Spatial Tripwire, as it turned out, connected two points in space with a straight line in space. With more points, it could form an area, and with enough, it could form a three-dimensional volume. When the line, area, or volume was disturbed by an external mana source, like a person or a spell, it would ping an alert in my head.

A very similar spell was actually used in the construction of the wards on the bakery, though it had been constructed with a slightly different setup that mainly relied on abnegation mana.

“A ward, simply put, is a location-locked application of a specific spell with numerous contingencies that tell the ward when to activate or fail to activate,” Orykson explained as he had me set up spatial anchors in four points around me, forming the corners of a square.

“This is a gross oversimplification, of course,” Orykson continued to drone. “After all, could an argument not be made that an enchantment is simply a more localized and mobile region of space? Is a potion not the same thing, localized in a liquid? Of course they aren’t! The truth of the matter is more complex…”

He lectured on, and on, and on, to the point that I actually started tuning him out.

In essence, it was similar to constructing a spatial anchor, or to the cauldron, or to alchemy. Get the spell physically constructed with mana-conducting materials, and then power it with mana.

I was glad I still had my pile of first gate solidified mana. The spell was second gate, so it strained the material, and would break it, but I didn’t need to set up a permanent ward schema, just enough to work on my skills.

If I thought that trying to make the cauldron was boring and resulted in hand cramping, then this was even worse. Each and every little adjustment of the spell altered the flow and the accuracy, and could lead to spell failure if the margin of error grew too high.

That might have just been a function of the fact that I was using a second gate spell, as opposed to the ungated mana used in alchemy, but it was still really annoying.

The worst part was that spell failure didn’t even do anything interesting. I’d thought about trying to figure out a way to weaponize the failure, but Orykson smashed my hopes.

“While some magic item, ward, or potion failures can be destructive, that requires them to be actively constructed first, or else trigger a different source of magic entirely. The components used also alter the reaction. A purely spatial ward blowing up will send ripples in space that disrupt teleportation and spatial effects, not blow up.”

I had to rebuild the setup six times until it was able to accept enough mana to complete, then I sketched the spell out and sent power through the representation.

Connecting one point to another wasn’t too hard, even getting it in a ‘stable’ source that would, in theory, generate a self-sustaining amount of mana. Like I’d said earlier, the materials I used and the inefficiency meant that it would break down eventually.

When I tried to connect the last points, to turn it from three lines into a square, it took a lot more mana. I wound up having to convert mana from my other gates just to finish it out.

“Is constructing an area going to take even more mana?” I asked, a bit nervous.

“Of course. But you will ingrain the spell, which will help. Better materials will help too. The current ones are barely able to function as a conduit, let alone make the ward better. Oh, and of course your mana will grow too.”

I passed my arm through the ward, and the mental alarm sounded. Orykson did the same, and the alarm sounded again in my head.

“Now, let’s talk about building contingencies into the ward,” Orykson said. “The simplest and most important that you need to know – even if you don’t go all in on wardcrafting – is the mana signature exemption. Our life mana allows us to construct ones specific to the person’s biosignature as well, or life energy, and at powerful enough levels, you can create soul-based ones.”

Thankfully, this sort of contingency could be constructed with ungated mana, like a cauldron could be. I was able to write it out with chalk on a slate board, and then input my mana as a sample.

This time, when I passed my hand through, the alarm didn’t sound. When Orykson did, though, it still sent the mental ping to me.

The spell was useful, certainly, and I figured that I would eventually use some higher quality materials to put some wards on the entrance to my room, but… I wasn’t looking forward to it.

There was still one thing bugging me, though.

“What does the spell do on its own?” I asked.

“Cast it and see,” was the only response I got.

I sketched the spell out and empowered it.

The tip of my finger began to glow slightly blue, and I drew a line in the air. It hung there, and though it slowly faded from sight, it was still there to my mana senses.

It was evaporating, but slowly.

Passing my arm through it sent a ping in my mind, and Orykson did the same to demonstrate that it worked for him as well.

