The healing pill Erik gave me was nothing like the one Cass had given me. My stomach twisted in protest, and I struggled to keep it down. My mana pathways shifted to a vibrant turquoise, and then the energy just stopped. No matter what I did, the Bravery rune was out of reach. Even thinking about the spell caused a sharp, physical pain. It felt like someone had poured molten metal through my veins, the heat spreading through me like wildfire. I winced visibly, not sure if it was the pill or the kick.
"Doesn't your family make these?" I asked as Erik helped me up. Whoa, everything was spinning. “This one feels weird.”
"That's the ginseng," Erik said, walking alongside me. "I’m told it’s hard to digest."
"Oh," I managed. That was... interesting? I didn’t feel this before… I had to blink a few times to focus. "Are you sure that was a healing pill then?" My thoughts were starting to feel muddy.
"It's from my family's stores," Erik said sharply. "It is without a doubt."
We started climbing the spiral stairs leading up to Doreen's. Weren't these straight up and down before? The steps seemed to twist and shift like an Escher painting, and I found it hard to stay balanced as the stairwell moved.
"Are you alright, Ben?" Erik asked, glancing at me. Was he always that big? He looked huge, and the tattoos on his neck seemed to shimmer like they were made of magma.
"Whoa, your tattoos are crazy up close," I said, just as the stairwell shifted and I nearly tumbled down the stairs.
Erik caught me and, without hesitation, threw me over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, sprinting up the steps two or three at a time—or maybe it was five or six? It was hard to tell.
"Put me down! You're shaking me like a cocktail," I chuckled. My voice came out slurred, half-lost in the fog of dizziness…
After a quick dash through some well-stocked cellars, the man burst into a large common room, carrying me like a sack of potatoes. Tables were arranged on one side, while the other side held a collection of mismatched chairs and couches. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw a little mouse woman standing on a table, talking to a large blonde woman. The mouse was adorable! I needed to hug her, but this big man had a strong grip on me.
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"Erik? Ben? What the fuck happened?" the blonde woman demanded. She looked like a Valkyrie. Yeah, I'd call her that from now on. Valkyrie was a fun word.
"We sparred for a bit, and I gave him a healing pill... then this," the big man explained.
"Hi Vel... Vulik... Valakaree, heh-heh." Oh, Valkyrie was hard to say. I should've picked something easier, like Pal. The man set me down in a chair, and everyone stared at me.
The mouse woman hopped into my lap, poking at me and meeting my eyes. Her tiny hands gripped my chin with surprising strength, forcing me to focus. "Is that fuckin' mana poisonin'?" Her tone was both furious and oddly maternal, like an angry aunt chewing me out. It was so cute. She looked so soft.
"Where did you get the pill from, Erik?" the blonde Pal asked. Yeah, Pal was much easier.
"From our stores."
"From the stores at home, not the city, right, Erik?" Pal's voice was tense. the big man hesitated, and both the mouse and Pal shook their heads.
"Graceful fuckin' Gods, Erik, you gave him a Class D healing pill. We need to—hrk!" I hugged the mouse in my lap. She was as soft as I thought, but tensed up immediately.
"You better not be fuckin' huggin' me, Ben," she hissed, her voice razor-sharp.
Who was Ben? I'm the Hugger!
A weird sensation shot through me—pain? I realized I was tipped backward in the chair, lying on the floor. Did my head hit the ground on the way down? Oh, the mouse kicked me, I think. I guess she didn’t like being hugged.
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"Someone get to the tower, post a bulletin. We need to get a healer if anyone's available," Cass said.
Oh yeah! Her name was Cass. I felt the chair and myself get hoisted back upright, and Doreen jumped back into my lap. Right, Doreen!
"No fuckin' huggin', asshole," she said jabbing a finger at me. "We need to get you a healer—you've got mana seeping from your pores."
I looked at my hands and noticed a sparkling dust rising from my skin.
A rumble passed through my stomach, and I tried to double over, but Doreen was in the way. What came out of my mouth was more yellow slime than vomit, with the same fine dust particles rising like smoke.
"Are you fuckin' serious right now?!" Doreen screamed, covered in the strange gunk. She reached out, grabbed the lapel of my vest, and yanked my wash kit free. Opening it, she took out the pink disc and squeezed it, glaring at me while the gunk started to vanish—slowly. She put the spent puck back in the box and threw it at me. "You better make me something eye-watering for dessert tonight, Initiate." She emphasized the word and jumped from my lap.
Oh, I felt much better. Not great—more like I had eaten bad seafood—but at least I was coherent.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked, and everyone looked startled.
