“What the hell happened to you?” Toar asked as I stumbled back to camp, covered in a fresh array of bruises.

  “As if you don’t know,” I grunted, setting myself down on a log.

  Everyone was staring at me. Clearly I looked even worse than I felt. I imagined my face was pretty bloody.

  “Seriously, what happened?” Toar pressed, trying his hardest to sound concerned rather than happy.

  It was obvious to me, at least. Whether the others could tell was beyond me.

  “Apparently, I was mining in the wrong territory,” I recounted, spitting the words out. “The group that found me didn’t seem too happy.”

  “I told you to stay away from Selsor’s camp,” Toar lied, his voice severe. “You did keep your distance, didn’t you?”

  “I did everything you said,” I answered, not bothering to point out his bullshit.

  If I constantly accused Toar of targeting me without evidence, the others might start to think I was full of shit. I needed to have something concrete to hit him with if I was going that route.

  “Well, I’m sorry they did that to you,” Toar said, scratching the back of his neck as Maisie walked over to inspect my wounds. “I’ll try and do something about it if I can. Maybe I can get some of what you mined back.”

  “It’s fine,” I shrugged, flexing my aching shoulders. “This is nothing.”

  Toar narrowed his eyes.

  “What do you mean this is nothing? You look like you just crawled off a battlefield.”

  “I don’t know where you grew up,” I said as Maisie began channelling a hasty spell towards one of the larger bruises on my chest, visible through my now-ripped jumpsuit. “But I caught worse beatings than this when I was nine.”

  I made sure to look at him squarely as I spoke, ignoring the throbbing pain as Maisie laced another cool layer of mana around my aching ribcage.

  “Trust me, I’m good. I could give a fuck about a few injuries.”

  Toar couldn’t hide the scowl on his face.

  He’d clearly been adamant this would be enough to rattle me. Truth of it was, it had. Toar didn’t know how far those three had gone, or how bad I’d looked before I’d partially healed myself.

  But how could he call my bluff? Send me to another dangerous location? I’d refuse to go.

  “Well. I’m glad you’re not feeling too terrible.”

  Toar really forced those words out. I could see the strain on his face.

  “You need to be more careful,” Maisie said as Toar swiftly left, prodding one of the larger bruises to get my attention.

  “Ow!”

  “See, exactly.” Maisie narrowed her eyes. “You might wanna pretend you’re made of steel, but you’re so clearly not, at least to me.”

  Hopefully not to anyone else.

  “I may not be an advanced healer, but I know enough to know how fragile people are,” Maisie said. “If this had been much worse, you might’ve done permanent damage to yourself. The type you’d need an outrageous spell or potion to have a chance at fixing.”

  Good thing I had some outrageous potions.

  Not that I wasn’t trying to take the words to heart. It was true that I should’ve stayed down, that the situation had gone from bad to worse when I couldn’t control my temper.

  I knew I might not be in as bad a shape if I’d bit my tongue, or rather, stayed my fists.

  I saw her clicking her fingers in my face. I blinked a couple times.

  “Hey. You still with us?”

  I shook my head a little and then nodded. I sucked in a big breath.

  “Yeah. Sorry. Just lost in thought.”

  “Alright. What’s five minus three?”

  I gave her a funny look. “Two?”

  “Eight plus thirty-seven.”

  “Forty-five.”

  “Good. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  I blinked to her hand.

  “Three.”

  She moved her hand to the corner of my vision.

  “And now?”

  “Still three.”

  “Good. Can’t be too careful when you’re staring into space like that.”

  “Why are you always coming back here looking like shit, anyways?” Jackal asked.

  Maisie waved him off as I proceeded to zone out once again.

  I wasn’t concussed or anything of the sort.

  I was just too focussed to care about the voices around me.

  Toar was rattled now, but he was going to come up with another plan, either doubling down on the last or thinking of a whole new way to fuck with me.

  I needed a proportionate response, and soon.

  I also needed to get stronger. Gaining my tenth level in [Unarmed Combat] was an important step and I could finally make a compound skill, something I’d do the moment I had a chance to, but I needed to do more than that if I wanted to stand any chance of truly conquering this place.

