“My name is Felix…” the cambion uttered, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly before repeating the mantra. “My name… is Felix. My… name is… Felix.”

“Good, now visualize what it is you want to do,” Muzio said, his voice a study in patience. “In your mind’s eye, your intent must be clear. Only then will it become indistinguishable from reality. You must will what you see to be true, and it will be so.”

Images of the cambion’s life as a blinkus cat flashed before his mind. He focused on the memories he needed. A small creature in a big world. Prowling alleys. Impossible leaps between the boughs of trees. Defying gravity, space, and the laws of physics.

The cambion once again focused on sensations that he never experienced himself, but were now his. He expanded his awareness. He tried to feel in his beastkin body the sensations he remembered from the echoes of his blinkus cat body.

The cambion knew he carried over many concepts with him from his past life. He hadn’t been a scientist. Not even close. At least, of that he was sure. He had been educated enough, however, that his mind bucked wild whenever his understanding of the way things should work clashed with what Muzio was trying to teach him. His mind did the same with what he remembered from his stolen memories.

At first, it boggled the cambion’s mind when he realized that in this world, space and time were more than just units of measurement. The blinkus cat could actually feel the space around it. The awareness had been such a natural state of being for the creature, that when the cambion first reviewed the memories, the normalcy of the extra sense made it almost invisible. That is, until Muzio’s lessons were succinct and sometimes ineloquent, but they were, above all else, pragmatic. They had both heard the priest say that he would return in two weeks, and had watched as all the other prisoners were taken. Muzio wasn’t willing to trust they would have that long to prepare before circumstances changed.

As far as Muzio was concerned, even a fortnight was already an insanely short amount of time, and nowhere near enough to get the cambion to master his new skills. That wasn’t the goal, however.

As soon as the cambion revealed he possessed the blink teleport skill but couldn’t use it, Muzio had been single minded in his education plan.

Tonight was the fifth night of training, and only the second where he was actually attempting to activate the skill. So far, most of every day had been all about setting up the foundation in his understanding of magic, mana, and the required meditation technique he was currently employing. Last night, he had failed. Tonight, however, things felt different.

“I’m ready,” Felix said, locking eyes with Muzio.

The veteran adventurer scanned his surroundings with those perceptive eyes of his. While there were magic lamps on sconces and poles throughout the Mud castle’s campus, it was still dark where they kept the prisoners. There was just enough light to see, if not necessarily well.

There were only two black-robed guards with lightning sticks stationed to keep an eye on them. At nightfall they set up a table under a lamp nearby, where they kept each other awake by playing cards or dice. Tonight, the two on duty were busy playing cards. There were additional guards who patrolled along the top of the walls, but they wouldn’t have cause to look down at them unless someone raised an alarm.

Muzio gave Felix a nod for the all clear.

Felix visualized the space around him and felt its substance. The air was like a blanket that completely enveloped him. No, it was not air… It was the very space itself.

Felix felt the void between his skin and the molecules in the air around him. The gap where he ended and the world began was infinitely small, and yet by its infinite nature, endless. That space existed everywhere. Between the molecules in the air, the ground, his skin, muscles, bones… Felix focused on the gaps in the space around him. The more he became aware of it, the thicker it felt. Yes, space had substance. Through his awareness, he was connected to it.

Felix fixed his gaze on the unoccupied area to Muzio’s right. He visualized a membrane of space around him like an eyelid, and blinked. Space folded on itself. It felt as if the eye of the world closed, winking Felix out of existence.

Felix screamed.

He was falling through darkness. Panic gripped him, made exponentially worse because he couldn’t see anything. He tensed in anticipation of hitting the ground, and hitting it hard. Surely, he was falling fast enough that, when he finally did hit something, nothing would be left but a puddle of goo.

But, the lethal splat never came. He just... kept falling… and falling.

After what felt like an eternity of nothing but panic, Felix slowly came to his senses. It started with the realization that he had been screaming too long and hadn’t felt the need to breathe. He tried doing so, only to realize that he couldn’t. There was no air to breathe. For a split second, he thought this meant he would suffocate without oxygen.

