"NEXT!" screeched a voice coming from inside the office Seth was standing outside of. An initiate scurried out, breaking into a dash once he made it out to the hall. Seth recognized the initiate as one whose jaw he smashed in his ill-advised fight a couple weeks back. a couple hours passed, and all but one initiate had fled from the room as soon as they could. The one who did not flee was carried out, bloody but alive. For now, at least.

  "NEXT!!" screeched the voice, and Seth realized that it was his turn. Opening the door, a pungent mix of flowers and iron assaulted his senses, making him pause a second before entering. The office was, large and well lit. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with books and scrolls. There was assorted equipment that was shoved to either side of the room, to make room for this assessment. Elder Frerren was sitting behind a large, immaculately ordered desk. He was a wisp of a man swimming in his robes, with wild blonde hair tumbling past his shoulders. Seth noted the pointed ears, but didn't dare to ask about them. According to rumor, the last disciple to ask about those had their limbs shattered.

  "Greetings, elder Frerren," said Seth, giving a polite salute and bow.

  "Take these, and recreate the formation over there exactly as described. Exactly as described, you hear." said Elder Frerren, sounding bored, sliding a scroll to the edge of his desk. He didn't wait for Seth to take it before he turned his attention back to his book.

  Seth examined the scroll for a few minutes, ensuring he understood the directions thoroughly. It initially seemed like a simple temperature control formation that he had read about in the library and seen across the sect. The more he looked, the less simple it seemed, and the less confident he became about his initial guess. It took him thirty minutes before he was confident in how this formation was supposed to be constructed. With a sinking feeling, he remembered most of these interviews had taken less than ten minutes. Sighing to himself, he went to work. He hadn't been thrown out, so it was too early to give up.

  As Seth worked, the more convinced he became that something was wrong with the formation. The feeling was similar to seeing a painting a tiny bit crooked on the wall. The qi was pinched in strange ways, and flows seemed to interfere rather than complement each other. He double checked the scroll, and fixed some minor issues he spotted. The fixes only amplified the wrongness, instead of making it better.

  Thirty minutes later, Seth had finished the formation. He spent another ten minutes double checking, and fixing anything out of place. Even though he could not find any issues, he was certain he had failed, simply for wasting the elder's time. Taking a deep, calming breath, he activated the formation. Nothing happened, and Seth's heart sank.

  "Passable, child. Barely, but passable," said Elder Frerren, standing up and walking over to the other side of the formation from Seth. "Have any thoughts about the formation?"

  "None that I would share with a master..." Seth said, worried he would anger the short tempered man.

  "Just spit it out, boy," said Elder Frerren, cutting Seth off with a frown.

  "The flows here and here don't seem right," Seth said, pointing to the biggest problem areas, "It feels like these are oddly constrained, losing most of the effectiveness of the formation."

  "How confident are you in that, boy?" asked Frerren.

  "Not confident at all," said Seth.

  "Why not? You're right, you know," said Frerren with a chuckle.

  "Because I've studied formations for only a month. You've been at this for decades."

  "Centuries. You may leave. Send in the next initiate."

  "Thank you for your time, honored elder," said Seth, saluting and bowing.

  "Oh, and be here first thing in the morning. Don't be late, you hear."

  The next day, first thing in the morning, Seth arrived back in the office. Next to elder Frerren were two inner disciples. One was a dark skinned woman with a scar going from under her right eye to below her ear. The other was a pale man a full two heads taller than Seth. The woman's expression was neutral, while the man had a friendly smile.

  "Good, good, everyone is here. Was waiting on you boy," said elder Frerren, scowling at Seth.

  "Elder, did you tell him that first thing in the morning was two hours before first light?" said the man.

  "Why? What else would first thing in the morning mean?" asked the elder. Seth was looking for a hint of a joke, but he could only see genuine confusion on the man's face.

  "Elder, the initiates are typically woken up at lightbreak."

  The elder looked as if he had swallowed something unpleasant. "Initiate, since its your first day, I'll let you off with a warning. Do not let it happen again."

  "Of course, honored elder," said Seth with a bow.

  "Well, since you seem to like him so much, Toman, why don't you show the initiate the ropes," said the elder.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "It would be my pleasure, honored elder." The way Toman smiled made Seth almost believe him. Almost.

  "Very well, you two may leave."

  Toman and Seth gave elder Frerren a respectful bow, then departed. Once they were outside the elder's office, Seth started to introduce himself, only to have Toman cut him off.

  "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't learn the names of initiates. Once you become an outer disciple, I'd be more than happy to learn your name."

  Toman delivered that speech with the same smile that he wore in the office, and with the same kind of tone someone would tell you that they don't like hugs from people they just met. Seth pushed the feeling of being insulted at the dismissal down, forcing what he hoped was a peaceful smile and a polite bow.

  "Sorry to offend, senior brother," said Seth.

  "No offense taken, initiate," said Toman, turning to walk ahead of Seth.

  Their duties as disciples under elder Frerren were straightforward. Most of their day was spent inspecting the various formations around the sect. They also took time granting Seth access to most of the doors leading to these formations. The number and scope of the formations were staggering. Temperature control formations in the living areas kept things comfortable, while similar temperature control formations kept foodstuffs frozen for extended periods of time. It was a lot like doing maintenance checks on an electrical system, and doing repairs as necessary. Most of the work was repairing degradation, or adjusting to account for some local qi anomaly. Sometimes, they had to repair damage that a wayward scuffle had caused.

