His skill selection completed, Kyle’s next order of business was to start working on the body of the Infernal. He brought C.H.A.D.D. with him to where his foe’s body lay unmoving, setting the drone against the body. I don’t know if it’ll work. Kyle had been hoping to use the chitin from the abdomen as an extra layer of protection for his companion, offering solutions for both physical damage as well as the deteriorating effect of the mana in the air.

The drone was much smaller than the bulbous abdomen of the Infernal, and it was clear that this was a project that would require time and tools they didn’t have with them. The creature’s body was much too large to comfortably carry back to Albaum, however with some creative use of the sharper shards of clay scattered in the area Kyle found that he was able to remove some of the chitinous plates. It wasn’t going to give him enough material to do everything he’d hoped, but when all was said and done, he had enough pieces to make a reasonable armor for his companion.

Kyle covered his eyes with his free hand as he exited the cave system for the first time in over a month. It took his eyes the better part of an hour to readjust to the natural sunlight, though he found with his Auric Perception that he still had a general sense of the world around him through the flow of the ambient mana. Kyle considered starting to make their way back in the general direction of Duilleag, but decided against it until his eyes had fully adjusted and he had a handle on the new sensations he was experiencing.

More than ever before, he could feel the energy that his body was drawing in. He could even feel a similar, fainter pull from C.H.A.D.D., who was cradled under his left arm. He sensed the flow of the mana around him almost like water across his skin, and the sheer amount was jarring. This is going to take some getting used to. Kyle took a deep breath and tried to focus only on the mana he could feel himself and C.H.A.D.D. drawing in. That was a familiar sensation in many ways, even if he was able to sense it far more acutely now, which was comforting. [DR. MAYHEW, I DON’T MEAN TO INTERRUPT, BUT I DON’T THINK STANDING HERE IS GOING TO BE PARTICULARLY PRODUCTIVE.]

“Yeah, well you’re not the one trying to look at the sun for the first time in a month. I wouldn’t want us to get lost or ambushed because my eyes were too sensitive to work properly.”

[I CAN, AND HAVE, HELPED YOU AVOID MORE AMBUSHES THAN YOUR EYES, DR. MAYHEW. I DOUBT THAT REALITY WILL CHANGE ANY TIME SOON.]

“You’ve got a point there, C.H.A.D.D.”

Kyle almost left his next words unsaid, but he thought better. The little drone had become his friend in the months that had passed, as strange as that was to think.

“And I also wanted to thank you, C.H.A.D.D. I haven’t gotten everything figured out, and you were right. This isn’t a race, and if I did things my way I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have – hell, I might be dead. Thank you for pushing me to slow down and think.”

That seemed to take the drone by surprise, and they stood in silence for several more minutes before C.H.A.D.D. responded.

[YOU’RE WELCOME, DR. MAYHEW.]

With that, C.H.A.D.D. began to direct Kyle back to Duilleag. Without access to its projectors, the drone wouldn’t be able to show the map and help them orient themselves in relation to Albaum, but Kyle was optimistic that they’d be able to figure it out as they got closer. He was taken aback by the beauty as they walked, not having had an opportunity to really appreciate it as he was darting across the landscape with HASTE active in the half-light of dusk.

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The trees had a rich, brown bark that was a stark contrast to the golden leaves and grasses, a different sight than the more dense, green shrubbery he was used to in the mountains outside of Newton. Alongside the striking beauty of the forest, he also felt the mana as it suffused the landscape around him, ebbing and flowing gently through the trees and down into the earth, only to be drawn up and pushed back into the air. It almost gave him the impression that the whole forest was breathing, and he marveled again at the newfound ability to perceive it. He had never felt so connected to the environment around him before, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this is how his grandfather felt when he was out in nature. He could picture the old man sleeping in a hammock under the stars, a smile on his face with eyes closed and an errant leaf stuck in his bushy beard.

For the first time in a while, that image wasn’t accompanied by a wave of grief. I’m going to make you proud, Old Man. Rest easy. That thought felt more in his reach than ever as Kyle considered his next steps. He knew he would need to get back to Albaum before he could work properly on the most pressing project on his docket, fortunately the journey would give him time to practice.

C.H.A.D.D. gave a warning when they got within approximately ten kilometers from the outskirts of Duilleag, and Kyle came to a stop, looking at the sun still hovering over the horizon as he took a long pull from his canteen. Wiping his mouth, he looked down at the drone in his arm.

“Alright C.H.A.D.D., I’m going to need some help with this part.”

He nestled his companion between the roots of a nearby tree, placing the salvaged chitin plates next to it.

He took a deep breath, and activated RESONANCE. He knew it was in some ways the riskiest choice to make, but alongside his Auric Perception he felt that it was a risk worth taking. He felt the mana pathways in his body become malleable, and resting his hand against the trunk of the tree he got an impression of the way mana flowed through the rough bark beneath his palm. With an effort, Kyle tried to get his pathways to connect with the tree, but he wasn’t able to get the connection quite right. “C.H.A.D.D., what can you tell me here?”

[DR. MAYHEW, YOUR MANA PATHWAYS ARE STILL MUCH TOO THICK TO PROPERLY CONNECT WITH THE MANA PATHWAYS OF THE TREE. AND IF I MAY, DR. MAYHEW, I DON’T BELIEVE YOUR SKILL WAS DESIGNED TO BE ABLE TO CONNECT TO TREES. THIS SEEMS TO BE A RATHER POINTLESS USE OF THE TECHNIQUE.]

Kyle couldn’t blame the drone for its response. After all, it didn’t have the full picture. Kyle wasn’t sure he did either, though he did feel confident he was on the right path with his thinking. When he’d gone back to the body of the Infernal, despite it not giving off any more surges of mana, he could still detect channels in the chitin of the creature where mana once flowed. They were particularly pronounced in the areas near where the glowing arrays were located, reinforcing his belief.

Using Auric Perception, he detected a similar, albeit far weaker, impression from the trees around him. It made sense, as they also had mana flowing through them. He didn’t get any such impressions from either the clay in the cave or the stones during their travels, and that spurred a thought in him. If he was able to use RESONANCE to connect his mana pathways to materials that he knew could conduct mana, what could he do with them? His first thought was of the blasts of heat the Infernal had used. If he channeled mana through the arrays, assuming they were intact, was there any reason that they wouldn’t still function that way?

The thoughts excited him, and he continued to workshop different strategies to test his theories. Of course, that would only happen once he actually had a handle on manipulating his internal mana pathways. The work he’d been putting in over the last month had built a strong foundation for his control, but there was still a long way to go. He could feel the mana pathways more clearly than ever, as well as the mana around him, however C.H.A.D.D.’s sensors were the key to working out the finer details. Just a month ago he would have gotten impatient, but Kyle had gained an appreciation for patience. He had time to work, so he smiled at the drone.

“If that’s all it was, it would be a pretty useless skill,” Kyle agreed, “but humor me.”