The Third Step: Chapter Sixty-Six

The orb rose into the air, and I began clashing with my opponent. For better or worse, I’d definitely been right about the state of my mana senses, as I was able to force the orb back quickly, but they were also fundamentally unstable. Every half second or so, they practically turned off entirely, letting her push the orb back in my direction. 

“Two steps forward, one step back,” I said, only realizing that I’d voiced the thought aloud a moment later. I started to giggle, and the woman across from me looked genuinely concerned. 

“There’s clearly something wrong–” 

There was a ding as I scored a point and the ball was reset. The referee looked at me, and I gave a thumbs up, blinking rapidly as the sun turned bright pink. Hmm. That probably wasn’t good. I ignored it as the ball rose into the air, and the woman across from me activated her Sensory Cache. That might not be its actual name, but I needed something to call it, since multiple people seemed to be using it. 

“Why are you all the same?” I muttered. “The tower one was different, that was cool, but everyone else is the same!” 

I was almost shouting by the time I finished, and I threw a full third of my remaining soul mana into my spells, teleporting another potion into my mouth as I found that it wasn’t enough. Or maybe it was? I couldn’t tell, the ball was just a streak in my vision, making it hard to tell if I was pushing it forward or if she was pushing it back. Pain flared through my body as the mana toxin began to build up from too many potions in close succession, but it was nothing but a footnote to the collapse of my body. 

When the ball teleported to the center, I realized that I’d scored, and I hadn’t even heard the sound of the bell indicating it. I raised my hand as the ball rose up again, and drew on soul mana. Half my vision went dark, while everything in the other half was pink. Huh. 

I slammed all of my remaining soul mana into my sensory spells and the ball exploded forward, actually moving fast enough to tear the netting that I was throwing it into. I stumbled off the pitch, and got an urgent sense from both of my familiars, so I turned to the referee and pointed at her. 

“Orykson, the Analyst. Top two reward training with him, okay? I’ve gotta go. Gonna advance my life gate or I’m gonna die. Only got a few minutes left.” 

I stepped into Dusk’s realm, and she joined me an instant later. My mana senses were surging up and down wildly, shifting between the most powerful senses I’d felt from anyone but a true Occultist and being weaker than they’d been when I first awakened them in high school. 

Then my vision went entirely black. I wasn’t passed out, but my vision was just entirely gone. I didn’t know if it was blood gumming up my eyes or something else, but it wasn’t pleasant. 

That was when I felt Dusk start pouring things into me. A forger stone flowed in and I numbly absorbed it. I felt the meru-stream flowed along my back, preparing to soak into my body. And the life mana. Oh, there was so much life mana. 

She was drawing on power from across the realm, like she had when she’d forced the final use of the soul stabilizing ritual for Kene. It rushed into my spirit, and I slipped into my garden. At least here, I was able to see fine. Dawn was floating next to me, and the instant I appeared, her tail wrapped around my left arm and began yanking me forward. She was casting spells, and I felt her taking control of my mana as I tried to shift it to my fourth gate. 

I was confident that without both of their help, this would have been impossible. As it was… I just hoped it would be enough. I stumbled to the wrought iron gate and put one hand on it. As I did, golden light flared from Dawn’s spells, Dusk’s magic poured more magic into me, I drew back my fist, and slammed it into the iron. The gate ripped open, and I let out a long sigh of relief. The last thing I heard before I passed out were indistinct voices all around me. 

When I came to, I was surprised to see that I was in the alchemy lab, laid out on a cot on the floor, with sounds coming from the training room overhead, while I could feel Dusk and Dawn downstairs. My entire body was aching, but it wasn’t in the collapsing state that it had been in when I’d first entered Dusk’s realm. It was more like I’d been beaten and bruised in a day-long spar against Ikki. My spirit felt sore and wrung out, but it was more like the results of overtraining than true injury. The only permanent damage I could really feel was to my mana channels. The cracks running through them had widened even further, and I was venting even more mana than before, slowing the rate at which my mana could recover.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, looking around and spotting Kene standing over one of the bubbling cauldrons. As soon as I moved, they turned, a mix of relief and anger on their face. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Sore,” I responded. My voice was dry and cracked. 

“I’m not surprised. Your channels have worsened. You’re leaking more than half of your entire mana regeneration now.”

“Oh,” I said, smacking my lips. Kene passed me a glass of water, and I began to drink it greedily. As I did, they set me with a level stare. When they spoke, their voice was measured, not angry, but there was a tension underneath. 

“I thought we had agreed you weren't going to take stupid risks like that. You were practically knocking on death’s door when you arrived.” 

“I really didn’t think it would be that bad,” I said, then paused to drink some more before continuing my explanation. “I boosted my Runelight Lens to fourth gate and took three potions in a row.” 

Kene’s eyebrows knitted together, and they shook their head, a confused look on their face. 

