The following months were like the calm before the storm. Everything worked out on the first try; I had completed both jobs and then took one after another, to the point that I always had one in store. I carried a small flask that Spare had given me—carefully drawn in my skin so that I wouldn't lose it. After some months of hard work, it was almost full. Its color, a mixture of a handful of black tones, was something close to soot black. Normally, mixing Inks would be considered short of sacrilege, and no one on their right mind would do it. Me? My reasoning was that, either way, all of it was so low quality, that it didn't matter. Also, it had become my go-to Ink for practice, personal or jobs.

  The very next morning to completing the first two jobs, Spare made it abundantly clear that my physical condition couldn't even be called a condition.

  “You seem to have forgotten that you have a body,” his eyes scanned me from bottom to top. “You will need more than a bright mind to survive what life has in store for you, and this bony skin you call body will not be enough. Starting today, every morning you will run laps around the area.”

  And so I did, every morning I ran until I had no more breath. That usually meant a single lap, but that was not an excuse for Spare. Every other day he would make me do more exercices; strength, balance, resistance, you name it. Progressively, albeit slowly, I could feel my muscle tone coming back. He was right that I was a sack of bones.

  That didn't mean that I could get lazy with the association. Out of all the jobs I did, carving a cow’s skin must have been the weirdest. The owner wanted to mark the cow and make it clear it was his, but loathed the traditional method of using hot metal. He was attached to the cow, and I didn't dare ask why or how. Instead, he wanted to tattoo the animal with his personal seal. Could a cow invoke the Ink? I asked Spare, but all he could say was that there hadn’t been any cases of animals materializing Ink. In the end, after battling with the beast to make it stand in a place and running on its trail several times, I managed to carve a semi-decent drawing.

  Trough daily interactions, I managed to make of Ovile my acquaintance and learned that she didn’t mean to treat me as a child. It was just her way of speaking. She always was sweet, absolutely never failed to greet me with a smile, and was genuinely curious about my adventures and jobs. I liked to think of her as my friend, but I wasn’t sure if she was just doing her job.

  Sometimes I couldn't help myself but see my mother in her. Not that they were anything alike, but something on her gentle voice brought me memories of her. And it hurt. I learned to identify it, to subdue my emotions and not to lash out at her. And, apparently, I failed.

  “What is it?” Ovile crouched by my side and asked with pleading eyes.

  “It's nothing, really.” I waved my hand, but I knew I was doing a poor job. I was far from exuding my usual confidence, I knew it, and I couldn't even look her in the eyes.

  “Is it me? Have I done something wrong?”

  I didn't have enough time to even properly see her face. I just turned, and with conviction uttered, “no!”. She could have pressed, asked more, or even wondered about my strong reaction. It was her not doing any of that, that made me speak up.

  “It's… you just remind me of my mother, she, ah, she pa-” I believe that day, the warmth coming out of her body as she softly yet firmly hugged me, is when I finally realized that she deeply cared about me. I might have cried for a second time, but I don't care.

  Back at the inn, I also met the neighbors’ kid. He was of my age, and as any healthy kid should, enjoyed playing in the open. I couldn’t discuss with him anything related to Ink, as I discovered soon after trying it. His blank face and winking eyes told me he was utterly oblivious to whatever I tried to say. So, instead, I acted like a youngster for once in my life. I pursued other kids and played chase with them. I laughed and rejoiced in a way I was not used to.

  I didn’t leave my studies behind. Spare said that I could easily ascend to Ga’lar, the third rank, with a few more practice months. My drawings with two tools improved by leaps and bounds, I could switch between the two without thinking, but I still left visible spots where I did so. Inevitably, the final drawing resented.

  My studies also progressed towards the direction of glyphs, as taught by Old and Modern Glyphs. Unlike my mother language, which is usually learned from the ground up, starting with grammar and simple constructions, glyphs revolved around understanding the symbols’ root. Strangly, however, none of the drawings I looked up on the book reassembled to those of in Ink Formations. I shuddered as I remembered the feeling of Ink invading my mind. The circular motions and fluidity of those symbols where nowhere to be seen in here. Everything was rigid, straight lines that united to other straight line.

