“If we aren’t going to improve my strength, then…what will improve?” Vayra asked. She had finished her meal, and she set her haversack down in the dirt.

“Some might call you a glass cannon,” Nathariel said. “Your book, and I as well, prefer to think of it as a glass cannon whose bore will never clog nor need cleaning, and though its barrel might crack, it will find itself repaired quickly.”

Vayra raised her eyebrows. That didn’t sound so bad.

‘Not so bad?’ Phasoné exclaimed. ‘You’re telling me that you’re just alright with not having any improvements to your strength?’

“We’ll still be able to use starlight Arcara to give us a temporary boost, right?” she asked—both Phasoné and Nathariel.

“You’ll be able to do better than that,” Nathariel replied. “The book calls it Aelth’tred Eo. If my understanding of old Velaydian serves me, that translates to something like, ‘Steel Vein Body’, and for good reason. It greatly improves the strength of your Arcara channels, such that when you bring vast amounts of starlight into them, they will not burn up. Your spirit will not get exhausted nearly as quickly, and, to top it all off, your ability to heal will improve greatly—though I still can’t figure how that one works yet.”

Without waiting for her to respond, Nathariel set off. He approached the center of the room, where the canals of water feeding the trees all met in a small basin. It was mostly Stream water, iridescent and glowing, and it flowed in an almost whirlpool shape.

‘Streamfather knows you could use some improved healing,’ Phasoné grumbled.

Vayra tilted her head. “But don’t all enhanced bodies get improved healing? Right, sir?”

“Yours will be better than most,” Nathariel said. “My current theory is that your Arcara channels will be so robust that the normal spiritual strain of boosting your healing will simply…not exist.”

“What do I have to do?”

“You may not have set enough of a foundation for a traditional body,” Nathariel reminded her—and he didn’t have to; the thought still stung. “But, you did put in significant work expanding and strengthening your Arcara channels, and believe it or not, that old breathing technique you were using? That one described earlier in the Godscourge book? It was quite the tool for imbuing the channels themselves with a foundation of mana.”

Nathariel dipped his boot in the pool of Stream water at the center of the room. It wasn’t deep. Then, with a subtle smile, he added, “Not to mention, the Burnished Flame Loop didn’t hurt.”

“What do I do?” Vayra ran up beside him, staring down at the water.

“Push yourself to the brink of Quartermaster with the Burnished Flame Loop,” Nathariel told her. “While you do that, I will arrange the advancement ritual.”

Vayra looked down, then whispered, “Phasoné? How close are we?”

‘We have less than a tenth of the way left,’ the Goddess responded. ‘Another few hours with the technique he gave you, and you’ll be there.’

For the next three, maybe four hours, Vayra sat cross-legged in front of the basin. Occasionally, she dipped her hands in the water to absorb more mana, but otherwise, she kept her eyes closed and her mind focussed.

She had to do what she could with what she had.

Her lips parted, and she gasped. A realization reached her. He core pulsed.

Magic wasn’t a miracle. It was a set of steps, over and over again, never stopping. She might not have had the best tools to climb the mountain, but that couldn’t stop her from using what she had.

After all, she was a Discarded. She was good at making do with very little.

Her core pulsed again, sending a surge of energy through her body. Her heart began to pound faster, and she nearly leapt to her feet in surprise.

It was happening. She was advancing!

She opened her eyes. Nathariel met her gaze with a serious expression. “Lay in the basin,” he instructed. “I have followed the book’s instructions to the letter.” He motioned to the edge of the basin, where an array of supplies had been gathered. She saw glowing branches from the feathery trees and a few vials of glowing liquid—including one of the orange elixirs that the Order had given her.

“Most families and kinships have rituals for enhancing the bodies of their God-heirs,” Nathariel said. “It creates minor variations in the forging process.”

‘My body was forged while basking in starlight, and buried beneath rocks from the moon of Cancard,’ Phasoné provided. ‘This is hardly a regal enough place to forge the body of a Mediator.’

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Vayra tried to ignore the Goddess for the moment. They had no other choice. She tried to keep her core in check, as best as she could, to let Nathariel finish his explanation, but she knew she couldn’t hold it for long.

“It will be unpleasant,” Nathariel said. “But all enhancements are.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Vayra said. She limped forwards, and set herself down in the basin. The warm Stream water enveloped her, wrapping around her shoulders and hugging her body.

There was just enough room in the chamber to envelop her whole body. When she laid flat against the rocky bottom, only her face broke the surface of the water.

As soon as she was settled, she released her core. The ball of light shook violently, spewing arms of Arcara through her body like it was a miniature galaxy. They lashed out like whips, and she felt her insides churning.

