Colour had returned to the world tenfold. Sounds became crystal clear. Dan’s mana had come flooding back alongside his new understanding. Park Man-Shik had drilled it into him for years, and Dan found himself thankful once again for having a wise teacher.

It was simple.

The attacking logs, thrown by the now visible mana threads, were as slow as snails to Dan now. He could feel the change in himself, like he had three times prior. Square stage is a world above. Dan didn’t need to look at his soul badge to sense the change, it had been understanding the shift which had freed Dan’s magic in the first place. He would revel in the change once the battle was over, for now he was indulging in a different emotion.

Confidence.

The pitiful creature in the centre of the grove was flailing with all it could muster. Now that Dan could once again see the thin ropes of mana, it had no chance of reaching him with an attack. Sensing a shift, the puppetmaster had turned its full attention to Dan now, bringing all three thick clubs down in patterns as complex as it could manage.

Dan stepped, tumbled and ducked as he continued moving toward the monster. The “heavy void” was wriggling on Dan’s core, excited. Dan was carefully moving his mana, avoiding the destructive mana latching onto himself. The mechanics weren’t fully clear, but even now his understanding was becoming sharper. It was a part of Guan Fa Lian’s mana, holding on for dear life and tearing at his core when he let his own mana touch it.

It had taken some time, and it was only when Dan saw Guan Fa Lian flare her magic that it all clicked and Dan had been able to separate the new mana from his own. He wasn’t sure how he had done it, and he certainly hadn’t meant to do it, but Dan had somehow taken some of Guan Fa Lian’s mana. It felt… intimate. He didn’t have to turn his eyes to her to see that Guan Fa Lian was boring a hole into his back with her eyes.

He could afford to ignore that due to the absolute lightning coursing through his mana channels right now. By tightening the space his mana could move, it had overloaded compared to before. He found that he could section away his mana into four separate zones, hence the square description. In one zone he sequestered the writhing dark mana that he had gained from Guan Fa Lian. In the three others, Dan was cycling his own mana. The effect was staggering.

Dan could move his mana so freely now, when a moment ago it had been locked behind a painful, thorny gate. He cast it out and only stopped when he covered double the area he was able to previously. He could have kept going but the sudden influx of information was distracting. He limited it, and found a comfortable size for his new level of control.

His body was able to move with more fluidity and power than it had ever had before. Not only no longer splitting his mana, Dan now essentially had two whole pools of energy to draw from. He was strong now. Maybe not as strong as Hyun Soon with his gauntlets and mace, but there was a tension in his muscles. Excitement. Desire to see their new limits.

It was almost a shame, Dan thought as he slipped another swipe by the swinging trees. This creature was panicked, scared and disgusting, hardly a challenge now that Dan had taken that extra step to square stage. The outcome was clear, and with each dodge and roll Dan made, he felt like a bully. The arms were moving with less coordination now, colliding with each other and as Dan stepped closest, the heavy logs were dropped. It seemed to give up, dropping its arms and shuddering.

This was something of a moment of truth though, even for Dan, as he raised his palm. He kept his own mana spinning, but specifically cut himself away from it, flipping the way he had been channelling the mana so now all he had was Guan Fa Lian’s void. The moment he did, the pain started. He had braced for it, so was able to grit his teeth to it. If she could handle it, and Dan expected her pain was far worse than his own, then so could he.

A ripple of grey energy formed around Dan’s hand, and it took his breath away. He was doing it. He was channelling a true technique. A Guan family secret technique, most likely. It was with thought of how strange his life was that he pressed the shimmering palm onto the creature. The skin was oily, but it shrivelled the moment Dan made contact with it. The creature had no mouth, but Dan sprang away as the many arms began to smash the ground with apparent agony. Dan felt a pang of sympathy for the creature. Whatever it was, Dan hadn’t wanted to torture it.

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Aside from the thud thud thud of the creature’s fists, slowly lessening in intensity until it curled up on itself like a spider, the grove was quiet. Dan knew that all eyes were on him, he could see the watchers himself, but he didn’t turn. He waited as the puppetmaster died, both in respect for the life he had just taken, regardless of how vicious it was, and to avoid giving answers he didn’t truly have. How can an empty soul do what you did? Dan was already asking himself the same question.