"Ben? You're good?" Cass asked cautiously.
I rubbed my eyes and had to squint as I talked, my head was pounding. "I wouldn't say good. I can't remember the last time I felt this sick. What the hell was that?"
Erik looked stricken, his usual stoic demeanor replaced with something else. We'd sparred, and I thought we'd even become friends. Now he seemed miles away.
"My dumbass brother gave you a Class D healing pill," Cass said, shooting a glare at Erik. "Those are designed for someone like Chas or Elara. It can damage your mana pathways—maybe even kill you. You should still be completely out of it."
Just then, a Carmintree Floran entered Doreen’s. He was a bald and angular faced man in a hunter’s outfit with a red insignia pin that looked an awful lot like a red-cross. On his arm was one of those Bracers. He rushed over to us and shoved Cass aside.
“I was doing my rounds when someone grabbed me. How long ago did he take the pill?” He said, his French accent was thick.
"Not long," Cass said, moving aside. The man’s sharp gaze locked onto me, his eyes amber and unyielding as he placed a hand on my head. "You are conscious? Magnifique! This is fascinating."
The bracer on his arm sprang to life, and a ring of glyphs appeared, settling into some kind of formation. He placed his hand on my head, and I felt coolness spreading through my body, shifting my mana pathways back to their usual blue.
I could sense a rune where his hand rested. It wasn't as potent as the one I'd seen the Sentarian use to spray water a few days ago. This was more... intangible. It felt familiar, comforting.
"Compassion?" I asked as the warmth faded.
"You have a good eye," the man said, now meeting my gaze. His eyes were amber. "Désolé, my name is Parloux. You are very lucky, Breaker. Very lucky indeed. This pill was just on the edge of what your body could handle, and it absorbed most of the excess. Your mana will be sluggish for a few days, but that's because your pathways need to catch up to what’s in them."
Oh yeah, I could feel that. My mana felt slow, almost like it was under pressure. But there was so much of it. I wasn't at full capacity, but my reserve had more than doubled since taking that pill.
Cass shook her head and turned to Parloux. "You're telling me he actually absorbed it? This can't be an Outworlder thing."
"It's likely a Human thing. Truly fascinating!" a familiar voice said. The whole room turned to see a small white mouse woman standing in the common area. It was Lyra, but instead of her usual equipment and jacket, she wore an adorable red and blue hanfu robe. Her goggles still rested on her eyes as she strode towards us, scribbling in her notepad.
Doreen burst out laughing at the sight. "What are you fuckin' wearing?"
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Lyra did her best to ignore the snickers in her direction.
"Diana insists I wear formal attire to demonstrate my sincerity. She really enjoys dressing people up," Lyra responded, her voice sharp, but quickly shifted back to business. "We can discuss my clothes later. Ben, you survived? Faster than expected, residual mana being expressed, cognition restored. Excellent work, Parloux."
"He was already doing it when I arrived. I simply helped him along."
Lyra stopped scribbling and looked at me, turning the page in her notebook.
"Natural mana expression? Tell me, Ben. Did you feel disconnected from reality? Out of character?"
"He fuckin' hugged me," Doreen spat, and Lyra suppressed a snort.
"And barfed on her," Cass added.
That pushed Lyra over the edge, and she started giggling like a schoolgirl. I hadn’t expected her to sound like that. She almost seemed approachable.
"I think so," I said. "I couldn’t remember who everyone was, or even where I was."
Lyra had calmed down, but Doreen was still glaring at me.
"Fascinating," Lyra said, with a slight giggle as she recovered. "It seems your body can withstand quite a lot of aspected mana with minimal side effects."
I frowned. Aspected mana? That was a new term. Cass seemed to pick up on my confusion.
"Mana that has been put to purpose," she explained. "A healing pill contains mana from different compounds, put to the purpose of healing. But since there was way too much of it, there was nowhere for it to go. Normally that means shoving as much into your reserves as your body can take, with adverse effects."
"Like my mind going foggy?" I asked.
"Like becoming a monster," Lyra said nonchalantly. I coughed mid-breath at her words. "The lack of memories, the disconnection."
A monster? I mostly felt super drunk, not quite blacked out, but even the memories of what happened felt like a dream. I didn't know who the people were, but I still understood they were helping me, even in that state.
"I'm not sure I understand," I said bluntly. There was too much new information to take in. I went to stand up, and Cass helped me.
"It's complicated," she said. "Mana beasts consume aspected mana, become monsters, and we hunt them."
"And healing pills can do that?" I asked.
"No, but the effect of mana poisoning is similar," Parloux explained as I tested my balance. I really did feel much better. How bizarre. "You either absorbed the aspected mana or cleansed it."
