The icy missiles flew through the air toward me.

I pushed off the ground with my hands, dodging backward—but too late. One of the shards of ice that would have impaled my neck instead struck me through the thigh, sending a jolt of pain up my leg and causing me to stumble as I lost my footing.

In desperation I drew a number of small stones toward me, then shot them forward in a scattered, haphazard attack: the furry creature hissed and leapt backward, startlingly fast.

I yanked the icy javelin out of my leg with a grunt, then reached for an arrow—but before I could nock it, I saw the dense, loose mana in the small crevice shift all at once, suddenly forming into a powerful spell.

I had time to throw myself to one side, all the force coming from my one good leg, before a gale of super cold air blasted out of the crevice, coating everything in a layer of ice and sucking the warmth from my body even through my bodily [Aegis] and my now extremely well-insulated armor.

My fingers fumbled numbly with the arrow that I held, and I dropped it accidentally, then dropped my bow in frustration.

I called two nearby stones to my hands along with a fair helping of pebbles, then spent the last of my mana to shatter the stones lining the ground just in front of the mouth of the crevice—right before I felt my claim pushed back as the creature stole that space for its own use.

A blur of white darted out of the cave a moment later, and I was lunging forward on one good leg before it even turned toward me, releasing the stones in my hands.

Its paws struck the ground. It stumbled on what was now loose, cracked stone—and I took my chance to launch one of the rocks I held at it, tracking its motion now that it had lost its balance and couldn’t adjust even as I pulled another rock to my free hand.

It saw the stone, coalesced a hunk of ice between itself and the projectile, but failed to put enough momentum into its hastily-made defense to knock my stone away—the ice shattered, and the creature was thrown back into a rock several feet behind it.

I threw another rock even as I called another into my empty hand. This one, however, was fully deflected by an interposed missile of ice, followed by another missile meant to take me through the neck again—which I deflected with a second thrown rock.

I reached the creature just as it reclaimed its balance. It created more icy darts, but I never gave it the chance to give them any momentum—I simply threw myself overtop of it.

Icy spines poked into my body, tearing small holes in my armor as we struggled. I felt a wave of cold enter me just from touching the creature, and we each pushed against the other’s threshold, neither of us winning. It wriggled beneath me like a fish.

Then I got my arms around it.

And I squeezed, strength surging with desperate fury.

I heard the brittle crackling of the creature’s body beneath me as I brought my arms together and forced its body to break into two halves.

+ Limit! (13)

+ 1988 Essence, [Elemental 1 / Frost 1 / Mana 1]

Then I rolled over to let out a huge sigh. My body was freezing—I’d be shaking uncontrollably, soon. I began to weave some of the mana around me into a spell of warmth.

“Worth it,” I muttered, looking at the results.

As always, the Verse was far more generous granting limit to those who were defending themselves, struggling for survival. I bought my level:

- 2250 Essence: + 1 Level (13/13)

+ 1 [Bestow 10]

- 1 [Bestow 10]: + 10 Agility (72)

The level increase wasn’t as nice as the keys, though. [Frost Magick] was the most versatile of the elemental magicks for combat, in that it allowed one to conjure their own ice if they couldn’t find enough water in the air.

It took [Focus] or raw concentration to maintain conjured ice, but this mattered little to me: mages might like their walls of frost, but I preferred more simple approaches. Coating the ground in a thin layer of ice, creating fog with rapid temperature drops, that sort of thing. And the ready availability of icy missiles combined with their lighter weight made the power much better at shooting enemies than [Earth Magick].

Of course, that was the aspect that I wasn’t choosing.

- [Elemental 1 / Frost 1 / Mana 1]: [Mana 1]

[Mana] was a powerful aspect, a crucial component of many strong multi-aspect skills. Right now, though, I had a better use for it than in a skill.

I sat up and stood, shivering as I looked at the nearby crevice with a frown. I had to stop and admonish myself.

I’d made a mistake.

That much mana with no accompanying sense of life via [Wild Bond] should have clearly indicated an elemental to me, right away—and yet I’d taken a moment to realize it, had stopped right in view of the crevice.

