With my mana senses spread out over the area, I expected the presence of a guardian to be obvious, but nothing in particular jumped out at me.

I could sense forest estragon moving through the trees, and I thought I might also feel a river estragon moving along somewhere, but nothing that stuck out as a guardian, nor anything that felt especially like a powerful natural treasure.

When I glanced at Kene, they just shrugged.

“I’ll start running a divination for it,” they said. “And before you ask – because I know you probably will, you’re more curious than you like to admit – I couldn’t do it before because my range is only a few hundred feet. On top of that, I have to have some relative experience with the thing I’m looking for. I’ve never actually even seen an altar-pearl truffle before, so my spells are going to have a hard time giving any concrete data at all.”

They grimaced.

“The downsides of running the spell with life magic. My Locate Plants spell’s much more restrictive than the Locate Object spell.”

I nodded and we slowly worked through the area, until I felt a somewhat familiar twinge in my mana senses.

It blended into the environment well, but not well enough.

Then, from a rotted log covered in turkey trail mushrooms, a large form rose, lunging at Kene.

“Watchout!” I shouted, and Kene vanished.

For a second, I was confused, until I remembered the spell bracer – Kene had asked me to store a Foxstep in it, and must have used it to escape danger.

Briarthreads burst from me, and a pair of bones emerged over either shoulder. I lashed out with my staff, striking the abyssal shambler in the side.

The power of the staff was impressive, as it actually drove the shambler back a bit, and I felt my Magister’s Body spell engage, working to replenish the power my strike had drained.

Runes were flowing out and enveloping me now, and I pressed my advantage, releasing all of my boneshards at the shambler as it lunged at me.

Two, flame-rune encrusted bones bit into the shambler on either side as I held up my staff and my Briarthreads spun to absorb the blow. My other two shards teleported behind the shambler and drove into its back.

I took the heavy blow, and while my Briarthreads took most of it, my aura didn’t have time to engage, as my staff caught the blow and drained energy from me to stop the rest.

Alright, good data. Block with the staff only close to the body, otherwise it’ll waste energy, like just now.

More runes flowed from Kene, and a golden light washed over my body.

The shambler was punching out heavy blows, but between my Briarthreads and aura pin, I was able to dodge out of the way of blows, rather than taking the rib-cracking, concussion inducing hits that I had the last time I’d battled an abyssal shambler.

I teleported by boneshards back to me, then let the runes light them. More runes infused my Briarthreads, and I kept my weaving and bobbing, waiting for the right moment.

It took several seconds, but eventually, the shambler overextended, throwing too much in a punch, presumably to try and punch past my strengthened aura.

I Foxstepped behind it, leaving an afterimage of myself there, and leaving Dusk behind. Dusk punched out with an overcharged shockwave as I brought my staff down on its back, along with four flaming, overcharged Pinpoint Boneshards, and a fiery, overcharged Briarthreads spell.

My Magister’s Body surged at its maximum capacity as my staff drained everything it could.

There was a massive shattering sound as the attacks broke the armor spell of the shambler in its entirety. The momentum of the staff kept it moving, though, and it threw the shambler away, where it thumped against a tree.

I shuddered and took a step back, frowning. Even with my Magister’s Body working on overtime to replenish my energy stores, my stores of energy had been severely drained by that attack, and I could feel it. I was exhausted, worm thin.

The shambler, more than anything, seemed terrified, backing away quickly as it could with its not-quite-as-bulky, unarmored frame, and I understood why.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I’d fought one before, and had barely been able to bore a few holes in its armor, let alone deal its core body a strong blow like that.

I honestly felt a bit bad – I didn’t want to kill the poor thing, and if it weren’t for the fact that it had tough armor, powerful regeneration, and could actively absorb the power of that strike to grow, I might have felt absolutely awful for hurting it so bad.

Yes, it had wanted to consume our mana, but was that really an excuse? It didn’t have higher thought, and I did. I couldn’t blame it for that any more than I could blame a bird for pooping on the sidewalk.

Maybe killing it in retribution was fair to some people’s mind, but it wasn’t to mine.

I could be better than that.

I was not bound to violence.

I was not forced to follow the rules of nature, not if I made nature follow my rules.

I could choose Mercy.

For just a second, the world cracked. The word ‘mercy’ echoed in my mind, though it was wrong to call it a word. It wasn’t a word, it was beyond a word. It was a concept.

In the same few seconds, I felt a new wind, a howling one that came from the east and west, arise in my spirit. The winds of fortune spun in a violent, central cyclone, catching the new wind, integrating it, churning it as a part of something…

Something greater…

Then the moment was gone. My spirit was normal once again with only the winds of fortune spinning in a slow, lazy circular pattern.