“Just those two things shouldn’t have started shutting your entire body down like that.” 

“Stick!” 

The word came from a raven perched on the windowsill that I hadn’t noticed before, and at its call, the sounds of fighting stopped. A moment later, Liz, her grandfather, and Meadow stepped down the stairs. I was forced to repeat myself to them – I was fine, I was sore, I knew about the worsening cracks in my mana channels, and I’d only boosted my 

“That’s… weird. I boosted my shoes to fourth gate while I was peak third,” Liz said, shaking her head. “And I wasn’t even half broken through, like you were. It was a strain on me, but manageable. Like wearing weighted training clothes.” 

“Stick!” the raven I assumed was Kene’s grandmother repeated. 

“I have to agree,” Meadow said. “Your staff consumes all free space in your soul. When you boosted your Runelight Lens, it was a small burden, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” 

“It was so extreme, though…” Kene said quietly. 

“His spirit was completely saturated. It couldn’t even take on the smallest of bonds, like the pass to visit the Craftsman’s shop. When he forced it to anyways, it overloaded. A single grain of sugar dropped into a jar of sugar syrup can crystalize the entire batch, despite only being a single grain of sugar. The mana toxin exacerbated the physical symptoms.” 

“I didn’t expect it to be that bad,” I said, shaking my head. “I expected it to be unpleasant, but not… this.” 

“I…” Kene trailed off, then hugged me. “I was worried, but I can’t be mad at you. I don’t think any of us expected it to be this bad.”

A thought occurred to me, and my eyes snapped wide open. I glanced around frantically, and then reached into Internal Pocketwatch. The response I got… didn’t make sense. It was like I’d been separated from the normal flow of time. 

“What… how long has it been?” 

“You were out for almost the entire rest of the day after your sensory event, and that night we were forced to activate the time crystal beneath the lab,” Kene explained. “Otherwise, you’d have forfeited the next round of the competition, and I don’t think you would have wanted that. It’s currently early around ‘noon’ on the second day of accelerated time.” 

I leaned my head back and let out a groan. This was a disaster. Sure, this effectively had bought both Liz and myself twelve and a half days of time to train before the competition for top thirty-two, but I’d have preferred to keep it for a later round. Between that, the worsened damage to my channels, and the fact that I’d advanced before reaching the maximum potential of my growth full-gates, I’d really shot myself in the foot.

“The situation is not as bleak as you fear it to be,” Meadow said, walking over and gently squeezing my shoulder. “Think about the upsides.” 

“What?” I asked, and Meadow untied a satchel from her belt, opening it to reveal the contents. There was the gentle sphere of flowing mist that I’d gotten when returning the ring of one of the ghostly children who had died in the Idyll-Flume, a silk scroll tightly bound with a purple ribbon, a silver-purple pill slightly larger than a grape, and about a score of one-ounce marked silver bars. 

“Your reward for placing top two and choosing the training rewards, as well as the mistsphere,” Meadow explained. “The scroll is an official writ of training under the Analyst until the peak of Arcanist. Officially, contestants select from assorted timeslots, but many people rarely bother with it. Orykson certainly doesn’t, unless he’s working under the Knowledge King.” 

“Ooh, dish,” Liz said, flopping down next to me to peek at the rewards. A moment later, the raven, Liz’s grandfather, and Kene all moved closer. They formed a rough circle on the floor around me, and Liz’s grandfather helped Meadow sit down. 

“How much is the silver worth?” I asked. I knew how much a Mossford Standard Silver was worth, but not in this sort of nondenominational format.  

“A bit more than a thousand Mossford Standard,” Meadow responded. “Most of the value of the competition is put in the other rewards. Still, Orykson and Ikki can likely convert it into a useful resource or two while we’re stuck in this differentiated time.” 

Kene picked up the pill and rolled it between their fingers, squinting at it curiously. 

“Is this what I think it is?” 

The raven hopped onto his head and pecked at his hair, pulling at a few strands. 

“She’s a Majestic Mage of Plants, not a Master of Minds and Ming!” his grandmother cried. “How should she know what you think? I know, but only because I ate your brains like wet spaghetti. Deliciously briney.” 

“If you think it’s a mana control pill, then you’re correct,” Meadow agreed. “I’m not sure why it’s a pill. A potion would have been just as effective, and far more pleasant to swallow.”

“Does it actually increase your ability to control your mana?” Liz asked, continuing when Meadow nodded. “That’s pretty useful. Especially for your Mantle Dragonfyre. You might be able to squeeze an extra cycle in.” 

“As you see, the situation isn’t really as bad as you think it is,” Meadow said, turning back to me and smiling. “You’ll need to work extra hard to bring your full-gates up to their full potential before ascending to fifth gate, but you can do it. Right now? You have resources. You have trainers. You have time.

That still didn’t fix everything. But… it helped.