Keynes had told them about the bond egg in the rift and his plans to move the egg to the shuttlecraft. The news was met with an awkward silence. Oh, boy, I messed up, didn’t I?

Even Alice didn’t comment on his internal thoughts.

Despite his earlier words, this wasn’t what he had in mind. He didn’t want his crew to be afraid of speaking up. He had to do something before this escalated further.

He asked Natalia, Willow, Persephone and Ul inside the mountain rift to find a solution other than Trisk creating a tunnel from the rift to the shuttlecraft. Keynes wasn’t that stupid to know that building such a structure would require a lot of mana.

Upon entering the rift, Persephone was the first to dismiss the spacesuit, with Keynes and Natalia following the suit. Willow hesitated for a while longer but did dismiss the spacesuit in the end. Ul decided to keep it on. The rift’s environment wouldn’t kill him but the frigid temperature would make his stay here very unpleasant. Keynes remembered his time from Scottish Cluster’s cold rift and how he was mastering his attributes back then.

“Finally, fresh air,” Persephone said with relief, then without a warning, she took to the air.

Keynes knew it was provocation or a statement from her but he actually didn’t mind. He waved Willow and Ul to go explore as well. That left him and Natalia alone.

“I don’t know what happened back there,” he whispered, looking at the sky. Admitting this cost him something, but at the same time…

“You are being melodramatic,” Natalia said with a smirk.

Keynes sharply glanced at her, his mouth working soundlessly. What was going on? Ten minutes ago she was kneeling before him and now she was cheeky with him? He was looking for words when he sensed another person enter the rift.

Kora?

Keynes was very confused.

Kora dismissed her spacesuit and joined them. She looked so different from her sister, in appearance and character. And there was a flash of understanding in Kora’s eyes…

Wait a second, I’ve totally forgotten they still have [Mental Link] spells. They can speak telepathically. Sneaky.

“Keynes,” Kora said. “How are you?”

Odd…

“What’s going on?”

Their attempt at looking innocent failed spectacularly and lucky for his sanity, they dropped the act very quickly.

“You’re not fun,” Kora mumbled.

“Me?” Keynes asked incredulously. “No fun?”

“Let’s stop before his head blows up,” Natalia added.

“My… what?”

“We’re just messing with you.” Kora snorted, seeing him lost.

Yeah, he noticed that much, but…

“Why?”

“Because we are worried about you,” Natalia replied, playfulness gone from her voice but her eyes had a warm spark in them.

“You were kneeling before me. I should be worried about you, not the other way around.”

Kora gave Natalia an unimpressed look.

“Seriously?”

“That aura of his felt like a Level 10 compulsion.” Natalia shrugged.

“How do you know what a Level 10 compulsion feels like?” Kora inquired with narrowed eyes.

Natalia’s brows climbed up as she stared back at her sister. Keynes suspected a telepathic exchange between the sisters but he couldn’t sense anything. His spiritual sense wasn’t sharp enough to notice the activation of skills. Alice remained silent.

“Ladies,” Keynes grunted, trying to join their game. “If this is all you wanted to discuss, I’d need to ask you to return to your duties.”

He wasn’t serious and showed that by keeping his voice unnaturally rigid and formal.

“Oh, you’re trying to get rid of us already?” Natalia asked with a fake shock.

“No, I…” Keynes muttered awkwardly. For some reason he lost his ability to banter. Weird turn of events as he had bantered nearly all the time. He knew that this was a consequence of the emotional affliction’s purification.

“Keynes, we’re here for you,” Kora said, ending their fun.

“We are,” Natalia agreed.

“How bad did I mess up?”

“You didn’t mess up,” Kora assured him. “But your words came as a shock to most.”To most? He was shocked himself.

“Still…”

“No.” Natalia raised her hand. “It was overdue. If we wish to survive this, we need a strong leader. An inspiration.”

Keynes watched the sisters for signs of foul play but they seemed honest with him. He allowed himself to relax and sat down on a small flat outcropping. He was quite good in dealing with his emotions but it was more than that. The way he behaved stemmed from his inner conviction that he was born to lead.

“By the way, it’s a nice place,” Kora said, breaking the heavy silence that followed Natalia’s words.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Keynes nodded.

“But it’s freezing here. I can feel the cold seeping through my clothes,” Natalia complained, a little out of character. “Anyway, we need to figure out what to do about the egg.”

“Indeed. Trisk is already out of mana and shaping runes directly in the stone might push him beyond his capacity.”

Natalia glanced at the egg near the rift’s exit and Keynes felt Alice stir in his spiritual core.

“Is this egg that important?”

“Yeah,” Keynes replied. “Pretty much.”

That ended any suggestion to leave the egg behind. The trio fell into theorycrafting but there wasn’t much beyond staying inside the rift until Trisk’s mana was full again or getting mana required for Keynes’s spacesuit to protect the egg.

Both Kora and Natalia favoured the latter option. It wasn’t without its consequences but they weren’t as serious as waiting for the shuttlecraft’s return.

They were about to leave the rift to convey the message when they picked up Persephone’s approach. She came from the sky, slowly, not hiding herself from their senses. It seemed she didn’t want to get on Keynes’s bad side.

“We need Trisk here,” she said, staying ten metres above the ground.

“Why?” Natalia asked, her dislike obvious in her voice.

Persephone rolled her eyes but replied.

“I found an important ore but I need Trisk to confirm it is what I think it is.”

