Tom entered the isolation room, reminiscing on his decision to defy April and on his refusal to gain Heal Organ at the end of the last trial. Usually, something like that would have been a mistake, but in this instance, it had been the right choice. Attempting a perfect cast of the spell then would have been the height of foolishness. His experience over the last half a day had proven that. Whenever his mana regenerated, he had practiced the process of blending all fifteen input spells into a single, unified whole.

It did not go well.

The first attempt all the way to the fifteenth had failed absolutely, but since then he had made some progress. The current merge that he had created barely resembled the sleek lines of the wire frames that he was aiming to duplicate, but the spell form was not falling apart, and, when he squinted, he could see a resemblance to what he was trying to create.

It was impressive progress since the previous evening, when the result had been an unidentifiable mess that collapsed the instant he stopped exerting his will upon it. This spell form was almost certainly not what he was looking for, but it was stable and would heal his organs - or, at least, some of them.

The moment the isolation room indicated that he was locked inside, Tom spun around, as he always did now, and studied everything to confirm his safety. There was nothing visible, and when he focused on Danger Sense, it didn’t stir either. Having confirmed that there were no threats, he looked up at the secret cupboards with greedy eyes. Up there was the secret to mastering his latest spell. Even in something as apparently technical skill-based as manual spell casting, having the actions be meaningful and ensuring that they mattered made a difference. An hour here, where he had to use the magic to mend himself would be worth days, if not a week, of training in a sterilised environment.

Leaning on his months of practice, he built the makeshift ladder up. It was more a pile for him to climb than anything. Then he gathered the cocktail of fifteen different poisons that he intended to use.

With everything laid out in front of him and no reason to delay, he used ten fate with no purpose other than to keep him alive. It wouldn’t help him to gain expertise, or to make it easier, or to increase his chances of success. All he wanted for it to do was to keep him alive, because he understood how dangerous what he was attempting really was.

As far as he was concerned, it was a good investment.

Once more, he studied what he had collected. Most of the gathered liquids and powders targeted singular organs, but some were more general in their use. This was definitely going to be enough to make his spell casting meaningful. He just needed to make sure that what he was administering would not be lethal despite the healing crystal.

He had put this plan together over a couple of weeks of down moments in the isolation room. The dosage tables he had referenced had been clear on the deadly dosages, the time it would take for the healing crystal to purge them, and, of course, the known dangerous interactions. To the best of his research abilities, there shouldn’t be any surprises.

But he was still worried.

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He had excluded too many substances due to interplays with other poisons that took the paring to something that was individually borderline lethal to a combined pair that was you ended up super dead in ten seconds-kind of lethal. While he was confident that he had split out all of those problematic internal reactions, he didn’t know if there were any cases where interactions with three or four different substances compounded their individual effects like the known double combinations did.

With a sigh, he spent another ten fate with the purpose of it keeping him alive. This time, he made it clear that any clumsiness on his part would be viewed as an external intervention that had just saved his life.

He organised all the materials, taking care to separate out which ones from his notes required a full dose, and which other ones were only going to be quarter ones. The split was fifty-fifty, and he shifted them into two lines to make their status clear. The combined impact was enough to kill him ten times over, but, with the help of his fate investment and the healing crystal, he expected to survive.

Tom got to work.

Each dose was painstakingly measured and consumed on the spot. He made two mistakes, namely fumbling a liquid and accidentally spilling a fine blue powder. In both cases, he didn’t reset, abandoning the liquid altogether and taking the reduced amount of powder. It was probably just because of his clumsy fingers, but, given the nature of his spent fate, he wasn’t about to take foolish chances.

Danger Sense was no help, either. It was a dull, angry roar in his mind, and had been at the same level since he stacked the poisons in front of him. Tom accepted the consequences of what he was drugging himself into. This was the price of the ambitious timetable he had set.

By the time he consumed the last of them, his stomach was already cramping.

He didn’t wait an instant longer.

He constructed the combined spell. It was an ugly mockery of what he was aiming for.

But it existed, and he desperately infused it with mana to patch himself up.

He lay next to the healing crystal, letting its power push into him to heal the consequences of what he had consumed. Every minute, he reformed the spell and used the five points of regenerated mana on the cascading failure of organs. There was nothing in the cocktail that affected the brain, so he was aware of everything that was happening to him – of the vomit, the blood, and his bowels misfunctioning. It was beyond miserable, but, despite that, he never felt like his life was truly in danger. As the healing crystal mended him back together, the spell forms he was making looked more and more crisp. It was still going to be days until he could even contemplate a perfect cast, but the improvement was noticeable.

A little over an hour later, he sighed and stood up shakily. His hand remained on the crystal as the latter fixed the last of the issues plaguing him. With a shuddering breath through his mouth, he stared down at the mess that covered the floor. Cleaning spells, even as powerful as the one that automatically triggered, were not fixing that problem up.

With unsteady steps, he stumbled to the sink, took a sip of water, and spat it out. His mouth tasted awful. But, after rinsing it out three more times, he felt invigorated enough to get to work. He spent twenty minutes scooping the stuff off the floor and disposing of it down the toilet. Afterward, the room was left in a state that Tom was confident the cleaning spell could deal with.

He sighed.

It had been a painful process, but one during which he had seen real progress. Tomorrow, Tom knew, he was going to be repeating the effort, and he would probably do the same every day after until the trial.

When he left the isolation room, it was to find a morose-looking Briana.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked immediately.

She scowled. “Nothing.”

“You didn’t get the magic breakthrough, did you?” Kang guessed.

Briana refused to make eye contact with either of them.

Kang frowned sympathetically. “Maybe we can help.” He gestured toward an isolation room.

She brightened slightly, and they went in and locked the door. Tom unobtrusively carried out his normal check. Nothing was lurking anywhere.