The morning air was crisp as Violet followed Kari deeper into the forest.
They'd moved past the clearing with the blooming sapling, following a narrow game trail that wound between ancient pines. Violet's muscles still ached from yesterday's footwork drills, but it was a familiar ache now. Almost comfortable.
They emerged at a small pond.
The water was dark and still, reflecting the grey winter sky like polished obsidian. Ice had begun forming at the edges—thin, fragile sheets that cracked and reformed with each slight temperature shift.
"Today," Kari said, "we begin the real training."
Violet's eyebrow arched. "The real training? What have we been doing all week?"
"Foundation." Kari moved to the water's edge. "Building the structure your power will rest upon. But now we move to the next step—channeling your mana into your body."
"Like mana strengthening?" Violet asked. She'd read about it in the books Mr. Raven had given her in her first life. Warriors who flooded their muscles with mana to temporarily increase strength and speed.
"No." Kari shook her head. "It's different."
She crouched, scooping water in her palm and letting it drain through her fingers.
"Mana strengthening is like filling a hollow tree with water. Pour enough in, and yes, it can sustain great damage. The structure becomes harder, more resilient." Her hand closed into a fist. "But it's exhausting. The body wasn't meant to hold that much power. Use it too long and you'll tear yourself apart from the inside."
Violet remembered watching Kael during the battle—how his body had begun to break down after maintaining Un Fenrir for too long.
"What we're doing is different," Kari continued. "Mana channeling isn't about flooding yourself with power. It's about precision. About filling every tiny gap in your body—the spaces between muscle fibers, the hollow places in bone, the microscopic channels along nerve pathways."
She gestured at her own arm. "Think of it like water flowing through capillaries. Not a flood, but a network. Constant, subtle, woven so thoroughly into your physical form that it becomes part of you rather than something you're forcing in."
Violet absorbed this, her mind already racing through the implications. "That sounds... difficult."
"It is. Most never master it." Kari stood. "But you'll be doing something even harder."
"What?"
"You'll be developing your aura at the same time."
Violet blinked. "My aura?"
"Yes." Kari's expression was serious now. "As you know, in this world there are two basic sources of power. Mana and aura."
She held up her left hand. "Mana comes directly from the soul. It's internal, spiritual, connected to your very essence. Mages develop it through mental discipline, magical study, research." Her left hand glowed faintly with power—not a spell, just raw mana made visible.
Then she raised her right hand. "Aura is different. It's the energy that radiates from your physical body. Not spiritual, but corporeal. Warriors develop it through physical training, through combat experience, through pushing their bodies past limits again and again."
Her right hand blazed with a different light—golden, aggressive, almost violent in its intensity.
"Both are spectral counterparts of what makes you human," Kari said, letting both lights fade. "Mana reflects your soul. Aura reflects your flesh. Most people develop one or the other. Mages focus on mana, neglecting their bodies. Warriors focus on aura, never touching their spiritual potential."
"Why not develop both?" Violet asked.
"Because normal flesh and mind can't handle it." Kari's voice was flat. "The paths contradict each other. Mana development requires stillness, meditation, turning inward. Aura development requires action, violence, pushing outward. Trying to walk both paths simultaneously usually results in failure at both."
She paused. "For us Beastkin, it's different. We're blessed with bodies that naturally strengthen as we age. Our aura grows without conscious effort—slowly, but steadily. It stops eventually, but we get further than humans do without trying."
Kari's eyes fixed on Violet. "For you, as a human, this will be difficult. Your body doesn't have that natural advantage. You'll have to force development through pure effort."
She gestured at the pond. "So we'll start easy."
Violet eyed the dark water skeptically. "That doesn't sound easy."
Kari's lips quirked. "Everything is relative."
She moved to a small pack she'd left nearby and pulled out a clay pot—roughly the size of Violet's torso, sealed with a wooden lid.
"The water in this pond is cold," Kari said, unsealing the pot. Steam rose immediately. "The water inside this pot is hot."
She handed the pot to Violet. It was warm against her palms, almost uncomfortably so.
"Your job," Kari continued, "is to sit in the pond while holding this pot. And you must keep the water inside at exactly the same temperature. Neither hotter nor colder."
Violet stared at her. "How am I supposed to do that?"
"That," Kari said with a slight smile, "is your job to figure out."
***
Violet stood at the pond's edge, still holding the pot, trying to understand the mechanics of what Kari was asking.
"The pond water is cold," she said slowly. "So it will try to cool the pot down."
"Yes."
"But if I use my mana to keep it warm—"
"Your mana nature is cold," Kari interrupted. "Quite similar to the princess who attacked us."
The words hung in the air for a moment.
Violet's hands tightened on the pot. Kari's eyes had gone distant—remembering the battle, the ice that had killed so many.
Then the snow leopard blinked, focusing again. "But I don't think my questions about that can change or prove anything." Her voice was carefully neutral. "What matters is that your mana is cold. Ice, frost, winter given form."
She gestured at the pot. "So if you channel your mana directly into the water to warm it, you'll just make it colder. Which defeats the purpose."
"Then how—"
"Figure it out." Kari's tone brooked no argument. "That's what training is. Not me giving you answers, but you discovering them yourself."
She moved back from the pond's edge. "You have until sunset. Begin."
Violet looked at the dark water. At the pot in her hands. At Kari's expectant expression.
Then she sighed and stepped into the pond.
The cold hit immediately—sharp enough to steal breath, soaking through her boots and pants. She waded deeper until the water reached her waist.
Her teeth wanted to chatter. She clenched her jaw against it.
Sitting was worse. The cold water rose to her chest, seeping through every layer of clothing. Her body's immediate response was to tense up, to fight the temperature.
She forced herself to relax. To breathe steadily the way Kari had taught.
The pot rested in her lap, its warmth a small comfort against the encompassing cold.
*Alright. Think. The pot is warm. The pond is cold. I need to maintain the pot's temperature despite the cold trying to leach it away.*
She placed her palms flat against the pot's clay surface and reached for her mana.
The cold answered eagerly.
*No. That will just make it worse.*
She tried to channel it differently—not releasing it as ice, but just as... energy?
The pot's temperature dropped immediately. She felt it through her palms.
*Wrong approach.*
Violet frowned, thinking harder.
*My mana is cold. The water needs to stay warm. If I can't use my mana to heat it directly... what about using it indirectly?*
She thought about the tree. About how she'd fed life into it not by forcing growth, but by supporting its natural processes.
*What if I use my mana to insulate instead of heat?*
She tried creating a thin layer of ice around the pot—not touching the water inside, just forming a barrier between it and the cold pond.
That worked slightly better. The temperature drop slowed.
But it was still dropping.
*Not enough. I'm thinking about this wrong.*
The sun climbed higher. Violet's lips had gone blue. Her fingers were numb where they gripped the pot.
But she kept trying.
Different approaches. Different techniques. Each one failing in its own way.
As sunset approached and shadows lengthened across the pond, Violet sat shivering and frustrated.
The water in the pot had gone from hot to lukewarm to almost cold.
She'd failed.
Kari approached the water's edge. "That's enough for today. Come out before you catch your death."
Violet waded out on legs that barely functioned, clutching the pot against her chest more for its fading warmth than anything else.
On shore, Kari wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
"Tomorrow," the snow leopard said simply. "We try again."