Night had fallen, and Zoe sat on a rock. It was a rather nice rock, all things considered. It had a shallow, wide divot that was sloped just right to cup her bottom, and the angle of the edge was just right to let her legs hang down while still supporting them. And finally, it was positioned right up against the canyon wall, letting her rest her back.

A very nice rock indeed.

Therefore, Zoe was quite comfortable — a perfect way to meditate and practice several of her abilities.

Lily was apparently doing some kind of meditation as well, but she looked the opposite of comfortable. As in, she was squatting down with her arms crossed and held out in front of her at the level of her chest.

Zoe thought she looked like she was about to take a dump.

Finally, Andric had set up an honest-to-god full alchemy set. Well, it was slightly less impressive than the setup he had in the inn room when they first met, but it was still pretty impressive for something conjured up at their impromptu campsite.

Zoe wondered what he was testing for. He hadn’t spoken a word since he had started, and his expression was impossible to read.

Sighing, Zoe let her {Meditation} fall back onto autopilot. She still hadn’t gained another level, despite trying many different things, ranging from obvious to somewhat bizarre. Like rambling on about the first thing that came to mind non-stop for fifteen minutes straight.

She did at least level {Breath Control} for that one, though.

She then decided she would move on to {Kinetic Manipulation}. It was a skill that should be extremely useful, yet which she felt she had been neglecting. So with that thought, Zoe slid off the rock and knelt down in the sand.

One grain at a time.

Picking up a pinch of sand with her finger and her thumb, Zoe spread it across the palm of her other hand. She then dusted away as much as she could while leaving one particularly dark colored grain in the middle.

Alright, let’s do this.

With just a thought and a bit of mana, Zoe activated {Kinetic Manipulation}. The grain of sand disappeared. Shit. There was only one sensible explanation — she had thrown it off into the air. Well, let’s try this again.

It took her several more tries to get the grain to stop flying away — or not lifting at all. This time, it rose up slowly, coming to the level of her eye. She tried to get it to stop there and hover — but as soon as she decreased the strength, it dropped back down.

{Kinetic Manipulation has leveled up! Kinetic Manipulation is now level 7.}

Zoe pumped her fist. Fuck yeah! If she could keep leveling it by playing with sand, she would be exceedingly happy. And to be fair, it was a challenge of skill, demanding significant effort and concentration. Abilities aren’t all about raw strength. That much had been repeatedly made clear, and she knew it would do her well to remember it.

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I hope that it does make the ability physically stronger, though.

At level six — or seven, now — it was still fairly weak. Far, far weaker in terms of literal physical force than {Kinetic Strike}. Licking her lips, Zoe got another grain of sand and tried again.

It took her two tries to get it to float up again, but that was at least far fewer than it took the first time. And now this time, she was able to get it to hover. Her control was shaky at best, but it was hanging in the air, and she was even able to make it drift slightly from side to side.

Manipulating something so small and delicate really takes a lot of control of the ability, I guess.

Zoe did this for a few minutes, and soon she was able to even make the little grain do looping figure eights. Unfortunately, while her skill was no doubt improving tremendously, the ability didn’t actually level.

Frustrated, Zoe realized she might need to push it even harder. Suddenly getting an idea, she frowned. It was going to be extremely difficult, she knew, but a challenge was exactly what she needed to level.

Zoe selected not one but two grains of sand. Narrowing her eyes, she attempted to lift them both.

It ended up taking many tries, and when she did get it, they very rapidly drifted apart — and as soon as she tried to correct the course of one, the other would either fly away or drop down to the ground.

After about ten minutes of this with literally zero progress, Zoe realized she might need to work her way up to it. After all, she had mastered manipulating one tiny grain of sand, but not moving two objects — even larger ones.

So this time, she picked up two small rocks.

The mana required was far, far greater, but aside from that, lifting one rock proved to be much easier than lifting one grain of sand. This seemed to confirm her hypothesis that extremely small objects were difficult to control.

On a whim, Zoe shoved thirty mana into the ability and launched the rock clear across to the far side of the canyon, where it smacked against the wall. Andric looked up, but immediately went back to his work. Zoe grinned. That was definitely more raw power than she remembered.

Getting another rock, she went back to trying to manipulate two objects. Getting them to rise together was still tricky, and she dropped them at least a dozen times while trying to get them to hover together.

And her hard efforts still hadn’t been rewarded.

Irritated, Zoe pushed herself harder. This time, she made the rocks circle each other. To her immense surprise, she got it on the very first try. Unfortunately, she was so surprised that she dropped them.

She was rewarded all the same.

{Kinetic Manipulation has leveled up! Kinetic Manipulation is now level 8.}

Zoe picked them back up. Try this for size. Activating {Meditation} as well, she attempted to siphon up ambient mana while simultaneously making the rocks do twin figure eights. Well, she tried, at least.

And she kept trying.

And trying.

And —

{Kinetic Manipulation has leveled up! Kinetic Manipulation is now level 9.}

{Meditation has gained multiple levels! Meditation is now level 15.}

Fuck yeah!

Andric coughed, and Zoe and Lily both looked up at him. “We should get moving now.” He had already packed up his equipment — or stored it in his inventory, more accurately.

“Any luck?” Lily asked, gesturing at the flowing water.

“None.”

“Shame.”

The trio simultaneously stood and all stretched in unison. “So, we look for a pirate camp now?” Zoe asked.

Andric nodded. “That’s the idea.”

Looking up at the moon and stars, Zoe shivered. She hadn’t realized it until now, but it was starting to get quite cold. She now vaguely remembered something about deserts actually getting cold at night.

“Oh shit!”

Zoe and Lily both snapped their attention back to Andric.

“What?”

“Nothing, I got a pointy rock in my shoe.”

Lily huffed, and Zoe rolled her eyes. “Come on,” the mage said, “let’s get going. We don’t want to be late, do we?”

As she set off upstream while Andric fished around in his boot, Zoe frowned. “Late? For trespassing on a pirate camp?”

Lily laughed. “You always have to pick the right time if you want to make a spectacular entrance.”