***

Thirty minutes later Trisk joined them at the peak where Peresphone had discovered a cave. The cave was small, only two metres in diameter and ten metres deep. What shocked them was that the cave had signs of past usage.

That seemed impossible but not only was there a cold fire pit, shreds of fabric and even a metal hoop, a few centimetres in diameter. While Natalia and Willow went to the end of the cave to search for further clues, the rest remained next to the ore vein.

Trisk almost tripped when he saw it.

“This is a game-changer!” he said through the comms as he still wore the spacesuits to shield himself from the biting cold. “This is blue iron. This is the best metal to store mana.”

“You sure?” Persephone asked and Keynes found himself wondering the same thing. This felt too good to be true. He would rather remain realistic in his expectations.

“Hundred percent,” Trisk replied. “I worked for Bluespace when a crafting guild discovered it.”

“Why am I under the impression there is big bad news awaiting us?” Persephone asked.

Trisk shook his head.

“There is… well, some but nothing dire. It just took us several months and a lot of experimentation to discover the correct method to refine it.“

“And you know the method?” Keynes asked, his voice nearly cracked. This seemed like a very important discovery.

“Of course. I was the one who discovered it.” Trisk said as his hand, with reverence, traced the ore vein. “This has ten times the capacity of any other material capable of storing mana.”

You can feed blue iron ore directly to the spaceship to upgrade it, however, unrefined ore comes with increased cost in essence.

Keynes blinked, forgetting that even not wearing his spacesuit, it remained functional.

He had been aware that the spaceship could, and would have to, be upgraded but this issue was in the future as they struggled with the most fundamental problems right now.

Nonetheless, if they had the option to store mana. That would give them leeway in managing the shuttlecraft’s trips to the surface.

“Do we have tools to refine it?” Persephone asked while Keynes was distracted.

“That’s the bad part of the… news.”

Persephone scoffed and was about to charge out of the cave when Keynes stopped her.

“We have an option to feed the ore directly to the spaceship to build its mana storing capacity.”

“Really?” Persephone looked at Keynes sharply, a dangerous glimmer of hope in her eyes. “Since when is this an option? The whole feeding part I mean.”

It was time for Keynes to be confused. He was sure the spaceship AI told the rest of the crew about its capabilities.

“I thought you knew.”He had told Natalia, Kora and Jedd about it and he, sort of, assumed that others would learn of this too.

Persephone’s aristocratic features contorted as she narrowed her eyes. He sensed fury in her aura but didn’t expect her to actually attack him.

“What else have you kept from us, Keynes Kid?”

“I’m not lying,” he said, trying to sound off-handedly. This could spiral out of control very quickly with Kora and Natalia here. Both of them were Level 5s while Peresphone was Level 6 and in the Superior stage. A stage higher than Kora and two stages higher than Natalia. It didn’t really matter as Keynes and Kora had several powerful spells and quite a lot of experience fighting together. Persephone wouldn’t last longer than 5 seconds against them. Regardless, he wanted to avoid a fight. “I thought—”

Most information about the spaceship is not available to the crew. Safety protocol is in place until a proper chain of command is selected.

“Nevermind,” Keynes muttered. “I was just told that most information is not available to the crew until we have a proper chain of command in place.”

I guess, serious conversation with the spaceship’s AI is in order.

Persephone eyed him, her emotions vanished, a clear sign that she wanted her thoughts hidden from Keynes.

“Fine,” she said eventually, breaking heavy silence. “I won’t hold this against you this time.”

“Look at this,”Willow said, holding a rusted iron climbing axe. “This—”

“Later,” Persephone interrupted him. “We have more important things to discuss. So how much can we upgrade the ship with this ore?”

***

Jedd had to ask Keynes’s mother to use her Talent on him to soothe his nerves. After Keynes had cut Rell off, the other man stayed in Jedd’s office raving about Keynes’s incompetence. Rell’s words bordered on an open rebellion. They didn’t have an official chain of command yet and the whole thing started to unravel.

“Hi,” Nina said. “You asked for my Talent’s soothing, yes?”

Jedd nodded, massaging the temples of his head with his fingers. How did Rell become such a raving lunatic? It—

A powerful sensation of calmness and serenity descended on Jedd, making him whimper so profound the effect was.

“It’s okay. I’m not here to judge you.”

Nina’s words were distant. Jedd smiled, his worries vanishing…

A screen blinked again and centred on Kora leaving the third rift.

“What’s going on?” He asked calmly.

“Persephone found something and we need Trisk to take a look at it. I will get back to you once we know more.”

Which happened almost two hours later. Jedd was alone, Nina had left him over an hour ago in a weird, blissful state. The Talent’s effect was still lingering, keeping him relaxed and calm.

“We have news,” Natalia was the one who emerged from the rift. “We have to change our plans. Drastically.”

“How drastically?” Jedd asked, not a hint of stress as of yet.

Natalia shrugged.

“We have to pause the mission for today,” she said then quickly added. “Don’t panic. There is actually a great reason to do so. Do you remember when Keynes told us about the possibility of upgrading the spaceship?”

“I do.” They had briefly discussed the options but quickly came to agreement that upgrading the spaceship was out of their reach without a self-sustaining surface base. What had changed that Natalia brought it up now?

“We found blue iron, which can be directly used to create mana storage on the spaceship.”

“Shit,” Jedd swore, considering the news. “Call in Rell, immediately.”

This was a game changer.