For a few days after the girls’ departure, Felix found himself drifting through the Crossroads aimlessly. He spent time reading and training, he helped out in the kitchen a few times, and he practised his spells. Yet the absence of the girls, along with his lack of a clear goal, left him drifting aimlessly.

  On some level, he realised he couldn’t go on like that. He just couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d spent so long pushing himself to his limits that he couldn’t figure out what going at a normal rate looked like. Without the motivation, he also couldn’t bring himself to keep pushing like he had before.

  He knew he had to do something about his slump, but he felt like his very existence was worn thin. No matter what, he just couldn’t bring himself to put in effort, even if he knew that he should.

  After a couple of weeks of aimless wandering, he came across something that forced him to reconsider his easygoing approach. When he entered the gym one day to casually do a few runs of the obstacle course, he ran into a rather unwelcome sight.

  Eugene was hard at work, practising with a zeal that Felix didn’t think possible from him. Felix hadn’t seen much of him since their duel. He'd been far too busy trying to clear his first gate to concern himself with what Eugene was doing. Seeing him in the gym made it abundantly clear that Eugene hadn’t been slacking off.

  His improvement was astonishing. Felix thought his own improvement was impressive. His use of Memory Garden had enabled him to improve his skills at an incredible rate. He still had no doubt Eugene would be no match for him when it came to skill, but seeing him in the gym, it was clear it was only a matter of time before he broke through his physical limits. Once he did, he’d be a fully fledged knight. While Felix would still be a mage with no spells.

  Felix already doubted if he’d be able to win again if they fought that very moment, but there would be no way for him to win if Eugene broke past his limit.

  The Crossroad’s rules on duelling were pretty lenient. In most cases, you needed the consent of both parties for a duel to take place. Rematches were an exception to that rule. If Eugene wanted revenge, then their rematch was inevitable.

  Felix knew that when he challenged Eugene the first time, he was starting a timer. If he had entered the elite group with Lara and Aster, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Now though…

  He watched Eugene’s sword slice through a training dummy, turning it to ash in an instant, and he winced. Now Felix was in trouble.

  Felix, of course, didn’t want to be manhandled in front of all his fellow aspirants, but the moment he seriously thought about what he could do to improve the rematch was all but forgotten. When he thought about his path, he didn’t think about watching others improve.

  Instead, Felix thought about the progress he’d made to get where he was. While the last six months had driven him to despair more times than he could count, at some point along the way, he became addicted to the feeling of improving.

  Every day he spent pushing himself, he came out a little better for it. Every drop of sweat turned into a little more progress on his path.

  When he told Lara he wanted to see what was at the end of his path, it wasn’t empty words. Seeing Eugene move forward made him itch to do the same. It’d be the same if he watched someone else playing a game he loved or eating his favourite dessert. He wasn’t jealous, not anymore. Now he just wanted to move forward, to see what he could accomplish when he tried.

  When he started thinking of how he’d move forward, one option stood out to him. Something he’d wanted to do since the first day Lara and Aster dragged him out of his room. He remembered Alvara’s promise to tell him more about his affinities.

  That’s how he ended up under a tree in the garden, having another cup of tea that tasted of spring. He’d grown enough as a Traveller and perhaps as a chef that he could sense the life mana inside the tea. It was faint. It clung to the leaves, only for the gentle heat of the water to loosen its hold. The mana slowly bled into the water as he drank it, elevating the tea from a flavour to an experience.

  “I’m surprised to see you so soon. I thought it would take you the entire year to cross your first gate.”

  Getting guidance from Alvara again was bittersweet. After he’d spent months working towards a goal only for it not to matter when he succeeded, it felt a little like a consolation prize.

  “I thought we’d be speaking much sooner.” Felix finally responded to Alvara with a wry smile.

  She shook her head.

  “Most would have given up in your situation. You should be proud that you cleared it so quickly.”

  Felix thought back to everything he had to do while trying to clear the first gate. He remembered all the times he had nearly given up, all the agony he had endured.

  “I… can see that.”

  Alvara gave him a look of understanding, not sympathy, understanding.

  “Every Traveller has to go through their share of difficulties. Your path isn’t harder than anyone else's. It just happens that you’ll need to face a lot of the difficulty at the start. When we first spoke, I told you that I think you should give up on being a Traveller.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Now that you’ve gotten this far, I see that was the wrong thing to say. Most children would give up when facing the wall you so quickly scaled. Most need time to build up the temperament required to push through setback after setback.”

  The tone of Alvara’s voice and the look in her eyes gave her words an unmistakable weight. It made it clear that it wasn’t an offhand comment or something he could take lightly.

  “That being said, if the only thing standing in your way was the first gate, I’d have encouraged you to push forward. It would be difficult, most would fail, but anyone meant to be a Traveller would be capable of doing that much. Maybe not as fast, and maybe not without help, but they would have made it.

  “For you, if you keep going, the first gate will seem like a pleasant dream. I’m sure others have told you that if you manage to get past your difficult start, you’ll make it far. That’s not exactly true. It would be more accurate to say that if you ever get off the starting line, you’ll already be far.

  Felix looked at her and sighed.

  “I figured as much.”

  He looked towards the Ways.

  “My first gate was different from others’. It took me a long time to realise just how different it was. It didn’t test me on how well I could fight or how well I could perform a skill or spell. It just put one impossible challenge after another in front of me and forced me to find a way through.