Then he realized he couldn’t feel his body at all. There was no air stirring around him. No tactile feedback from his extremities. There were no real sounds in the void, just the echoes of sound in his mind.

Am I dead?

This was the thought that occupied his mind for what seemed like a long time. Fortunately, his friend Status came to the rescue, with both a prompt and the mental equivalent of someone slapping you in the back of the head because you said something dumb.

Congratulations, your blink teleport skill has leveled up!

Blink Teleport has increased from level 0 proficiency, to level 1

You have gained the Spatial Magic Affinity

Blink Teleport Lvl. 1 Novice (Tier 1)

Expend mana to defy the laws of physics, allowing you to instantly travel between two locations. At current level, you may only travel to a location within 10 meters that is within your line of sight. Mana cost, high.

Increase proficiency to expand the range, utility, and mana efficiency of this skill.

Spatial Magic Affinity

Your spirit, mind, and body are attuned to the subtle forces of time and space.

The status message reminded the cambion of something Muzio had told him would happen as he performed the exercise that had finally enabled him to activate his skill.

The breathing and meditation exercise Felix had been doing all night was called ‘reconciling experience.’ The part where he said his new name over and over was not usually part of the meditation, but for the cambion who still needed to assimilate his name for some magically relevant reason he didn’t understand, it was necessary.

Meditation was something proper adventurers did often, and foolish ones did seldom. Muzio did not go into the magical theory as to why, despite saying that eventually it would be important for Felix to learn it. He did say that reconciling experience through meditation was the difference between two aratori of the same level being an elite or an amateur.

“What’s an aratori?” asked the cambion.

“I am an arator,” Muzio explained. “We are aratori, those of us who seek to increase in power, and whose strength is measured in levels. Not all aratori are adventurers. Some are soldiers, magicians, and even others are artisans. When we are once more free men, after I have rescued Raine from this place… Then, if you choose to travel with me, I will tell you more about this world we live in. For now, you must do as I say, and you will understand the value of meditation on your own.”

Well, that Muzio guy wasn’t wrong… The meditation worked, didn’t it? We even leveled up a skill.

Felix sensed his mental mind-partner tug at his brain indignantly.

Oh, right. Thanks, Status. I owe you one. I appreciate you helping me get my head back in the game.

He had the impression of his status being mollified now that he properly thanked it. Felix spared a moment to reflect on the gradual development of his status’s personality and decided two things. It was weird having a semi-sentient status window as a friend. And, it probably needed a name other than Status. Both were things he would address later.

Right now, his eternal descent into darkness was a much more pressing matter.

Felix quickly perused his stolen memories, and didn’t find anything helpful. The cat employed its skills on instinct and never had any such problems.

You know, I think I’ve been falling so long that it isn’t even a big deal anymore. If I don’t stress out about it, it’s actually kind of fun. I get all the best parts of a roller coaster without the body required to feel nauseous.

Felix thought about his past life. He could remember being on a roller coaster vividly now. He hadn’t been alone then. Yes, there were strangers all around, but some of those people were family. In his mind’s eye, all the people’s faces were blurry and he couldn’t remember their names. But he wanted to remember them. He suddenly felt a great deal of nostalgia, and a deep sense of loss. He realized that he wanted very much to remember who he had been and where he had come from. Maybe, given enough time and experiences in this world, he would be reminded of all the things that came before. And, maybe one day he could go back there and find the family he lost.

Maybe we could even ride a rollercoaster together.

Suddenly, Felix had an epiphany. He wasn’t falling at all! This sensation had seemed similar at first, but it was actually very different.

For the cambion to fall, there must be movement. The force called gravity would pull his body downward toward the planet. What he was feeling now was an acute compression of his entire body. When he had attempted to blink teleport, he had effectively folded space in on itself. Rather than falling, the cambion was experiencing the sensation of rapidly shrinking into the gap between two moments in time.

What’s a moment in time, if not the movement of two heavenly bodies in relationship to each other? Earth, the sun… What is space, if not the infinite, ever-widening gap between objects in constant motion?

