– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 27 –

"What's your business with the Spirit Tower Master?" Siling glanced at Terry, who was walking next to her.

"Asking about what's going on with my soul or the former lack of one," replied Terry with a frown.

"I thought we weren't worried about that anymore?" Siling furrowed her brow.

"A martialist acquaintance with a soul technique told me my soul feels as threatening as a magebane," explained Terry. "Her exact words were 'nightmare fuel'."

"Guess I'm not the only creepy soul around anymore," quipped Siling. She grinned. "Welcome to the club. We have cookies… somewhere… I'm sure." She turned more serious. "But is that really new? Rafael already described how it looks in his soulsight, didn't he? And you can use soulsight on yourself as well."

"Yes, but it's one thing to know that my soul looks freakish and another thing to hear that it feels dangerous," stressed Terry. "Especially since I didn't have it before, apparently."

"I'm not sure the Spirit Tower will be able to help you," said Siling. "I heard some of the tower members talk about your peculiar soul before. I didn't get the impression they know any more than we do."

"Great," muttered Terry sarcastically. He shrugged. "I still have to ask to make sure."

"Wait." Siling stopped abruptly. "When Siyu was…" She glanced around and used her magic senses to make sure no one was around to overhear them. "She mentioned the Magebane and, uhh…" She paused and narrowed her eyes at Terry. "A soul eater?"

"Soul eater?" Terry didn't even know what to make of that, so he did what he always did when feeling overwhelmed: He took a deep breath. "I don't remember eating any souls." He rubbed his eyes. "I think I would have noticed that with soulsight."

"I don't know." Siling shrugged. "Maybe it's not related. The comment about the Magebane made me remember."

Soul eater certainly sounds threatening. Especially to people like Chalita… or Siyu, I guess.

Terry shrugged and continued walking. He knew he wouldn't make sense of all this anytime soon, so he would make a few notes in his notebook and then put it to the back of his mind.

Focus on what you can do before figuring out how to do more…

Even though Terry reminded himself of the Veilbinder's mantra, his mind still kept drifting back to the question. If there was a soul eater, then he hadn't seen it. If there were any souls being eaten, then he hadn't sensed it either.

Wait…

Terry involuntarily recalled the first time he had stepped into a dungeon.

'After a being dies in a dungeon, its soul manages to hold on for a bit. As soon as the soul has dissipated into mana, the dungeon will claim its spoils.'

But that's dissipating into mana. That has nothing to do with eating.

Terry had seen folks dying while his soulsight was active by now. It was just that for the souls: dissipating into mana.

Thinking about dungeons, he recalled another of his unanswered questions that even his uncle Samuel had been stumped by.

What exactly triggers a dungeon defense? Why do hellspawn inspire dungeon madness while other creatures don't? Why did the fungus-infested army when other mana-cursed don't? Why did Vicious but only at the end? What about other channelers?

Terry could already see that he needed a notebook break before their session on the training grounds. Otherwise, he would never be able to concentrate on their training and experiments.

***

"I hate this," grumbled a blind-folded Miguel lying on the earth in the training grounds.

"Weird." Jorg snickered and poked his friend again. "I, for one, find this training highly amusing." His free hand was holding a book on runic inscriptions from the Crafting Tower's library.

Miguel flinched when being poked in the side. "You know, knuckle brain, the idea is for you to choose a spot and not change every five seconds."

"Well…" Jorg moved his poking finger to another spot and just let it hover close to Miguel but without touching him. "Not my fault you're a slowpoke." He chuckled at his own pun and poked his friend to reveal the location where his finger had been hovering.

"Ugh…" Miguel groaned. "I should have just asked for some constructs or something."

"Just you wait until I've told Gellath," said Jorg. "We'll be poking you non-stop until you get the hang of this thing."

"It's not even sure it will work yet," grumbled Miguel. "Going by what Terry said, I might be able to sense water and heat with my naturalized coldfire mana, but there's no guarantee. It might not work at all."

"That's what makes this even more amusing." Jorg poked his annoyed friend again.

"LORI!" whined Miguel loudly. "Your brother's an ASS! HELP!"

A few feet away, Lori was throwing earth-aspected discharges against a rock wall with an active Harden Earth imprint.

Along the trajectory of her aspected discharge, the earth moved because it was attracted by her mana.

When the discharge connected with the active area of her spell, the attraction increased abruptly. Large chunks of earth were flying up and connecting with the growing wall of hardened earth.

Lori glanced at her suffering boyfriend and snorted. "Jorg's my brother, but he's your friend. In contrast to me, you actually chose him. You deal with him." She saw Jorg giving her a thumbs-up and shook her head with a grin before glancing over to her pa, who was having a strangely childish competition with her uncle.

"I can't believe you completely forgot your spellwork," teased Samuel while focusing his mana sight on his knuckles.

