“I’m going to fucking kill them to death.”

The trio found themselves in one of the tents — or at least, one of the ones that was still standing. The other two had wreaked quite a bit of chaos before their capture, and the remaining pirates hadn’t seemed particularly pleased that they were being spared for the time being.

Lily was still stewing in her anger. With her arms crossed and her foot tapping in agitation, the mage was the perfect image of irritable displeasure. Andric, on the other hand, looked far calmer and more resigned to their fate.

For her part, Zoe had to consider herself somewhere in between. While she was tired out and somewhat resigned like Andric, she also had to agree with Lily’s sentiment. I’m going to kill him to death too, she thought as she thought back about Captain Hart. Sparing us is going to be his greatest mistake.

Although, for all of her heated determination, Zoe had no idea how she was going to manage it. At present, she didn’t have many options aside from going along with their captors’ wishes. So play along she would — for as long as it would take. And then they’ll be sorry!

After cackling maniacally in her mind and rubbing her hands together, Zoe sobered up and went pack to levitating sand.

The tent they were in was small and shabby compare to others, but they did at least have a small, rickety wooden table, two chairs and a stool, and a pile of old blankets. Zoe suspected that it was still better accommodations than the captain’s prisoners typically enjoyed.

There was a single overhead lantern — a mundane one, it seemed, as she didn’t see particularly dense mana in it with her {Manasight}. She idly wondered what kind of oil they used for lamps here.

There was only a single guard at the entrance, and he was only level thirty eight. ‘Only,’ Zoe thought to herself. She shook her head. Got to remember that that’s over ten levels above my own.

Zoe strongly suspected that her rate of growth was highly atypical.

“I know just how I’m going to do it too.” Looking up, Zoe saw that Lily was still ranting. “Gonna freeze their limbs in ice and then — oh then, then comes the fun part. Have you ever heard of a reverse circumcision?”

Andric sniffed. “No, and I don’t want to.” He sniffed again. “You do realize the guard is right there behind you, right?”

“Don’t care,” Lily muttered. “Let him listen, I don’t care. Hell, the victim’s anticipation is the best part.”

The guard coughed. “The only thing I’m anticipating is you getting your pretty face mauled off tomorrow morning.”

Lily sniffed — but she didn’t say anything else.

Zoe went back to levitating sand. By this point, she had a stream of particles orbiting in a lazy figure eight pattern — it took a fare amount of concentration and mana, but it was also doing wonders for her abilities. {Meditation} and {Kinetic Manipulation} had both already leveled again. They were now thirteen and eighteen respectively.

Her mind began to wander, though. Their so-called ‘initiation’ was to consist of three individual arena fights. Exactly who or what they were supposed to be fighting, Zoe wasn’t sure.

Only one thing had been made certain: unlike an ordinary initiation into the Four Cannons, their fights were going to be fights to the death. Zoe wasn’t really looking forward to finding out more — but she knew that escape wasn’t exactly a great option.

After all, while there was only one guard, he wasn’t the only thing guarding them.

After all, the captain was a beast tamer.

Zoe had poked her head out a few times, and each time she was met with about a dozen glowing eyes staring back at her. Analyzing them had told her that each one was a {Scorching Lioness}, and {Manasight} revealed that they were all completely loaded up with what Zoe was coming to recognize as ordinary fire mana. There was a golden color as well, though it wasn’t the same regal gold as that of the system — the Grand Design.

Their levels ranged between eleven and forty, most falling somewhere in the low thirties. Zoe had no idea how strong scorching lionesses were — after all, she had to expect that different creatures leveled differently from humans — but she wasn’t going to chance it.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Either way, the captain seemed confident that it was enough to keep them contained, so Zoe reasoned that it probably was.

The next several hours passed this way. Lily eventually fell asleep, and Andric appeared to be doing his own version of {Meditation}. Zoe hadn’t gained another level in either {Kinetic Manipulation} or her own {Meditation}, so she decided to switch and practice something else.

A thought suddenly came to her. Could she relearn abilities that she had already consumed?

Deciding it was worth a shot, she stood up, stretched, and activated {Mana Manipulation}. She then forced her demonic mana to soak into her muscles. This was about the same way she had originally learned {Physical Enhancement}.

It burned, of course, but she ignored it. With {Pain Resistance}, doing so was trivial — even if it didn’t actually lessen the actual sensation at all.

