I stood in the center of the ritual and let my mana swirl out through the loops and assorted mana sources. My ungated mana connected to the centerpoint, then my first gate mana clicked into place, then my second.

Resonance began to form, but instead of shaking the entire world, it was a center spark that I draped layer after layer of elaborate power atop.

It was a slow, arduous process. Each one of my gates needed layers of mana, and each one was harder to place atop than the one before it.

Then, finally, all of the layers of power bound together and I began to compress it into a tight orb. The size of a melon, then a grapefruit, then a lemon. From a lemon, I crushed it further down. A lime, then a walnut.

Then I lost my grip on the power, and my eyes snapped open.

In my hands I clutched a… staff.

I frowned.

The ritual I’d used had been to create a domain weapon, not a staff.

This staff did look different, though. It was heavier, thicker than my mage’s staff. Instead of elaborate runes and carvings making up channels for magic, with a flower and amber atop it, the staff had swirls of gold running throughout the wood. It was a deep, rich, red wood, with a pair of weighted metal caps on either end.

I spun it in one hand and nearly dropped it – it was heavier than I’d expected.

“Master quarterstaff wielder that you are,” Kene said. “Maybe you should see what it can do?”

I chuckled sheepishly and agreed, taking a two handed grip on it and swinging it almost like a bat.

As I swung the staff, I felt it drain something.

That in and of itself wasn’t entirely unexpected. Ikki or Meadow – I couldn’t remember which – had postulated that a drain effect was possible.

What I hadn’t expected was for it to drain from me.

The golden swirls that ran along the length of the quarterstaff glowed with a rainbow light, and my Magister’s Body sent energy into the staff, condensing at the end to empower the blow.

At the same instance, I felt death mana imbuing the wood with more strength, while space and time warped around the shaft of the weapon to speed the swing, and life empowered my arm to add additional strength.

The energy that had been packed at the tip of the staff dissipated, and I felt my Magister’s Body start to chug along, working to replenish the store of energy.

I frowned as I moved the staff around some. That was definitely a powerful effect, since it would allow for quick, powerful blows, which did lean into my style, but… was that a style I wanted to continue with?

Ikki had blocked off my Burn Future because I burned through my power so fast that I became reliant on it. In his own words, getting more power would fix the problem.

But so would becoming so good at managing the power I had that I was able to overcome people stronger than me without burning through my entire reserves and needing more.

Then again, if I became strong enough at blitz attacking, I might be able to ignore that completely. If my first blow was strong enough to never need a second, wouldn’t that also be a good management of power?

I moved the staff through a few more swings and thrusts, trying to imitate some of the moves I’d seen Ed make with his spear, and as I did, I thought about the war root.

I never would have been able to defeat it if I’d pushed for more of a blitz strategy. I would have cracked the energy storage core in the center and blown apart some of the roots, but then I would have been caught up and died – or at least, hurt.

I spun the staff, accounting for the weight this time, and I felt as each strike moved fast and hit hard, but burnt through my energy stores quickly.

Kene picked up a branch from the edge of the woods and walked over to see how my staff worked against being hit. When he swung the branch and I blocked it, the energy it drew from my body concentrated along the staff to take the hit.

So, it wasn’t just an offensive weapon, then. That was good to know.

Kene and I tested it a bit longer, and found that it drew power to enforce itself as a block in proportion to the blow it needed to stop, which was good to know. It could take a strong blow… it would just cost me.

Dusk joined in the sparring, having recovered some from fighting the third gate mage, and she released her attack spells at me.

The staff was able to slow and partially block them, but it wasn’t entirely able to stop the compact mana inside of the attacks, which made sense – none of my mana or spells were pure defense, after all.

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Eventually, I was forced to stop, and I drew it into my spirit and watched as it hung there.

A part of me was expecting that now that it wasn’t able to exert its power outside, that I’d get some semblance of resonance that was found in a mage’s staff, for my mana to begin cycling faster, for the walls of my mana-garden to slightly start to grow, for my mana to regenerate quicker, and for my Magister’s Body to be kicked up a notch.

But there was nothing.

Of course there was – if domain weapons could work that way, then nobody would use a staff, or at least, few would.

“So, what do you think?” Kene asked, and I tilted my hand one way, then the other.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t actually used it in combat yet, so it’s hard to say for sure, but it’s definitely a powerful tool. I just worry it’s going to drain through my power even quicker than the style I already have.”

Kene smirked, rolled up their shirt, put a hand on their bicep, and squeezed.

“You’re telling me that these don’t make it a real fight?”

I didn’t know how they managed to keep a straight face while they said that, because I started laughing.

Of course, part of that laughter was to hide the fact that I was slightly blushing and trying not to stare. They did have nicely sculpted arms.

A tiny pang of jealousy ran through me at that, but I tried to push it down. Life wasn’t a crab bucket – just because they had nice arms didn’t mean I wouldn’t.