“The ingrained effect of this spell increases its permanency,” Orykson said. “You’ll note that makes it easier to reach a permanent state for wardwork, or in the case of casting on its own, makes it last longer. As of now, I expect the tripwires you set will last about an half an hour, and many times that if you connect two Spatial Anchors, even without wards. When you’re in a position where you want to quickly throw up some alert spells, and don’t have the time to lay out a full ward schema, these spells are quite useful.”

I had to admit, knowing that the spell acted as a quick and dirty ward did make me appreciate it a bit more.

We worked with the spell until the mana I had and could draw from my Transivy and Pointer Moss ran dry, at which point Orykson departed.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Once he left, I called out to Dusk, who leapt over with a curious whistle.

"I want to try something," I said, then flowed mana through a spell, then into her.

Meadow had told me that the bond Dusk and I shared should allow us to pass mana between one another.

But Dusk's realm was her, and she was the realm. Which meant that the plants within were part of her.

My harvesting spell fizzled out, and I sighed.

We tried three more times before Dusk managed to form the other end of the connection.

Mana surged inside of me, but it was… wrong. It wasn't the types of the mana I drew from my plants.

It was too deep, complex, and strange. I shuddered as my soul tried to process it into the right kinds of power.

Some of it broke down easily, slipping into the correct gates, but I was still left with a lump of power inside of me that didn't want to budge.

Slowly, I stripped it apart. Each strip was tiny, and still complex but now unstable. Its power wobbled and dissolved, going… Somewhere.

It felt like trying to destroy a pumpkin by peeling it apart with a vegetable peeler.

It was slow, arduous work, but eventually, it was all dissolved, dispersed to who knew where.

I groaned, and Dusk let out a disquieted rustle.

"I'm fine," I reassured her, and I really was. "I just… don't think I'm built to process your mana like that."

After a brief break, we tried again. This time, Dusk focused solely on a single plant, the Red Star Tree. She formed a shell of mana around it, then connected my spell through her, to the shell, to draw from the inside.

Life mana trickled into me.

It was slow, slower than using a harvesting spell would normally have been. It took concentration, too, far more than the normal spell would be, and from both me and Dusk.

But.

It worked.

We practiced, with me passing mana into the tree and drawing it out again, until the mana lost in the process grew so much that I wasn't able to keep practicing.

With some time left in the day, but not enough time for a mission, I gathered my courage and headed to the library again.

Alvaro, as it turned out, had returned from his research sabbatical, but he wasn't working today.

The Western Elohian blue haired and eyed woman with the strange mana, however, was.

"Hey," she said with a smile as I approached. "Please tell me you want something interesting again? I'm not an Almedal, I'm so booorreeed of shelving books."

"I'm not sure how interesting it'll be, I'm afraid," I said, shaking my head. "I've just come to pick up the second gate section of Depths of Starry Night".

Her shoulders sagged for a moment before she shrugged.

"Eh, better than nothing."

She zipped over to the stairs, and I followed. A spark of first gate mana unlocked them, and then we headed to the next level, which required a second gate spark.

It was my first time on the second gate floor, and after the wonders of the astral plane that made up the sections of the library with more dangerous texts, I was… Disappointed.

It looked much the same as the ungated and first gate sections, with signs overhead for different mana types, a miscellaneous section, and organized by contents and author.

The blue haired woman vanished and emerged shortly afterwards with a scroll.

"Okay, so, here you go! There's also some stuff about picking the chaotic stars, orderly constellations, or empty void at the end, but you don't need to worry about that until the mana meditation is reflexive."

Dusk whistled, asking for the second stage of her own, for when she eventually broke through to second gate, and the librarian obliged.

"Lamentations of a Loci," she said, blinking. "How in Bartholomew's bulging bisexual biceps did you get a Genius Loci? Wait. No."

Her eyes widened, and she slugged me in the shoulder. It was friendly, but it still hurt some.

I blinked. Who was Bartholomew? Why were his biceps large enough to swear on? And apparently bisexual.

Also… Why had she hit me?

Nevermind. I shook my head and Dusk let out a disapproving whistle.

