Mana churned around her as she shot a lance of fire out, burning a hole into the target. The hole then expanded to cover the entire target, turning it into a molten rock as she winced.

"I give up." Sidhali said. "This is hopeless."

"Come on, we've only been at it for a week."

"And we'll still be at it next year." Sidhali quipped back.

"The problem-" she continued before Althea could answer. "Is that mana just does not work the same for you. If you throw a rock, it grows in the air. The fire you shoot lasts longer than should be possible. The air attacks you use just run away from you. And I don't even wanna get started with water. "

"I told you, I am friends with some of those."

"Yes, that is why your water comes out boiling hot. I don't know how you drink that."

"I just cooled it down."

"Another thing you shouldn't be able to do, but do anyway. Perhaps you should try cooling someone's blood next time, it might work."

Althea sighed. "I tried that, it just kills them. I can see through the barrier, but whenever I try to see through, it kills em."

Sidhali rolled her eyes. "Of course you did. Do you get any sleep at all?"

"No?" Althea answered hesitantly. The answer was true, but still seemed wrong somehow. Sidhali's expression seemed to say that she agreed with her.

"I don't even know what to say to you. A Master still needs sleep, but you clearly don't."

Althea gave her a sad smile and a shrug. "Thank you for trying?"

Sidhali scoffed. "Thank me when I do something that actually helps you."

"I learned a lot!" she protested. Yes, she had. Even though she couldn't properly restrict her mana yet, her aim was much, much better. And she was quicker with her reactions, too. Sidhali was a good teacher.

"Not enough to take off that dress of yours."

"I told you it helps!"

"Yes, helps injure you." Sidhali answered matter-of-factly. Althea thought she was just a bit scared of hitting it. The jeweled dress apparently crushed your bones if you hit it hard enough. Like a wall. Sidhali thought the wall would eventually injure her.

"I told you, I have mana inside it, it will keep me safe. The dress is harder than your shields."

"So said the person whose mana acts on her own. And my shields are made of scrap iron, "

Althea pursed her lips, wondering why everyone in the Southern Continent was so snarky. At least she had collected a lot of good information with Sidhali's help.

As it turned out, she was the person with the lowest affinity for a manual in the village. The only person that came close had fifty-one meridians, less than half of what she had. That was after failing to cultivate it thrice.

Althea had a hunch that the number of meridians one could build was also related to one's talent for mana. That could explain why she was able to cultivate the manual in one go despite her low affinity. The theory was also supported by the fact that her meridians had way more mana than normal. Adita and Gramma put together did not have that much mana.

If that was the kind of talent and excess mana needed for someone to make a hundred meridians, then no wonder there were so few hanging around. There might not be anyone else in the world that was able to do it. The burning tree's words about how she would not be able to use the Druid path to breakthrough suddenly made way more sense.

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That was also something she had come to a conclusion about. The manuals clearly represented paths, and the path was what lent power to mana. The stronger your path, the stronger your mana. Finding her own path suddenly seemed way more important.

Now, if only she knew what a path actually was. Althea could only go with guesses like 'a way to use magic' 'something profound'. At least she wasn't going to be waiting around for much longer. The man that had gone to the black market had just entered the range of her mana senses.

Sidhali had called her mana 'a collection of contradictions.' If she was to be believed, the average person could not sense something as fine as natural mana vibrations, but a normal person was able to target just a pebble. Even an apprentice could do it.

That disproved the popular theory that mana sense was related to the manuals. There was still clearly a relation with affinities, but manuals didn't have anything to do with it. If it had, then even that would suffer from the 'giant hand' phenomenon as Sidhali called it.

The phenomenon where Althea's mana work was like using a giant's hands to pick stuff up. The smallest she could do was a boulder these days. That in itself was strange, she could have sworn she could push around smaller things before. But not anymore. The phenomenon had apparently gotten stronger.

Althea could only point to her breakthrough to the Master stage. Thinking of it, she hadn't done a single smaller spell since she broke through, there was no need to. The larger spells had way more boom anyway.

"Do you wish to accompany me to pick your man up?" she asked.

Sidhali raised an eyebrow. "I hope you meant one of my subordinates, cause I am not interested in romance. At all. No, I am not open to persuasion and if Gramma put you up to this, tell her to fuck off."

Althea sighed, she was reading way too much into this. "For someone not interested in romance, you sure pick up on a number of double meanings."

"That's called not being a prude." Sidhali said, floating next to her. Althea added a second wind to her, rushing to the man.

"Are you related to Aasha by any chance? I think you are quite similar."

