Darren looked at his plate, then up at Edeya, and made clicking sounds deep in his throat. She narrowed her eyes. “I forgot, Darren—is that one a happy sound or an annoyed one?”

“Happy! It’s like a smile. I love chicken!”

“It’s a chottle hen, according to the woman at the market.” Edeya smiled, then returned to her spot beside Lam on the other side of the fire. Lam mock saluted with a drumstick from her own little roasted bird, then took a large bite. It had been Edeya’s turn to cook, which Darren thought was lucky for her; they weren’t yet in the dungeon but camped a short way outside, eager to enter as early as possible on the next day—the soonest their entry slot allowed.

Trin cleared her throat. “It doesn’t bother you that it’s a, uh, bird?”

Darren clicked—a sound distinct from his earlier one with a longer windup and a more resonant final thump followed by a sort of hum. “I’m a Thunderbird, Trin! A raptor! Haven’t you ever seen a hawk take a quail?”

“I see. No, that makes sense. I’ve certainly seen hunters using hawks to kill game birds.” While she spoke, Darren pulled the meat from the bones with his fingers and deposited huge hunks of flesh into his beak, swallowing the mouthfuls whole. He closed his eyes in pleasure, and a deep, thrumming hum sounded from his broad chest.

Licking some grease from her fingers, Lam commented, “I thought birds didn’t really taste their food.”

Darren opened his eyes and clicked happily. “First of all, I’m not exactly a bird. I’m an avian species now, or, well, on my way to being one. According to Brimi, we’re different than birds in quite a few ways. Anyway, eating is . . . different. I feel a wave of pleasure with each bite. It’s not exactly a taste so much as a . . . I don’t know how to describe—Wait! I do. It’s very similar to an early buzz from alcohol! I get this warm feeling that spreads through me and makes me a little giddy. Different foods give it a different feel, too.”

“Not veggies, though?” Edeya asked because Darren had explicitly asked her to leave her stewed carrots off his plate.

“Nah, I get nothing from ‘em. Mostly meats.”

Edeya nodded, “It’s so strange how much deeper your voice is, Dare.”

“Eh, it’s still me, though, Dey-dey.” Darren put an entire drumstick in his beak and crunched it to pieces before swallowing it down. His beak was incredibly durable, and he’d found that if he guided food with his fingers, he could efficiently masticate hunks of bone that would’ve given a rottweiler a challenge.

“I know.” Edeya smiled and took another dainty bite. Darren leaned back and watched the three women eat for a moment, giving them a chance to catch up. He’d been dismayed, at first, by his new physiology, but after a few days at the lake house, experimenting with food and practicing his speech, he’d begun to warm up to the new features. Not every change had been alarming; some had been immediately positive. His newfound height, his sturdier body, and his fantastic vision had done a lot to make up for the utterly foreign face he saw in the mirror. Putting those things aside, he was also excited by the prospect of growing powerful wings and learning more about his bloodline.

After a while, he grew tired of waiting and tossed the remainder of his bird into his beak, swallowing it whole, bones and all. It was a mouthful, and he felt it going down, but something had changed in his neck; he never felt like he’d choke anymore, and the sensation was pleasurable, like having an itch scratched, but on the inside. He stifled a burp, then pulled out his Sojourn guidebook, a crystalline tablet enchanted with all sorts of interesting information. He was particularly interested in the section about the dungeon they would be entering the next day.

When he found the correct page, he read the section he was interested in aloud for the benefit of his groupmates, “Ahem, ‘The Fungal Fortress is known for its daunting challenges for tier-two iron rankers, but even more so for its healthy list of rare growth treasures. While these treasures are rare, and only one in every dozen dungeon runs results in a single drop, their value makes up for the infrequency. If your party is able to claim a slot, it’s certainly an investment in time that has the potential for excellent payoffs. See the table below for a list of the known growth item drops.’”

He looked up. “Want me to read the table?”

“You already showed us yesterday, Dare.” Edeya walked over and took his plate. “You’re cooking breakfast, right?”