  I needed to gather resources. Maybe allies? I needed to find a way to construct something that would allow me to breathe the mist and deal with the obstacles in the underground. I needed to be able to weather Toar’s attempts at sabotage and find a way to kill him.

  Hunting him down and shooting him full of holes was risky. I wasn’t sure if the gun would be enough to take down a powerful beastkin like him. If I wound up underestimating him, he’d kill me on the spot. He wouldn’t have to defend his actions to the group at that point.

  I needed something more definite. More foolproof. And a way to do it without being caught.

  More than that, however, if I really wanted to make progress in this place…

  I snapped my attention to Maisie. I stared at her. Her eyes shifted beneath her bangs.

  “...what? Is there something on my face?”

  “Can you teach me how to use magic?”

  Her ears perked, and she fumbled in her spell for a moment, igniting fresh pain in my ribcage and making me wince. She clearly hadn’t expected that question.

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  She quickly reforged the lace of mana and I felt the unpleasant itch beginning to seep into my bones once more.

  “You want magic training?” Maisie continued, looking completely dazed by my announcement. “From me?”

  “Well, you’re the only mage I know,” I stated, before her eyebrows told me how rude that sounded.

  “Plus, you’re clearly good at healing,” I tacked on.

  “I’m a novice healer at best…” Maisie tutted, shifting her hands once more. “There’s a reason we’ve been sitting here for five minutes and I’m nowhere near done.”

  “That’s still incredible,” I continued, trying to pour my genuine feelings into the statement. “I’d be useless for weeks if it wasn’t for your help.”

  I did feel her magic was amazing. Whether I had a stupendously powerful potion or two in my inventory or not, the fact Maisie could bring her mana to bear and use it to perform feats like this was nothing short of miraculous in my eyes. That and how willing she was to exhaust herself doing it.

  “I guess…” Maisie grumbled for a moment, continuing to move and rearrange blue wisps and tendrils around my wound until finally pulling away.

  “I’ll let that set for now…”

  “I appreciate the help.”

  She was silent for a moment. She seemed like she was mulling the whole prospect of what I’d said over. Eventually, she pointed a finger at me.

  “What tier are you?”

  “Tier?” I repeated. “Zero.”

  That drew eyes my way. I guess being Tier 0 at this age was about as rare as being Unclassed.

  “Makes sense…” Maisie noted. She bit her lip as she digested the statement. “Most of us advance to our first Tier by levelling our classes. Without one, it must be far more difficult to advance, even to Tier 1. I’m not even sure how you’d go about it.”

  “I understand that,” I said.

  “You know that Tier 0’s can’t control their mana, don’t you?”

  “It’s what I’ve heard,” I told her. “But I wanna learn anyway.”

  “That might be impossible,” Maisie warned.

  She didn’t sound annoyed. More… blunt than anything.

  Which I appreciated. I was glad that I wasn’t being condescended to.

  But she didn’t know about my stash of Spirit Stones.

  “I’ll pay you,” I said to her. “For this and for all the healing you’ve given me. I can take some materials out of my next haul to pay you back.”

  “...alright. Deal.”

  Maisie extended a hand to shake. I took it. “I’m not promising results, though.”

  “That’s fine. Just show me what you know,” I instructed her, stretching my body and testing it against the recent bout of healing. “I wanna start practicing today.”

  I still felt a stabbing pain in my chest when I twisted too much, but it wasn’t excruciating. I could handle this level of discomfort.

  “Now?” Maisie asked, looking a bit taken aback by the prospect.

  “Why not? I’ve got time now.”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “Oh. Are you too tired after healing me?”

  Maisie looked completely at a loss for words.

  It was Jackal who interpreted her expression; he looked similarly nonplussed.

  “Dude, seriously, you’re a freak. You’ve been here five minutes and almost died twice. Take a damn break already.”

  “I dunno about twice,” I defended with a wave of my hand, trying to play off my recent injuries. “I feel fine.”

  “Pff. Whatever. I tried. Your funeral.”

  With that, Jackal wandered off to find something to drink, loudly grumbling as he ruffled through clay bottles and metalware.

