As the month of Heats-End ticked by and turned into Harvest-Fount, I spent my time working through two or three low stakes missions each day, practicing by sketching spells out to master them, and going through the pile of pills that Kene had left for me.

Like they’d said, none of them were exceptional, but they were an investment: They increased what I put into them.

Since I was spending so much time on spellwork, they worked well. They also helped increase my ability to prune the trees that formed in my mana-garden, which helped me work out the inefficiencies.

The first spell I mastered was Harvest Distance, and kind of like Analyze Space, I’d been using it so much that as soon as I mastered it, it ingrained itself. The extra stream of spatial mana was a big help in allowing me to continue to work on the other spatial spells.

I met with the mentalist first, who found my apprenticeship and all the stress I had experienced under it to be just as interesting as the underlying mental condition that I’d initially come in for, and for the fact I expressed frustration with my ability to only focus on things that interested me.

For that, he suggested I talk to a different sort of mentalist. Rather than focusing on the medical side of things, the interactions between magic and the brain, and all that sort of stuff, they focused on the softer side: emotions, trauma, and learning techniques to make living with problems more manageable. There were even some who specialized in assisting with dysphoria, which was really interesting.

I was a touch unsure, but I did search through a large list of them until I found one that I was willing to set up an appointment with.

This doctor did prescribe me an alchemical pill for symptom control too. There were a dozen different varieties: Some started fast and would help me focus harder, but could create a crash, and tended to focus hard on doing things over thinking about things. Others were a bit more of a slow burn, which helped focus on mental and physical as well, and was a bit more mellow, but required a bit of time to get it going.

It also seemed like all of them had a massive list of side effects that ranged from heart issues, to panic attacks, to weight loss problems.

I wound up choosing one that was supposed to help me get things done, but could create a crash. I wasn’t sure it would work, but the mentalist didn’t seem too concerned. Apparently, it wasn’t uncommon for people to have to go through three to four different types of treatment before they found the one that worked, and since I was a patient now, I shouldn’t have to wait as long to see him again.

After I got the prescription, I swung by the library in order to ask to see Alvaro, but he was apparently on some sort of research sabbatical, along with a group of a half dozen other librarians. I didn’t even know what a ‘research sabbatical’ was, but apparently it was a thing.

Towards the end of the month, Ed arrived back from some sort of trip that he’d made with Meadow, carrying a baby… creature… that he decided to name Kerbos.

I call it a creature because I wasn’t sure exactly what else to call it. It resembled a puppy in some ways, but it had horns made of a shimmery material that was somewhat like iron, but far sparkle-ier, almost as if someone had forged metal with flecks of gold in it. According to Ed, the metal was called starlit iron, though I wasn’t sure if that was its actual name or just something he’d come up with on his own.

On top of horns of starlit iron, it had something resembling a chest plate made of it, coating its teeth and nails, and a few rings of it along its tail. The tail was also slightly strange, reminding me more of a dragon’s tail than that of a dog.

The mana the creature had seemed to be a blend of telluric, solar, abnegation, and a few lesser aspects that were harder for me to place, which… suited Ed, I couldn’t deny it.

To my surprise, Dusk found herself playing with Kerbos quite often, but also with the mana sense training orb that Orykson had left me. By working with the peacepyre, she managed to finagle her way through all four layers. It cracked open once she was complete, though whatever reward had probably been in there must have been teleported away by Orykson when I switched to Meadow as my master.

I mastered Sense Directionality and Vampiric Senses fairly quickly afterwards, and then moved onto Spatial Anchor.

Orykson finally reappeared in the backyard on his next teaching day.

“You know, if you’d worked with me, you’d already be midway through your second gate,” Orykson commented.

I shrugged in response, not saying anything.

“Well, now that you’ve the most basic of spatial techniques complete, let’s see it in action.”

Stolen story; please report.

I poured mana into the spell, which formed a point in space over my palm that glowed to my mana senses, though it was invisible to the naked eye.

Much like my Capture Moment spell, I could sense dozens of other functions built into the spell, and thanks to my work with the temporal version, I could guess at most of them.

“Do you want me to try and form a permanent version of one?” I asked.

Orykson’s eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, and then he nodded.

“Your experience with Capture Moment, I presume?”

“Yep,” I said as I funneled power into that part of the spell. It took a lot more than my Capture Moment had – then again, with capture moment, I’d had the advantage of ingraining the spell via a pill to help – but I did eventually activate the permanency function by drawing a bit of power from my other gates.

Once I finished, the point hung in the air, and I felt new functions open within the spell, though all seemed like they’d take a lot of power to manage.

