“Good show,” Koren called down, laughing riotously.

Vyrania was smiling at me as I climbed the hill toward them.

I reached the top, blood leaking from the wound in my neck, my hands covered in icy blood from the worg that wouldn’t wipe off.

“Better if you had stuck to not using weapons or cards,” Koren noted.

“Yeah,” I said, “well, better still not to die.”

Plus, I had actually ranked up my hobby, likely thanks to using the staff and my armor.

Hobby [Fodder] has reached Novice rank.

Hobby ability [Cartographer] has gained new effect.

Please choose [Fodder] specialization: [Guardian], [Slayer], or [Consort].

There were descriptions for each choice, but I hadn’t looked through them yet, nor had I checked out my new cartographer effect. First I needed to catch my breath and get cleaned up. And stop my neck from bleeding.

“What was that summoned weapon?” Vyrania asked. “You only have the one card, yes?”

“It’s from my hobby.”

“What is it? Martial Artist?”

“Fodder,” I grumbled, touching my neck. The wound wasn’t deep, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. “You guys have anything to staunch this with? It’s not clotting.”

“Worg saliva does that,” Vyrania said, then made a gesture in the air. A spectral glow appeared around her hand and she stepped forward, pressing it against the wound.

“Ahh! That burns!”

“Don’t be a baby. It won’t even leave a scar.” After only a few seconds she pulled it away, the burn vanishing.

I rubbed my neck. “What was that?”

“One of my cards. It lets me bind things together with blood.”

I shook my head. “Painfully.”

Koren didn’t seem to be paying attention, staring at me thoughtfully.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You have Fodder as a hobby?”

“Yeah. It actually just ranked up to Novice.”

“Not as your profession.”

“No, that’s Merchant, like I mentioned.”

Vyrania tilted her head, then nodded slightly. “Oh. That is odd.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Your Merchant profession,” Koren said, “what made you choose it?”

“I wasn’t given much choice. I own a store and the only way I could keep it was to take the Merchant profession. And it only gave me like ten seconds to decide, or I’d be given the Fodder profession. I didn’t realize that wasn’t a bad thing.”

“You had Fodder as both a profession and a hobby option?” Koren asked.

“Yeah. I guess.”

The two exchanged a glance.

Then Vyrania shrugged. “It could be another coincidence. He sounded more like a star-reader than a prophet. No point dwelling on it.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Koren opened his mouth, then shook his head, sighing. “It means you still haven’t reached Copper yet. Let’s go find you another worg. And this time, don’t use your weapon. And hold off on picking a hobby specialization. Have you looked at them yet?”

“I haven’t had a chance.”

“Good. Don’t. They’ll just distract you.”

“That just makes me want to look at them more.”

“Do as you please. But you need to focus if you want to break through. Your mana is too tight right now, too constrained. It’s not fully integrated, and getting it to that point is the next step toward Copper.”

I sighed. “Fine, I won’t look yet.”

“Or use your weapon. Nothing but your body.” He smiled. “That’s what you’re trying to improve, after all.”

“You need to feel your body,” Vyrania added. “Feel the mana moving through and suffusing it. You need to unite body and mind. Only then will you reach Copper.”

Koren tilted his head back and forth. “Well, yes, but also simply getting very scared or excited works. I know this guy, funny guy, he reached Copper during—”

“Stop distracting him,” Vyrania interrupted. She nodded at me. “You can do this.” She considered me. “And you should lose the rest of the armor too. It will help focus you and connect you to your mana.”

“No,” I said. “I still don’t even know where you’re hiding the top half.”

“Oh, I threw that out,” Koren said lightly.

“What?”

“Do you want to reach Copper or not?” Vyrania asked.

“I’m not fighting naked,” I said firmly.

She held up her hands. “Fine. It would make this go faster. But if you’re not dedicated enough, I understand.”

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

I fought the next worg naked.

It wasn’t comfortable.

And I swear the thing kept going for my crotch—despite the cold and its physiology-altering effects.