  “Don’t discourage the kid. He’s doing what works for him,” Ceri mused, laying back with her eyes closed, stirring for the first time since my return. “Maybe you guys are just too lazy to get it.”

  “You’re the laziest person here, Ceri. Why the hell are you lecturing anyone?”

  “You should stop reacting to her,” Finn noted as Ceri started cackling.

  “Yeah, whatever.” Maisie stuck her middle finger up at Ceri, then turned to regard me.

  “First thing’s first, we need to examine your mana reserves.”

  I blinked at that.

  “How do you do that?”

  “You see your [Status] screen? Above the skills tab in your system menu?”

  [Hoard] was actually above my skills tab, and [Status] was above that, but I obviously didn’t point out the distinction.

  I opened it.

  “The section for mana’s blank, like always.”

  “Usually, you need to get certain statistics and values measured by an examiner with special instruments,” Maisie explained.

  Then she smiled.

  “That said, there’s a trick for mana, but it hurts a little.

  “Keep looking at that screen…”

  As we spoke, Maisie grabbed the palm of my right hand and jammed her thumb straight into the middle, then twisted it.

  It did hurt. A little was an understatement.

  That said, just like she said, whatever she’d pressed down upon made a line of text flash up on my [Status] screen. One I’d never seen before.

  [Mana reserves operating at 14% efficiency. Reserve capacity: 4051.]

  “Whoa,” I said, rereading the text a couple of times, “how did you do that?”

  Even crazier than that, the lines within my palm were now glowing blue. Dim in some places, brighter in others. Beneath the surface of my skin, I could feel a surge of energy.

  Maisie looked similarly surprised by that.

  “Dude. What did that number say?”

  “Uhh… four thousand and fifty one?”

  Finn choked on his food. Ceri simply stared at me.

  They all stared.

  “Okay. Are you sure you’re Tier 0?”

  “Pretty sure?”

  “Because my mana capacity is barely three thousand,” Maisie explained. “And I’ve been a practicing mage for four years.”

  I didn’t really know what to say to that. Clearly, neither did she. She kept staring at my hand as the blue lines slowly began to fade.

  “Seriously, how the hell is that number so high?”

  I didn’t have any good explanation. The Spirit Stone I’d used already? Surely it hadn’t had that big of an effect.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Maybe it was something to do with my [Hoard]?

  “Okay, yeah. Maybe it’s worth teaching you,” Maisie admitted. “Because, shit, I can’t imagine sitting on all that mana is good for you.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, suddenly unsure if I should be worried. What if I was running the risk of blowing up, or something?

  “Mana you can’t circulate is just clogging your body. Makes using skills harder. Makes basically everything you do more strenuous than it needs to be. The sooner you learn to control it, the better.

  “I can show you some breathing and visualisation techniques I use for mana circulation. I can explain gathering, too, but I think that’s gonna be way beyond you right now.” A beat. “Well, all of this is, but we’ve gotta start somewhere.”

  Those were a bunch of words I’d never heard before. I explained as much and had Maisie break each concept down to me.

  “Mana circulation is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the process of taking the energy within your body and moving it around your channels in order to facilitate the use of spells and skills.”

  “My channels?” I asked, sure that I sounded completely ignorant, because I was. My one day a week of mandatory education definitely didn’t touch on the intricacies of magic, and Summer had only explained so much to me in the couple of months we’d been close.

  “They’re essentially your body’s internal circulatory system. Mana travels through those and passes through areas called gates to manifest itself into the world.”

  “You’re using a lot of big words here.”

  “You really know none of this?”

  “I am thoroughly uneducated.”

  Maisie sighed.

  “Hmm… Imagine that mana can travel through your veins, and that it’s through circulation that you have control of its travel. Gates are the places it travels through. That make sense?”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  Not that I could feel it. My one interaction with a Spirit Stone yesterday had been the only indication I’d ever had about the unseen energy floating within my body, that and the brief sensation I’d gotten when my palm lit up.

  Speaking of which, my hand looked completely normal again. When I stared at my status, the mana section was blank.

  “So how do you circulate it?”

