Chapter 3
WE WERE NOW occasionally going into the forest to learn how to track in place of our usual long-distance training. While there weren’t any more deaths beyond the first, there were frequent injuries. It was the beasts who roamed there that we had to thank for that. The instructors consistently did nothing to protect the children from any creature attacking. At first, I thought it was to give us more specimens for our dissection classes, but I soon realized it was probably to teach us to be more vigilant when in the forest.
During these classes, I took great pains to spot the adults I guessed were watching us from the trees. Sometimes I detected a presence, a lingering scent, but they weren’t enough to spot a silhouette.
Several kinds of beasts lived in the forest. There were wolves, like the one we saw on the first day. The instructor caught a horned rabbit the next day, and then there were the boars which crackled with something like lightning. All of them were warped versions of the creatures I’d known in my previous life. The wolves were just like regular wolves—only a few possessed great strength, and I saw some jumping from tree to tree like flying squirrels. My guess was that this was variance within their species. That said, I had yet to witness any wolf exactly identical to another. There were even differences between the more muscular ones. Some had these strong muscles running throughout their bodies, while others had a particularly large lower half.
It was strange to see these discrepancies in such limited scope. If all these wolves had the same feeding habits, those with similar traits and characteristics should have been competing, leaving just the one variety with the most genetic advantages to flourish. That was why I believed their differences weren’t a matter of them being unique species, but of variation within their skills. If I was right, that meant all these wolves had taught themselves these abilities. And I knew that essence, the biggest difference between my two lives, was the key.
In other words, if you used essence well, you could learn the beasts’ abilities for yourself.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Pick up a needle.”
Sister had the floor for our special training today. Although this room was laid out like a meditation room, the way the desks were arranged reminded me of my previous life’s classrooms. We sat wherever we liked. On each desk was a box of needles; they were just a bit bigger than those used for sewing.
“I will be having you make arcane tools today.”
That knife she showed me that exhausted people—I would be learning the secret behind it at last.
“An arcane tool is one to which a special effect has been applied using essence. Allow me to show you one.” Sister produced three needles just like the ones in the boxes. “These are ordinary needles.”
She threw one. It bounced off the wall.
“Now this needle is an arcane tool.”
The second needle embedded itself halfway into the wall.
“You can’t do much more than that with just a regular needle, but it’s still enough to threaten an enemy’s weak point.”
That was all it took to capture the children’s interest.
“The method is simple. All you need to do is imbue the needle with essence while wishing for it to ‘penetrate.’”
The children glared at their needles, activating their essence one after another. I followed Sister’s instructions too, picking out a needle for myself. Her words intrigued me.
“You can’t do much more than that with just a regular needle.”
In other words, a “regular” needle was all you needed to form an arcane tool. Therefore, most things could be turned into arcane tools. And if you didn’t just have a regular needle, but something more specialized? Then you should be able to do “much more” with it. Take, for example, a dragonborn’s scales...
Despite being distracted by these thoughts, I tried to focus my essence. Before I knew it, the tip of my needle had snapped, and it was rolling around on the desk.
“Your mind is wandering,” Sister warned. “I said all you need to do is imbue your essence and wish for the needle to penetrate.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
I picked up the needle and tried applying pressure. It broke easily. It had become brittle, perhaps hollow. Distraction hindered the production of arcane tools. When imbuing failed, your object became brittle and broke. I had hoped to be able to create at least one successful tool to start with.