He looked at his soul badge. His throat instantly spiked with pain, which encouraged his eyes to stop pretending. Dan couldn’t stop it, so he cried. He cried for the agony his core had gone through, a pain he would never forget. He wept for the younger version of himself who thought things would never get better. His tears fell both in sadness for his past and happiness for his future.

For so long Dan had been walking a path. One that he felt he would never reach the end of, a goal unattainable to himself. Blindly he had followed instruction and done as he was told and hoped. Hoping was what he had been left with when he had nothing else. When he was listening to every word from Park Man-Shik’s mouth, hoping one word might be the clue to unlocking the potential he now felt.

The others let him have his moment for a time, but it was Guan Fa Lian, of course, who broke the reverie. “What the hell was that?” Her voice was shrill and accusatory. Dan could understand that, but he didn’t think she’d like his answer.

“I don’t really know.” He added a shrug to the sentence for emphasis. It didn’t help.

“How can you not know? What does that even mean?” At this point, nothing Dan said was going to calm her down and luckily Guan Fa Lian was smart enough to understand that herself. She stalked away, but did not leave the group, instead she walked towards the creature.

“No, but seriously Dan… what just happened? I thought you were…” Hyun Soon didn’t need to say the word empty, it was just implied. It was always implied towards Dan. In answer, Dan looked to his soul badge. The nebulas of power that had glistened in there were gone and so was the void mana, burned away on use. Once again, Dan was left with a clear soul badge with no colour within.

“It looks like maybe empty doesn’t mean useless. It was like I was holding some of her” Dan was whispering, and quietened more still, “mana.” Xiaomei and Hyun Soon looked as shocked as was appropriate. They hadn’t experienced it, but by handling their own mana, they could understand how strange that must have felt. Hyun Soon looked like he was going to burst with pride, Xiaomei looked like she wanted to disappear.

Instead of that, she said “she’s going to take the mana stone” and jutted her chin towards Guan Fa Lian. Thankful for the distraction, Dan turned to look at the corpse of the puppetmaster. It had decayed quicker than Dan had expected, partially helped by the ability he had used, but he also remembered being told that monsters tended to fade away. They were essentially made of mana and when the stone loses hold on the essence of itself. Sat in the very centre of the grove, the puppeteer finally gone, was a dark blue stone. “That’s not yours.” Xiaomei had completely shed the shyness she had when Dan met her. The forest was transformative for more than just himself, it seemed.

“And why isn’t it mine? It’s in my hand.”

“Dan defeated the creature, it should be his.” Dan’s eyes opened with alarm, but knew enough to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t want to be a weapon in someone else’s fight but what was said was already said.

“Defeated with my power, you mean?”

“Well,” Hyun Soon spoke up, “it was definitely Dan’s power. It was probably the same power that healed you earlier.” Dan hadn’t really thought that the vitality could be from him, but after the drastic damage he had suffered and the strange mana sharing that they had done, maybe that was short-sighted.

“Healed me? Well, thank you,” the dripping sarcasm in Guan Fa Lian’s voice was like oil on a dagger, “but I’m taking the stone regardless.” She grabbed the blue crystal and turned around to face Dan, Hyun Soon and Xiaomei. The ground they stood on was level but she seemed to tower over them, the stature of her family coming back into full view.

It was clear that the teamwork shown earlier was over. The air even seemed to still with tension. The monster in the middle now, Dan thought, was far more dangerous than the puppetmaster had been. It was only Guan Fa Lian that wanted to fight though, so when she stalked through the middle of them, parting Dan from the other two, none of them tried to stop her.

Dan remained quiet until she was out of earshot, but began to walk once she was. “Where are you going, Dan?” Hyun Soon asked. He and Xiaomei were sulking.

“This forest was definitely some kind of trick lesson, right?” Dan expected they had all assumed that by this point. It should have been a challenge, but not impossible to gain a mana stone. They hadn’t seen a single other monster than the puppetmaster. Dan had been suspicious for over a day. Xiaomei nodded, but Hyun Soon looked surprised. Dan smirked but made no comment. “It’s possible we were just… supposed to leave, or some other strange lesson. If Guan Fa Lian takes the stone we might not get any credit…”

The three teens looked at each other for a second as that sank in. Dan hadn’t even really thought about it until he said it. They all blinked.

Then they sprinted after the heiress of the Guan family.