My family spent the night together, playing a card game, talking about old stories, and Kene helped me cook a lentil, carrot, turmeric, and ginger stew, but as the night drew to a close, Ed and Liz said their goodbyes and flew off towards their new apartment, Liz with a pair of winged sandals, and Ed with his gravity magic. My dad turned in, since he had to work tomorrow, and Kene and I headed to my old bedroom.

Sleeping in my old bed was… weird… I’d gotten so used to the cheap old second hand mattress that Kene’s village had furnished for my cottage in Dusk that my still cheap, but much newer, mattress at my dad’s house was strange. It was even stranger knowing that Ed wasn’t in the next room over, and the entire thing had a strange tint of sadness in it that I couldn’t fully or properly explain.

The following morning, Kene headed off to their village, to catch up with Alice and the other people who lived there who hadn’t been able to have access to the pharmacy that they’d run. I felt a pang of guilt about that, and asked Dusk to think about us possibly setting up a platform in their village too.

Dusk studied me and then made a strange, non-committal sound that was reminiscent of a raven’s cawing. She needed to shrink her internal realm quite a bit to claim even the small area of a teleportation circle, and since Orykson had laid claim to Mossford, she thought it would take even more to claim one here.

“Surely he could just… not fight you?” I asked, “I mean, you were able to steal a massive waterfall with a pretty rock formation and a lake and a bunch of other stuff out of Idyll’s realm, and she let you.”

Dusk made a so-so sound. That was a worldspirit taking from another worldspirit, and Idyll had only had a Dominion and an Authority, not a Title. Orykson had a Title that he shared with Aerde, and they both held more than that too. If he actively opposed her, he could stop her. If he allowed her, she’d still have to fight for it, push through the innate resistance to intrusion that his nation had, so it would cost her more.

Once we were actually Arcanists, we’d have other options, but as things were, integrating the platform into her realm was a huge workaround that normal mages wouldn’t have. She was certain she could manage three, maybe four or five if the others were also in unclaimed territory.

“Port Royal shouldn’t be claimed, should it?” I asked, frowning. “Elio’s the backer, he’s doing what Orykson does for Mossford, but the Isle is part of the Mossford Alliance. It just didn’t matter because it’s been completely uninhabited for years.”

Dusk whistled, saying she didn’t know, and that on top of the practical concerns, there were the legal issues of claiming territory and setting up a teleportation platform like that.

I let out a groan and spent a moment trying to figure out what day it was, since the boat ride had thrown off my internal schedule. It was Telsday, which meant that Orykson should be coming tomorrow. I could try and get him to teach me the Seven League Step spell then – it should be able to take me to Kene’s village in three or four castings of the spell, and while that might not be as convenient as just ripping open a hole in space and stepping through, it was still much easier than trying to go the long way around.

But that left me a day to myself, and it was well past time for me to make good on a couple of promises.

I flickered down to the street with Foxstep, then started passing through the streets until I found a copy store. I grabbed some paper and wrote up a lot of information, then started hopping around with Foxstep until appeared at the Mossford Central library, a bit winded from the rapid use of the teleportaiton. It took me a bit to track down Alvaro, but I eventually found him working on the first floor of the library, where first gate texts were taken. He gave me a nod when I approached him, then paused, and did something of a double take.

“Malachi?” he asked. “You look… Wow.”

I flashed him an easygoing grin and summoned the wooden orb that the library had given me to take into the Idyll-Flume, then held it out to him.

“I believe I owe you all that.”

Alvaro took the orb and ran one finger over it, a flicker of knowledge mana running through it, and whistled.

“It recorded a lot more information than we expected, that’s… Wait, was the shattering into other realms actually what happened? I heard a rumor, but I thought it was absurd.”

“The Craftsman did it to help free the familiars that the sage had trapped within,” I said, though I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t think the Craftsman had been behind the attempt to kill any warlocks. It didn’t suit my impression of him. But something had certainly pushed them into acting.

“Wow,” Alvaro said, running a hand over the orb again. “This… Just… Wow.”

“Twice in a row that I’ve rendered the learned librarian speechless,” I said lightheartedly, and Alvarro scrunched up his nose at me, then waved a hand.

“I’m going to deliver this to the Spirit of the Library for dissection,” he said. “Was there anything you needed?”

“Oh, I’m not done yet,” I said, then held out the notes that I’d taken on my Harvest Distance spell. Though I’d already confirmed its ingrained effect, it was worth handing over the extra information that the spell continued to perform well and hadn’t done anything weird, even when exposed to extreme spiritual strain.

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After that, I handed over a copy of Enhance Forging and Sky Dragon’s Senses.

“There are decent odds you’ve already got those,” I said, and Alvaro nodded.

“We do, but there are always slight quirks and variations in any biological spell array. I’ll add yours into the variations.”

“Now for my more impactful ones,” I said, and handed him a copy of Mantle Dragonfyre, then a copy of Ninelight Bindings, or Rainbow Connection, or whichever translation you wanted to go with, alongside their accompanying notes about the mana types and use, even if I didn’t fully understand the use of the full gate spell yet.

Alvaro’s eyebrow lifted when he saw the dragonfyre, and his eyes went wide at the second spell. He ran his hand over the documents.

