Dan had been so flooded with relief that he couldn’t stop himself from leaping into Calliope’s shocked but willing arms. She hugged him back quickly, clearly confused, before putting her hands on his shoulders and looking him in the eye. “Where are the others? Do you know the way out?”

Dan looked up at Calliope. The elf woman had never been this close to him, at least not without trying to punch him in the mouth during a training session. When his eyes met her own, he was surprised by the vibrant sunflower yellow of her pupils. How had he never noticed? He became so used to his mana sight that he wondered if he had ever actually looked at Calliope until now. Dan didn’t realise he hadn’t answered her question until Calliope shook his shoulders and her face became more concerned than it already was.

“I… think I do.” As Dan had stepped through the portal he had created, he could feel the distance moved. He had been connected, however minutely, to his mana in Allusia. Even now, if he concentrated, he could connect himself to that energy and sense the surroundings. With just a few steps, he had travelled dozens of miles. He was no longer underneath Allusia, he and Calliope were instead probably only a few miles away from Guan territory. “I’ll need some time, though.”

Dan didn’t mention that he didn’t really have any idea what he was doing, how it worked or whether it would work again. There was a chance that the energy required for the next opening would cost too much and that he would be drained to exhaustion. None of those things mattered. What mattered was finding everyone else.

Still unsure why he had been lead to Calliope instead of Allusia proper, Dan sank into a comfortable position and began to cycle his mana. He followed the base principles and took his time, pushing himself slowly through the stages of growth. Line into cross into circle into square into star. Up and down, side to side, back and forth. His mana was a pinprick and a river all at once. His mana was himself.

The process took a few minutes. When he was done, he felt comfortable to try again. The wall that he had already opened was no use, so the two moved a little further down the hall and Dan began to focus on the wall. Forming his mana into a drill once more, he took a breath to steel himself and pressed his energy into the rock. The pain flared in his forehead once more. If anything it was harder to ignore than before and nearly caused him to drop the technique.

He focused on thoughts of Fa Lian. He would be kidding himself if he pretended that she wasn’t the first person he wanted to see. He pictured the church, the last place that Dan knew she had been. The pain intensified, the feeling of pushing against a thin membrane became more prominent and Dan’s breath started to come in gasps. Without losing his focus, Dan was aware of Calliope saying something, asking him a question. He couldn’t answer.

This time Kumiho did not appear but he no longer needed her assistance. He pushed through the barrier in his mind and the pressure disappeared. He was panting from exertion and felt like he was going to pass out but the work was done. His senses came back to himself slowly as the world stopped spinning and his head stopped buzzing.

“What did you do?” Calliope was not upset in the slightest. Her voice was full of wonder as she peered into the new hallway that had appeared before them. “Did you know that the wall was going to open like that?”

Dan tried to speak at first but found that he couldn’t. Then he tried to nod and the movement caused a splitting headache like he had never felt before. The cost of creating this tunnel was a violent migraine that threatened to knock him out. Calliope seemed to notice this and understand, pulling something from a pouch on her hip. Placing it gently into his hand, Dan saw that she had given him a small bottle with a stopper.

Red liquid sloshed within and as Dan looked at it, his vision blurred in a surprising yet familiar way.

[Common Health Potion]

The concoction of a skilled alchemist.

This red potion is made with Heartblossom Rose and the sap of a Swantree.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“A Swantree?” Dan asked, watching as the golden script appeared in the air before unstopping the bottle and downing the contents.

Calliope tilted her head slightly, clearly surprised Dan had known the name of what must be an obscure piece of flora. He didn’t bother to explain the words that he knew from his soul stone. That was his own private knowledge and he wanted it for himself. He enjoyed the look of surprise. “They grow only in my homeland.” Calliope answered, a surprising softness in her voice. “They grow in pairs, connecting their branches after a few years of growth. They’re very beautiful.”

Dan finished gulping down the potion and smacked his lips happily. The headache that threatened to rip his skull apart only moments before now seemed like a far off memory. The liquid was sticky and left an aftertaste for a while. It was a pleasant flavour, so Dan continued enjoying it as the effect took hold. It was an altogether strange feeling, Dan could sense his bruises healing, even the ones on bone.

