Aleister sighed, coming upon a sudden realization. “No wonder I haven’t ever heard of people studying in order to become a Weaver before now. The only people that are able to become scholars, are those that are already in positions of nobility. But, being in that position, they likely already have some sort of prestige bloodline to become a Weaver. And if that doesn’t manifest, I’m sure they would just offer some tribute to the gods they worship, and become a Weaver that way.”

  Shaking his head, he took a momentary pause. Syn didn’t speak up or interrupt him as he put his thoughts together.

  He looked up and continued. “Unfortunately, that only leaves people like peasants and commoners to study the arcane in order to become weavers. Well, peasants are out of the equation since they wouldn’t even have the ability to read, and especially wouldn’t have the ability to invest any of their non-existent spare money into books, which are not cheap. In fact, the cost factor is one of the limiting factors for commoners too, but even worse than that would be the time they would need to spend. The time they spend working to have food on their table, or provide for their family, can’t be erased. Then the amount of time you need to spend studying, it's almost an impossibility for most.”

  “Not only that, but you’re forgetting the fact that most people don’t even know that arcane magic exists,” Syn added.

  “You’re right.” He nodded with a wry smile. “Even though I don’t know much about the subject in the first place, most commoners would still consider me consider me knowledgeable enough about it, and I didn’t even know about it, or the three different types until you told me. So forget about them even trying to learn arcane magic, they don’t even know it exists in the first place.”

  “Along with that, even if you did know it existed, would you even know where to start?” Syn asked.

  “Even I don’t know where to start.”

  “And that is exactly my point,” Syn said. “If I weren’t here to guide you, I’m afraid even with all the money, time, and knowledge at your fingertips, you wouldn’t even have the slightest clue on how to begin.” Aleister clenched his fists. “What are you upset about?”

  “The unfairness of it all,” he answered.

  Syn smirked. “Congratulations, you discovered the official motto for life.”

  With a sigh, he closed the book in front of him. “I’m too upset to read right now.”

  “Fine.” Syn twisted her hands as they returned to the white room. “It’s getting quite late, anyway. And while studying is one type of training, you still have another?”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Another?”

  Syn rolled her eyes.

  “Oops.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry, that wasn’t on purpose, I promise.”

  “Physical training,” she said. “You can use as much magic as you want, but if you get downed from a single punch it doesn’t really matter in the end, does it?”

  Aleister stood up. “Then, how should I start?”

  “In a rush, aren’t you? I wasn’t even done explaining that. There actually are exceptions to that rule,” Syn said, annoyed.

  “Oh, uh.” He looked at her awkwardly.

  “One would be if your bloodline was particularly exceptional in primal magic casting, where your spells were a cut above the rest. For them, they would just rely on the physical benefits provided to them from being a Weaver, and focus all of their time on improving their spells,” she explained. “The next group would be if your bloodline focused on more on your physical attributes, making your body stronger and more fit than the rest. In that case, you should focus much more on physical training. The last group doesn’t really apply here, but it would be people like us and don’t care about adventuring or combat, and instead only care about researching the arcane. Of course, there are always exceptions, but from what I’ve noted these are the main three groups, although technically only two because the first and last one are pretty similar.”

  “Great, but, uh, how does that information exactly help me?” Aleister asked.

  “Because its giving you an explanation to why you need to train physically. So you can train with a purpose, and not just train because I told you to do so,” she said calmly. “Training arbitrarily and without reason would be such a waste of time. Without goals, there is no purpose to what you’re doing. And although you might eventually end up with the same results in the end, the time it would take, and the time you would waste, could have been used for other purposes.”

  “That makes sense,” Aleister said as he nodded. “Currently, my goal is to become a Weaver. However, its obvious to me that having such a goal doesn’t mean much, because I need to do — what seems like everything right now.”

  “It seems like you do understand what I mean. That’s good, as at the very least, my words haven’t completely fallen upon deaf ears,” Syn said. She pointed to his legs and asked, “How are your legs feeling?”

  “Fine?”

  “That’s not good enough of an answer. Was there still any feeling of pain or discomfort as you walked around or sat down?”

  Aleister paced back and forth. “Uh, not really, although my legs did feel a bit numb while I was sitting down.”

  “That’s just because you’re completely out of shape,” she explained.

  He put his hands on his stomach, and with a bit of embarrassment said, “Yeah, I guess being bedridden really fucked me up, huh.”

  “An unfortunate side effect, but nothing to severe that won’t be fixed in a couple of months.”

  “That sounds too long,” he complained. “Any way to speed that proceeds up?”

  “No,” Syn sternly said. “You need to learn that change does not happen overnight, or even within a couple of weeks. It will take months, because these are changes that you need to maintain over long periods of time. If you can’t, then you’ll just revert back to your previous self and that would just invalidate all of your hard work in the first place.”

  Aleister nodded and said, “Yeah, I know, I just didn’t realize it somehow got this bad.”

  “Yes, in order to fix and maintain you physique, I’m going to put you on a specific diet that you need to follow.”

  “But—”

  “And yes, I know that here the entire company eats the same food every day, but you aren’t going to stay here any longer. Instead, we’re off to Osetia.”