I turned and headed down the path of courage.

Elio had told me it was better to die a happy fool, so courage seemed the right choice. It wasn’t like I wasn’t some wise old sage, and as Dusk happily burbled to let me know: I’d never made wise decisions. Why would I start making them now?

The path led in a straight line for some time, before finally emerging in the mouth of yet another cavern. In the center of the cavern stood yet another statue, this time of a standard cavern estragon. I pushed my hair out of my eyes and studied it.

We’d fought drakes at the cavern entry. What threat was an estragon? They were so much physically weaker than a drake. Even if it was just Dusk and myself, I was confident we could take it.

I used the moment while the statue melted into a real creature – or at least, a convincing illusion of a real creature? I wasn’t sure if it was a teleport swap, or something else entirely – to prepare my spells. Multiple overcharged Fungal Locks were ready to go, Pinpoint Boneshards emerged from my spirit, and overcharged Briarthreads burst to life around me. I even managed to prepare a Transport Item.

Under the influence of Beast Mage’s Soul, the spells connected within my mana-garden as quickly as I could think about it.

More interestingly, I got to try out the bio-spell function. I hadn’t mastered Material Echo yet, so when I started to shape the spell, the energy array in the pollen within the air of my mana-garden stirred and helped, shaping it.

It was very strange. I didn’t think pseudo-mastery was actually the right term for it. Sure, I didn’t have to sketch the spell, but I did have to manipulate the mana and energy in my spirit into the shape of the sketch. It took less time, and I was good at mana manipulation, so I wasn’t too concerned over the minutiae.

The instant the estragon finished transforming out of stone, I unleashed my barrage. It was locked and pummeled with bone shards, briars, and more. None of my mana-types were perfect for attacking, but when I unleashed everything in massive blows like this, it was impressive.

But the estragon flowed with the power of a stone skin spell, one that almost reminded me of Ed’s, and I abruptly realized something.

Yes, an estragon might be weaker physically than a terragon, but beast magic wasn’t pure energy. All of the body reinforcement and work that terragons did – or I did, for that matter – wasn’t nearly as important for estragon. They’d evolved to trade away the advantages of the body for a smaller, cuter form.

Meaning that they were able to put all of their power into their mana.

Not to say there was no advantage to the physical approach – there absolutely was. This was just a different approach. The estragon was roughly an equal strength third gate as the drake had been, but it had bucketfulls more mana than it had.

My attacks scattered and fell away under the power of the estragon, and while it wasn’t strong enough to rip through my Fungal Lock, it was strong enough to immediately launch a powerful breath attack, right where I was standing.

I Foxstepped across the cavern, and Dusk punched out, releasing one of her Shockwave spells.

The estragon tried to turn, but hands rose up from the floor, keeping it pinned, while the strands of mycelium dug into its body and drained away its energy.

That, of course, was a downside of its evolutionary approach. Where something with a stronger body could have ripped through my Fungal Locks, the estragon couldn’t, or at least not fast enough. Each time the small dragon-slug-creature managed to break through a layer, I was able to release two new ones on top.

With Dusk pinning it down as well?

There was nothing it could do.

The estragon released breath attack after breath attack, but I was able to dodge and weave out of the way.

After a second, the estragon seemed to realize this, and its body began to sharpen and harden, then it spun.

It couldn’t break through Fungal Lock with its body, so it would do its best to break through using raw mana.

I’d seen just how powerful this scale-saw spell could be, so I eased back on the power I was putting into Fungal Lock.

Sure enough, the spinning scales were able to drill through the hands and the fungi just fine, and a moment later, the estragon managed to slip out. Gravity warped around it, as it started to lift into the air, so I reached into Dusk’s realm and pulled out a rod that Ed had given me.

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I tossed it at the estragon like throwing a javelin, and it struck. That wasn’t the true strength of the rod, though – even though it focused less on physical strength, a light rod like that wasn’t going to damage it.

But then gravity started warping, pulling down the estragon.

Dusk leapt forwards and reached out with her strange domain power, pushing down further. At the same moment, two large hands of earth reached upwards and seized the estragon in place.

I released a wave of multiple Briarthreads at the estragon, who conjured an aura of some sort that seemed to push away at things, throwing them back through the air not unlike Travis’ aura did.

That was a spell I’d not seen from these cavern type monsters yet… Interesting. Another advantage of how it focused on magic, I was guessing?

The estragon used the moment its shell of repulsion bought it to gather light in its throat for another breath attack, but rather than release it immediately, the light spun and pulsed. It shrunk, and new layers added on, then it shrunk again.

My eyes widened as I realized what was going on: it was overcharging its breath weapon.