“Don’t make mistakes,” I said, remembering the shot I’d missed against one of the lizards. “Not today. And not with elementals.”

Beasts, who had unintelligent, instinctive minds, could often get much higher levels of [Primeval Resonance] than elves—as high as 40% in some cases. Elementals, however, had minds that were utterly unlike our own—and could reach as high as 80%, even higher than me. They were beings of power and magic, and their natural ability to manipulate mana and cast spells was unparalleled. They were always more dangerous than their level suggested.

And in this place, with so much primeval mana in the air, elementals would form naturally, in almost any environment. I should have expected to see one, and instead I’d been taken by surprise.

I checked the crevice. Not only was it empty, but it didn’t even connect to any other caves.

Little one, said the voice in my mind. You must answer my questions.

I smiled. With any luck, all the work I’d been doing to keep him from murdering me had paid off.

I checked the warp jewel at my hip. Its light was more than half-faded—I’d need to start putting my newfound power to use, soon. This was likely the last break I could afford to take.

I sat and took out my bow, then a lump of chalk.

Ask, I said.

What… what is it you are doing? What is that? These thoughts were accompanied by a clear image of my bow.

I broke off a very small fragment of chalk, then began to use [Earth Magick] to carefully rub it into the many grooves and runes carved into the wood and bone slats that made up the bow.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I ignored many of them, of course. Four potential enchantments had been carved onto my bow, and now I was highlighting only the one. It was to be a poor enchantment—likely it wouldn’t even last a day.

My people have two gods, I said. The god of the night who created us, and the god of the wilds who loves us. The only thing they ever agreed upon was this—the bow.

My fingers ran along the length of weapon, worshipful.

Gods? said the cat. Night? Bow? So many new things you try to show me—I….

The [Wild Bond] will open many doors in your mind to help you understand what I say, but you needn’t understand it all, not right away. I’ll explain anything you like, but for now just know that the bow is a tool, a weapon, a piece of technology.

I began to whisper to the weapon as I put more chalk into its grooves, my words creating another guide for the essence that I was soon to infuse into the weapon.

Technology, the cat said. This is much of what you are. Your skin—technology.

My composite leather armor, yes, I said. I’ll be shedding it soon, I think. You can see what I look like underneath.

Your armor is the skin of something dead.

Yes.

Your bow is a weapon like the stingers of the flying insects, the stones thrown by the lizards, the icy fingers of the elemental… and yet it is not magic.

My strength alone launches my arrows, yes.

Gently, I blow the chalk dust from the length of my bow. Then I stood and finished my impromptu craft:

What are you doing to your bow?

I’m enchanting it.

Enchanting, Palefang said, clearly considering whatever impression the word had left on him through the [Wild Bond]. Like the shapes you drew in the cave. The [Fire].

Not quite, I said. Enchantment is the infusion of essence and cores into an object so that it can be bound and used by an essence-bearer. Making an enchantment requires one to cast the complex spell that forms it, but an enchantment is different from a spell.

And the circles in the cave? These were a spell? They were different from my own magic.

Yes, but not wholly, I said. Spells are ordered by thought. If you practice long at associating certain symbols with certain thoughts, drawing them can help you cast spells.

Palefang considered this. I have not practiced with your symbols. If I drew them, I could not use them as you have?

No, I said, impressed by how quickly he’d seemed to grasp the concept. Meaning does not exist in brute substance, only in the thinking mind. Runes work as well as they do because the mind can be trained to recognize something instantly, like reading a word without having to sound out its letters. In your case, like knowing your way around a familiar place without having to look around and think about it.

As he was considering this, I took my chance to continue laying the trap for him that I’d begun to lay in the crystal cave. There is an exception, I said. A well-drawn circle infused with even a small amount of mana can trap and store very large amounts of other mana, depending on how perfect the circle is. The mana responds to the nature of the shape. They still leak, but even a small amount of [Channel] can keep them storing large amounts of mana.

I see, he said after a while.

In my mind, I pictured a great white cat trying to draw a circle on the ground with a claw in order to test what he’d learned. I suppressed a laugh—as humorous as the image was, I was only giving him this knowledge because I intended to use it to trick him.

Answer me something else, Palefang asked.