He nodded. “Easy.” He wasn’t hurt that no one wanted to hear the list again. He’d poured over the tablet for days, trying to find the dungeon with the best chance of providing another racial advancement item. Everyone knew why; Darren was desperate to get his wings and push past his awkward, in-between status of half-human, half-avian. The Fungal Fortress had the best chances, and though Trin was the only member of their party who’d reached tier two, they were all close.

Lam handed her plate to Edeya, then nodded to Trin. “I’m just glad Trin’s brother got us on the entrant list. The usual wait time is nearly two months.”

“My father might be an evil sociopath, but some of my kin are redeemable.” Trin produced a fancy wine bottle with a gold-embossed label. “Shall we?” Everyone scrambled to agree, furnishing their own glasses. Darren summoned a glass, but when Trin got around to him, she took it, filled it up, and then handed him the bottle, still nearly half-full. “I’ll take your glass, Darren. You’ll find it easier to pour the bottle into your beak.”

“Oh.” Darren took the bottle, then cocked his head to the side, his throat clicking the way it always did when he felt like smiling. “That’s considerate of you, Trin.”

“I’ve had many avian friends, Dare.” She poked him in the chest. “Cheers.” She held out her glass, and Darren knocked his bottle against it. Lam and Edeya hurried over to clink their glasses against his bottle.

“Cheers!” everyone echoed, and then Darren poured a good portion of wine into his gullet, laughing as he swallowed it down, and a warm buzz began to tingle in his chest and face.

#

Victor stood and stretched. He’d just spent his eleventh night sleeping on the floor of his cultivation chamber. Most of his time during those eleven days had been spent doing exactly what the chamber implied—cultivating. However, even though it wasn’t exactly a physically taxing activity, he periodically found himself feeling exhausted to the point where he’d lie down, close his eyes, and immediately drift away. He didn’t resist those urges to sleep; something in him was worn out from the cultivation, and he always felt better, more hopeful, and less frustrated when he awoke.

“Frustration,” Victor muttered, retrieving some bread, sausages, and honey from his storage ring. The word went a long way toward describing how he’d felt during the last ten days. He knew he was doing the cultivation technique that Dar had taught him correctly. He could pull large currents of attuned Energy into his Core, watch it absorb and become part of his Core, but, for whatever reason, he couldn’t see what he was doing that wasn’t . . . optimal, he supposed, was the right way to describe it. According to Dar, the technique was capable of “epic” tier cultivation, but it had to be done perfectly.

Part of Victor’s frustration was with the master’s hands-off teaching style. He knew Victor wasn’t doing something quite right, but he wouldn’t show him what it was. Of course, Victor was no ancient master with thousands of years of experience, so he couldn’t really argue about the man’s teaching methods. Maybe he knew what he was talking about. Maybe, when Victor finally figured it out, he’d learn as much from the discovery as he would from the proper technique. He chuckled and stood, intent on doing some stretches and calisthenics to warm himself up for the day’s work.

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As was his routine, he first summoned a Globe of Insight, filling the chamber with clarifying, white-gold light. Then, he cast Inspiration of the Quinametzin—probably the most significant factor in his maintained sanity. As the spell filled his body and mind with optimistic, steady inspiration, the dreary despondency he’d begun to dwell upon fled before its clarifying light. He nodded confidently and started to go through his routine of stretches and body-weight exercises—everything from planks to pushups to air squats. It wasn’t something he had to do; his Quinametzin constitution and enormous vitality would keep him fit for tremendous periods of inactivity, but it still felt good, and, with his blood flowing more vigorously, he felt more confident in success.

After a while, he sat down at the center of his chamber, his four cultivation objects arrayed around him—he’d left his magma-attuned cultivation treasure in his storage ring. He wasn’t sure how, but he felt like he knew the added step of cultivating his breath Core while he worked on his spirit Core would only muddy the waters. “One drill at a time,” he chuckled, as though confirming to himself that he’d made the right decision. He spread his arms, closed his eyes, and, with his fingers outstretched and loose, wriggled them, willing his inner eye to feel the way the thick currents of Energy in the chamber danced along his fingertips.