  “This is where it’s harder to explain,” Maisie admitted. “I didn’t have an intrinsic sense of my mana until I gained a caster class and my first spell, and even then, I could barely do anything with it until I advanced to Tier 1.”

  “So… you’re saying you were able to have some mana sense at Tier 0 because you knew a spell?”

  Maisie considered my words for a moment. Finn had glanced up, unashamedly earwigging our conversation.

  “I… guess?” She blinked. “Huh. That’s interesting. I guess it is possible to use mana at Tier 0, assuming you already know a spell.”

  “Well, can you teach me a spell?”

  Maisie shook her head. “I have literally no idea how to do that.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

  “When I became a [Soothsayer], I gained a skill that allowed me to influence emotions by lacing magic into my words. It’s an automatic process. I don’t understand how it works and I couldn’t explain it if I tried. It’s more… based on my feelings than anything.”

  “What about your healing?” I asked.

  “I got a minor rejuvenation spell when I reached level ten. I didn’t learn it from anyone. The spell lines were burned into my core, so I never had to be taught it.”

  Those were even more new terms. Maisie explained them to me.

  A core was the part of the body that housed the most mana inside, the wellspring of energy that could be drawn upon for both circulation and the casting of spells or skills, an area somewhere around the belly that one with awakened mana could always visualise and interact with.

  Spell lines denoted the pattern through which mana had to be transmuted in order to be manifested as a spell. Apparently, spell lines were taught by tutors and even appeared in books, but when it came to spells that were gathered from class advancement…

  “I can see it clearly, but it’s very difficult for me to replicate or describe it. I could try to show you the basic lines, but I’m pretty bad at casting [Minor Rejuvenation], which is part of why my healing sucks.”

  “It doesn’t suck,” I retorted, defending her from herself. She simply shook her head.

  “Can you show me?”

  Maisie showcased her healing spell to me.

  It was… complicated. And difficult to discern what the hell was going on.

  Two light blue lines manifested from the girl’s fingertip, then began weaving together in streams. They moved in brilliant arches, twisting and twirling around one another, as if performing a stitch or suture on an invisible wound.

  Then the movements became more jagged. Within only a couple of seconds, the line had transformed into a small circle, and then a puzzling prism. After a few more moments, Maisie released the spell.

  A short breath, and she cast it again.

  This time, while the two blue lines began stitching in the same fashion as before, the divergence from their course was even faster, and the nascent formation appearing before my eyes even more scruffy and confused.

  Maisie tutted as she released the spell again.

  “There. See? Don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to teach that.”

  After seeing her second demonstration, I thought I understood the problem.

  I likened it to the time I’d ransacked the orphanage’s art department and tried painting the market outside Flea’s End.

  I’d had all of the tools at my disposal, and a clear picture of what I had to replicate right in front of me…

  But none of the required skill. I’d made five attempts at a passable picture before I’d given up, and each one had looked wildly different.

  “The problem isn’t my control,” Maisie explained. “I’m pretty good at making my mana go where I want it to.”

  “Then what’s the issue?”

  “For me, I think it’s concentration,” Maisie said. “I get headaches when I cast too long. It becomes harder to maintain the lines as I think they should be.”

  “You should probably take a break,” I told her. “It was selfish of me to ask, considering you’ve just been healing me.”

  “You’re the one that got the shit kicked out of you,” Maisie snickered. “Showing you a spell isn’t that big of a deal.”

  We spoke for a while longer, with Maisie walking through the principles of circulation to me. She explained that she’d had to ‘wake up’ each part of her body by introducing mana to it initially, then talked about how she used mana circulation to gain better control of her magic, as well as promote rest and healing in her body.

  She explained that her circulation was easiest to get into with a state of calm, gentle breathing, and an awareness of each part of her body existing in a relaxed state. Something akin to meditation.

  From there, it was easier to command her mana. She could circulate while moving and even under stress now, but that had taken time. Apparently, the best mages saw almost no difference between casting in a relaxed state and an active one, but for her, the former was far easier.

