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Erick had promised that he would stay in his guest house for a week, which meant 8 more days of relaxing and preparing for the next part of the Worldly Path.

As one day off turned to two, and then three, Erick realized that he desperately needed some time off.

Taking that next step along the Path…

Searching for the dragons…

Erick would rather play with magic a bit more. And so he did.

He had gotten nowhere with [Draining Elemental], itself, except to run into Errors from the Script. So he went to some bookstores and grabbed up all the texts he could find on the Propagation Ban. Mages had been running into that limitation ever since the Script laid down the Foundational Bans, and so, they had been writing about that annoyance and cause for Errors ever since the Script saved Veird from the Sundering of the Old Cosmology.

After that research, Erick decided that, yes, [Draining Elemental] was directly against the Propagation Ban; it was a magic that made magic, with no limit. Of course it was against the Ban. There were some ways around this limit, though, and one of them was rather obvious.

If Erick wanted to make a living elemental that cast the spells he wanted, instead of a spell that cast spells, he probably could have done that, but to do that would be to make a living being that only did what he wanted to do. Such a creation would likely run him afoul of the anti-Slave parts of the Script, and then his creation would likely do something that he didn’t want it to do. Like attack and kill him.

To be fair, whatever [Draining Elemental] he eventually made would probably not be powerful enough to kill him, but many a mage had said the same thing about their own magics, and many a mage had died when they pushed magic just a bit too far. Heck! Erick had already almost died countless times to his own magic. (Thank the gods (literally!) for Healing Magic!)

But even if he couldn’t make [Draining Elemental] how he wanted it to be, there was still the necessity of learning how to make [Drain Ward] painless.

After some private discussion from Patriarch Tsung Red Ledger, and the man begging off because he was extremely busy with the restart of the school year, Erick decided to have Ophiel attend a class at the University. Classes had restarted yesterday.

With Ophiel sitting in the very back, trying not to be a distraction to the other students, Erick listened in as a professor spoke of preparing patients for surgery with what was perhaps a bit too much of a focus on [Drain Ward]. After hearing an offhand comment by some student pointing out that the spell diagrams for [Drain Ward] resembled, in a little way, the diagrams for Elemental Void… Erick had an idea.

After that class ended, he set up an experiment of his own.

- - - -

In the third floor room of his temporary house, Erick channeled Mana Altering for Elemental Void through his hand, and listened. It was the sound of desolation; a silent, tearing sound. He handed that sound off to Ophiel. Then he listened to [Draining Void]. It was much the same as Elemental Void, but with an edge. It was a bit tougher to suss out the sound of [Drain Ward] from the generalized spell of [Ward], but... Yes. He could hear the Elemental Void in that one, too. It was a lot less present, but there was Void in there, too.

So Elemental Void was already in [Drain Ward]?

… Sure. Let’s go with that hypothesis.

So what else do we know?

Elemental Void was harmful to people; it naturally injured, because it attempted to make ‘nothing’ out of ‘something’. But it was possible to make a [Drain Ward] that did not harm as it stripped away resources. So, back to the main question: How was this harm made non-harmful?

Erick went to some of his books to read about his Elements, to see if he was missing something obvious in the Elemental Chart.

To locate Void as it pertained to the other Elements, one must first look toward Water, and then down, toward Shadow. Abyss was the joining of Shadow and Water. Void was an offshoot of Abyss, with a nod toward Destruction. Void was, contrary to expectation, not Destruction. Destruction was anathema to everything. Void was still a ‘thing’.

This was because Void had connections to Water, or more specifically, to the absence of water. Back in the Old Cosmology the Mana Ocean was an ocean, literally, but just as where there was life and solid ground in that ocean, there were Voids, too. Past the deeper waters, past the Abyss, where mana switched from highly pressurized to a primordial soup of nothing, lay the Void. In this way, Void was the idea of the absence of Water, taken to the Nth degree.

There was a flow to this ecology, though.

This flow was not discussed in the arcanaeum approved books, though. Erick had to read about it in a book he got from the Library of Ar’Kendrithyst.

In that book, it explained that mana flowed from the solid parts of the Old Cosmology, from the life that created it, down into the depths. This flow was ever present. Ships could sail those mana waters but those sky rivers always flowed away from sources of mana. If a ship wasn’t careful, if they got stuck in the currents that flowed down into the depths, they would invariably reach the Abyss, which was the final warning not to go any further. If a ship reached the Void, they were almost never seen again.

For past the Void, lay the Darkness; The source of Wizardry, as well as the source of Creation and Destruction and Paradox. It was theorized that the Void of the Old Cosmology was actually the barrier that the Darkness erected in order to protect the lifeforms in the mana from its own destructive existence.

And wasn’t that a heavy thought.

Erick switched back to the other books, looking to the Elemental Chart. He looked up from Water, toward Light, toward Elemental Healing, because Healing Magics rarely ever felt harmful.

There was something there… Some way to make a [Drain Ward] painless, for sure.

Erick wondered…

Could he just take this whole idea, whole cloth, and replicate it in a spell? Could he mimic the now-gone Mana Ocean, and make the space in the center of his [Drain Ward] feel like Healing waters, but have the edges continually sucking away at the mana in the center? Or, to say it another way, could he make a rim of Void that pulled out everything in the center, without having that Elemental Void be in the center, where that Void would directly harm anyone inside? The pull of the Void would still work, even if a person wasn’t directly exposed to it, right?

Tsung had spoken of how Healers naturally figured out how to make their [Drain Ward]s harmless, while Harmers never figured it out, but the man had no real idea how to do this. All he could really say was that the ability to make a [Drain Ward] harmless was the sign of a good Healer.

Maybe… Since mana responded to people’s desires, maybe that’s all that was happening there? Maybe Healers naturally utilized Healing Magic in their [Drain Ward]s that were already Void-aligned?

Time to test that theory.

Erick went back to his experiment room, and cast a [Drain Ward] in the space, instilling the center with ‘neutral’ desire while he cast the edges with mana Altered into Void, to pull at everything in the center. A shadowed [Drain Ward] appeared, like a spherical dimming on the shader of reality. He stuck his hand inside the dim sphere.

He thought of [Draining Void]. Erick had made that spell with way too much Hate on his mind. That spell felt like a thousand bees poking his skin.

This one merely felt like a hundred bees poking his skin, with more bees poking at the edge of the Drain, and less in the center. Bees were still strewn all throughout the spellwork, though.

He took his hand out of the space. This one was a failure.

… It might be a failure because Erick already had a spell that combined the [Drain Ward] function of [Ward] along with Elemental Void. [Draining Void]. Maybe there was no way to make this work without breaking apart that spell first?

… But on the other hand, Erick had Mana Altered for Void in this spell, while [Draining Void] was just cast with hate on the mind. He shouldn’t need to break apart his first spell.

One of the good things about Mana Altering was that you could play around with different spellworkings without actually creating a new spell, as long as you didn’t go too deep with the Alter. Erick was well within that tolerance.

Erick tried again, mixing up the ideas behind his magic, instilling the edge with Void, and allowing the center to be pulled a bit harder. A shaded sphere appeared, again. He stuck his hand in. Still more bees. More bees on the edge than in the center, though.

A few more tries later, without getting anywhere, Erick decided to shift around a few things. Instead of shoving the Void to the edges, he shoved the Void to the side, producing a shaded sphere that was darker on one edge and more like normal air on the opposite. He stuck his hand in the deeper parts and felt the bees again. Then he moved around, and stuck his hand in the lighter part, and felt… Not much. Pin pricks, at the most.

Maybe this was the proper way forward?

He checked his mana to see the Drain rate of the spell. From the lighter side of the spell, he Drained at 15 mana per second. From the darker side, he Drained… at 17 per second? He checked again to be sure that he was seeing what he was seeing. And… Yup. Well. There was some degradation from the spell, because it was sucking up mana and thus losing cohesion, but the Drain from both sides was functionally close enough that the difference of a few points did not matter. What mattered was that it was working… Somewhat.

So what did this sort of spellwork look like when taken as far as it could go? When taking into actual spell creation territory?

In an instant, an idea appeared.

Erick imagined the entirety of the [Drain Ward] as a miniature ocean.

As soon as he had the idea, he knew it was a winner.

Almost the entire [Drain Ward] would be a neutral ‘ocean’, but even the shallows of this spell would fall to the Void, and in that depth, the mana would be transformed by the pressure of the Abyss, then finally, it would become the Void, which would reinforce the whole spell with deepening power. The shallows of the spell would feel like shallows, but even in that space—

Oh! And that was another good idea, actually. The ‘shallows’ of the spell would be the calm, neutral mana ocean. Duh. It might even be a bit Elemental Healing aligned, so that the occupant wouldn’t recognize the danger they were in. And since it was Healing aligned, that should make it painless. Erick didn’t want to actually heal anyone with this spell, though.

This spell would catch someone in an undertow, and if they didn’t escape, they would be relegated to the Void and stripped of all of their resources and—

Erick paused.

This spell included Light and Shadow and Water in its working. Therefore, maybe it naturally included Illusion, too?

… No. There were a lot of distinct Elements here, with half of them aligned to Light and the other half aligned to Shadow, but none of those Elements were Illusion.

Perhaps if this didn’t work out, then he would try it again with Illusion. That would be a different spell altogether, though, so he wouldn’t need to wait a day to make that one if this one failed.

“I need a bigger experimental space,” Erick whispered to himself, as soon as he worked through the entirety of his idea.

So he moved to the roof.

It was a bright day, with barely a cloud in the sky. Erick stood upon the northern edge of his temporary house, feeling the wind against his skin, hearing Ophiel twitter on the railings all around. He spared a glance backward to see Poi come up to the roof, then he turned his attention back north, and with Meditation, he gazed upon the flow of mana rolling across the world, following with the wind. The free mana crashed against [Prismatic Ward] under his feet, and upon the other spellworks atop the clan mountain, like those spells were rocks in the world and the mana was a river. The free mana barely cared for the physical world, though it did slow down a bit when it struck the mountain. Mostly, the mana flowed on, ever traveling, moving to its own rhythm that existed alongside physical reality.

Erick began channeling.

To the left, an Ophiel trilled in a muted song of Healing, and the mana around him turned calmer, and more conducive to life. To the right, Ophiel sang of Abyss, and the mana around him turned darker, hinting at depths unknowable. Directly in front, Ophiel sang of the Void; the hole at the bottom of it all where mana fell and transformed, and thus the Ocean grew just a bit more. The mana around that Ophiel began to slow, to sink, to vibrate with ancient history, and a depth of power.

Fully envisioning the Ancient Mana Ocean would be a spell worthy of a Propagation Ban, though. So Erick pulled back his spellwork to something more manageable. Reinforcement was okay. Propagation was not.

Erick cast into the mana-filled air before him, molding Elements and magic together into a miniature version of a Reality that no longer existed.

In the instant between his cast, and the appearance of the spell, Erick felt a tug on his soul, like nostalgia, but deeper. It wasn’t his emotion. It came from somewhere else. Erick didn’t have to wonder where it came from, though; it came from the mana, for sure.

And then his spell appeared.

