Chapter 32 - 32: I'm hot, I'm cold and now I have a stick.

When I was younger, I once thought it would be a good idea to play in the snow with no mittens or gloves on. It was fun at first because I could make snowballs and snowmen with more attention to detail than if I had gloves on. My hands got a little numb, but I didn't mind at the time. It was a wonderful day...up until my mother took me to the village bath house.

I'm told unlike normal bath houses, the one in my village is special due to the water source adjusting itself to the weather. No need for us to boil it or keep it in an underground cellar, it becomes hot in winter and cold in summer. That's aside the point, but this particular winter was rather cold meaning the water this time was very warm. Plunging my freezing hands into hot water was one of the most painful sensations I have ever felt. That sudden change in temperature on my hands made it felt like it was melting.

I bring up this story not because this ritual was the most painful thing in the world, rather that this ritual reminded me of that moment. It was as if my entire body was that frozen hand and that the aether flowing through me was boiling hot water. I could feel every part of my body burning, cooling and burning again. At least for the first five minutes, after that the pain had become some ubiquitous with my body that it just felt numb. I think I stopped screaming at that point too, but that just gave way to an intense ringing sound going through my ears.

All the while, Voxea was just sitting across from me, calmly holding that pine branch between us. My eyes were still closed, but I swear Voxea and that branch were glowing all the while.

"What your feeling now is the aether burning out the impurities in your channels. The pain is a good sign", Voxea explained, "It means you have a good foundation that just needed some cleaning...deep, deep cleaning. The pain is going to subside very soon and your channels will replenish themselves".

Eventually, the burning pain stopped after what felt like hours. The feelings that followed were... actually rather pleasant. It was like drinking some water first thing in the morning and getting that pleasant tingling feeling in your body. The aether filling my channels felt like that, but more refreshing and cooler. The ringing sound from earlier also stopped, replaced by beautiful but somewhat strange music.

This continued for another five minutes until I felt my channels were "full" and the music had stopped. "And now we have finished. Feel free to open your eyes now", Voxea said as she released the branch and I felt it's weight being solely supported by me.

As I opened my eyes, I noticed the branch was now completely black from top to bottom. I was about to toss it to the side, until I noticed that chunk of the black parts came off and my hand slid over smoothened wood. "What in the world?", I thought aloud as I proceeded to wave around the branch and clean off the blackened parts.

What was left in my hands was a smooth and solid staff of pinewood, carved with intricate patterns and faintly glowing with a rainbow of colors. The symbols and patterns on it was the same as the magic circle we had drawn earlier, which I had now realized had disappeared. The top of the staff was this small cage-like structure, all of it appeared to be carved from the same wood as the staff itself.

"Congratulations Silvia Rosewood". I turned towards the voice knowing it was Voxea, but was shocked to see that now she appeared older and in a much more elaborate dress. "For today is not only your first day as a binder, but is now the first day of you becoming a maji and apprentice to me, Voxea von Glacio Doromista, The Saint of the North Wind and master of the Blessed Glacier Pavilion", she said with a smile on her face, "This is going to be fun"!