The implications of his perceptions, courtesy of his spatial magic affinity, were many and varied. He wanted to explore them, but was more excited about his new senses, and what he could do with them.

Expanding his awareness to the space around him, he confirmed that he was, indeed, frozen between two moments. Time had not stopped, necessarily, but from his vantage point it might as well have. His thoughts and self-awareness continued to function relative to himself, despite his brain currently occupying the infinitely shrinking distance in time. He was, therefore, caught between during an incomplete blink teleport.

He could feel the instant before, and the instant that was meant to follow. It was a bizarre sensation. He gave up trying to understand what he was feeling using science from his past life as a point of reference. Instead, he categorized his new sense as magically fascinating.

Letting go of his preconceived notions did the trick.

Felix felt the lids of the eye of the world were shut. He could feel the place in time and space where he had been looking only moments before he had activated his skill. What he needed to do was open his eyes and he would complete the blink teleport.

From Muzio’s perspective, the beastkin-shaped cambion had winked out of existence, then reappeared instantly next to him with a barely audible whoosh. It gave the experienced adventurer a new appreciation for a skill he had never before had the chance to study up close. His impression was that the skill had a rather apt name. It really did look like Felix’s entire body just blinked from one place to another.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

He was therefore quite confused when Felix had begun apologizing for being away so long, panicking somewhat that anyone might have noticed he was gone. Once the cambion came to his senses, he realized that for the rest of the world, his journey through space and time had taken less than a fraction of a second. Explaining the phenomenon to Muzio turned out to be somewhat of a futile effort.

“I don’t need to understand why it happened, or how it works,” Muzio said. “I can tell that you think something went wrong.”

“What else would you call accidentally spending an hour free-falling in pitch blackness while screaming your guts out because you think you’re going to die... a vacation? Because it sure as hell didn’t feel that way.”

His chains clinked as he awkwardly tried to place a hand on the cambion’s shoulder to calm him down.

“I need you to see things from my perspective. You were sitting over there, and then you were sitting over here.”

Muzio snapped his finger. “It happened that fast. From where I’m sitting, that’s both a successful teleport and an incredible feat. You were able to learn a rare skill in a few nights. Something that would be impossible for anyone without your unique background.”

He let the cambion chew on that idea for a moment before going on.

“As for the other thing? I don’t know if you can do it again on purpose. I would try and learn how if I could. There are times during a fight when buying an extra moment to think is the difference between life and death for you and your allies. You’d do well to remember that.”

***

Felix didn’t have enough mana to attempt another blink teleport right away, or that night. At least the headache that followed the episode went away by morning.

Felix couldn’t practice his teleport skill during the day, but everything they did during those two weeks of ragtag training was tailored to help the cambion gain access to the skill, and gain the ability to use it at will. After all, it was the single most important part of their escape plan.

Along the way, Felix began to understand more about how magic worked in this world and how the aratori measured their power. Usually, adventurers and other arators would have a sense of their power, but would need to visit a guild to be assessed by status magic in order to get an accurate picture of their progress.

Fortunately for the cambion, as an Outworlder, he came equipped with his own status magic. It took having Muzio explain things a few times until he got the gist. Once he did, Felix was happy to discover that his mental companion underwent something of a metamorphosis, and suddenly was a lot more useful than before.

General Information

Attributes

Affinity List

Name

Felix

Name

Level

Progress

Poison

Race

Cambion, Outworlder

Power

2

15%

Spatial Magic

Sex

Male

Speed

3

10%

Beast

Age

10 days

Spirit

2

65%

Level

2.25

Constitution

3

75%

Power Tier

I

Every creature on Erda had a power level, which was divided into four scaled tiers of power. Creatures from levels 1-4 fell into the first tier. Levels 5-10 were part of the second. Most of the enlightened races fell into one of the first two tiers, with the majority never rising beyond the first. There were high level monsters that fit in the higher tiers, but Muzio was unwilling to stray from what he thought was the most relevant information the cambion needed to know right now.