"It doesn't feel any different," I said, reaching out for Bravery to test it.
Whoa.
The aura spread out around me, but this time it was intense. I could sense everything around me, but in greater detail. Erik's wounded shoulder stood out in my mind's eye, as did a bruise on his chest that seemed to be forming. Damn right, I got him. A hunter eating breakfast at a table had a cleanly cut forearm, almost healed, likely from a blade. Cass was favoring a slightly sprained ankle.
Compassion. It was rescuing an injured animal, volunteering in a disaster zone, forgiving someone who had hurt you. It was my mom's comfort when I was rejected from university.
The runic concept was so familiar, so comforting. It slotted into the Bravery sigil but seemed tenuous, forming a concept that felt incredibly familiar, though I couldn’t quite figure out why.
Brave Compassion?
“That’s a new sigil…” I said more to myself a surge of deep, royal blue energy flooded my pathways, bordering on purple. I felt a huge amount of mana vaporize and a tugging sensation filled my chest—similar to the infrared orbs. Pockets of azure energy flashed around me, then faded as my pathways returned to their usual color. I blinked, suddenly aware I’d slumped back into my chair. Around me, everyone was staring, and Erik looked... worried.
“An affinity?” came a new voice from the doorway. “Not bad, man. In just a few days, too.”
I pushed myself up, a bit unsteady, to greet Felix, who was now in simple green robes with a wide belt at his waist. His bracer was back on.
“Congrats on the seal,” I said.
“Congrats on finding an affinity,” he returned with a grin. “I wanted to catch you before I head out. The boat’s waiting on us.”
As Felix spoke, Lyra scribbled furiously in her notepad, while Cass, Erik, and Doreen watched, still wide-eyed. Felix’s whole demeanor had shifted—where he’d once been laid-back, he now held himself with a regal air. It was subtle, but it was there—a confidence that seemed to resonate beneath his words, like a sword just barely sheathed. He moved like someone who had already won a battle no one else knew had been fought. Hunters greeted him with pats on the back and murmurs of “Good man!” and “Knew you’d make it.” He approached and pulled me into a quick hug.
“I have to go—Alexander’s taking us. Pass the exam, Ben. I’ll see you in a couple of months.”
“What if I fail?” I asked, thinking of Cassie, who hadn’t passed on her first try.
“Then I’ll see you in five months when you pass the next one.” He gave me a knowing smile. “I hear you’ve been hanging out at a bakery instead of training. At least take a job—get a taste of what you’re in for. If it’s not for you, well, you know where Katie’s is. I’ll come visit.”
His words made me pause. Was I avoiding things? Baking at Katie’s felt so natural, so familiar that I’d almost forgotten my promise. I’d left my old life, my old job, for a reason, hadn’t I? This was a whole new world, on the far side of the Multiverse, and I’d signed up to hunt monsters in it.
With a sigh, I nodded. “You’re right. See you in two months.”
Felix gave his farewells quickly, but he seemed to avoid looking at Cass. “I’m not gone for good, guys. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Had he really stopped by Doreen’s just to see if I was here? I watched him leave, realizing he might actually be a friend.
Cass and Erik fell into silence, both looking unusually thoughtful, which was out of character for them. Doreen had excused herself, likely to change, and Lyra was furiously jotting down notes, her whiskers twitching with excitement.
“Fascinating, fascinating!” she muttered, barely containing herself. “Four days and an affinity. A true anomaly. So many tests—I need to develop more tests! But—oh! I’ll miss my boat!” She spun and dashed out of the room, followed by Parloux, who was needed elsewhere.
I glanced at Cass and Erik, their expressions unreadable. “You two look like you have things to say. Come on, let’s head to the kitchen—I’m starving,” I said, leading them to the back of the common room. My mana reserves were practically drained, yet I felt strangely light and energized.
I grabbed some buns, sausages, and scraps of cheese, tossing some to Cass, who caught them with ease. Despite Doreen being a mouse, her kitchen had surprisingly little cheese.
“We have that reading appointment, right?” I asked. “Let’s talk on the way.” There was a spring in my step I couldn’t explain, and even the massive water bowl I was carrying felt lighter than it should have. Maybe it was Felix’s visit, the healing pill, the compassion rune—whatever it was, I felt ready to tackle whatever came next.
I stepped into the alleyway and set the bowl of water down beside the steps, hoping the local mana beasts might swing by if I was out late. I was sure Red would come by and had a feeling I would be out for a while. With a glance over my shoulder, I headed up the alley to meet Cass and Erik on the street, and together we made our way toward Cyrus' shop.
