There was something very relaxing about the sudden lack of time pressure. Pax hadn't realized how much the frenetic pace of their work in the capital had been weighing on him. He’d used his inventory ring occasionally for a quick break, but the five-minute time limit ticking down was the opposite of relaxing. Now, despite being physically tired and ready to crash, it was freeing to take as much time as he wanted to examine the page in front of him.
This one was unusual. Each successive pattern had gotten more complicated as he unlocked sections of the book, but this one seemed to have backtracked. Instead of the fine patterns from the tree and the previous testing page, these lines were much simpler. Thick and bold strokes painted a simplistic pattern of four distinct patterns coming in from each corner before they met in the center and blended together into a solid sphere.
He'd learned his lesson with the last testing page and had recognized distinctive patterns that hinted at the four secondary elements. The one coming in from the top right zigged with sharp lines and corners, looking like lightning. The swirling design in the opposite corner had hints of vine and leaf shapes, obviously nature. Magma and ice were equally easy to recognize once he paid attention to details.
The last time he tried to unlock this page, he'd injected each type of mana sequentially and in various orders, with no luck. He also tried to power the entire thing simultaneously, but it had drained his mana pretty quickly and unlocked nothing.
But he hadn't tried again since he advanced his ice mana under Rin's ministrations or the progress he made today with nature. He still wasn't close to reaching level 2, but if Incedis kept up today’s crazy training pace, it wouldn't take long.
Pax let his breathing slow and entered a meditative state as he looked at the page and let his mind consider any idea that entered it.
Did he need to add light mana to the four elements when he powered them? He could do that and repeat his experiments with various sequences, culminating with an attempt to do all four of them at once.
And why were the patterns so much thicker than the previous testing pages? Did that mean they needed more power? Or should he spread his power out in thin strips to fill each of the lines without draining him so much?
When he reached the limit of his new ideas, Pax paused for a look at his menu to see his progress after today's rigorous training with nature. There’d been a handful of notifications about Nature he’d dismissed, preferring to wait and see his gains all at once.
***
Lightning: Level 1 - 21/100
Ice: Level 1 - 33/100
Nature: Level 1 - 26/100 (+14)
Magma: Level 1 - 13/100
***
Pax grinned and pumped his fist without thinking. The sudden pull of mana followed by the jarring transition back to normal time made him groan. He took a few moments of the unwanted break to set the manual aside for a moment to stand and stretch his stiffening muscles.
When he sat back down, he worked to get completely comfortable. He grabbed a cushion to prop up the manual so he could look at it without getting a crick in his neck. Then he activated the wand again, glad that he was getting used to the changes it caused. With enough practice, maybe he'd be able to flip in and out of the state with little trouble.
Pax also took a moment to be grateful that training to understand nature mana while running at the same time qualified for almost as much advancement as the danger of almost freezing to death. Sure, he'd probably be able to progress faster if someone had spells they could throw at him or there were nearby nature beasts to attack him, but this was the next best thing.
Pax let out a slow breath and got busy testing out his new ideas. He inadvertently ran up against another drawback to the Wand of Sanctuary: his mana recovery was almost nil. He quickly made the connection that it was tied to the passage of real time, not the artificial time the wand gave him.
A fresh wave of disappointment filled him. He wouldn't be able to use the wand to recover his mana at an accelerated rate. It truly was just a wand for sanctuary, rest and thinking, not a wand of unlimited mana recovery.
It didn't take long for Pax’s mana stores to drop to half forcing him to stop. He’d made little headway but found that the extra power he could push into the ice and nature patterns seemed to get a better response from the page.
If power was the answer to unlocking the next section, then it made his new training even more important. Pax suspected that improving all of his secondary paths to level 2 might be just what he needed to progress. He stood and replaced his light manual in its hiding spot, filled with a new determination to push himself even more during the trip.
He took a moment to check on their companions, happy to see most of them draped over each other in a happy heap, snorting and grunting with comfortable sleeping noises. Even Whisk had extricated himself from under Pax's armor to join his friends in the sleeping pile.