  Lastly, Maisie explained gathering:

  “There are different types of ambient mana that exist in the world. Some, your body will be more attuned with than others. The most abundant is wind, but other elements like earth and water are common as well. Your body can convert these into elements that bolster your casting. For me, I typically gather wind mana and convert it into life mana.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I said, somewhat astonished by her words.

  The idea of different types of mana wasn’t even something I’d considered until now. I always just thought of it as a singular energy. To think it manifested in different ways or could even be converted was astounding.

  “Before you ask, I don’t know how I convert it,” Maisie said. “Again, it’s something to do with my class and my affinities, and the process is automatic. All I know is that I find it way easier to convert wind mana than anything else.”

  “Still, you know a ton about this stuff,” I said, genuinely impressed by the knowledge she’d dropped on me.

  “My father was a [Healer],” Maisie explained. “Self-taught. He was never sent to any academy. But he taught me a lot of what I know now.”

  “Wow, your father’s pretty cool to have figured this all out on his own.”

  “Yeah,” Maisie nodded. “He was.”

  I quickly sensed it was a sore spot. Maisie didn’t seem remotely upset to talk about it, but I’d lived in an orphanage long enough to grasp how good some were at masking their grief.

  I smiled at her.

  “Thanks. This is so much helpful information.”

  Maisie frowned. “You’re welcome… I just don’t know what you’re gonna do with it.”

  “What do you think?” I laughed. “I’m gonna use it to learn magic.”

  “Just like that?” Maisie asked, as if I’d said I was going to go flap my arms and start flying.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, try not to blow us all up doing it.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll practice away from camp.”

  Maisie laughed at that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her laugh before.

  With that, I went to take my leave. I had a new training regimen to begin.

  Before I could so much as stand, Maisie grabbed my arm.

  “I haven’t finished healing you yet.”

  I shook my head at her. “I’m fine. You’ve already used a bunch of your mana. You should have some rest.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Whatever. Do what you want. One more thing, though.”

  I turned to her, trying not to betray how eager I was to go practice.

  “I know it’ll be some time until this matters, but when it comes to gathering…

  “Your body has a limit,” she said, her tone serious. “Don’t absorb too much mana at once. If you overload your reserves too heavily, you can kill yourself doing it.”

  “Okay, got it. I’ll try not to die.”

  “Lemme know how that goes.”

  I let all of her lessons play over in my mind as I left the campsite.

  I had a bunch of mana, but that efficiency number had said only fourteen percent…

  Spirit Stones could awaken more of my mana. I’d use them to fix that issue. Maybe I could even learn to circulate after.

  ***

  Before I returned to my tent and did something dangerous, I was off to do… something dangerous.

  Namely, checking on my not-so-little spider friend.

  My main concern was that the compulsion might’ve broken once I’d left and that my spider minion might’ve scurried off, meaning I’d have to go on the hunt for it.

  I didn’t want to have to venture too far into the darkness. I had a vested interest in maintaining the Control Stone I’d already invested, however, so I was willing to take some risk in order to find the creature. Just not enough that I’d run into a whole other gang of monsters.

  It took about a fifteen minute walk through the tunnels for me to retrace my steps to where I’d originally emerged from the underground, coming to the end of a long corridor that forked in three directions and sticking the leftmost path until I came out within a large cavern filled with stalagmites, a pool of water sitting at the far end.

  And, sitting in the corner of the room, almost exactly where I’d left it, was my new beastly buddy. It hadn’t gone far at all.

  [Neural Link established. Remaining duration: 1 hour, 28 minutes.]

  I got a good look at the spider now that I was less sleep-deprived, less panicked.

  My first realisation was that this wasn’t actually a spider. Spiders had eight legs. This thing had ten.

  Furthermore, it had really sharp pincers. Those things were like serrated swords and about as long, the ends of them gleaming in the dim light.

  Besides those features, the creature was very spider-like. Its gait, the way it moved, the way it spun webs…

  Speaking of webs, it had started working on this room already. While it wasn’t covered, there was a small section around the corner where it sat that was thoroughly webbed to the degree that I struggled to travel through it, my boots often getting stuck or pulling.