"Ben, I…"
"Ben…"
They both spoke at once, and I couldn’t help but laugh. "It's been a weird morning. Let's start with Erik."
He hesitated, then pulled his shirt over his head, revealing both bandages and tattoos beneath.
"Yeah, yeah, we get it—you’re ripped," I said, smirking as Cass chuckled.
Erik unwrapped the bandages, exposing a small scar near his shoulder where, if I remembered right, the Brine Tyrant had broken through his armor. His gaze was serious.
"You… healed me," he said slowly, as if testing the words. "You saved my life the other night and now healed my wounds. For all my experience, I don’t know if I can pay you back and instead… I nearly got you killed."
"I healed you? Don’t ask me how," I looked at his shoulder, blinking. Was that what those bursts of energy were?
"And my ankle," Cass added, her voice soft. "Twisted it this morning on my way into town."
I stared at my hands. I hadn’t realized that was what had happened, but it started to make sense. Reaching out, I felt for Bravery—it was right where I’d left it, but the Compassion rune… gone.
“Someone want to explain what an affinity is?” I asked.
“It means you can absorb life-aspected mana. People don’t usually discover one until they have a Seal,” Erik explained. “It also means your mana is life-aspected—suited to healing, like Nana”
I couldn’t feel anything like what had just happened at Doreen’s and I wasn’t keen to try taking another pill anytime soon.
"Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now. And look, I’m clearly not dead, Erik. I learned a lot from you today." I gestured to him. "You’re an Adept, right? Wasn’t Chas an Adept too?"
"I'm… not as far along as you think," Erik admitted, his usual stoic demeanor softening.
Cass's voice tightened. "Neither of us are. Erik's barely an Adept. He was at Felix's level just last month, before the attack. And you—you're advancing so fast, Ben. You’re going to leave me behind." Her voice cracked, just slightly, and for the first time, she looked... uncertain. It was a vulnerability I hadn’t seen in her before, and it made my stomach churn.
"Cass, come on, that’s impossible," I said, eating some bread to buy myself a second. "I was on Earth last week. Mana was just a story until I got here. I don’t even know what this city fully looks like yet, let alone the rest of this world. And Erik kicked my ass an hour ago."
"You fight like the Vildar do," Erik replied, studying me with a quiet intensity. "Your Bravery rune… it reminds me of Chas, but it’s different. Like it… wants to be seen. Did you train like that back on Earth?"
I threw up my hands. "Not like Doreen! I just practiced a couple of times a week," I laughed. "You’re a Monster Hunter, Erik. You grew up with mana, magic, and monsters."
"No one I know can turn a lantern orb into a bomb," he said, shaking his head. "They only hold light."
"Yes!" I groaned, pointing up. "Like the sun."
Cass looked bewildered. "You can harness the power of the sun?"
"Not the sun—the light, the heat," I explained. "Heat is light. I learned that in school as a kid. It’s… science. Like starting a fire with a magnifying glass."
Erik looked puzzled, but Cass’s face shifted, like something was clicking into place.
"You mentioned science before. You learned that in school?"
"Yeah. I spent more than half my life in school, including college—books, teachers, experiments. It’s how we learned things on Earth."
Erik raised a brow. "Like Sylvarus. I studied there for a year. You’ve been learning at that level for half your life?" He shook his head. "That would drive me insane."
Only a year? The culture shock hit me hard. Here, they wielded power beyond my world’s wildest dreams, yet lacked the structured education I’d grown up with. ‘Knowledge is power’ seemed literal in the rest of the Multiverse.
“Do you not have… schools?” I asked, curious and careful.
Cass flushed slightly as she glanced around at a few passersby giving us curious looks.
“We do,” she said, turning a corner. “But we don’t start as kids. That’s… strange. Maybe that’s why you recognize so many runes—Felix was right; you’d make a great Arcanist.”
We arrived at Cyrus’s shop, and he greeted us warmly. Erik excused himself saying that he’d do some shopping and then meet us in the room. Cyrus led us up a stairway to a level lined with small rooms. Each had marble tables and plush seating, giving the place a cozy, secluded feel. Our room was at the end of the hall, and as the door opened, I saw Diana inside, flipping through a massive tome, with Stanley, her canary-like familiar, perched beside her. He chirped cheerfully at the sight of us.
Diana looked up, grinning. "Oh good, you’re early. I’ve already spent all your money."
Stanley let out a cheerful chirp, hopping onto her head like a self-satisfied crown. I didn’t know which was more upsetting—Diana’s smirk or the smug little bird staring me down.