The following morning, Ikki arrived at precisely the right time, as usual, and I was already in the backyard, waiting for him.

“Since you will be inside of the Idyll-Flume for the next month, we won’t see each other for some time,” Ikki said. “As such, I’ll be expanding the time of today’s lesson.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “What’s the purpose of today? More illusion work?”

“Not today, though you should maintain your training there,” Ikki said. Then his hand lashed out, moving with speed that I wasn’t able to match, and his finger tapped my forehead. I felt a spool of abneagation mana swirl out of a ring on his finger and slide into me.

There was a harsh clicking sound, a lock settling into place in my spirit, surrounding one of my spells.

Ikki withdrew his hand and tucked it back into his pocket.

“Apologies for the unwanted touch. But it was needed to cast the spell in the ring.”

“What… What did you do?”

“I sealed away your ability to cast Burn Future,” Ikki said. “I’ve considered your fights recently, and while you have improved since your fight with the Abyssal Shambler, you have yet to win a fight without having to draw on Burn Future. That’s unacceptable, especially within the Idyll-Flume.”

“But… What if I need it?” I said. “I mean, it’s saved me several times.”

“I have faith in your ability to escape from danger,” Ikki said.

“Escaping doesn’t mean winning,” I responded.

“Wrong. There is only defeat when your soul leaves this realm. Until then, it’s possible to recover. Even if you have to flee a fight, you can come back another time and win.”

“How do I get the limiter off of me?” I asked, not in the mood to argue over pedantry over winning and losing.

“Simple,” Ikki said. “Win or grow. If you overcome enough power, the spell will dissipate. Or, if you grow the walls of your mana-garden enough, that will also work as an acceptable removal condition. You’ve been putting off expanding your power since the day you opened your second gate, and you’ve relied on Burn Future to account for that failing. Either you need to become efficient enough with what you have to not need to expand your walls, or you need to expand them.”

“Fine,” I said, grimacing. It was annoying, that was for sure. I was just glad that I was able to feed my harvesting spells through Dusk now, at least. After a few moments, I asked him. “So what are we actually doing today, then?”

“You have the beginnings of your own combat and light-movement style,” Ikki said. There was a strange flickering of the mono spell around the last bit, cultural phenomena straining. “I want to help you bring out the potential of it.”

“You mean how I combine Foxstep and Harvest Distance?” I asked, and Ikki nodded.

“That is the beginning of it. I believe that Orykson has mentioned that you should experiment with spatial anchors and the spell,” Ikki said.

“He did,” I confirmed, feeling a bit guilty. I’d spent so much time in recovery, and training, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

“Then you should begin,” Ikki said.

Forming a quick and dirty spatial anchor was easier with my second gate spatial mana open, and it was less of a drain to maintain a few nonpermanent ones. Of course, it was just an anchor spell. On its own, it wasn’t doing a whole lot.

When I combined it with Foxstep, though, it reduced the mana cost of the teleport slightly, but more interestingly, I was able to skip the line of sight requirement that the spell normally had.

“You also have a spell that uses time and space magic to lock something in place,” Ikki commented after a bit of experimentation.

“It’s not likely to be able to be used on others, though. It’s got similar constraints to the Transport Item spell,” I said.

“Unless I’m mistaken, there’s going to be one thing from the temporal aspect that is rather different,” Ikki said. “Namely, that it will have an easier time affecting your own spells, and yourself.”

“Oh,” I said, my eyes widening.

I could see it now. Hopping around, placing spatial anchors to serve as reference points to teleport between, and potentially even having some anchor points in the air. Foxstep could teleport upwards just fine, it just was more costly, and I didn’t have a way to easily get down again.

I sketched the spell that Orykson and I had devised, which took several long seconds, then flooded it with mana, focused around the Spatial Anchor inside of me. To my surprise, it also tapped into the Captured Moment within me.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I tried to move, and… Couldn’t. As I tried to move, it put a drain on my mana-garden, as I strained against my own spell.

I released the magic a moment later.

“I can definitely pin myself in place,” I said. “But it locks me entirely, it’s not great for if I need to move.”

“You should have anchors in each of your limbs,” Ikki said. “Much like you do the captured moments. Do so when we break for lunch. For now, though, sketch again, teleport up, and fuel the spell.”

I did as he said. There was a terrifying instant when I was twenty feet off the ground and falling, but as soon as I flooded my spell with mana, I jerked to a sudden stop.

It wasn’t pleasant, but I hung there, suspended and safe. It was a pretty extreme mana drain, though, so I teleported back down onto the ground.

Or I tried to. Instead, the two spells clashed within my spirit and began to rapidly drain my mana. I quickly cut off my teleport, then dropped the locking spell before teleporting as I fell.

Teleporting down took even more energy than teleporting up did, which didn’t make any sense to me – surely it should take less, since it was working with gravity?

