The Third Step: Chapter Sixty-Seven

“What do you mean you’ve never done clap pushups?!” Liz asked, her voice holding back a mix of disbelief and laughter. “What’s the point of having superhuman strength if not to use it?”

“My full-gates infuse the created spell circuits with energy from it. The strength is really more of a byproduct of more efficient and powerful casting,” I responded. “I do some physical training, sure, with sparring and such. But I don’t think I’ve done things like clap pushups since gym class, and I was terrible at them then.” 

Liz muttered under her breath and sighed, running a hand through some of the beads in her braids. With my spirit and body sore, I had to take it fairly easy for the rest of the day, but Meadow, Kene, and the witch had all agreed that doing some stretching and mild physical exercises would probably actually help me recover quicker, while my spirit slowly worked to digest the power of the silver-purple mana control pill. 

“Your limitations are a lot higher than even me, setting aside the powers of my shoes,” Liz said, shaking her head. “A mild exercise for you is going to be a fairly intense one for most people. But since you haven’t trained in the technique, all the built up energy is of limited use.” 

“Frankly, I’m more surprised you expected mild exercise to be sparring. Fighting is one of the most intense exercises out there. Forms might be considered mild, but not sparring.”  

“I’m used to fighting,” I groused as I tried to do another pushup, thrusting off the ground and losing my balance again. “I’m not used to pushups.” 

That finally let the laughter Liz had been trying to hold back free, and I glared at her as I reset and tried to start over. We went through a variety of other techniques to exercise my body and spirit, including some basic mana shaping training that I hadn’t done since I was in school. I had to take several breaks after that, so I headed down to the basement, where the time crystal was located, only to nearly get struck by a blast of light. I stumbled back as my familiars stopped sparring against one another, turning to look at me. Dusk waved, and Dawn wiggled. 

“Huh. Are you sure this is safe?” 

Dusk gestured to the time crystal and explained that, near as they could tell, it would take someone with a Title to crack it. Since the humans had been using the upstairs room to train, they’d take the downstairs. Dusk wanted to be able to help carry me through the next round. 

“Thank you,” I said, scooping both of them up into a hug. “I appreciate that. You don’t need to think of it that way. I’ll be fine. Really, I’m feeling much better.” 

I wasn’t lying. Physically, spiritually, and even emotionally, I was feeling better. 

Dusk nodded seriously and pointed at me, making a sound like a raven’s caw and saying that we needed to make top eight our priority now. There had already been a bit of concern around my staff, but up until now, I’d had something to pull me out of the fire. I’d had Dawn’s familiar effect to pull me out when I’d used the world tortoise spell, and I hadn’t put strain on myself from something like Burn Future. But now… 

“I need the spellbinder rose,” I agreed. Dusk nodded and added that she also thought I needed the Saint Baths of the Silent River Sect. Orykson had mentioned them as a potential solution for the damage to my mana channels once already. She wasn’t sure if that still held true or not, but it was the best chance we had. 

“I… yeah. I’m sorry if that means there will be less rewards for the two of you.” 

Coda guerdon? 

I flinched as Dawn’s words hit my head and blinked. What? Dusk frowned, tapped her lips, then said she thought that Dawn might be misunderstanding the tournament format, and that Dawn also thought that since she wasn’t really fighting, it would be unfair for her to expect a share of prizes. 

“How do you get all that from coda guerdon? Are those even actual words?” 

Dusk just shrugged and told me that she understood. She didn’t know how. I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose, but Dusk wasn’t done, as she told me not to worry about taking the two prizes. That wasn’t the end of the world. It just meant she’d take two herself. 

“If we can,” I agreed. “Alright. I won’t interrupt your training any longer. Glad that you two are okay.” 

I headed back to the first floor, and with Meadow’s help, began making a large bowl of congee to share with everyone. They’d created a store of food and nutrition potions, but most of the food was some variation of a soup, since without a kitchen, the only good cooking implement was a cauldron. 

“Some believe that the original witches were simply cooks, huddled around their cooking pots, who noticed the effects certain plants had when combined,” Meadow commented. “Of course, before the days of Harvest Plant Life, alchemy was a much more difficult art. Mana toxicity and side effects were vast powers that had to be grappled with to produce even the most meager of potions.” 

I winced, feeling a pang of sympathy at those ancient alchemists who were forced to deal with all the things I could just drain away. A part of me wondered if, in a few centuries, someone would look back at the levels of mana toxin in our current potions, and the level of effectiveness they had, and feel bad at us for how we had it. I shrugged. There was really only one way to find out: live until then. 

After eating the pork and mushroom congee, everyone began setting up sleeping bags and cots, while Meadow collapsed into a spell anchor for the night. I slept hard, despite only having been up half a day, and by the following morning, I was feeling significantly better. Still not perfect, but better. I stretched and made a breakfast of apple oatmeal, before pulling out the mistsphere and pulling it into my garden. 