“Thank you. Did you make this?” The description had said it required a skilled alchemist and Dan had never seen any evidence of that craft from her. However, Dan didn’t for a second think he knew everything about Calliope. He knew next to nothing of elves or any of the other races.

Calliope replied that she had. “My mother was… well, she wasn’t quite an alchemist. I think in your human stories she would have been closest to a witch?” Dan nodded. He had heard the scary bedtime stories told by other children. He pictured an old woman, her skin soft but her voice like dust and spiderwebs. “No, I see from your face that was not the right description. Hmm.”

Calliope dropped into thought and Dan fell into silence. Dan had never known his parents. He had no stories of them or from them. They never taught him to do anything. Surprising himself, Dan felt emotion bubble up inside until it forced itself out through his eyes. Calliope noticed, and Dan noticed her noticing, but neither of them said anything and instead they moved forward.

“I am two hundred and twelve.” Calliope said, maniacally. Dan instantly assumed that she was trying to make some strange joke and replied that he himself had been around since the dawn of time. Calliope laughed but not because Dan’s joke was funny. She could see that disbelief in his face and was enjoying it. “Oh, so fun! We should get lost more often.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I say that sounds awful.”

“I don’t mind. What do you know of elves, Ah Dan?” It seemed, as they walked, Dan would be getting a lesson. He turned to Calliope, excited and wide-eyed and told her that he knew nearly nothing. Most of Dan’s teaching had been about survival in combat, survival in the wilderness and general principles of mana. Even his time in the Jiaoduo had been focused solely on combat abilities and especially survival, by the end.

As they walked down the hall that Dan had created, Dan listened. Elves, Calliopes said, reached adulthood just like a human, majaal or dwarf would, though they matured at around twenty five, rather than fifteen or so. Once they reach adulthood, though, their ageing slows massively. Her own childhood had been chaotic, to say the least. She couldn’t speak for the greater elf culture, which she seemed to regard with some disdain, but herself and her mother had been nomadic in the woodland of their home. They had hunted, foraged and generally lived off the land away from others. This was common for a lot of elves.

It sounded peaceful to Dan.

“A human may see a single tree grow in their lifetime. An elf could watch a whole forest come and go. It makes us… slow.” Calliope looked troubled then, as though the word didn’t quite fit her meaning. “It’s good to be around the quicker lived races. Stops me from putting down roots.”

They were reaching the end of the hallway now and once again, they had travelled a vast distance. As they approached the exit, Dan could sense Allusia around them. He had done it. He pushed his mana ahead of himself and saw that he had made a pathway directly to the church of the empty god, exactly where Fa Lian and the others had gone.

Exaltation quickly fell away to horror as Dan registered what he was seeing in the room. Needing to make sure with his own eyes, he pressed forward but his mana had made no mistake. The ground was littered with bodies. Black robes covered their bodies and as far as Dan could see they bore no outward wounds but without question they were dead.

“What happened here?” He gasps aloud, not able to even hazard a guess at the cause of this. Before Calliope could put forth her best idea, Dan shouted and leapt across the room as quickly as he could. Her strength was fading quickly but Dan found Xiaomei’s small frame under a kicked pew. Her leg was broken but it was the lacerations that were threatening her life.

Dan couldn’t understand how in the world this damage had been done but he set to fixing it. The moment he pressed his healing energy into Xiaomei, the world around Dan seemed to go dim and lose colour. He was instantly drained of the energy he had gathered, his mana channels started to feel squeezed as more and more mana was pulled from his hands. Like a hole burst in the side of a dam, the flow could not be stopped until the other side was equal.

Dan howled but no sound came out. The whole process may only have taken the few seconds that it normally did, but Dan couldn’t be sure. When he was finished, he felt as though he had just gone ten rounds with both Fa Lian and Shade at the same time. Xiaomei lay on the floor breathing normally, her leg fixed, the slashed destruction across her stomach and left shoulder soothed and healed.

Dan recognised that damage. He had healed similar wounds before, except they’d been much older. Whoever had done this to Xiaomei had also been the one to scar Yurie.

And they needed to be stopped.

Dan just hoped that no one else needed healing like that. He was just about to head into the obvious secret underground area that he sensed with his mana when that same awareness brushed over Guan Po Daiyu. Though tempted to ignore her, Dan groaned and began preparing his mana.