The trip back was a subdued one. They made camp in the early hours of the morning. While the three gods were fully capable of continuing due to their increased stats, the followers were not so capable. They got going just as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon, and made it back to the guild by noon. There had been little talking, and amid his self recriminations, Will wondered if Emerys and Amalise would want to continue with him or not. He was very quickly getting used to the company.

When they entered the guild hall, the oppressive atmosphere came with them. It suppressed the happy murmurings that usually filled the guild hall. Oddly enough, the fresh scent of mana filled the air as well, quickly overriding the smell of food that had dominated the room previously. This brought will out of his trance enough to look at his spirit map. Cracks ran through the springtime star. The mana that usually emanated from it gently now flowed from the cracks in small rivers. Will tried to shut off the flow of mana, but the soreness he hadn’t recognized before turned into a searing agony that he had to fight to keep from reaching his face.

Likewise drawing more mana hurt as well. It meant that for the time being at least, Will had no more infinite mana.

“Damn guys, whatever you are doing is increasing my mana regeneration, thanks!” some guy in the crowd said. The oppressive pall seemed to break at that, and everyone went back to whatever they were doing. Emerys and Amalise looked at Will with curiosity, but didn’t ask any questions about it. Instead they went to the front desk and told the receptionist that they needed to have a meeting with the guild master immediately. She rushed off and within a minute they were ushered into the Guild Master’s office. Lord Atherton sat behind the desk, hands folded politely as he gestured for them to sit down.

“My, Will, you seem to be venting a lot of mana.” Lord Atherton said. “Have you been injured? Spirit damage can be hard to heal.” Will flinched, but when he didn’t answer Lord Atherton turned to Emerys.

“If that is not the reason you have come, then would you care to explain?”

“First, we found these while on our job.” Emerys placed the guild cards for the adventurers that had been killed. “We found them held in a treasury next to a group of cells where each of the adventurers had been held after being turned into monsters.” Lord Atherton tapped the table while he looked at the pile of cards.

“Did you put them down?”

“Yes sir.”

“And did you hunt the man responsible?”

“He was dead before we even found them sir.”

“Very well. I will verify the events and then pay out the bounties with a bonus for setting them to rest and avenging them.” Lord Atherton sighed. “If this is how you start, I do not want to see what else you have to say.” Emerys just handed his guild card to Lord Atherton, who took it and held it to his forehead.

“I see.” Lord Atherton said. “First, I can see that it was a clear case of self defense, and the fact that nobody died from the attack is in your favor. You are not legally culpable, but I would suggest you leave the country for a while.”

“We were expecting that.” Emerys said while he and Amalise nodded.

“Then will you give me a few minutes alone with Will?” Emerys and Amalise immediately got up and filed out of the office. Lord Atherton stared at Will for a few minutes in consideration while Will hung his head unwilling to meet his eyes.

“It occurs to me that I was not entirely forthright with you when we first met. So to reintroduce myself, I am Lord Cornelius Atherton of the Brythorne Isles, Headmaster of the Triway Adventurers Guild. I am here because I just got rid of the last guild master for gross incompetence. Losing so many adventurers was not his only sin.” Lord Atherton sat back in his chair. “I have to say, I am glad I was here and not him. I suspected something like this might happen, but you blew even my wildest expectations out of the water.”

“You suspected this?” Will asked. “Why didn’t you stop me then?”

“I admit, I underestimated you by quite a margin. With the mana potential you showed, I thought that the damage would be far smaller than it actually was. The guild puts out small fires all the time, and it would have been a good learning experience for a promising adventurer.”

“A learning experience indeed.”

“Indeed, Master Will.” Lord Atherton said. “Though this may have a fairly good outcome in the end. You are still promising, and I hope to see you travel to Brythorne to complete the trial of the gods. But we still do need to address what actually happened.”

“Very well.” Will said. His voice was quiet as he braced for the lecture he was sure to come.

“First, I have to say that I am glad that you didn’t strike with that ability. The amount of power that had built up in your sword was surprising to say the least. That sort of power should only be available to a tier three god and higher. It is quite remarkable for a tier one like you to be able to put out that much power. But I am straying from our topic of conversation. Have you ever seen a strike from a high order concept like yours?”

“I can’t say I understand what you mean by high order concept. If you mean my concept is powerful, I already know that. Either way, I have never seen an attack using one.” Will said. He didn’t know what Lord Atherton was getting at, but he was not liking where this was going.

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“I will explain the high order part in a minute, but an attack like the one from your sword of desolation powered to that extreme would have turned everything in a thirty degree cone to dust for about half a mile.” Will’s eyes widened in horror. That would have eliminated Lord Aalto entirely. He wasn’t so concerned about that, but it would also have gotten a large chunk of the villagers as well as whatever was behind the castle.

“I didn’t… I wouldn’t…” Will said, stricken.

“I know. And you showed remarkable potential again by dispersing that power before it could be unleashed. It gives me hope that you can come to control your powers properly. However, the aura that your Blade of Desolation puts off is destructive on its own. I doubt that most of those people will fully recover from what you did to them. We struggle enough with our own demons. To experience another’s so fully while all barriers are smashed away and the experience enhanced, it is a torture like few I have seen. I do not intend to punish you for this. I simply want to know that you understand what happened so that it will not happen again.”

“There were children in that crowd.” Will said. “I did all that to children.”