  “Spare,” I tentatively started, “do you remember that time I looked into Ink Formations?”

  I took his grunt and side look as a reluctant yes. He did remember, he just wished that he didn’t.

  “The glyphs in this book I’m reading, why are them so different?” I waited, only for a hearbeat, before I felt compelled to keep talking. “I can’t feel the Ink, it’s not like that time, it’s as if-”

  “As if it was dead. As if the very essence of Ink had been stripped out of them.” He looked right into my eyes, deeper than them, piercing inside me. His voice was not reaching my ears, it was my soul that was being stirred. “As if mankind had violated its pure nature.”

  If I had any question still burning on my mind, it evaporated without leaving a trace. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. A chill travelled through my body, making every single hair on me stand on end. I was unable to process the implications of what Spare was telling me, and I barely noticed his finger pointing back to my book.

  “Now, it’s your job to learn these glyphs,” he said, with apparent disgust in the last word. ”And don’t ever think of bringing Ink Formations up. Not to me, not to anyone. You don’t know of the book, of those glyphs, or of the feeling you got when you touched them. Am I clear?“

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He was clear. Every word was spoken deliberately, slowly, pointedly sharp, clear, and definitive. I obviously wanted to know more, anything really, but it was blatant that Spare was not going to say a word more. I hesitantly moved my head up and down, almost in slow motion.

  As such, I continued my studies, knowing something was wrong in them, but oblivious to what it really was. One vertical, completely straight stick at the center of a glyph had the opposite meaning as the same stick being drawn horizontally. Likewise, given a complex glyph made up of several lines and shapes, the root can be inverted to change its meaning. For example, cold and hot were written the same, but with inverted roots. The language wasn’t thought for complex expressions; on the contrary, its essence lay in compressing the information into the smallest and most logical expression possible. Extreme cold could be directly derived from cold by adding a series of squares.

  I grasped it quickly, memorizing the roots was enough to start writing simple concepts. I abstracted the rules to make them more complex, what to add and where to emphasize different meanings. I could not form phrases, and to be honest I don’t even know if that was possible. Sure, several glyphs in succession could express a more complex meaning, but there was no way to express actions, which made it nonviable as a language. My most aggravating issue was, still, that no matter what I did, I never felt the Ink trying to invade me, not even a tickling sensation on my finger. Spare wouldn’t bring it up, and after his last warning, I was not going to do it. At some point, I lost faith that it would ever happen again.

  Altering the object itself, fixing imperfections or adding new elements, was something I quickly left behind. I was already playing with the idea of adding glyphs to the drawing, on paper only, when Spare suggested that I took the advancement exam. Requested, more than suggested. It made sense, a Ga’sarar should be able to incorporate imagination into a drawing, and I definitely could do that.

  There was no theoretical exam this time. One could argue that the fundamentals were the same, if anything they were doubly important, as any minor mistake would leave the drawing in a useless state. There were some new factors to consider, like having a clear picture of the final state that considered all modifications. It all boiled down to anchoring the image and feelings to your mind, which I found easier if I could evoke previous experiences. In fact, most books suggested to do exactly that, drawing something that you had not experienced before was only accessible to those of the higher level, Ga’rar, He who shapes reality.

  I would overstate it if I said that there were half the amount of people as for the entrance exam. Of those people, I could recognize absolutely zero faces. Maybe because I didn’t pay attention the first time, but most likely because it was not an easy feat that just anybody could accomplish in such a short amount of time. The later got reinforced when the teachers saw me, their puzzled looks and whispers clearly indicating that they did not see it coming.

  The test was as straightforward as it could be, no tricks or strange materials. Just a metal sword that had become rusty. The objective was also simple, to restore it. There was no specifics, just that it should be in a usable state for a warrior to fight with.

