May 14, 4:11 pm BT – 2:11 pm UT, Somewhere In The Tian Shan Mountain Range, China

Käwsär had seen a lot of things in his fifteen years.

He had seen his dad take on a pack of wolves with just a bow and arrow and win (barely). He had seen his mother manage threaten a government official with nothing but a kitchen knife against his gun.

He had seen a girl seemingly younger than him rip a bear's with just her hands.

Said girl was walking in behind him, alongside a black wolf with eyes the color of the sky. He glanced back at them briefly.

The wolf was, somewhat unwillingly, dragging a makes.h.i.+ft bag of dried meat. The girl also had a comically large bag of meat over her shoulder.

No matter how many times Käwsär saw this, he couldn't help but stare. The girl was so skinny she looked like she would float away in the wind. And Käwsär knew from experience that the bag of meat she was carrying was heavier than anything he could even lift, let alone carry for miles.

But somehow, this one-armed girl didn't even look like she was breaking a sweat.

And that wasn't even the weirdest thing about her.

Every couple of hours, the trio took a break. Käwsär would start up a fire, put some meat on, then go looking for some water. Meanwhile, the girl and the wolf would sit together in silence, eyes closed.

They would stay like that for at least an hour, while Käwsär got water and came back, and had finished with the meat. Occasionally, the wolf would growl something, and would start glowing blue. Käwsär had noticed that lately, the girl was also starting to glow red.

There were two reasons why Käwsär did not thing the girl was some sort of jinn or demon. The first was the fact that she had saved his life. The second was because she was traveling with a wolf.

In Uyghur culture, wolves were guides. Käwsär's father had taught him to respect wolves; they did not usually intrude on human territory if left alone. If he ever had to fight with a wolf, the first option was always to run, unless his life was in danger. And even then, Käwsär was taught to respect the wolf's body, to bury it and return it to the earth.

Actually running around with a wolf? Not a dog, but an actual, wild wolf? And communicating with them?

That was the stuff of legends.

Once he had admitted to himself that he wasn't actually dreaming, and that he actually was walking around with what was pretty much a living legend, Käwsär found he was actually pretty curious about this girl's story.

However, he didn't ask much about the girl. Half because any time he tried to get close to her, the wolf would growl at him in a way that made him almost wet himself, and half because she didn't even speak the same language as him.

As such, he leaped into his role as Uyghur tutor with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

Uyghur lessons were always about an hour long, and after every meal. As such, they had had eight sessions so far, and were on their ninth.

"Sky...blue," said Irade in Uyghur. Käwsär smiled. Her accent was very Chinese, but it was a lot more understandable.

He found that Irade was actually quite good with the language; she was already speaking in short, baby-like sentences. It might have been because she was only speaking Uyghur to him, and was even trying to speak with the wolf in Uyghur.

Irade, meanwhile, felt like she was failing at her own mother tongue.

She could hear how different she sounded from Käwsär when they spoke Uyghur. She could feel the words come out mangled in her mouth, her tongue refusing to bend the way she wanted it to. She knew, intellectually, that she was doing quite well, but it felt like she was doing terribly.

"You're doing good," said Käwsär after today's lunch session. "Much better than before."

"Me...not like you," said Irade, frustrated. "Not...talk...like you."

"'Can't speak the same way as you,'" Käwsär corrected. "But you can speak a lot better than before, right?"

Irade had to admit that at least she spoke like a toddler now, instead of not at all. That was some improvement, even if it was nothing to actually be proud of.

After the lesson, she helped Käwsär put out the fire, grabbed the bag of meat, and set off once again.

She found that carrying the bag wasn't that difficult. The hard part was keeping her balance while doing it. That said, doing it constantly significantly improved her balance. After just two days of carrying it, she was already falling over a lot less, and was figuring out how to walk better. There was a certain knack to it that Irade had to think about for a while, but after a couple of days with the bag, she finding that the thought process was falling more quickly into the background of her thoughts instead of taking up a large s.p.a.ce as it had been before.

The fact that she was getting better at walking was the only thing she felt good about right now. She wished she was doing better at Uyghur, but that was nothing compared to magic lessons.

Now that she had "unlocked" her "core," Black Wind was instructing her to learn to store more magic. The process was slow, tedious, and required just enough thought that Irade couldn't just drift off in her own thoughts, but not enough for it to be interesting.

Of course, she could have just activated [Mana Absorb] and let the system just...do it for her. But the last time she did that, she overabsorbed, and she wasn't going to try that again any time soon.

To make it interesting, Irade had started trying to absorb mana without [Mana Sense] as well, instead trying to get back to that zen state that allowed her to activate the ability in the first place. It was a lot more difficult, but doing so was slowly getting her to realize how Mana moved through her body and around her.

She found that while activating her Skills did allow her to use magic in a way that was way more advanced than her level, it was quite inefficient in the way it channeled her mana. Irade got the sense that if she could control her mana manually, she would be able to get more bang for her buck with her Skills, lowing the cost of [Flight] and possibly even improving her movement.