I was almost finished packing chalk into the small grooves of my bow. Anything.

Is your [Primeval Resonance] truly 50%?

It is.

How?

I smiled. I have found, learned, and synthesized many methods of heightening resonance over my long life, I said. It’s hard to describe all of them. And yet….

I looked at the reddish light spilling into the cave and smiled.

I am in love with my body, and with the world outside it, but most importantly with the threshold where they meet. I can taste the bare air on my tongue, always. I can feel the field of electric sensation that is my skin, always. I notice my weight pushing on the soles of my feet, can sense my pulse surging through my fingertips… and when light strikes my eye, I see not only what I see, but the shapeless spill of color and intensity at the root of all vision. All of the cosmos is rife with artistry that needs no interpretation, with artworks that are degraded by description.

I shrugged, rubbing in the last of the carvings on my bow. I do not balk from my feelings, I said. My flesh is wise. The fear that it sent through me when I first noticed you was a welcome sensation. The desire it sends through me when I think of tasting hot blood, of eating raw, red meat, is welcome also. I shrink from nothing, no attractions or aversions, feeling ambition, desire, envy and gladness with equal love for each.

I finished making ready for my enchantment. These are easy things to say, but difficult things to do.

I completed the enchantment, binding the keys into the bow with some essence. The nice thing about an enchantment like this was that because one of the keys was converted into the enchantment’s core, I could make a two-aspect skill with rank 1 keys.

- 2500 Essence, [Mana 1], [Missile 1]: [Hastily Enchanted Elven Matchbow]

Bound: [Hastily Enchanted Elven Matchbow] (1/3)

[*Missile 1] + [Mana 1]

Binding this item has granted you the [Conjure Primeval Missiles 7] skill.

!—The enchantment is unstable. Using the skill costs 87% more mana and the enchantment will degrade in 8.82 hours. This time will decrease as it is used.

[Conjure Primeval Missiles 7]

[*Primeval 5] + [*Missile 1] + [Mana 1]

You can conjure missiles by forming and expending mana. Those missiles must be made of primeval substance: bone, stone, frost, wood, flesh, etc.

Conjuring substance with this skill without intending to launch it toward something will cause the substance in question to rapidly deteriorate.

!—This skill can only be used in conjunction with [Hastily Enchanted Elven Matchbow]

“Eighty-seven,” I said, reading the description and nodding. I was still bad at this.

Not that it would matter.

Conjured arrows were typically better ammunition than mundane ones. I had to keep them conjured by assigning a little [Focus] to maintain them, but this was really a benefit: dismissing an arrow after it had stuck into a creature would give that creature a new hole to bleed out of, especially if they’d already moved around with it inside them.

The limiting factor of only using primeval substances essentially meant nothing: the shaft, fletching, and head of an arrow were all made of such things anyway.

Palefang hadn’t responded, but I could feel his curious consideration of my small speech. Between that and the description of runes, I’d given him much to think on.

I had left the crevice, now, and was quickly approaching the mouth of the ravine. Excitement built in me, and my bow felt alive in my hands, ready for what was coming.

The nearest tree was close, but I didn’t leap to it—instead favoring a path that opened up to my left, a thin ledge followed by a drop to another, then another. I half-fell, half-galloped down the steep side of the cliff… until soon the air around me began to fill with mist. I’d reached the lower cloud layer.

I reached out with [Wild Bond], hoping that there were perhaps some flying creatures using the cloud for cover that I might kill for [Air] keys… but I found nothing. I spent a moment extending my senses to see if I could find any more high concentrations of mana, but again found nothing.

The cloud definitely contained more mana than normal, but that had been true for the other one as well. This one wasn’t emitting lightning at regular intervals, as far as I could see. Unfortunate, that.

I descended through the cloud, leaping from stone to stone much as I had before. It was a little more than a hundred feet thick—by my reckoning a denser patch of mist than the other had been. Soon I dropped out of the cloud and the world beneath me began to take shape beneath the mists.

To my great pleasure, I couldn’t see another cloud. Instead, my nose filled with the fetid, cloying scent of decay, and I looked down upon a sight that made me break into a glowing smile.

“A swamp!” I cried.