In the end, even a magical high did not last. Nathan’s magic lost its potency, and she grew bored with dancing around. Now, she couldn’t even remember what she found so attractive about the feeling.

Looking at the landscape around her, she wondered what she should do. The obvious option was to escape Patriarch Zhang’s lands like he wanted her to. Like she had decided to do less than a day ago.

But she wasn’t sure that was the right option anymore. The sect that had targeted her had only stopped because of the Patriarch interference. The Empress scared him, but the sect wasn’t scared of her. Althea wasn’t sure how that worked. Perhaps it was an age thing.

The Patriarch had presumably been active when the Empress was still roaming the Southern Continent. The sect was twenty years too young. Heck, as far as she knew, it didn’t even have a legacy of its own.

Just a bunch of rogue Adepts coming together under the Emperor to establish a force of their own. The other powers would usually have opinions, but the Grandmaster had given the Emperor two half-step Grandmasters to use as he saw fit. Opposing them was a death sentence, even to the Adepts of the Southern Continent.

That…might be why the sect wasn’t afraid. The Empress would have difficulty killing the Southern Emperor if push came to shove. That did make her wonder why the Patriarch wasn’t afraid of the Emperor, though. Perhaps he had some form of political leverage?

This was still far above her in level right now. This wasn’t somewhere a Master like her could step into. And the way her progression was going, it would be a good while before she would be an Adept. The path things did not appear to be something that could be solved easily.

At this point, she wasn’t even sure if she needed a Path to step into Adept. A Mastery was what was needed to break into Adept, not a Path. Perhaps she should focus on the former. Althea could feel the Great Mother’s mana reaching for her even as she thought about it. Not even bothering to hide her presence anymore.

“So, I presume I am doing something wrong?”

“Yes. I have taken great pains to ensure that you have a stable foundation despite advancing so quickly. If you were to breakthrough to the Adept stage without a proper path, then it would be wasted. Now if you would please go five minutes without trying to ruin my work, I have other work to do."

Not her fault, this path shit was so confusing. A month ago, she had been sure she knew how the power system worked. Now it had turned on its head. That couldn't be good for her future growth. Althea waited for the Great Mother to chime in with comments of her own. Perhaps something about how she had no idea how difficult things were?

There was no comment. The voice that insisted on sharing her head was silent. Perhaps the tree actually had other things to do. Well, good for her. Althea looked at the landscape and decided she needed more knowledge. Now that there was this intercontinental telepathic phone call she could use, that was possible.

Reaching out through the connection, she found it strange. Like a high speed zip line that went by too fast. There was a sensation of her having travelled, but she had no memory of the actual trip. As if she had experienced the zip line and was reeling from the exhilaration, but did not remember it.

Althea felt whatever thing the mother had left on the other side activate, and then returned. The feeling was the same as before, she just had a sense of something she could call upon. A thing that was distinctly other but still at the edge of her mind. A presence she instinctively knew she could call on at will.

The question, though, was it was dangerous to do so. Could the Great Mother use it to get into her mind? Then it was, for sure. But was it so? The possibility alone was enough for her to chuck it off.

Then again, it was too useful to give up. Not to mention, she was starting to doubt whether she could actually stop the Great Mother from getting into her head. Althea had thought so before, but now she was doubting her presumption.

Heck, she was doubting every single thing she thought she knew. But the panic attacks could wait till later. The fact was, there was precious little she could do against the Great Mother. That meant giving up, at least for now. The connection, though, the connection would stay.

The path shit needed resolving, and the Empress should, might, know more. Now that she thought about it, Nathan might also know how to deal with the Great Mother. As a mind mage, he knew more about this magic than her.

Althea reached out to that thing at the edge of her mind. The thing activated and she found her senses overlapping. This was not just mana sense, the sense was...overwhelming. Like it was trying to overwrite her body's senses. If Nathan had allowed it access to his senses, it probably would have.

Trying to control it, she reached out, wondering what she could do. Shove it somewhere? Deactivate it? Deactivating made keeping the connection next to useless. Even if she could reactivate it, it was a risk. This plain seemed safe, but if she were in, say, the forest, she could die.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

A beast could attack her while her senses were gone and kill her. Mana might fight back for her, but she had no idea how dependable that was. Perhaps she should test it. But that was for later. Now she had to do something about this.

Althea did the only thing she could, she approached it like her mana sense. The Great Mother did not want to cripple her, she wouldn't give her something that would harm her. Calling on it like mana, she tried to shove it into the back of her head, presuming that would make it less noticeable. What part of the human brain would actually work was lost to her. But the back part probably had less to do with senses.