White light coalesced into something that was not what it appeared to be, for what it appeared to be was a drop of water the size of a small lake, floating in front of him. The shallows at the top of the floating ocean flexed and tumbled with light, like the underside of waves. The depths were deep blue, and then deeper. At the very bottom, was Void. In that liminal space it was as though the world had inverted, and Erick was looking at an ocean’s surface on a moonless night. He knew, almost instantly, that those depths could be at the top of the sphere, or at the left or in the center, or wherever he wanted them, for the real Mana Ocean had no ‘up’ or ‘down’, and therefore this spell was free of gravity, too.

The spell settled into his soul like a loved one returning home. Erick felt a tear roll down his face. He wiped it away, just in time to see a blue box appear.

--

Draining Undertow, instant, long range, 1500 mana

Drain WIL Health and 2x WIL Mana per second from every target in a large area of effect. Effect is stronger in the depths. Targets in the shallows might not understand that they are being drained. Lasts 24 hours. For every 2 resources drained, this spell will last another 1 minute.

--

Erick went, “Ah huh!”

Okay. That was better than he could have imagined.

It read well. It read really well.

But how did it work?

Erick reached out and stuck his hand in the calm waters, and it felt like touching nothing at all. He glanced at his Status and saw that, yes, he was being Drained. But he didn’t feel like he was being Drained.

He smiled wider. Yes; this was a good spell. He had made a painless [Drain Ward] (half of it was painless, anyway). It had taken some convoluted thinking, tied to an ancient source of symmetry in the Mana Ocean itself, but he had done it.

Erick spared a single thought toward the implication that he could not have made a painless [Drain Ward] in the normal way, through normal, non-harmful intent, like a true Healer could.

- - - -

It wasn’t till later at night, when he was laying in bed, that he realized…

He might have just solved [Renew].

Well.

A certain type of [Renew], for sure. Not a generalized [Renew], but an edge case that he could pull at, to see how the magic unwound.

- - - -

Bright and early the next day, Erick sat in the middle of the third floor room, his hands surrounding an unmoving [Shooting Star]. He was also channeling mana through the part of his soul that was [Shooting Star], to produce [Shooting Star] mana, then funneling that power through a hundred tendrils of [Greater Lightwalk], into the energetic ball of light. He had done this a hundred times already, so he was getting rather good at it, in his opinion. But it was difficult work.

His tendrils stabbed into the lightball, reinforcing every errant break in the spellwork, his Perception stressed to the max, his mana sense focused completely. He ignored the sweat dripping down his face. He ignored the laughter of the little ball. He igno—

Six-point-two seconds after casting [Shooting Star] (in his estimation) the ball of light puttered out like an ice cube melting all at once, making a little ‘phbbt’ sound as it went, along with a near-silent laugh.

Erick’s thought train derailed.

… Did it…

Did the spell just fart at him?

Perhaps it had!

Erick sat back, annoyed.

And then he went through the numbers. Checking his Status, he had spent over a thousand mana, nearly four times original mana cost of [Shooting Star], and all he managed to do was to get the ball of light to stick around for a singular extra second. Erick deflated. This was getting nowhere.

Well.

It was working, but only for a very loose definition of ‘working’.

Erick sat back, and pondered.

Eventually, he said, “Maybe the problem is [Shooting Star] itself.”

So Erick decided to try something else.

He went back to the drawing board, but not too far. Maybe the problem was that when he made [Shooting Star] he had put absolutely no effort into making it last forever, or be easily repairable. Thanks to his success with [Draining Undertow], and with a fair bit of Permanency practice, he knew what ‘easily repairable’ spells looked like. So Erick decided to try making a few more ‘easily repairable’ spells.

It wasn’t [Renew], but if he could combine [Draining Undertow]’s framework with, say, [Force Wall], then he could cast a [Force Wall] that could repair itself.

Theoretically.

Nothing to do but try!

He had his Ophiel gather around and then handed the sounds of the Mana Ocean to one [Familiar], and the solidity of [Force Wall] to another. He listened to…

It was the sound of an ocean floor; a delineation.

In himself, he combined that spellwork—

He stopped. There was not enough space in this small room.

He moved back to the roof.

After Poi and Teressa both followed him back onto the roof, Erick looked to the clear blue northern skies, and with Ophiel singing all around him, he cast.

The mana responded.

A white wall manifested in the sky, forty meters across, and ten meters tall. And then the whiteness faded, and what was left was a shadow. A depth upon the world. That depth radiated a pull far in excess of its size. With Meditation active, Erick could see that pull. In fact—

Erick switched his senses to an Ophiel who was already running [Mana Sight].

The Void in the [Force Wall] was not a Rift. It was clearly a wall. But now that he saw it as such…

He should make an ‘Undertow Rift’, shouldn’t he? Like with his [Pure Sunlight Rift], an [Undertow Rift] might be really good—

“Erp!” Teressa sputtered, from five meters behind Erick.

Poi instantly said, “Turn it off!”

“What— Oh?” Erick saw the problem.

He was Draining mana from everyone! Whoopsie!

A blue box appeared right as Erick was canceling the spell.

--

Undertow’s Edge, instant, long range, 1750 mana

Conjure a stable, stationary wall of Abyssal Void that will initially absorb 500 damage.

Drain WIL Health and 2x WIL Mana per second from every target within the wall’s effect. Drain is stronger in the depths. Targets in the shallows might not understand that they are being drained. Lasts 24 hours. For every first 2 resources drained, this spell will last another 1 minute. For every second 2 resources drained, the conjured wall will gain another 20 points of absorption.

--

As the abyssal wall faded into the manasphere Erick read the spell he had made and his eyes went wide.

Some quick math told him that in the twenty seconds that the spell had been active, and at his 161 Willpower, disregarding how Constitution worked to lessen the Drain…

A single person in the area of effect of this new spell would have lost 6440 Mana, and 3220 Health. Most people did not have that much Mana, and only warriors had that much Health, but disregarding that fact... The wall had gained 9664 resources from every single person nearby. Erick had Constitution so he wasn’t affected too much, but he was still down almost 500 Health.

If it weren’t for everyone on this roof having Constitution, the wall would have gained nearly 29,000 resources, which meant that, in 20 seconds, the wall could have been worth 145,000 points of defense.

His own [Prismatic Ward], when cast himself, with all his modifiers, was worth a million points of defense, but he could only have one of those active. Erick’s singular cast of [Prismatic Ward] was wrapped around his house back in Spur.

When Ophiel cast [Prismatic Ward], it was worth nearly 60,000 points of defense, and Erick could only have 10 of those because of some weird quirk of each Ophiel being able to cast his own Solid Ward.

But with this spell!

An Ophiel could cast this and make a barrier against attackers that was worth… way too much.

Millions of points of defense. Perhaps billions, if the targeted group was large enough.

Erick spared a glance with his mana sense to the room below, where he had been given the City Shield to study in detail. That magical item was decent for protecting a city from a monster horde, but Erick could cast [Undertow’s Edge] around any border in preparation for a monster horde, and it could ‘feed’ off of the resources of the monsters…

Could that work?

Had he just invented a better City Shield?

—No. Maybe this spell couldn’t be Shaped to only pull from the enemy side of the wall? If it couldn’t, then that ended this idea before it got off the ground.

So Erick turned back to the sky and cast the spell again, this time Shaping it so that the spell effect was directed away from himself; if such a thing were possible, anyway.

A dark wall appeared, and on the other side, laid the figment of an ancient ocean. Erick checked his mana… No Drain!

The spell had been pointed away, successfully.

Teressa gave a tiny, startled gasp as the second [Undertow’s Edge] appeared, then she relaxed; she was checking her Status and must have seen that the Drain was gone. Poi almost said something, but then he refrained.

Okay. So. That worked.

Erick canceled that spell and cast again, Shaping it into something different; something self contained.

[Undertow’s Edge] appeared like a shadowed sphere in the sky, six meters wide; about the same size as a medium sized area. There was no blue box this time. There was also no widespread Drain. The spell was completely contained. Erick knew that with a shift in Shaping, he could invert that sphere; he could protect himself inside the space and Drain every single person around him of their resources.

He had not solved the problem of [Renew], but…

He had solved something that was almost like [Renew].

Using the methodology for [Draining Undertow], Erick could possibly create a ton of world-wide defenses against monsters, or whatever, and protect people long after he was no longer around.

It was exactly what he wanted to be able to do… Ah. He deflated. This was great, except not at all.

He wanted people to be involved in their own defenses. He did not want to solve everyone’s problems for them. In that way, [Draining Undertow] was great for personal use! But it was not [Renew].

Erick canceled the spell, then turned to his people, and said, “I did not set out to do that, but I guess it works.” He changed the subject, “So! How’s the trip preparation going? Let’s go back inside.”

Teressa turned away from the space where the Drain had hung in the sky, and took a moment to shift modes. “Uh.” She blinked twice, then said, “It’s going. I got jerky and hard breads and other staples…”

The three of them went back into the house, while Erick listened to Teressa’s preparations. Erick soon decided that he needed some more coffee for the trip, for sure. They’d have to go to Alaralti to get that, though, so that is what they did.

- - - -

A day later, Erick received an invitation from Star Song to come to a special announcement gathering. The previous gathering was to bear witness to the announcement of a breakthrough in treating the Antirhine Elixir. This get together was much smaller than that one, but it, too, was about the Elixir.

Over nice drinks and pleasant conversation, Elder Mirizo Song stood up and brought the gathering to order.

The Alchemists of their Potion Houses had enacted the first successful chelation in a rat.

There were a lot of caveats to that, of course. It was only a partial chelation, for one. The full story was more complicated, and came out over the course of an hour, but Alchemist Ving, one of the four Erick had given Intelligence to, enlightened everyone in attendance, telling them the full story of their partial success after the appetizers had been served and eaten.

The rat in question had been exposed to a standard Elixir two weeks ago, along with hundreds of others, but with daily blood drains and subsequent transfusions with chelation-treated, compatible blood, they were able to reduce the antirhine aura in the rat by 25%. Magic was able to reach the rat’s skin! It was a subdued miracle. That rat wasn’t the only one of that group to show success, but it was the largest success of them all. The rest of the rats had suffered less kind fates.

Out of the original test group of that chelation formulation, which was composed of 100 rats, 67 of them died due to so very many complications, most of which were attributed to disease and failures to thrive. All the ones that lived, though, all showed marked reductions in the size of their antirhine aura, with reduction values hovering around 15%, with more than a few with over 20% reduction.

So!

Good news.

Not full treatment. Not yet. But it was getting there. Good news.

Erick enjoyed the gathering. He also enjoyed getting to talk to Xue again, who was doing well as an Elder of Enforcement. Riri was doing fine as a Loremaster, though everyone treated her as an Elder these days. From what Erick overheard, Riri was becoming a very, very rich lady.

Ari was not there, but when Erick asked after her, everyone else said that she was doing fine, and that she spoke with people in Star Song all the time.

Xue said, “She’s unhappy there, but in a year, she’ll either be running the place, or be allowed to leave. There’s absolutely nothing that the Palace could possibly find in her soul or in her past that would mark her as a Soul Mage that needed culling. She’s the most scrupulous person I know.”

