"Don't you tell me you fought him, no?!" Daughter of Whisper's excited voice rang in the fields.

"Well, I had to. Otherwise I would be a bloody puddle long ago," shrugged Sirius, while checking if he weaved the basket correctly, "Am I doing this right? Should I have twisted it the other way?"

"We've been doing it for a three days in a row and you ask it every time. Yes, it goes the other way."

"Thank you..." Sirius said with embarrassment. Over the past week he was spending almost all his time outside with Daughter of Whisper, doing chores and talking about everything around them. What always happened, however, was Daughter of Whisper asking Sirius about his travels.

"So, uhm... How did you fight the ice mage?" she asked with expectant smile.

"I still don't really understand how I knew I was in danger, but I managed to create a shield out of rock and strengthen it with ice. After that I shielded one more strike and ran in the direction it came from."

"Did you find him?..." she said, while holding her breath. She barely could believe that her peer came so close to death. It was like listening to a story, but the main hero was in front of her.

"I did. I hoped that up close he wouldn't use that dangerous spell. He had a sword though. I drew a diagram on a tree that burned a hole through the middle. I used it to cut logs before," Sirius drew an outline of a diagram on the ground with a finger.

"I never saw such magic before... Does it work?"

"It needs to be made with metal to work, but I can recreate its effects..." Sirius created a net of pathways, that guided the mana from power input through a set of nodes. They divided the stream into an extremely cooled drip and a heated up main pathway, until reaching the end, where it was condensed into a thin loop, pointing sideways.

"What is that?..." asked Daughter of Whisper, as her eyes flashed with purple to see the spell.

"The same spell, different execution. To burn through the wood I take the coldness away from the mana stream and dump it outside," Sirius began showing the identical nodes on a rim of a diagram. After that he pointed at the centre, "Then, I compress it and shape into a loop. It takes time to build up the energy inside the loop, but it can work on environmental mana after being activated."

"Ugh, you make it sound needlessly hard. Do you always construct these shapes? How did you finish him, though? Did a tree fell on him?"

"That would be great," chuckled Sirius and waved away the construct, "But I tried to avoid killing people back then. I bound him in stone shackles and walked away."

"Back then?..."

"Yes. Back then."

"So you did... kill someone?" she shuffled away a bit.

"They attacked first, at night. One of them self-destructed in a mana-storm and turned into an aberration. I had to kill his Spirit to stop the mana storm. And after that, by the luck of my gut feeling, I survived the leylines connection..."

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Daughter of Whisper fell silent, thinking. After a minute she said, "And here I was, wanted to go on an adventure one day. If I cure my illness, that is."

"Your adventure might be much, MUCH more pleasant. You don't have the whole country looking for you." Sirius sighed. "I really hope they gave up on me. This place is nice, it would be a shame if assassins would come..."

"Do I understand correctly, that they took notice of you just because you solidified your Spirit on your own?"

"On my own is not the right way to say it. It... solidified itself. Maybe I dealt with magic too much, and it decided to do so, I don't know. They were keeping an eye on me just because I was 'The chosen One'!"

"Are you the chosen?"

"Duh, of course not. If so, then Deepest Lake is also chosen. Actually, I was heading her way to become her disciple."

"Everyone wants to... She is one of the most powerful World Shapers."

Suddenly, topics for a talk ran dry. They awkwardly sat in silence, each thinking of their own things, while mechanically weaving baskets.

----------------------------------------

Eyes of the Forest was inside her study room, mixing tinctures and distillates, when Sirius knocked on the door.

"Come in."

"Eyes, I want to ask you something." sheepishly said Sirius.

"If it is not a common knowledge, I am afraid I can't tell you anything."

"Funny you should say that. I came for common knowledge."

"Go on," she said, observing the mana swirling in a vial.

"How do you train different mana organs?"

She stopped, thought for a moment, and asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is, Daughter of Whisper was 'training' a week ago, when she came for a checkup, right?"

"Oh, yes. I told her to stop interacting with mana for some time, in case you were indeed right. So, what exactly do you want to know?"

"What does training accomplish?"

Eyes gave a satisfied nod, finally set the potion aside, and sat at the table. She sighed, gathering her thoughts and said, "Nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?"

"It... depends on a person. For most of us it does nothing, at most it improves control of mana. But for Spirit it just strains it needlessly, you are better off doing some work with magic."

"And for others?" Sirius pushed.

"It gives confidence," she shrugged.

Sirius stared blankly at Eyes for several seconds.

"Well, fine, I guess... Then can I know how do people with Thought Constellation... I mean, Spirit Mind cast their spells?"

Eyes of the forest contemplated his question, before answering, "Look, there are three Mana Organs of the first circle. Spirit Eyes, Spirit Mind and Mana Pool. You have all of them, but others can have at most two of each, with one being much weaker than the other. Usually, the first organ a shaper solidifies is the primary one and begins influencing your body."

"Material one?..." Sirius mused, before remembering something, "You mean, the bones?"

"Oh, so you know that. Yes, the bones. Spirit Eyes work with resistance, Spirit Mind - with conductance, and Mana Pool - with capacitance. Mana passing inside the body of a mage influences the bones and they take on the properties of mana crystals..." she suddenly fell quiet.

"So I didn't mistook," said Sirius and put a small piece of cloth on a table. He unfolded it and continued, "This is the crystal Daughter of Whisper coughed out. It is extremely good at storing mana, but when mana is pushed through it, the whole chunk vibrates and overall the flow is slow."

"Why did you get it?"

"I wanted to study crystals anyways. And here is another reason - her illness."

"Any suggestions?" Eyes asked, even if she deduced what Sirius came up with.

"Her training somehow makes those crystals grow."

"And?" she shrugged.

"What do you mean?..." Sirius was stumped, "Can it help with the cure?"

"No, it does not. I already knew the reason. It's just that cleaning her lungs is impossible. One seed crystal left and everything grows back," Eyes explained.

"Got it..." Sirius said quietly. "Since I was of no help, I will go then..."

"Sure," said Eyes and returned to mixing the potions.

Sirius came out of the hospital and went into the fields. Something deep inside him screamed, urged him to move. Things were not right...