Gasping awake from my fitful sleep I sat up heaving for air in the dark, hunched over and clutching at my chest. This was the third time I found myself sitting on the cold stone floor after the nightmares had woken me up. The image of those menacing orange eyes stalking me through the shadowy trees just wouldn’t leave me alone.

I tried to take deep breaths to calm down but it didn’t seem to be working as well as it had earlier. I caught my breath eventually, but it still felt like there was a weight on my chest. Once I had managed to slow my racing pulse as well, I decided that I might as well get up and get my day started since I wasn’t likely to be getting any more sleep.

Walking over to the door and stretching out my senses, I scanned the surrounding area before gently sliding the stone rod into the wall. I pulled the door open just enough to peek through and looked around again. A small sigh escaped my lips when I found there were no orange eyes in sight.

The sky was still dark, though the black was fading into greys and blues even as I watched. Pulling the door open and stepping out, I was greeted with a light breeze running along the cliff face. A shiver ran through me and I realized I was slick with cold sweat from head to toe. I also realized that it had immediately become much easier to breath once I stepped outside.

Before I did anything else, I sent a quick burst of healing from my flesh sorcery to refresh my tired mind and ease my sore back from sleeping on the stone floor. Feeling much better I focused my attention on sensing the air both inside my room and out. Curiously, the air inside felt off to me, like there was something wrong or bad about it. I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination but it also felt like it was slightly heavier.

I didn’t know why it felt wrong or how it got that way, but I didn’t want to leave it to get worse. I reached out to both the air around me and inside the room and pushed it, cycling the bad air out and fresh air in. Once that was done, I went inside and created vents in the ceiling, thin but wide cracks that led out to the front of the cliff face. I ensured that I could feel fresh air flowing in from outside before checking the cliff to see if they were noticeable.

By the time I was done the sky had lightened to shades of blue and I could tell the sun would soon join me too. I walked along the cliff to the waterfall and then through the clearing to the river. I took a stop for a quick drink before I crossed the river, taking the time to wash off the sweat on my way. From there it was a quick walk to the crystal berry bush where I once again saw the cute red fox.

It spun around in one quick hop to face me while I was walking up and we both froze. I took in its crouched posture and stiff tail and, remembering our first meeting, tilted my head to the side, watching for its response. It seemed slightly confused at first before tilting its head in response. I could immediately see it relax a bit as the tension in its body eased and its tail started to sway.

“I don’t know if you can understand me but I don’t want to fight, I just came to eat some berries,” I said before pointing to the bush and then to my mouth as I made chewing motions.

I didn’t know if it understood me but I started to take very slow steps towards the bush, aiming to keep my distance and walk around the fox. It jumped back a little bit at my first step, but proceeded to keep a wary eye on me from a now slightly further position.

Though I kept my eyes on the little fox as well, I also made sure to pay attention to my magic senses. I did not want to get pounced on from behind again. Just thinking about that night caused a shiver to run down my spine and sweat to bead on my palms.

Shaking those thoughts from my head I found that I had arrived at the bush. I knelt down in the dirt and popped a berry into my mouth, savouring the soothing rush that spread out from my tongue. I reached out for another one and noticed that the fox and I sure had eaten a lot of them. A visible amount of the bush had already lost its berries to the two of us and any other visitors I was unaware of.

Gazing absentmindedly at the berry in my palm I was struck by a great idea and, glancing at the fox who was still watching me curiously, I thought I could test it here to thank the fox.

With that in mind I shuffled over to the left a little bit and shifted away some dirt to create a small hole. I focused on the berry with my flesh sorcery and explored it with my senses as I thought about what I wanted to do. Once I felt like I had a good enough understanding, I pushed energy into the berry and coaxed it to grow.

My flesh sorcery felt much different to use than my others, like air or earth, since living things are very complicated and require careful manipulation so as not to hurt them. Not only are they complicated, but they also have their own will that often resists my efforts. When I use it on myself it’s easy since I’m not resisting it, but, like when I used it to shape a hole in the tree, other living things would give me trouble.

Luckily the will of the new berry bush I was growing was still practically nonexistent. It was taking a lot of energy to grow and I found it a bit tricky to work with since flesh sorcery typically needed physical contact to work, though it was possible to work from a short distance in this case due to its lack of will.

