Turned out, optimistic wasn't a strong enough word for my original hope to get the Dauntless back to Terra Centra in a week.

Completely detached from reality might've been better.

The ship I'd flown in on hadn't made it out again. I found the pilot and the ship crashed just outside the cabin, once the Captain determined it was safe enough. It was far from the only casualty. Almost every support craft the Dauntless had was disabled by the time Captain Sidhe and those she could rally retook the vessel.

Which meant we were limited to the resources that were left about the ship. Everything was to be put to use. The destroyed support craft, the spare stages and greenery.

Even the void beasts.

And that meant someone had to butcher them.

"I'll do it," I said, when the Captain brought it up in one of our meetings.

Kezil was sitting next to me, no longer uncomfortable in the captain's presence. "Gonna be worse than sifting through dragon dung, boy. Sure you wanna do it?"

"Want? No," I said, rubbing my nose. "But if we're to use them properly, I need to know exactly what we're working with."

It was an unpleasant task, but it wasn't just that we needed them for repairs. If the void beasts were real, then I needed to learn all I could about them.

"Very well. I'll have you join the harvesting crew. Thankfully, chef Suzenne knows a great deal about processing mana-beasts. One of her hobbies, or so I'm told," the captain said, letting out a long sigh. "Can't believe I'm sending a chef and enchantineer to harvest monsters."

I wasn't entirely surprised to discover that both Vaden and Suzenne had survived the attack. I was beginning to suspect that all the 'real' people from this scenario had one thing in common.

They'd made it through this hell together.

"Not the same," Kezil grunted as the meeting ended. "They'll get the work done, right enough, but the boy's going to learn."

And learn I did. More than I ever would've wanted.

"Can you believe they have dedicated organs for… what did you say this stuff does?" Suzenne asked, holding up a sack of soft flesh.

"It seems to cause ensouled to explode," I said, staying well away from the sack. "Some sort of mutual annihilation."

"Always thought it was funny that soul eaters were more dangerous to ensouled than a mortal. Guess that's why they call them soul eaters, huh?" Suzenne asked as she placed the sack into a barrel that had been prepared specifically for the organ. Most of the organs we'd seen hadn't been intact. This soul eating void hound had been killed by a crashing Runner though, not by suiciding itself on one of the ensouled crew. "Surprising how focused they were on you. Almost like someone designed them that way."

"Yeah, considering they explode, wouldn't surprise me if someone did exactly that," I said while looking through its insides for the more useful components. The ones that wouldn't turn me and everyone around me into one of the many craters that now pockmarked the ship.

"Think that's how they ignore spells too? Coat themselves in this anti-magic stuff and presto," Suzenne asked as she walked towards me, enchanted and bloody bone-saw balanced on her shoulder.

"It's possible, though I don't understand why that wouldn't cause them to explode," I said, grunting as I pulled on the ribcage, holding it at an angle that would be easy for her to cut.

"Maybe it does, but it's, like, super gentle. They're pretty tough. Definitely tier three," Suzenne said, pulling a pair of goggles into place before activating the enchantment on the saw. A second later it started humming softly. "Let's see if this one's gonna be a good boy!"

Neither of us spoke as we dug deeper, searching for the real prize.

While we could use their bones for some simple tasks, none of them were an affinity type anyone could make use of.

Not without ruining their ability to use mana, at least. Suzenne had shared over a dozen different horror stories of people who'd attempted it over the years, with the same excitement she had on her face in that moment. Parts of the void beast fell away as she cut with visceral glee, occasionally cackling madly.

Finally we got close to our prize.

"Oh yes! Come to momma, you little beauty," Suzenne said as the rainbow shine of the crystalline structure became visible.

Wrapped around each void hound's brain stem was a crystalline structure I suspected was responsible for converting the anti-mana compound that caused the explosions into their spell protection field. Whatever its function while the beast was alive, in our hands it served as an incredibly efficient mana-conversion focus. Less than a one-percent loss for the most common mana-types.

Incredible, really.

We'd had to go in through the front since the hide covering the spine from the other side was so tough that using the force required to get through it often ended up damaging the structure.

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This was only the second intact one we'd recovered. Well, the actual extraction still needed to be completed, but I wouldn't be handling that. Suzenne had a few survivors she was training on the delicate process, who'd help her through it.

I'd been there to inspect it and make sure it was worth the effort of extracting, though I'd arrived early, so I'd helped with the butchering too.

Letting Suzenne and her crew get back to work, I stepped away to rinse off and consider my next steps. With an idea of what the void beasts were, it was time to focus on repairing the Dauntless so I could get out of the trial.

Not that I hadn't been doing that, in between helping with the beasts.

What Kezil and I had already been working on, and the most important task by far, was getting our steering back online. Every hour without it, the Dauntless was drifting deeper behind the Front.

While the Dauntless had the size and defenses to keep most flying monsters away, even busted up as it was, if something really nasty noticed us, we were basically sitting ducks without the central cannon.

And bringing the engines that powered that back online was completely out of the question.

The structure Suzenne was harvesting would help with that, letting us convert the abundant mana around us into thrust.

Working with Kezil, we made modifications to several of the Leafs that harnessed the extra energy, letting the Captain use them to push the Dauntless. Unfortunately a handful of enchanted Leaves, even ones with a footprint the size of a house, weren't enough to give a huge amount of control.