We had to take a break to eat a quick lunch then, and to allow my mana to recharge. Without my staff, my mana regenerated at a much slower rate, which was annoying, but that wasn’t an excuse for relaxation – as soon as I was done eating, Ikki and I were practicing fighting.

After I had enough mana to put anchors in my legs and continue practicing, I was able to target just my legs to freeze them, which allowed me to reduce the mana cost. I still couldn’t hover for long, and until I mastered the spell, aerial movement was impossible.

Even when I did master the spell, I’d have to learn to balance a strange back and forth of dropping the lock, teleporting, and putting the lock back around myself, and I was sure that I’d struggle to get used to the jerking sensation of coming to a total stop after a moment of freefall.

“Even with the problems, it’s got the potential to become an excellent movement method,” Ikki said. “Higher gate spells may let you move further, but within a fight, aerial mobility can make a massive impact. There is a reason that my homeland favors flying swords so much.”

“Speaking of flying swords,” I said. “I want to know the ritual of making a domain weapon.”

Ikki arched an eyebrow, so I explained.

“I’ve already tried out a staff, and it worked pretty well. Really well, actually. But I don’t want to stick to one path of power just because it works. I want to at least try out a domain weapon.”

“Wise,” Ikki said. “The ritual is much the same as for staff construction, but instead of trails of shavings that connect each array to the mana sources within the circle, I’d have the solidified mana inside of the circle, and connect to the mana sources that had been placed on the outside.”

Using a pen and a sticky note, he drew a basic diagram, which I sent into Dusk’s realm, then frowned. Where was Dusk? She hadn’t joined me for training yesterday either…

Anyways, for now, I had the ritual.

“I should warn you, you may not like the results of the ritual,” Ikki warned.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, swords are the most common. Most people are simple blades. Spears, axes, and hammers are all common as well. Shields are not unheard of, and armor or tools can occasionally appear. But it can be… Uncomfortable.”

I stared at him.

“I don’t get it,” I finally said.

“This is a representation of you, your magic, and your personality,” Ikki explained. “A staff is a staff. But a weapon… it can be uncomfortable to find out that you are a boring sword that you could pick up at any weaponsmith. Or that you are a large, dull hammer. Or that you are not a weapon at all, but are simply a chisel.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding after a moment. “I think I get that.”

Honestly, though, I didn’t think there was much that would really upset me. Even if I got an ugly hammer…

“Now, the next thing we need to work on,” Ikki said, “Is your use of your Blademoss.”

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I said, wincing at the memory of tearing into my spirit by over-channeling it.

“Which was fair when you were recovering,” Ikki said. “And it should not be your go-to attack until you’re third gate yourself. But it is a valuable and powerful resource, and you can handle making one or two good cuts with it during battle.”

We dove back into combat again, but this time using magic. Ikki was easily the superior combatant, but there were a few useful combinations that already stood out to me.

I overcharged a fungal lock to hold him in place, then overcharged my Enhance Plant Growth and tapped into the Blademoss.

It was a strain, an uncomfortable push on my spirit, like gripping a pan that was too hot. Not so hot that it would burn your hand, but hot enough you didn’t want to hold it for long.

I slashed out with the Blademoss, and watched the silvery glowing arc of power split through the air with the full energy of a third gate attack spell, and sucked in a breath. It was amazing, beautiful really.

I had used it in the battle against the war root, of course, but I hadn’t had the time to appreciate the beauty of the massive green and silver arc of power.

Ikki responded by doing something I had never seen him do in any of our spars.

Normally, he fought me as a first gate mage, defeating me with skill rather than power.

Now, though, he released the power of a second gate spell, and used an instant step spell to just barely dodge out of the way.

Then he struck my arm with the flat of his blade and shoved me to the side.

“Not a bad idea, but I know your magic well enough to have a counter,” he said, spinning and delivering a downward slash.

I teleported behind him and was met with an elbow to the ribs.

Throughout the course of the spar, I only got one other good opportunity to use the overpowered attack – I’d caged myself in a cage of Briarthreads, both real, illusion, and echo, and forced Ikki to come at my legs with a downward attack.

I dropped, instead of moving away, moving into the sword. My threads took the blow, and I thrust my hand up to unleash Blademoss at point blank range.

Again, it left an uncomfortable burning sensation in my spirit, worse than the first time. I didn’t want to have to use it a third time in one fight, but at least I’d be able to get out two attacks that hit over my gate.

Ikki managed to drop his blade and leap to the side fast enough to get out of the way, but as we concluded our spar, I was pretty happy. I was powerful enough now that I was able to force him to fight me at my own level, and I felt like I’d sharpened my combat skills some.

Before he left, though, he gave me a serious look.

“Malachi. Some time ago, we talked about how you felt directionless. Do you now?”

I considered that for a long moment before I shook my head.

“For the first time in a long time… No. I have several things I need to do in the immediate future, then to help Kene, and more besides, but… I’m content helping people. Killing the war root was a good thing. And I’m doing more good things.”

Ikki smiled and nodded, then vanished.