“What… are these? Hudau mana type? That’s incredibly rare, where did you even get information on its spells? Wait, do you have it? I thought the mix I was feeling from you was a result of your full-gate spells.”

“For what its worth, I suspect some dragons could cast it?” I said. “Not sure. It’s designed to work on an even split, so some of the more heavily aspected dragons might struggle.”

“Where did you even get this?”

“A kirin gave it to me,” I said, and Alvaro chuckled for a moment, then he paused.

“Oh. You weren’t joking.”

“I was not,” I confirmed. “A rainbow kirin, specifically.”

“Interesting. Kirin are… Well, there are rumors of them being sighted on occasion, but they’re more of an urban legend than a real thing, like the yellow barber vampire.”

“Wasn’t she real?” I asked.

“Kind of but we’re getting off track,” Alvaro said. “This… Wow.”

“Is that your fourth wow in a short conversation?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Alvaro said. “I… What level is your library card?”

“Oh jeez,” I said. “I’m not even sure where it is anymore. I think I put it in my sock drawer. I think I was ruby? Jade?”

Alvaro let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head.

“Well, with all you’ve done, I’m sure this will get you to a lapis seal,” he said. “That freely lets you explore the hidden plane for everything up to fourth gate as long as it’s not in a complete quarantine, like spells designed to torture people, and lets you access certain acceptable fifth gate spells. You also get a reduced charge for our copying fees, and access to certain more critical library missions.”

“Really?” I asked, brightening.

“And I’ll get you a new card,” Alvaro said. “I’m going to go get my boss.”

“Wait, while you’re gone, I do have a couple of copy requests for you, if you don’t mind,” I said. “Can I get the third gate mana meditation for Depths of Starry Night.”

The mana meditation had passed muster as acceptable to all three of my mentors, and the gradual improvement it gave me wasn’t revolutionary, it had been critical to my development.

“The spell guide of Seven League Step, just whatever variation is generally considered to be the most useful for a generalist. I don’t want to dedicate my entire gate to supporting this one spell, but I do want it.”

While Orykson would probably provide me with a copy of the step spell, I wanted to have a version, just in case he considered the spell to be beneath him.

“A copy of all the hudau spells you have,” I said, then paused. “Actually, no, I don’t want to wrack up a blank check like that. Can you just bring me the list of what I have, and I pick them, then you copy them?”

I flashed Alvaro a smile.

“Sorry, I know this is a lot to dump on you at once.”

“Hey,” he said, flashing the pile of papers I handed him. “You’ve more than earned it. Meet you by the fire? It should take me an hour or so.”

“Sure,” I agreed, using a pulse of mana to set a timer with Internal Pocketwatch, then headed up to the third floor, wandering around and looking at the spells that were publicly available.

With the Beast Mage’s Soul, I had to be careful about what spells I picked out and cast, since removing them was far more work for me, given that they were inscribed into my body, but I was still curious.

To my surprise, now that I could access the third gate portion of the library, there was an entire subsection of both life and time spells dedicated to lifespan extension. There might have been books in other mana types too, but given that there weren’t many in death, none in space, and there wasn’t a hudau section at all, I didn’t bother to check, instead looking over the space and time options.

Given my affinity for blending spells, the first thing I did was cross-reference the catalog, looking for books that were in both life, death, and time. There weren’t any in all three, nor any in both life and death, but there were a few texts in life and time, so I dug them out and started looking over them, focusing on practical spell guides over long winded books about the theory of life extension.

I even managed to dig up two that I was going to ask for copies of: Improved Sleep and Quality Lifespan.

Improved Sleep worked by stimulating the natural recovery that happened while sleeping while also putting the body into a slowed state. While eight hours of sleep would still happen, your body would effectively age less than that, with third gate mages bodies usually aging about six hours instead of eight. The creator of the spell, Albert Selaph, had been an Arcanist, and sleeping for eight hours had only aged him as if four hours had passed.

It didn’t sound like much, but by saving four hours of time a day meant that in six years, he was able to add an entire year to his lifespan, just by sleeping. Plus, its ingrained effect improved the quality of sleep, which was a helpful quality of life improvement.

I was tempted to look for something that worked the other way around, speeding everything up so I could cram more sleep in less time, but I was able to acknowledge that burning away my lifespan to have a bit of extra time to work each day was a bad idea in the long run.

The second spell was a bit more standard. It burned mana to reinforce the use of life and time energy in the body, making sure that everything was working the right way at the right time.

I had a massive amount of life and time energy, so I’d almost put the spell aside along with all the other general spells to flood your body with life energy, but after noticing a footnote, I’d picked it back up – the spell didn’t actually increase the amount of energy, it just made sure that it was being put to use, and folding itself away into the vital functions for long term health and defense against chronic conditions.

That could actually make it somewhat tiring for a normal mage to cast, as they burned free energy to enforce what was locked away in critical functions, but for me, it was an excellent way to reinforce my body. Its ingrained effect automated the process, albeit much weaker, and that had ultimately tipped the scales and caused me to pick it up.

As I was studying to see if picking up Gerald’s Grand Gift of Greater Golden Glowing Glorious Life was worth picking up as well, or if it was just an overblown spell designer’s attempt at fame, my Internal Pocketwatch went off, and I yelped, hurrying to reshelve everything and rush down to meet Alvaro.