"Has he found something?" Letho asked, unable to hold back the question.
The apprentice didn't reply. He simply kept walking—eastward, along the riverbank, toward the place Vesemir had pointed out earlier.
Clearly, he'd noticed something.
"No idea," Vesemir muttered, lifting the brim of his wide hat slightly, his gaze never leaving Aelin's back. "It's common sense that drowners linger near water. Even without tracking traces, just following the river will lead you to them eventually."
Letho chuckled. "Wanna bet? I say he's found a trail."
"No." Vesemir shot him a glare sharp enough to kill the idea on sight.
A Witcher master doesn't make the same mistake twice.
Especially not with Elsa still swaying from Aelin's back.
Ignoring Letho's disappointed sigh, Vesemir walked up beside the apprentice. "Well? Did you find something?"
Aelin nodded. "Looks like they headed east along the river."
Vesemir didn't commit. "How did you come to that conclusion?"
Aelin hesitated. His silence made it easy to assume he was guessing—just another apprentice relying on gut instinct.
But Vesemir had no idea what Aelin was actually seeing.
The moment he neared the tracks, the glowing red claw mark had broken apart into a storm of sparks—tiny pinpricks of crimson light scattering into the air.
Those fragments reassembled themselves into a pair of legs—webbed and amphibious, ending just below the knee.
Moments later, the spectral limbs began to move.
A red foot descended, as if from nowhere, pressing down into the wet grass.
Droplets scattered off the sole as it landed, speckling the nearby blades with faint flickers of light.
Then, like ants returning to a nest, the scattered lights drew back together and reformed the original claw mark, whole once more.
It was absurdly detailed—like the evidence had walked itself straight into his hand.
Aelin bent down and pointed at a few blades of grass speckled with that strange glow. "These droplets? They're drowner mucus."
Vesemir knelt and ran his hand lightly across the grass, then brought his fingers to his nose. He sniffed.
"Rot and river muck," he said, frowning. "Definitely drowner."
He ran his hand over a few more blades before standing.
Then he looked at Aelin with a skeptical squint. "And you recognized that with your eyes alone?"
I have cheats, obviously. But Aelin only tilted his head with a blank, boyish sincerity. "Sure. Isn't that normal? Doesn't every Witcher master do that?"
Vesemir blinked, visibly thrown off. "I can track drowners just fine, thank you very much… but…"
He caught himself, clearing his throat.
"Forget it. This only proves they passed through here. How did you figure out the direction they went?"
Aelin, to his credit, didn't press the subject. He answered smoothly, like he'd been waiting for the question.
"The way the droplets are distributed already tells the story."
He stood, mimicking the downward arc of the splatter with a finger, gesturing to the curious Vesemir and Letho.
"They hit the grass at an angle—see the direction the mucus sprayed? That gives away the creature's motion. The body blocked some droplets; the splash is uneven. Classic forward momentum."
He pointed again. "Which means it moved east, following the stream."
Vesemir took a long moment to consider.
The apprentice's answer aligned with his own conclusions.
But the method was different. And that difference mattered.
Finally, Vesemir sighed. "You're right. But let me show you another way."
Tracking was one of the most sacred arts taught to Wolf School apprentices.
It wasn't something freely shared.
Only after surviving the Trial of the Mountain did students begin to learn it. Every spring equinox of the second year, the school would assign each surviving apprentice to a Witcher preparing to descend the mountain. For five years, they would travel the Continent together. When the mentor deemed the student ready, they would part—and the apprentice would finally stand as a Witcher in their own right.
They called it the Path Trial.
It was more than training. It was the slow forging of a bond—through blood, danger, and trust. Through shared battle and narrow escapes. Through life.
Vesemir had once walked the Path with Letho.
And before that, he'd walked it as the protégé of the Grandmaster himself.
Most Witcher lineages, in one way or another, could be traced back to that same man.
"Sight, smell, hearing, touch… Witchers don't have weak senses," Vesemir said, stepping into the patch of grass Aelin had analyzed. "But sometimes, it's not the eyes that matter most."
He knelt again. "For me, it was smell. When I stepped into this area, something didn't feel right. My nose told me before anything else."
Aelin frowned, sniffing the air.
The modifications from the Grass Trial had already changed his physiology, but to him, the breeze carried only the usual blend of damp earth and greenery.
"I don't get it," he admitted.
Vesemir tilted his head, a rare smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he caught the exaggerated flare of Aelin's nostrils.
"It's not about inhaling more. You need to discern," he said.
He stood, placing his index finger gently on the right side of Aelin's nose. "Close your eyes. Focus here—on the mutagenic organ just beneath."
Aelin obeyed, shutting his eyes. But he didn't feel anything—no foreign muscle, no strange gland.
"You're not human anymore," Vesemir said softly. "You're a Witcher. You're capable of more than you know."
And just like that, something shifted.
Aelin felt his heart hammer. Blood surged like a current of fire. Heat pulsed through every limb.
And then—click.
"I felt it!" he gasped.
There were… doors. Hidden behind the folds of flesh, on either side of his nose. And they'd almost opened.
Almost.
But his excitement slammed them shut again.
Still…
Ding. Skill Clue Found: [Tracking].
Spend 1 Minor XP Pearl to Unlock?
What the—
Aelin flicked open his character menu.
There it was. Tracking: LV1—still under his special abilities tab.
Two skills labeled "Tracking?"
Weird. But whatever. He spent the point.
Back in the physical world, Vesemir felt the subtle retreat beneath his finger—the mutagenic organ reacting, then slipping dormant again.
He offered a reassuring nod. "Don't push it. It's normal to miss the first time. Try again tomorrow. Once a day, no more."
This was a skill they usually didn't teach until after the mountain trials were complete. Aelin hadn't even finished the final potion courses yet. The organs near his sinuses probably weren't fully adapted.
"Master Vesemir," Aelin said suddenly, still with his eyes closed.
There was something breathless in his tone. Something bright.
"Yes?" Vesemir asked.
"I... I smell it!"