Laurel stood at the front of her favorite classroom and looked out over her students. The dozen or so initiates were clumped together on wide floor pillows, with a few low table tops hovering between them. The slate boards behind her were covered with diagrams of meridians and notes on mana theory and the goals of initiate stage cultivating.

"This should mostly be review. I'm sure you all will answer any questions fully and completely." She took a scan around the room and saw some gulping and shifting around. Good. A touch of nerves was appropriate when attempting something like aspecting one's mana.

"Leander, you're up first. Why do we aspect our mana?"

The boy in question hopped up and made his way to the board. She continued to stare down the rest of the students while Leander wrote, and only turned to check his answers. Each letter in his list was perfectly formed, actual calligraphy by Laurel's standards and barely acceptable by Annette's.

It read:

Large Scale or Complicated Techniques

Foundation building

Personal growth

"Well done, that's correct, though a bit unspecific. The first line is the most noticeable. If you want to do anything more than shove the ambient mana around, you need an aspect to focus on. Unaspected mana is fine for party tricks, start a fire or make a glow stone. Float something light. But if you try that against a strong spirit beast or a cultivator that has focused their mana via an aspect, you'll be lucky to escape.

"Won't that mess up enchantments?" Natalia interrupted.

"No, you filter your aspect out when you infuse something or create an enchantment." Laurel kept going before they could start down a crafting tangent. She would have to force Devon to give some lectures when he came back. Say enough wrong information in front of him and he would be compelled to correct it.

"It's the second and third lines, however, that are more important. Cultivation is a journey. You've all been focusing on why you want to cultivate, the idea that drives you at the beginning of the path. As that evolves and grows, so will your aspect, and your understanding of that aspect. If you don't have that, you'll stall out. You might become an adept but you'll never go further."

"Helene, how do you choose an aspect?"

"Umm, whatever you want?"

"Yes," Laurel dragged out the word but her would-be water cultivator didn't seem to have anything else to say. "Eric, help her."

"Ahem, you choose an aspect that you feel drawn to, that resonates with your core goals and reason for cultivating. Usually something from the natural world to start, which can then evolve into other ideas or more abstract concepts. However this is not necessarily the case."

"Good. That part is important, though the manuals never make it seem that way. Two cultivators with the same aspect will see it expressed differently, depending on their own path. Devon, George, and I all have metal aspects. We might be able to pull off some of the same effects, but the method, and the difficulty, will vary. And there will be some things that never cross over. George won't make a blunt edge cut, and when he gets a bit stronger, he'll have better kinetic control than I will."

"Gabrielle, how does one aspect their mana?"

"Cycling personal mana through a natural treasure or beast part with the same aspect is the easiest option. Meditating and spending time in an area surrounded by the aspect can be another. Like what Annette did. Or you can go from scratch, meditate on the idea for years until you align yourself with it so fully that the aspecting happens naturally. That's also the most common way to evolve aspects."

"Correct. Martin and I, for example, used natural treasures in order to gain our aspects. Annette, as you all know, just came back from weeks meditating amid a high concentration of spatial mana. And of course some of you were there when our Loremaster spontaneously aspected after a lifetime around books."

"Any questions before we begin?" No one took her up on it. Laurel again stopped to survey her students. They were eager, and there was no reason to delay any longer. Cooper was hunched in on himself in the back of the room, and Rebecca was sitting to the side, only half paying attention. It would have been better for the girl to learn all this before aspecting her mana, but the heart of the wild had been too good to pass up.

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"For those aspecting today, you may begin whenever you're ready. I'll be staying here to supervise or answer any questions that do come up. Anyone not participating today, you're free until tomorrow."

The four ready to take the step settled into meditation poses, each clutching their natural treasure of choice. Most of the others left so fast afterimages lingered in their wake. Laurel didn't begrudge them the escape. After all she wasn't so old that she forgot the feeling of snapping up any potential free time when she could find it. Natalia stayed, as did Rian. Those two were probably ready to aspect but hadn't earned enough contribution points for a natural treasure. James wasn't officially a sect member yet, or even a cultivator but he had been lingering around the lessons more and more. He took the opportunity to sit directly in front of Eric, watching over his brother as he went through the process. It was adorable, and not disruptive enough for Laurel to stop him.

This process didn't really require close supervision, not like the meridians, but Laurel was still occasionally overprotective of the students and their progression. When she felt each of the four successfully link their mana in a circuit with the natural treasure, she relaxed. From here it was a matter of time. Most of the observers had realized the same and left, but Cooper remained, looking at his friends with a complicated expression on his face.

