Both Lazarus and Brimm were strange as teachers, perhaps it was more accurate to say neither of them cared much for the formalities of instruction, and because of that their methods looked nothing like the regimented lessons most tutors favored; there were no fixed hours you had to keep, no neat schedule to consult, and as long as they were not otherwise occupied you could turn up whenever you pleased and expect to be taught in their own idiosyncratic way.

Brimm in particular treated teaching as a practical craft rather than an academic exercise: he hauled Jacob and Arthur out to remote places, threw them against monsters and wild beasts with only their swords in hand, and insisted that the essence of swordsmanship was forged in real combat rather than on a polished floor; to him the best swordsmen did not learn by copying others but by developing a style that fit their body and temperament through repetition in danger.

So when Jacob arrived at the royal palace, the place Lazarus seemed to prefer for the larger sessions, and made his way toward the room where most of their lessons were held, he was caught off guard to find Abel already there.

It should not have been surprising, but in the moment it was: Abel now carried the presence of a rank-nine mage about him, an atmosphere of death that made Jacob's skin prickle, his complexion paler than before and his pale eyes somehow emptier, like someone who had traded warmth for resolve.

At first Abel pretended not to notice Jacob, as if Jacob's arrival were simply part of the scenery, but then he turned and spoke without preamble, his voice tight with a frown. "I don't accept this," he muttered, and Jacob, standing still, waited for him to expand on the complaint.

"If you had bothered to ask your family, the record for the shortest time to reach rank nine would be yours," Abel went on, moving toward the door with measured steps and still glaring, "and I refuse to keep thinking this way," He fitted his hand to the handle and did not break eye contact. "So hurry up and get to rank nine properly so I can fight you and beat you, maybe then I'll be able to accept my feat." With that arrogant tilt to his chin he stepped through the doorway.

Jacob felt an almost physical urge to clock him, Abel's expression carried that particular sort of insolence that grates under the skin, but he would not pick a fight with him voluntarily; runes from the Ranti family were dangerous in a way most people did not appreciate, and Abel's affinity for death only amplified that danger, so that even a seemingly simple flame rune carried a trace of decay in it.

Sparring with a Ranti was not the same as sparring with anyone else; the odds of something going wrong were always higher, and people died in such encounters with an alarming regularity, even when they were meant to be merely practice.

Jacob let out a quiet sigh as he stepped into the room, where Lazarus was sprawled across a long bed with a book and pen resting carelessly on his chest, his steady snoring filling the otherwise silent space.

Abel was already seated on a chair in front of him, posture straight and patient, as if he intended to wait for however long it took the man to stir.

Jacob moved closer until he was standing over Lazarus and finally said, "Sir, I'd like to learn more about the application of magic with weapons." But Lazarus did not so much as twitch, his breathing deep and even. Jacob frowned, raised his voice, and tried again. "Sir, there's no way you'd fail to notice people entering the room. Can you teach me?"

One of Lazarus' eyes cracked open just enough to reveal a faint glint of disapproval. "Can't even allow an old man a moment's rest," he muttered before promptly shutting it again.

Jacob turned toward Abel, frustration creeping into his tone. "Say something. We can't wait here all day."

Abel ignored him and instead addressed Lazarus in his calm, measured voice. "Teacher, you can rest as long as you need. I'll be waiting."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Jacob had to stop himself from burying his face in his palm, because letting Lazarus drift off was no small risk; the man's naps were infamous, and his longest recorded sleep had lasted three years and five months without interruption.

"Sir Lazarus," Jacob tried again, forcing his tone to remain steady, "I'll be leaving for a while, so I want to master this before I go."

"The site, right," Lazarus answered lazily, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Don't worry about it. If the site is at your level, you won't need what you're asking for. If it isn't, you'll die even with it. Abel, what do you want?"

At that, Abel reached for the satchel at his side and drew out a neat stack of papers and several books. "I recently reached rank nine. These are runes I've been preparing for the occasion, and I'd like to go over them with you."

