I chased the blink fox through the forest as it played with me, and slowly I hammered out an understanding of the fox, its mana, and – at least an attempt at – the spell it used.

The fox was early second gate, which was likely why it had felt confident playing with me. Its mana was a composite, like vampiric, draconic, or hag mana, but very different.

Space dominated, which was obvious, but it seemed to weave together aspects of time, life, and solar mana too, with small flashes of other mana aspects.

Much less of an equal blend than Dusk, but still a blend.

It had taken me a merry chase, teleporting around far more frequently and easily than the humans had been able to at the carnival treasure hunt.

Part of that was no doubt due to the foxes' mass – it weighed a tiny fraction of what any human did, after all – but as I dove into bushes to try and catch it for the umpteenth time, I was certain that wasn't the only method.

The fox let out an amused yowl, turned its head, and teleported away.

I frowned, my eyes narrowing. Why would it turn its head?

Maybe it was a crutch, like when I waved my hand to direct a spell.

Or maybe…

I ran after the fox in a zig-zag pattern, and sent mana into Lesser Image Recall as I did, connecting it to the permanent Capture Moment on my body.

I left a scattered trail of illusory images behind me as I circled the fox. It glanced rapidly between them, and didn't teleport away. Instead, it seemed genuinely concerned, so I dropped the images quickly.

It chuffed and sneezed at me, presumably reprimanding me for scaring it a bit. Dusk hopped down and babbled at the fox for a bit, the sounds not even making sense to me. The fox yipped, then turned and teleported again.

Well, that was good to know. Its teleport was at least partially based on vision.

I dashed to follow the fox into the thickets, but this time I slipped and rolled until I came to a rest against a gnarled old oak. The protective aura around me from my pin stopped injuries to Dusk and myself, but it was disorienting.

The fox teleported in front of me and let out a sound that was almost like human laughter, and Dusk joined in with her branch-rustling laughter. After a second, I started laughing as well, a deep belly laugh.

I wiped my eyes once I stopped laughing, and looked at the fox.

"You're quite the playful lil guy. Girl? Other? Do foxes understand gender enough to realize?"

The fox tilted its head, confused by what my human noises meant. Its ears perked up, tail wagged, and it let out a whine, tilting its head.

"What is it?" I asked. Dusk smacked my cheek, a wind-whistle telling me that it was hungry.

I bit my lip, then waved my hand and opened a portal to Dusk's realm. The fox bounded forwards and sniffed curiously.

I considered giving it the meal potion, but I had no idea if caffeine was good for a fox. It was awful for cats and dogs, so I erred on the side of caution.

Instead, I went to my tree. The apples weren't quite ripe, but it was something, at least. I picked two of them, and used a miniature briarthread to slice them up, then put them down for the fox.

As I cut and prepared the apples, the blink fox entered Dusk's realm, sat on its haunches and put its paws on my leg, begging.

I smiled and put it down on the ground for it to eat. The fox was cute and playful, but it was still a wild animal. Putting my hand near its mouth seemed foolish.

The blink fox snapped up the mana apples, then paused, and its hair stood on end for a moment before it settled down. The fox sneezed, shook itself, and rapidly began to chow down on the remaining slices.

I grabbed another unripe apple, now curious, and bit into it myself.

Power rushed into me, like crackling lightning, and I quickly devoured the rest of the apple, tossing the core aside to compost.

The tiredness from rushing around, chasing the blink fox relaxed, sloughing away. My life mana took in the flood of power, building up the walls of my first gate life mana ever so slightly, and then pushing the mists of my second gate back a small amount.

The fox then rushed over to the small folk village, sniffing around. I felt a few pulses of pixie and bwbatch magic, and rushed over, only to find the fox rolled over, the small folk scratching at its stomach.

I let out a sigh of relief. For a moment, I'd been terrified that they were going to wind up attacking one another.

Carefully, I let the fox sniff my hand before I scratched its stomach too. Dusk made a sound of pure joy and hopped onto its belly, her small frame too light to do anything more than tickle it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Since this was training, not just fun, I empowered Analyze Life and used it alongside my mana senses to examine the spells inside of the blink fox's body and spirit. The fox didn't seem to mind, so long as the small folk and I lavished her with attention.

Its teleportation spell was easy to find, since it was by far the most developed part of the fox's magic.

Parts of it were somewhat like the Transport Item spell, but others structure reminded me of a time spell. Almost like Material Echo, in a weird way.

And the life and solar elements were being used to drain the user's energy, burning it up.

I bit my lip, then remembered Ikki had mentioned a spell – instant step, or something like that.

Then it all clicked into place.

It wasn't burning life energy, not in the sense of the flows that kept us alive and well. It was still burning energy, just not in a metaphysical sense. It was tapping into the energy of the user's biology, their fat and muscle, to power itself.

Movement without movement, the spatial fold and temporal envelope causing it to be as if the user had simply walked to their location.

The blink fox truly had an instant step. With it engaging my legacy, and my full gate spells providing the life, solar, and other elements it was a good choice for…

My thoughts trailed off as I connected it with another spell.