When Pax pushed aside the curtain to the sleeping room, he scowled. Sure enough, Incedis had moved his cot into a position just a foot or so from the curtained entrance to the sleeping room. For a moment, he contemplated moving one of his sleeping friends to get a better spot. But he was too tired.
As he changed into sleeping clothes and got comfortable under his blankets, Pax turned his hand so the wand would sit comfortably inside it without falling out. Then he smiled. Maybe Incedis was right. A bonus few hours of sleep sounded really amazing right now.
His smile widened further as a new thought occurred to him. If he needed to stay completely still for the Wand of Sanctuary to work throughout the night, he had a legitimate reason for claiming the best spot in the room tomorrow night. In fact, he couldn't think of any argument the others could make against it.
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***
Magma was just plain hot. Scorching, blazing, and blistering. As they started their second day running through the Wilds, Pax kept sorting through words in his mind, failing to come up with a good one that accurately portrayed what it felt like to have Incedis touch him with the magma glove.
It took three hours of running before he could keep from flinching every time Incedis reached out for another round. And it wasn't like Incedis was even using the full power of the artifact.
At the beginning, he’d touched the smallest surface of the glove’s pinky finger to the back of Pax’s forearm when he’d removed one of his vambraces. Then Incedis had activated the glove and immediately pulled it away.
Pax shuddered, remembering. That hadn’t been fun at all, resulting in an extremely painful burn. His higher attributes had mitigated some of the damage, but they’d both realized he’d needed something more.
The next hour had involved problem-solving, with everyone chipping in ideas on how Incedis could touch him with the magma glove throughout the day without burning Pax’s arm to a crisp. Incedis had offered him his fire-resistant vambrace, but it blocked too much of the magma mana, making it impossible for Pax to study it.
They’d been on the right track. They needed something protective, but not too protective. During the first break of the morning, Incedis and Eldan had pulled out inventory boxes to search through their supplies. A strip of heat-resistant cloth had been their best bet when Rin had pointed out they were all missing something obvious: Pax’s Scorching Touch spell.
Obviously, it had to protect him from heat damage when he had it active. Between wrapping his arm in Mage Eldan’s cloth and keeping the lowest level Scorching Touch active on his forearm, they’d found a good balance.
The magma mana still burned like nothing Pax had ever experienced. It scalded, seared, and incinerated his skin. Incinerated. That was the best word so far. As he did his best to understand the hot orange mana assaulting his forearm, Pax felt a small but noticeable decrease in pain. Unexpectedly, his breathing smoothed a touch, and his pulse slowed a beat.
Pax grinned when the notification popped up. He was more than glad to take a moment to check it.
***
Congratulations! You have increased Endurance from 13 to 14
***
Maybe the constant running and pain weren’t so bad. Pax hadn’t earned a new point in Endurance since the race back to the capital when the empire’s leaders had cut the Purge short.
The new point made it even easier for his new method to protect his forearm and keep the damage to a level he could fix with a bit of Meditation and Healing between sessions. Still, even with the new Endurance level, the pain still made his breath catch. Pax couldn’t always stifle his yelps of pain, drawing the others’ attention as they ran.
Rin looked at him with sympathy, but both Amil and Dahni stifled their laughter.
“I’m glad I’m entertaining you,” Pax said sourly during his next break from the glove to Heal and recover.
They at least had the grace to look embarrassed as they jogged beside him in the coordinated pace that was second nature now.
“It’s not like there’s anything else happening out in the wilderness.” Amil remarked, his hand sweeping out to gesture at the desolate expanse around them. “We haven’t even run into any beasts. It’s daytime, and the Purge knocked down all the dangerous ones out here.”
Pax shrugged in acknowledgment, looking out at the landscape. It was the familiar wasteland they’d spent months traveling through. Patches of scraggly scrub brush and twisted, stunted trees dotted the earth with bits of green.
