Birds sang. Sunlight drifted down from the window, illuminating tiny motes of dust. Ike laid in his bed and dozed, enjoying the warmth. Soon, his uncle would barge in and demand he return to the plant, admonish him for sleeping in and drag him out of bed by his ankle, but for now, for just a few seconds more, he had peace.

A dark-haired girl peered in the top of his window, then scurried over the ceiling. “Hey, Ike. You awake?”

Ike stared. What the fuck—

And then it all came rushing back. Getting Lightning Dash. Leaving the slums. Wandering the Abyss. Crossing the mountains. Mont, Clarina’s city, getting locked in Lord Nors’ loop, battling Llewyn. He laughed aloud, a rush of joy coming over him. His uncle wasn’t coming. His uncle would never be able to threaten him again. He was a whole Rank higher than his uncle would ever achieve, and if he ever saw the man again, it would be his uncle who would have to worry about him, not the reverse.

“You okay?” Wisp asked. She let go of the ceiling with her toes and swung forward on her fingertips, landing on the ground.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just reminiscing.” Ike went to stand up, but exhaustion washed over him like a wave. He sunk back into the bed.

“Tired? Here.” She reached into her storage ring and handed him a large root. Dirt still clung to its surface.

Ike looked at it. He lifted his head and looked at Wisp. “Thanks…?”

“Eat it! It’s a thousand years old, you know? Been soaking in a mana vein for a thousand years! Shawn was worried you were sleeping for so long, so he dug it up for you.” She dusted it off and held it out again.

“Thanks.” He took it. Activating his cleaning skill, he pushed it toward the root rather than himself. A rush of magic swirled over its surface, removing the dirt and grunge. From beneath, a pure white root appeared. He took a bite. The root crunched loudly, with the consistency of a parsnip.

Wisp watched him, enraptured. “What’s it taste like?”

Ike made a face. “Dirt.”

She laughed. “It is a root, after all.”

He swallowed. Energy rushed into his core. His body craved it, desperately calling out to it. One bite left him feeling incredibly refreshed, and he felt his Rank progressing incrementally toward the next Rank. He looked at the root in shock, then tore into it, gobbling it down.

“Damn. Big fan of dirt, huh?” Wisp asked.

Ike chewed the last bites of the root and ate the leaves, too. “Big fan. Shawn found that?”

“Yep.”

“He find any other roots like that?”

Wisp batted his shoulder. “Don’t be greedy! How many thousand-year-old roots do you think live in the mana vein? They don’t grow on trees, you know.”

Ike nodded. Patiently, as though he was speaking to a young child, he replied, “No, they don’t. They’re roots. Roots live in the ground.”

Wisp narrowed her eyes at him. Ike waggled his brows back.

She laughed. Tossing her head back, she shook her head and patted his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back. I missed you.”

Ike smiled back. He leaned back against the pillow, sitting up. “How long have I been out?”

Wisp waved her hand. “Not that long. Only a month or two.”

“A month!” Ike jumped up. His legs buckled, and he fell back into the bed.

“Hey, hey. A month isn’t that long,” Wisp said, startled. She patted his head. “I slept for five years once. A month is short. Super short, even!”

Ike circulated his aether. Forcibly, he rejuvenated his body with the energy from the root along with his own aether. To his surprise, his aether remained steady, if not higher than before. Taking a deep breath, he circulated the ambient aether into his core. To his surprise, a lot of it swirled into his core. He took another breath, and another, basking in the thick aether. Wow. I didn’t know I picked a house right on top of a mana vein. Lucky choice for me.

Wisp noticed what he was doing and nodded. “Shawn redirected the local mana vein to terminate directly into your room.”

“Really?” Ike asked, surprised. Less lucky, then. But very kind of Shawn.

“He acts like he doesn’t care, but he does care about you. Actually, of the three of us, he was probably the one fretting the worst,” Wisp told him.

“Even more than you?” Ike paused, then laughed at himself. “You were probably holding yourself back from eating me, right?”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Wisp laughed along, but there was something different in her eyes.

Ike paused. “Were you actually worried?”

“Of course I wasn’t. I knew you’d be fine. Don’t be ridiculous,” she insisted. Still, she leaned a little closer, resting her shoulders against his.

Ike laughed a little. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I had no idea that I’d put myself in a coma, doing that. I just wanted to fight harder. Use all… no. More than all of my strength.”

“Obviously you’ll stress yourself if you use more strength than you have. You fool. What did you do, anyways?” She sat up, turning to face him. Her head tilted. “That thing, where you sucked all the storms into yourself. I didn’t know you had a Storm Eater skill, or whatever that was.”

Ike shook his head. “That wasn’t a skill. I just… did that.”

Wisp frowned. She stared at him. “Huh?”

“Like when I developed my extra Unique Skills, I just used magic and manipulated it independently. It’s not that strange. It’s something you can do with any Unique Skill, as far as I can tell,” Ike said.

Wisp squinted and shook her head. “No it isn’t. You can’t just make new Unique skills.”

“No? I’ve done it, though. Have you just not tried?” Ike asked, tilting his head.

She spread her hands. “Where would I even start?”

“Well, you… you take the framework of the Unique skill, and you put mana into it. Reshape it. Add new lines of mana and reinforce it carefully with a desired end product in mind. And then… you know. It solidifies, and becomes a new skill.”