Once I had it started, I put the sprout in the hole and filled it with dirt while continuing to force its growth. Though once it had grown to about knee height I had to stop to gather more mana. Constantly stopping to pull in mana was becoming an annoyance and had even nearly gotten me killed, so I decided I needed to do something about it. My ultimate goal would be to be able to pull in mana while using other sorceries, but I would have to take it one step at a time to lessen the focus needed.

For now, I would work on staying aware of my surroundings as I worked. It was tricky at first and I had to shut my eyes to start gathering again when I lost focus, but by the time my mana pool was half full I could largely keep aware of my surroundings.

The fox was still watching me curiously, sitting not too far away and sending glances towards the partially grown second bush. I couldn’t help but admire its beauty now that I had the time to view it up close. The fur looked so soft and fluffy that I could hardly restrain the urge to touch it, especially its huge bushy tail. And the cute way its little nose and fluffy ears would occasionally twitch was killing me.

Since I was practicing splitting my attention, I figured that some movement was the next step. So I slowly reached over to the gently chiming bush and snagged a plump looking berry. I then had to stop and focus on mana gathering again since my concentration had slipped.

Slowly splitting my attention, I opened my eyes again and turned towards the fox. Very slowly, both to not startle the fox and to keep my concentration, I tossed the berry towards where the fox was sitting. As soon as I did, the fox sprung up out of its seat and back, away from the crystalline turquoise orb.

Seeing it land in position to leap at the berry and its face showing laser focus, I couldn’t help but chuckle. It looked so cute! Especially when it slunk closer and bumped it with its nose before giving it a tentative lick. The lick seemed to be its last test as it swiftly snatched the berry up, looking very pleased with itself as it raised its head high and chewed.

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Aaaaand I lost focus again. This was harder than I thought it would be. Luckily my mana pool was just about filled so I could continue growing the berry bush.

I left my hand on the base as I continued to grow the bush and found that it made for a beautiful view. The branches were a darker green than the leaves but still retained their semi transparent nature. Under the sun it seemed to glow as it grew bigger and bigger, sprouting leaves that were accompanied by a sweet tinkling sound.

Finally, as I was nearing the end of my mana pool it seemed to reach its full growth. I used the last of my mana to encourage the growth of some berries and sat back to appreciate a job well done. And it seemed like I wasn’t the only one appreciating it.

The fox bounded over to the new bush and immediately started to sniff and inspect it. It crawled underneath and I could hear its little yips and whines as I watched the fluffy red tail poking out behind it shake about. I swear it sounded like he was laughing as well. It seems like he was enjoying having a second crystal berry bush around.

I plucked some more berries and alternated between eating them and gently tossing them under the second bush for the enthusiastic fox to enjoy. As much as I was enjoying this interaction with something that didn’t want to kill me, the sun had been up for a while now and I really should be getting on with my day.

So I stood up and grabbed a few more berries to plant in my clearing, tossing one last one over to the furry little head poking out from under the bush, before walking off towards the river. I kept the berries above the water as I trudged across and gave a last little wave to the adorable fox watching me go before I turned and headed to my clearing.

It took a bit of time to find a good spot for the crystal berry bushes as well as to get them all planted and grown. In the end I had eight bushes lined up near the river that would soon provide me with a source of delicious berries.

The sun was high up in the sky when I finished with my impromptu gardening and I finally remembered that I had planned to explore my magic today. Though it wasn’t planned, I had gotten some good practice with my flesh sorcery and multitasking with mana sorcery earlier, so it wasn’t like it was a waste.

I gave some thought to whether I should practice with earth or air first and eventually settled on earth. I had used it for a variety of things already, including to construct my base and fight against the beast. I hadn’t had any problems with using it for construction yet, but my performance with it during my fight had been lackluster to say the least.

I hadn’t been able to throw up any defences other than dirt walls that were torn through like they were nothing, and the rock I conjured and launched had been largely ignored and only served to anger my target. I knew I could do better though. I had to, or else the next time I ran into trouble might be my last.

“Okay, first how can I improve my defense?” I mumbled to myself as I cupped my chin and thought.

The most straightforward solution was to use stone walls instead of dirt, but there were a few downsides. The first was that I didn’t need to spend a lot of mana for the dirt walls since I could just pull them up from the ground, whereas stone is typically too deep for me to easily reach and pull up to the surface. I could do it, but it would take more time and that might not be something I have available.

