I took a breath as I passed inside the portal, then turned around. There was a loud, resonant thumping sound as the serpent crashed against the portal, but the portal held.

I let out a slight sigh of relief. The defenses inbuilt into Dusk had been further upgraded by the bwbatch that lived within her, and had been built from a powerful growth item’s wards as well.

But with how powerful the snake was, and the fact that Dusk was only a second gate mage, I had been worried.

Then I felt a magical power sweep over Dusk’s realm. It was fairly unfamiliar to me, so it took me several moments to recognize that it was the power of the strange fox-bird creature.

The little fox trotted over to the open portal, slinking like a cat about to pounce upon an unsuspecting mouse. Faint streaks of blue light swirled around the fox-bird as it wiggled its butt back and forth, and power began to enforce its jaws.

Then it leapt through the portal, and I had to look away. The fox was cute, but it was so tiny, I didn’t think it would be able to do anything, even if it was a third gate creature.

When I heard a mighty crunch, I was certain it was… Not good. Then I heard a fox-growl, the kind of noise between a cat and dog, and I couldn’t help it – I glanced over.

The fox-bird’s bite had extended past its jaws, into a set of massive, conjured teeth. They clamped around the snake, and I saw some of the scales straining and cracking under the pressure of the Bluelight Fangs.

And if that wasn’t enough, the little fox-bird was violently shaking its head around, like a dog with a rope toy. The snake was writhing, and had called its strengthening spell, but it couldn’t quite free itself from the grip of the Bluelight Fangs.

The snake opened its mouth when the fox-bird took a moment to readjust, and I was tempted to look away again, but I simply couldn’t. But when the crashing wave of power struck the fox-bird, the little critter glowed with a bright blue aura that reminded me of some sort of strange combination of a classical shield spell, countermagic, and my pin’s defensive aura. It ground the breath weapon away to nothing, and the fox-bird lunged forwards, snapping its Bluelight Fangs again.

Before the conjured fangs could get a good grip on the snake, the snake turned and shot away, fleeing from the power of the tiny fox-bird. For the fox’s part, it just shook its head, as if to clear the taste of snake from its mouth, and then happily trotted into the portal, where it curled up beneath one of the small pixie settlements.

I…

I was speechless. I’d known it possessed some sort of guardian-like abilities, from the way it had boosted Kene’s tattoo and guarded over the ghosts, but I hadn’t expected it to be anywhere near this level.

While I wasn’t confident it was as strong as the serpent – after all, the serpent had been battered by us for quite a while, while the fox was completely fresh – I was shocked it had done even as well as it had.

I headed into the cabin, resolved to make it a good meal, but found Kene already chopping up some raw meat, apples and a raw egg into a meal that would surely be scrumptious to the little fox-bird. Dusk and the brownies were helping, cleaning the apple core and moving it to a compost heap.

“Did you know it could do that?” I asked them. Dusk whistled that she knew it was strong, but since it was stronger than her, getting a full understanding of its powers was difficult for her, even here.

“No idea,” Kene said. “It’s a guardian animal of some sort. Maybe it picked Dusk as its new home?”

“Maybe,” I said, then thought for a moment before shaking my head. “But I think it’s more likely it’s decided to protect you. Think about what it did for your tattoo. You live here, at least for now, so that’s probably why.”

Dusk chimed in, saying that it was impressive either way, and I emphatically agreed.

We brought out the bowl of chopped meat, fruit, and raw eggs to the fox, who yawned and rose from where it had been curled up, and started to happily munch away. Kene took a seat next to the giant glimmerstone, and began to rifle through their bag.

“We got some pretty interesting stuff from that,” they said. “Obviously, we got all of the plants. But we also got this.”

They held up a glowing white stone about the size of a grapefruit, with very strange mana. It almost felt like ungated mana, if it weren’t for the fact it very distinctly felt like first gate mana. I’d never seen something like that before, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“It’s a Hudau Heritage Stone,” Kene said, speaking almost reverently. “They’re only formed when mana is at a perfect balance of the fourteen affinities, while also having incredibly potent ungated mana. This one is nowhere near as strong as the one they were fighting over in the first gate, but it’s about strong enough to bring two first gates to their maximum power. For you, it could let you instantly double your Spatial and Temporal first gates.”

I won’t lie, I was tempted. Very tempted, in fact. But… I couldn’t.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Kene had already given up more than their share of the alter-truffles, and brewed a concoction for me out of another. They’d only taken one alter-truffle for themself.

While I was tempted, I’d be pretty terrible if I just took it.

“You should use it,” I said. “You’ve got a fair bit of mana, yeah, but increasing that base can only help you. One of the problems you have is that your hag advances quickly and has built a solid powerbase. Well… This will give you a tiny bit of an edge to use against the parasitic bag.”

I’d tried to say ‘parasitic hag’, but I was okay with ‘parasitic bag’. Bag was insulting anyways.

“I didn’t really earn it,” Kene said. “You a–”

“Oh, nonsense,” I said, shaking my head. “You did just fine. I wouldn’t have gotten a thing if not for you. Though I do have to ask… What took so long to show up?”

I instantly regretted my phrasing as Kene visibly winced.

