It was early morning. Tom was teaching the nameless spider-girl about magic. I gave them whatever books on the subject there were in my backbag and took a sit on one of the broken pillars.

It was just basic stuff, to prepare students for proper education. The book on runes and circles, had at the end a warning, that one shouldn't experiment with real ones without a teacher. Not that you could achieve any effects unless you knew what the runes and symbols actually meant.

I could imagine the mess this world would be in if just speaking magic words created their effect. With just Transported, there would be bound to be someone, who'd just have some mighty spell, mean cheese in their language. That's not considering how far scientific and magical research was, beyond this area.

My mouth opened in an involuntary yawn. For now, the much more exciting thought were the cleaning products the spider-girl had on her. After days on the road, I was finally fluffy and smelled nice. I agreed with the girl, that it would be boring if she gave us full access to her inventory, but hygiene was important. The burgers were tempting, but I had those before. It was my first time living off what I could hunt.

In clean a body resides a healthy mind, was a truth worth living by.

I turned back to the book on grasses. There was only the last chapter left, on various levitating species. It began with the description of a tumbleweed that somehow rotated, to no matter the wind, always remain in one place. It spread it's seeds, exclusively as part of the excrements of mighty airborne creatures. I tilted my head, was learning this really improving my mind? I shook myself out of the thought, it would be fun to discover how far I've gotten at the gates to the Academy's city. Not a moment earlier.

Book finished, I shut it and stood up. The spiderling was weaving complicated sculptures with mana. Tom, on the other hand, was grumbling and walking off to a small temple to the right of the main one. Since the girl seemed happy playing by herself, I boosted back. After a few failed attempts to turn myself around, I shot around in a circle and finally landed in a tumble-roll before a small temple on the left.

Inside, I found a blue shade, that looked a little like me. It turned and the faceless thing attacked. I got thrown out of the temple, by a large manaball.

I gathered myself, expecting more attacks, but none followed. I walked back inside, the creature turned towards me and I flew out.

I laughed, then boosted inside. I flew over the first projectile and shot two of mine. The shade boosted to avoid one and shot the other out of the air. I fell at an angle and just before the second projectile from the creature could hit me, I boosted right.

I landed my feet on a pillar in the wall... and found it got in the way more than it helped. Three well-aimed manaballs later, I flew out the door.

I got up from the roll and ran back in. I dropped to the ground, feeling the ball zoom past me and rushed up. I shot mana balls at an angle, from my sides boosted myself down and with a puff landed in a crouch. I exhaled a wall of weak fire.

I heard something hit the ceiling, the other me boosting itself, upside down from it already. I shot a large manaball at it, uselessly as it avoided it and got back to its trajectory towards me, with small weak pushes.

It crashed into me, robbing me of my breath. Somehow, my clothes offered no protection against it. Then, from its knee a mana wave came, throwing me out once more.

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I ran back in. The creature was back in its position, turning to face me. I shot at it. In continuous, snaking boost alongside the wall, it avoided all of my balls. I shot up, boosted to fly over the thing and blasted beneath myself, with fire charged explosion to rob the shade of sight.

I flew to the middle of the room and just before I landed, shot two balls at the still lingering flames. The creature skirted along the floor, barely a fingers thickness above it. I tried to avoid it and got slowed down by a bunch of breaking manapanes.

Another tumble and another flight out.

I kept at it until I felt myself wearing thin. With an exhausted sigh, I got up and walked over to the fountain. Not a single hit. I smiled, the thing was showing me what I could do.

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Before me, stood two, shimmering, blue shades. I couldn't tell which was an illusion and which was real. I knew the creature wouldn't be able to keep this up long, but it'd kick me back out before it'd run out of mana.

I charged, my sabre held before my chest, pointing forward at an angle. I feinted a stab and with a small flourish, deflected the creature's sword and slashed at it. My blade passed through its head harmlessly and I felt a cut piercing deep through my arm.

I stepped back, sword back in position. I moved my head to avoid the weak manaball and cut at the real shade, putting all of my mana enhanced strength behind the strike. The thing just tilted it's body sideways and put a shallow cut in my wrist.

A manaball hit my hand, but I held the sabre. A strong kick to my stomach threw me out of the temple.

I landed on my back and exhaled. The manaball was infinitely weaker than an external users, but they were frustrating.

Seeing the thing just conjure an illusion of itself, terrified me at first. Now I knew I could do it too, even if my control was too weak for more than half-a-second long projection. "Status."

Name: Tom Anand Titles Strength: 30(29) Devils Carrier A fickle child saw you carry a little devil and thought you were funny. Endurance: 32(29)   Mind: 23(23) Soul: 23 Well: 24(24) Shell: 26(26)

I ignored the title, that must have come from the... I decided to focus on training my mind. I got up and turned around.

Mads was laughing, while running into the training altar on the other side of the plaza, then getting blasted out again. It's like she was a self-propelled ping-pong ball.

I sheathed my sabre on the belt and walked over to the fountain. I washed my face and noticed how much I stank. There were bottles of shampoos, conditioners and various other body soaps on the fountain edge. After a quick thought, I ripped everything except my trunks off and jumped in the water.

I leaned out of the fountain, grabbed my fur-brush and got to cleaning myself. I marvelled at the dirt spreading in the water, just to disappear seconds later. I put my head under the water and began to aggressively scratch the road dust out of my fur.

Once I was done, I put my gambeson in the fountain and washed it too. It was the only piece of my clothing, I couldn't fit into Mads' bag of holding.

I think after... about an hour of scrubbing I was done. My arms were giving out, but I'd at least not deal poison damage to everything in my vicinity.

I looked up, Mads was still playing ping-pong with herself and her mana-shade and the white-haired girl was forming a sculpture of a woman with hundreds of spider legs. I recalled her to be one of the envoys of the goddess.

Maybe the girl was just a daughter of one of the servants... Well, maybe she'd have advice on how to strengthen my soul.. once I gathered the courage to ask.