There were just about two weeks left until the tournament. Noah and Lee traveled quite the distance. They were certainly getting closer to Aqua Terra. It might not have been entirely accurate to say they were on a straight path to it, but they weren’t completely lost either.

  The two of them had passed by several other cities and fought a number of monsters along the way. None had been particularly interesting. The fights had been a good opportunity for Noah to practice working with his relatively new Rank 5 Runes, and the cities had been a good spot for Lee to spend some of the crystals they’d earned.

  They didn’t stop moving for more than a night at a time. Neither were sure if the nutjobs from back in Frostlake were still after them, but the speed they were moving at had seemingly kept them from getting tracked down thus far.

  That was definitely a good thing. Noah couldn’t help but notice that the deeper they got into the empire, the more powerful the average strength of the mages they ran across was. The earlier cities they’d passed through hadn’t really struck him as anything insane. Sure, the mages looked to be stronger than those in Arbitage as a whole, but nothing had been too ridiculous.

  But a day ago, Noah had counted half a dozen Rank 5 mages when passing through a town whose name he’d had already forgotten. They hadn’t been doing anything special at all. From what he could tell, they were just adventurers or townsfolk. There was certainly nothing extraordinary about they way they’d carried themselves or how they’d dressed. The mages had just been sitting around when his domain had brushed past them.

  Not one of them had given anything more than a cursory glance in his direction. They weren’t any more surprised by Noah than they might have been by any other passerby. And while the pressure from their souls made it clear that they weren’t exactly the most powerful Rank 5 mages ever, they’d still been Rank 5.

  Those guys were strong enough to have been Enforcers back in Arbalest. They’d have been near the top of the power scale in the kingdom, not counting the monsters at the peaks of their strength or family heads.

  But in Obsidia… they were just people.

  Something stirred in Noah’s stomach at that thought. If this was what the normal mages in Obsidia were doing, then the ones that were going to the tournament had to be on a completely different level. Something told him he wasn’t going to be running into any more pushovers.

  And I don’t get the feeling that even 4 Flawless Rank 5s are going to be enough. I don’t want to go around flexing what Sunder and the Fragment of Renewal are capable of for a giant crowd, either.

  That leaves me with just my Formations. They’re still a huge advantage when I count Hollow Symphony and the other abilities associated with them… but it isn’t going to be enough. I don’t want to get myself killed and break my life-streak. Not before I find everyone.

  Something prodded Noah in the side.

  He blinked, pulled from his thoughts and back to the field of dead grass that he and Lee had set up in for the night. Noah turned to glance back at Lee. She watched him with an expectant expression.

  “What?” Noah asked. “Did something happen?”

  “You were staring off into the sky,” Lee said. “What are you thinking about? You look very thoughtful.”

  “Just that I’m going to have to hit Rank 6 before we make it to Aqua Terra,” Noah replied, shaking his head in attempt to pull his mind fully back into his body. “I think the competition at the tournament is going to be pretty tough. If I want to make enough of a racket to get everyone to notice me so we can reunite… well, I’ll have to do better than I think I’m currently capable of.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Probably,” Lee said. She scratched at her nose. “We passed lots of pretty strong people already. The ones actually fighting will probably be even stronger. Maybe some of those Hand people will be there too.”

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  “I hope not,” Noah said. A small frown pulled at his features. He’d told Lee about the Executioner and the fight back in Elania’s store, but she hadn’t been able to smell anything odd at all on him. The man had somehow hidden himself well enough to evade even Lee’s senses.

  Noah hadn’t even seen a fraction of what the Executioner had been capable of. Their fight had been too short, and the strange man had just vanished the moment he realized that Noah wasn’t the person he’d been looking for. If the Hands were all at that level of power… then they were probably pretty close in strength to some of the Apostles.

  The idea of actually beating Garina in a straight out fight was still so foreign to Noah that he didn’t even waste his time in wondering if it was possible. If she was going all out, he’d have no chance at all.