The Foxstep, as I mentally dubbed it, treated the user as if they'd actually moved that distance in space. Which meant, if I was right, it just might trigger Harvest Distance.

I did my best to memorize the spell for as long as the blink fox would let me.

Once the fox had its fill of scratches, she hopped out of Dusk's realm and bounded away. She got a short distance away before turning and huffing at me.

Dusk urged me to follow, and so I rose and did. The blink fox led me through the forest toward a foxhole.

To my eyes it looked normal, but to my mana sense it felt like a bulge in space, akin to my briefcase with an expanded inside. But the bulge wasn't entirely right either. It… tunneled too.

It was also third gate mana, and potent. More than what one mage should have been able to construct alone without taking on a mana debt or having a large amount of restoration tools to keep the work going.

A cooperative work, then. A den for a bunch of blink foxes, perhaps?

The fox wiggled her butt and dove in, vanishing from sight. I blinked, and waited for a short while until the fox returned, a small item clutched in her mouth.

She dropped it at my feet, and her ears twitched. I gently scratched her head before taking the item off the forest floor.

It was a huge, blood red gemstone, easily the size of a chicken egg. That was far too big to be natural, probably grown by a telluric mage of some sort.

I turned it over in my hand, feeling the magic woven in. It was some sort of wardstone, that much was obvious, but the spells laced into it were old. The mana core inside had almost given out after all this time, but there was still a trickle of power running through it.

I tossed it to Dusk, and the already huge gemstone looked comically massive in her hands. She looked over it and let out a rustle of unsureness, before dropping it back to me.

Out of sheer curiosity, I sketched out the spell Ikki had taught me, Lesser Psychometry, and tapped the stone.

I was immediately struck by impressions of blood and violence, then long, long, long nothingness.

I shuddered as I yanked my hand back from the stone, shaking my fingers like I’d singed them on a hot stove.

Nothing too useful, but definitely negative impressions. Maybe Ikki was right, I should start with the marbles he gave me until I learned to interpret the readings better.

I made my way back to Meadow and Kene, who had apparently decided that now was the perfect time to discuss alchemy in staggering depth, because they’d pulled out no less than four books, and were hotly debating the utility of using weighted oakmoss in flight potions.

“Sure, the metallic aspects are extraneous, but that just means you have to cut them off,” Kene said. “The core aspects can be used as a part of the flight, to help make you less heavy, and reduce the need for control over winds and pressure.”

“It’s better suited for levitation, not flight,” Meadow said, shaking her head. “There’s too much risk of not getting all of the metal, and accidentally inverting the weight, making the… Oh, hello Malachi.”

I stopped and smiled at them.

“You don’t have to stop, you can keep going,” I said.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Kene said, rising and dusting off one of their books before returning it to their ring. Meadow did the same with the other three.

“How did your study of the fox go?” Meadow asked.

“Can I have a pen and paper?”

When I was handed some, I bent over the giant toadstool they’d been using as a table and began to write out the spell. Meadow looked over it and nodded her approval.

“And do you understand what it does?”

I did my best to explain, and she clapped her hands softly.

“Oh, and the fox gave me this,” I said, taking the stone from my pocket. Meadow took it and nodded, and Kene perked up.

“Oh, that’s what I was missing!”

“What you were missing?” I asked.

“Yeah, here, come with me.”

Kene led us through the forest to a set of ancient stone steps that had likely once led into a stone tower or castle or such. Now, though, they were crumbling away into nothingness, only the vaguest suggestions of what had once been.

At the top of the stairs, in what would have been the entry hall, mana flexed and shifted strangely, a mix of spatial and temporal, constrained by layers of ancient wards.

The whole thing was decaying, mana slipping out into the environment. The wards were fairly stable, but the flickering fold of space and time gave off the impression of a magic item with its power almost run down.

I'd have bet a good sum of money that this distortion's slow breakdown was the cause of the spatial mana in the area.

In my hand, the wardstone began to glow. The ancient protections around the distortion faded and crumbled, and the stone did in my hand as well.

"What is that?" Kene asked, looking between me, Dusk, and Meadow.

"A time catch," Meadow said. "It likely only has the energy for a few loops left. Two, perhaps three, if my guess is correct."

"What do we do with it?" I asked.

"You two could enter," Meadow said. "You'll not be able to leave with any material possessions from the loops, but any mana you absorb will stay with you, though it will likely destabilize the loop further."

"Or?" I asked.

"Dusk could advance to second gate and absorb the time catch. She could break down the power and energy patterns stored within and use it to grow and develop."

I glanced between Kene and Dusk.

"I don't get a say," Kene said. I opened my mouth to say they were being ridiculous, but they cut me off. "Dusk absorbed a big chunk of the hag power and bought me at least six months to advance without the hag advancing too. As far as I'm concerned, she gets my vote."

I didn't argue, instead focusing on Dusk.

"If you want to absorb it, you can," I said. "But if you want to go in, we can. I don't think it'll be a very nice place, based on the impressions the wardstone gave me."

Dusk let out a contemplative hum and thought, kicking her feet. I waited, curious to see what the tiny spirit would say.