There were no elegant decoctions. No oils painstakingly tailored to a creature's habits or weaknesses.
Just the standard witcher elixirs—blunt, broad-spectrum, barely palatable.
A gulp before combat: spike aggression, dull pain, kill the fear.
A gulp after: numb the wound, chase the haze from the brain.
After confirming with Vesemir one last time, Aelin said nothing. He simply nodded, as if that might steady the bitter weight in his chest.
This was it. The reality of the path. No glamour. No sacred ritual.
Only the grind.
He worked in silence, stripping down the monster parts laid out before him. Hands steady, movements clean. Mechanical. Practiced.
But his mind was already elsewhere—tugged toward a future painted in blood and fog.
Even distracted, Aelin dissected like a surgeon. Each incision precise, each separation neat.
"Nearly flawless," Vesemir murmured, arms crossed as he leaned in over the table. A rare note of satisfaction crept into his voice. "Brain's intact. You missed the mana node on the tongue by... maybe a hair."
He gave a grunt. "If you were at Ban Ard, they'd give you full marks just for this."
High praise. Maybe a touch exaggerated—but it landed with enough weight to sting a little pride into Aelin's spine.
Ban Ard. The name alone conjured cold towers, arrogant boys in sapphire robes, and potions that glowed like they'd been brewed by lunatics on opium.
When it came to alchemy, no one outdid Ban Ard. They didn't just teach it. They worshipped it—refinement drilled in like a holy language.
No apprentice from Kaer Morhen could match their precision. Not really.
Still, Aelin gave a quiet nod, grateful. Not for the compliment, but for what it meant: You're not completely worthless.
"Master Vesemir," Xuth chimed in, eyes bright. "Have you ever been to Ban Ard?"
Aelin paused, blade poised over the next incision. He'd wondered that himself.
The two strongholds—Kaer Morhen and Ban Ard—sat within the same unforgiving stretch of the Blue Mountains, both carved from rock that had outlasted empires.
One trained killers.
The other, magicians.
"I've been," Vesemir said, after a beat.
Xuth blinked. "Why?"
Vesemir gave him a look so dry it could've dried meat. "Why do witchers go anywhere?"
"To kill monsters."
"But… they've got mages," Xuth frowned. "Why would they need us?"
It was a naive question. But not a stupid one.
Some of the boys had been dragged here too young to remember the outside world. Others—like Xuth—retained fragments of tavern talk and market gossip. Just enough to spark questions no one wanted to answer.
Witchers were made by mages.
Ban Ard students never face the Trial.
The king funds the sorcerers, not the Wolves.
These whispers clung like rot in the corners of Kaer Morhen's stone halls. The apprentices hated the Ban Ard boys. Not for anything they'd done—but for what they didn't have to endure.
Maybe Vesemir heard it too—the resentment buried in the question.
He turned fully now, gaze sharp enough to flay flesh.
"Because witchers are the best monster hunters alive."
"That's what we're made for."
"It's what we live for."
"And what we die for."
The words hit like a slap to the soul.
Xuth, usually glib, bit down on his tongue. Silence dropped between them like a drawn blade.
Vesemir let it hang. Then turned back to the table.
Xuth looked down. His silver hair slid forward, a curtain of shame—or maybe just confusion.
Aelin said nothing.
But in the hollow behind his ribs, something shifted. Is that it? he wondered. Is that really all we are? Fodder for the dark?
He stared at the lab walls, at the jagged mortar between stones, and for a second he imagined the fortress itself breathing—like a creature too old to die.
Vesemir's bark cracked the moment.
"Xuth!"
"You listening, or are your ears rotting already?"
The boy flinched.
"The base of a drowner's tongue holds the mana node," Vesemir snapped. "That's the part that matters."
He looked down at the shredded sample and gave a disgusted sigh. "You'd be lucky to fool a blind peasant with this mess."