"I never knew that many spells and they weren't as effective as my discharges. I haven't needed these low-level spells in decades," grumbled Bjorln before shooting back his own tease. "I can't believe you're struggling this much with producing a focus refractor. Weren't you supposed to be an instructor for mana control?"

"This involves internal and external mana control," grumbled Samuel. "You learned spellwork when we were teenagers. I'm trying discharges for the first time in my life."

"Whaka Terry apparently succeeded on his first attempt when Sigille showed him." Bjorln pointed out.

"Perhaps Sigille was a better instructor?" Samuel suggested.

"Uh-huh, well, I'm not enjoying your spellwork guidance either," retorted Bjorln. "No wonder Terry dropped out."

Samuel snorted with amusement. He didn't remember the last time he had bickered like this with anyone, and it felt nostalgic. Back when they were younger, Olgorn was usually the one bickering with both Samuel and Bjorln. "Well, let's see who first gets the hang of the spell-discharge-combination. Your daughter has already beaten us both."

For a brief moment, Bjorln had to wrestle with himself. He was torn between praising his daughter and making excuses for himself. For the sake of his competition, he decided to keep grumbling. "Whaka Florine is smart, and she already knew both discharges and spellwork, but I won't be beaten by you."

"Oh?" Samuel held back a smirk. "But if you really succeed first, won't that simply mean that I'm the better instructor?"

Bjorln stopped his spell shaping and glared at Samuel. "Has anyone ever told you that you're annoying?"

"Most certainly," acknowledged Samuel unperturbed. He frowned and stopped his refractor shaping. He caught Bjorln's gaze. "Perhaps we would both benefit from getting some pointers from Whaka Terry"

"Again?" Bjorln puckered his lips. "Nah." He glanced at the group centered around Terry. "He's already busy guiding the possessed, and that experiment seems more important. Besides…" He softly punched Samuel on the side. "With the Bloody Duchess dead, we have some breathing room. I'm getting old, so I have to enjoy such opportunities. We can take a few days, can't we?"

Samuel smiled, but his stomach sunk. He knew the dwarf was trying to tell him that he enjoyed their little competition, but there was also another truth in Bjorln's words. The dwarf had chosen to share his remaining lifespan with his wife, effectively cutting it in half.

Even ignoring the ongoing war, it was uncertain how many such opportunities to simply share each other's company they would have. Samuel sighed and glanced at his nephew, who was the biggest reason that they gained this current opportunity.

Terry looked up from his transfixed items and checked the internal mana refractors Tiana was shaping inside herself. "The one at your left shoulder looks quite off-center to me. Around your stomach, the flow appears incredibly violent. That wouldn't work without elementals."

Tiana nodded but didn't comment. She was too occupied sensing inside herself.

Terry provided feedback to all the members of the demon squad before Matteo gave his own input on the state of their elementals.

"If this works, this will be really impressive," remarked Elena, who was previously engrossed in a book while sitting close to Terry. She interrupted her reading whenever Terry was commenting on the disruption burst. "Already is, actually."

Terry nodded.

Tiana had been the most successful. She hadn't completely succeeded in a disruption burst of any proper intensity. She definitely was still far from a version that might be usable by mana users whose channels were not protected by elementals.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Even so, Tiana had already noticed a lesser strain on her mind to stay in control, which was already a huge development on its own.

Terry moved his gaze from the demon squad to Elena. "How come you're reading that?" The book was a familiar reference for body inscriptions.

"Iris got me interested," said Elena before giving Terry the stink-eye. "And because of you. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to spar with you when I can't use items? Lori is looking into it, too, by the way."

Terry tilted his head. "I've never tried destroying body inscriptions. I wonder if my disruption fields could…" His voice trailed off.

Probably not.

Yet.

Elena pointedly closed her book and glared at him with annoyance. "Seriously?!" She grumbled, but quickly reopened her book where she had left off. "Still worth considering."

"Yup, you never know when you get thrown into the Thanatos Proving Grounds," quipped Terry.

"I think ridiculous shit like this only happens to you," retorted Elena drily. "I've never heard of anyone else getting pulled into stuff like that."

Terry looked decidedly unamused. He felt compelled to point out that he had hardly been the only contestant, but he held back his retort. Instead, he narrowed his eyes: "I know of a few people who got pulled into a war with the Lich Kingdoms. That includes you. I'd say that comes pretty close."

"Fair enough," admitted Elena. She glanced from her book back to the demon squad. "Do you think a disruption burst could counter the berserk-effect of blood-aspected bursts?"

"I can't tell," replied Terry honestly. "If we discover refractor shape sequences that allow regular mana users to try, we will see."

"One step at a time," mumbled Elena and returned her attention to her body inscription reference.