After a few minutes of breathing, watching the Energy tendrils around him course through the air on their currents, rebuffed by the enchanted stone lining of his chamber as they tried to drift away, he slowly began his drill. He pushed a weave of his Core’s four different Energy types out through his pathways, sending it out through the chamber, circulating, coiling, and weaving its way around as he pulled more and more of the ambient Energy into it. The coil thickened, and the weave tried to pull apart, but he held it tight with his will, guiding it along a perfect path back into his pathways and his Core.

As the Energy flowed into the construct at the center of his Core space, Victor watched the weave pull apart as each constituent Energy type found its home: bright, cheerful inspiration sank into the orb at the heart. Brilliant, enthusiastic glory wrapped into the golden band closest to the center. Baleful, bloodthirsty rage found its home in the equally furious deep red ring. And, finally, the glowering, doom-filled, purple-black tendril of fear-attuned Energy found its home in the dark ring that encircled them all.

As the Energies found their homes, his Core brightened, and the rings moved more quickly. Victor watched them, intent on finding the key to his cultivation technique that he’d missed so many times—hundreds or thousands—since Dar had taught it to him. Once again, he failed to see what he’d missed. The Energy settled in, his Core resumed its usual pace, and Victor, fighting the usual frustration, began the process anew.

Twelve hours later, after nearly thirty more cultivation cycles, Victor didn’t feel any closer to solving his problem. One thing he was near, though, was ranking up his Core. He could tell it was close because its usual, slow, deliberate pulse had quickened, and he could feel the palpable thump of pressure as it throbbed. He paused to watch it, wondering if the next cycle would push it over. It would be his first new rank in the “epic” tier of his Core’s development.

The pulse was almost hypnotic, and, perhaps because of its increased intensity, Victor noticed it wasn’t a single beat but that it had a transient quality. The pulse began at the heart, in the center of his inspiration-attuned Energy sphere, but it traveled out through the rings of other Energies. With the more rapid, frenetic quality it had taken on as his drills had made the Core heavy and swollen with Energy, one pulse began before the previous propagated the whole. This constant stream of beats made it clear that what Victor had taken for a simple flash was actually a sort of shift in the position of the Core; it moved ever so slightly as the thump of Energy went through the rings, especially when it hit the heavy, dense, fear-attuned one.

Victor focused his entire attention on the process, watching as the next pulse flashed at the center of his Core, then moved up through the rings, first inspiration, then rage, then fear. With the pulse, it almost seemed that the rings of rage, fear, and glory around his inspiration sphere had taken on a sort of orbiting quality. Glory and rage were separated by something like twenty degrees and rotated near the horizontal axis of the inspiration globe, while fear stood alone, rotating nearly diagonally, twenty or so degrees from the vertical axis.

When the pulse moved through the thinner, closer bands of glory and rage, the entire Core shifted toward them slightly. When it passed through fear, however, the Core noticeably surged toward that ring. For the first time, Victor wondered if the problem with his drill had nothing to do with his gathering of Energy but rather how it flowed into his Core. Was it out of balance? Could he move those rings?

With an effort of will, Victor grasped ahold of his fear-attuned ring of Energy and pulled it toward the vertical axis of his Core. It resisted, heavy with Energy as it was, but Victor was resolute, and his will was like an implacable force of nature as he bore down. Eventually, the ring shifted to where he wanted it, circling his Core at the dead center, straight up and down from his point of view.

Now, as it pulsed, the Core shifted massively, jerking up and then down, snapping back into place as the pulse ended, but immediately bouncing again as the next pulse fired. It was dizzying to watch, and Victor felt unwell deep in his being. Fearing he’d done something stupid, something that would prove his undoing if he didn’t figure it out quickly, he grasped ahold of his rage-attuned ring and pulled it toward the horizontal axis. As he did so, he immediately felt some relief; it was balancing his fear-attuned ring, if not perfectly, then much better than it had been.