She continued to stretch, and then began practicing punching and kicking the air. It felt a little silly, but it definitely was making her fake attacks faster and stronger. Unfortunately, no notification came. Frustrated, she continued going for several minutes, to no result. Finally, she poked Andric.

“Hey, can I relearn an ability I consumed?”

“Uh, no.” He blinked. “But depending on what it is, you can still do it. It won’t become supernaturally powerful like with leveling an ability, but you can still practice it as a skill.”

Zoe deflated slightly at that. True, {Physical Enhancement} had been a bit redundant with the superior {Kinetic Enhancement}, and {Spirit Enhancement} already seemed insane — but she still didn’t like that she would be sacrificing things permanently.

But at least she could still replicate some of the effect the hard way. Even if she didn’t get a shiny ability for it.

So with that, Zoe moved away, dropped down, and started doing pushups.

She continued channeling mana through her physical body, while also experimentally reaching out to {Spirit Enhancement}. The burning was pretty bad now. She knew that she was damaging her muscles even as she strengthened them — but hey, that was just an opportunity to practice {Heal Wound}.

As she kept going, she decided she could be a little more particular about it. Activating {Manasight} as well, she tried to direct the mana in such a way as to emphasize the muscle groups she was using most. It was difficult, both because her mana control still wasn’t fantastic, and also because she knew nothing about anatomy.

But her efforts did pay off.

{Mana Manipulation has leveled up! Mana Manipulation is now level 11.}

Zoe wanted to pump her fist, but she forced herself to keep going. With a thought, she also activated {Medicinal Diagnosis}. She wasn’t too thrilled with that ability so far — it hadn’t been terribly helpful. Was there perhaps more to it that she wasn’t using?

Instead of looking at the system popup, Zoe ignored it completely and focused on using the ability in conjunction with {Manasight} on her own body. To her surprise, additional colors lit up all throughout her. It looked almost like one of those anatomy drawings wither the skin peeled back — one for the musculatory system in particular.

Grinning, she continued to exercise — this time with an even better sense of how to guide her mana.

{Medicinal Diagnosis has gained multiple levels! Medicinal Diagnosis is now level five.}

{You have learned Physical Conditioning!}

Zoe stumbled when she read the second line. Wait what? I can get levels in just EXERCISING? Grinning even wider, Zoe did pump her fist this time. Man, I would love to have had such a clear path to self improvement back on Earth…

The next several hours were spent with her doing crunches, squats, more pushups, and even jumping jacks. Zoe didn’t really know what she was doing, if she were honest with herself, but they were the basic things she knew that would cover a decent variety of exercise types.

{Mana Manipulation} leveled one more time early on and then stopped. {Meditation} didn’t level at all, even despite her constantly doing it to recover enough mana. {Physical Conditioning}, though, gained four.

Zoe did have to use a little bit of {Heal Wound} a few times, but that didn’t level either, sadly. As for {Spirit Enhancement}…

Well, Zoe felt like it was doing something, but she wasn’t sure what.

As the dawn light filtered in through the tent flaps, Lily finally stirred. Andric cracked open his eyes and stood up. “He didn’t say what time of morning, did he.”

Zoe shook her head as Lily groaned and stretched like a cat. “No.”

A new face poked its way in between the tent flaps. “Come on, you three, the Captain wants breakfast with you.”

The trio shared a glance, and then they gingerly filed out of the tent behind the new woman. “What does he want?” Lily asked, eyeing the lionesses nervously. No longer in the dark, Zoe could see that they really were lions, only slightly smaller. Their coats also shimmered with a hazy, fiery light.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the middle aged woman shot back. “But I suggest you eat well.” She chuckled. “You’ve got quite the day ahead of you.”

The walk to the captain’s quarters wasn’t particularly long, as they didn’t even have to cross the bridge. It took only about a minute, and then they were being ushered into one of the caves — not the one with the banquet — where Captain Hart was seated at a much smaller table.

Looking up, he popped a whole boiled egg into his mouth and swallowed. “There you are!” He patted the seat next to him. “Come, come. We have much to discuss.”

Lily gave a derisive snort. “Like what? Our imminent public execution?”

“No, actually.” The captain coughed. “Thought there is that. No — what I wanted to talk about is the fact that your pet demoness just so happens to be the worldwalker Mister Greensworth sent you to kill.”

All three fell silent and stone cold. The captain grinned and spread his hands.

“What? News gets around you know? Now come, sit. We have much to talk about.”