Sirius was happy to put on his normal clothes after wearing the same off-white robe for a week. His clothes were thoroughly washed, finally removing the stains of blood and other internal fluids from the Crusade member disintegration. Sirius was not in the mood to care about his looks at that time, but now he was extremely grateful tot he person who dared to scrape of the hardened blood splotches.

The moment Sirius stepped outside, he was assaulted by the blinding sun and loud chatter. He squinted and covered his eyes with a sleeve. A sudden tilt of his body was followed by a quiet hiss from his hood.

"Oh, sorry, Seth, it was only you who got to wander around, while I was stuck underground getting my soul back in check," Sirius hissed back with sarcasm.

Sirius decided to take a look around the city, but with everything being rather unfamiliar, just stood in front of the hospital, while leaning on his staff. After standing in place for a couple minutes, he noticed the Elders' Hall further down the road, and decided to use it as a waypoint. He took a confident step forward and nearly fell to the ground from the shooting pain in his leg. Having rested for a week, the constant ache receded, making him forget about the wound. He slowly walked through the city, gazing at the unfamiliar buildings, each different from its neighbours. Triangular huts, blocky homes made of smooth stone, wooden houses covered in moss, each building possessing a touch of its owner. While Sirius saw something similar in Rivervale, without access to magic, villages' abilities to express themselves were limited. Here, however, each builder tried to overcome everyone around. This gave Plain Veins a surreal and multifaceted style, that achieved the strange cohesion against all odds.

People looked at his unfamiliar clothes, as he strode along the road. His appearance and Visage were no longer scaring them, now that he was clean and his Spirit healthy. Instead, they were curious. An outsider walking out of the hospital? Who is he, and how long has he been there? Most people however just noticed him, noted his uniqueness and went on their merry way. And so he went by the Elders' Hall and towards the farms he passed by when he first came here. He hoped to meet the man who led him to Elders and thank him. If not for his kindness, Sirius would perish in the wilderness. He walked and walked, watched houses become sparser, with gardens and fields filling the place between. He once again saw those red grains he had for breakfast at hospital, round kernels filled with mana. Sirius stopped in the middle of the dirt road and stood still, enjoying the wind blowing by. The smell of moist soil and grass brought calm to his mind, making him forget about his problems.

As he stood there, he noticed a voice among the rustling of crops. The voice was familiar, and had a certain ring to it. Repeated strained grunts came from the empty patch of the land. Sirius walked forward a bit until he reached the strip devoid of crops. He peeked from behind the tall grain and saw a girl, pale as snow. Her hair was tied behind her head, only her Life beads waving in front of her view. She forcefully tugged the air in front of her, ploughing the earth beneath.

"Hello there!" Said Sirius from the side.

"Who?... Oh, hello, Friend of a Snake!" shouted back Daughter of Whisper.

"Working the land?"

"I am, yes. These lands need resting before the next sowing."

"Using magic for that?" Sirius asked. "Isn't using a tool easier? The way you do magic is strange."

"Strange? Huh, why is that?" she laughed. "Isn't that how everyone uses magic, no?"

"Everyone?..." Sirius sensed some new knowledge. "Can you describe what you do?"

"Don't you know? You are a strange one, Friend of a Snake. Anyways, I grab onto the World itself and tell it what to do with my Spirit. Isn't magic itself is about talking with the World?"

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"Talking with the World?..." Sirius mused. "Kingdom believes that magic is asking Gods to fulfil their wants and needs. But I was told magic by a druid, who became a priest of the church. He thought very differently, but still wrong."

"And what he taught you?" Daughter of Whisper asked, as she sat on a log between plots of land.

"He taught me that World is a living organism, and we are but a part of it."

"That sounds like the belief of northern tribes..."

"Really? I travelled south quite a bit it seems... In any case, here's what I believe to be the closest thing to truth. May I?" asked Sirius for permission to sit, before taking a place on a log. He used his staff to draw a line on the ground, "This is the world we live in."

"A stick?" she asked, not understanding what Sirius meant.

"What? No, I mean, our whole world... Imagine this line to be the road in the field. Here is a human on that road." Sirius drew a stick figure on the line and continued while drawing a line parallel to the first, "Alongside it lies the Astral World, or however it is called. You see it every time you open your Spirit Eyes. Vast, empty world, where leylines flow and carry mana across the continent. Your Spirit lives there and controls mana around," Sirius drew a circle on the second line.

"So... There are two worlds?"

"Yes, like that. One for matter, other for mana. Your body is connected to Spirit," Sirius connected the stickman to a circle, "and when you try to spellweave, you do so through your Spirit."

"If so, why is my way bad?"

"You see, while mana comes from the ethereal world, it seeps into our world. Like when you put paint in water. Mana becomes diluted, thin, almost non-existent. To influence the matter, you need the right density and properties. And for that you can gather mana from our plane, or pull more dense mana from the Astral Plane. Something like that."

"Oh, World... It is so... strange..." Daughter of Whisper exhaled. "I always thought that I am just not powerful enough. No matter how hard I pulled, it felt like pulling a thin tablecloth with jars on top. It would just rip in my hands."

"I guess..." Sirius mused.

"But like... How did you come up with all of this?"

"Hmm?... Oh, take a look at this," Sirius said while materialising the icicle and tossing it to the ground, "What do you see?"

"The icicle..."

"Do you know what will happen to it if left like that?"

"Will it melt?"

"It would if it was a real ice. The thing is, this matter is made of mana I pulled from Astral Plane, and it is unstable. Over time it will dissipate into mana and return into the world," Sirius explained.

"But why ice? Couldn't you make a rock?" asked the Daughter of Whisper.

"I never achieved a good stone made of mana. It was brittle and weak. And wherever I go, rocks are different, non-uniform. But ice... Water is the same wherever I go, so I grasped its materialisation pretty quickly. When it comes to rocks, it is easier to manipulate what is already there," said Sirius while stirring up some mana at the end of his staff. He pushed the clump into the ground, increasing its temperature and viscosity to bind it to earth, and, with an upward motion, created a wave of dirt in front of himself. "Like that."

"Ooohh..." Exhaled Daughter of Whisper in awe. "Will I be able to do so when I condense the Spirit Mind too?"

"I don't know. Depends on how you control your mana. There are people around who never got the Spirit Mind, yet they are quite strong. Anyways..." Sirius stood up with a grunt and levelled down the dirt wave with a kick, spreading the earth around, "I came here hoping to start being useful, so I might start here. You need this patch plowed, right?"

"Wait, are you really going to help? What about your leg?"

"Sure, why not? And don't worry about my leg, it's healing nicely, and I am not going to strain it apart of walking a little," he said and stretched a little, "you can meditate or train moving your mana, while you have free time."

"Sure! Thank you!" Daughter of Whisper said excitedly and closed her eyes to concentrate on pulling the energy from Astral World.

Sirius huffed with a smile and shook his head. He wished he could do this freely back at home, without risking prosecution and death by the Inquisitor's blade. He began tilling the ground, eventually settling on using his staff as a focus. He found it easier to concentrate, when holding something physical in hands to guide his control. Without breaking a sweat he walked along the small patch of land, leaving in his wake two straight lines of fresh soil. At the end he turned back and did the same actions, now feeling a little tired from constant focus.

"I need to work on my mental stamina..." he whispered to himself when he reached the road. He leaned on his staff to take a break and glanced at Daughter of Whisper's training. However, his heart sank and he yelled, "What are you doing!?"