"What did you just do?" Keith asked.

"Shuffled the deck," Nathan held up the deck of cards.

"You're not even paying attention to what I'm saying," Keith shook his head.

"We're playing Go Fish."

"We're not playing Go Fish," Keith rolled his eyes. "We're playing Gin Rummy. And yes, Nathan, we can ignore the points."

"Good," Nathan said.

He had a hard time keeping track of points with the cards, especially once something that wasn't a number card came up.

"Nathan, what were you doing while I was talking?"

"Shuffling the cards."

"And?"

"Tuning you out."

"And?"

"Realizing I could turn off Charisma's effects."

Keith snorted. He had noticed the sudden change in its effect on Nathan and got confused, and then realized that Nathan's eyes had taken on the look they always did whenever he was tuning out the psychic, which told him the demigod had begun focusing on either random or personal thoughts or on something with the System.

He decided to give up on talking about what he was trying to talk with Nathan about and focus on the game, which became difficult as the demigod turned Charisma's effects on and off.

"I know you found a new toy, Nathan," Keith finally gave up after a few games. "But could you please stop turning it off and on?"

Nathan turned it back off, satisfied that he had gotten Keith to react.

They played a few more games, then Keith went to the kitchen to cook as Nathan moved back to their work area, where he began examining the enchantments he and Keith had been working on. Eating Keith's cooking was supposed to be a test for him, one the demigod wasn't a fan of.

He'd rather make food he knew would taste good, rather than eat food he knew would be awful. It wasn't that Keith was a bad cook, it was that Keith was intentionally making food he knew Nathan would rate as a one.

According to Keith, it would help the demigod learn to refrain from insulting and bitching about the bad quality of food once they left the game.

So the demigod decided to focus on the orb enchanting instead of the torture he knew he would soon be greeted with. That particular orb was meant to filter air in a space around it. Due to the properties it held of pushing air, that meant that if the orb were placed somewhere with contaminated air, such air would continue to enter into its range.

The contamination would lessen as the air became more and more refined, but that meant the orb was doing its job. That also meant, unfortunately, that it could take a long time just to purify a single room of bad air, as it would receive less of the contamination to magically purify the more it worked.

Keith had come up with the idea for the orb after Nathan accidentally solved the issue of mana generation. One of the main issues with the world the governments used to harvest materials was the air. It was full of stuff that would kill humans just by coming into contact with, so thick suits were needed, as well as enchanted gear.

Even then, the air would erode at it, which limited their time present. Having an actual building there was difficult for similar reasons.

But if they set up a bunch of the purification orbs, once a space became much lighter in the toxins, or even completely rid of them, then they could set up a facility. According to Keith, they would have to triple the amount of orbs needed to cover the space, and likely include them on top of the facility, but that wouldn't be a problem once they finished solving the issues they were currently having.

That wasn't Nathan's concern, however. He wanted to figure out how to make it produce air on its own, just like he had figured out how to make one produce mana on its own.

Though Keith had doubted Nathan's ability to do that, he had given Nathan the formula for what would be necessary for a human to breathe, what the typical ratio of gases in the air was, when stripped of most of its pollutants.

Nathan snorted. They could use their purification orbs to start purifying Earth's atmosphere, and their main thought had been for another world. He supposed that both of them had been thinking of how to make money with the orbs over saving Earth's atmosphere.

"Keith," Nathan said as the psychic began setting food down. "One, the fuck did you do to the macaroni and cheese, and two, do you think the governments would have an issue with putting the purification orbs out in places where pollution is heavy?"

"That might encourage people to just keep polluting."

"We can add on a pollution tax."

"The fact that the orbs generate its own mana and don't need recharging will make people question why we're doing that."

"To encourage people not to pollute as much just because they exist. If the orbs are needed to make the air cleaner, then the tax exists. Aren't there places where the air is basically toxic to breathe on some days already?"

Keith sighed, then sat down across from Nathan.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"What the fuck-"

"Nathan, we talked about this."

"And?"

"And treat this like in one of those situations," Keith told him. "Remember, try to be tactful."

"Your macaroni and cheese looks like someone crumbled up some bad cheese and tried to melt it in, then failed."

"Nathan, we talked about insulting the food," Keith said. "Remember? Just eat the food while pretending it's mediocre. No comments, no disgusting faces, no trying to force Ichtvar to eat it under the table."

"Ichtvar's not even in here right now," Nathan muttered.

"Probably because of you attempting to force-feed him yesterday's lunch."

Nathan grunted, then dug into the macaroni-and-cheese he wanted to avoid even touching while working on resisting spitting it back out and complaining about it. Anytime he tried, Keith glared at him, so he stopped.

After lunch, Keith cleaned up the dishes as Nathan returned to assessing the orb while attempting to figure out what he wanted to do. Keith warned that generating air could pose problematic, as it would affect the world's ecosystem, and Nathan told him that such a thing was exactly why he let Keith help him – to deal with the issues that would arise as a result of things.

Even though Keith knew Nathan was only saying that and not actually meaning it, he still reprimanded Nathan and told him to at least be considerate of stuff like that.

