I had a wide smile on my face for a large part of the following journey. I had paused my weapon practice and switched to practicing magic with Cellestra as we went. We chose to focus on earthen spike first to see if she still remembered how to cast it. After several casts, which all went smoothly and without problems, we decided it was time for a new spell.

“Any preference?” I asked.

“Why don’t you show me what you can do?” Cellestra said, her eyes wide in excitement.

“Alright then,” I said. “How about this?” I fired an ice lance to my side. “Or this?” I followed by summoning an earthen wall that floated in the air before me as I ran. “This wall will block three attacks of any magnitude. However, one drawback is that it drains mana after getting hit in order to maintain its integrity. The stronger the attack used against it, the more mana it drains.”

“That’s interesting…” Cellestra said softly, her hand under her chin as she seemed to think. “But you also know that mana isn’t one of my issues.”

“Which is why I suggested this as one of my first spells,” I explained. “The thing is, this wall is part of an ability that contains four different kinds of walls.”

I summoned each wall in order. I started with the fire wall, before showing the air wall, and finally the ice wall.

“Each one of these specializes in a different thing. The fire wall will absorb spells, the earthen wall will block strong attacks, the air wall will deflect physical projectiles. The ice wall can do each of those but at much lower effectiveness.”

“Well,” Cellestra started. “We gotta start somewhere right? Let’s start with the ones you showed me first.”

I nodded and prepared for our practice.

Cellestra forced her magic through me, while I redirected it into the spell. I was less successful than I wanted to be; I only managed to take hold of a portion of Cellestra’s magic instead of the entire stream. I didn’t know what was the cause behind it, but her mana flows felt… slippery.

“What was that?” I asked, unsure what was going on.

“I do not know.” Cellestra looked confused herself. “Try again?”

I nodded. We repeated the same thing a couple of times, but each time, Cellestra’s magic somehow eluded me, for the most part at least.

“I don’t get it,” I let out, frustrated. “I can’t seem to get a hold of your magic. Do you have any ideas what could be going on?”

“I have no idea,” The elf said, seemingly lost in thought.

“Should we pick a different spell then?” I asked. “I mean, if this doesn’t work, it’s pointless to keep trying, no?”

“Let’s try to do the fire wall...” Cellestra spoke softly. She had a certain look in her eyes that I couldn’t place as she spoke those words. I got the feeling she was playing with some kind of idea in her head but wasn’t entirely sure about it.

“Okay,” I replied.

Once more, the elf sent her magic through my body where I collected and guided it to one point where I materialized the spell. My concentration was almost broken when, to my surprise, I managed to gather significantly more of her magic and redirected it to the fire wall.

“What the fuck?” I let out after I had cast the spell.

Cellestra smiled widely. “I think I see what is going on.”

“You think it’s because all of those walls are in one combined spell?”

She nodded.

“So, in that case, if we now try the air wall, we should get even closer?” I asked.

“That was my way of thinking, yes.”

“Let’s see if that’s true,” I said, preparing myself for the next spell.

I was amazed by the fact that the elf had been right. When her magic flowed through me for the third time, I managed to grab even more and force it into my spell. After that, we immediately tried the ice wall.

While it was true that with every different spell within this ability we made further progress, it wasn’t enough to have Cellestra cast the spell successfully yet. A small portion of her magic seemed to elude me… for now. I reckoned that was the part where practice would come into play.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s interesting to know. This makes me wonder if you can learn spells that I gained with my spell synthesis skill. For example, I have this elemental blast spell — you’ve seen me use it against those raiders earlier. It’s a combination of fireball, ice lance, and wind gust. Now, if I teach you my version of those three, will you be able to cast it?”

“No idea,” Cellestra said, shrugging. “But that spell seems strong. I’d be all up for trying it.”

I chuckled. “I’d be happy to teach you, but let’s get this wall spell perfected first, shall we?”

The elf nodded and prepared to cast her magic on me again.

For the rest of the day, we practiced while running. At some point, I felt like my mana had drained a fair amount, and that, combined with the fact that we’d been up for so long, made me halt a bit earlier than I’d ideally wanted to.

I would be better off listening to Cellestra and trying to not overexert myself.