"Yeah, yeah. Still. Lucky. Hold on…"

She vanished again, leaving me and Dusk standing there. Not long after, she returned with a thick pamphlet.

"Ta-da!" she exclaimed, holding it out like a treasure.

I picked it up and looked at the title, 'An Introduction in Mana Veils, Control, and Sensing'.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm not some probably-mythical soul dragon, who's supposed to be able to see through your soul with a look," she said with a snort. "I'm not that type of dragon. But…"

She waved her hand at me.

"Yeah. It took me like thirty seconds to realize you're a second gate with life, death, space, and time. Incomplete resonance, probably from a staff or domain weapon you constructed, but didn't have time or materials to update yet. Since your mana types are so weird, I can then deduce you have a choice legacy, so I only need to worry about a secondary effect like increased mana or efficency."

She gave me a cocky smirk.

"And that's not even addressing that I figured out what your friend was. And what can you tell about me?"

Dusk let out a mournful babble, and I sighed.

"Nothing, so… Fair enough, I take your point," I said as I took the pamphlet. I didn't think my mana control was poor. My senses were strong, but they weren't the most delicate. And my veiling skills were… nonexistant.

We chatted for a little bit before I headed out. When I got home, I saw Meadow and two other women standing in front of the house, gossiping.

One of the women was white haired and appeared in her sixties, while the other looked my age, with bright red hair. Both had a ruddy complexion, but the white haired woman's skin was more toned by the sun.

The older woman looked stern, but soft, like a grandmother who'd whack you with a spoon when you did wrong, but also make amazing peanut butter fudge.

The younger one was very pretty, to a degree that I was beginning to get unnerved. Was she some sort of advanced Asomatous? Powerful ones could take on human form, supposedly.

That didn't feel quite right, but it didn't feel entirely off base, either. She was definitely stronger and older than she looked.

"Ah, Malachi!" Meadow called, waving me over. "These two are my friends, Atsilla and Ama. They've a proposition for you."

"Yes," the white haired one – Ama – said. Her voice was like the breath of moonlight on my skin. "It is nice to meet you."

Her accent was a dead giveaway that she was Elohian. She didn't sound like western Elohi, though. Maybe southeastern?

I didn't know. Elohi was so big that it had a bunch of full blown sub-dialects, let alone accents.

"Likewise," I said, nodding, waiting for her proposition.

"Well," said the redhead, speaking with a similar, but slightly different tone. "It's simple enough, really. We'd like you to agree to never serve on anything but the independents team in the Elysian Mastery Tournament."

I blinked. That was… incredibly random. The Elysian Mastery Tournament was a collection of games, duels, crafting competitions, and other niches. Every major nation was there, and plenty of minor ones had a presence as well.

Liz's grandpa had participated in the junior spellbinder league, years ago, but he'd never made it to the true Arcanist events.

"And in exchange," Ama said. "We're going to offer you this."

She removed a small potted plant from her storage ring. It had waxy, black leaves with a red stem that ran through them.

It was only first gate, but the mana inside of it was incredibly dense and potent, bound up with aspects I barely understood. It almost reminded me of the Lushloam, in a way, but it was definitely more focused on healing.

“Healer’s Heart,” she said. “One of the best plants to be used for healing potion creation, in large part because it absorbs and negates a great deal of mana toxicity found in healing potions. It won’t negate it entirely… But it will help. More importantly for your case, it can help with the processing of foreign mana.”

It didn’t go past my notice that Meadow’s Alchemist’s body had done something similar, and I wondered if this offer had specifically waited until I’d picked a body.

I considered the offer for a moment. If I did go on to represent Mossford, – which was to say, Orykson – then I was certain he’d hand me more intense training, information on opponents, and resources.

But I was increasingly disliking the idea of him using me as a tool. Meadow provided resources in the form of knowledge, but she wasn’t handing over absurdly powerful resources.

It felt weird to think that while being offered a valuable plant, but at least I was sacrificing something for the plant. It felt more like I’d earned it. And more than that, it wasn’t a pill on a platter, but a tool that I’d be able to use to grow.