"Why do you even want to generate air?" Keith asked as he returned to the work area. "There's plenty enough as it is already. And if you're thinking of something like the Moon or-"

"Because air is thinner the higher you go."

"Are you wanting a mountain base or something?" Keith sat across from him.

"Or something."

"We can add in something artificial to the building."

"What creates the most oxygen?"

"You mean for Earth?" Keith asked, and Nathan nodded. "Algae, from the ocean."

"That would work," Nathan muttered. "Plus lots of trees and other plants for food. Could do with some golems, too. Ichtvar said he knows of a world where golems are commonplace, so we need to go there to see how they do it, since it's probably done in an optimal way."

"Nathan," Keith said. "What are you wanting to make?"

"A floating island."

Keith turned his attention to a Lego boat that was flying around the cafeteria, and had been for hours, powered by a mana orb made with a marble, then sighed. That explained Nathan's fascination with floating things. The male and female Lego people standing on it, 'embracing' each other showed that Nathan was still dealing with other complicated emotions the demigod wasn't used to.

At least he had given up – for then – trying to figure out how to animate them to do the deed.

"And why do you want a floating island?"

"So that Cyrus doesn't have to be governed by any law," Nathan answered. "It'll be my own little mobile land. I plan on seeing if there's a smaller dragon around I can ask to guard it, too."

"And how do you plan on making an island?"

"I had my father buy it already."

"You're talking a literal island."

"Yes," Nathan gave the psychic an expression which called him stupid. "How else would I get an island up there? There's plenty of ocean around, so I can take some of that with me. That should help with the oxygen problem. But that might not be enough. Maybe if we made the orb perform photosynthesis?"

"Okay, Nathan," Keith rolled his eyes. "Let's make a deal. You focus on the stuff that we came here to work on, such as the cards and things that might help the government enforce magical law and deal with creatures, with minimal looks at things like your desire to have a floating island, and the entire next extended Survival Challenge, we can work on your personal projects for the entire thing, devoting everything to it."

"Why not we do that this one?" Nathan asked. "Then-"

"Because," Keith interrupted him. "Of the same thing you were about to argue, Nathan. Everything required for that will be a massive undertaking, okay? We can work on the stuff we came here for, use what's needed, then see what's left. While we're working on this, we may figure out stuff that will make your stuff easier. Then our next visit into here, whether we decided to do the third run with this session or when we come with Katie, we can work on more fed stuff and training."

"We need to train," Nathan slid back his chair.

"We already did the martial arts training," Keith said. "You've been having me do it once you wake up."

"We didn't do the magic training," Nathan said. "I want to do that before taking a shower."

Keith nearly told Nathan the reason he hadn't tried to get the demigod to practice magic that morning was because Nathan was difficult and resistant to being taught over long periods of time, and the agreement was ninety minutes of each. When Nathan had been extra grumpy for whatever reason – which Keith suspected had to do with Nathan waking two hours earlier than he normally did ever since they began the Challenge due to Ichtvar – Keith decided to not push the subject with him.

But he wasn't stupid, and so decided to say something else.

"I just thought you could use a break this morning," the psychic explained. "Since I know magic isn't your thing."

"And martial arts isn't your thing," Nathan countered. "We have an agreement."

"Alright," Keith said. "You seemed somewhat eager to start. Have an issue if I ask why?"

"No," Nathan answered.

"What got you eager to practice magic when you think all you need are barriers and your force punches for direct spells?" Keith asked. "If it was improving those, you can do that just by training and getting used to them, experimenting with them."

"I want to learn light magic," Nathan answered.

"Aaaaaand why do you want to do that?" Keith asked in confusion.

"Ichtvar said light magic can be used to make illusions," Nathan answered, and Keith realized that the demigod's sudden decision to learn magic had to do with a conversation he'd been having with the phoenix at the time. "And that the children of demigods can be entertained by their parent's magic."

"In other words," Keith said. "You want to learn how to use light magic so you can weave illusions to entertain Cyrus."

"Yes."

"It might take more than an hour and a half a day, every day, for several sessions this long, Nathan," Keith told him. "It would first require you branching out from force magic into light magic, then training that first spell until you get a feel for light magic. From there, you'll need to-"

I know," Nathan interrupted him. "How do I change force magic into light magic?"

"Alright," Keith snorted, wondering how long Nathan's interest in that would last.

A long time, if what the familiars had told him held true. He knew that Nathan rarely gave up on something once he started it, and they told the psychic that such dedication and persistence stemmed from Nathan having divine blood in him. Apparently, that came with a tendency to have no desire on giving up learning something once they made their mind up to learn it, no matter how frustrating it might become.

"First," Keith said. "You need to learn how to turn your force magic into either a different color, or to make it invisible. The latter will come second. You see, doing that isn't actually a 'color' thing, but a 'light' thing. What I do when making my force pushes invisible is simply making them cause light to pass through perfectly, which is how I was already branching out into light magics, making it easier to learn it while in the Dungeon."

"So how do I do that?" Nathan asked.

"We'll work on that second," Keith told him. "First, we'll work on you adjusting the color of your barrier, as that will make it easier to learn how to make light pass through something perfectly. What you're doing is manipulating light, to change its color."

"So how do I do that?" Nathan asked.