"One step at a time," echoed Terry. Truthfully, he was already itching to attempt a more controlled internal disruption burst as well, but he understood it was more sensible to let the demon squad exploit their demonic mana channel protection until they had developed a rough template at least.

Terry looked around, and he could not help but smile. On some level, he knew that they still had the worst ahead if they wanted to liberate Siling's sister from the Lich Kingdoms, but with one duchess dead, they had some time to reorient.

Time to spend training and exploring like this… and it just felt nice.

When his family and friends, and their friends and family, had all pulled together to come save his beaten behind, Terry had felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders, but something had still been missing.

With the threat against the Freedom Cooperative continuing to loom in the distance, and with Siyu's miserable fate revealed, Terry had never felt right. He had felt on edge, always looking for something to contribute.

He still was, of course, but now it felt different. The alliance was properly shaping up, which meant that soon it would be empire against empire. Even if the Free Factions Union was at a significant disadvantage, it was a ray of hope, and it wasn't the last.

According to his aunt, Calam was on his way to the Freedom Cooperative and he wasn't alone either. Going by the reports, his elven friend had a small army in tow, which included at least one proper dimensional mage capable of anchored spatial transfers.

And the Valkyrie might come soon for real…

Terry was looking forward to finally getting a chance to properly meet the legendary elven mage. When he had helped her against the hellspawn invaders and the hostile Tiv soldiers, Terry had been whisked away by dungeon shenanigans before he even had a chance to exchange a single word.

Thinking about the Valkyrie made Terry remember his most recent interaction with Ruby, the Thanatos soldier stationed at the Freedom Cooperative. The dwarf had intercepted him after he had talked to the Spirit Tower Master. She had been unusually cooperative and forthcoming with reports of her own.

Terry didn't know if it was some kind of gratitude for eliminating the Bloody Duchess or if it was a sign of the Valkyrie's alliance with Thanatos shaping up once more, but he figured it didn't really matter.

Ruby's reports were uplifting. The Thanatos Empire had officially begun taking a more confrontational stance against the Lich Kingdoms, pressing harder into contested territory than ever before in the current Era.

Perhaps the Mad Empire is just getting bored now that Tiv is off the table…

No matter. As long as it keeps some of the remaining Unholy Duchesses busy, it's good news for us.

Terry allowed his eyes to move over all the different people practicing in the training grounds.

His eyes briefly lingered on his brother. If anyone had told his younger self that Jorg would turn into a bookworm, Terry would have laughed them out of the room.

He watched Rafael haughtily mocking his sparring partners from the Martial Tower, only to get his furry butt roasted by Apex's fire after the felan got a little too uppity with her tower members.

Vess was practicing water-aspected spells with members of the Elemental Tower.

Patricia was testing her sneaking and ambush techniques against the magic senses of the Spirit and Elemental Towers.

Maximilian was having a discussion with the healers from the Bright Lady.

Terry felt… at peace.

There were daunting objectives waiting for him, true, but he wasn't alone and everyone was stepping up to get it done. As soon as Samuel, Ser, Ying, and the Spirit Tower had an idea for how to free Siyu, they would spring into action.

Until then, Terry was surrounded by everyone. Not just his family. Old friends. New friends. Friendly acquaintances. Less friendly acquaintances… and whatever the Wastes Apex would count as.

For the first time in a long while, Terry felt at home.

Home.

Even if it wasn't Arcana, it was where most of his friends and family now were.

Terry returned his attention to his own training. He circulated mana into the tattoos inscribed in his fingers' skin and grabbed one of the transfixed throwing needles. He pulled the throwing needle to move it like a stiletto dagger while trying to match his physical movement with his plane drift.

With a slight grimace, Terry noted his emptying mana pool.

At least I'll never have to worry about easily triggering mana regeneration to train that part of my mana foundation…

Terry involuntarily recalled the day he introduced Devon to mana containers. His friend had instantly filled the mana containers and left Terry flabbergasted, who had then proceeded to dump Devon's problematic mana into the surroundings until the Captain had told them both off.

Pushing the pleasant memory away, Terry returned his focus to his training. Specifically, he was looking for a way to add another layer to make a better use of his time.

Terry had already sketched in his notebook all the things he wanted to try in the coming days. Aside from the plane drift, he still wanted to further explore the technique he had used during the final struggle against the Bloody Duchess. A combination of ranged mana naturalization and several intense disruption fields had turned out to be a poor mage's Drain Mana variant.

Terry thought he could ramp up the efficiency by replacing the disruption fields with short disruption pulses, at least when making contact with the target. He wanted to test his theory, but he was still more intrigued by the plane drift.

If Terry was honest, he knew exactly why the plane drift caught his attention, even though the mana drain was more practical. He was pretty certain that his hunch about the mana drain was correct, but even if it turned out to be off the mark, the combination already appeared workable. It would only become better the more he trained his ranged mana naturalization and disruption control.

