The following morning started out slow. I awoke to the sounds and smells of food from the kitchen, and emerged to see Kene cooking, alongside a group of brownies.

“Morning babe,” Kene said when I emerged.

“Morning… How?” I asked, nodding to the kitchen. I didn’t have a mana generator or anything, so while I had appliances, most of them didn’t work.

“Solar mana does include fire,” Kene said. “I know cooking spells are usually frowned upon by chefs, but between my mana and the brownies’ magic, we got it figured out.

“Huh,” I said, as Kene started plating the food. He’d made a classic breakfast, with potatoes that had been fried with onions and peppers, rashers, beans, sunny side up eggs, and a bit of sausage.

“I know we need to ration food,” they said. “But you don’t want to be running about on an empty stomach, let alone taking the greenroot.”

“I bow to your wisdom, oh master alchemist,” I said, and they smirked for a second before handing another plate to the brownies and taking their seat across from me.

We made idle chatter as we breakfasted, then Kene placed the two greenroot stalks in front of me, and one in front of himself.

“You’ve eaten a mana apple, right?” they asked, and continued when I confirmed that I had. “This will be similar, only it will be… More intense.”

With that, they bit into theirs.

Well, there was no sense in waiting, so I bit into my own as well. Despite looking like neon green lemongrass, it tasted and had a mouthfeel more akin to celery, with hints of coriander and parsley. A bit odd, but I wouldn’t mind cooking with it.

Lightning shot through my spirit, a blast aimed right at my first gate life garden. It impacted, and I felt it rip through my garden violently. If I hadn’t ingrained all of my spells, I was pretty sure the power would have blown them apart.

The power had nowhere to go, so I tried to guide it to the walls, but it was hard, like trying to wrestle the air itself. Eventually, some sank in, and the walls of the garden rose a bit.

I took another bite, and repeated the process. It was slow going, having to fight the power to work with me, rather than just rip apart my mana-garden, but slowly I got more and more of a handle on guiding the power.

By the time I was on my second stalk, I was able to direct most of the pressure onto the walls to grow them, and by the time I finished it, I was content.

I hadn’t quite doubled my life mana, but between the berries from the day before and the cramming of the power that this had provided, I was getting close.

That just left my first gate space, time, and death gates, as well as all of my second gates.

Perhaps I hadn’t made as much progress as I’d hoped, but I’d certainly made some, and it was only the second day of the competition.

When I left my mana-garden and returned to the world, I saw Kene cleaning up, and made a sound of protest.

“Hmm?” they asked.

“That’s against the rules,” I said. “Everyone knows that if you cook, the other person cleans. I should be cleaning.”

Kene just gave me a look, then rolled their eyes.

I helped clean up, then emptied out my death mana, sketching the Beast Mage Soul. Once that was done, I went to find Dusk, who was helping the pixies move around the giant glimmerstones that she’d absorbed. Once they finished, Kene and I opened a portal and stepped out.

Only to be met with a strange sight. A huge portion of the camp was mobbing the healers, and there were puddles of vomit everywhere. I saw Liz huddled on a bench, pulling her knees to her chest, and she just gave us a grim smile when we emerged. Dusk let out a stream of distraught noises.

Kene frowned, and their eyes began to glow with the light of Analyze Life as they examined Liz.

“Kidney stone,” they said, then turned and began to examine the camp, looking at everyone else they could before returning.

“They all have kidney stones,” Kene said, brows knitted together. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

They approached Liz and put their hand on her shoulder, then let gold and green light leak out, flowing through her body.

“It’s not too hard to cure,” Kene said. “Just unusual. A buildup of telluric energy in the kidneys, a standard purgation spell can remove it, but… I don’t see how it could have infected almost the entire camp.”

“There’s a fifth gate spell,” Liz said as she slowly let go of her legs, stretching. “Infect Area. It’s banned in Mossford, and I’m pretty sure just about everywhere else. I don’t know how someone got their hands on it, but they must have unleashed it in the camp.”

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“Kamal would be rich enough to buy one,” I said. “Riley works for a hag that runs a black market, so they could get one. Mallory, maybe. I don’t know how much a fifth gate spell goes for.”

“A lot,” Kene said, shaking their head. “Banned spells are always more expensive. Though they face they used it to give kidney stones, instead of spreading something more dangerous, like slimeheart, seems to me that they were using it to get an edge on the competition, not as an outright attack.”

“I agree,” came a voice I didn’t recognize. All of us turned to see a conventionally attractive woman, who looked like she was quite hard to not look conventionally attractive. She had long black hair, with pale skin, and curves that would definitely have caught the eye of someone who was interested in women.

“Who are you?” Liz snapped, rising to her feet quickly. I felt the thrum of her mana as she started preparing spells.

“Peace, peace,” the stranger said, holding up her hands. “I just want this healed. I’m using a spell to suppress the pain, but it’s not a great long term solution.”

“How did you even know I could heal it?” Kene asked, frowning.

I’d just assumed that she’d been in a nearby tent and had overheard us talking, but I’d also been paying more attention to Liz than I had to my mana senses, so I decided to rectify that mistake.

First, I blended all of my senses as tightly together as I could and focused them on the woman.