Wisp shook her head. “That’s not possible.”

“It is possible. I’ve done it so many times,” Ike said, confused.

“How?”

“I just told you how!”

“No, but how… how do you get the framework in the first place? Add new lines to create a new skill? What does that even mean? Even if you did it right in front of me, I have no idea what I’d do next,” she said, shaking her head.

Ike frowned. He gestured. “Try it sometime, when you have a little extra aether. I’m not sure if it can be done with non-Unique skills, so start from the Unique skills.”

“But even then, that storm-sucking thing you did… you’re telling me you didn’t even start from a framework for that one, right?”

Ike shook his head. “No. I called to the storm, and the storm responded. I was using Lightning Caller and Lightning Clad at the same time. Lightning Clad coats me in lightning, and Lightning Caller draws lightning down from the sky. All I did was activate both in concert, and put more aether into them than usual. And then I felt… um, I don’t know how to describe it. I felt like I could grab the storm. Pull it down from the sky and trap it inside me. And so I did. Just pulled it down and sucked it into myself. That’s all.”

Wisp rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. I just did the impossible. That’s all. Easy peasy.”

Ike spread his hands. “What? That’s all I did. It didn’t seem that impossible when I did it.”

“I guess it wouldn’t, when you were already in the middle of doing it. You’re even crazier than me. I have to hand the feral and insane crown to you.” Wisp lifted her hands to the top of her head. She lifted an invisible crown and handed it to Ike, taking the chance to pat his head a few time.

“I bet I could teach you,” Ike said.

“I don’t know if you could teach anyone that. That might be something only you can do, Ike. And even if you taught me, what Unique skill would I use it on? My fireproof thread? Turn my thread into flaming thread, or something?”

“Sure, why not? Or you could try taking the fireproof trait and applying it to something else. It would all depend on which side of the structure you adjusted.” Ike shrugged. “It’s really not that hard. I’m sure you could do it if you tried.”

“I’ll give it a try, then,” Wisp said. She closed her eyes. “What was it again? Call the structure to mind?”

“Yeah. Hold it in your mind’s eye. Can you see it?” Ike asked.

She frowned. Her brows knotted. She frowned deeper, then nodded. “I see it.”

“Play around with the structure. Adjust little pieces of it, and put mana—er, aether into it each time. You’ll see how changing the different lines changes what the skill does.”

Wisp nodded. Her hands blurred, moving too fast for Ike to see. Threads of spider silk stretched between her fingers. Aether lit up around the silk, and it instantly set on fire, burning away in a heartbeat.

She snorted. Opening her eyes, she looked at the charred remains clinging to her fingers, then gave her hand a shake. “Well, that didn’t work.”

“No, it did. You changed what the skill did,” Ike pointed out. A second later, he grimaced. “Okay, so it didn’t do what you wanted it to do, but you did change its effect. And that’s what’s important. Once you start changing the effect, you can dial in exactly what you want out of it.”

“That’s gonna take so long,” Wisp complained.

Ike nodded. “Yeah, it takes a while, but it’s worthwhile. I mean, just think about it. You can add more Unique skills to your repertoire for free. For free! That’s like, a whole town’s worth of loot in one.”

Wisp raised her brows. She nodded, suddenly far more excited about the idea. “It is just sitting still and being boring, but it’s not sitting still and being boring for nothing. I kind of get why people want to just study skills, now.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty rewarding,” Ike agreed.

“Although… if it’s always been this easy to make new Unique skills, why doesn’t everyone do it?” Wisp asked.

Ike shrugged. “Maybe they’ve just never thought to try.”

“Or maybe it’s something you can do, and only you.”

He gestured at her. “You did it.”

“I’m sitting right next to you, and you explained how to do it, and I barely get it. But… there’s something about being near you.” Wisp opened her eyes. She leaned away from him. “Yeah. If I get this far away from you, I can’t do it anymore. It only works if I’m right next to you.”

Now it was Ike’s turn to look confused. “Huh?”

Wisp spread her hands. “I don’t know. It’s true, though. You can do it, and I can do it while I’m close to you, but I can’t do it otherwise. You have a weird skill-creation aura.”

“Oh. What the hell does that mean?”

“I dunno.”

“Why would I have that?”

“I dunno.”

“How did I even get something like that?”

She paused. Thought for a moment. “Maybe you were born with it?”

“Born with it? I was born a commoner. My mom was a mage so weak she died giving birth to me! I…”

Llewyn’s voice sounded in his ears. “We crafted you.”

He swallowed and grasped his chin, thinking. Is that part of it? They crafted me, and now I can create Unique skills from other Unique skills.

It’s certainly the only thing I can think of. It’s the only explanation I have at all, reasonable or unreasonable.

Wisp tilted her head. “Are you alright? You went suuuu-per pale.”

Ike swallowed. He laughed, but it sounded forced. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired. I… I should probably get a little more rest.”

Wisp nodded. Standing, she gently pushed him back in bed. “Get some more rest, then. I’ll be here. It’s not like there’s anything else to do, right now. Everything’s nice. Peaceful and quiet.”

Ike nodded. He closed his eyes. To his surprise, sleep took him quickly, his exhaustion still waiting for him the second he closed his eyelids. Even so, Llewyn’s words chased him all the way back to sleep.

We crafted you.

But why?