They had arrived.

Niven looked up at his nightmare with determined eyes. He was not the same as he was before, and the one that caused all this had already been slain.

But the shadow they had cast over him had not yet been completely dispelled. It loomed over him still, suffocating him despite everything having been so dramatically changed.

Their outpost was built atop the highest hill in the area. It didn’t mean much, with how flat the Divide generally was, but its location made it decently recognizable if one were close enough. It was easier before, with its four high towers that stood out even at a distance, but everything beyond the first story had since been knocked down.

The more they drew near, the more Niven was able to see just how much the singular spell had demolished the place.

He couldn’t fully appreciate the devastation from the inside then, and by the time he had crawled out, such things were not within the scope of his attention. He saw the marbles left by the [Supplicant]’s signature attack, many of which had since rolled down.

Standing at the foot of the hill, he looked at a pile of marbles of differing sizes pooled together in a nearby pit.

Reaching down to pick a few up, he tried to see which ones were made from the corpses of people and which consisted of material from the defensive structures, but even now - with his mind fully clear - it was almost impossible to distinguish. It seemed even his improved senses were not enough to pierce the details of these dense debris. When squished to such an extent, everything just looked the same - save for the ones that had noticeable traces of gore on the surface.

Setting them down gently, he walked on.

Even if their goal was to bury his dead comrades and find clues, Niven only slowed down for a moment before continuing to the top, not paying those remnants more mind than he had to. He wanted to give everything a once-over before doing anything. Burying everyone would undoubtedly be a taxing affair and could be saved for last.

Though as they approached the peak of the hill, a voice in his mind broke the silence.

『You said that you were going to give them a proper burial. How did you expect to go about doing this?』 Apollyon asked.

“I haven’t thought it through yet. I just don’t want their remains to stay like this. I’m sure they would think the same,” Niven spread out his arms as he shrugged. It wasn’t like they didn’t have time. There was probably still food and drink in the outpost as well, as the attack didn’t completely flatten the place. The nature of the spell ensured that, while exceedingly lethal, it didn't cause comprehensive destruction. It only compressed places where there were people, after all.

He wasn’t opposed to staying here for a couple days to perform his dues. It was the least he could do. Maybe a messenger or scout would even come to check up on the place and he could then ask some questions. He hadn't thought much farther than that at this point.

『The rites for those that passed are varied, but they always circle back to two things: respect for the departed and solace for the living. Will either you or them find peace if they were just buried into the sands here?』 Apollyon questioned.

“What are you getting at?” Niven asked.

『I'm posing a question… and giving a reminder. Rather than burying them here, why not take them back? Too shallow a grave and the winds alone will unearth them sooner or later. Deeper… I think you understand your limits well enough. I’m sure you saw [U][Storage] when you were looking at my - at our status. I can carry them for you until you find the time to return them to their homeland.』

“All of them?” Niven turned his head and looked at the sheer number of marbles below him. Then he looked towards the outpost itself, thinking of the corpses that had not yet been compacted or hadn’t rolled down yet. Taking all that was essentially bringing along the entire outpost with him. He couldn’t imagine the weight he would have to carry around. It was why he hadn’t even considered such a thing despite knowing Apollyon’s abilities.

『Power is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?』 Apollyon mused『The countless abilities people can possess eclipse even the innumerable sands within this Divide. My [U][Storage] does not have weight and has a capacity of four cubic system units (4 cubic meters).』

『Ah, you might not understand how much that is. Here, I’ll show you.』

Following that, the spear’s tip seemed to liquefy. It floated up and formed the outline of a cube. Niven looked at the space showcased by Apollyon. It seemed more than enough to carry them all - even the ones that he was only half certain of containing the remains of his mates.

『Based on what I can sense, putting everyone in will consume around half of its capacity.』The voice in his mind laughed『We’re rather fortunate they were already compacted for storage. The rest of the space is more than enough for you to use, but if it really comes down to it, we could always bury them then and there. Wouldn’t just about anywhere be better than here?』

Niven frowned at the joke, but he agreed with the idea. Based on how much everyone complained about being stationed here, so far removed from society, Niven believed their souls would rest easier knowing they were not left in this place.

Even if they wouldn’t be able to feel or notice any of this, Niven still felt that it was necessary. He had plenty of time, anyway.

“I guess so,” he accepted. Since there was a way to get his friends a proper burial, there was no reason to leave them in these accursed sands. “So how do I use it?”

『Right. You don’t understand skills. It would be strange if it came naturally, I suppose. I would say you could use it like any other ability from the System, or that you could do it manually, but you obviously don’t have experience in either of those options. However, it’s also quite good. Since, more likely than not, you’d have learned the former but I’d much prefer you get used to the latter. So…』 Niven felt his arm lose control as he pointed his spear towards a marble just beside him.