Riri added, “Arilitilo has connections. She also has all of us. We won’t let her wallow in there unnecessarily.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Erick said, “If it wasn’t for her, I would have died at the very beginning of the battle.”

That truth seemed to make many people uncomfortable, so the conversation moved on.

Soon enough, the discussion moved toward the reorganization of classes and employment opportunities for newly raised clansmen, and from there, Riri spoke wanting more of the new clansmen to come to her remade spider house, to learn weaving.

Xue had a light frown as he said, “We need more enforcers right now, Riri.”

“And those enforcers need the money that a remade spider house can bring in.” Riri said, “I’m not asking for your hothead enforcers. I’m asking for you to keep an eye out for those who would do well as crafters.”

Xue said, “There are none.”

“There have to be some.” Riri said, “Work with me, Xue.”

“Perhaps if you tithed in the full amo—” Xue stopped himself.

Riri held her sake cup in front of her lips, so as not to show her frown to the world. There was stress in Star Song, and the conversation between Xue and Riri was degrading past public decency.

So Erick changed topics, asking, “How’s Jane getting along in your thread weaving, Riri?”

Jane was over at the other table, with some enforcers. The music was loud enough to disguise some of the words floating around, but Jane noticeably flinched at the utterance of her name.

“Your daughter’s skills are coming along admirably, Erick,” Riri said, happy for the distraction. “I could make a lot of money with an employee like her, but it is too bad that she’s so focused on that enforcer mentality.”

Xue frowned, openly.

Erick chuckled. Hopefully it didn’t sound too much like a nervous chuckle!

Riri added, “You should come in some time; see how woven enchantments work.” She brightened. “I could even get you a spider form!” Suddenly serious, she asked, “Ohh. Would you like a Light Weaver? It’s good for a beginner— Ah. No. You should find a Red Thread Weaver in the Forest of Glaquin and then come to my spidery. [Telekinetic Thread] is great for woven enchantments. Your daughter is learning quite fast.”

Erick chuckled, and this time it was clearly a nervous chuckle. “No thank you!” With eyes a bit wide, he said, “I have just now realized that you probably have a lot of spiders where you work.”

Polite laughter came from most people at the table.

“Not enough spiders, sometimes.” Riri smiled, and said, “If you ever come across another Radiant Nacreous Weaver, I have half a million gold set aside to buy it from you.”

“Oh…” Erick’s mirth took a dive. He said, “I am sorry about Pearlchan. I don’t think I said that yet. I heard, but— I am sorry for your loss.”

Riri went unreadable for a brief moment, and then she relaxed. She softly said, “Thank you, Erick. She was a beloved pet, and I will miss her.” She found some of her fire, and her words turned lively, “Don’t misunderstand. I don’t mean ‘if you find another Radiant Variant I want it for a pet’. I won’t grow attached like that again. This time I mean to have the [Polymorph] form.”

Erick nodded, then said, “I’ll keep a lookout.”

Xue smirked as he looked between Riri and Erick, then said, “She ca—”

Riri frowned at Xue, sighing deeply, loud enough to interrupt him.

Xue continued, “She can afford three times that.”

Not wanting to get involved in this spat, Erick said, “Oh, I know she can. But I’m already getting million gold offers to conjure up some white mountains around here. It’s not about the money. I’m already fantastically rich.”

Xue laughed.

Riri asked Erick, “Are you looking to spend that money in ways that will make you more money? We’ve got investment opportunities everywhere.”

Erick chuckled, then paused, and considered. A moment later, he said, “I already spent a lot on Red Ledger, maybe I should look into investment opportunities. Do you have any investment opportunities like that?”

Xue asked, “What was your goal there? Exactly?”

A lot of people at the table were interested in Erick’s answer. Heck! A lot of the entirety of Songli was wondering why Erick got involved in Red Ledger’s University. Erick hadn’t answered those inquiries yet, because words were kinda hollow compared to actions, but here was a good time to say a few good words on the subject.

Erick said, “I gave them money to gain oversight control on an institution which heals people, because I want Red Ledger to continue doing their good work, and I wish to be involved in that good work.” Erick said, “The other reason I chose to help them is because the financial truth of Red Ledger’s hospitals and university is a lot more difficult than I think it needs to be, with injured people unable to pay their bills all over the place, which means that Red Ledger is unable to pay their bills. They used to supplement their income with the warriors of the clan going out and killing monsters for cores, and hunting many of their own herbs and stuff like that. But because of Terror Peaks, that lifeline of warriors is no more. Therefore, I have stepped into that role.

“My hope is that they can do what they need to do to heal people, without worrying too much about the financials, because making money off of a hospital is the very opposite of what I want in life. If anything, I hope to provide enough resources so that Red Ledger can operate more like Oceanside’s hospital; where treatment is free unless you’re rich. It’s probably gonna take some time for Red Ledger to understand my desires for how I want them to be, but Patriarch Tsung seems amenable to much of what I want from them.” He turned to Riri, “So if you got opportunities for me to make money to allow others to heal without worry, then tell me what you got.”

As others around the table absorbed Erick’s words and prepared to speak to him, Riri was already there, talking.

Opportunities abounded in Songli for the casual investor, with options everywhere, from small scale hospitality-based buy-ins with percentage based returns, to shareholder systems for larger scale operations, like Star Song’s spider house, or the trade school houses of Diligent Scribe. She even spoke of ways for Erick to make money that were focused on his ability as an archmage, instead of his riches, which was, arguably, the most solid way for him to make money. Selling services is always a valid money making ‘scheme’.

As they spoke business, other people around the table spoke of their own opportunities when they gained a moment to interject, but Riri was the queen of gold at this particular table, and everyone else toiled at her pleasure. Star Song, and Songli, all had prosperity aplenty; all one had to do was buy into the system.

Before Erick knew it, the second and third courses were served and eaten, and dessert was wheeled out on silver carts, along with after-dinner coffee.

As the evening wound down, Xue eventually said to Erick, “We never got to do any blood enchanting at all.”

“Ah. Yeah.” Erick said, “I’ll be back in town eventually, but I’ve never been good at enchanting, anyway.”

Xue laughed. “It’s heartening to know that you’re bad at something.”

Erick chuckled.

It was a good night.

- - - -

Erick shot awake.

He checked on everything around him, slamming on [Hunter’s Instincts], then preparing himself with all the rest of his usual spells. Ophiels went from fluffy feathered to knife-edged, instantly spreading out into the world, trying to find whatever had woken Erick.

He searched the sky. He searched the clan mountain underneath. He searched the other houses of the nobles on top of the mountain. He searched his room with every spell imaginable, and when that wasn’t enough, he had an Ophiel fly into his room and activate a [Lodestar] empowered [Fulmination Aura], designating himself as friendly.

A lightning mandala materialized around Erick. Shimmering arcs of electricity ripped through the room, smashing apart the water clock in the corner, breaking a window, spilling across the walls like so many sparks, ripping across clothes and fabrics and books and setting the bed on fire. Erick let it happen.

But nothing died.

Soon enough, he turned off the lightning.

He was alone.

He had ripped his room up? Ah. Shit.

Shame lodged itself into his heart, with a smaller stab of shame piercing his brain from behind. Cold ice trailed across his skin as he realized what he had done. Oh. Shit.

This wasn’t good.

A [Mending Aura] brought back the room to its original state, though some of the books were on the ground, and some of the clothes had fallen off of their hooks. The water clock had spilled its now-steaming liquid contents all over the floor.

Erick sat there, on his bed, and tried to silence the unnatural worry inside his head. No one had tripped any alarms. Nothing was out there. Nothing was happening.

“… Boss?” Teressa called from outside the closed door to his room.

Erick called back, “Nothing is happening! Sorry for waking you!”

“… Okay,” Teressa said, nicely. “Well I’m awake now and it’s only an hour till sunrise. Want breakfast?”

Erick canceled [Hunter’s Instincts] and pulled Ophiel off of high alert. He got out of bed, saying, “Yeah. I want breakfast.” He opened the door and saw Teressa standing there, along with Poi behind her and Jane down the hall. Motes of light fell out of Jane’s hand, going from the shape of a sword back to ambient mana. Erick repeated, “Sorry for waking everyone.”

Breakfast was a subdued affair.

Afterward, Erick spent the day fixing every little problem he could imagine.

He made sure that Devouring Nightmare set up a stone box where Erick could place [Personal Delirium Charm]s without needing to hand them directly to Warzi, or anyone else.

He prodded the Alchemists of Star Song about their chelation advancements, because he wanted to know what, exactly, they thought their chelation molecule looked like. He found that they weren’t working with calcium disodium EDTA, but they were working with something similar, and it would work, eventually.

He spent four hours in the afternoon with Riri, going over various investment opportunities. At the end of it all, he decided on spending 1.5 million gold in ten different markets. They were stable investments, only; nothing risky. Farming businesses, building contractors, streets with businesses that Star Song owned that could use money to make better products, gathering squads that pay people to go out and harvest natural resources like cores from monsters, and the like. In a year, the income from those investments should go a long way toward providing for Red Ledger’s yearly shortfall.

After spending all that money, though, Erick felt rather light in the bank, because he was. Only a quarter million gold left in his account! So he decided to fix that problem in the same way he had fixed the problem before, but with a little adjustment. After all, this part of the world had no crystal mimics.

He didn’t even have to stop farming because of nightfall. He just kept going. There were more monsters out at night, anyway.

That he didn’t feel like sleeping due to nightmares was just a coincidence.

- - - -

In the Tribulations, where monsters roamed deep green valleys filled with mist, and wild mountain peaks poked above that fog like islands in an ocean, Erick hunted at a distance. The sun had long since set, but work was never done.

Ophiels flew surrounded by [Domain of the Withering Slime], each of them like a white moon flying across the misty oceans, trailing a tsunami of thick air with them. That air touched mist stone gluttons and ripped water out of the monsterized lizards, most violently. The rock, air, and water elementals became broken sand, while [Cleanse]s pulsed out of the remains, briefly brushing aside the ever present mist.

Kill Notifications scrolled past Erick’s eyes like a blue rain.

In the wake of such destruction, came helpers; a tide of stone-like summons, preying on the dead. Each summon looked like a torso-sized quartz crystal with a hundred telekinetic tendrils, while each tendril was tipped with a stone knife, all the better to dig into dried and desiccated bodies, to get at the treasure within. None of them were very good at what they did, so Erick summoned thousands upon thousands of them, instead.

His name was Jewels, and the tide of him sparkled under misty moonlight; it was a beautiful sight.

--

Summon Jewels, instant, close range, 720 MP

Summon a creation of hardy stone that will retrieve a large amount of rads from as many monsters it can, while it can. Lasts 1 hour.

--

Erick had barely used Jewels except for this exact scenario; when he needed to gather all of the rads/cores from all the monsters he killed. Jewels stuck every core he found to his quartz-like body, gathering up as many as he could, before his time in this world was used up, and he dissipated back into the mana, dropping all of his cores where he was.

This functionality would have been a problem for most people; It was not a problem for Erick.