  Over the next two weeks, Seth spent four hours a day learning the ropes with Toman. The rest of his time those days was occupied with training, studying, cultivating, and keeping the pressure up on Johan's group. Their pressure had an effect, as people were less willing to block them, allowing Therus to reach the job hall and actually get jobs. There were even some training slots starting to open up, though those were a month out. One day, as he was about to go out with Toman, he heard a raspy, high pitched voice call out to them from behind.

  "I'll take him today," said the voice. When Seth turned to see who had called out to them, he saw it was Elise, Elder Frerren's other disciple. He hadn't heard her speak until today, and after hearing her speak, he wondered if it speaking was painful for her. Toman turned and walked toward her.

  "Appreciate it," said Toman. She waved him off, and he left to go about his other duties.

  Elise came over to him and said, "Let's do the rounds," and then stopped, as if waiting for something. After they stood there for about a minute, Elise said, "You do the rounds. I'm just here to watch."

  With that instruction, Seth went around on their rounds. The first few formations were fine, but when they got to one of the temperature control formations keeping produce frozen in the kitchen, Seth saw that something wasn't quite right. It took him about 20 minutes to pinpoint the problem, but eventually he saw it. Another magical effect had ever so slightly altered the qi in the area. He took another ten minutes making adjustments to the formation, until he was satisfied with the result.

  "What's your name, initiate?" asked Elise, a grin on her face.

  "Seth, elder sister," said Seth.

  "Seth, Seth..." she said, pacing muttering, "Doesn't fit. You're slowpoke."

  "Slowpoke?"

  "It fits. Thought I might die of old age waiting for you to finish," Elise said, cackling.

  "Oh please, I'm not that slow."

  Regaining her composure, she said in a much more collected tone, "However, it is impressive you caught such a small issue in the first place. If only you were quicker about fixing it..."

  "I'd rather be slow than be bitten in the ass later." said Seth.

  "...but that takes practice. And do not attempt to cut me off again, initiate," Elise said, her smile gone, ice in her tone.

  "Sorry, won't happen again."

  Nodding and smiling, Elise had Seth resume his rounds. Over the next four hours, Seth had fixed another three issues. He did miss one, but it was an even smaller deviation than the first one. When they got back to the elder's office, Toman was filling out some paperwork.

  "How was it," asked Toman.

  "Good enough to take him off his leash," said Elise.

  "Really?"

  "Really, Tomato. We can't afford to coddle him; we're behind as is."

  "Properly teaching is not coddling, but you have a point. And stop giving people weird nicknames. Why tomato?"

  "Remember that time when I caught you and...what's her name in a storage closet.." as Elise spoke, Toman got redder and redder. "Yeah, you looked just like that!"

  "Please stop," said Toman, his face lobster red. Seth quietly bowed and hurried away, not wanting to be a part of the poor guy's shame.

  The next month saw Seth maintaining the simpler formations of the sect. Most times, he didn't have any trouble, though he sometimes had to get either Toman or Elise to help. Thankfully, he never seemed to call them over for anything they deemed stupid, and he learned a lot from the advice they gave. Occasionally, he still tagged along with one of the inner disciples to fix more complicated formations. Those trips were enlightening, as they gave him a glimpse into some of the more exotic formations the sect had.

  The most memorable of these formations was one that elder Frerren took them to see. It was behind one of the many hidden doors in one of the many empty buildings in the sect. The stairs leading down spiraled along the edge of a fifteen story shaft straight down. The closer they got, the more Seth could feel the formation pulsing. Trying to turn his qi sight on it, all he saw was a blazing white inferno before the technique faded.

  "A little much for you, slowie?" said Elise, changing Seth's name yet again. Seth just nodded, a headache starting to take root.

  When they got down to the formation level, Seth swore he could hear the rhythmic pulsing of the formation. The boundaries of the formation were clearly etched by flags and sealing talismans. Patterns were etched into the floor in a radiant green. Within the larger patterns were smaller patterns of dancing red, blue, and purple light. When he tried to look more closely at these patterns, he felt like he could almost see something. It also gave him vertigo like he was looking straight down from a skyscraper. It took a gentle smack to the back of his head from Elise to snap him out of his reverie.

  Elder Frerren silently started working, hand signs controlling arm-thick snakes of orange and red qi. These snakes made adjustment after adjustment. Seth couldn't tell what was being changed, or how qi snakes that thick can help maintain a formation so detailed and delicate. Still, they watched for two hours before heading back up the stairs, leaving Seth with mixed feelings about the experience. He felt like he gained something, but he wasn't sure what.

  On the way back to his room, he chanced upon a scuffle in the corridors. He saw four of the men from the previous testing; they had been on display as the next to be refined if their cultivation didn't show significant improvement. They were rushing a woman who looked to be in her mid twenties. Ten seconds later, the four men were on the ground. She had dispatched them with ruthless efficiency. Seth wondered how he would have fared against the men, and realized he may have been in trouble. Remembering his sect credit, he made his way to the exchange hall.