So, was a bit of bone donation going to save me from Umoa doing some fucked up shit? Probably not, but it might've lessened the result! Mage bones were more valuable than regular ones after all...I think.

  Umoa seemed content enough where it might've been the case, just had to do my trick and deposit the results when I could.

  Which meant I was back to being bored. So very bored.

  There wasn't much else I could've done, entertainment wise. Maybe find Terra and wring out some ritual theory? Train up that void magic kid for fun? Traipse out into the cold? Stab Alvir in his sleep? So many options, and none of them were good ones.

  Actually, did Alvir sleep? If his mind was connected to the rats he controlled then wasn't he technically awake all the time? Maybe his dreams were overtaken by rat biographies. Damn, could I make more of me to escape dreaming? Maybe. Depended on how long bits of myself still counted as myself when it wasn't part of my body.

  That would be fun. Sculpting a clone that is.

  That likely required more than just cursory knowledge though, and I wasn't keen on learning.

  I was getting into the organ systems of some choice monsters, which summarily shattered any sense of biology I had before hand. I knew monsters were different in some sense. Aira alluded to the greater monsters defying just about every rule of anatomy and physiology, but even the lesser monsters were a bit ridiculous.

  Rondu Boars were a great example!

  Fun things, big ass pork chops with some magic seasoning and all that (apparently they tasted different depending on the magic?).

  Question, how do they awaken to mana? They weren't evolved from animals, and apparently their souls weren't predisposed like an Atrus Arenia, so by all respects they should just be a giant boar with a thick hide.

  Well, allow me to introduce the magia radis, an add on to the circulatory system that took a warhammer and thoroughly shattered my grasp on mana theory.

  It was kinda like capillaries?

  they were entangled together, but the radis beds weren't connection to any veins, taking the blood pooling out in the capillary beds and absorbing it.

  Yada, yada, it kinda acted like a storage system, but mostly just infused mana into the Boar's body. The deeper the system, the stronger the boar. How that jived with their elemental affinities was anyone's guess, I was too busy slamming my head into a wall trying to make that shit make sense.

  Mana wasn't supposed to manifest physically! Unless the mage finagled their way into converting it, some fun theory that I was reading up from the musings of an old mage that Alvir conveniently had stocked in his library of insanely detailed magic knowledge.

  I'd need to figure out how the fuck a small-time coven got their hands on such valuable texts. Something for another time.

  Point being, mana in its natural state was supposed to stay in the spirit like a good little resource until it was called upon.

  Brought up so many questions, too many questions.

  Aira waved it off and said not to worry about it, and for the sake of sanity I decided to do just that.

  Bit of a tangent, but the point was that human biology wasn't readily comparable to that of monsters, and the only perspective I had was old bio classes and all the monster encyclopedias I'd been forced to read. Considering hunters weren't healers...well, they barely know more than was necessary to bind a wound.

  That didn't even take into account that elves apparently differed slightly from humans. Mostly hormonal and reproductive shit. Not relevant to my interests.

  So there was nothing to do but more of the same, not the worst problem to have. Not even in the top hundred, but the mind had a way of not giving a shit about logical reasoning.

  It was boring, and boredom was bad.

  I hummed on my way back to the inn, Umoa's graveyard was on the east side of the city. Owned and funded by the magistrate. It was the biggest in Anik's walls, and how the witch got the position of gravekeeper was a mystery to me. Actually, most of the east was a mystery.

  All I knew was that a bunch of rich snobs lived here, and that they had a taste for confusing architecture. Just a few minutes ago, I passed by what I thought was a library? It looked like a bunch of blocks stacked atop each other, with each subsequent block being larger than the last. It probably stayed standing by some bullshit enchantments.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Even if there were only a handful of enchanters in the city.

  Probably could've made life a lot easier for most if they decided to use their magic to be useful rather than entertain the strange tastes of strange people.

  I might've considered that mages were stuck-ups themselves, but Ken was willing to offer his services for a pittance. Even if I didn't know how well he stacked amongst his peers, he was the only mage healer in the city that offered their magic to the public.

  There were two others, but they belonged to their respective magister's.

  Eight of my magic contemporaries worked for the myriad of gangs, half of which belonged to the Doves. To say I was shocked to hear that would be an understatement.

  Mages were rarer then they should've been, possibly because the northern empire was fairly unpopular, but Anik wasn't Florain.

  Gangs ruled as nuisances to the nobility, not the ones sitting on the throne.

  By all respects, there should've only been a small handful in the gangs, monopolized by the magistrate and all that, yet somehow that wasn't the case.

  It...didn't give mages the best reputation.

  To the point where when the rumours of my magicness spread beyond the guild, even those clearly stronger than me whispered enough fear that I could feel its passing. Also made it so no one was willing to brawl me anymore. Cowards.

  Maybe I could fist fight one of Alvir's rats?