The senses did not move. What did try to move was her brain. Thankfully, she put an end to it before she actually crushed her brain against itself. Not doing that again. Even if it was interesting that she could do it. How did she even-the water? The brain had water content, didn't it? And probably earth content. That could mean that she could manipulate it, though it begged the question of why she couldn't do it before.

The path? That seemed the obvious answer. But why would the path increase her flexibility? Wasn't it’s entire thing making her mana stronger? Or maybe it was more? What a path was eluded her. The thing seemed to govern her connection with mana and how much she could actually control.

Althea concentrated on the connection again, and tried to get a sense of what was going on. The sense she got from it was simple darkness. An absence of things. That, of course, should not be possible. The connection led to Nathan's brain, not space.

The only explanation she could think of was that Nathan had somehow restricted access. That was...logical. If an unknown entity left something in her mind, she would do that too. No, wait, she would just destroy it. The world could stay out of her head.

Now, how did you get someone to open a cage from the inside? Knock until they come to see what was going on of course. Althea smiled as she began to send jolts of mana out. This would be nice revenge for Nathan causing her a headache.

Two jolts later, he responded. The revenge was incomplete. The sense poked whatever thing was there in his brain, and she felt it. Not painful, but quite attention grabbing.

'Hello?' she asked.

Nathan's suspicion was prominent enough that she felt it through her connection. Hmm, she could not hear his thoughts but could feel his emotions. Were emotions easier to transmit or something?

'No, your grace, you are simply more attuned to them thanks to your element. I cannot feel your emotions, but I can hear your thoughts.'

Wait, what? That was new too.

'Not quite, this is an established fact. Mind magic is not like other magics, the amount of mana involved is so little that strong affinities for an element can have a strong effect. The connection restricts information flow by simply lowering the mana flowing through it until it cannot transmit. But our affinities are such that we can receive emotions and thoughts even though the other person does not want it to pass.'

So, it might not be possible to shut it off.

'Not unless we shut the connection entirely. I do not know enough about the connection to even attempt it. How Pulsie's hivemind works is largely unknown to me. I have been trying to figure it out, though.'

'Pulsie's hivemind?' Althea asked, curious, before realizing she was getting ahead of herself. 'Wait, I have a problem with the connection. The thing is conflicting with my senses. Limiting it isn't working.'

Nathan's frown was something she felt through their connection. 'If I may enter your mind, your grace?"

Althea nodded, then realized she actually had to think about it. Nathan could only read her thoughts. This was strange. A normal telepathic connection was empathic and telepathic. This, she had assumed, was because emotions were easier to pass through a connection. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

'Yes' Mind mana surged through the connection as he emerged in her mind. 'I see. The overlay is confusing your brain. An average human mind is made to have only one sense. Having two senses of sight is making it unsure what to do.

Althea sensed relief from him, which confused her even more. Why would he be relieved? This sounded problematic to her.

'Just save it in the construct on my side. The issue is that you are receiving pure sensory information. Saving it in the construct should turn it into mind mana instead. That will allow you to use your mana sense as a buffer. Hmm, I think I can do this..."

Mind mana surged in her mind as she tried to observe what was happening. Nathan hadn't been lying about mind mana using tiny amounts of mana. Althea hadn't used this little mana in her life. Even lighting a candle took more mana. The way Nathan used mana reminded her of what movies portrayed brain surgery as.

What was he building? Althea sensed at it, trying to get his intention. Reading minds might not be within her powers, but reading emotions might be. Nathan's words had made her wonder if this was what Emotion mana could do.

What she got was confusing. The feelings of focus, worry, and interest combined in there. But it was still not clear. Althea thought about pushing further, but she was worried it would hurt the construct. The building took little time, but she could feel Nathan's exhaustion by the end of it. How strange. A similarly sized construct in any of her mana's would have not been worth a mention. But here Nathan was exhausted by one.

Was Nathan just easily tired, or was there more to it? The latter seemed likely.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A selective. This should alter the way you receive information from the connection. Just an additional processing station for the Great Mother's construct, but it should allow you to control what passes. I can no longer hear your thoughts, for instance. Now, I must leave. The Diery council is out for blood again. If you wish to contact me, just poke the construct. As long as you use less mana than the construct uses, it should hold.'

Althea reached out to him before he could leave. The wave of mana that swept through her mind at her prompting nearly destroyed the delicate construct. Thankfully, she was able to rein it in before it was destroyed, but it did tell her that the construct was probably less than practical for her.

Nathan didn't say anything, but his emotion came through anyway, fainter than before but there. Althea looked at the construct and saw mana dispersing through it, the structure wounded just by being the center of her attention.

"I- not right now. I have to deal with this meeting."

Althea began replying, and then paused. A meeting. That did sound important. And she wanted to see what had happened in the county while she was away. Smiling, she sent her consciousness through, eager to see what awaited her on the other side.