  I commanded the spider closer and had it lay down, and with a mighty tug, managed to hoist myself onto its back and away from the encroaching webs.

  Once I was properly situated, I began ordering it around.

  I decided to quickly test a complex instruction, asking it to take three paces forwards, then move six left, then three back, then sit down, then stand up again.

  It took three paces forwards, then three back.

  Okay… keep it simple, I guess. One direction at a time.

  I went back to basic commands, instructing it to take me out of this room and leading it away from this part of the cave, intent on finding a new home for it.

  On the path to our new destination, we encountered a pair of feral wolf-looking things, blue-furred and red-eyed, similar to the animal I’d seen attack a miner on my first day here.

  The monsters didn’t react aggressively to my passage, but I felt the spider tug, even feeling something impress itself upon my neural link for a moment, something that I later became certain was the spider’s will.

  It must’ve been hungry. That was almost enough for it to resist my control of it and start chasing those things.

  Curious to see how capable it was, I commanded the spider to attack.

  The spider was five times the size of these wolves. I had no doubt that in a fight, with me on its back or not, the spider would have no issue being able to destroy these two enemies.

  However, as soon as the spider grew close, they took off running.

  The creature was simply too slow to keep up. I let it chase them for a time, but eventually relented, returning my focus to relocating the spider.

  It must’ve needed its webs to properly hunt. The mesh of webs I’d seen in its last home had looked terrifying. Even the small lair it had constructed where I’d left it was difficult enough to walk through.

  Once I’d found a new room for the spider, one that was only a fifteen minute walk from my camp and that I could more easily find my way back to when needed, I climbed down off the spider, gave its side a pat, and looked around the room I’d chosen.

  It had a single exit on the floor I’d entered from, as well as a ramp leading up to an elevated point. I decided to climb said ramp and check for exits. I found two.

  Seemed good to me. Besides that, the room was cylindrical. Should be a decent home for the creature. Good testing ground too.

  “Make as many webs down here as you can.” I instructed. “Take food and sleep breaks when you need to.”

  The spider stared at me unblinkingly before getting to its new task, immediately beginning to spin a central web over the immediate surface of the room’s floor.

  “Good spider.”

  I’d used up another half hour of my Control Stone’s duration getting it somewhere more central, but it seemed like a good time investment. Assuming the spider did as it had last time and kept to my instructions while I was gone, then two hours of duration could be cheated into many, many more.

  What could I do with a room full of spider webs, I wonder?

  I climbed the ramp, and after working through a series of exits, found my way back to my tent. I sat down with a sigh, stretching my sore legs and massaging my shoulder.

  First dangerous task went fine. Time for the second.

  Learning to use mana and preparing to defeat Toar went hand-in-hand. I had a decent idea of how I might be able to kill the guy, but failing that, I wanted to have enough strength that I might be able to finish him.

  That meant learning to do this was a contingency more than anything, but I considered it far more practical than that.

  The strongest classes often seemed to be those that allowed a command of mana. Mana bolstered everything and could make my skills, as well as my body, far stronger.

  If my body was stronger, I could train for far longer.

  If my skills were stronger, I could improve them much faster.

  That meant all that was standing in the way of a boost to my development was figuring out how to wake up the mana in my body, as well as how to use it.

  Thankfully, I had a solution to the first issue.

  It was called jabbing a Spirit Stone into my arm and hoping for the best.

  [Spirit Stone, D Grade: Awakens trapped energy within a user’s body, allowing for better control of mana and the replenishment of depleted spiritual energy. Can activate certain dormant objects with appropriate slots. Value estimated at 1 gold per gram.]

  I reread the description before pulling a single stone out of my inventory, the one I’d used before. It still shone brightly, seeming to retain most of its qualities—I’d barely used it for a second last time.

  Bracing myself, careful not to grit my teeth or tense my arm, I found the vein on my upper arm and jammed the Spirit Stone in.

  I held it for three seconds this time before pulling the stone away.

  I immediately felt as if a roaring bear had awoken within my chest, and was bashing against the confines of my ribcage in a desperate attempt to free itself.

  I was out of the tent and sprinting before my mind could catch up.

