It was way too cold.

Zoe shivered as she desperately clung on. The icy wind was turning her face numb, and she could barely feel her hands. Looking down proved to be a mistake, as the icy plains below them had to now be at least several kilometers away.

Could she survive such a fall?

Not particularly keen to find out, Zoe returned her attention to the way ahead. They had ascended through the first cloud layer, and were now rising even higher above it. Blinking, she realized her eyes had begun to crust up with ice. Was the wind freezing her tears?

“Alright Zoe, we’re entering a mana stream,” Lily shouted back. “We’re depending on you for this one.”

Squinting and activating {Manasight}, Zoe immediately saw what Lily was talking about. A variety of shades of blue mana coiled around them, ranging from grayish purple to pure white and sky blue to navy. The mana roiled chaotically, but there was one larger, extra dense stream that flowed with extreme speed in the same direction they were traveling.

The mana was of the stream was so dense that Zoe could actually feel it when they entered. It prickled at her skin like dry snow, and it was moving so fast that it rushed by them even despite their great speed.

It was rather disorienting, as it made it look like they were flying backwards even as the wind buffeted them from ahead.

“What do I have to do?” Zoe shouted back.

“Grab as much mana as you can and stuff it into the crystal,” Andric shouted in her ear. “Pretty simple. Don’t screw up though.”

“You better hurry,” Lily added. “It’s almost fully depleted already.”

Andric leaned over. “Exacrly. If you screw up, we’ll all plummet out of the sky to our deaths.”

Zoe’s eyes widened at that. What the fuck? Was this a normal occurrence for these two? Flying through the sky by the seat of their pants instead of walking like sensible people? She glanced back down, but instead of looking at the ground, she was looking at the sword. The lines of crimson were still pumping through it, but the mana crystal in the hilt was barely even shining.

So with no time to waste, Zoe activated {Mana Manipulation}.

Getting even her own mana into the crystal turned out to be exceedingly difficult. As soon as it left her body, the demonic mana was whisked away ahead of them by the torrent of mana rushing all around.

Once it was more than a few feet in front of her, Zoe’s control rapidly faltered. Shit. She had already wasted almost thirty mana that way, and it clearly wasn’t working. And then she got an idea.

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The mana only got whisked away when it left her body. The mana crystal was too far away from her hands and core, but she was standing on the sword — which had its own mana channels. Could she skip the crystal entirely and fuel the sword directly?

The sword dropped out from below them, and suddenly they were weightless.

“Fuck!”

“Zoe!”

The mana stream slipped away as they began to fall towards the clouds. Frantically, Zoe grabbed as much of her mana as she could with the ability and pumped it down her legs and into the ice.

{Mana Manipulation has leveled up! Mana Manipulation is now level 6.}

The sword lurched. No longer weightless, the artificial gravity of their sudden acceleration smashed Zoe down. She tightened her grip even more, so hard that she was sure it must be painful for the other woman. Andric cheered.

Unfortunately, while they were flying again, Zoe was rapidly burning up her own mana to fuel it. The wind raced by faster and faster, faster even than before, but her mana was dropping precipitously and was now down in the two digits.

“The stream! We need to get back in the stream!”

“On it,” Lily shouted back, and they lurched upwards even higher.

Reentering the stream, Zoe wasted no time in grabbing as much mana as she could. Closing her eyes, She dove inside herself and activated {Meditation}.

A web of crimson and black and gold greeted her. It was still a tangled up, frayed mess, but it was brighter now, many of the threads looking thicker and stronger. Through it all rushed rushed a stream of shades of blue.

Mana. I need to somehow catch this mana.

And she needed to do it quickly. Focusing, she tried to figure out how to do it. It was moving too fast for her to snag it with basic {Mana Manipulation}. Was there something she could use here in her core space?

The tangle of mana channels reminded her of a spiderweb. A shitty web made by a spider on crack, but a spiderweb nonetheless. Perhaps she could use it to catch the mana as it flew past?

It was like trying to catch water with a fishing net. She tried and she tried, and with terror she watched as her mana dipped below twenty. We’re so going to die.

This is the end. I die a day into my new life because my new friends decided to trust me as part of their reckless plan.

I’m going to fail them.

Zoe slumped as the cold seeped into her bones. Friends. That’s not something she was used to. Even if they were just using her to gain face within their sect. She honestly couldn’t blame them — she might very well do the same thing. After all, she had stuck with them so far because they had information she wanted and because they had seemed useful.

But she couldn’t ignore that she enjoyed the banter between them, or Andric’s grumpiness, or Lily’s absurd confidence.

I’m not going to die.

And they’re not going to die either.

I won’t let them.

Not because of me, not because of anyone else.

They were hers, and Zoe was very possessive of her stuff. That probably wasn’t how most people thought of their friends, but it was good enough for her.

Of course, that was all well and good, but she was still fucking losing mana at a ridiculous rate and she still had no idea how to recover it. She would probably still die, but she wouldn’t give up until the very end.

Fucking stupid arrogant juniors.

And with that, she fully focused on her web of mana. Unravelling her own channels, she spread them thin, and then coated them with all of the mana she had spared. Make it sticky. Or something like that.

Her mana dipped below ten.

A little bit of blue mixed in with the red and gold.

{Meditation has leveled up! Meditation is now level 3.}

{Introspection has gained multiple levels! Introspection is now level 4.}

{+1 Mana}

Zoe grinned. She would survive. And as long as she was alive, her friends would too.