  Not at his current level of strength.

  “Say,” Noah said. “Lee, have you been able to smell any powerful monsters recently?”

  “Yeah,” Lee replied. “There are strong monsters everywhere. Obsidia is huge. You know, I thought there would have been less of them the closer we got to Aqua Terra. But there haven’t been. I think there might be more, actually. The space between all the towns is massive. I’ve picked up lots of strong scents. But none are that close to us right now. I don’t think we’re about to get attacked.”

  “It’s not getting attacked I’m worried about,” Noah said. He looked back up at the night sky. “I was actually wondering… can you tell what kind of rune somebody has by their smell?”

  “Not really,” Lee said. “I mean, kind of. I can pick up some general direction if they use their rune a lot. But I couldn’t tell you it’s name.”

  “That’s fine,” Noah said. He pulled his gaze away from the stars and looked back to Lee. “Perfect, actually. Could you direct us toward the monster with the strongest runes? Nothing too deep into Rank 6, though. Just reasonable fights. Stuff we can take when I abuse Sunder and our other bullshit tricks. Is that possible?”

  “Yeah. It shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll just have to wander around a bit to find something worthwhile,” Lee said. “And we could gather parts from the monsters we kill and then sell them in towns to get enough money to buy one or two good Rank 5s as well. You’ll be Rank 6 before we know it.”

  “Yeah,” Noah said. A grin split his lips. “Two weeks. We’ll keep heading in the direction of Aqua Terra. But look for any monsters you can find on the way, okay? The more, the better.”

  “You got it,” Lee replied with an excited grin. “Let’s hunt.”

  ***

  Moxie’s chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths. She could feel the cycle all around her. Magic flowed through her in a constant current. Every single living organism in the cave around her lent themselves to the formation that she had built.

  Life waxed and waned. It chased death, a snake circling to bite its own tail.

  She felt closer to her magic than she had in a very long time. The Rank 5 Runes within her soul creaked and churned under the intensity of the power she was cycling, but they were all the stronger for it.

  A small smile pulled at her lips. All the training she’d done since arriving in Obsidia had been more than worth the effort. Just a few months had advanced her leaps and bounds farther than anyone ever could have hoped for.

  There were a few things she still wasn’t satisfied with. Some of her more recent rune combinations had been… lacking. They’d only turned out perfect. That was an amusing thought. Perfect runes would have been something that she’d have killed for at one point. Now, they were failures.

  But Noah would help her fix that soon enough.

  I can’t wait to see him again. The others as well. I wonder how everyone has been doing. Have they gotten stronger? Where do their patterns stand in comparison to what they once were? What if some of them have passed me up? I can’t let that happen. The teacher must continue to grow so that their students always have something to learn from them.

  The rustling of pages broke through Moxie’s thoughts.

  “Wake up,” Grim said. “We have a visitor.”

  Her eyes opened.

  The peace was gone. She sat on the floor of the ancient dungeon once more, surrounded by the few remaining bones of the monsters that had filled it just a few short minutes ago. Her formation had nearly reduced them back to dust.

  No more than a second later, the edges of her domain prickled. She looked to the stairs at the far side of the room as a bald man stepped into view. His plain white robes looked starkly out of place against his sharp features that were made even more apparent by the thorny tattoos running down either side of his face.

  Moxie’s eyes narrowed. She could feel that the man’s soul was shaped. That was making it hard to tell just how powerful he was — but she could instinctively feel that this was no weak mage.

  Those robes… he’s with the Church of Repose? What is one of them doing here?

  “Another person? All the way down in this old place?” Moxie reached for her runes. “I’m surprised. I was under the impression that this dungeon hadn’t been listed on any known directories for quite some time.”

  “It hadn’t been,” the man replied with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Congratulations on your discovery. But I didn’t come here following the dungeon. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, death mage. I’m here for you.”

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