I stopped in the middle of some grassy plains that had turned entirely yellow. It was as if there hadn’t been any rain in this place for weeks, perhaps longer. It was not something I’d seen often.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

On the way, we had crossed a couple of simple dirt roads, which indicated that there was at least some civilization in the area, but hopefully, they’d be far enough away to not be a concern for us during the night. Perhaps it would still be better to not use the illumination spell at night. It wasn’t like I would have trouble spotting anything approaching anyway.

I lowered myself onto the grass and laid my weapon at my side while Cellestra stepped off of me and removed the wolf pelts from my back. At the same time, I removed the threads fastening the bag and chunk of metal, and laid them next to my weapon.

“Thank you, Kealyna,” Cellestra said warmly.

“For what?” I asked with a frown.

“You know… for teaching me those spells, and also for stopping to rest early.”

I smiled at the elf when she spoke out of concern for me. “No problem. I enjoy practicing magic with you.”

The elf nodded. “As do I.” She then faced the horizon, to the north. “There’s no sign of trolls anywhere. I wonder when we’re supposed to run into that chokepoint he talked about.”

“Well, he said not too far. If anything, I’m going to guess we’ll get to it tomorrow, which is probably better for both of us. I did use a good amount of mana on our journey today. I don’t think it would be smart to do that again tomorrow.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have done it today, either,” Cellestra said, fully serious about this.

”It’s okay,” I said, trying to reassure her. “I would have seen their village from miles away. I could, and I would have stopped and made camp for the night a good way out before trying to pass them the next day.”

The elf nodded. “I suppose you’re right. That would have been the smart thing to do.”

“Anyway, we will see about it tomorrow,” I said as I stretched my arms and all my legs. I even moved my chelicerae inward and then outward to alleviate the built-up tension. Cellestra eyed me while I did so.

“That bad?” She asked softly. “You didn’t push too far, did you?”

“Nah. I’m okay. Just need to stretch every now and then. I already stopped early for you.”

The purple-eyed elf smiled, knelt down, placed her backpack on the grass and pulled out the two steel cups.

“Want some tea?”

I smiled back. “I’d love some.”

“Afraid you’ll have to take care of the water, though.”

“That’s fine.”

Minutes later, we were seated across from each other, sipping our hot tea, enjoying what little was left of the day before evening would fall.

“You know,” Cellestra said after a while, “I never would have guessed I’d ever get this far out from home. I’m so happy I decided to come with you. I’m having a great time.”

“As am I,” I replied. “I’m looking forward to reaching our destination, though. I’d love to take things easy for a few days. My entire life… my new life has been quite hectic every day so far. I can take a lot, but still…”

“Hectic is putting it lightly. I imagined I must have scared the hell out of you when I put you in that terrarium.”

I sighed but managed to produce a smile. “That was quite frightening, yes. I was lucky you understood what I wanted.”

Cellestra smiled back before sipping her tea. I then saw her eyes trail all over my body from front to back. “I still can’t believe you once walked in my hands.”

“How often are you going to tell me that?” I asked mischievously.

“Probably a lot more, to be honest,” The elf replied before chuckling. “Do you mind it?” She then asked in a more serious voice.

I shook my head. “It’s okay. It’s kind of funny looking back at it.”

“Good. I don’t want to mention it if you’re not okay with it.”

“It’s fine,” I reassured the elf once more.

“Okay,” Cellestra nodded slowly. “Just tell me if you’re ever uncomfortable.”

I nodded.

The elf then dove into the bag of wrapped packages of food. “Am I correct in assuming you’re still not hungry?” She asked.

“That would be correct.” I then paused for a second. “Do you still have any apples?”

“Just one I think. Do you want it?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

Cellestra pulled out the last apple from her backpack and tossed it to me. I handily fetched it and took a bite while looking at the sun in the distance. I hoped we would be able to get past that troll checkpoint the following day and reach the border to Len Asari. From there, I had no idea what our journey would look like. I prayed to Elysa that I would be let in easily, and if not, that there was some temple nearby that could make a thing or two clear to whoever would deny me entry.

Cellestra directed one of her cute smiles my way while I was absent-mindedly munching on the apple. My worries just seemed to melt every time I saw it. I thanked the goddess for being able to meet someone as kind and sweet as her.