The second downside if I decided to conjure the wall instead of just moving available material is the mana cost. The cost for conjuring depends both on the material itself as well as how much of it I am summoning. So conjuring a wall of stone would cost more than a wall of dirt and both are more expensive than just pulling up a wall of dirt from the ground. The upside is that conjuring a stone wall would likely be just as fast as pulling up the dirt one.

In fact, I should probably try testing these options out so I could get a proper feel for them. So I did just that, summoning and pulling up different walls all over the clearing to get familiar with how each felt and worked. I tried different sizes for both conjuring and pulling and got a feel for how much mana each took as well as how long it took to make. I had to take a lot of breaks to refill my mana, but they gave me a chance to practice my multitasking so I tried to move around more and more as I continued to improve.

By the time I felt like I had a good enough feel for the different wall options I had available the clearing was looking like a mess. There were walls scattered all over the place covering the clearing in a mix of brown dirt and dark grey stone.

I figured I should get started on cleaning them up when I had the thought that they may be useful to practice some offensive earth sorcery on.

Summoning a chunk of stone similar in size to the one I threw at the beast I launched it at one of the dirt walls. And while the stone did manage to break through the wall, it tumbled weakly to the ground on the other side and didn’t seem like it had been all that strong. I tried it again, but this time it was against one of the dirt walls I had pulled up later that I tried condensing to harden it. The result was both disappointing and exciting as the stone barely managed to take a chunk out of the front.

I continued to work on my stone launching, changing the size and shape of the stone and even utilizing stones from the ground. I tried to increase the power behind the launch in different ways and was met with some minor improvements.

I had a major breakthrough at one point when the stone I launched shattered against the wall. I then tried launching one of the pieces at one of the sturdier dirt walls and found that it pierced straight through. I could only stare in shock, mouth hanging open, as I hadn’t managed anything like it before.

I quickly chased after the stone shard I used and found that it tapered to a thin point that must have enabled it to pierce through the wall, just like how sharp teeth punched through skin. From then on I had two types of projectiles that I practiced with, heavy blunt ones that broke apart chunks of the walls and light sharp ones that pierced through them.

I had spent a lot more time than I initially thought I would on experimenting and practicing with my earth sorcery and the sun was starting to get low in the sky. I spent some time walking around the clearing and cleaning up the mess I had made, one that had only gotten worse since I started practicing against the walls. There were clods of dirt and chunks of stone scattered all over the place and some of the walls had even collapsed into piles of debris.

It took longer than I expected to banish and mold the clearing back to a clean state but I didn’t want to leave it a mess. By the time I went down to the river to wash off the dirt and dust the sky was already painted in the bright colors of the setting sun.

The cool water felt amazing as I sunk into it and I realized just how tired I had gotten from my practice. My ability to move around while gathering mana had advanced quite well and I had ended up walking and sometimes even jogging around the clearing to push myself further. I hadn’t done this much physical work before and my muscles were making sure I knew it. Combined with the mental fatigue from using magic all day and I was more than ready to go to sleep.

Finishing up my soak I sent some healing to soothe my sore muscles and walked back into the clearing before my stomach made its displeasure known with a loud grumble. Not wanting to walk down the river to the crystal berry bush, I went to one of my newly grown bushes and pushed it to grow some berries.

I pulled mana in while I ate and enjoyed the beautiful dance of lights that was once again taking place over the pool. I was still amazed that the plants that looked so simple during the day could turn into such a wonder after the sun had set. The night was beautiful and the clear sky shone with twinkling stars. I could only see one of the moons, the silver one with faint blue and purple swirls, but it still made for a wonderful view.

Though it was beautiful, I didn’t stay too long and kept vigilant on my way home in case I was ambushed again. I didn’t think I was ready to face that beast again as it had merely been toying with me before. One day of practice wasn’t likely to change the outcome of that fight in my favor.

I was soon in the safety of my room and sliding the stone rod across the door. As I walked over to the corner I realized that I hadn’t done anything about sleeping on the stone floor and told myself to remember for tomorrow. I would just have to deal with it for another night.

As I stared up into the dark I reflected. Today had been a good day and I couldn’t hold back my smile as I thought of the little red fox. I hoped I could see it again soon. I was also looking forward to exploring more of my magic tomorrow, since it had been surprisingly fun to practice my earth sorcery. I would have to practice with air next.