It doesn’t take long for morning to arrive and Aiden to stir awake.

“Why the hell am I covered in branches and leaves?” he asks out loud, indignant.

I too rise out of my fugue and circle closer to him.

“It’s because you decided to just rest in the middle of the forest without checking for anything. What if there were some animals out and about, or even monsters? So, I hid you.” I finish proudly.

Grumbling quietly, but not pursuing the matter any longer, Aiden gets up. He stretches a bit and walks around. All the while I am back to my habits of flying around, circling him.

I hope he’s not back to ignoring me. Thankfully, my worries are proven unfounded, as, taking a deep breath, he soon speaks up. This time in a proper telepathic manner.

“Is that what you’ve been reading all this time in the library?”

“Among other things, but yes.”

“Good, then if you don’t mind, “he again takes a deep breath, “please find me some shelter and food.”

“Sure, sure, can do. What’ll you be doing?” Finally, I’ll have something else to do than constantly reading.

“Training.” Is all he replies with. Ok, it’s all fine and dandy that he’s not constantly scared anymore, but this is too much. Seriously, what happened to him?

“Training what?” Unwilling to end our conversation, I press on.

“Spellcasting.” Wow, this is getting ridiculous. Whatever, if I get one more one-word reply, I’ll drop it.

“Ooh, nice. Then do you want to provide your own meal? I found this cool plant growing spell in the library.” That’s it, my last try. At least for today. If that doesn’t get him interested, what with his newfound obsession with spellcraft, then I’ll just have to try later.

“Sure.” And so, ends our morning conversation.

I spend a couple minutes teaching him how the spell works. It’s not that difficult though sometimes it is hard to balance augmenting the growth of the plant with boosting its nutrient intake.

Soon, Aiden’s practicing his spells and I’m left to my own devices.

I decide to observe him for a little while. A fire appears in his hands, then slowly spreads in spirals across his body. After that they expand in a cage like configuration and eventually converging into a dense ball a couple meters in front of him.

I sigh, as much as I can sigh while still not having a body. I wish I could do magic like that. But not only would that waste precious regeneration that could go towards advancing, I also still don’t have a large enough mana pool. Advancement is a truly unfair multiplier.

I leave him to it and explore the forest. I still have to find, or construct, some kind of shelter. Wandering through the forest, I sink back into a pondering mindset.

It took me a couple of months of pretty much constant mana generation and my second soul is only just beginning to catch up. Now, of course since it’s getting bigger it’s mana generation should also be increasing, so, worst-case scenario, it’ll take at most another month for both to be the same size.

Best-case scenario, both sources of mana somehow multiply each other, like it seems happening with the mana pool, and I can hit my goal in, eh, maybe two weeks? Probably more, but then again that is the best-case scenario.

Then, once both souls are the same size, and my mana generation is hopefully maximized, I can focus on pushing one of them towards proper advancement. With double, or more (hopefully), generation and multiplied by my boosting techniques it shouldn’t take that long.

And then, once one of them is in the next stage, which as far as I can tell provides a huge boost, it should provide enough mana to also advance the second one. And I’ll have an endless cycle of advancements! Haha!

Still, while I do have reason to believe it’ll be like that, a sizable part of that theory is still conjecture. Maybe having multiple souls somehow permanently cripples me. Or the mana generation is actually less that doubled, though based on the mana pool this is unlikely.

Still, there’s no point in worrying about it right now. Then again, what if I can do something now that’d fix whatever problem comes up later, which I won’t be able to fix then. No, no, don’t worry about it. Let me just find a cave or something that’ll serve as shelter, then I can begin to even consider worrying.

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Some time later, though not too long, when the sun is almost shining right overhead, I come across exactly that. A cave entrance lies at the base of a hill, its dark mouth open, invitingly.

I excitedly rush in. It ends barely a dozen meters in, barren. Not even stalagmites and stalactites occupy its space. Oh well, it’ll do for now. And besides, Aiden can practice some earth magic to make it livelier.

I rush back to Aiden and it’s only when I’m more than halfway there that I realize that I could’ve just called him to me. He can sense my direction as much as I can his, but whatever.

As I near the point where we split that morning, a place in the forest like ant other, I instead come upon a small clearing. Tree trunks and splinters, upturned earth and a bunch of rocks lie all around. In the centre, Aiden, practicing some wind spells.

“Hey there, Aiden!” I shout, dragging out the greeting. Well, it’s still telepathy, but I shout nonetheless.

The spells, and with them the carnage, slowly stop. Aiden turns to me, asking: “What is it?”

Aha, success! A more than one word answer! And he doesn’t appear as tense and angry as before. Good.

