Robert wasted no time jumping into his Ethercosm. His star had grown a little but the most remarkable change was that the black splotch was bigger. Way bigger. He looked at the shells of his abilities and noticed a black one.

"That's new," he mumbled.

Floating his viewpoint closer he realized what it was. The shell was incomplete and very weak but it was an ability. Void Punch. A close combat ability that disintegrated a little bit of matter to generate an explosion. Robert could still feel the pain of the splinters that showered his face. If at the bare bones level it could do that, what...

No. Most likely, the first involuntary use of the spell supercharged it. It was the culmination of his feelings overtaking the control of his essence and then what was left coalesced into this incomplete shell. Robert was sure he couldn't replicate the feat. And unless he got a strong enough healing spell, he wouldn't. The consequences could be disastrous.

Leaving the strange Void shell behind, Robert dove into the dragon's maw.

*

*

"Hot dog!" Mickey shouted in joy. "I love fresh Void. Makes me happy! Welcome to the closet to the true Void a living human ever got!"

Robert had gone to the Netherecho while inside the liminal void but this was something else. The place was pitch black and no vestiges or remnants prowled the nothingness. But the pitch-black darkness felt like a thin curtain, ready to be pulled aside and reveal what was beyond the Void. And what he sensed made him frightened. He could feel a slight pull toward those curtains.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Aw, gee! To help you!" Mickey squealed. "Can't you see them? Gather the void wisps, Robert! It's an all-you-can-harvest buffet!"

He inhaled deeply. The way Mickey Mouse was goading him into harvesting wisps was very unsettling. Wisps weren't alive, but...

"Why can't I harvest them by meditating?"

"Oh, boy! Isn’t this swell? You can't reach this deep into the Void through meditation alone!" Was the mouse's answer.

Robert then set himself to gather the wisps. Float there, crush one. Float back, get two. He went on and on, the amount of Void wisps never dwindling. They couldn't be found by sight as they blended into the nothingness but his affinity allowed him to sense where they were easily.

That's enough," Mickey said after some time. "You need to keep a healthy balance between your three Affinities, Robert. You should use the rest of your time here to learn what's in those scrolls you bought. You're gonna need all the magic you can get! But remember, the biggest magic of them all is already inside of you!"

Mickey pushed Robert away and he found himself spat out of the dragon's mouth and back to his Ethercosm.

*

*

The black patch of his star had grown considerably, it was slightly bigger than his other three Affinities even. The incomplete frame for Void Punch baffled him. He couldn't understand how to start fixing it. His knowledge of the Void affinity was non-existent. The best he could do was to leave it alone as it was, not use it, and try to find some guidance on what to do about that. Not even the ATA could give him learning materials on the Void. Or perhaps they were unable or unwilling to hand it out. Nevertheless, the Void was dangerous.

Satisfied, he went back to his makeshift home in the Liminal Void and started learning his spells.

Diagnosis was a touch spell. He would inject his Life essence into a willing subject, and get a reading of what ailments afflicted that person. The emphasis on a willing subject was punctuated throughout the scroll. The faintest resistance would cause the spell to fail. Though unconscious targets could not resist.

Life Ward created an invisible barrier that lasted as long as it had the essence to run. It would send a mental image of any living thing that crossed it back to the caster. Wisps weren't living but remnants and vestiges were. He could set it in either the physical world or the Netherecho. Or the Liminal Void, as he tested it. The size and shape of the barrier changed the cost greatly. A dome or sphere was more expensive than a flat wall. The cost scaled with the area of the ward.

Life Sense worked quite like Life Ward but it emitted a detection pulse centered on the caster. Seconds later, it would report the location of every living creature above a certain energy threshold back to Robert. He could control the range by investing varying amounts of essence. This scroll went into some known evolutions, like the ability to turn the pulse into a constant sensor, or how it could add a higher threshold when looking for a specific range of lifeforms, like limiting it to only one-star Archhumans, or some monster species.

Alleviate Pain numbed the nerves of a willing subject's body part. It was the same limitation shared by medical spells such as Diagnosis. The spell had built-in safeguards to keep it from being used on the head or heart of humans. The duration was mere minutes but the cost was minimal.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Healing Hands was the big sister of Mending Pulse. It provided Lesser Healing, one category above Minimal. It closed wounds but the regrown tissue was tender and weak. It would break under strenuous exercise such as combat. But the recovery time for those injuries was reduced from "months or weeks" to "days or hours". Evolving this ability could improve the healing quality drastically or allow it to treat several injuries at once.

He felt angry that the appearance of the Blood-affinity Arch cut his shopping session short. He looked at the stack of Ether scrolls and saw only one left. The Lavi Flows tempering technique. He took the scroll and read it, imprinting the shell into his Ethercosm. Then he started to use the technique, feeling the energy flow around him.

It was rejuvenating, like taking a bath in a sauna while receiving a massage. It eased the swelling in his left hand (from using Vitae Infusion on it) and even lessened the severity of his face injuries slightly. Robert felt like he could use this technique forever. He sank into a deeper trance. So absorbed he was with the tempering that he lost track of time and was booted out into the real world.