She waited.

He eventually worked up to whatever he needed to say and came over to stand by Laurel, still keeping an eye on his friends. Laurel approved but stayed silent with the patience she used to only feel right before a battle.

"I messed up, didn't I?" He asked. His voice was so low a mortal might have missed it.

"Maybe. But very few mistakes in life are unrecoverable. What are you going to do about it?"

"I've been thinking about that."

She half turned so she could make eye contact while still monitoring the others. "Tell me."

"The sect bylaws state that anyone under adept rank needs permission to leave the city." He paused, as though waiting for Laurel to contradict him. When she said nothing he continued. "I'd like to go home for a while. To my parent's estate."

"You think you'll find clarity there?" Laurel asked. She had been expecting a request for aspect recommendations, or histories of other cultivators. This was an unusual tack for their university graduate, who seemed to prefer a healthy distance from his family.

"No. Maybe. I think getting to my roots will be a good way to think about what I want moving forward."

"It's not a bad idea," Laurel said. "But I can't spare you right now. With the guild taking up our member's time, and everything else, there aren't that many members of the sect I can trust with more delicate missions."

Cooper's eyes went wide. It took him a few minutes to come up with a response. Time Laurel used to do another once over on her meditating students. Everything proceeded apace. Eric was going to finish first, the wood mana was absolutely rushing through his meridians. He would be the next to visit Saralhasa. Just another thing to add to the list for when the sect was stronger.

"What about Yvelon?" Cooper said.

"What about it?" Laurel answered. The name was familiar, a town in central Merista Laurel only recognized from maps.

"It's technically my parents', or on their land. The official estate goes right up to the edge." Laurel narrowed her eyes just slightly to jolt Cooper into elaborating. The strict teacher technique was one no amount of cultivation could match. "Right. It's too small to be getting someone actively working on the Core, right? My parents mentioned they had to commission extra guards while they were visiting."

"That's correct, to my knowledge. Too small for Theresa to prioritize when resources are already spread so thin."

"Exactly. I can do Madame Skycrest a favor and take a look at how the Core is doing. Or search the area for any natural treasures."

That got her full attention. At least, aside from the spiritual senses that were still locked on the others. "That's dangerous Cooper. Falling behind is better than dying."

"Yvelon is tiny. And I won't go hunting alone. At least one of my brothers is always hanging around the estate."

Laurel didn't understand why this was so important all of a sudden. It was a plan he'd come up with in the last five minutes, not something he'd been working on for weeks. She looked in his eyes and frowned. That was the tell-tale glint of a young person committed to a plan, and unwilling to listen to reason. She let the anger flow out; it came from concern anyway. If he was going to do this, the least she could do was help.

"Write up a proposal and get it to me this afternoon. I'll read through and if there's enough benefit to the sect, you'll be able to go."

"Really?"

"Yes. Unless you stand around and change my mind."

He took the hint and ran off, leaving her alone with her students. And James, still staring resolutely at his brother's face.

*********

Leander blinked. The feather in his hand had crumbled into nothing, only the spiny central quill remaining. The color from the jet-black keratin had bled away until he was holding a hollow tube, as long as his forearm and bone white. Taking a deep breath, he looked inward. Visualizing his meridians and the mana flowing through them was second-nature these days. The outline was the same but something was different. The taste? How it had a taste when it wasn't something he could lick he wasn't sure, but his mana tasted like air now. His face scrunched up. He hoped tasting mana wasn't how it worked all the time. Laurel would have told him if she had to taste metal and lightning all the time, he was sure.

"That's your mind adjusting to a new dimension in your spiritual senses."

Leander looked to the left to see Laurel beside him, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the wall. He looked around, Eric was gone but the girls were still in cultivation poses, eyes closed and eyebrows scrunched up like they were thinking hard.

"Drink this."

Leander took the cup and quaffed it down. Tea wasn't his favorite, but anything to get the unsettling sensation off his tongue. To his dismay, the sensation was dimmed but not erased.

Laurel chuckled. "It will fade in a few days. Faster if you spend more time moving your mana while walking around."

His stomach chose that moment to let out a loud gurgle. Leander smiled and Laurel laughed some more. "Go get something to eat, you've been at it all day."

Visions of Esther's celebration dinners swam in his mind, and before he knew it he was halfway out the door. He only paused when Laurel called back out to him.

"Leander? From one air cultivator to another, congratulations."

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