"We're going to kill novices?" Arran asked.
"Deserters," Snowcloud replied.
"So we're going to kill them just for leaving the Shadowflame Society?"
Arran felt uncomfortable at the idea. He understood that sometimes violence was necessary, but a few novices deciding to leave the Shadowflame Society hardly seemed like such a case.
"No," she said. "But take the antidote first. I will explain after."
She walked up to Arran, then handed him a small flask.
He drained it quickly, eager to finally regain his sight. To his surprise, the liquid tasted quite pleasant, with a warm and sweet aroma that was entirely different from Snowcloud's other concoctions.
Yet although he had hoped the cure would be as rapid-acting as the poison had been, that didn't seem to be the case. The antidote had no immediate effect whatsoever, at least as far as Arran could tell.
"How long will it take before my sight returns?" he asked, not bothering to hide his impatience.
"It will be a few days before it's fully restored," Snowcloud replied. "But within a few hours, it should start returning."
Arran muttered a curse when he heard it would still take days, but then he sighed in resignation. Even if he did not want to wait, there was nothing he could do to speed up the process. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the battle ahead.
"So why are we hunting deserters?"
"Deserters," Snowcloud began, "aren't just people who leave the Society. Shadowflame members are free to remain beyond the border as long as they want — even if they decide never to return. Only those who abandon the Society's laws are considered deserters."
"What laws?" Arran asked. Although it made sense that the Shadowflame Society had laws, the only thing he knew was that he could not teach others the True Path — and that rule was enforced by an oath he could not break.
"There are many," she replied. "But the most important ones are not to reveal the Society's secrets, not to join its enemies, and not to use your power to abuse commoners."
Arran frowned. "So these novices we're going to kill, what did they do?"
"They've taken commoners," Snowcloud said, her voice filled with disgust. "Enslaved them."
When he heard this, Arran nodded slowly. If they had gone that far, he could certainly understand the need for action.
"How many are there?" he asked. "And where are they?"
"There are at least two novices," Snowcloud said, "And they command several dozens of bandits. They've taken a fortress about fifty miles from here, and they've been raiding nearby villages, abducting and enslaving their people."
"Didn't you say there wasn't a single village within a hundred miles from here?"
"I was wrong," Snowcloud replied. "It seems the maps are outdated." After a moment of silence, she added, "This is my first time beyond the border. It's… not what I expected."
Arran decided not to get into the issue of Snowcloud's inexperience. Although it caused him some worry, he had no more experience beyond the Empire's border than she did, and unlike her, he hadn't grown up amid tales of the borderlands.
"If there two novices or more, can we take them?"
"You can't," she answered. "But I can. Only weak novices desert, the ones with little chance of rapid advancement. Nobody strong would give up the True Path so easily."
"And you're strong enough to defeat them?"
"I'm the Patriarch's granddaughter."
Snowcloud said the words as if they explained everything. But then, Arran realized they probably did — the Patriarch's granddaughter would undoubtedly only have the best training and resources, far beyond what any normal novice could expect.
Still, there was a big gap between having resources and being a good fighter, and the fact that this was Snowcloud's first journey beyond the border did not help.
"Have you ever killed anyone?" he asked.
"I've killed monsters," she replied. "Ones much stronger than that bear you fought."
"And people?"
"Not yet." She sounded uncomfortable when she said it, as if she was embarrassed by her lack of experience.
Arran resisted the urge to tell her that fighting and killing people was entirely different from fighting beasts. While it was true, this was not the right time to undermine her confidence.
"You said you were going to teach me how to conceal my Natural Essence," Arran said, changing the subject.
"I will," Snowcloud replied. "But first, did you manage to create an Essence Crystal?"
Arran took out the Essence Crystal he had created over the past month, then held it up. "This is what I have so far."
Although he could not see it, he knew it would look nothing like the one he had used a month earlier — it would be cloudier and darker, polluted as it was with Shadow Essence.