Just then, Letho strolled in, late as always, with all the urgency of a man dodging chores.
"What would a peasant want with a drowner's tongue?" Xuth asked, honestly baffled.
"For liquor," Letho said, grinning as he dodged Vesemir's incoming slap. "There's always some dumb bastard who'll bet his cock on back-alley alchemy."
"His what?" Xuth blinked.
Vesemir's boot lashed out. Letho danced out of reach, laughing as he vanished down the corridor.
The tension cracked, like a brittle bone reset.
Vesemir glanced at the light slanting across the floor. Almost noon.
He finished tearing into Xuth's work, then handed Aelin the cleanest sample without a word—silent approval, witcher-style.
Then he grunted, waving them off.
"Oh. One more thing."
They were halfway to the door.
"Stay away from Ban Ard."
"They don't want us there."
He didn't wait for questions.
Didn't give a reason.
Just turned and walked, cloak dragging like a closing curtain.
The apprentices' dormitory was built to house forty.
Now it held four.
Two rows of narrow beds stood like caskets waiting for bodies—most stripped bare. Only four had blankets.
Ten days ago, this place had been filled with orphans. Runts. Bastards. The broken and the unwanted.
Now?
Now the beds were tombstones.
Aelin's cohort had lost over ninety percent to the Trial of Grasses.
A butcher's year. Even by Kaer Morhen standards.
Back in the dorm, neither boy spoke.
They peeled off sweat-stiffened clothes, scrubbed their hands, and dressed in silence.
Fred and Bont lay motionless on their cots—eyes closed, maybe asleep, maybe not.
Lunch waited near the door.
Mugs of thick, lukewarm mushroom slurry. Congealed at the top. Reeking faintly of earth and old blood.
Same shit as yesterday.
Same shit as the day before.
Aelin tipped his mug back in one go. Didn't even taste it.
Just let it slide down and settle.
Then he lay back.
Waited.
Something began crawling beneath his skin.
A tingle. An itch. An electric hum.
Not pain. Not really. But not rest, either.
Not after the Trial.
He turned on instinct. Shifted.
Started muttering—half chant, half prayer—the Witcher's Codex running through his teeth like a litany against madness.
The flesh changes. The mind must anchor. Pain is not the enemy. Hesitation is.
The potion would last for hours.
Then something flickered.
A glow, pale and sharp, blinked open behind his eyes.
Name: Aelin
Age: 13
Title: Child of Miracle
Level: 2
HP: 100%
Stamina: 56 / 56
Attributes
Strength – 5.3 (+0.1)
Agility – 5.4 (+0.1)
Constitution – 5.6 (+0.2)
Perception – 7.2 (+0.3)
Mystery – 3.3 (+0.2)
Skills
Monster Hunting Lv1
Appraisal Lv1
Combat Training
Wolf School – Two-Handed Sword Lv2 (0 / 500)
Evaluation: Pathetic!!!
His eyes narrowed.
Stats were climbing.
Even as he watched, Constitution ticked up again. Another fraction of strength etched into his bones.
So… the mushroom crap does work?
He'd felt the changes, sure. But until now, it had all been guesswork—intuition.
Seeing the numbers rise felt... good.
Not like joy. Not pride, either.
Something deeper. Hungrier.
Even the crawling under his skin quieted, like it too was watching.
He checked his rewards.
Inventory
Drowner Heart Extract x3
Minor XP Orb x19
Drowner Chest x8
Common Chest x1
Not enough XP to boost swordsmanship. He'd bank those.
Stats are still going up. Should I wait?
He hesitated.
The extract wasn't rare. But he couldn't leave the keep yet to get more.
Screw it.
He selected one.
A blue vial shimmered into existence.
He drank.
Cold slid down his throat like ice on steel.
The effect hit immediately.
His back arched.
Every nerve flared to life.
"What the fuck?!"
His voice tore out like a reflex.
What kind of sick divine joke is a drowner?!