『Here. I’ll guide you. Remember the pathways your mana moves through.』

Slowly, he felt something within his chest mobilize. It flowed outward towards his arms and then fingers like blood, but wasn’t. Familiar yet oh, so different. After only a few moments, he recognized it to be his own mana.

Despite Apollyon’s reminder and the somewhat obvious connection between mana and skill usage, he didn’t make the connection instantly. It could mostly be blamed on the fact that mana was something he had only used sparingly. His innate capacity and chosen profession dictated this.

It can even control my mana, Niven marveled. His awe was not directed at Apollyon’s ability, but rather the sheer mastery it had over him. Despite repeatedly stressing that it didn’t want to pilot a puppet, as it revealed more about itself, Niven also discovered more strings attached to every part of his body.

Was it a good thing to be more aware of the previously invisible ways it could be controlling him? That it could use later to control him? Niven was still unsure about how he truly felt about those questions.

And at the crux of the issue was how easily it utilized Niven’s mana. After all, mana - as he was taught - was an extension of one’s will.

However, their mana pools were now linked, so that could be a factor in all this. To a certain extent, the vast majority of his mana was not his. It was borrowed. His original capacity was only 2, which jumped all the way to the 1002 it was now.

The mechanics of this was unknown to Niven, and in many ways flaunted every aspect of his understanding of mana as a very personal thing. Yet, he didn’t know of anything that could increase one’s stats, so everything about Apollyon could be considered new and worldview shattering.

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I suppose we did become soul-bound.

Perhaps only now could he truly begin to understand the bond that now existed between them.

Returning his focus back to the mana, he saw it leave his arm. It was substantial, though also ethereal, forming a pale blue aura around his hand.

He had never done this before, likely because his mana pool was never large enough to gather it to such a degree. Even though the mana had already left his body, he could still somewhat sense it.

A fuzzy feeling. A faint sense of akin to touch, yet magnitudes more muted. Was it a problem of scale? He wasn’t sure how much mana was invested into it.

The lack of effort that went into it made Niven think it shouldn’t be too much, but he wasn’t the one doing it. Who knows what methods Apollyon could employ to streamline the process.

After leaving him, the mana ran straight, without any twists and turns to complicate things. Purely functional, just as he liked it.

Is this what it feels like to be a mage?

His natural mana capacity was a pittance that denied the dream he once held for taking such a profession. But with Apollyon’s capacity added to his, he knew he was qualified to pursue that dormant ambition. However, the situation where he could ask for counsel regarding it never arose, so he kept silent.

He had scant few places where he could contact mana - the only method had been through the overdraft of his [F][Combat Sense], but even that was mostly a physical augmentation, with the consumption more instinctual than anything else.

It was not long after his mana entered Apollyon that the marble disappeared. A simple process when broken down into steps. Niven even felt that it was too simple.

『See? Not so hard, right? I also slowed the process down quite considerably, as well, so the actual ability is much more efficient than what I had demonstrated. It could have been finished in an instant, but there would be no learning involved had I done so.』Apollyon lectured. It then pointed Niven’s arm towards another marble.

『There’s plenty to practice with around us. While you busy yourself with that, I’ll keep scanning around and alert you if I find something interesting.』

Niven wasn't completely comfortable letting Apollyon do all the searching. He felt that he also had a duty to uphold by trying to make sense of all this as well. Therefore, he questioned, “Shouldn’t we finish searching first?”

『Leave it to me. It would do you better to understand your own mana than thinking about messy things like that. Packing them all away will take time. Time enough for me to go over this place a thousand times.』

Nodding a little, Niven relented and walked over to another marble just to his right and pointed the tip of the spear towards it. Yet try as he might, mobilizing mana in what he felt was the way that Apollyon taught him, the only result was a few fizzles and a minor sense of mental fatigue. The few tries afterwards were met with the same result.

His outcomes were a swift slap in the face to his original attitude. It was the mark of a master to make a complex thing look easy.

As he repeatedly failed, his partner seemed to take notice.

『I’ll demonstrate it again. You should ask when you are unsure. I won’t think you are incompetent if you do. It is when you continue to go about it stubbornly that I start thinking so. This is not an easy feat for a beginner. Remember, I am your teacher because I want you to live longer under my curse. False bravado helps neither of us.』

After nodding intently as he watched the second demonstration, Niven returned to his work. Now that he’d experienced it for the second time, he could feel that he was closer to activating the storage ability within Apollyon.

At least, he was obliged to make more progress than he had before. Fortunately for him, he did not let himself down.

With a few more tries, he accomplished it for the first time, and was able to stuff his first marble within [U][Storage]. Yet perhaps that success was a fluke, as he failed in his attempts after. Remembering Apollyon’s words, he decided to ask for more help, “Could you show me again? I want to compare it with that feeling I got when I succeeded.”

