I glanced at Kene, and then at Mallory, then the bald guy, then the mineral mage. They stared back.

I drew in a deep breath and released my mana.

Four Pinpoint Boneshards burst from my spirit as Briarthreads lashed out around me. Two of the bone shards flew at the mineral mage, and two at the spinning mage.

My attack broke the silence and tension that had fallen over the space, and everything exploded into motion. Riley leapt up and bit down on the mineral mage’s neck, only to get a bright green crystal punched into their face.

Mallory leapt at the spinning mage, who released another one of his spinning waves. This time, Kene, Dusk, and I were all caught up in the spinning.

My Pinpoint Boneshards went wild, which shouldn’t have happened, but the spinning was warping space itself, which messed with how the pinpoint function worked. I was spinning, the trees swirling around me.

A fist struck my side, slowed by the aura spell, and my Briarthreads lashed out, but they were spinning too, and only cut up the bald man’s fist slightly.

“Name’s Bohn, nice to meet you!” the bald man said as his fist released a concussive wave that threw me back. If I didn’t have my suit and aura spell, it would have easily cracked my ribs, and maybe worse. As was, I was just thrown back and caught up in the spinning even more.

My stomach was starting to get upset at this point, and next to me, I saw Mallory lean over and release the contents of her stomach.

It was gross, but there was also something a little bit funny about watching someone so dignified and rich vomiting because of being spun around wildly.

Bohn appeared beside her and released another concussive blast. I tried to fling Briarthreads at him, but they just got caught up in the spinning and went wild.

Things returned to normal, which should have been a relief, but instead it actually worsened the vertigo due to the sudden stop.

I took in everything I could of the fight in the seconds where my vision wasn’t spinning any more.

The mineral mage was gone now, and judging my the fact Bohn was near Riley, and was spinning Riley around in a mini-cyclone of force while striking out with spinning kicks, I was guessing that the pair had forced the mineral mage to retreat.

Riley collapsed to their knees, and Bohn leapt away, moving towards Mallory, clapping as he moved. The world twisted, but in the second before it did, I felt Kene’s magic wash over me. A soft golden light suffused me, and everything was a little bit smoother, the disorientation not as bad, my steps not as thrown off by the wild spinning motions I was caught up in, and even my Magister’s Body seemed to run a bit better.

Dusk clapped her hands and I felt her own power spread out over the area. Rather than infusing and bolstering me, she was countering the spinning, space warping effect of Bohn’s spells. It was strange, the way she was doing it – it didn’t feel like spellcraft, it was more like when she was fighting the ghost for control over an area, or when she altered the interior of the space within her.

Dusk let out a soft peep, saying this took a lot of effort, she wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up, or how much help she could offer in the fight.

Still, between the two effects, there was a thin area around me where I was able to move more or less normally.

The world stopped spinning before my eyes a bit faster this time, and then Bohn was in front of me. He lashed out with a spinning kick, using the momentum of his spinning space to his advantage. I caught it with Briarthreads and released two short range Pinpoint Boneshards.

They couldn’t move far from me, not if I wanted to keep them in Dusk’s sphere of normalcy, but as my Briarthreads and aura pin caught Bohn’s leg, the bones struck him in the chest.

He had some sort of force armor that I heard crack under the stress, but he was still caught up in the spinning, and the bones were thrown away.

I winced. I could recall them once he dropping the spinning spell, but not now. I drew out another pair and let them hover over my shoulders, but the time let Bohn gather power to strike me with a concussive spell.

Before his fist connected, a huge black shape spun through the air and slammed into him.

Bohn lost control of the spinning spell, and Dusk was able to drop her control over the area. She started rapidly sketching, and I thrust my hand out.

Now that he was finally not spinning around like wild, I could catch him in Fungal Locks. I overcharged my mana and let one, then another, and then more fall over him, until my mana was quickly draining to pin him down.

Five Fungal Lock spells encased him and quickly drained away his energy, siphoning it to fuel the mycellium’s power even more, but the strain on my mana was even greater.

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I reached for Burn Power to take more, and then mentally cursed myself.

Luckily, I didn’t need the power to finish him off, because as they started to fade, Mallory’s wolf form shifted until she was normal. She conjured her shadow claws and pointed them at his throat.

For a moment, I had a horrible memory of the slipshark incident, and thought she was going to kill a man in front of me.

Instead, she growled out, “Surrender and leave.”

“Okay,” Bohn said, his voice muffled by the remaining fungus. “I surrender. That fungus has an interesting bitter taste, though. Do you sell them? I could see how they could be sweetened and spiced up to make a ste–”

“Stop,” Mallory said, her spare hand touching her stomach. “Primes, stop!”

I couldn’t help but smile, then once Bohn bounded away – still chatting to himself – I turned to go check on Kene as Mallory went to check on Riley. Kene was fine, apart from being dizzy.

Riley, on the other hand, was not doing so great. The crystal had left them with acid burns, and being spun around and thrown into a tree had not helped much.

Their vampiric body was stronger than a human’s, and some vampires had the ability to heal over time – it all depended on which vampiric legacy they’d inherited.