A [Cascade Imaging] in the sky, tracking cores, easily found every pile of cores every Jewels left behind.

While mist stone gluttons were the normal monster in the Tribulations, there were others. Erick killed them all. He came across a few Deep Hydras in the deeper valleys, with their spewing poison and their multiple grand cores. He discovered some monsterized people, too; cannibals who had lost their minds and their souls to the mana. He found colonies of couatls and gatherings of vulture-like birds.

All died under the [Domain of the Withering Slime].

All cores were gathered.

In the morning, all of those cores were deposited at the Clan Exchange of Songli; the Mage Guild.

The final count for small cores was a little under 7000; each of them was worth 3 gold, or 5 mana, depending on how a person used them. This small number of small cores was to be expected. There weren’t many smaller monsters in the Tribulations.

Of normal cores, each worth 5 gold, or 10 mana, there were 945,000.

In a single night and a bit of the next morning, Erick had restocked his bank account.

The sun was shining. Birds and Ophiel were singing.

Now this was a good time to take a nap; in the daytime, when nothing could get him in the dark.

This was a perfectly normal response to trauma caused by the dark things of the world, yes sir!

Erick slept all the way to midnight and woke up in another cold sweat. There, once again in the dark, Erick foresaw many more days of this shit.

He whispered to himself, “Dammit.”

- - - -

Erick did not get back to sleep that night. Instead, he stayed awake and theorycrafted some spells in order to better defend himself while he tried to sleep. Maybe with enough proper defenses, he wouldn’t have nightmares anymore.

It wasn’t paranoia if they truly were out to get you!

Anyway.

Out in the field, he could probably use some illusions to mask his presence; to actually hide [Prismatic Ward] and [Sealed Privacy Ward] from mana senses and other Sight spells. But then again… [True Sight] had served Erick well when hunting Terror Peaks soldiers, but high level illusions, like that of the Mirage Dragon, seemed to be able to get around [True Sight]’s ability to see through magical effects. Perhaps high level illusions actually (temporarily) manifested whatever it was the illusion pretended to be?

Sure.

Sounded plausible.

Erick grumbled as another thought hit him, that only served to reinforce his trepidation into expanding his illusion repertoire. High grade illusions would help to obscure any possible camp out in the field, but they did nothing to protect him while he was inside his house, where everyone knew he lived.

So Illusions were a no-go for defensive work. He wanted true defenses; not the false defenses of being invisible to the world.

His thoughts instantly locked on to [Draining Undertow], and its ability to drain everyone of their resources, and also reinforce itself in the process. It was almost a Permanent effect, too.

The ‘Undertow’ effect could probably be attached to any type of framework, too. Forget [Renew] as a Basic Spell. With Undertow, he could revolutionize defensive spells the world over… or at least make his own sleeping space rather damn well protected.

But how to expand upon this framework? Which direction would be best to go in, first?

There was, perhaps, at least one apparent use for an Undertow line of spells, and the idea was not just an idea born of Undertow, but from the very first magic that he was exposed to when he came to Songli: the Void Song.

The Void Song could negate magic around itself. It was a constant counterspell and dispeller of varying effectiveness, with the only true limit to the anti-magic effect being the power behind the caster of the Song, and how much mana they were willing to put into such a working.

But with Undertow…

There was probably some effective limit to what Undertow was able to do; the Propagation Ban was right there, after all.

But, with Undertow as made… And with the Void Song…

Erick might be able to make an Abyssal Void Song Rift.

With the Void Song singing from that Rift, Erick would automatically counterspell and [Dispel] every single magic in the area of the Rift!

Oh!

And he could also add in some designating capabilities, too, with [Ward], so that he could cast the Rift in a specific spot, like around himself at night, without having it affect any of his people. Once emplaced, the spell would automatically drain the resources from every single unauthorized person who got too close, and also shut down all of their spellwork with a constant counterspell. If he made the rift well enough, or perhaps if he just added enough Shaping and size to the resulting spell, he could have it stretch out to a very, very large distance—

Oh!

And with a [Spatial Denial] spell to supplement the Rift, he could make a spell that would simultaneously prevent anyone from blipping directly next to him, as well as drain the resources from anyone who braved the [Spatial Denial]!

Ohhh… This would be a complicated spell, but it wasn’t complicated like [Renew] was complicated. [Renew] was touching upon Wizardry, because it dealt with aspects of magic that were fundamentally not compatible, like the fact that everyone casts spells differently. It was like every single person used different electrical outlets. One needed an adapter, usually in the shape of some magical item or an artifact, in order to circumvent that innate disparity.

[Abyssal Void Antimagic Rift] would be complicated, but in the way of putting together a large machine would be complicated. A lot of moving parts in that spell, but all the moving parts naturally worked well together.

As soon as the idea fully manifested in his mind, even knowing that he didn’t have all the pieces, Erick knew he had to make it work.

Like.

Yes.

The paranoia was digging deep into his brain matter and having its way with his psyche. Erick was not senseless. He acknowledged this. But he was a target, as evident by the several assassination attempts he had survived so far, ever since he came to Veird.

Erick just needed to experiment a bit more with Elemental Void to see how it worked to ‘[Dispel]’ without actually ‘[Dispel]ing’. The spell [Dispel] was Shadow based, so however Void managed this was outside of Erick’s expertise. At an educated guess, though, he imagined that Void would simply rip apart opposing spells with pure elemental force, instead of anything approaching spell-based force.

He could probably rip apart spells with his own [Physical Domain], too, but he had never tried it.

… He decided to try that, before he tried making an Undertow Rift.

To that end, Erick first waited till everyone else was awake, and then he had Poi send a message off to Matriarch Lingxing Void Song, to ask if she, or someone under her, would be willing to show him a bit about how the Void Song worked.

Erick got a quick reply. Lingxing herself would answer his questions for about an hour, if he allowed one of her own people to join in their meeting.

He… tentatively agreed.

- - - -

“I don’t mean to impose too much upon you. My questions shouldn’t take longer than twenty minutes,” Erick said, after sipping his tea and sitting down across from Matriarch Lingxing.

He had attended Lingxing in her office at the top of the remade Void Temple. The décor was comfortable Greek, though they would have certainly called it something else here on Veird. Shiny white stone, which was undoubtedly eternal stonetree wood, pillars to the sides of windows that revealed the civilization of Eralis to the north, west, and east, along with white furniture that was likely also eternal stonewood. Now that Erick knew what to look for, he saw that stuff everywhere.

For all the austerity in the general architecture of the room, it was still comfortable because of all the violet fabrics and cushions upon every sitting surface, and in the stylized, deep purple rugs upon the ground. The room was purple and white and yet still managed to look nice; Lingxing had done well with her limited palette.

Lingxing matched her room. She was a white-skinned elderly woman with deep purple eyes, who composed herself with a feeling of strength-through-adversity. It was not a bad look.

The young woman —the girl, really— who stood behind Lingxing looked much the same as the matriarch of Void Song, but only if you took 70 years off of the older woman. Erick hadn’t been introduced to the interloper yet, but whoever she was, she stood back and patiently waited in a way that was not like a guard at all. Lingxing didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to introduce the girl, either.

Lingxing set down her town teacup. “It is not lightly that we give out the secrets of the Void Song, and it is not lightly that I take to this conversation. I may be busy, but I have time for you, Archmage Flatt.” She added, “Erick.”

“Then… Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you for visiting. I do wish we could have been in simpler times. We could have shared another meal at the cafeteria downstairs, but I am equally disappointed that I never got to introduce you to some of my favorite eateries out in the city. But time streams along, and now we are here. You’re leaving Songli soon, aren’t you?”

“I am. Within days, if I can help it. Perhaps four. Preparations are complete except for a few obligations I have made, and a few magics I wish to make before I go looking for some dragons.”

“Then let us discuss the other person in the room.” Lingxing gestured to the girl behind her. The girl took three steps forward to stand beside the matriarch’s chair and bowed slightly. Lingxing said, “This is Nirzir Void Song. We are related by blood, but the family genealogy is likely uninteresting to you. She is a niece, and she is on her way to becoming one of the most gifted Singers of our age. And, according to what our Enforcer Kaffi told us, and according to what we have heard and seen for ourselves, since you make very little attempt at obfuscating your methods, she casts magic almost the same as you.”

Nirzir remained completely stoic.

Erick asked, “But I thought all Singers did that?”

“We do, but we also use standard arcane notation to parse out the deeper magics. Nirzir here has not needed to do that, at all. She is only 17, and yet she casts with the ease of an old master.” Lingxing remained stoic, saying, “What I am telling you is an open secret in the clan but which we are trying to keep quiet for now, for Nirzir’s sake. Nirzir has achieved tier seven spells. One day soon, she will be an archmage.”

Erick’s eyes went wide. He took in the slip of a girl again. White hair and skin. Purple eyes. Thin. A strong sense of purpose around her, too. Then he glanced back to Lingxing.

… What was going through the old woman’s mind? What was this introduction truly for?

Lingxing continued, “She simply needs time, learning, and patronage to get there.”

Erick felt himself pale. He desperately hoped that Lingxing wasn’t asking him what he thought she was asking of him. Was she?

Erick narrowed his eyes. “Patronage?”

“Yes. Patronage. Preferably from an already established archmage.”

And there it was.

Lingxing said, “If you do not wish to take her with you on your Worldly Path, then I will accept this decision, but since you will likely need someone to answer your various Singer questions, then this is one of the best ways I can think of to accomplish this.” She added, “As you have allowed us to benefit from your daughter, it is only right that we allow you to benefit from one of ours.”

Erick said, “You know I’m going to hunt dragons and kill outsized threats, yes? I plan to go to the Core, and to the Fractured Citadels of Quintlan, as well as deal with some uppity dragons soon enough.” Erick looked to Nirzir, and saw that the listing of Veird’s deeper horrors was... not budging the girl’s decision. Oh? This wasn’t a plot from Lingxing, was it? Nirzir had done this all on her own? This little girl had gotten one over on the Matriarch of her High Clan, somehow? Yes; that seemed right. Well wasn’t that odd. Erick faced Nirzir, and asked, “What do you want?”

Nirzir’s voice was calm, and quick, “I wish to journey with you until you leave the rest of us behind on your Worldly Path, because I have never met someone who can make magic exactly as I can make magic, and I feel that I need to make this connection while I can. I ask for no secrets except for those you are willing to give. In return, I will give you everything that is mine to give.”

… Okay?

Well. Eh...

If he said ‘no’, then this conversation would likely end before he could ever get any of his own answers. Lingxing was sitting, and Nirzir was standing, but Lingxing was deferring to the younger girl. Nirzir was in charge, here.

Erick said, “I am planning on going incognito whenever I next get the opportunity. You will have to wear commoner clothing, and you will be expected to pull your own weight, and the weight of others. I cook for my people just as much as they cook for me.”

Erick’s words had not been a part of Nirzir’s plan.