『Of course I can.』

…

Their noon passed with Niven toiling away like clockwork: walk to a marble, point at the marble, store the marble, repeat.

He must have done so for hundreds by now, and had already lost count long ago. He couldn’t help it. What sounded like a good idea at the start proved infuriating to keep up. For one, it was frustrating to repeat the same number as he failed, and two, the very act of keeping track required his concentration.

He found that doing so slowed his pace almost twofold. Furthermore, he reasoned that it was unlikely for Apollyon to be unable to keep track of what was inside it. More likely than not, it would be able to tally everything at the end.

And his guess was proven correct, as it affirmed by telling him when asked. However, Niven wasn’t willing to disturb it for something so trivial after every success. It also had a job to do, after all.

Thus, he only asked a few times to get a feel for his pace.

Overall, the whole process could have been described as monotonous, though Niven did not see it that way. After all, he was finally coming into contact with magic! This was something he had always yearned for.

At this point his usage of [U][Storage] had almost become second nature, and he was able to use it next to instinctively. Although it was a rather basic ability - and it could only be done because of the ease with which Apollyon transmitted mana.

Niven realized in hindsight that it was trying to teach him how to utilize mana in its own way, preferring practice over words and theory. He felt that it made sense to do so in this manner, as well. From what he knew about magic, while a large portion of it was scholarly and academic, it also relied heavily on how one felt.

Though all that was not to say he was now a mage or anything even remotely close to that. Using Apollyon as a medium to cast something that folded space like [U][Storage] was as good as cheating, really.

Even if he were a layman, Niven recognized that such an ability was far beyond what those in the lower tiers were capable of. Hell, there didn’t even exist a tool capable of shrinking space in his garrison - everything, even precious armor and material, was stored conventionally in warehouses - which was enough to show how valuable something like that was.

Therefore, had it been any other magical tool, Niven figured that he would be in for a much more difficult, and possibly even dangerous time. As such, he kept in mind the fact that it was a borrowed power, and to not conflate it with his own ability.

However, to a certain extent, none of that mattered, as it was still something novel - something that could only exist within his dreams.

It was a glimpse into what he could do himself in the future

He would be more excited if he were not faced with the corpses of those he knew at every turn. Even as he collected the marbles, there were still remains that were not completely compacted. The walls in those areas ran red.

Although his time in service had cultivated a strong resistance to sights like this, it was another thing entirely when the scene had people he recognized in such numbers.

It was less a matter of the gore itself, but rather the emotions they invoked within him. It hurt his heart more than it could ever disgust him.

So, he simply worked on, striving to unpack his emotions as he did. It was almost meditative, in a way, as less focus was required as his proficiency rose.

And nothing was more deserving of being a testament to his growing skill than to have it recognized by the System itself.

You obtained General Skill: [F][Mana Channeling]: +1 Int / The gateway to magic

Reviewing the message, Niven was stunned.

“So soon?” Niven blurted. The prompt had popped up so suddenly that he couldn’t help but exclaim. It alone was enough to snap him out of his zone.

He knew he was using mana way more than he usually would, but to obtain a skill after only a few hours?

『That’s the benefit of having a guide.』

Apollyon was quick to praise itself.

“But I was taught sewing for months before it registered as a skill…”

Although those kind volunteers couldn’t compare to Apollyon in strength or knowledge, Niven wasn’t willing to disparage them as teachers in any way. They were in many ways far better tutors than Apollyon.

『There are differences in technique. I find that skills closer to the root of truth for any given world are easiest to level. Sure, it is possible to take sewing and weaving to great heights… At that point you could regard the fate of all sentient beings as thread for your great tapestry… but that requires a much larger level of mastery than simply touching upon mana. You can consider mana to be a bridge between action and law.』

“... You lost me there.” Niven complained. That there was exactly why he didn’t consider it to be the best teacher he had. Apollyon seemed to have a tendency to just assume he knew these esoteric concepts. He wondered if even his captain would understand them, if he were in his place.

『I’ll admit I’m not the greatest when it comes to furthering a student's comprehension, but I'd readily boast about the breadth of my knowledge. It's all up to you to understand. Just know that there are countless paths to power, and the more in line you are to those paths, the easier your journey will be. At least when you are first starting. It is the blessing of latecomers to enjoy the shade cast by those that first tread their paths.』

“So mana is…” Niven’s voice trailed off.

Something man made? He guessed. If that were true, the world was so much wider than he had ever thought. Even if he knew his knowledge was limited, meeting Apollyon really put into perspective just how much he was blind to.

『Not something you should think about. Analyzing the root of things is something you do when you have the ability. Simply taking my understanding will taint your path. But it is commendable to start thinking critically so soon. It will do you well to build upon this mindset as you grow.』