“Raising your level is progressively and exponentially difficult the higher you go,” Muzio said, drawing four boxes in the dirt with his sinewy finger.

He gestured to the first box. “The first four levels are relatively easy to climb, but that’s only when compared to how prohibitive it is to rank up into the second tier and each subsequent level after that. Most people only ever gain one or two levels in their lifetime unless they learn to fight. Even then, most people cap at level four. We probably don't have to worry about anyone higher than the first tier, except maybe for priest what's-his-name.”

“His name is Sandra, how could you forget that?" the cambion scoffed. "Anyway, isn’t leveling-up just a matter of getting enough experience killing a bunch of monsters?”

He remembered video games worked that way. Something to do with screens that sucked your time and soul away. He didn’t know why anyone would willingly subject themselves to time and soul sucking, nor did he know why that was considered a game. A video, he was sure, was a tool to capture light and project it back. That at least seemed like a useful invention, if not as exhilarating as the roller coaster.

“To a degree, it is,” Muzio said, pleased that he had such a receptive student. “But at some point, quantity no longer makes up the difference you need in quality in order to advance. Hunting a few hundred rabbits in the forest might take you to level two, but not even ten thousand will help you reach level three.”

“So what you’re saying is you need to fight a bigger, badder monster at each level in order to keep leveling up?”

“Something like that. Fighting alone isn’t enough in many cases,” Muzio scratched his stubble that was slowly but surely becoming a beard. “The challenges one needs to overcome in order to progress change from person to person. The only thing that is universal among all aratori is that challenges must be greater the farther you progress.”

“Why are the requirements to level up different for everybody? That seems unfair.”

Muzio explained that the mysteries of leveling up and its connection to magic were subjects of much research and debate. Muzio had an adequate understanding of what he needed to know to survive and become stronger himself, but did not feel equipped to teach the cambion on the magical theory of the subject.

“What matters is to focus on that which will prove useful to our escape efforts,” Muzio said, shaking his head.

“Fair enough.”

“Besides, you won’t be reaching the second tier while stuck here in a cage with me. The most we can hope for is that our training during the day will raise your attributes, and that at night you can raise your proficiency in that teleport skill. If you gain a level, that would be nice, but I don’t expect it even if you are special.”

“Like I said, I got it,” the cambion said, eager to get past this phase of the exposition. “So what do I need to know?”

Attributes and skills…”

Muzio explained that there were four main attributes. These were: power, speed, spirit, and constitution. When added up and averaged, the resulting number was your overall level. Each one progressed on its own as a result of intention and effort, all of which were unique to the individual.

Muzio also mentioned that both attributes and skills’ level progression was capped by one’s tier, but when pressed, he said that information wasn’t relevant for now. Instead, he chose to give examples about how to raise one’s attributes.

“A warrior can wield an axe to raise his power and constitution attributes, which makes them a more powerful warrior with greater endurance,” Muzio said. “A pyromancer might be able to wield fire magic to also raise their power attribute, but instead of affecting constitution, it influences their spirit attribute instead.”

“I think I get it,” the cambion said. “So I raise my attributes by using skills and magic that affect them. I’m guessing that makes those same skills and magic more effective too right?”

“Yes.”

“What about these levels I see next to my skills? One has a level zero on it. Another says ‘not applicable.’”

The cambion was surprised to learn that many skills started with a level zero proficiency, while others started at higher levels. Starting at zero was especially common for individuals with low levels, whose breadth of experience gave them little frame of reference. As he raised his level and proficiency in certain skills, any new skills with crossover applications would reflect a higher starting level.

Felix’s barkskin and blink teleport, for example, had been so unreliable at first because he hadn’t understood the basics of manipulating his mana, which was a matter of combining his visualization and intent. He still barely understood what he was doing, nor did he really understand why certain this worked how they did. Intent in this world was as tangible as space had felt once the cambion realized it was there.

After succeeding at his first blink teleport, manipulating his mana to activate barkskin had come much easier. Thankfully, using barkskin wasn’t as flashy as teleporting, and was something he could practice over and over during the day, which led him to quickly raise his proficiency two levels as he attempted to raise his spirit attribute. Raising his spirit would allow him to wield more magic before becoming exhausted. Or, putting it another way, it would raise his mana pool.