  As last time, I held the sword on my tights, and started imagining what I would like it to look like. Obviously, there should be no trace of rust. The edge must be sharp, but I must not thin the blade too much, or it will break on impact. The guard should also be brought back to shape, it has to protect the hand, fingers, and wrist. And, I wanted to prove myself, in case being there so fast after the first exam and so young was not enough, It has my name inscribed in gold on the hilt.

  Once again, I semi-consciously decided that I would use the whole three hours they provided us. I could have done it faster, perhaps in an hour if I went for the bare minimum modifications. In this case, however, I wanted to make sure I ended up with a good asset. I was inscribing it on my right arm, so all the more reason to go the extra mile.

  Given we were few people, interviews happened rather fast. Before I realized, it was my turn to defend .y creation.

  “Tarar,” a bald man that had not spoken last time addressed me in an authoritative voice, “please show us your work.”

  I brought my left arm to the tattoo and invoke the sword directly into my closing grip. I still remember the distinct shininess that it gave. Unnatural to the untrained eye, threatening and deadly if you listened to its intentions. My name, written in gold characters, gave it a distinctive touch that clearly made it mine.

  “Nothing to add,” the same man said right after shaking his head, hopefully in disbelief.

  “I have one proposal,” the same woman as last time, the one with the sharp gaze, almost interrupted him. “Come attend my classes, you can be my personal appren-”

  “Dolia!” The oldest of them, seated on the middle of the crowd, exclaimed as he raised his hand above his beard and towards his head. “Please refrain from turning this solemn act into a recruitment fair.” He softened his tone a bit after the first commotion. “As I'm sure you already know, Tarar is already the apprentice of Spare, don't disrespect his teacher.”

  “Tsk,” she audibly clicked her tongue, surely intending that I heard her contempt. “We are not below Spare, and the academy has resources that he could never dre-”

  “Enough!” the old man cut her for a second time. “Tarar, you have passed the exam. Please take my apologies for Dolia’s unacceptable behaviour,” he gave her a stern look, one that made it clear the topic was far from over. “You can go to the counter, where you will receive your Ga'darar token.”

  Without words and with a big frown, I exited the room. Has that woman, Dolia, I corrected myself, just attempted to recruit me by insulting my teacher? I just couldn't make out her tactics, maybe she thought I would think less of Spare if she said it? If I would learn something the following days, though, is how irrelevant that attempt was compared to the rest. The requests to attend classes and join apprenticeships wouldn't stop, at all. I had to strategically plan my visits to the association so that I run into as few potential suitors as possible.

  My fast rise, according to Ovile, had gathered the attention of many professors and Inkers. The first group, my suitors, I could keep under control by minimizing encounter and politely declining offers. They didn’t exactly like that, and they made me know it by threatening to be stricter on my next exam, or by slanting Spare, but I could put up with that.

  The latter, though, were terrible news. Most jobs for a Ga’sarar consisted of tattooing objects, and increasingly often the requester was a noble. Influences and contacts all played against me, in all spheres of society. Being Spare’s apprentice was not enough, and the Baril’s name didn’t protect me at all. I had to put up with insults, looks of disgust, and major attitudes. On three occasions, they refused my services upon seeing me, and I had to go back to the association with empty hands. It’s not like that had any negative impact on myself; quite the opposite, I received half the commission they had paid in advance, and they would have to pay again to have the job done. But still, it left a bitter taste, and I didn't get to practice.

  The worst part was that I could do nothing about it. I didn’t know who was behind pulling the threads, and truth be told, even if I knew, the result would have been the same. Ovile helped me find jobs that had less chances of hitting a wall, for instance that involved neutral factions that wouldn’t mind having me as the Inker.

  One way or another, my life was on the right track. Or so I thought, the storm was about to discharge, and it wouldn’t leave a single stone unturned.