Vaguely, she sensed Nathariel placing a strip of fabric between her teeth, then bracing her head with a couple cloth strips.

‘Oh no…’ Phasoné whispered.

Nathariel poured the orange mana elixir down her throat, and in an instant, everything blurred.

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Nathariel had made the preparations as best as he could. He’d never been present for this part of a disciple’s advancement before—except for his own, which he barely remembered.

The Mediator’s book, however, gave him enough clues to start the process.

She would need a vast infusion of mana to truly kickstart the process, and he was thankful she had elixirs with her. Next, a few branches of a spirit-tree. The grove gave him what he needed.

No one knew why there was a grove of flame-feather trees in the Night Vale Chambers, though he had his guesses. The Dragon Gods who built it could have found uses for the Arcara-soaked branches, he was certain.

He would find a use for it as well.

As soon as the Mediator began to writhe in the pool, he fed her the leaves one-by-one. She seemed barely conscious, but she still ate the long, wispy fronds without complaint.

The process of enhancing a body was truly a process of remaking it. Though the Mediator didn’t have any mana framework, her bones still became porous, then reformed moments later. Her muscles still re-wrapped their fibres over themselves. Normally, they would have changed, moulded half from flesh and half from Arcara. Today, he only saw muscles remade as they had been before—barring, of course, her broken leg, which formed back properly.

Everything, of course, was slightly purified. The process of advancing always expelled effluence from the body, and the Quartermaster to Master’s Mate advancement especially.

As soon as a grayish-brown fluid began to leak from her pores, he knew the process of remaking the body was nearly complete. Under a coat of dark fluids and unneeded debris, the Mediator’s skin was remade, free of all scars and scratches.

“Almost there,” he said, as if to encourage her, but now came the hard part.

The process of reforging her Arcara channels would require a catalyst. He reached to his hip, where he carried a void horn. From the outside, it looked identical to a powder horn, and no one would have thought anything different about it—until Nathariel removed the cap and drew out a pouch of equipment that should not have otherwise been able to fit in it.

The catalyst…would be a single claw from a Golden Tang-Coi. The fish’s two-foot long claws were notoriously venomous to God-heirs. It liquified their Arcara channels and loosened their core.

Normally, crippling. He carried it around because of how deadly it was. Now, though, it was exactly what she needed. All would be remade.

Nathariel leaned closer and pricked her with the claw. A single dose would do the trick.

As soon as it was done, there was nothing more he could help with. He turned away and walked to the edge of the room, then tried to ignore the splashing and soft grunts of pain. There was nothing pleasant about witnessing anyone advance from Quartermaster to Master’s Mate.

Hopefully, Phasoné would be able to guide her through the rest of the process—truly, she just needed to keep cycling.

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Vayra wished she could pass out.

The whole process, she stayed awake. Every second stretched, but as soon as the process was done, as soon as her chest stopped heaving and acid stopped pouring through her veins, everything seemed like a distant memory.

She sat up. Her arms were covered in a grayish brown muck that smelled like rotten eggs, and it clung to the tattered remains of her clothes as well. Nathariel reached inside his powder horn and pulled out a pale white robe, then tossed it to her from the edge of the basin, then said, “Clean yourself up. Do what you want with the robe. Then we keep moving.”

He walked away.

Vayra glanced around. The wards on the doors were getting dimmer, and the flames didn’t roar as loud as they had before. Any moment, they would collapse, and the magmaspawn would rush in.

She used the water in the basin to wash herself off, as best as she could. As she cleared the filth off her arms, she found at first a stain that she couldn’t clear off. A…tattoo?

Squinting, she looked closer. Buried beneath her skin was a bright red feather with golden tips. A phoenix feather. “But…but I’m—”

‘A half-blood,’ Phasoné said. ‘The stronger you get, the more of your magical form will be revealed. You’ll be able to control it some day. For now…you get some pretty feathers beneath your skin.’

“Pretty…” she muttered. “I guess…” She couldn’t feel them, though she thought she should be able to. Maybe when they poked through her skin, she would.

When she tried to stand up, she felt no pain in her legs. The bones felt…normal. Not stronger, but also not broken or screaming with pain. In fact, all of her wounds and scars had disappeared.

She threw her old clothes into a corner and put on the white robes that Nathariel had given her. The sleeves were a little long, and they didn’t fit over her starsteel bracers well. Besides, she liked her arms free. She ripped the sleeves off, then picked up her bags and walked towards Nathariel.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“Don’t thank me until we get out of here.”