“If it helps, their youth was likely their saving grace. Children lack the context or ability to truly experience what you tried to show them. You scared them for sure, but they are resilient. We will send help to them and their families anyway, so put that out of your mind.” Lord Atherton pulled something out of his desk and offered it to Will. Will took and examined it. It was a small runed bracelet with a clasp on one side. “This is a restrictive bracelet. It will severely limit the power output of your concepts. You will be able to put it on and take it off at will, but it will record every removal, and you will have to give a reason as to why you took it off. This is a condition of your continued membership in the guild you understand. You will wear this until I or another guild master allows you to remove it. You will be allowed to remove it while supervised by a concept trainer, and while under extreme danger. Do you understand these conditions?”

“Yes sir, they are quite generous.” Will said, and he immediately snapped the bracelet around his wrist.

“Now for a small lesson. I am afraid that you will find very quickly that concepts are the basis of all magic. You have a very unique type of enhancement skill. That will no longer be so powerful while you wear the bracelet. It is unfortunate, but it is a price you will have to bear until you have better control. Now, to explain what I said about high order concepts before. All concepts originate with only two concepts. Order and chaos. The Void, and the Fray. It is when the two come together that the infinite concepts are made. A concept high in order is very powerful, and has the potential to return everything around it to a state of void, a state with no energy where matter itself decays into nothingness. Conversely a concept high in chaos has the opportunity to manifest the fray, where nearly infinite power is at their fingertips.

“You might think that having both a high order concept and a high chaos concept is good. You are right, but only if they can be controlled. Most people have a hard time just managing two concepts of opposite providence when they are only slightly aligned to order or chaos. But those that do find that the two can be combined for quite the variety of effects. If you reach that level of mastery with the concepts that you possess, you will have nearly limitless adaptability. But for now, combining those concepts is well beyond you. I saw the pain trying to use your second concept caused, and that will be what happens if you try it again anytime in the next year at the bare minimum.

“For the time being, you will work on your conceptual control skill, or your concept manipulation skill, whichever you have.” at that point, he stood up and went to the door. He stuck his head out and spoke with the receptionist and then Emerys and Amalise. He closed the door and Will saw that he was carrying a pile of curseforged cores. “Please place your cores on the table.”

Will did so and watched as Lord Atherton inspected each one with a magical lens. Lord Atherton quickly sorted them into two piles, one far larger than the other. He then inspected the ones in the smaller pile more closely. He hemmed and hawed over each one until he had selected three which he handed to Will.

“Please absorb those directly.” Will looked at Lord Atherton in confusion. Wasn’t absorbing unknown cores part of what got him in this mess in the first place? Lord Atherton smiled. “These three cores each hold a concept. It is not always possible to gain a concept from a core, even if the core holds a concept to begin with. Most people don’t possess the conceptual aptitude to absorb it intact. However, it is quite evident you possess high conceptual aptitude, and so I hope you can gain these. The first is a physical wind based concept. Wind is far more balanced than fire, though it tends toward chaos as well. Earth is likewise more balanced, but tends towards order. You will find the second holds a physical earth based concept. Those two together will not only unlock some physical prowess you will sorely need in the near future, but will be good to train with as a lesser version of your current concepts.”

“What about this one?” Will asked, holding up the third core. It felt different than the other two, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.

“That one is a soul concept. I cannot tell its types or subtypes. All I know is that it is fairly powerful. I will admit that I do not expect you to be able to absorb that concept. Information on absorbing soul concepts is spotty at best. Some people say it is difficult, and others impossible. All I know is that you likely have the best chance of anyone at accomplishing it.

Will nodded and absorbed the first core. He gained the concept The Feathered Winds. The image he got from it was of flying high above the ground. Maybe he would be able to fly one day. Upon absorbing the second core, he gained the concept The Unbroken Stone. He could feel the concepts wanting to clash, but they were sluggish and weak compared to his other concepts. They both seemed far more manageable.

As he sensed his new concepts, he felt that he could sense them in a new way. He could feel the concepts in his body. Before they had all been oddly disconnected from him, seeing as he had to look at his soul map to see them. Now he had an intimate sense of each concept. He felt throughout his body, and could feel his two mental concepts striving to change how he thought. He also felt his two new body concepts. The stone concept was located near his navel, and the wind concept was located near his lungs. The more interesting thing however was that the concepts and every node felt different in his body then in his spirit map. Instead of points on a line, they felt like openings into something far more vast. Gates. They were gates, each one leading to the corresponding star on his spirit map. Each one seemed to leak energy into his body, but he didn’t feel weird, so he left it alone for now.

He looked to the last core and with a bit of hesitation, he absorbed it. He felt the concept settle near his heart. But he looked at the system notification and was stumped for a moment.

“Unknown soul concept.” Will stated. Obviously that was too easy. He could feel that the gate near his heart was stubbornly closed where the others were wide open. He also couldn’t sense his concepts in a new way.

“Well, that is somewhat disappointing.” Lord Atherton said. “But I am sure you will uncover the secrets of your soul concept in time. Maybe it is for the best that it is unavailable at the moment.” Lord Atherton stood up. “Please remember to check in at least once a week so we can examine your bracelet and give a lesson. If you are on a mission that will take too long for that, please do your best to give us advance warning.”

He then shooed Will out of his office.