The infeasible plane drift, by contrast, still taunted Terry. His eyes drifted to his notebook. He had subconsciously flipped to his recordings of mana cost depending on unbalanced aspecting ratios.

He felt like he was missing something.

Like the pages filled with his own scribbles were mocking him.

"I could at least combine the drift with the aspecting technique to also train my mana control and intensity." Terry mumbled to himself with an unsatisfied expression. He felt frustrated, but until he figured out what he was missing, this was still the best way to fold multiple training units into one and make the best use of his time focusing on the body inscription.

"What?" Elena looked up.

"Uhh…" Terry cleared his throat. "Nothing." He pointedly ignored Elena's furrowed forehead.

Weirdo.

***

After several days of training and experiments in the Lands of the Four Towers, everyone had made significant progress.

Bjorln and Samuel had both finished their first spell-discharge combination. Bjorln had won their friendly competition, but Samuel had claimed the right to call himself the superior instructor.

Miguel still struggled with his coldfire touch, but he had made one important discovery: His coldfire touch was less sensitive to warmth than it was to water. The dwarven tracker still had hopes to get both working, but quickly decided to focus on water first.

After his accidental discovery, Miguel had paired up with Vess and later with a few purely water-aspected members of the Elemental Tower for his training.

Lori had explored and practiced the discharge combinations of all her spells, which were added to the other results provided by the members of the Elemental Tower. In a corner of the tower's library, the world's first volume of same-naturalized spell-discharge combinations was being put together.

Tiana and the demon squad had come up with a basic template of refractor and spell slicer shapes for a low-intensity self-disruption burst, which Terry had immediately tested on himself before instructing others.

Terry had expected that Emaldine would join the disruption burst training as well, but his dwarven cousin had only come to confirm a few things about his divine hammer inscription use before she departed with Chadwick to help the scouting around the Freedom Cooperative.

Terry had the feeling Emaldine was shy about her training focus for some reason. He didn't know why, but he also didn't want to pry.

Instead of Emaldine, his mother Isille had joined the group of people experimenting with disruption bursts. Terry still had to get used to training alongside his parents and uncle. It just felt weird seeing the people, who had always instructed him, suddenly turn to him for instruction and guidance.

All in all, Terry could only call his past few days a gigantic success.

He had helped the others.

He had mastered the internal disruption discharge, albeit at low intensity, but it would serve as a starting point for upping the ante.

Terry had even improved his mana draining significantly. Where before he had mostly sacrificed his own mana to make his target lose theirs, he was now getting closer to a balanced rate.

A little bit better and Terry would actually drain mana. Increase his own mana at the expense of another!

His very own mana drain variant!

A cultivation variant of proper spellwork!

Gigantic success!

Terry frowned with unsatisfied eyes at the transfixed items in front of him. He knew he should feel happy.

Proud even!

It was just that…

He didn't.

He simply didn't.

What am I missing?

Terry stared at the transfixed throwing needles, as if trying to hypnotize them to reveal their secrets to him. This morning, he had started aspecting throwing needles in parallel while practicing the synchronized movement with the plane drift.

All around Terry, there were throwing needles placed on the floor that were constantly being aspected for him to then try and record the different results with his spell and body inscription.

If the plane drift refused to reveal its secrets – if there were any to begin with – then Terry wanted to at least make better use of the other aspects he was training.

Deep down, he was desperately looking for something.

Something jumping out at him from the experiments.

Terry's notebook was riddled with things that had stood out to him in the past. Minor things that eventually turned out to be significant clues to how his spell and mana type were working. From throwing needles transfixing later than expected to tiny indentations on his items.

Unfortunately, there had been nothing so far.

Terry took a deep breath and decided to mix up his practice before this gnawing feeling drove him insane. Instead of throwing, transfixing, and drifting an individual throwing needle. He used two simultaneously.

Aspecting them remotely in parallel before transfixing them and activating his drift tattoos…

The instant Terry moved his mana into the plane drift tattoos, it jumped out at him.

No, jumping was an understatement. It pounced on him and punched the breath out of his lungs!

"What…" Terry stared breathlessly at the two drifting needles.

Two throwing needles floating in perfect synchronization.

Two items floating with a single plane drift.

Two items sharing the same plane!

Terry barely contained the desire to jump up and punch his fists in the air. Instead, he settled for scribbling furiously into his notebook with the widest grin he could manage.

Finally, Terry was beginning to understand what the unbalanced aspecting with oscillating mana did.

The ratio influences the target plane…

Different target planes lead to different timing for spell activation…

"I can use this…" Terry's hand, which wasn't busy scribbling, quickly clenched into a fist.

***

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