In the distance, jagged mountains rose. A thick layer of gray clouds swirled at their tops, like smoke hiding the tips of the mountains and intermittently blocking the morning sun.
A driving wind took that opportunity to kick up, whipping up dust and debris through the air, stinging their skin and eyes as they ran.
“See?” Amil said, squinting and blinking hard. “Watching you with that magma glove is much more entertaining, right? How’s it coming? You making progress?”
“A decent amount.” Pax did his best to keep his face straight. “It’s giving me a lot of good ideas for the next time I use lightning to help you advance.”
“What?” A panicked worry replaced the previous teasing in Amil’s voice. “I thought we decided to use the ruins' training rooms for that?”
“No.” Pax turned thoughtful as he kept his legs moving and his Healing soothing his forearm. “This is teaching me that direct experience with the elements gets the best results. That’s what you want, right?”
Amil’s mouth opened and closed, unable to get an answer out. Rin was the one who broke first and let a sputtering laugh escape.
He spun to look at her, outrage flickering to resignation. “Ok, fine. You got me.”
“You should have seen your face.” Humor filled Dahni’s voice.
“Please keep up your guard. We are still in the Wilds, after all. Danger, when it comes, will be fast and unexpected.” Incedis’ words doused their easy humor instantly, making everyone focus back on their surroundings. “And Pax isn’t wrong. Learning under stress and against genuine spells will always be superior to a contrived training method, even one designed by ancient light mages.”
Amil gave him a thoughtful glance. “Maybe we could rotate with Pax, then, instead of waiting until we reach the ruins. You could hit us with our secondary elements during his recovery breaks?”
A thoughtful silence fell over their entire crew as they gave the idea some thought. Pax was glad their surroundings had stayed quiet during their brief lapse in attention. It gave them the break they needed to work through their ideas.
A discussion ensued about Amil’s ability to keep running while getting jolted by lightning. They agreed Dahni could probably handle the input from the growing rod while running. And Rin argued that her body's warmth from the constant exercise would help her combat the side effects of getting hit by ice. Pax just felt disappointed that none of his friends needed to unlock magma, so he could share the incinerating experience with them.
The one idea they weren’t sure about was the power output of Incedis’ artifacts. None of them were confident of being able to handle the amount of secondary mana Pax was. And Incedis was already activating them at the lowest possible output.
Another silence descended, broken only by the sound of pounding boots and labored breathing.
“What about the mirror on Pax’s shield?” Tyrodon broke the silence, his question tentative.
Pax gave Tyrodon a quick look, the question causing a lot of ideas to spark in his mind. “The spell storage! Of course.”
“What spell storage?” Incedis frowned at him. “Is he talking about the Spectral Mana Mirror you got from the auction? I thought it just stored a bit of extra mana.”
“Until Pax unlocked the rest of its functions by using light mana on it.” Amil looked delighted to rat him out to Incedis.
Pax aimed a quick scowl his way before turning to Incedis. “I must have forgotten to tell you about it.”
“So, this is another powerful artifact you haven't figured out how to use?”
“We were focused on spycraft and Taming.” Pax didn’t like how defensive his voice sounded. “It wasn't as if I was out battling every day, like during the Purge.”
Incedis made an impatient motion for Pax to explain.
“Once I used light mana on it, it unlocked four functions. It'll store mana, and it's got increased durability so it won’t break. Then it will also reflect a spell back at an attacker. The last ability is to store a single spell that I can use later. I have to understand the specific mana type and basics of the spell in order to do that, though. The part that Tyrodon is referring to is that the saved spell will be less powerful than the original one and also loses a bit of power over time. Anyone should be able to use the mirror now that I've activated it. So, they could use it while you and I are training, not just during the breaks.”
“Only to discharge the single spell you store,” Tyrodon broke in again. “We probably don't have an adequate understanding of the secondary elements to store the spells ourselves.”
Incedis let out a frustrated breath and waved a hand at Pax. “Just get it out, and we'll do some experiments during your Healing breaks.”