This time Lazarus' eyes opened fully, a flicker of interest sharpening his expression. His hand stretched toward the pages, and in that instant Jacob felt the faint shift in mana around the room.

A rune flashed and vanished in the air, and the next second every book lay open across the bed, papers scattered across the floor, while Lazarus himself was seated at his desk, already scribbling quickly on a blank sheet of parchment.

"Very interesting work, Abel, but much of it is either imperfect or inefficient, come, let me show you," Lazarus said, and Abel hopped to his feet with the sort of eager confidence that made Jacob want to roll his eyes even as he watched, because whatever Lazarus had done always made the room feel like it had tilted on its axis.

No matter how many times Jacob had seen it, he never quite stopped marveling at the way Lazarus handled time runes: to him it felt like a single, breathless instant when the old man's attention snapped to a page and then everything rearranged itself, but Jacob suspected, from the fluctuations in mana, that for Lazarus those same moments stretched into hours or days as he read, analysed, and corrected; time runes still puzzled him, and the more he learned about them the less they seemed like something any sane person should be able to wield.

Jacob forced himself to shake off the disorientation and called out, "Sir, I'd like to learn something too."

"Fine," Lazarus replied without hesitation, and as if to punctuate the word a rune shimmered into being beside Jacob; a grey mist seeped from it, coiling and condensing until a human-shaped figure resolved in the space, and in a blink that apparition sharpened into an exact likeness of Lazarus himself, down to the smallest detail.

Lazarus met him with a faint smile. "You want to learn how to bind runes to weapons, yes? It isn't difficult in principle, but don't mistake that for easy, it's not merely slapping a rune onto steel and hoping for the best."

He took Jacob's hand with a slight movement, and the world hiccupped; when sight returned they stood in the familiar training chamber, its stone walls cold and purposefully plain.

"Listen," Lazarus continued as Jacob drew his sabre, the sound of metal sliding from its sheath filling the room, "you will place a rune on the weapon, but that's only the first step; the critical skill is harmonisation, regulating the mana you channel, tuning the rune's strength so it neither overwhelms nor starves the weapon, and aligning the rune's pattern with the weapon's own resonance so both respond as a single instrument."

Lazarus gave a quick, appraising glance at Jacob's saber. "Your sword is very good, strong enough to endure powerful runes, and though the metal is unfamiliar to me, it should handle a substantial influx of mana without issue. The craftsmanship is also solid, so structurally there's nothing to worry about."

He shifted his gaze from the sword to Jacob himself. "Honestly, I doubt any rune you attempt will cause it to collapse, which means we can skip the measuring and regulating phase and move straight to the hardest part: harmonizing the rune with the blade."

Without warning, Lazarus extended his hand, and Jacob's saber vanished from his grip, only to instantly reappear in Lazarus' own hands.

"Watch how my rune behaves," he instructed. Raising the saber, a simple flame rune ignited on its surface, latching onto the steel and beginning to… pulse, or perhaps vibrate, that was the closest Jacob could describe the subtle rhythm of the magic.

Lazarus funneled his mana into the rune, and the blade erupted into flames, searing heat cloaking the metal in a dancing torrent of red-hot fire. Jacob's eyes weren't on the blaze so much as on the raw mana it emitted, and as he focused he started to feel what Lazarus meant by harmonization.

The old mage manipulated the flame with an almost casual precision, subtly weakening it in one area, amplifying it in another, and continuously adjusting to keep it bound to the blade. Jacob could sense the complexity: maintaining balance between the rune and the weapon required constant attention, skill, and intuition, all operating simultaneously.

Finally, the flames subsided, the blade returned to its normal state, and Lazarus handed it back to Jacob. "Think you can do this before you have to leave?" he asked, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

Jacob examined the sword, then met Lazarus' eyes, allowing a small, reluctant grin to spread across his face. "Nope," he admitted, shaking his head slightly, "not a chance."

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