“The Spatial Anchor is the foundation for almost all spatial magic,” Orykson said. “It is the basis for the teleportation platforms that link major cities. The basis for endless spatial manipulation ward work. The basis for every modern extraspatial pocket or demiplane. It can be incorporated into the anchor for shadow realms or even time-catches.”

“Time catches?”

“Twisted areas of time set on a perpetual repeat condensed into a single spatial point until their causal energy is averted,” Orykson said, waving his hand. “They’ve been used as prisons, training facilities, and more.”

“What’s the catch?” I asked. If a time catch was easy, then we’d all train in them.

“They’re all but impossible to create on purpose, and they all eventually run out of power and degrade into nothingness. Regardless, that’s not the point. The point is that there are near infinite possibilities for how Spatial Anchor interacts with other spells.”

“Am I going to learn any of those spells?” I asked.

“Once you get to second gate, you’ll learn a few different spells that can interact with it. Most notably, your short-range teleport, a spell to teleport items, and an area detection effect.”

“Then what you’re saying is that I need to advance?” I asked.

Orykson made a so-so gesture with his hand.

“You’d be well serviced by advancing now. But considering the energy you’ve put into pruning your mana garden and collecting different mana types, you’d also be well served by constructing a staff now, and then simply upgrading it as you have the materials.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to bother with a staff until third gate?” I asked.

“I didn’t, but if you’ve already done ninety percent of the work, there’s no sense in ignoring that. But I will leave that to Meadow.”

I glanced at the Spatial Anchor hanging in the air.

“What do I do with that?”

“Sense within the spell until you can find the path that allows you to move the location,” Orykson instructed.

I didn’t think of it as a path, but rather as a tap, but the analogy worked well enough. I sunk into the spell until I found the tap that gave me a sense of movement, and opened it.

I expected my mana to gush out, but instead, it only took a trickle – less than what my Harvest Distance provided me with.

I felt around within the spell for a reason why, and the only thing I could sense was compatibility. I’d made it, so I could move it.

“You should set a handful of points around your home,” Orykson instructed. “Front door, back door, your room, and then one at each of the four corners of your property.”

It took me a good while to build up the mana to place down all of the points, even draining from my garden to do so, but after a couple of hours, I’d established all of the necessary points.

Dusk got bored halfway through and left to go work on her own spells, since she was nearing the point where she could break through to second gate herself.

“Good,” Orykson said with a nod, once I was finally done. “Now, do you have your broom?”

“Yes,” I said, mentally groaning.

Orykson had me set up points in the sky above where each of the perimeter points lay, which took me even more time and mana to finish. Orykson, for his point, didn’t bother to use a broom at all, simply hovering ominously next to me while I worked.

I did wonder how he was doing that. I wouldn’t put it past him to have enchanted his shoes, specifically to avoid needing a broom. Flying footwear was definitely a thing, though I thought it was more common in Vinopae.

Then again, he was an occultist. For all I knew, he was flying just out of a desire to spite gravity.

Once we finished, Orykson nodded to my chest. I frowned and put a hand over myself, feeling incredibly self-conscious.

“The pin you’ve picked up,” he said, and I relaxed slightly. I still didn’t feel great, but Orykson didn’t notice, or else didn’t care. “Create another Spatial Anchor inside of it.”

That took me a bit of time to manage, but I did as he said.

“Find the path that allows you to bind it to an object,” Orykson instructed.

I searched until I found the relevant tap, then poured mana through it. The Spatial Anchor began to expand and fill the pin, and I was glad it was such a small object.

It was somewhat like filling an object with Capture Moment, mixed with setting it to auto update, because as soon as this function was complete, it seemed to form its own sustaining core as well.

“You should consider filling your own body with a Spatial Anchor as well,” Orykson said neutrally. “It will help you resist foreign teleportation effects.”

“Will it interfere with the Captured Moments that are auto-updating?” I asked.

“No,” Orykson said. He glanced around and then sighed. “That’s all for now. Once you ascend to second gate, I’ll return, and you can start learning some useful spatial magic.”

He teleported away then, and I was left alone in the yard, thinking about what to do. I opened up a gate to Dusk’s realm and then took a seat under the Emperor’s Tree.

I gathered myself and looked within, then converted all of my mana to temporal. Drawing upon the tree, I overloaded myself with mana and forced the gate open.

It was easier than when I’d first opened my life gate. Instead of applying a massive pressure to my mana-garden, it instead felt like a soothing of the pressure. It was still there, concentrated around my death and spatial, but it lessened.

I rose as I felt the new power settling into my first gate, increasing its density and potency.

Since I had the chunk of second gate amber, I didn’t see any reason to not go ahead and ascend that gate as well. I’d seek out Meadow tomorrow, and we could – finally – get started on building my staff.