  All I knew was that I needed to run. My heart was thundering, beating faster than it ever had before, and I was sweating profusely not even ten seconds into my journey.

  I slipped and I fell. I barely registered the pain as I crashed onto the stone floor. I picked myself up and kept running. My heart would explode if I didn’t.

  I felt each fibre in my calves and my shins beginning to shift, as if stirring from a distant slumber they’d been in my whole life. Then my knees, my thighs, my stomach…

  Gods, my stomach burned. It felt as if I’d swallowed a ball of lava. I could barely see, tears streaming from my eyes as I ran and I ran in hopes that I could distance myself from the agonising, mystifying feeling pervading my entire body.

  Just when I started to believe I’d never stop, that the pain would never end…

  I felt it. I felt the struggle within me give way.

  I felt the untapped power that had been rebelling against my internals stop waging war with me. The chaotic energy shifted. It stopped bounding against my body in hopes of release and the storm inside my heart began to quell.

  I leaned into it. Pressed upon it.

  I burst ahead with speed I’d never felt before. Faster than my stick legs had ever carried me in my life.

  Much faster.

  I felt scared at first. Then elated.

  I ran until I couldn’t run anymore, certain that I’d landed at least a mile away from my tent. Likely further.

  My body was caked in sweat. I felt as if I was going to throw up.

  …I did throw up. For some reason I couldn’t explain, my sick looked like tar.

  I decided not to worry about it. Whatever I’d expelled from my body, it left me feeling a lot lighter. Pulled away the last remnants of discomfort and left me feeling whole.

  I debated on running back to my tent, giving my newly awakened aptitude a test drive.

  I indulged that impulse, but found myself swiftly growing irritated.

  I definitely felt faster than before. My motions certainly felt smoother. Something within me had surely been unlocked.

  But I couldn’t match that manic burst of speed I’d attained during my initial frenzied sprint. Whatever that had been, whether that was the full extent of my unleashed mana or simply the effect of more of it, that level of speed remained locked to me, and I imagined I’d have to make more and more use of my Spirit Stones if I wanted to find that level any time soon.

  But that was fine;I had plenty to use. As soon as I got back to my tent, as soon as I caught my breath, I grabbed the idle Spirit Stone from the floor, still half full, and pushed it against my arm.

  …I barely managed to prick my arm with the stone before I was forced to pull it away. The pressure I felt in my stomach was immense. It was as if it was going to burst.

  I had to simply breathe for a couple of minutes in order to ride out that pain. Thankfully, it soon ceased.

  Okay. Can’t use these too much back to back. Awakening my mana clearly puts a bunch of strain on my body. Got it.

  Spirit Stones didn’t put new mana into my body, at least according to the description. They just gave my existing mana a jumpstart. That meant what I was doing now wasn’t even akin to gathering. If I wanted to further increase my reserves, was gathering the next thing I needed to figure out?

  There had to be a crystal I could ingest to gain more mana. That surely existed somewhere in this cave.

  With everything else I’d found down here, I refused to believe it didn’t.

  I’d scout new locations in the morning and see what I could find. I had another place I needed to visit regardless, and it wouldn’t hurt to look for more crystal deposits along the way.

  My dreams that night consisted of sliding doors, a sleeping demon, a bright glowing portal, and metallic monstrosities chasing me through endless hallways. I awoke in a sweat, finding it difficult to return to slumber, far too much on my mind.

  I was used to stress. My whole life was defined by difficult situations and how I survived them.

  But so much had happened lately. And I hadn’t truly been able to tell anyone about it.

  The coming day was met with a familiar jolt of discomfort; I ached all over.

  What else was new. I’d just push through it.

  Before anything, I was returning to the tunnels. My plan for dealing with Toar relied on me putting in work, and I was collecting the first piece of that puzzle before doing anything else.

  After that, I’d go to my group and be a good worker. I’d practice with my skills. I’d attempt to grow my mana. I’d deal with any bullshit that Toar attempted to throw at me.

  As for learning a spell or skill I could use as a basis for casting, as well as a fitting target for my first skill combination…

  I had an idea.

  you can read six weeks ahead on my Patreon!