“Cook? Bu—” Nirzir changed tacks, and solidly said, “I am willing to do this. I will cook.” She seemed to find her stride, as she continued, “I have the full arcanaeum-mandated basic spell list, and have worked hard to ensure that I have as many utility spells as necessary, and more besides. I am fully capable of keeping watch with both my extensive spellwork and my own eyes, as well as following orders and acting as a group. My personal specialty is in defensive magics, though I am a Singer by Class.” She added, “You mentioned Quintlan, where necromancers roam free and soul attacks are common. I may be young, but I am confident in my ability to defend myself and others from most soul magics. I am also reasonably confident in my ability to act independently and with aplomb. I am a Scion of Focus. I can also cast all basic Healing Magics, including [Greater Treat Wounds].”

She had more things to say, more skills and abilities she wanted to mention, but she cut herself off there. Probably because that had been… a lot.

Too much for a 17 year old.

Erick listened, then he looked to Lingxing. “She’s not Kaffi, right?”

Lingxing casually said, “No; she is not. Kaffi is elsewhere. Nirzir is exactly who she appears to be. You, more than anyone, should know how quick an archmage progresses.”

“That may be true.” Erick said, “If this happens, I’m going to have Poi look her over, and if Nirzir says no, then I will not accept her.”

Lingxing said, “Nirzir will submit to this.”

Nirzir had stood silent, as if knowing what Erick would have demanded of her ahead of time. Well… He did have a track record for having the Mind Mages scan people, didn’t he? Yeah, he did.

Erick asked the young woman, “Why do you want to journey with me?”

“Because you are an archmage willing to become involved in the world. The decisions you make affect us all, and I wish to be there when those sorts of decisions are being made, even if I am no more than a guard in the background.” Nirzir said, “To put it another way: You have culled a thousand threats from my homeland, saving millions of lives, and your actions with the Mind Mages have saved countless more. I wish to learn from you, and I feel that you can learn from me, too.”

Erick frowned, not because he was unhappy with her answer, but because the young woman was winning him over.

But on the other hand, he did not need another person to tag along with him in this Worldly Path. Except... Fine. Erick had come here to ask about Void’s antimagic uses, anyway.

Let’s see what kind of answer she can give.

Erick looked to Nirzir, saying, “I have made a spell that could be cast on the border of a town, or anywhere that needs defending, which makes a wall of Abyssal Void that is basically Permanent, if it can be kept going through a modicum of maintenance that anyone with Mana or Health is able to provide. There is no need for special training to provide this maintenance. An Abyssal Void wall, fully powered, is worth millions of points of defense. This wall simultaneously Drains the Health and Mana from everyone within a medium-to-large range of one side of the wall. Monsters are Drainable—” Erick had tested that much when he was making bank last night “—and their resources count toward the maintenance needed to keep the spell Permanent. This is the spell.”

While Erick spoke about the spell, he handed out blue boxes for [Undertow’s Edge].

Lingxing controlled her surprised reaction to something smaller, but Nirzir’s eyes went fully wide. Then they read the spell. Lingxing turned politely incredulous and angry, while Nirzir seemed to sparkle with surprised joy.

Erick continued, “It’s a painless Drain if you’re far away, but it begins to hurt like any other if you get close to the wall. This spell, and others like it, is why I asked for this meeting.” He said, “I want to add Void’s antimagic effects to this spell, or another spell using this same ‘Undertow’ effect which I have already isolated into its own tier 2 working. I want to add the Void Song to this Undertow. How would you do that?”

Lingxing had already gone completely stoic, but at Erick’s question of the Void Song, she went calmer. Nirzir wanted to speak, but she did not. She waited for her aunt. Lingxing then looked to Nirzir and gave her a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

So the Matriarch of Void Song wasn’t just a figurehead, then. Good to know.

Nirzir attempted to be calm as she said, “When an initiate is starting out, we first transform [Force Wave] with Elemental Void and Aurify into a second tier, low grade Void Song. Through sparring and combat, we learn to tune this Void Song to the magics of others and literally Void opposing magics. This skill requires precise hearing and targeting. Some people require years of experience to learn this technique. This is how the Void Song works.” Her excitement grew, as she said, “The problem most initiates often encounter when Singing is that they cannot tune properly; they cannot hear the Song of True Magic. They can still do as a true Singer can do, but these initiates end up spending mountains of mana to accomplish the same thing that a true Singer can do with a whisper. True Singers still need power, though. Every mage needs power, both for range, and for effect. Properly aligned power is what allows a Singer to cooperate with other Singers and spread the Void Song all throughout Eralis.” She gestured with the blue box for [Undertow’s Edge], saying, “And this Undertow would provide a lot of power. If you learned to Void Sing, you could even…” Her eyes went wide. “You could replace every single Singer of Songli.”

Nirzir had said the words as though gazing upon a wonder of the universe.

But Lingxing and Erick both realized the danger of Nirzir’s words.

Lingxing said, “I doubt Erick means to replace our entire High Clan with a simple spell.”

Erick said, “Of course I would not want to do that.”

Nirzir looked less sure. “But you could! You could spread this Song across all of the Highlands and bring safety and peace to everyone, and then prosperity could flow from there!”

“Nirzir,” Lingxing said, with a slight edge to her tone.

Nirzir’s eyes went wide. Ah. She realized she had fucked up.

Erick spoke, “I am going to be fighting dragons soon enough, and bargaining for trades with others, no doubt. I have spoken personally with gods of all kinds. My World Tree will connect this planet with the others of this New Cosmology in a hundred years, and I am definitely going to live that long. I have suffered and survived a dozen assassination attempts, with many of those attempts out in the open for everyone to see. Don’t misunderstand; I am not bragging. I am telling you this because these are all alarming things. My very existence has already been a cry to war from multiple nations. I don’t intend many of these occurrences, but alarmist things happen around me, because I am changing this world.” He looked to Nirzir, “So if you wish to travel with me, you will attempt to mitigate any potentially alarmist words coming out of your mouth that are not in line with the things I actually intend to do. I do not intend to move into Songli and solve every problem you have. I am not putting Void Song out of a job. I am not threatening anyone with this spellcraft, or with my desire to learn the Void Song. I just need better personal defenses.”

Lingxing was tense when Erick began his little speech, but then she relaxed, and solidified her calm when he came to the end of it.

Nirzir, however, went red with deep embarrassment. Her voice was a small thing, “I did not mean to imply… what I implied. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this—”

“You are exactly where you are meant to be, Nirzir.” Lingxing spoke to the young girl, “Archmage Flatt is correct about everything he said. While your own experience will hopefully be lesser, your very existence as an archmage will be fraught with tribulations such as this very conversation right now. You are too bookish. You must be exposed to these things while you are not the one standing in the light.” She turned to Erick. “For Nirzir will be an archmage, Erick, and I don’t want her turning into a hermit like all the rest of them. She is too close to that already. Please take her with you as far as she will go, even if all she does is accompany you around the surface of Nelboor. Don’t let her become insular like all the rest of the archmages of this world.”

Nirzir straightened, and looked ahead.

Erick said, “She might die through no fault of anyone’s. It’s dangerous out there.”

“If she does, then, no offense meant to you or your capability, but you will likely be dead before she is.” Lingxing said, “Nirzir is very, very good at active defense.”

Yet another tick in the girl’s favor.

Erick needed better defenses, anyway.

Ugh!

Was he really considering this?

He was, wasn’t he.

Well. Maybe keeping her around while he was in Nelboor would be fine. She probably knew a lot more about this land than he did. Maybe more than Poi, too. Yes; he could take her around Nelboor, at least.

Erick turned back toward Nirzir. “You really want this?”

“I do,” Nirzir said, “I don’t want to become a hermit, and I foresee myself going that way if nothing changes.”

“Then… I already have an apprentice, but I suppose this benefits me as much as you… You can stick around with us while we’re moving around Nelboor, at least. We can speak more of your capabilities and of magic back at the house—”

Nirzir lit up, her purple eyes glittering.

“—as soon as Poi looks you over, to see that you are who you say you are, and that this isn’t some sort of trick of some kind.”

Lingxing spoke first, “We expected this to happen, so do what you must.”

Nirzir spoke strongly, “I am ready to do what is needed of me.”

Erick glanced behind him, where Poi and Teressa waited by the door. “Poi?”

Poi stepped forward.

Nirzir nodded, and moved to stand in front of Poi.

Poi asked, “I will be checking to see that you are who you say you are, and that there are no hidden desires for traveling with our group. Do you consent to a scan as outlined by my targeted search?”

“I consent.”

Tendrils of soft blue light came out of Poi’s body to reach into Nirzir’s arms and head. No one spoke. As seconds became half a minute, then a full minute, Nirzir had lost some of her composure. She had readily agreed to the scan, but she obviously did not expect it to be like it was. Soon, the young woman was sweating bullets, and Erick wondered what Poi had fou—

Poi stepped away, saying, “She is cleared, but she and I will be having a private discussion later.”

Nirzir startled, freezing in place; she had not expected that.

Lingxing did, though; proof of that was written on her face. Lingxing knew that Nirzir wanted something more from Erick than what she said she wanted. Erick fully expected something like that to happen, though. If Poi said it was fine, then it was probably fine; he trusted his man.

Erick said, “Then Nirzir is with us for the time being.” He turned to Lingxing, saying, “I thank you for your assistance. Eralis was wonderful. I hope to visit again soon, but not too soon. Not while I’m still on the Worldly Path.” Erick stood, ready to leave. He could get all of his questions about the Void Song answered by Nirzir.

Lingxing stood, saying, “We thank you for your benevolent assistance with Terror Peaks, and with all that you have done for Songli. We will never be able to reciprocate what you have done for us, but that does not mean that we will not try. Nirzir’s assistance is only the smallest part of this debt we owe to you. Farewell, Erick.” She bowed, slight and purposeful, as a matriarch should.

“Farewell, Lingxing.” Erick bowed only his head, then he said to Nirzir, “We’ll be taking the quick way. It’s a few steps, so bear with it.”

Before the young woman had a chance to say anything, Erick wrapped his people and Nirzir in light, and then stepped out of Lingxing’s office.

- - - -

He reappeared in his temporary home in Holorulo.

Nirzir’s eyes went wide as she looked around. “That wasn’t a [Teleport]!”

Teressa chuckled. “Nope; it wasn’t.”

“We’ll talk about some of that later.” Erick said to Nirzir, “But first, some small rules. We all provide for the safety of everyone else in the group, and since you are with us for the time being, you will benefit from that obligation, as well as be obligated to reciprocate in return. We can set you up with a room, but I cannot provide for your garments or whatever; you might want to make a trip back to your permanent home to bring anything you want, but we try to travel light. You carry all of your own stuff. Poi is your commanding officer. It goes: Me, Poi, Teressa, Jane. We can figure out everything else as needed.”

Nirzir glanced to Poi, then nodded, saying, “Yes. Of course. Uh. I understand.”

“Let’s sit down in the sunroom and go over some preliminary discussions.” Erick walked past the dense air, into the house proper, “You’re keyed in to the [Prismatic Ward] now, so come on in.”

“I’ll go make some lunch,” Teressa said, as she headed toward the kitchen.

Poi eyed the young woman, then followed Teressa, saying, “I’ll help. I want fish.”

