Chương 55: [The Price of Prosperity]

The sound of work carried over from the fields. Someone calling out measurements, the thud of a mallet on a stake. Lucian glanced at the treeline then back at the group.

"There are three stages to mana sickness. Most people only ever hit the first one and don't realise it. You push hard, feel drained, rest, come back stronger. Like a good session on the training field."

"I've hit more than that," Phil said.

"Felt awful after pushing my magic too hard. Nausea, the works."

"That's just your well running dry," Lucian said.

"It feels bad but it's not damage. That's your body telling you the well is empty. Rest, recover, you'll be fine." He paused.

"The second stage is different. You'll know it because it hurts when you cast even when you're recovered. Spells misfire, cost more than they should. That's a sign of actual injury. Mana pathways taking damage from being pushed past what they can handle."

"And the third?" Sam asked.

"Permanent." He paused.

"It's a story you hear about someone's cousin or a neighbor three doors down. Goes too hard, pushes past empty, and something gives. Mana pathways scar or the heart deforms, maybe the well cracks. It won't fill right after that. Some people lose capacity permanently. Some get chronic sickness that never fully goes."

"How does it happen?" Luka asked.

"Usually desperation or competition," Lucian said.

"Farmers rarely hit it. They grow into their magic slowly, realise their limits naturally as they learn from family. By the time they are old enough to take responsibility for part of the field, they have enough mana to do their part. It's the combat mages who push past the line. Especially academy students."

"Why academy students?" Sam asked. Lucian looked at him.

"Because of how the academies are structured."

"My brother Lars went in at ten," Lucian said.

"We were a farming family, had no money behind us, no training. One thing you need to understand is that everyone in the empire, or the core at least, has an age ceremony at the age of ten. Those with combat magic are always picked. They get sponsored by the noble family running the area or the church likes what they see, maybe someone from one of the merchant guilds thinks the magic shown could be useful to them. They uplift that child and their family.

Everyone around them says good for you, remember us when you're up there, rolling in money. It pulls people away from communities and they are congratulated for it." He watched the treeline for a moment.

"My brother was picked because whatever he had showed enough promise at the ceremony. That was it. No preparation, no warning really, just — your magic is amazing, we want you and your family to come live in this city, you will go to the academy. Pack what you can carry."

"The academies take anyone with magic worth having. Combat mages mostly, but not only. Someone who can do something useful with numbers, or has something the church wants, or a guild finds valuable, they all go too. Noble scions and the children of merchants and guild leaders are taught at the academies as well. Kids whose families have been in the system for generations, who've had private tutors since they were six, who show up on the first day already knowing things Lars had never heard of."

"So it's not a level playing field from the start," Sam said.

"It never was. There are rankings from the first week. Scores, placements, money tied to where you finish. Better instructors, better equipment, all of it gated behind your position. Fall far enough and you lose your stipend. Lars wrote about it in his first year. He was at the bottom. Not because he wasn't talented, but because half the students around him had been trained for this before they arrived." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Dog eat dog," Parmo said.

"Yeah. It's too much for a ten year old kid to handle so most break or fall behind and never catch back up. With everyone pushing past their limits to climb, that's how stage three happens. The academies know it. They account for it. The ones who survive are stronger and grateful for it. It changes them."

"Your brother," Leo said.

"Did he climb?" Lucian looked at him.

"He did," he said.

"Made friends with a noble in his second year. Letters got shorter after that. Different when they came." He left it there.

"That's cruel. It's also intended to be that way," Sam said.

"The people who benefit from it defend it. The ones that change do so too, otherwise why did they go through all of this." Lucian looked at him.

"You caught that faster than most people do."

"We've seen versions of it before," Sam said.

"Our history is filled with propaganda. The rich benefitting from the masses following their words blindly. Some of our biggest wars, where people died in the millions, stem from this sort of thing. We have a saying. When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. It's similar to this." Lucian looked at Sam, then back at the dirt.

"I wish I didn't understand that as well as I do. I guess your world hasn't been all sunshine either." He paused.

"I was eighteen and living with my wife when Lars had his ceremony. Old enough that I didn't go with them when they moved. When I realised what had happened to my brother I went to see my parents. They looked at me like I was scum. Told me their son was the pride of the family and my jealousy wasn't going to ruin their chance at prosperity. I left after that." He looked out at the plains.

"I'm not the only one who worked it out and came here. People have been drifting to the border for as long as anyone can remember. Some from the core like me. Some who just grew up in villages out here, had their magic at ten, figured out what it was, and since there was nobody to take them anywhere or teach them anything useful, they picked up a sword and got on with it. The system never reached them so they built something without it."

"That's why you rarely see trained combat mages out here," he continued.

"Anyone who shows something worth having at the ceremony gets taken. The core keeps what it finds useful. What's left are people like me, or people who had magic at ten, figured out roughly what it was, and then got on with their lives. One of the guard captains in the next village over has had water magic since he was a kid. Uses it to water his garden. Brilliant with a sword though."

"And nobody taught him otherwise," Sam said.

"Exactly. Just trial and error if you bother, no tomes, no teachers. Most don't when learning a weapon is better." Leo looked out at the plains.

"How come the empire leave you alone. Surely people as driven by greed and the need to control must not like you out here? Free of their leash."

"It's because there's nothing here they want," Lucian said.

"Bad mana, no political gain, nothing worth the effort of ruling. So they don't. No taxes, no noble to answer to, no one telling you what to do. In exchange the border stays closed. Villages like Stonehall stand between whatever comes out of the wilds and the core." He paused.

"Every now and again someone rides out to check nothing's brewing. Make sure the buffer is still doing its job. That's the arrangement."

"And you prefer it," Leo said. Lucian looked at the open ground around them.

"No nobles to bow for. No system telling me what I'm worth. Out here you just get on with life. It's peaceful, even with the monsters at the gates." He shrugged.

"Yeah. I prefer it." They left Lucian to his post and headed back toward town. The noise of construction carried behind them, the sound of the water washing over the beach on their right as they walked. After a while Luka spoke first.

"You know what struck me most about all of that?" he said.

"The ceremony. The whole village happy for you while your family gets pulled away. They really do think of it as a cause for celebration. It's like thinking you won the lottery not realising what you actually won is a ticket to the rat race and the race is rigged from the start."

"Some of their neighbours are probably jealous as well," Leo said.

"Why was it their child and not mine?" He paused.

"The thought of my kids going through what Lars did makes me feel sick." Shai had been quiet.

"On the border you often see people who come from the core, from that sort of situation. The look in their eyes often tells you what they left behind. They look hollow and lost.

"I can see why your people warned us about the empire..." Parmo said. She looked back at the treeline.

"Let's hope they never find out about this town and your people." The group nodded. The walk back was a lot quieter than the walk to the plains had been.