"Oh? Are you annoyed with me already? Or maybe the training was too much for your grace?"

Althea rolled her eyes. The physical training, which she had asked for, was grueling. But it wasn't something she was going to get annoyed over. That would be impolite, and she was not an impolite person. As long as you ignored certain examples, that did not matter.

The two of them burst through the canopy, Althea burning the branches away as they approached the rather scared looking man.

The trees burnt to a crisp behind her as she said, "What did you find out?"

"Wha-I-"

"Take a deep breath, miss noble, here is just a bit…" Sidhalli paused, a thoughtful expression taking over her face. "What was that word again?"

"In a hurry to kill some thieves before the information gets old?" Althea replied dryly.

"No, not that. That's the polite version. Yes, bloodthirsty! That's the one." she said.

"I am not bloodthirsty." she protested.

Sidhali looked at the new clearing in the forest.

"That is not my doing." she protested, weakly. The fire did not usually burn this much. Did she have some sort of feud with trees? Perhaps one she did not know about? Why was her fire going out of control?

Sidhali shrugged, turning to the man. "Come on, tell the bloodthirsty maiden where her prey is. Wait, you did get the information?"

Althea's attention suddenly shifted to the man, focusing on him as she tried to guess if he had actually gotten the info.

The clothes he was wearing were slightly torn. The backpack he had left with was missing. The poor guy even looked haggard. There were signs of him getting his hands on something that someone else didn't want him to have. Now, was there some information about Meghdrishyum?

"I-yes. The Meghdrishyum are in the Kala-pilas. The third mountain."

Althea shot up into the sky, and then went back down just as quickly. "Where are the Kala-pilas?"

"A bit south of the black market, you'll know it when you see it. The black mountains are a hub for smaller bandit gangs. Don't go into the yellow ones, those are deadly."

So the gang was hiding in some black mountains? Ok fine.

Althea rose up, and then went back down again.

"I am sorry, I just really want to get the staff back and end this."

"Yes, yes, I understand. I am sure Gramma will be happy you're finally leaving. Don't want some city lord to coming looking for you." Sidhali said. "Remember what I said, ok?"

Althea nodded, rushing off for real this time. Speeding as fast she could, she reached the black and yellow mountains in five hours. The journey was surprisingly long, and way more south than she had expected. At some point she had gotten scared that there would be an Adept monster hanging around ready to eat her. But she was lucky, there wasn't.

The south had far less mana than the northern parts of the continent, especially as the rivers were largely drained of the sacrificial mana by the time they got south. That might be why she was able to travel safely. Althea had to remind herself that she couldn't do the same while traveling north, even if it would be convenient.

If anything, the humans would head over and capture her for profit. That might be one way to get home, but it was embarrassing and costly. And not something she really wanted to do.

Althea had reassessed, she did not want to be a reactive person. Spending some time on the back step had shown her how depressing it could be. Now, it was time for her to go get the staff back.

The first question was, which third mountain. The mountains alternated between yellow and black, meaning it could either be the third black mountain, or the third overall. Althea decided to check both out, she didn't even have to head over after all.

The mana sense would do the sensing for her. There were groups of humans on both the mountains, with camps and hoards, that told her that they were bandits. Or just people that liked to make large buried piles of treasures.

The staff, however, was in the third black mountain. With a gang that was considerably bigger than Gramma’s village in sheer numbers, though not necessarily stronger. Sidhali ran a pretty tight ship. The village hunters were skilled.

So skilled that she had offered every one of them a place in the Diery army. Even if they brought the entire village with them. There was plenty of space in the Diery county. And more Masters weren't a bad thing. There was even a manual that they could cultivate. For free!

Turning her attention back to the matter at hand, she went over her plan. Sidhali might not have known about this gang, but she knew how gangs like this operated.

'There will be a lot of them. More than a few of them will be more powerful than you. I would say your best bet would be to rush in and take the staff before they can react. There is no chance they will miss you coming at them, but there is a chance they won't be able to react quickly enough to catch you.'

Althea was going to take that advice to heart. That was why she was rushing at the mountain at her max speed while setting fire to anything she could. Fire was a good distraction. Just set fire on people and they will have to deal with it.

Charging right onto the ground where the treasures were buried, she called on her mana to open it. And failed. The earth shook and began to separate, but it was slow, excruciatingly slow. Althea understood why the thieves had taken to burying their stuff here.

The ground was resistant to mana. And that meant she couldn't just take stuff quickly, it would take far too long. The bandits were already reacting.

Plan A had failed. Now, it was time for Plan B. Althea liked Plan B, it involved a lot of fighting.