Meanwhile, his physical skills such as claws, and feline agility, were less esoteric and he was able to immediately employ them in his fight against the ROUS’s shortly after absorbing the blinkus cat.

Felix felt his status do its mental tail wagging, and he had a pretty good idea as to why. Now that some of the information about how this world worked was starting to come together, the cambion could feel the mental gibberish in his brain reorganize itself.

Status, you have something to show me, don’t you? Go ahead, buddy. Go for it.

Skill/Ability List

Name

Level

Proficiency

Progress

Type

Barkskin

2

Novice

30%

Druid

Poison Resistance

N/A

Passive Ability

N/A

Druid

Shapeshift

0

N/A

0%

Cambion

Feline Agility

3

Novice

55%

Beast

Claws

2

Novice

35%

Beast

Blink Teleport

1

Apprentice

25%

Magic

After spending some time studying his shiny new status windows and talking it over with Muzio until he got a handle on what he was looking at, he finally asked Muzio something that had been on his mind.

“What level are you?”

“I’m a level six uncanny fighter,” Muzio said.

“What level are most of the people around here?”

“Most of the bandits are between levels one and three, but more on the lower end than not.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t help wondering. How the hell did they capture you?”

“There’s a lesson there,” Muzio scowled. His anger was somewhat tempered, and only directed inward. Still, his eyes burned with fury. “One of the most important lessons you can learn is that judging someone’s strength purely by their level is a mistake.”

Muzio looked rueful. He sighed heavily before continuing. “Among the enlightened, there are only negligible natural disparities between races. A level four elf fighter and a level four dwarf fighter operate differently, but who wins in a fight boils down to skill and tactics, maybe even just something as simple as the terrain. That holds true even if one of those happens to be one level lower than the other. Even when you start widening the gap in levels, a skillful tier-one adventurer, or a large enough group of unskilled ruffians, for example, could still bring down someone of a much higher level.”

“Why do I get the feeling something like that happened to you?”

“Nailed it in one, kid,” Muzio said wryly. “That’s why I’m here. Me and my team were ambushed while I was following a guide here in search of Raine.”

The cambion felt there was a lot more to the story, but just thinking about it looked like it was causing the other man pain, so he didn’t ask any more about it.

There was a period of awkward silence before Muzio finally broke it.

“There’s something else you need to know about levels.”

“Okay, what is it?”

He could tell Muzio was looking for the right words.

“No two people with the same attributes are exactly alike in terms of strength. Just the way their bodies are built, or the distribution of their skills has the potential to turn the tide in a fight.”

“Yeah, well you said something like that already, though. What are you getting at?”

Muzio looked amused.

“The power disparity between monsters, people, and animals are much more pronounced than measuring strength exclusively within the scope of the enlightened races. Animals are by far the weakest, regardless of their levels, but monsters are something else altogether.”

“How so?” the cambion asked, sensing that Muzio was reeling him in to make an important point he hadn’t finished making.

“Don’t let yourself get cocky when you hear me say this,” Muzio said. “A level ten rabbit is still a rabbit in a level one tiger’s jaws. Monsters and animals don’t operate under the same laws as people do.”

“Are you saying I should be careful I don’t become a rabbit?”

“No, fool, you’re the tiger!” said Muzio, grinning fiendishly. “Monsters, demons, jinni… none of them operate under the same rules as the rest of us. Even at low levels, because of your origins, you have the potential to punch above your level. Just don’t let that get to your head once you figure it out, lest you do something stupid.”

If Felix understood Muzio, it meant that the cambion should be able to hold his own against the majority of the enemies he might have to face in the coming days. They had the advantage in numbers, but if he could turn a fight into a one-on-one, even with a rogue two levels above him…

He might be able to win…

With this pleasant thought in mind, the cambion redoubled his training efforts over the subsequent days and nights. In the end, the cambion made more progress than either of them expected.