Erick waited down the hall, past the dense air, while Nirzir hesitated at the separation between the private space and the front room, but she followed fast enough, her face relaxing after she entered the [Prismatic Ward] and found herself accepted. She briefly smiled, then followed Erick in the sunroom.

When the two of them had taken their seats across the coffee table from each other, Erick said, “I need to understand how to rely on you, if at all. Let us begin with some basic capabilities that aren’t in the Open Script. Do you have an Elemental Body?”

Nirzir instantly answered, “[Greater Air Body] and [Water Body].”

“Reflective spells? Crowd control spells? Aura control? How do you fight?”

“Reflective hand-held shield. Spell denial is what I do, by trade as a Singer; not much more control than that, though. I have aura control as well as a mana sense, and I have Remade many Basic Tier spells, but not gone much beyond the Force spells. Singing is my greatest contribution to a fight and also my greatest power, with a focus on denial of enemy abilities and the ripping apart of enemy spellwork. I can even sing under-audible. You spoke earlier of being incognito, and I have prepared for this. I can fully pretend to be a Healer, as I have the full capability of one. [Greater Treat Wounds] as well as [Greater Inflict Wounds].”

He said, “A healer? Well we do need one of those. How old are you, anyway?”

“17. I Matriculated last year.”

“Lingxing did say that... I guess I didn’t believe it.” Erick said, “Well. I’ve only been at this magic thing for a little over a year, myself, so I guess it’s believable.”

Nirzir smiled, showing a true emotion for a brief moment, and then she locked that away and turned semi-professional again. She was young, but she was already accustomed to this life of power and ability. She was polite enough, too.

Erick was under no obligation to actually have her with him, but...

He needed allies. More allies. Better allies. If Nirzir was going to become an archmage, then it was probably best to know her before she became famous. A good working relationship here would also bode well for a good working relationship with High Clan Void Song in the future.

All good reasons to take Nirzir with him when he left Songli, but there was another more pertinent reason: nightly watches.

Poi and Teressa could not take on all the watches that were necessary for anyone to get a good night’s sleep. Ophiel filled in quite a lot on that front, but he was still young. He also wasn’t able to see future threats like Teressa, nor could he talk to people the world over, like Poi. Jane, though…

Erick desperately hoped that Jane would keep with the party as they moved out of the Highlands, but Jane really liked it here. She might stay behind.

… Whatever the case, Nirzir would be one more capable person able to see possible problems at night before they became real problems.

And… Nirzir was a healer. That alone made her halfway necessary for good travel. Redundancy was good. Erick still wasn’t sure about the young woman, but Nirzir seemed to be a perfect fit for a Healer-shaped hole. And… Again… If Jane was leaving…

Erick shoved that thought away.

Nirzir watched Erick as Erick thought in silence. He had only been thinking for a few seconds, but this was a large decision, and both of them knew that. And it wasn’t a sure thing, yet. But.

Yeah.

Okay.

Erick decided. Sure. This might as well happen.

“I look forward to a good working relationship.” Erick moved right along. “So let’s talk magic. Tell me what you think of Undertow.”

Nirzir smiled brightly, then happily said, “I am guessing that you went for Healing Waters to control for the uncomfortableness of Drains, and then you went down the Shadow spectrum to arrive at Abyss and then Void, mimicking the Mana Ocean of the Old Cosmology. Inspired. But what’s more impressive is this ability for your Undertow spell to drag mana into itself and sustain itself. This is unprecedented. It’s touching the Propagation Ban, but not breaking it. I had heard you were working on this [Renew] spell and thought it a flight of fancy, but now that I have seen it, I still cannot believe it. It gives me hope for my own magical goals of—”

“Sorry. I have to clarify: Undertow is not [Renew]. I’m still working on that.” Erick asked, “What sort of goals?”

“It’s not [Renew]? But—” Nirzir let that drop, and answered, “[Inviolable Defense] is my ultimate goal. I don’t want to be a hermit. I haven’t even made a [Familiar], for I know that the moment I do, I will withdraw from the world. No. What I want is an [Inviolable Defense]. Skin unmarred, like the finest jade. Bones as hard as a clan mountain. Flesh as resilient as an orcol’s and a soul untouchable like those of the strongest liches. Able to deflect a sword or a spell with a fingertip, and walk through Void without bleeding, or fall from the sky without breaking.” She came back from her dreams, saying, “I have been working on this spell since before I Matriculated. I still haven’t managed to make it, though. Every day, I try a different, lower tier combination, and every day I fail again. But I won’t give up!”

Absolute protection wasn’t that odd of a concept to pursue, but something had obviously happened to the young woman to make her feel this way about this magic.

Nirzir handed him a blue box. “This is my best attempt yet.”

--

Immaculate Form, instant, self, personal ward, 6450 mana

Your body becomes extraordinarily resistant to damage. Your internal spells become extraordinarily hard to disrupt. Healing effects are heightened. This spell is extraordinarily resistant toward dispelling effects.

Lasts 24 hours.

--

Nirzir’s [Immaculate Form] had to be one of those non-exact spells that did a lot more than what the box described. Erick wondered if such a spell would be good for him, too. Perhaps, if he had an [Immaculate Form], then he could simply be ‘immune to damage’ instead of having a 100k damage shield? Constitution didn’t work for the normal absorption-type [Personal Ward], after all, but if he didn’t have a [Personal Absorption Ward] and he instead had yet another damage mitigation [Ward]…

It was an idea, for sure. But there was a problem with this idea.

Nirzir said, “It has gotten me through a lot, but it does nothing against enemy spells. I have the Void Song for that, though.”

Well, sure; that was a problem with her spell, too. But that’s not what Erick had meant.

Erick dismissed the box, and said, “I have heard that Wizards and mages of the Old Cosmology could cast the protective magics you wish to cast, but I’ve been told more than a few times that the Script specifically removed this capability; all mages are now just as vulnerable to murder as all warriors.”

Without even a moment of disappointment, Nirzir asked, “I’ve been told the same thing, but my sources have been other people. Have you heard otherwise? From some higher source?”

A twinge of desperation tainted her voice, but that was understandable, if this was her (young) life’s goal.

“I heard it from the Shades. I think the gods implied the same, but they never outright said as much.”

Nirzir lamented, and with a sigh, said, “That is farther than I have gotten.”

Erick guessed. “If you’re trying to add in [Immortality] functionality, then that, I know, is specifically forbidden. Phagar said.”

Nirzir didn’t even bat an eye at that. “There are ways around mortality that don’t require deep magics or the mutilation of the soul. I have faith that I can learn one of those techniques later in life.”

Erick smirked. “Apparently all it takes is a good application of [Polymorph].”

“And the desire to leave everything you are behind. That is a large demand; it is a rare personality that is able to do that to themselves.” Nirzir said, “But that’s just what I’ve been told; I have no personal experience with that.”

Erick nodded—

The moment stilled.

He had a brief mental flash of Nirzir casting the Void Song at him, ripping him apart before he could do anything to stop her.

The moment resumed.

Erick winced with a tiny smile that quickly went away as he took great pains to silence the sudden shitstorm of paranoia raging in his mind. If Nirzir had noticed, then she gave no reaction.

From one moment to the next, Erick decided to take his paranoia and strangle it with as much force as he could. Nirzir would be welcome here as long as she showed no signs of something untoward, and that was that.

Erick said, “If you figure out the rest of your immaculate spell, I’d like to learn that one.”

Nirzir brightened at that. And then she calculated, and chanced, “You will have to give me something commensurate in return. I will accept [Renew].”

Erick laughed. “I would make that trade. But for now: Got any spells you want to make? I’d like to see how you make your magic.”

“I would be delighted!” After a moment, and after looking suddenly guilty, Nirzir added, “It would only be fair, for I have already watched you make some of your magic. It wasn’t… It wasn’t outright spying. But...” Her voice trailed off.

Erick smiled. “A lot of people have; I made little secret of the actual creation.”

Nirzir looked tense, as though she wanted to ask something but wasn’t sure how. So she just blurted, “Why do you make your magic so publicly?”

There was a lot more to her question that she wasn’t saying. Erick guessed it had to do with Wizardry. He wasn’t willing to speak on that subject, though; not fully.

He said, “Because I didn’t want to scare people with the magic I made, so I made it in the open, and shared the blue boxes with the people I invited to watch.”

Nirzir nodded.

She wasn’t convinced that was the whole answer.

If Nirzir was already at tier 7, and since the international ‘archmage’ designation was at tier 8, perhaps both of them had intimate experiences with being called Wizards. But Erick wasn’t willing to voice that word, and neither was Nirzir. Maybe they would broach that topic some other day.

- - - -

Erick and Nirzir stood upon a field of sparse grass to the far east of Holorulo, where the sun beat down and heat mirages marred the horizon in every direction. Poi stood behind the two of them; far behind, so as not to be exposed to whatever dangers the archmage and the would-be archmage were planning on bringing into existence. Five Ophiels, however, flitted wherever they wished, with one standing on the ground next to Nirzir, looking up at her with eyes shining bright.

Nirzir glanced at that Ophiel, but then turned back toward Erick.

“This is a spell that I have made a few times, but it’s never turned out exactly as I wanted.” Nirzir said, “All Singers are trained to provide for their accompanying soldiery. I am no different in that regard. To that end, we have the house spell. I can manage the normal house spell just fine, but I am aiming higher than that. Much higher.” She held out her hand, and channeled purple mana, speaking as she went, “[Stoneshape] and [Watershape] and [Grow], but targeting grasses and other small plants in the area.” The purple jet of mana flexed from solidity to liquid flows, to strong growth. Then the plume shifted to light, and then shadows, and then became invisible, as Nirzir said, “Then the components to [Illusionshape], along with [Invisibility].” She gestured with her other hand, adding in the demarcations of [Ward], saying, “And finally, [Ward], to tie it all together, to provide the framework to allow chosen people to see through the working. Can’t have soldiers unable to see the place, after all.”

Nirzir closed her eyes, briefly. And then she opened her shining violet eyes, and a soft hum filled the air as the space surrounding the young girl began to vibrate with power, thrumming the manasphere with intent. She moved her right foot backward, and lifted both arms forward in a languid pose. Spots of purple color filled her aura like polka dots, each one thrumming differently, each one joining to the rest, as purple light flowed to her outstretched hands. Magic built. Air and light condensed, and then suddenly popped; purple light vanishing in a single instant.

The spell was cast. The land in front of Nirzir shifted.

Grasses flowed like twining vines, up, and up, into invisibility, becoming seen only through the use of Erick’s mana sense, or Ophiel’s Sight spells. [True Sight] made the working fully visible, and so Erick switched to that. He watched as sands evened out like liquid and walls rose from the joining of light and shadow. In less than ten seconds, Nirzir had conjured a small house in the pagoda style. It was two stories tall and eight sided, with a flat roof for soldiers to stand upon, to scan the horizon while on watch.

The windows were arrow slits in the half meter-thick walls, made that way to deny the egress of monsters while still allowing people to look outside. On Veird, they called them ‘slit windows’, though. The entrance had no door. Instead, it was a switchback that led to a kill room. The whole place could probably house twenty soldiers, if half of them were on watch at any one time. The place looked ready for war. Erick flicked off his [True Sight] and the conjuring vanished from sight. The only hint that it was there was in the odd flatness of the land it occupied.