“I found some shelter. It’s not the best, but it’ll do for now at least. However, that means you can practice magic while making it nicer!”

At this he just grunts though and starts heading my way. I lead him towards the in silence, though not for long.

“So, “I begin, “why’d you destroy the forest?”

He sighs, though not in a sad manner. “Look, I have to focus on getting as good at magic as I can. You got me into the Academy, but that’s it. You aren’t like normal Familiars. You cannot support me in my career, you cannot help me with magic, you can just barely cast some basic spells. You are hardly what one’d call a proper spirit companion and it won’t even change. I have to work more than twice as hard as all the other entitled brats in class, so just stay out of my way and try to make yourself useful.”

His words hurt. I want to refute him, to say that I can be useful, that I can research all the books like I’ve done this past year, that I can and will soon change, but I can’t. As much as I want to, it’s just not possible in the aftermath of his words. And then, he puts the last nail in the coffin.

“And stop trying to distract me from my training. I won’t be dragged down by you.”

With those damning words, he leaves me behind and goes to check out the cave. By now we’ve reached the line of sight of its entrance, so I’m left there, alone and abandoned.

Should I just leave? No, I mustn’t! A couple months. Yes, in a couple months at most, I’ll have advanced and then he’ll accept me back, I’m sure of it. I just have to advance and everything will be fine.

I almost start meditating right then and there, but luckily manage to catch myself at the last second. wouldn’t want to repeat the same mistake as Aiden last night. Slowly, I float into the cave and settle down in a dark corner.

I dim my light and sink into meditation. Maybe I’ll feel better after some focused mana generation.

Peering inwards, I once again focus on my twin souls. The first, my original, is still the same as ever. Big, majestic, stationary. The second one, the one I raised from a tiny spark is catching up nicely. Its orbit around the first has slowed down noticeably and only extended observation would reveal the truth.

I begin poking them all around, stretching and flexing them. Soon, the trickle of mana coming off of them both increase. Following the stream, I come upon my mana pool. It’s not quite as serene as usual, but that should return to normal alongside me. The pool is full though and the stream of mana has nowhere to go. It diverts into a new pathway, which splits halfway down. I direct all of the mana into one, leaving the other empty. It flows down and reaches my second, smaller soul. As the mana flows into it, it reinforces the soul and cause it to grow by an infinitesimal amount.

Time passes and I eventually get bored. As much as I want to advance as soon as possible, my capacity for long periods of time spent doing a single mind-numbing task can only take so much. It’s not like I won’t be making any progress while I’m doing other stuff though, just slower without my mana boosting.

Opening my perception back to the world again, I start floating. The cave has changed while I was out.

The walls no longer have the natural look. They are smooth and in one corner I can even see the beginnings of some kind of decorative pattern. A table and a chair, both made of stone, sit in the middle of what is no longer a cave, but a room. In one corner, a bunch of leaves, moss and similar soft forest material form a basic bed. Probably not very comfortable though.

I wonder how long I’ve been out. It couldn’t have been short with the amount of work Aiden has managed to do in the meantime.

Floating out of the former cave, I come upon a familiar scene. A dozen, maybe more, meters around the entrance is a scene of utter devastation. Felled trees, rocks thrown all around along with a bunch of upturned earth. Some piles of ash accompany this scene this time though, along with a couple of puddles and mud mounds.

Aiden is nowhere to be seen, though I can sense him to be nearby.

I roam the newly made clearing, inspecting the carnage along the way. Many of the tree trunks have deep gashes in them, probably from the wind slash Aiden was practicing the last time when I informed him of the cave. Though judging by all the puddles of water, it could very well have been a water blade instead.

The upturned earth is probably where Aiden pulled all those rocks from the earth. That’s a ridiculous amount of power. How many advancements has he gone through already?

The piles of ash are rather self-explanatory, though I do wonder for a second if perhaps he learned some lightning magic. That’s unlikely though, as it’s a more difficult element to master by its very nature.

As I’m inspecting one of the stumps, this one had its trunk torn off, probably by one of the boulders, Aiden returns. He’s carrying a dead fish in one hand, though no fishing pole. Did he catch it with his bare hands? Ah, no. Probably magic.

He nears a stone block which I hadn’t noticed. Near it is a small pile of bones and intestines, all of them from fish.

He sets the fresh fish down and gets to work, magic in his hands. As he does so, I slowly creep away, so as to not disturb him. I should see if anything else of interest is nearby, since I already apparently missed the river.

I leave the scene of desolation that is the clearing, looking for adventure. Or at least something to distract me from thinking about my situation and prepare me for another session of deep meditation.