  “I get the feeling that it wasn’t just a metaphor, that’s what my path is going to be like, isn’t it?”

  Alvara nodded.

  “I don’t understand. Everyone I’ve spoken to seemed to know it’d be like this just by looking at my affinities. Why is that? What’s so strange about them? I know they’re esoteric, but from what I’ve read, that just stops me from being a martial artist. It shouldn’t make things this hard.”

  “Ah, yes. I never got to tell you about your affinities the first time.”

  She took a sip of her tea.

  “The simple answer is that it isn’t just about what your affinities are, it’s about how pure they are… Hmm, how can I explain it?”

  She didn’t say anything, just slowly drinking her tea while Felix waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts.

  “What do you think a path is?”

  Felix looked at her, dumbfounded. He’d expected answers, not more philosophical questions. Even so, he’d come a long way from the first time he spoke to her. Frustrated as he was, he wouldn’t have a careless outburst at her question.

  Felix remembered the feeling he got when he made progress on his path. He remembered the Ways teaching him about mana as he walked it.

  “Does it have something to do with mana? How much we understand it, or something like that?”

  Alvara shook her head.

  “You’re on the right track, but that’s not it. You’ve heard the story of the little turtle that made the world, right?”

  Felix’s eyes widened.

  “You can’t be serious? From the children’s book? What does that have to do with paths?”

  Alvara chuckled.

  “Do you know who wrote that book?”

  Felix’s face scrunched up. Even with the effect mind mana had on him, he still couldn’t remember. He probably never looked in the first place.

  “The Sphinx.”

  His eyes widened in shock, causing Alvara to thoroughly burst out laughing.

  “Wait, you can’t be serious. Why would the Sphinx write children’s books?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  Felix looked at her in shock. He wanted to believe she was telling a joke, but her face told him she was serious.

  He quickly scrambled to remember the story. Fortunately, it was one every child knew. Its popularity made more sense now that he knew who wrote it, and if what Alvara said was true, and the story really happened, it made sense why every child would be told about it.

  ‘How’d it go again?’

  ‘In a time before time, on the banks of the Origin River, a little turtle was born, a turtle named A’Tuin. The little turtle was happy. He spent his days swimming in the river and playing in the sun.

  ‘But as the little turtle grew, he started to wonder, where did he come from? Are there other little A’Tuins just like him?

  ‘One day, the little turtle’s curiosity was too much to bear, so it started swimming down the river, looking for friends.

  ‘For a long time, the little turtle swam, searching everywhere for a friend. The more he swam, the lonelier he felt. He wished to find someone, or something, to tell him that he wasn’t alone.

  ‘After swimming and swimming, little A’Tuin had an idea. What if other people were out there, looking for friends just like he was? Wouldn’t they have the same wish he did? So A’Tuin came up with a plan. He’d leave them a sign to tell them that they weren’t alone.

  ‘A’Tuin didn’t want to leave just any sign. He wanted to leave them something special, something that would help them and make them feel less alone.

  ‘A’Tuin didn’t have anything special to leave behind, but then he remembered. After swimming in the river for so long, he’d come to understand it little by little. He decided to leave behind a message with everything he learned, hoping it would help those who came after.

  ‘With a plan made, A’Tuin scooped up water from the river and shaped it into a little island. As he travelled, he added more and more understanding to the island. Eventually, it became too large to carry in his flippers, so he had to put it on his shell.

  ‘Still, A’Tuin added more and more, until the island became too heavy to carry any more. Picking a nice spot on the river bank, A'Tuin carefully set the island down. Still, it was too small to hold everything A’Tuin knew. Over a long time, A’Tuin scooped up more and more of the river water, shaping it with what he knew and adding it to the island.

  ‘When the island couldn’t hold more, he added trees and rivers, mountains and valleys. Slowly but surely, the island became a continent.

  ‘As A’Tuin built, his learning never stopped. Through shaping his message, he learned more and more about the river. Until not even the Continent could hold everything he knew. So A’Tuin made the stars and planets to decorate the sky, leaving his understanding of the river in every creation.

  ‘When A’Tuin was done, he looked upon his creation and felt satisfied. What started as a message to fellow lost souls became a great library of all he knew. But A’Tuin felt sad, even with all the time he spent shaping his message. No other creature had swam by. What if he left the message and no one ever saw it?

  ‘With everything A’Tuin learned, he decided to make someone who could admire his creation. A little world turtle like him.

  ‘A’Tuin didn’t want the little world turtle to be lonely like him, he made him a friend. After carefully shaping their eggs from the river A’Tuin waited patiently for the little turtles to hatch.

  ‘A’Tuin raised them and loved them until they grew. They learned from the lessons A’Tuin had left in the soil and the stars and started shaping the river to add to his creation. One day, the little world turtles had learned so much that they created little turtles of their own.

  ‘But while A’Tuin loved the little turtles, he still wanted to know if there were others like him somewhere in the river. He wanted to know if someone had made him, like he’d made the turtles. If someone did then why didn’t they stay and raise him like he had done for his children?

  ‘A’Tuin decided that he would leave to continue his search, but he didn’t want to abandon the little turtles. So he made the first dragon to protect them, the Sphinx to guide them, and many more creatures to be their friends.

  ‘By the time he was done, A’Tuin and his first children left, once again searching the river. With children by his side, A’Tuin wasn’t lonely when he set out to see what else was out there. While A’Tuin was gone, his creation flourished and became the world we know today.’

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