Nirzir was looking to the air, waiting for the blue box, no doubt.

Erick asked, “Does it take you a while to get your blue boxes, too?”

“Oh yes.” Nirzir said, “Longest I ever had to wait was one minute and tw— Ah! There it is.” She glanced at it, then frowned, and handed it over to Erick, saying, “Another failure.”

--

Hidden Fort, instant, medium range, 1007 mana

Create a large invisible fort. The fort will remain even when the magics do not. Recasting this spell upon an existing hidden fort has a chance to replace the missing spellwork. People you designate at the time of casting will be able to see through the obscuring magics.

--

Erick asked, “What’s wrong with it? Aside from the missing duration.”

“I used to get durations listed on this spell, but that stopped happening months ago. That doesn’t matter anyway.” She gestured at the fort and cast again. This time, Erick did not need [True Sight] to see the structure; he had been given permissions. Nirzir said, “But now you see the problem, yes?”

Erick did not. The fort looked perfectly serviceable. She hadn’t made an ‘eternal stonegrass’ fort, which is what Erick was expecting her to make, based on the combination of spells she was using. The walls were simple stone, while the vines were here and there, perhaps making the structure look old and natural. Like it had been there all along and there was no one inside? Maybe?

There could be any number of problems here.

Erick said, “Explain the problem.”

For a brief moment, Nirzir was crushed. And then she shoved that emotion away, and said, “Ah. Right. You have to try going inside of it, then. Or Ophiel could?”

An Ophiel took off, into the fort, passing through the kill room and twirling through the rooms.

Fully visible.

“Ah. I see the problem,” Erick said.

Nirzir smiled softly. “Not only is the spell supposed to make the land look normal, [Invisible] is supposed to make everyone I designate also [Invisible], with the fort itself obscuring detection even if someone were to come through with a [True Sight].” She added, “I’ve gotten parts of this spell to work well before, but not the whole thing.”

Erick grinned. “Okay. I want to try making this spell, then.”

Nirzir was shocked, suddenly standing straight. “… Okay?” And then she realized something, and said, “I have heard that you can make the White Tree. Uh. The point of a house spell is to be taken down afterward. Nothing permanent.”

Erick paused. “… Okay. There goes that idea. Well.” He added, “I can try to do all the rest, then.”

Nirzir ceded her ground.

Erick turned away from her fort, to face the other direction. With a mental command, he counted out six Ophiel, one for each part of the spell, and had them gather. With only five of them nearby, one more had to come in from where he was standing guard over Teressa and First Devouring Nightmare Mountain. Four were still back there, so that should be more than enough for any normal problem that might occur while he was out and about.

Erick looked to Nirzir, confirming, “So a hidden fortress, that hides everyone inside, and that blends into the world around itself. That’s everything, yes?”

Nirzir watched Ophiels dance around Erick as she said, “Yes.”

Erick nodded. “I think making it invisible to mana sense is a bit too much for a tier two spell, so I will leave that out, for now. You can always add that in with another spell layered over the first. I know it is not ideal, but it might be necessary to do it that way.”

Nirzir scrunched her face, but said nothing.

Ophiels took to the points of a hexagon, floating around Erick as they were wont, while Erick had each of them pick up a part of the tune. [Stoneshape] was a big part of this spell, forming the basis to which everything else was attached; he made that Ophiel sing loud and pure, the sound of foundation. [Watershape] and [Grow] was another large part of the working. That pair of Ophiel sang together, harmonizing into a small beat of life springing up from the stone, crawling over the ground as natural as could be. The [Shadowshape] and [Lightshape] Ophiels were there to hide the—

No.

That didn’t sound right. The sound was destabilizing; discordant.

Erick went over the other parts of the spell, and restarted the whole thing with [Ward].

[Ward] was the largest part of this working. It was the basis of everything, wasn’t it? Inside the [Ward] the designated people would be free of the confounding effects of the fort, while being [Invisible] themselves. Everyone else would merely see illusions and falsities.

Yes.

Erick had been wrong about [Stoneshape]. [Ward] was the true backbone of this working.

Everything slipped into place from there as Ophiels floated around Erick, like revelers dancing around a maypole, singing in harmony about the creation of a home away from home; a small tower hidden in the middle of hostile territory. For his own part, Erick added in the standard Permanency functionality he always did these days.

And then he cast.

The world shifted in front of him, the grassland bulging upward, dirt pushing aside dirt as rooms and hallways and otherwise formed underground, creating a small hill that was similar in stature to all the other small hills everywhere else, except without any grasses upon it. And then that fact changed, as light greenery spread over the single-basement house. In moments, Erick’s working became exactly the same as the surrounding lands.

Except it wasn’t.

An invisible second floor rose from that slight hill, looking like a mirage brought close. Erick flicked on his [True Sight] and saw the second floor. It was a short, eight-sided pagoda, with no roof and plenty of places to hunker down and watch the world. With his mana sense, Erick saw that the basement was similarly shaped, but without the defensive battlements and arrow slits and thick door of the top, invisible floor. While Nirzir preferred a killzone, Erick liked doors, so his working had doors.

A blue box appeared.

--

Obscuring Redoubt, instant, medium range, 2597 mana

Create a large stone redoubt using local materials. The final shape is malleable, but will always consist of two parts: an invisible, exposed floor of varying size, and an underground, fully hidden floor of varying size. Non-accompanied items brought into these hidden spaces will gradually become invisible. Anyone designated by you at the time this spell is cast is able to see through the obscuring magics, and become invisible when they are inside the obscuring redoubt.

Lasts 12 hours. Recasting this spell on the same location will renew the duration.

--

Erick handed the blue box out to Nirzir and Poi while simultaneously recasting the spell and designating them, and Ophiel, and himself, as participants in the spell. The top floor of the redoubt suddenly appeared, though it was still rimmed in light mirages.

Erick said, “I think that does it.”

Poi smiled, saying, “Now that makes me happier about a journey to the Core.”

Nirzir had yet to say anything. She just read the spell, looked up to the redoubt, then read the spell again, then looked up again. There was a slight disbelief in her eyes, that turned larger as more seconds passed. Erick let her have her moment while he walked toward the redoubt, wanting to get a look at the inside, from the inside. Poi followed.

Nirzir rushed to catch up, saying, “How did you do that!”

Poi smirked, but said nothing.

“It’s hard to hold all of that spellwork inside my head when the spells have more than four moving parts.” Erick patted Ophiel on his shoulder, and the little guy cooed in violins. “Ophiel helps to make sure the magic comes out right.”

As Erick passed into the [Invisibility] of the redoubt nothing changed for him, but if anyone else was watching, they would have watched Erick vanish halfway through his step. The redoubt looked perfectly serviceable on the inside. The rooms were bare, the floor was solid, the walls were thick with ample protection. Poi’s reaction was easy enough to tell; it was good enough for him.

Nirzir had much the same reaction, saying, “Well this looks pretty good on the inside, too.”

Erick had been quite worried that Nirzir was going to be an uppity princess, needing to be cared for and demanding everything. She was, after all, technically, a princess; every direct family member of the High Clans were considered royalty by the commoners of Songli. He was pleasantly surprised that Nirzir was not like that; not at all.

Nirzir did have one odd reaction, though. She glanced at an Ophiel sitting in an arrow slit, who was watching the world outside while also watching everyone inside with his multiple eyes pointed in every direction. Nirzir said, “[Familiar]s are great… I suppose. My brothers have [Familiars]. They’re shaped like Thunder Birds. But…” Her voice trailed off. “We originally thought you were some long lost Scion, what with Ophiel pretending to be more… birdlike, back when you were Ezekiel. I’m still not sure I want one, though.”

Erick smiled. “[Familiar]s are great, but they’re a big responsibility.”

“I’m not ready for that.”

“Understandable. You could try for some [Conjure Force Elemental] sound enhancers, instead. Might not work, though. There’s a deep link between the soul and magic, and if your summon doesn’t have a soul, then that whole endeavor might be for naught.”

“That is exactly correct.” And then Nirzir dropped that line of thought, and looked around. “So this is how other people feel around me. Did not expect that.”

Erick laughed.

Nirzir fought off a smile.

“I think your only problem was that you didn’t spend enough mana on the working. [Invisibility] is an expensive spell. 100 mana for ten minutes of action, for a single person.”

“True, but… Hmm.” Nirizir said, “[Invisible Squad] is cheap enough.” She flashed him a blue box. “I would expect [Hidden Fort] to be cheap, too.”

--

Invisible Squad, instant, close range, 350 mana

You and up to 10 close targets become invisible for 1 hour. If a selected person commits Health harm, their individual invisibility will fail.

--

Nirzir said, “I just removed the ‘incurs a cost while moving’ and replaced it with the other variant restriction of [Invisibility].”

Erick shrugged. “Try again tomorrow?”

“I suppose so.” Nirzir silently ripped up a tiny bit of her soul, removing the spell she had just made, as she offered, “Do you wish to learn some spell Voiding, now?”

Erick looked to Poi. “We probably have some time.”

Poi said, “Teressa is not done with lunch yet. Maybe 30 more minutes.”

Erick nodded, then turned back to Nirzir. “Let’s go back outside and return our structures to nature.”

Nirzir readily agreed.

Soon enough, the three of them were back out on the grasslands, and their two small towers had their spellworks removed, and then a Shaping applied to return them to the ground.

And then they took their positions, twelve meters from each other.

Nirzir asked, “Do you have a Void Song ability already?”

“Not quite. I was going to use this.” Erick shut off [Greater Lightwalk] and switched to [Physical Domain]. Nothing visibly changed, but the air for a good five kilometers in every direction was now under his power. “It might not wor— ah. You can sense that, eh?”

Nirzir’s eyes were wide as she looked around in every direction. Her skin was already white, but she paled just a bit further. “Ye—” Her voice broke. “Yes. I can sense that. Can you—”

Erick pulled his [Physical Domain] closer, keeping it at roughly ten meters radius. Nirzir stood about eleven meters away from him, so she was now out of the spell’s effect, and it showed. She relaxed, and breathed deeper.

… Erick had no idea why he didn’t conjure his new aura as a smaller size. He had done that before? Why didn’t he do that this time? Just to show off?

Erick said, “Sorry about that.”

“Thank you.” Nirzir continued, “So this is how we do it back in the temple: The attacker will cast normal [Force Bolt]s at the defender, and the defender has to Void the spells coming at them. At first, you target the spells themselves with your aura. This is the easy part. Then, you learn how to automatically target certain spells with your aura. This is slightly more difficult. The final step is working toward shutting down the casting of targeted spells by interfering in their ability to be cast correctly. Simple in design; hard in practice, because the Script does many things for people, and one of the things it does is allow them to effortlessly cast small magics. Because these small magics are so easy to cast, it is very, very difficult to automatically counter them.”

Erick inwardly smirked, because Nirzir was giving him the same lesson that Quilatalap had given him about counterspelling.

Nirzir continued, “But you’re not actually using a Void aura, are you?”

