The Fourth Gate: Chapter One

I wasn’t typically much for meditation, at least in the traditional sense of sitting, waiting, and trying to clear my mind. It was fine, especially since I had medication that was helping me be a bit less scatterbrained, but it still wasn’t my preferred way to do things. But I needed focus for this, and thankfully, it was intensive enough that I was actually able to feel like I wasn’t just emptying my mind. I was slowly unraveling threads of power, stitching the damaged mana channels around my heart into new formations. It wasn’t going to fix my problem, but it was one of the few tasks that I could undertake without burning much mana. With the debt of Burn Future, I didn’t need to spend mana now. 

Concentrate Spellpower’s ingrained effect gave me a better perception of my spirit, its layers, and its interactions. When the effect had first settled in, I’d been horrified at all of the damage that I could suddenly sense. There were bigger things that I needed to work on, but I would get to those as I continued to advance in fourth gate and prepared for fifth gate. Right now, I needed power in the short term, and Hudau Heart allowed me to re-route the paths of my mana regeneration. I’d mostly used it for charging my Ephemeral Rebirth and Combat Echo, at least so far, but by combining the two spells, I could re-route the power flowing into my body from the world, as well as from my soul mana, and other, stranger sources – there were still several, smaller factors in mana regeneration that I didn’t understand. 

I slowly took the ends of the fractured – or in one particularly nasty case, exploded – channels, and then wove threads of mana with Hudau Heart, moving their location to seal it alongside, an existing channel, sometimes shifting gaps to let the channels fuse together, other times simply stitching them together, like sewing two ends of fabric together. 

Just like using loose stitching and differently colored thread to repair a tear in pants didn’t actually mend the pants, and couldn’t replace chunks of fabric, this wasn’t a true solution to my damaged mana channels. Like loose stitches popping when flexed, this temporary redirections would come apart when put under real pressure, and it didn’t fix the spots in my spirit where I had done true harm. It was only a short term solution that should help me perform better in the tournament – my channels were more than just mana recovery, after all. That might be their primary purpose, but they moved mana between the spirit and the body, meaning they also impacted the ability to focus and release techniques, spiritual reaction time, and even mana manipulation, all to a lesser extent.

I was probably going to undo a lot of this progress in my fight for a top sixteen slot, and if I won, I’d need to do it again before a top eight fight. It was possible that the matchups would be arranged in such a way that I’d wind up fighting someone easy. Or, relatively easy. Nobody in the top thirty-two was a pushover, and even the worst fighters should be capable of fighting at an Arcanist level. But some were far more dangerous than one of the fighters who was really only there as a state sponsored warrior from a nation without any promising elites right now. 

I wouldn’t bet on getting that fight, though. Oh, if the matchups were random, I thought it could happen, but it was unlikely. The Mossford Alliance put together, and Elohi respectively held the most spots in the top thirty-two, assuming you counted me as Mossford and Ming as Elohi. We weren’t, technically, but plenty of people would draw associations, since Ming had immigrated to Elohi and I had been born in Mossford. I’d bet a good bit that I was going to be facing off against Ivy, Liz, Ming, Aput, Dario, or the other Elohian competitor who I hadn’t gotten a chance to meet yet – Galo. 

Finding out that Aput, the powerful arctic dragon from Dragontooth, was in the competition had been interesting. I hadn’t run into him thus far, but the last time I’d seen him, he’d been trading blows with a third gate Kamal, despite being behind. He was no Ivy, but I didn’t want to face off against him. 

He was also the one that I was most betting I’d be put up against. Every Magi would want to ensure someone from either their nation or their national alliances was in the top eight. With Liz loosely being Chrysite, Ivy from Mossford, Aput from Dragontooth, and me… around… it would make the most sense to push Liz forward with an easy match as a concession to the young nation, letting them make a good showing on the global stage. Ivy was a powerhouse, and a possible fight, but we knew one another too well. I knew enough of his tricks that I didn’t think Orykson would be willing to let us fight one another. I’d already shown I could beat Kamal, though, so I thought it was most likely I’d be up against Aput. 

I had less certainty around the Elohian competitors. The other Magi would want me to go up against one of them, since it would mean I could potentially knock out one of the Elohian fighters, but Elohi generally wasn’t the best at the central tournament. They tended to excel in side events, often losing the main tournament but having the most number of overall victors. It was possible the Magi would dismiss these three as a fluke. If they did set me against them, I didn’t know which one was most likely, but I was betting on Galo. 