I felt it settle into place next to the spire of crystal where the fourth effect of my Runelight lens was, and tendrils of mist leeched into the ground, spreading and connecting to my other spells. I’d sensed a connection to Ghosteyes when I’d picked up the sphere, but to my surprise, the tendrils connected to Spirit Tether and Spirit Circle as well. Power flowed between them, and the rainbow cords connecting or creating synergistic effects chimed happily, an orchestra of sound rushing through my garden as the treasure improved the synergy of ghostly magic. With the treasure absorbed, I walked upstairs and went through a quick stretching routine. I was just about to test the new power of my lens when Orykson folded himself into existence near me. 

“I thought my parasite staff was fine, and totally not dangerous,” I said cattily as soon as he appeared. 

“It’s an artifact from the stars. Even the most benign of them are dangerous. The worst of them are capable of wiping cities off the map,” Orykson responded. “Regardless, you survived. If you hadn’t pushed for top two, you’d only have suffered minor injuries. And in the worst case, we could simply have shattered the lens.” 

“How delightful,” I said, but Orykson simply shrugged. 

“I’ve had countless items broken for countless purposes. Growth items are lovely, but they’re ultimately only tools to improve a base. They should not be the source of power.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. Still, I’d prefer for it to be unbroken.”

“That is reasonable. It’s a well suited item for you. Well?” 

He gestured at me, and I conjured the lens, then began to pour power into it. I felt a slight headache as my knowledge and mental energy was drained, but nothing else seemed to happen. While I was feeling confused, Orykson’s eyes lit up. 

“Recceptive Network, that’s perfect. Look downstairs.” 

I was about to protest that I’d need to lean on my connection to Dusk to do that, but before I could, I was getting mental images of the downstairs. Lincoln, Kene, and Liz were still asleep. Dusk and Dawn were chatting back and forth, and their words were completely audible to me. 

“Woah,” I said, and as I spoke, I felt that I could push the words downstairs. 

Then the spell fizzled out. I was still very early into fourth gate, and though I had a good bit of energy, I could only sustain a fourth gate effect for so long. 

“Recceptive Network allows you to transmit audio and visual feedback within your mana senses,” Orykson explained. “It’s a two way street. Aerde normally handles a lot of this work with me, but it’s possible to learn to create multiple threads connecting different people, as well as only access one sort of feedback. A wonderfully flexible and potent spell for a sensory mage.” 

I nodded my agreement, not having anything sarcastic to say. It was a genuinely useful spell for a lot of purposes. Even if it had only let me see through my senses, that would have been enough for me to be content with its effect. 

“Now, onto more serious business,” Orykson said, before twitching slightly as Meadow appeared right next to him. 

“Spells,” Meadow said. “We have twelve days. While you could learn several spells all at once, and we still can if you’d like to take a more holistic approach, you seem very focused on the tournament – understandably so.” 

“For all we disagree on many topics, I agree with Meadow on this,” Orykson said. “I think one spell for your life gate, and one for your death gate.” 

“What about Ornamented Staff?” 

“We’ll see,” Orykson said, before he glanced up at the sky and grimaced. “ For now, how about you focus on Concentrate Spellpower for now?” 

“Sounds good to me. I assume Concentrate Spellpower is like overcharging mana?”

“It’s somewhat similar. Overcharging is simply increasing the density of your mana by force to mimic advancement. Concentrate spellpower is actually a very early soul spell, which utilizes the mana poured into it to generate some wisps of will–” 

“Identity,” Meadow said, earning a glare from Orykson. I wasn’t entirely convinced she hadn’t interrupted just to annoy him.

“Intent?” I offered. 

“It generates wisps of intent and works to infuse it into a spell. It’s a small amount, undirected, and only partially useful until you can open the path to access your intent naturally. But even as a fourth gate, it should help you concentrate on the spell and help maximize the effect of your existing resonance on it.” 

“Interesting. And life magic?” 

“There are several useful spells for you at fourth gate. I know you’re more focused on plants and, but there are countless useful transformation spells at the gate: the Five Forms that the Shepherd’s people are renown for, Bestial Transformation, and Dryad’s Body. Even among plant spells, spells like Spriggan Step or Purge Plant Toxicity are quite useful. And that’s ignoring fungal ones like Fungal Shield and Rapid Adaptation. But for the purposes of the tournament? Retributive Thorns.” 

“Oh? That sounds like a weird choice for you.” 

“It’s a spell that works best when ingrained, as it’s able to be precharged, like Combat Echo. When cast, it conjures a swirl of thorns around you, like Briarthreads. Frankly, you shouldn’t be casting it normally. Briarthreads does much the same thing, and it only uses first gate mana. It’s the ingrained effect that makes it such a useful spell. When charged, it can use its reserve of power to activate on its own before you’re struck. It’s not one use, either – it depends on how much power you’ve stored within it.” 

“Alright, I’m sold on both of them as solid choices,” I agreed, then popped my neck. “Let’s get to work.”