I was drained, but otherwise, I was… Fine.

Kene gave me an odd look and took a few steps closer to me.

“You okay?” they asked, putting their hand gently onto my arm.

“Tired,” I grunted, and it was true. That absurd strike had drained away everything in my reserves, and even as they slowly returned, I could still feel it, like I’d sprinted a mile while doing math problems. It wasn’t anything permanent, but I needed to recover.

I was also annoyed and disappointed. I’d had a second chance to figure out the arrays of an abyssal shambler’s armor spells, and had lost it in my moment of… Whatever that was.

Dusk clambered up my leg and gave me a concerned look as well. I smiled and patted her head. With a peep, she poked my cheek and pushed her mana into me. My Magister’s Body started breaking it down, converting it into energy.

I frowned. Surely that would count as mana entering my spirit. If Mana Mirror could mirror it, then why wasn’t her forest mana mirrored? Was it simply too complex? Did no perfect mirror exist?

Or maybe I hadn’t actually chosen a path. Meadow had said something about me not developing a well of destiny, fortune, or resolve. Perhaps it was triggering the same effect as when I had unchosen mana, and getting thrown off base by me having it in my spirit anyways?

Questions for later.

I closed my eyes and focused on teasing out the treads of mana and feeding them into the Magister’s Body.

It took a good five minutes or so, but I did eventually manage to start feeling more put together, and I opened my eyes to find a concerned Dusk and Kene still watching me.

“Feeling better?” Kene asked, and I smiled at them.

“Much,” I said.

They tossed me a potion, which I took and drank, and felt it course through my body and mind, reinvigorating me. An energy potion – not in the magical energy sense, but in the simple, energy drink, sugar and caffeine sense.

With that in my system, I spread out my mana around me again, Kene lit up his divination spell once more, and we returned to exploring the area around us.

Kene paused for a moment as we wandered, leaning over and tracing a finger along a small plant that looked rather like a dandelion.

“Add this into your garden please, Dusk, and plant it near the gibbous windbush” they said. “This is a cluster of diaphanous dandelions. They don’t do much on their own, but they’re a great supporting material for most tempest based potions.”

My eyebrows raised. Between the bush and the dandelions, I would probably be able to construct a flight potion once I was third gate.

That excited me way more than it reasonably should have.

Flying with a broom was cool, but flying under my own power would be awesome!

“I see that grin,” Kene teased, and I blushed.

We kept moving after that, Kene plucking a few berries off a bush.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Gooseberries,” he said. “Want one?”

For a horrible moment, I had the vision of eating one, then opening your mouth and releasing a wave of geese from your mouth like the breath weapon of a dragon, before it clicked that Kene meant plain, ordinary gooseberries.

I laughed at myself and took a few. They were sour, but sweet at the same time, and I wanted to make them into a tart.

Finally, however, Kene’s spell started buzzing, and we began to move in the direction it indicated.

The broad, flat forest slowly gave way to larger mushrooms, ones easily the size of a large shrub. Dusk absorbed a few of them, though they had little enough magic, only having the power needed to grow further on their own growth past the normal stages.

“Why is it always mushrooms?” I wondered aloud, and Kene just grinned at me, then shrugged.

The ground began to grow rockier as well, and for a moment, I was sure that I’d be spotting more glimmerstone any moment, but the rocks seemed ordinary as well.

In fact, the overall lack of magic in this part of the forest was starting to worry me.

“It’s the truffles,” Kene said, as if they could hear my thoughts. “They soak up most of the ambient mana in the area, which is one of the laundry list of reasons they’re a pain to manage to grow.”

I nodded, and we followed the divination spell to a… rock.

A large rock, yes, but just a rock. Or a boulder? The taxonomy of rocks was not something I’d ever invested much effort into learning.

“Maybe it’s under the rock?” I suggested, and Kene nodded.

The two of us shoved the rock out of the way, and I groaned.

There was a long, thin underground tunnel, one that reminded me uncomfortably of the tunnel in which I’d seen the outermost reaches of the war root.

Kene’s spell pointed right down the tunnel however, and they glanced at me.

“If it’s something we can’t handle, we run,” I said. “I won’t try to fight it this time.”

“Good,” they said, smiling softly. “Dusk, mind catching our fall?”

Dusk made a wind-in-trees sound signifying her agreement, and Kene slid down. A moment later, I slid down the hole as well, the Peacepyre floating out above my left shoulder.