Her veils were good. Impeccable, really. She was actively casting a magic spell, but I could barely even sense the trickle of ungated mana that she was expending, and I couldn’t tell the type.

The only thing I could definitively determine was that she had several spirit traps hanging on cords around her waist, and I didn’t think that they were empty or for show. A spirit caller, maybe?

“I happened to overhear,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to. But I am willing to trade for the healing. I have a lead on alter-pearl truffles.”

Kene whipped their head around to look at me, then looked back at her.

“How?” they asked.

“I have knowledge mana, and a legacy that makes me very good at scouting out information,” she said. “And I got the sense that your boyfriend was using a spell that could benefit from it, based on the feel of the blockage in his second gate.”

“And you just happened to know of a natural treasure that would be perfect to advance that?” Liz asked, putting a hand on her hip and glaring.

“I’m a quick thinker. I scouted out for a bunch of rare and powerful treasures, and then cataloged them yesterday. I can’t promise that the alter-pearl truffles are still there, but they were yesterday. I just put two and two together.”

She winced.

“I’m running out of ungated mana and am having to convert down, and that’s so wasteful. Can you heal me and have this conversation later?”

Kene stepped over and put a hand on her shoulder, then let the light flow through her for a few moments,

“Thank you,” she said, letting out a relieved sigh. “Alright. The truffles are located roughly…”

She trailed off and I saw her eyes shift slightly, the spell she was casting turning them from normal human ones to almost feline, slitted eyes.

“Roughly forty miles north-northeast of here,” she said. “Underground, of course, with a guardian that was able to scare off one of my ca– one of my scouts.”

I frowned and leaned forwards. She had spirit traps, maybe she’d been using a spirit as a scout? Maybe a cat sidhe?

“Thank you for the information,” Kene said stiffly, and she just smiled mischievously.

“No, thank you. There aren’t many healers with solar mana here, so most have more trouble and have to coax the stone out naturally, rather than just cleansing it. This should give me a huge headstart. Just ask for Maylee, and I’ll find my way to you.”

With that, one of her spirit traps snapped open, and a tempest elemental burst out.

“If you’re interested in learning more about the locations of your perfect treasures, or perhaps getting a leg up on Kamal or Aputhrax, my rates are reasonable.”

Winds began to pick up and she leapt away in great, bounding strides.

I raised my eyebrow at that, then looked at Liz, then at Kene.

“I think we need to pursue this lead,” Kene said. “I’ll heal Travis so you two can get a headstart on the tower, and we need to go.”

“Makes sense,” Liz said, frowning. “I don’t trust that Maylee girl, though. Be careful.”

“No need,” I said with a fake, cheesy, overconfident grin. “Don’t forget, Liz. I have a domain weapon now, I can take on a magi and win.”

“Shouldn’t it be a magus?” Kene asked.

“Magi sounds better,” Liz said, shaking her head. “Anyways, just… be safe. Your brother will kill me if you die.”

“I will,” I said seriously. Dusk made a river-rustling sound and said that she’d make sure I didn’t die.

“Good,” Liz said.

Kene healed Travis, who thanked him, and then it was time for Kene and I to leave. We took out our brooms and I cast my Sense Directionality spell, then led us as we flew towards where the alter-pearl truffles were.

“What exactly do these truffles do?” I asked Kene as we flew.

“They’re actually a fairly rare and powerful component,” Kene said. “Hard to find, and even harder to grow on purpose, because their mycelial network dies easily, and it takes about fifty years to condense its truffles. Even then, an entire network only tends to make three to seven truffles.”

“That’s great, dork,” I said. “And I do like listening to you, but it doesn’t tell me what they do.”

“Oh,” Kene said, flushing a bit. “Well, they have a few uses. If consumed during an ascension, they can massively boost transformation, alteration, and self-enhancement spells.”

My eyebrows shot up. That sounded perfect for me indeed.

“But even without consuming them during an ascension, they can be used to create permanent transformation or enhancement potions, or diluted to make powerful growth potions. There was actually a kingdom in the year two hundred or so mossford – or twelve hundred on the orthodox calendar – that made a practice of importing them from all over the continent to make those growth potions, and growing elite soldiers.”

“They sound a bit too good to be true,” I said. “What’s the catch?”

“Well… They do their job well. Too well, really. Say you had a telluric spell that spread through your bones, blood, and muscles to make you really strong. Binding an alter-pearl truffle to it could manifest physically as bigger and bigger musculature. Fire resistance might wind up giving you charred looking skin. Undoing the side effects can be a pain.”

“But I’m already going to get something like that,” I said. “Mine’s a growth spell, so its effects already gradually ramp up as I grow stronger.”

“Exactly,” Kene said, slowing as we arrived in the general area that she’d indicated. “Which is why I’m worried she knew it was so perfect for you.”

We slowly lowered our brooms.

“She is an information broker,” I said. “I doubt it’s a trap.”

Something about that felt right, causing the winds in my spirit to gust well, though there was a slight… Disapproval… as well that I couldn’t place.

“True,” Kene said, expanding their mana senses out. “Either way, she did say there was a guardian. We should be on guard.”

I agreed, withdrew my new quarterstaff, and started expanding my own mana senses.