But it did turn out to be just the motivation I needed.

I felt it happen, felt the mana flood my body, pushing past what it had been capable of containing before.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

And then, with a pop, my body ignited in agony and I collapsed.

The worg, which I’d had on the defensive, took the opportunity to attack, but I was too incapacitated to do anything about it.

“Now!” a voice shouted, though I was in too much pain to process who.

The worg’s head exploded as it charged toward me and it collapsed, its corpse skidding in the snow and slamming into my body, setting off a fresh wave of agony and spraying me with icy blood.

Then I blacked out.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

When I came to, I was in the forest, lying at the base of a tree.

“He’s awake.”

I sat up, looking around. It was Vyrania who’d spoken.

Koren was practicing martial arts on a nearby tree. “I’d expect no less,” he called cheerily, then kicked the tree so hard it cracked.

Vyrania smiled at me. “You’re lucky I have Conjunction of Blood. Even with it, worg’s blood is frustratingly stubborn. Took a lot of scrubbing.”

I looked down at myself and saw I was clean. Also, naked.

“Thanks for covering me,” I said sarcastically. “You guys not have modesty on your Earth?”

“Oh we do, but only with money and power.”

Unsure where they had stored my armor, I quickly tried unsummoning then summoning it again. It worked, and an instant later I was fully covered.

Well, to the waist anyway.

“Hey, where’s the top half of my armor?”

Vyrania shrugged. “Maybe there’s a distance limit. It is quite far away from here.”

“Wait, he really left it behind?”

“You don’t need it,” Koren called, punching a hole into the tree. “Trust me.”

“I wouldn’t normally agree,” Vyrania whispered, “but in this case I’d listen to him.”

“I heard that,” he called.

“You were meant to.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “Fine.”

Surprisingly, I wasn’t cold even without the top half. In fact, I hadn’t been cold even before I’d summoned the pants and boots, and I’d been lying directly on the frozen ground, which should have leeched the heat right out of my body.

“Is it warmer or something?” I asked.

Vyrania smiled at me. “The boons of mana-enhancement. Cold’s not such a problem anymore.”

“So I’m Copper now? I don’t feel that different.”

“You’re not Copper yet, but you’ve broken through the barrier, the interface points between your nervous system and body. You should have felt a sudden sensation of pain.”

“Yeah, that definitely didn’t go unnoticed.”

“That was the barrier breaking, the mana in your circuit flooding your body. Now it’s just a matter of replacing your blood.”

“Wait, what? I’m not going to have blood?”

“You will, but it will be composed primarily of mana. Once you do that, controlling your mana will be easier, and you can begin the next steps.”

“Which are?”

She smiled. “Eager. Good. But stay focused on where you are, not where you’re heading. You wouldn’t want to explode.”

“Oh, great. Thanks for reminding me. I totally didn’t have enough to worry about already.” I looked around. “Speaking of where we’re heading, where are we?”

“Still following the runes.”

“How many more have there been?”

“Eleven.”

“How far did we travel? How long was I out?”

“A few hours.”

I checked and saw that with my more powerful mana, this was enough time for my Contract card to charge itself up while I was unconscious.

I offered to use it on all three of us to get us out of the tower, but they declined.

I stood there, considering it. But I didn’t want to use it anymore. Not by myself. I didn’t want to leave them behind. More than that, I wanted to stay and fight. Wanted to reach Copper.

Then again, I could do that outside.

“You sure you don’t want to come with me?” I asked. “It’ll be so much better out there. You said there are monsters, you can hunt them. We can get stronger, then come back if we want.”

Vyrania smiled sadly. “This is too great of an opportunity to pass up. It’s not every day people like us get this early of access to a tower.”

I sighed, coming to a decision. “Looks like you’re stuck with me then.”

“I can think of worse fates,” Vyrania replied, looking pleased that I’d decided to stay.

“Yes,” Koren agreed, having finally finished beating up the tree. “Being eaten alive would undoubtedly qualify.”

