gone, the dinner crowd not yet arrived. He ordered the same meal—flatbread and curry, two bronze coins—and ate in silence, watching the light shift through the windows, the shadows lengthen across the floor.
After the meal, his total fortune amounted to nine bronze coins.
He counted them twice, arranged them in a small pile on the table, and let the weight of the number settle in his chest.
Nine. He gathered the coins, tucked them away. Enough for one more day. Maybe two.
Back in his dilapidated hut, he lit a single candle.
The flame guttered in the darkness, casting shadows that danced across the walls, the ceiling, the worn mattress where he sat. He placed the three vestiges before him—small orbs of dark light, pulsing faintly, their surfaces cool to the touch.
He took a deep breath, calming his mind, settling his thoughts. Then he entered the state of sadhana, taking the vestiges into his hands.
The foreign, wild energy flooded his system the moment he began to absorb them. It was like water breaking through a dam, like fire spreading through dry grass—untamed, chaotic, hungry. He wrestled it into submission with his own, forcing it to flow through the channels he had carved, to settle in the spaces he had prepared.
The Vyper species are classified as Sharir Sadhaka.
The untamed urja fought for a moment—a brief, fierce struggle that left his muscles trembling and sweat beading on his forehead—before he mastered it. He channeled its refined power downward, letting it flow into his muladhara chakra, strengthening the foundation he had built so carefully.
When it was done, he opened his eyes.
The candle had burned down to a stub. The room was darker, the shadows deeper. He felt the change in his body—small, incremental, but real. A stone added to the foundation. A step taken on the path.
Morning rays bathed his humble dwelling, falling across his face in stripes of gold and shadow. His brows furrowed. His nose twitched. He rose, stretching stiff joints that popped and cracked in the quiet.
One last read before I return it.
He found the book where he had left it, its cover worn, its pages soft from handling. He flipped through it one final time, his grayish-white eyes scanning the pages with preternatural speed, committing the last details to memory, filling the gaps in his understanding.
When he was done, he tucked the book under his arm and headed out.
He entered the library to find the same old man engrossed in the same erotic book.
Gonner Gezzer is still... enjoying his research.
Ashan approached the desk, his footsteps loud in the silence, his shadow falling across the pages the old man was so intent upon. "Trying any tricks, or just mastering the theory first?" he said casually.
"Oh, no, just learning." The old man's voice was dreamy, distracted. "You have to master the theory before you can hehe—" He stopped. His head snapped up. "Wait, what did you say?"
Ashan placed the divination book on the desk, the thud of its weight loud in the quiet. "I said I'm returning this. Thank you for the loan."
The old man's eyes clouded with confusion for a moment—his mind clearly still half in the world of whatever he had been reading—before he gathered himself. "Hmph!" He snatched the book, checked the binding, the pages, the due date, and found nothing to complain about. He returned to his reading, grumbling under his breath, his cheeks flushed, his eyes already moving down the page.
Ashan turned and left, a faint smile touching his lips.
He headed for building number nine, his steps quick, his mind already moving ahead to the lesson that would come.
Let's hope he doesn't greet me with a fireball this time.
He entered to find Shikshak Yaren engrossed in his work, hunched over a piece of parched paper, his quill moving in quick, sharp strokes. The room was less messy than before—the floor cleaner, the smell barely tolerable—but the table was still cluttered with instruments, the walls still stained with the residue of whatever experiments had been conducted here.
"Praise the Lord of Greed," Ashan offered, his salutation crisp, formal.
Shikshak Yaren stopped his work. He looked at Ashan standing by the door, his pale yellow eyes sharp, assessing. "Praise the Lord of Greed."
He went back to his work. "Mop the floor. Then we will begin our session."
Ashan did as he was told, fetching the wooden bucket of cold water and the old, frayed mop. He worked quickly, efficiently, his movements automatic, his mind already turning over the questions he would ask, the knowledge he would seek.
When he was done, Shikshak Yaren had set aside his work and was seated on the ground, his posture relaxed, his hands resting on his knees.
Ashan sat before him.
"Did you read the Basic Guide to Divination and Revelation?"
"Yes, Shikshak Yaren."
The moment he affirmed it, Shikshak Yaren began firing questions at him.
Well. Ashan answered each one as it came, his responses quick, precise, complete. It seems some things are universal. Teachers in this world or my last all love surprise tests to keep their students on their toes.
The questions were basic—reviewing the core concepts of divination and revelation, the nature of the two sources, the mechanics of the craft. He answered them all without hesitation, without error, and when Shikshak Yaren finally stopped, there was something in his expression that might have been approval or might have been the recognition of a student who had done what was expected and no more.
"Now." His voice was flat, challenging. "Do you understand the fundamental difference between the two sources of divination?"
"Yes." Ashan met his gaze, steady, certain. "I understand it completely."
Shikshak Yaren pulled a bronze coin from his pocket, held it up between thumb and forefinger so that it caught the light. "Take this. Perform a simple divination. Practical application is far more instructive than theory."
Ashan took the coin. It was warm from Yaren's hand, the metal smooth, the edges worn.
"Using coins is one of the simplest methods, though it has its limits."
"But Shikshak Yaren." Ashan turned the coin over in his fingers, feeling its weight. "What should I divine?"
"Figure it out yourself." Yaren shrugged, the gesture almost lazy. "Now is the perfect time to let your siddhi shine. Be quick about it."
Ashan rolled the bronze coin between his fingers for a moment, letting the question form in his mind, letting it settle.
Then he focused.
[Viksana: Scrying]
This was different from passive use. He could feel it—the active channeling of his will, the deliberate shaping of his intent. He held the coin between his right thumb and index finger, its weight grounding him, its surface cool against his skin. His eyes became whirlpools of swirling grayish-white.
"Is it going to rain today?"
"Is it going to rain today?"
"Is it going to rain today?"
He chanted the question softly in Asurain, the words falling from his lips like stones dropped into deep water.
His vision shifted.
For a single moment, he was elsewhere—gazing upon a vast, tangled web of luminous threads that stretched in every direction, each one connecting to another in an endless weave of cause and effect. The threads pulsed with light, with possibility, with futures that had not yet been chosen and pasts that could never be changed. He stood at the center of it, a single point in an infinite network, and for that moment, he understood.
Then his sight snapped back to normal. His eyes returned to their original state. The coin was warm in his palm, almost too warm, as if it had absorbed something of the vision and held it close.
He flipped it into the air.
It spun once, twice, three times, catching the light, throwing it back in flashes of bronze and shadow. Then it landed with a soft clink, the blank back side facing up.
No rain today.
Ashan looked at the result, then at Shikshak Yaren.
"Well," he said, and there was something in his voice that might have been satisfaction or might have been the first stirrings of something else.
"No rain today."