She had no idea how it would help with [Left Arm Of The Djinn] though.

And this was all way in the future, once she had actually gotten good at it. Right now, she still sucked. Just watching how easily Black Wind was able to become one with the world's mana flow made Irade realize that she was basically still brute forcing her way through everything.

If she wanted to improve, she needed to practice.

But it was so, G.o.dd.a.m.n boring.

"Are you okay?" Käwsär asked after a while, snapping Irade out of her reverie.

"What?" Irade asked.

"You looked like you were ***** at something," said Käwsär, shrugging.

"*****?" Irade repeated the word, tasting it in her mouth. It sounded sharp.

Käwsär made a mean, frowning face, then punched the air a couple times.

"*****" he repeated. "Like that."

"Angry..." Irade repeated. "I'm...not angry."

Käwsär watched her for a while, then shrugged. This movement annoyed Irade.

Okay. Maybe she was a little angry.

"I'm…my inside is...small...but wants to be...big..."

But she couldn't find the words in Uyghur to explain.

"You feel like you're going to *******?" Käwsär asked. Then he made an explosion noise to explain the word explode.

"Yes! Yes, like that," she said. "Because...I need...to learn better."

Käwsär nodded, but he seemed confused.

"Learn better?" he asked.

Irade sighed.

"I...want to be better," she said eventually. "I want to be...better."

Frustrated at her limited vocabulary, Irade simply repeated herself gripping the bag tighter.

"You are better," said Käwsär. "You're a lot better than before."

"Not enough," Irade sighed. "Not...Uyghur enough."

Käwsär looked even more confused at that, but he didn't say anything. He muttered something too fast for Irade to understand, but she didn't care.

Because coming into view was a small cottage, built into the mountain. Irade immediately thought it looked more like a hobbit hole than an actual house.

It was built in a western style, with a chimney and gray bricks. As mentioned it was half built into the mountain, with the roof being slanted for the rain to fall off the side. Irade couldn't tell how deep the house ran into the mountain, all she could really see was the small window at the front next to the wooden, red door.

As soon as Irade saw it, she stopped walking. Käwsär didn't notice until he was a little further away, and then he too stopped.

"You live there?" Irade asked incredulously.

She couldn't believe it. There was no way. 

Käwsär lived there? In a real house?

Not in some weird, little tent?

Sure, he was wearing modern clothes, but Irade had still a.s.sumed that Käwsär was just some poor mountain boy. Didn't Uyghurs in the mountains all live in tents, living off game?

What was he doing in a house that looked like it was out of some getaway magazine? This place could be some sort of luxury home for the rich!

Mountain Uyghurs could live in houses like these?

Käwsär nodded, a little weirded out by Irade's reaction. Had she never seen a house before?

"It's just a house," he said cautiously. "There's nothing that can hurt you in there."

Irade stared at Käwsär blankly for a moment, dumbfounded at his lack of reaction. Then again, she supposed that he had grown up in that house, and therefore didn't know why Irade was freaking out.

She took a deep breath and calmed herself. Before she could walk up to him though, the door to the house opened.

Out walked a tall bear of a man, with a thick, red beard and freckles. He was wearing a traditional Uyghur kanaway patterned s.h.i.+rt with jeans and a black, doppa hat. 

Immediately, Irade saw the resemblence between him and Käwsär, as the boy nodded at the older man. The older man nodded back, then stared straight at Irade, arms crossed.

Irade went on guard as soon as she saw those eyes. Those weren't the eyes of someone looking to welcome their neighbors in.

"Dad, it's okay!" said Käwsär, noting the tension between the girl and his father. He started speaking to his father in rapid Uyghur, too fast for Irade to understand. All the while, the older man's eyes flickered between her and the wolf.

Eventually, he uncrossed his arms, and leaned back. He nodded at Irade.

"How long do you plan to stay?" he asked.

His voice was strong and steady, each word enunciated clearly.

For a moment, Irade considered. She wanted to stay for a while, long enough to learn more Uyghur. But she had a feeling that the invitation was a test; if she gave the wrong answer, he wouldn't even let her in the house.

"As long as I can help," she said. "After I will leave."

The man raised an eyebrow. His eyes flickered over to the bag of meat, then the wolf, then back Irade.

"Will the dog be coming inside?"

Black Wind growled.

"He doesn't like inside," Irade replied.

The man seemed satisfied with that answer.

"Come in then," he said. "Looks like we're cooking a feast tonight."

With that, he turned around and went inside.

Irade blinked. Well. That was a lot easier than she expected.

Käwsär grinned as he beckoned for Irade to come in.

"Come on, I'll show you where to put the meat," he said. "Then I'll introduce you to my mum."

Irade blinked, suddenly realizing that she was going to a boy's house for the first time.

A cute boy's house.

And she was going to meet his parents.

She hesitated for a moment, then followed Käwsär into the house.

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