A massive headache slammed into Robert as he was suddenly and brutally shunted across the dimensions. With a wheeze, he crashed on the park grass, writing and bleeding from dozens of splinter wounds on his face. Lavi Flows might have reduced the damage but it was only slightly.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu*****************'

*

*

Robert used the last of his essence plugging his bleeding wounds with Healing Hands. It kept him from bleeding out until his face was as red as a Scottish berserker. The regrown skin over the wounds was tender and very sensitive. He used Diagnosis on himself and then slapped his forehead. He could've used Alleviate Pain... except no. It wouldn't work on the head and the face was part of it. He found himself very low on essence. He sat down and started to meditate on Life, using his mental energy to drag the peppy little gold-and-green wisps to himself. As the energy of the wisps replenished his essence, he focused on growing his star.

He could now call himself a novice healer.

Once he felt no more wisps around his collection range, he ducked back into the liminal void.

Mickey was there to greet him. "Say, you want to come inside my clubhouse? Well, Aww-right!"

Robert stared at his makeshift dwelling, the bedsheet walls suspended in time. Then he glared at Mickey.

"To make the clubhouse apparent, we—"

He cut the mouse off. "—have to say the magic words."

But Robert could pick up something wrong in Mickey's behavior. It felt forced, mechanical, rehearsed.

"You got that!" Mickey cheered.

"You don't need to force yourself," Robert said, then remembered something he wanted to ask. "When I am not in the Liminal void, can you move around?" He couldn't even tell if Mickey was in the same spot as when he left because they were in the Netherecho when he was shunted out of the void.

"Time here has no meaning. Speed up, go forward, it doesn't matter, though backward is a wee bit difficult."

And by "a wee bit difficult", Robert understood it as nigh impossible.

"Look, if you need my help, just ask. If it is within my abilities..."

"I know!" Mickey raised a finger in the 'I have an idea' pose. "You could write a short story about me!"

Robert gulped. All this tension with the Kraven clan, running around, running away, settling up, forging a new life, it was all to distract him from his most crushing defeat. Robert was unable to write.

"Look, Mickey..."

Mickey approached and reached up to put a hand on Robert's shoulder. The cartoon was only four feet tall and that was already counting the humongous black disks of his ears. "I know, I know. Robert, believe me. I know. Getting out there and showing a piece of your heart on the stage is hard. Golly, I spent a century doing exactly that, being forced by my captors to perform this or that way. I feel guilty that I'm complaining. It was all the love and care of the children that granted me this form when the rifts opened. It was the day of my birth, actually."

Robert nodded. He said nothing least he interrupted Mickey.

"But I had memories from way before the Earth became Awakened, you know?" Mickey Whistled the 'Steamboat Willy' tune to prove it. "Oh. Golly, it can't be this easy! I just had an Ay-mazing idea!"

"What?"

"You bought a notebook and a pencil, right?"

He did. They were sitting out in the open on a desk he scavenged.

"Why don't you write a short story in the notebook? Nobody will ever read it. Not even me. There are no stakes, no danger!"

His frustration turned to anger at the drop of a coin. How dare this cartoon refugee— Robert stopped and reined in that impulse. Why was he angry at someone who was just trying to help? Mickey had no ulterior motives, right?

"I'll give it some consideration," he replied. But he was still trying to figure out why he became so pissed all of a sudden. "But I don't feel like I even deserve to call myself a writer. I gave up the Prime Vestige my parents picked for me."

"That Golden Bard you mentioned?"

"Yes, that one."

"Oh, boy. Robert, that thing would be useless for someone like you!"

The statement shocked Robert as much as if Mickey had slapped him in the face. "What?"

"You don't need an Archhuman power to create and write. You have all the magic you need already inside yourself. That power would be wasted on you. Hear me out, big boy! Yes, that power would give you the perfect word choice at every corner, but do you think it would give you the courage to get out there and publish a book? No! With your talents, you can find those perfect words on your own. The power you received is much better suited to you."

"The 1% Life's Real?"

"Yeah. Golly, what a silly name! Why not call it ninety-nine times longevity extension, void sanctuary, live rent-free forever, or any other name? Why focus on the allegedly detrimental part? That's so sad! Hey, look! A Time wisp. Quickly, get it!" Robert stared in the direction Mickey was pointing but saw nothing. "Meditate, pal!"

Robert dropped to the ground and focused on the Time affinity. Surely enough, he sensed a singular wisp and dragged it to himself. Once it was absorbed into his star, he stood up again.

"Why would a Time wisp appear?" He asked.

"It only happens when someone enters or leaves this dimension," Mickey said. "You can't see or catch the ones you create when you do, though. They appear far away, as ripples on the serene surface of Void. I mean, if the void was a lake. Which it isn't. Oh, gee. Here I am, rambling."

Robert noticed the cartoon mouse fidgeting, obviously nervous or anxious. "What's wrong, buddy?"

"I fear the ones who created this ripple were my former captors. You see, their vault is so bottomless it connects to this dimension. It was how I managed to escape."

"Are they searching for you?"

"Most likely not. Few can act on this timeless dimension, Robert. Most who stumble into this place get frozen in time like those stained bedsheets over there."

"But then, how?"

"One of my colleagues must've been thoroughly forgotten and cast here. I don't know the details, though. But that vault..."

Mickey's fidgeting intensified. Robert approached and put a hand on Mickey's shoulder. It was soft smooth as ink but not wet at all. "What is wrong? Won't you tell me?"

The mouse's big eyes focused on Robert. "Minnie and Oswald. They are still held by them. They have my friends, Robert. And here I am, a free coward. I can't go back."