“Stop flirting,” someone said in a voice I only sort of recognized, and I turned to see a haggard looking Liz trudging towards us.

She… did not look great. Her combat skirt was ripped at the edges, and her floating sword was chipped and cracked. Travis, who followed behind her as always, looked even worse. His right arm hung limply, though he let off power of a third gate mage.

Kene opened their mouth to say something sassy, but they froze when they saw Liz and Travis, and they rushed over. Green and yellow light began to swirl out of their hands, and I could hear them muttering to themself as they set to work on Travis’ arm.

“What happened?” I asked Liz. Had their luck really been that much worse than mine? Most of the things I’d run into should have been short work for Travis and Liz.

Maybe not the spinning mage, Bohn, but the rest, certainly.

“Travis ascended, and we joined in the fight,” she said.

Oh. They’d been stupid.

That was uncharitable, I shouldn’t think that way. But… I couldn’t see a good reason to join in the initial fight, or why people had even fought.

“Why?” I asked, trying to reserve my judgment. Dusk curiously waddled over to Liz and climbed her leg, then poked at the skirt, telling her she could leave it with her overnight, and Dusk and the brownies would repair it.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Liz said before returning her attention to me. “There was a fifth gate hudau heritage stone here.”

“I don’t know what those are,” I admitted. Did everyone just know a bunch of things about natural treasures and stuff?

“They’re compacted, directly converted to personal mana,” Liz said.

“So… a mana source. Sure, it’s fifth gate, but is it reall–”

“No,” Liz said. “I said directly to personal for a reason. The power in them is directly added to your gate. Not to restore your mana – to your gate itself. It can directly be used to build up your walls, or instantly burn away mists. A fifth gate stone contains a layer of ungated, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth gate mana. It could have added a sizable amount of power to whoever took it, then instantly let them clear out their third gate mana, and still have power left in the stone for their next two advancements.”

I whistled, impressed. Not a mana source, then.

“Yeah,” she said. “We thought we might stand a chance, but… Nope.”

“Who got it?” I asked.

“That’s the worst part,” Liz groaned. “It came down to Kamal’s team and that glacier dragon. Kamal won, but before he could claim the stone, it vanished.”

My eyebrows raised, and Liz clarified.

“They get bigger as they grow, it was about the size of a loveseat, and it just… Vanished. Nobody knows how or why – people were using all sorts of spells, and nobody saw anything. There wasn’t anyone invisible, or someone just shoving it into a spatial ring. It’s just… gone. That broke out a second round of fighting, and we were forced to flee.”

“Or, if they were invisible, they were able to dodge the mana senses and spells of everyone,” I said, and Liz nodded.

“What are the odds of that, though?” she asked.

“For one person, low, but maybe if there were a few people working together?” I said, then snapped. “The rice! On the way here, someone stole the entire boat’s rice reserves. Practice, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Liz said with a shrug.

“Done,” Kene announced, walking back over to us.

“Thank you,” Travis said, and Kene nodded.

“What’s your all’s plan for tomorrow?” Liz asked.

“Gather materials?” I said, glancing at Kene, and they nodded.

“We’ve found decent stuff today, and that’s just near the entrance. If we take our brooms out, far from camp, and start wandering in the wilderness away from the most picked over parts, we’re likely to find more or stronger stuff,” I said.

“Other than that, we have some things to work through in the morning,” Kene said. “But that’s about it.”

Liz nodded and took a seat on a log with Travis, pulling out a whetstone and starting to sharpen the nicks out of her blad. I sat too, and Kene sat next to me, slipping their arm around my side and pulling me close.

“We’re likely going to head straight to the tower tomorrow,” Liz said. “Each floor takes progressively more time and is progressively harder. The first floor is usually about a day or two, second’s about a week, and the third’s two or three, and my hope is to complete the first floor, then leave to gather natural treasures, and use both for the auction.”

“Maybe,” I said noncommittally, looking at Kene. Their lips compressed.

“Wouldn’t the best natural treasures be pulled out during the first week or so? Losing an entire day, or two, when we’ve already not gone super far during our first day?”

Liz nodded at that, and Travis actually spoke up.

“It’s a cost-benefit analysis. Is the value of the magic item worth the day or two lost?”

I frowned, not entirely sure.

“Well, you have until we leave in the morning,” Liz said breezily.

We broke out some of the food from Dusk’s realm, and cooked some large tubers wrapped in tin foil in the fire. It was simple affair, but after the day of moving constantly, it was good, tasty food.

As Kene and I retreated into Dusk for the night, however, I thought I sensed some sort of mana in the air, and a shift of the winds in my spirit. I frowned and tried to trace the sensation, but my mana senses couldn’t pin it down. The winds of fortune, however, returned to their lazy circles in satisfaction once I closed the portal.

That was strange, so I reopened it and warned Liz to be careful, and even offered to let her camp in Dusk’s realm, but Liz waved me off, saying everything was fine.

I went to bed, but I couldn’t quite get that sensation out of my mind.