Snowcloud took it from his hand and examined it, then returned it to him.
"Take it and absorb its Essence," she said. "After you finish, I will give you a proper one, and you will have to use that as well."
"You're giving me another one?" Arran asked, pleasantly surprised.
She sighed. "You need to gain more control, and the Essence Crystal you created won't be enough. But don't think I'll give you more after this — you'll need to improve your skill at making them."
Arran did as she said, and barely an hour later, he could feel that his control of Essence had taken another step forward. Idly, he wondered just how strong he could become if he had all the Essence Crystals he wanted.
He did not have much time to daydream about finding some forgotten hoard of Essence Crystals, however, because once he finished absorbing the one Snowcloud had given him, she quickly moved on to teaching him how to conceal his Natural Essence.
The technique turned out to be simple yet difficult. At its surface, it was little more than a basic Body Refinement technique, except one that was clearly designed to keep Essence within one's body, endlessly pulling it inward and circulating it.
What made it difficult was that it required control so fine it was only barely within Arran's abilities, and now, he understood why Snowcloud had given him another one of her precious Essence Crystals.
It took Arran several hours before he got the hang of the technique, but when he did, he found that maintaining it required all the concentration he could muster — even the slightest distraction would break the technique and allow Natural Essence to escape his body.
"How do I do this while still doing other things?" he asked, taken aback. The technique would do him little good if he could only use it while sitting still and using all his focus just to maintain it.
"Through practice," Snowcloud replied. "You need to practice until it comes as naturally as breathing — something you maintain all times, even when you're asleep."
"But that would take months," Arran objected, and he thought even that might be an understatement.
"You have a week," she said. "But I have something that will help."
"What is it?" Arran asked, immediately wary. The last time she had offered help, it had involved blinding him, and his vision was only just beginning to return.
"It's a magical item," she replied. "A bracelet that will cause you to feel pain whenever more than the slightest sliver of Natural Essence escapes your body. It will be unpleasant, but you will learn quickly."
Although the sound of that did not appeal to Arran, he was forced to admit that it should be an effective way of learning. Reluctantly, he accepted the bracelet.
He was unsurprised to learn that 'unpleasant' didn't even begin to describe the bracelet's effects. Whenever his control of the technique faltered for even the slightest moment, the bracelet would send a sharp jolt of pain through his body, strong enough to make him cry out in pain.
After that, he would have just a few moments to restore the technique. If he didn't, more stabs of pain would follow, continuing relentlessly until he restored the technique. There was just enough time between each jolt of pain for him to focus and renew the technique, but no more than that — certainly not enough to get even a moment of rest.
Snowcloud made him wear the bracelet even at night, and for the first two nights, he did not sleep for more than a few seconds. Each time he dozed off, his control of the technique would falter, and excruciating pain would wake him a moment later.
By the third day, he was so tired he barely even noticed that his vision had returned. Maintaining the technique took all the concentration he could muster, and beyond that, the world seemed like a blur, his exhausted mind unable to focus on anything other than the need to maintain the technique.
That night, he finally managed to get some sleep — an hour at best, but it was still better than nothing. It seemed that after constantly using the technique while he was half-asleep, his mind was at last beginning to maintain it even without his conscious direction.
After a week, he had reached the point where the bracelet only very rarely woke him as he slept, and he was able to maintain the technique easily while awake, even if he left the cave to walk through the surrounding forest.
Yet when he told Snowcloud that he was ready to take off the bracelet, her reply was short and blunt.
"You're not ready yet."
With that, Arran had no choice but to continue wearing it.
Fortunately, the second week was much better than the first, and soon, he resumed purifying Essence and practicing his other techniques and spells. This proved to be another obstacle, as he found that focusing his concentration on other things could still allow his control of the technique to slip.
But the bracelet allowed no arguments or objections, and he was forced to learn quickly, as each failure brought a stab of excruciating pain.
By the end of the second week, Snowcloud finally gave him a satisfied look.
"I think you're ready," she said.