It was a cold morning when Elric handed Kael a folded slip of parchment.
"No title," the master said, tapping the edge. "No annotations. Just words. Read it. Memorize it. Then begin."
Kael unfolded the parchment.
There were only thirteen lines—no instructions, no diagrams, no guidance. Just a flowing script written in ink that shimmered faintly, like it was never meant to stay still.
"The incantation isn't a spell," Elric continued. "It's a foundation. A breath. You don't command it. You listen to it."
Kael looked up. "Is this a cultivation method?"
Elric smiled.
"Something like that."
He spent the first day trying to understand the structure.
The verses weren't complicated. They flowed like rhythm, like heartbeat. He could feel them—faintly. But every time he tried to follow the flow with his breath, it slipped.
Bren had received the same parchment.
He wasn't struggling.
By the third day, the differences became clear.
Bren sat cross-legged outside their shared dorm room, eyes closed, a faint ripple of air moving around his skin. He called it "channel alignment." He said it came naturally.
Kael tried the same posture. Same breathing.
His limbs tingled. His chest tightened. No ripple. Just strain.
He couldn't feel the channels.
He wasn't even sure he had them.
That night, he didn't sleep.
He sat alone under the herb racks, watching the stars. He whispered the lines of the incantation over and over, hoping repetition might help.
Nothing came.
He didn't feel stronger.
Didn't feel wiser.
Just cold.
The next morning, a girl collapsed during morning drills.
Elric summoned Kael, who rushed forward and applied a warming herb compress without thinking.
The girl recovered quickly.
Elric said nothing. But when Kael returned to his room, he found a note beneath his bedding.
"Power does not always arrive in bursts. Sometimes it seeps. Let it."
There was no signature.
But Kael recognized the handwriting.
That night, he changed his approach.
He stopped reciting the incantation.
Stopped chasing flow.
Instead, he listened.
Breathed.
Let the silence speak back.
Nothing grand happened.
But the next morning, he woke with the faintest warmth in his chest—like something had shifted, almost too small to notice.
He didn't tell anyone.
Just folded the parchment again and slipped it into the lining of his satchel—next to the bottle.
And whispered, once, into the stillness:
"I'm not done yet."