“Nope.” Erick said, “But I want to try with this aura, anyway.”

“Okay. I’m not sure how— We can do it this way.”

Erick said, “Go ahead and state your concern.”

“… Void Magic naturally interferes with any magic that is not Void Magic. The only two schools of Elemental Magic that connect to Void are Abyss and Starlight. By contrast, Shadow and Light each connect to half of everything. So if you’re trying some sort of light-based aura, then… It won’t be able to easily disrupt my [Force Bolt]s.”

Erick pondered. Something didn’t sit right with what Nirzir said…

Oh.

He said, “I’m not using a light or a shadow aura, but shouldn’t a Shadow aura rip through spells as well as Void? [Dispel] is shadow-based.”

Nirzir brightened, “[Dispel] is shadow-based, but Void is so much better at disrupting spellwork! Or at least, it would be. The Script demands a parity of cost when it comes to erasing spellwork, but if not for that, then you could Void a thousand mana working for three mana worth of Void. As it is, you have to get rather good with Void to get anywhere near that original usage of the Element.” She added, “By this same restriction, though, Void is made tamer. Under the Script, Void won’t annihilate a Singer’s body unless the Singer is completely uncaring for their own wellbeing.”

Huh. Well that was interesting.

Erick flapped a hand in the air, saying, “This is a physical aura.” A [Physical Domain], actually. “It might work to break apart your Bolts, or not. I made it in preparation for coming to Songli, but I never got a chance to use it except for shutting down some thunder birds.”

“Is it… A Force Aura?”

“No. A physical aura.”

Nirzir’s eyes went wide as she understood. “Oh!” She looked to the air around Erick. Her lips scrunched. “Some people have luck with other types of negation auras. I imagine that using a [Physical Aura] would be like using an [Air Aura]? Not sure. Not sure how to help you check your spellwork, either. Let’s try it? See what happens?”

Erick nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”

With absolutely no hesitation, a Bolt of violet light zipped out of Nirzir’s shoulder to curve through the air and head straight to Erick’s chest, rapidly passing the edge of his [Physical Domain]. Erick reacted with a pulse of power through his aura, attempting to Discord the spell; to take what he knew of [Force Bolt] and invert that power upon the physical world.

--

Discord X, instant, super large area, 250 mana

<Shift the physical into discordant chaos.> Lasts 10 minutes.

Particle Mage Only

--

The violet Bolt got all the way through his aura and struck him in the chest, feeling like a punch from a strong toddler, briefly flickering his white [Personal Ward] to visibility. Discord had done nothing.

“Hmm.” Erick said, “Again.”

Nirzir rapidly obliged.

The second and third Bolt struck true, along with the fourth and then the fifth. After the sixth failed interception, Erick switched it up, and instead of using a Discordant force to negate the mana based spell, he went for a more direct approach.

Particles were not based in Force Magic or Elemental Magic, after all, so there was bound to be some issues with getting one to work on the other. Erick had done well against the Thunder Magic of the thunder birds, but their large booming spells were a rather easy thing to stop, since their magic was attempting to vibrate the physical, and Erick had direct control over the physical. But against Force magic? It was as though he was using a spoon to cut a steak.

So, instead of directly countering and ripping apart the opposing spellwork, what if he just… solidified the natural, physical world, so that the mana wasn’t present? Oh, sure, mana flowed through everything, but it still had trouble getting through denser objects, after all.

The seventh violet spell arced through the air, entering Erick’s space, while Erick used the Normalize function of his aura to empower the natural world.

--

Normalize X, instant, super large area, 250 mana

<Empower normal physical functionality throughout the physical world, creating a myriad of individual effects. Directly weaken some forms of magic.> Lasts 10 minutes.

Particle Mage Only

--

The Bolt struck him in the chest like the fist of a sleepy toddler. Erick readily noticed the change.

Nirzir noticed, too. She paused in sending out Bolts, to say, “That one worked. At a proper range, I think whatever you are doing would be enough against a Bolt.”

“Or other, lesser magics.” Erick said, “But that’s not good enough.”

Nirzir nodded, solemnly. “No; it is not. I have [Force Beam]s, too?”

“Hit me with more Bolts, first.”

“You know!” Poi suggested, “You could intercept spells thrown at a target instead of spells thrown at your self.”

Erick chuckled. “Maybe when we move to [Force Beam]s and otherwise.”

Nirzir did not like Poi’s suggestion. “The final test to become a Singer is to negate a barrage of spells coming at you, including [Stoneshape] being applied underfoot and third tier [Force Beam]s of all kinds, including Decay and Void types.” Nirzir said, “Getting ready for that day can sometimes awaken the aura of a person.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Erick said, “But maybe after I figure out this small stuff, first. Hit me with some more Bolts.”

A pair of violet Bolts arced out of Nirzir, one going right and the other going left, and then both aimed straight for Erick. This time, Erick prepared to Normalize the air around the spells, while also Harmonizing his own Normalize in an attempt to make the physical world even more solid.

--

Harmonize X, instant, super large area, 250 mana

<Shift the physical into individualized order.> Lasts 10 minutes.

Particle Mage Only

--

The [Force Bolt]s struck the edge of Erick’s [Physical Domain] like they had struck water, slowing down, the air around the violet Bolts turning thick. The Bolts continued on, but they lost power much, much faster than they should have. The Bolts managed to travel three meters before petering out into motes of purple light. The effect was exactly what would have happened if the Bolts had gone past their maximum range.

Erick smiled. It worked. Not perfectly, but after a fashion, it worked.

Nirzir frowned a little; puzzled. “Spatial Magic— No. Oh. You just made the air thicker. That’s not like an [Air Aura] at all.” Her eyes went wide. “Oh. That has a lot of applications.”

“Try a [Force Beam] this time.”

Poi cringed—

Nirzir obliged.

A radiant violet light exploded from her knee and impacted Erick’s chest, eliciting a bright white flash from his [Personal Ward].

Nirzir rapidly moved the beam away from Erick before canceling it altogether, her eyes going wide as she rushed forward, exclaiming, “Oh Rozeta! I didn—” She had only gotten two steps closer, before stopping. “Oh. You’re fine. Right. You probably have some mythical defenses, too.”

Erick smiled as he patted his chest where the Beam had struck. A small [Mend] fixed a tiny cut the violet beam had ripped into the fabric, as he said, “Just a [Personal Ward]. Back up and try again, and then I want to see how your own Void Song works against my small spells.”

Nirzir stepped backward. “Ready?”

Erick readied Amplify, prepared to combine it with Harmonize and Normalize.

--

Amplify X, instant, super large area, 250 mana

<Fill the physical with rising power, enabling a myriad of possible physical effects.> Lasts 10 minutes.

Particle Mage Only

--

He said, “Read—”

A violet beam of light erupted from Nirzir’s right shoulder and entered Erick’s [Physical Domain] like it was a stream of water flowing into a river. The beam was swallowed up completely, turning into nothing more than diffuse purple light that rapidly faded back into the manasphere like spellwork breaking down. It was kinda pretty.

Nirzir saw this. She rapidly moved the beam left and right, trying to find an opening in Erick’s spellwork. She found several. The beam briefly continued forward like water from a sputtering hose, but Erick moved his power around, blocking the beam. In three seconds he solved the weakness problem entirely by flooding his entire Domain with Normalize, Harmonize, and Amplify.

When Nirzir’s first [Force Beam] faded, she instantly cast another one. The second violet beam met the fate of the first one, becoming little more than purple light upon the edge of Erick’s power. And then Nirzir unleashed ten beams at once, each one criss crossing and overlapping with each other as she prowled for weakness. She found none.

Erick found it much easier to simply hold his Domain in this trio configuration than to try and counter in specific areas. Perhaps he was cheating to use his Domain instead of an actual [Physical Aura], but they were practically the same thing, right?

… No; they weren’t the same thing at all.

Erick would make a proper [Void Aura] later, though.

And besides that, Erick was pretty sure that the Void Song was actually a Domain, anyway.

But back to the current problem. Nirzir’s beams of power were still getting too far into his Domain, so he added [Discord] back into the mix, targeting Force spells, like he had originally tried to do.

Nirzir’s violet spellwork crashed against the edge of his Domain, and died. Force transformed back into broken mana. Complete protection! Complete success!

As her spells faded, Nirzir stood there, eyeing Erick’s aura. “So… I don’t know what you are doing, exactly. I can’t help you refine that into something that can help you erase other spellwork. Want to try yourself against my Void Song?”

“Yes.”

Erick decided to play around with his [Physical Domain] through Ophiel, later. He shut off that aura, and turned on his [Greater Lightwalk]… Come to think of it, with [Greater Lightwalk] and [Lodestar], he wondered if he could shift his sunform into Extreme Light, and shut down magics that way.

… He might even be able to achieve something like with an Undertow spell, too. ‘Stars in the Void’ seemed like it should be an achievable idea. ‘Stars in the Void that emit Extreme Light’ seemed like a logical extension of that idea.

He turned his attention back to Nirzir. The young woman had turned on her aura, but to his mana sense, it was barely active. A highlighting rim of pale shadow clung to her skin and extended out along the ground for ten meters in every direction. Whatever she was doing was highly controlled.

Nirzir stated, “Ready.”

Erick launched a [Force Bolt] from his chest, aimed directly at Nirzir.

The Bolt vanished the second it passed within her power. The effect was too fast to see. Nirzir smirked a little, knowing that she had surprised Erick, and then she crushed that emotion off of her face. She was a reserved, proper type of girl, for sure.

Erick threw another Bolt at her.

This time he saw as the Bolt entered her aura and vanished, for lack of a better word; like a light had simply been turned off. ‘Voided’ was the proper term, but seeing it happen was different than knowing what had happened.

Nirzir asked, “Care to try a slightly larger spell?”

She was teasing; trying to be playful. She was enjoying this.

Erick was kinda enjoying this, too.

He responded with a [Force Beam] that tried to carve across the air beside her, but the beam hit her Void, and vanished, like a magician hiding a rabbit in their hat.

Nirzir giggled.

Erick said, “That’s rather much more solid than I assumed it to be.”

Nirzir paused. “Did you never try to cast spells under the Void Song while inside Eralis?”

“Nope.” Erick said, “I didn’t spend too much time inside the city proper, either. I could hear the Song everywhere I went; it was not the most comfortable thing to hear.”

“Ah. True.” Nirzir said, “I had to live outside the city for the same reasons. I cried a lot as a baby until they moved me outside Eralis.”

Poi spoke from the sidelines, “Lunch is ready.”

Erick instantly decided, “Then let us stop here, for now. You’ve given me a lot to think about, Nirzir.”

“And you as well.” Nirzir turned serious, and bowed. “I thank you for your instruction, Archmage Flatt.”

“You can call me ‘Erick’.”

Nirzir rose, looking a bit happier than before. “I shall, Erick.”

“And during lunch, we can talk about dragons and how best to find them.”

Nirzir’s purple eyes went a bit wide, but then she steeled herself, and said, “I know of several things that I am never supposed to do, or else I will draw the gaze of a dragon. But. I suppose…” She couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Now is the time to do all of those things.”