  A fanciful thought. Although my tolerance was higher, it wasn't by that much.

  I kept to my humming, kept to my walking, kept to my thinking.

  A lot of thoughts, a lot of speculation. Most of it being a waste of time. Some of it being painful, alongside a sprinkle of inspiration that might prove useful. The people of the east were chattier than the rest of the city once they stopped looking down on you, but they were easy to ignore because I knew they were stuck up pricks.

  Made strolling through here surprisingly peaceful, If I ignored the glares.

  I let out a sigh.

  People were a pain in the ass.

  Speaking of people being a pain in the ass.

  "No," I grumbled out.

  "This isn't a negotiation," Aira glared. "You want to get stronger? Fine. But we're doing it the sane way. I've tolerated your descent into madness for far too long as it is."

  I glared at her from across the table, the others at our table agreed with their teammate, because of course they did. "There is no 'sane way' to getting stronger. There's only getting stronger."

  "That right there is bullshit," Gren said.

  "What would you know?"

  He raised his brow. "Plenty more than you."

  "While I have no real stakes in this," Loklan said as he perused a book that probably related to monsters considering the cover. "I do agree. Intense training should be done in spurts. Not as the standard. Even the successful fools who manage to make something of themselves with your method before they die are eventually crippled or have gruesome fates."

  "Then I just won't die," I said.

  "That's not how it works. At all." Aira ran a hand down her face.

  I crossed my arms and huffed, glaring at the collect of hunters arrayed around me. They had a mix of concern and frustration on their faces, not that I cared. My training routine was sacrosanct, to back away in favour of moderation would be a betrayal I wouldn't tolerate.

  "Look," Kerro let out a sigh. "We get that yer mind is a wee bit cracked, but that ain't no excuse to stonewall our suggestions. It's a fools game to ignore sound advice with faulty reasoning, and you ain't no fool, so why play like this?"

  "I'm not changing my schedule, and none of you can make me," I scowled.

  Aira let out an exasperated huff and crossed her arms. "This is to help you! You already take breaks with Xae, why won't you consider cutting off a bit more?"

  I scoffed, and continued eating my stew without acknowledging the ridiculousness of that statement. Girls days were purely for mental health. Which I was doing just fine in, any more distractions would be pointless.

  "You're not gonna convince her," Xae said between bites of her meal. "People with her mindset don't give much of a shit about good sense. All about getting stronger. It'll catch up with her eventually."

  "That's not reassuring," Aira grumbled.

  Xae shrugged and continued with her meal. That right there was exactly what I wanted, to be left alone about this bullshit. It was my time. It was my body. What right did they have to protest at its abuse? I wouldn't survive the horrors of the world if I was lax, and I had no plans on dying.

  "Let the young make their mistakes, Aira. So long as she doesn't jeopardize any hunts then it matters little," Loklan said, flipping a page on his book.

  Aira scowled and was about to say something, but I saw the opportunity to change the subject! And who was I if not a rampant opportunist?

  "Watcha reading?"

  Loklan looked up from his book and raised a brow. "How subtle. I'm reading philosophy, something I doubt you care for."

  "Humour me." I smiled.

  "Please don't get the elk going," Kerro moaned. "Beefy bastard has an unhealthy relationship with his nonsense books. How can a 'unter be any sort of scholar?!"

  "Is that your excuse for being an idiot? Profession?" Loklan snorted.

  "Boss man, you're reading the work of idiots. Anyone blessed with sanity would see that keeping focus on the mind rather than body is an open invitation to a shanking."

  "This was written by Odium," Loklan chuckled.

  Kerro scrunched his brow. "That wrinkly bastard writes philosophy?"

  "He dabbles." Loklan shrugged. "Got it as a gift a few days ago. It seems his stint in literature has been fruitful."

  "Good for him," Gren said.

  Loklan chuckled and turned back to me. "To answer your question, it's titled 'The Burden Of The Weak'. Talks about the bits of society that don't play into the race for strength, how they're perceived, and how a misconception of their weakness often leads to the deaths of the so-called strong."

  "Oh?" I tilted my head, this actually seemed interesting.

  "Well, I'm only halfway through, but so far it's been a dissection of why certain individuals holding power had met early ends because of how they acted like kings; and it speculates on the threshold that kind of attitude will be tolerated by the populous depending on the perceived strength of the individual."

  "All pretty pointless," Gren said. "Only idiots have to worry about that shit. If you know not to piss people off too often, then you're fine."

  I hummed. "Does it talk about how the law is enforced? On stronger people I mean."

  "Not yet." Loklan shrugged. "But I can see it being mentioned later on, would you like it if I lent it to you after I'm done with it?"

  "That would be nice." I smiled with a nod.

  "Then cut back on your training." Loklan smiled back.

  I scowled and went back to my stew with a grumble and a few curses.