By the time we'd accomplished even that much, we'd been caught in a powerful current, which pulled us even further towards the heart of the continent.

And farther from the relative safety of the Front.

The captain called us to dinner with the news, which had Suzenne pacing, a stack of paper in her hands. "Right. Not the worst news. Seems we're caught in the great current. If it carries through, we'll ride it to the far side, then take the mana-stream home. It'll be a long trip, but with some luck, we'll be home in about a year."

With the death of so many, Suzenne and Vaden had both found themselves drafted into new roles. In addition to her harvesting skills, Suzenne had proven to be the sole source of knowledge related to anything this side of the Front.

It was all grounded in conspiracy theories, game fiction and mathematical proofs that seemed to have no relation to anything, but better than the rest of us had.

Meanwhile, while Vaden abhorred violence against sapients, that didn't extend to the monsters who continually attempted to invade the ship. Under his command, the remaining Bladesingers had ended up becoming a replacement for the soldiers who'd once guarded the ship, all but half-a-dozen of whom had died in the attack. He was frowning as Suzenne spoke, hand on the hilt of his blade.

"A year. That's if we can last that long," Kezil snorted, shaking his head while rubbing at his regrown leg. It'd taken a lot of magic to get it back. And he'd confessed to me more than once that it still didn't feel right. "We're out of everything 'cept raw mana. Can't enchant a thing without real materials. Summoning food'll keep our bellies full, sure enough, but we need more essence soaked supplies."

"We're hunting all we can," Vaden said, his tone terse, hand tightening on the hilt. "It is challenging to return with our prize when every predator in the area smells blood and comes swooping in."

"Not saying otherwise," Kezil grunted, waving a hand in his direction. "We're all struggling."

I nodded, poking at my bowl of monster meat and roots. It was delicious. Food was one thing we weren't short on, despite how few ensouled were left on the ship. Only ten percent of the Dauntless's original crew had survived the initial attack, and most of them were combat focused.

A surprising number of them had also been cooks, like Suzenne.

We'd already spent two weeks in the trial and there was no sign of it ending anytime soon. I'd tried mentally adjusting the 'success' parameter to be getting the Dauntless to being capable of steering, but it hadn't worked. Didn't matter if it was 'cause I didn't really believe it was enough or for some other reason.

The work had kept me busy, but during slow times like these, I missed the others.

"And what does our genius enchantineer think?" Captain Sidhe asked, drawing me out of my thoughts.

"Sorry, think about what?" I asked, looking up, realizing I'd stopped listening. Something that was happening more often lately, my thoughts often turning to my family.

"About cutting straight through the heart, riding the thicker currents. Could you get the Dauntless in shape to handle it?"

"I mean, without knowing the conditions, that'd be a pretty arrogant statement to make," I said, earning laughter from Suzenne and a grunt of amusement from Vaden who both looked towards Kezil. "Which I'm assuming is exactly what Kezil said."

"Might as well have," Kezil said, shaking his head. "But it's not like I think the Dauntless can handle being picked up and thrown 'round by a dragon. Just better than slowly bleeding our strength taking the slow way about."

"Hey, I'm all in favor of getting home faster," I said, "I just…"

I just… what? Wanted to get there safely? It wasn't like I could die in these trials. Conflict had made that clear.

Looking around the table, I realized it wasn't myself I was worried about. Even as I missed my family, I looked at them. Kezil, Vaden and Suzenne. And Captain Sidhe. What would happen to them if they died inside the trial? Would they go back to wherever Conflict had drawn them from?

Or would they be gone, destroyed as part of the trial?

Conflict had implied this trial was very much about my path at this point.

And my path… didn't involve abandoning those who needed me. Not even to get back to my family.

A little risk… that was totally part of my path.

"We should do it. Straight through the front. And I think… I think we need to stop trying to get all of Dauntless running." Kezil immediately raised his voice in protest, but I forestalled him with a raised hand. "You said it yourself. We don't have enough resources. That's not quite true though. We have too many. How much faster could we get the Dauntless moving if we stripped the good stuff then dumped the burned out Runners? If we cut the useless engines free, used what we can to make sails instead? They wouldn't even have to be enchanted."

"I don't like it," Sidhe said, frowning. "How will we steer?"

Kezil leaned back rubbing his chin. "Coasting on the grace of the wind already."

"And you can cut into the wind, adjust sails to run at an angle. We'll want a rudder, though we've got most of what we need for that too."

The captain raised her brow, and I gestured upwards, pointing towards the massive doors that had allowed the engine to turn itself from a method of conveyance to a weapon of destruction.

Slowly, she nodded. The tone changed somewhat after that, and soon we were back to work.

It took another week before we'd managed to get things set up. Far from perfect, it did allow for more control than we'd had since I'd started the trial.

Just in time for the winds to carry us directly to the heart of the continent and then cut out to nearly nothing.

I was called to the new observation deck atop the highest point of the ship by the captain as we drifted into the calm, open air, mana falling away. Even the monsters avoided the area.

As I stepped up on the deck next to the Captain, I saw a possible reason why.

In the distance, located in the very heart of the continent stood a city, hidden behind a transparent barrier. A city I'd seen in flashes of memory, captured in shards of jade. One I'd thought long abandoned.

Turned out that ancient civilization hadn't died out.

They'd been locked away.

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