The estragon tilted its head, and the beam of force-fyre sliced through the hands holding it in place like a knife through butter, then up at me and Dusk.

I teleported out of the way, but the beam followed me, so I teleported again.

Again and again, I teleported, but the beam of the breath weapon was seemingly never ending, and worse, moved quickly – faster than the drake’s had.

I had to cut this off…

I whispered something to Dusk, who nodded. I flickered behind the estragon and reached out for my trump card.

Blademoss erupted from my hands.

I was a bit nervous with this – I thought that an attack or two wouldn’t strain my spirit again but it was still risky.

I’d used it on the Abyssal Shambler because I knew just how strong those could get, and against the snake because I knew it could handle it, and I hadn’t had many things that could hit on that level.

Now?

Not only did I know from my time upstairs that the estragon would be removed from the fight before I killed it, but I had Beast Mage’s Soul.

I was a bit more willing to play around.

At the same instant I struck, Dusk poured her own power into the moss, further boosting it. Our combined magic brought the silvery moss down on the estragon’s body.

The estragon fueled its defenses, but it was an instant too slow. Rather than trying to form the power to block the blow, it was trying to push it away… and the estragon hadn’t cast the repulsion spell. It must have expected my spells to be slower, like a normal human’s.

It had been wrong.

Even as it switched to its shell of repulsion, Dusk and I struck out again. The moss crashed into the tiny dragon…

And it vanished.

I let out a sigh of relief. If there had been two estragon, I was much less confident that I’d have been able to win…

Honestly, if it had been a drake, I was still unsure. I was well suited to fighting magically strong, but physically weak, beings like estragon and humans. If it had been able to tear through my opening locking spells, it may have been able to kill or maim me.

I reminded myself of that as I left the chamber – a good matchup for my skills was not a reason to get cocky.

In the other room an apparition of the sage appeared, but blew apart. An illusion of Elio appeared instead.

“The sage had a grand speech about the power and majesty of himself, and about you for mimicking him,” the old dragon said. “I’ll spare us both his prattling. Each trial site mimics the tower. You got enchanted things this round. Now you get a set reward, and another slice of the key.”

He held out another two slivers of the disc – the same sliver, just one for Dusk and one for me – which I took and tucked away, then he handed me two thin sticks of wood, painted gold, with runes all over them.

“Snap one of these in a trial room and it will let you skip it,” Elio said. “It works on the trial sites, or in the first two floors of the tower.”

I took that and sent it into Dusk’s vault as well, then nodded my thanks.

“Thank you, Elio.”

For a moment, I paused, then spoke up.

“You, Idyll, and the other familiar I don’t remember… You’re trapped here, aren’t you? That line at the front. It may have been an illusion, but it wasn’t a lie.”

The ancient dragon stared at me impassively, his eyes smoldering.

“Is there anything I can do to release you?” I asked.

Dusk piped up, saying she would happily carry him out of here in herself, if that would work. She didn’t think she could fit Idyll in her, but she was willing to try.

“No child,” he told Dusk. “You’re stable, but my full power would risk breaking you. If you were fifth gate, I might accept, but… I won’t kill my sister’s cousin.”

He turned and looked at me, then let out a low, rumbling chuckle.

“You already have helped me,” he said. “But if you want a real answer? Don’t stop it.”

Before I could ask him what exactly he meant by that, I appeared at the entrance. Octavian was already there with a golden stick in his hand and a thoughtful look on his face.

“Elio?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Octavian said, then shook his head. “I don’t know what to think, honestly.”

I nodded, and we waited in silence before Kene stumbled out of nowhere, looking frustrated, Siobhan at his heels.

“We got a combat challenge,” they said, sounding just as annoyed as their face had suggested. “We couldn’t win.”

Liz appeared a while later, clutching a stick of her own, and I grinned, holding my own up.

“Nice!” Liz said.

Finally, Travis appeared.

“I got eaten by the dragon,” he said, sounding disappointed. I raised an eyebrow. Had he been stuck in the illusion array the whole time?

“We should exchange info,” I said. “I got a challenge Kene got at our last trial site.”

“Your last site?” Liz asked.

“Oh, yeah. It’s about seventy miles south-south-west,” I said.

“I see you still haven’t bothered to check things before diving in. So much growth since the toad, all to magic, none to brains,” Kene teased, and I rolled my eyes.

We spent a while going over what each of us had been through, then Liz and Travis peeled off to go fight the trial site. Octavian had to go meet up with Cettilyn, apparently, so Kene and I camped out for the night in Dusk’s realm.

In the morning, it would finally be time for the tower itself.