“Among many others, sure.”

“Ah!” He looked at me, held up a finger. “I have something for you.”

He moved so fast it was like he teleported, disappearing from sight. An instant later he was back, holding out a ball of snow to me.

When I just stared at it, he took my hand and slapped the snowball into it.

“What is this?”

“Drink it. Or eat it. You need water.”

I realized it had been hours since I’d had anything to drink, and I wasn’t even that thirsty.

“Is it safe?”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t I trust that?”

“Because you need to work on your trust issues.”

“I don’t have trust issues,” I said defensively.

He only smiled, gesturing at the snowball. “Go on then.”

I looked to Vyrania, who nodded. “It’s safe.”

I sighed and ate it. Normally, eating ice made my teeth hurt, something that had been the case ever since losing my baby teeth. Now it didn’t hurt at all. I didn’t even get a brain freeze.

“Wow, that was easy. Wasn’t that thirsty though.”

“You’re improving,” Vyrania said, “but you’ll still need to eat and drink. You won’t be able to forgo that until you’re deep into Iron.”

“Which you both are.”

“Koren is further than I am, but yes, neither of us need to eat or drink, strictly speaking.”

“Because of mana?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I don’t get it. You sustain yourself from mana, which you generate?”

“We don’t generate it. It’s already there. We simply enhance it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Not to you. Yet. It will, eventually.”

“But what about like, spit?”

“Spit?”

“Yeah. You’re talking, if your mouth was dry, that would be difficult. Trust me, I’ve seen it. Bob, this guy who comes to my shop…” I shook my head. “It’s not pretty.”

Koren and Vyrania glanced at each other. They did that a lot. Not for the reasons I initially suspected.

“Your mind is too stuck in your old world,” Vyrania said, “with how you think it works. Reality is what you make it. The stronger you get, the more you’ll come to realize this. We talk because we will it so. We don’t breathe, we don’t”—she chuckled—“produce spit. We don’t need to. We have the intention to speak, and so we make it happen. The crude realities of the pre-system world have little bearing on us.”

“And increasingly less the more powerful you become,” Koren added. “Speaking of becoming more powerful, are you ready to choose your hobby specialization?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, excited. “I forgot about that. My map ability also got upgraded.”

“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together. “This will be fun. Let’s see the options.”

“Let the boy choose his own,” Vyrania scolded him.

“I don’t mind the help.” I pulled up my map, but couldn’t immediately tell any difference. I tried pulling up the new effect’s description.

“Oh, nice.” I showed it to them.

Hobby ability [Cartographer] has gained the [Pathfinder] effect.

Pathfinder

• Grants automatic path overlays of areas you’ve visited.

• Grants automatic indicators for areas you’ve visited.

• Grants ability to add manual indicators.

“Handy,” Vyrania said.

I studied the map again, and this time noticed the overlay it mentioned, showing the path we’d taken. When I zoomed in on the town of Ventis, now it wasn’t only the town itself that was labeled, but individual buildings. Even the forge for making tower items was labeled. I could also place indicators anywhere on it and label them with a thought.

Next I pulled up the hobby specialization choices I had and their descriptions, sharing them so Koren and Vyrania could see.

Please choose [Fodder] specialization: [Guardian], [Slayer], or [Consort]

Guardian

Specialist in taking damage and protecting others. Gain increased armor durability and wards that can be used on yourself and others.

• [Firestaff] becomes [Burning Blade] and [Obsidian Shield]

• [Fodder Armor] gains greatly increased durability and damage reduction

• Ability: Ward of Defense

Ward that reduces all forms of damage on target.

Slayer

Specialist in slaying enemies as quickly as possible. Gain special attacks that grow more powerful as hobby increases in rank.

• [Firestaff] becomes [Flying Scimitars of Wrath]

Consort

Specialist in aiding others through any means necessary. Gain special abilities to use on yourself and allies that grow more powerful as hobby increases in rank.

• [Firestaff] becomes [Pathos]