According to the cheapest information packet that I’d been able to buy, he supposedly had some sort of teleportation-based legacy, which would allow him to have nearly as much mobility as I had. The exact legacy in question was either unknown, or else only provided by higher level information brokers, but it allowed him to perform dozens of short-range, line-of-sight teleports, for virtually no cost. I was betting he could do more than line of sight, but was pretending he couldn’t in order to pull a fast one. Despite the teleportation legacy, he was a pugilist, utilizing physical mana for the purposes of kinetic force, breaking through anything that got in his way, while focusing life mana into improving his ability to heal and recover his stamina. 

That was the reason I was begging we’d be paired to fight, if I wasn't fighting Aput. Sheer spectacle. Because for all that the tournament was about the Magi and Occultists swapping favors and playing the game of politics, it was also broadcast in nearly every nation’s communication mirror network. And if they wantned a show, Galo would be a great fit; teleportation fights were always fun, with it being a battle of speed and wits more than power, and having two physically enhanced fighters duking it out would allow for a level of grounded brutality.

I realized that I was getting distracted, burning mana, all speculating about what could be, what might happen, rather than what was right in front of me, then sighed and went back to working on my soul-stitching. By the time the evening had rolled around, I was finished, and between drawing on what my plants had recovered, a mana potion from Kene, and some help from Dusk and Dawn, my Burn Future debt was paid. Ikki entered Dusk’s realm around then, placing down the basket of my actual rewards, as well as – amusingly, at least to me – a medal. I’d gotten the medal from winning first in the construct search, but I hadn’t been there to receive the medal for second place in Sensory Sphereoids, and Orykson hadn’t seen fit to bring it to me.

“Your spirit seems more cohesive,” Ikki greeted as he set the basket down in front of me, then took a seat across from me at the patio table. Kene peeked their head out through the window and called out. 

“Hey Ikki! Are you here for dinner, or just for talking?” 

“If it is not an imposition, I would be happy to eat with you,” Ikki responded, nodding to Kene, who have a weird half-nod, given they were talking through a window. Ikki then turned and passed the basket forward to me. With a grin, I looked through it.

The first two items that I identified were now familiar to me. There was a writ in golden and white lettering, detailing my training under Ikki, as well as several marked one-ounce bars of silver. The third item, though, I was less sure of. Though, perhaps I should have said items – there were three of them. A group challenge needed grouped rewards. I picked one of them up and turned it over in my hand, examining it. 

It was vaguely pyramidal shaped, but didn’t have any straight edges, save for the point at the top of the pyramid, making it look like a child’s blobby attempt at a pyramid. It looked like it was made of clay, or perhaps an impossibly tough dough. To my mana senses, it barely felt like anything at all. There were faint traces of mental mana, as well as knowledge and death, but… barley. 

“Alright, I give up, what is this?” I asked, turning it over one more time.

“It is a senses-channeling pyramid,” Ikki said. “If you keep it in your spirit during the formation of your Clarity of Purpose, Intrinsic Limitation, and Origin of Power, it will amplify the natural expansion of your mana senses, and dramatically improve their fidelity. The treasure is difficult to actually keep in your spirit, as it will naturally try to escape, at which point it breaks. I would recommend only absorbing it once you are prepared to ascend.” 

I nodded, picking up the strange pyramid and teleporting it into Dusk’s vault, before teleporting in the remaining two. It was a good gift, and suited with the theme of growth that those who picked training tended to get. A part of me couldn’t help but wish that I’d had the ability to trade it in for something else, though. If I wanted a shot at getting a Spellbinder Rose – let alone the Silent River Sect’s Saint Bath – I needed power now, not later. 

Ikki rose then, leaving to go make some changes and upgrades to his simulacrum creating spell frame, before returning as my dad, Kene, and Ed emerged with food. Meadow joined us as well, though she’d apparently been barred from doing any cooking by my dad, who had told her to rest. My grandmother, Liz, and her grandfather joined us, and we tore into the dinner. After all, tomorrow would be the fight for the top sixteen. I didn’t know when I’d be called to fight, but it was going to be a big one.