Fifteen Plus Nine

Outside the city, morning light spilled over the land.

The White Dragon's corpse lay across the open field, its charred scales still trailing wisps of bluish smoke. The air was filled with the roasted fragrance of dragon meat.

Soldiers moved around it with saws and ropes on their shoulders, stripping away the usable parts. The tools and sword blades struck the scales with a steady clanging, occasionally mixed with a shout or two.

Inside the city, in the main keep's courtyard, Sword Saint Puji crouched on the stone bricks, tentacles coiled around a sword hilt. It cut, then withdrew, its movements unhurried and steady as it went through its daily practice.

Inanna sat beneath the corridor, a cluster of little flames balanced on her fingertips, quietly exchanging words with it.

Deep within the main keep, Lorenzo sat opposite Number Ten.

He had already been sitting there for a long time. Several open tomes lay spread across the table, and notes with still-wet ink were scattered to one side.

He had asked many questions. Number Ten had not answered many of them, but every sentence made him think for a very long time.

At last, the door opened.

Lorenzo walked out from inside and headed toward the bedroom in a daze, looking as though he had not gotten what he wanted.

Inanna saw it and quietly asked through the Mycelium Network, "Number Ten, didn't you teach Uncle Lorenzo?"

Number Ten shrugged its Mushroom Cap. "It's not that I wouldn't teach him. It's that I can't."

"That is a power you can only use after seeing it with your own eyes and feeling it with your own body. Just listening to someone else describe it, no matter how much, is useless.

"And besides—I haven't fully grasped it either. I'm still missing something."