Kene leaned down and put their hands on Riley’s face. Green light leaked out, and Kene grunted.

“Healing vampires is harder than humans – different energetic structures. But I should be able to repair most of the acid damage. Their natural healing will have to cover the scars, though.”

Slowly, Riley’s skin knitted itself back together, but the sharp scar lines were obvious on their dark skin.

Kene rose and dusted his hands off, and Mallory gave me an appraising look.

“Smart, bringing a healer. Why weren’t they at our match?”

“Distance,” Kene said sourly. “But I’ve heard a fair bit about you.”

“Ah,” Mallory said, a bit sheepishly. “How long till Riley recovers?”

“About two hours until they’re in fighting and moving shape, a few days until they’re fully healed,” Kene said, removing a potion from his bag and handing it to Mallory. “Give this to them in the morning.”

Mallory took the potion and tucked it into her storage ring.

“What do I owe you?” she asked. “I found…”

She shuffled through her storage ring and removed a small blackcurrant that glowed with second gate power – not a mana source, though, the power was all bound up. A natural treasure then.

“You don’t need to pay,” Kene said, shaking his head. “They helped us, this is helping in turn.”

I disagreed with that some, but Kene had tried to give out free healing to me too, so instead of arguing with Kene, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him close, while shooting Mallory a ‘don’t you dare’ look over his shoulder. In my pocket, Dusk chirped, complaining that I’d cut off her view.

“Take it,” Mallory insisted. “It’s a healer’s treasure anyway, not like I could use it.”

Kene took the fruit reluctantly and rolled it between his palms, then slipped it into his ring.

“What does it do?” I asked, surprised he hadn’t eaten it.

“If you consume it while ascending, it will unlock its own power and significantly enhance or modify the power in a spell. This one feels like it’s an enhancement – it will provide months worth of growth and training to my Minor Regeneration spell instantly, and maybe change its structure slightly to improve it.”

I whistled appreciatively, stepping away from Kene to let Dusk clamber out of my pocket and onto my shoulder.

“Are there things like that I could use?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mallory said. “I’m looking for an Alburabbit horn, personally. They’re an excellent material for any sort of cutting or piercing spell, like my claws.”

I nodded, then gestured to the pond and the reeds.

“How are we splitting this?”

“I don’t have use for the water,” I said, “other than trade.”

“But Riley will,” Kene said. “That’s deadstand water – it’s not going to be quite as useful for blood magic development as it is for some magic, but it’s going to be useful.”

Mallory crossed her arms and examined us.

“So, one drop and the water, you take three drops.”

“Fine by me,” Kene said, and I nodded.

Drawing the bone knife from my spirit, I sliced the leaves of the plants off and handed one to Mallory, and the rest to Dusk, who sent them into her storage space.

Kene and I turned to leave, but before we did, I glanced at Mallory.

“I’m not saying I want to team up for the tower or anything, but… If you want to briefly, I’m not opposed to it. Tell Riley I hope they recover quickly.”

Mallory just nodded, and Kene and I left. Using my Sense Directionality spell, I guided us towards the open area. Before we were quite in the entrance, though, I opened a portal to Dusk’s realm, and spun a quick spatial tripwire over the space before entering. Kene entered as well, and glanced at me.

“Wanna extract the drops now?” they asked.

“Better to get it out of the way. I don’t think anyone could steal from Dusk without her noticing, but… Why risk it? Not to mention, we haven’t exactly prepared them for long term storage. And you didn’t have trouble with the berries, so they clearly don’t impart mana toxicity.”

Kene nodded and lit the fire under the small cauldron, then we both started examining the plants under Analyze Life.

The plants were… weird. Their arrays seemed to suck up something – presumably the drops of destiny – from the roots and hold it, but they were only able to hold a tiny bit before those arrays were completely broken.

I’d never seen broken arrays in a plant without me using a harvesting spell to break them intentionally.

Even weirder, there was no other mana in the plants. I’d grown used to seeing the empty spaces where tiny tinges of tempest, telluric, solar, and other mana were, but…

There was nothing, other than the drops of destiny that I could only sort of sense.

It was like the plants were entirely artificial, and I wasn’t entirely certain that thought was incorrect.

We fed the leaves into the water as we tried to use the cauldron’s functions to remove as much of the extraneous arrays in the water as we could, and used Harvest Plant Life to strip out all of the arrays other than the ones that held the drops of destiny.

Once five leaves had been fed into the water, there was a very quick reaction. The water burst into a boil and a cloud of steam rushed out of the cauldron, smelling of roses, pastries, and old, well worn leather armchairs.

Then the scents vanished, and Kene checked the air over the cauldron before leaning forwards.

A single drop of golden liquid shimmered at the bottom of the pot, and I glanced at Kene.

“You first.”

“No, I’ve already had one. I’ll take one, since we have three, but you and Dusk first.”

I glanced at Dusk, who shrugged and took the droplet.

We repeated the process, and this drop was mine. As Kene tilted the cauldron, I caught the drop and swallowed it, letting it slip into my mana-garden…