“We were in a delicate stage of the pill creation process. It was liable to spoil, or worse, melt through the cauldron and start warping the room. We came as soon as we could.”

“Thank you,” I said, putting my hand on Kene’s leg. “Take the stone. Seriously. You more than earned it, and we can split the destiny plants if you really insist.”

“Okay,” Kene agreed. “I got eleven plants. I’ll take three. You and Dusk each get four.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Kene leaned in and kissed me, and I was rather distracted after that.

After we broke apart, some time later, we began the process of boiling down the destiny plants to extract the drops of destiny mana inside.

With four drops – an unprecedented bounty – I had to seriously consider where to use them. There were quite a few treasures here, as I’d already seen, and using it to grow my walls felt wasteful, especially when I could use them to permanently enhance myself. Even if the permanent enhancement wasn’t much, it was still… Permanent.

I was tempted to pour everything into my Magister’s Body, but I needed to get Beast Mage’s Soul at least mastered.

I could save them, but I was worried about someone stealing them.

Then again, I’d seen just how hard it was to get into Dusk’s realm without her consent. I didn’t think it would be easy to steal them.

For now, I put them aside, and picked up the pill that Kene and Dusk had made.

It was oddly pretty, a rich, leathery brown color with green striations. When I put it on my tongue, it tasted of mint and porcini mushrooms.

Not the best combination, but also far from the worst that was possible when it came to medicine.

The power coursed through me, and I didn’t have many – or really, any – other enhancement spells for it to cling to. It was child’s play to guide the power to condense around the faint foundations of my Beast Mage’s Soul. The power drove far more of the giant mushroom up from the dirt, and I saw the long, trailing mycelial roots that ran across my mana-garden, and intermingled with the oaklike roots of my Magister’s Body.

My eyes snapped open, as an idea struck me.

This combo was simultaneously one giant spell, and two connected spells, like a venn diagram being two circles but one shape.

And if fortune really was, at least in part, about connections, could I use it to reinforce the connection point? Maybe spread some power through the intermingling roots, and help Beast Mage’s Soul catch up with Magister’s Body?

Maybe.

It was worth a shot.

I grabbed the shallow bowl with the drops of destiny inside and downed them, letting Mana Mirror split them apart into fortune, destiny, and resolve, then I sank a little bit of fortune into the connection between the roots.

There was a shuddering as the tree that was Magister’s Body actually shrank a little bit, its imbued effect weakening ever so slightly, and the mushroom of Beast Mage’s Soul exploded upwards.

A bit of sacrifice, then, but the growth I was getting out of it was well worth it.

I fed more fortune mana into it until the spell exploded into being.

I let out a low sigh as Beast Mage’s Soul was mastered. Now I just needed to send as much mana through it as I could, and I’d get it ingrained in a week or less.

It wouldn’t do to have my progress on Magister’s Body lagging, though, so I burned some of the resolve mana to expand the tree back upwards, letting it reclaim the now empty space.

I split the destiny, as well as the remainder of the fortune and resolve mana, evenly between the two spells. I had to redo my mental sorting when I remembered that I’d already put some into the soil of the Magister’s Body, but eventually, I got things settled so they should both have the same amount of each.

I didn’t have much fortune mana, since I’d watered the connection point so much, but I was excited to see what it did. Resolve had widened the paths of energy, and destiny had increased their density.

The rainbow sheen of fortune slid through me, and the points where the life flows of my body connected into other types seemed to… smooth out. The coursing life mana seemed to convert into telluric mana in my bones just a tiny bit easier, into mental with less effort…

Fascinating. There was something fun about watching these… deep manas… work on me. Progressing my power in a way that was tangible, yet different than anything I’d seen before.

With how many natural treasures and pills I’d taken, however, I needed to do some work on my mana-garden. Checking to make sure Kene was still working away with the Hudau Heritage Stone, I started trimming off the excess from my trees, piling them up.

I did notice something as I worked. Feeding the connection between the Magister’s Body and Beast Mage’s Soul seemed to have caused the roots and mycelium to have a strange, rainbow-like sheen to them, and they were trying to work in a smoother equilibrium. I suspected once the two had caught up, it would help enforce the linking between the twin spells, making them work with better synergy.

I was glad the fortune mana hadn’t been entirely wasted.

As I moved through the center of my mana garden, I passed my quarterstaff hanging there, and paused for a moment.

I’d touched on something during my fight with the abyssal shambler. Would I be better served by trying to chase that down?

Maybe, maybe not, I wasn’t sure. If that was a nascent truth, was it the right one for me? They were strange things, and while it might give me just as much power, or more, than any other resonance, it might not if it didn’t fit me well.

But I was also tempted to just convert my quarterstaff into a mage’s staff. The internal spell resonance would help me get the Beast Mage’s Soul mastered quicker.

Then again… I was in a realm with a massive amount of resources. Sure, I’d need twenty seven more mana sources to start constructing a grand array. And sure, I’d need to keep gathering resources for every single new spell I learned.

But if I wanted to try and get a headstart, now would be the time. Today alone, I’d found multiple first gate mana sources, and a few more potent ones. If I shifted my focus, I might be able to get enough resources to build my grand array for now, and maybe even for third gate. But what about after that? Would I be shooting myself in the foot?

Gah.