Victor shifted his attention to his glory-attuned ring. If he was right, all he needed to do to balance the “gravity” of his Core was to find the perfect position between his rage and fear-attuned rings for this third one. Sure enough, as he pulled it toward the center of the diagonal axis between rage and fear, he felt the shudder of his Core reduce more and more. Now, the pulses flashed through his Core, and the strange thump was nearly gone. With careful precision, Victor tugged on the glory-attuned ring, balancing his fear by moving it just a tiny bit closer to his rage-attuned ring.

As he found the perfect balance, Victor wasn’t rewarded with any System message or sudden tangible award, but he knew it was right. He could feel the balance, and, moreover, he could see the flashes of his Core’s pulsing, throbbing beat flow through his Core without even the slightest wobble. He likened it to tuning an engine—the idle was smooth and steady. Smiling, pleased at the balanced aspect of his Core, he began another cultivation cycle.

Nothing seemed all that different as he went through the motions, but when he brought the streams of thick, woven Energies into his Core, they separated and flowed into his Core much more evenly. Before, he’d often have strands of rage and glory left over before his fear-attuned Energy was fully absorbed, but this time, they all entered his Core evenly. More than that, as the streams of Energy flooded their respective rings, they began to spin rapidly, rotating around his Core and creating a sort of draft.

Victor immediately recognized what was happening and seized the opportunity, cycling through another cultivation round, pulling more Energy into his Core space that was instantly snatched up by the pull of his Core’s new-found rotational gravity. As that new stream of Energy began to absorb, Victor began a third round of cultivation and had it ready, already entering his pathways as the previous was pulled in. His mouth spread in a triumphant grin as his cultivation cycle took on a life of its own. All he had to do was weave the Energies; the current his Core was created in the chamber was enough to pull them into his pathways.

Victor lost himself in the giddiness of his success. He’d emptied the ambient Energy from his chamber and pulled streams of attuned Energy directly from his cultivation treasures. He wove them as fast as they could provide the Energy, and his Core pulled them in. Soon, though, the pressure in his Core space became almost agonizing as the pulses intensified into a steady stream, one after the other. They bled into each other, and soon, the density and brightness of his Core made it hard for him to observe it with his inner eye. Just as he contemplated stopping and taking a break, it broke through.

With a tremendous spike of Energy that surged through his body, his Core seemed to crunch down on itself, and the backwash was so intense that his cultivation chain broke. Victor fell flat on his back, panting and staring at the ceiling as System messages flashed across his vision. Ignoring them for the moment, he turned to his inner eye and observed his Core. It pulsed almost lazily now, a steady, heavy wave of Energy propagating through the somehow heavier, denser rings. Even without reading the messages awaiting him, he knew it had ranked up.

“All right,” he grunted, turning his attention to the messages:

***Congratulations! You have learned a new skill: Spirit Core Cultivation Drill – Epic.***

***Congratulations! Your Spirit Core has advanced: Epic 2.***

“Damn,” he grunted when he realized that he only had two messages; it had felt like more. He’d hoped the advancement would be enough to push him to the next level. Nevertheless, he pulled up his Energy statistics to see how much he’d gained from the Core rank-up:

Breath Core:

Elder Class - Improved 3

Core:

Spirit Class - Epic 2

Breath Core Affinity:

Magma - 9

Breath Core Energy:

2200/2200

Energy Affinity:

Fear 9.4, Rage 9.1, Glory 8.6, Inspiration 7.4, Unattuned 3.1

Energy:

35045/35045

“A thousand, huh?” Victor pushed himself back into a sitting position. He’d gained five thousand when he broke into “epic,” and now it seemed he’d earn another thousand for each rank therein. He supposed that was better than the one hundred he’d gained in previous tiers. Still, for all the work he’d done over the last eleven days, it felt a little underwhelming.

“Well, apprentice, I certainly felt that!” Dar’s voice sounded from the entrance to his chamber. “It seems you managed that more quickly than I’d feared. Excellent. Let’s celebrate with a meal, and perhaps I’ll teach you a bit about proper spirit walking. How does that sound?”

Victor hopped to his feet, turning to see his master in a migraine-inducing set of magenta pajamas decorated with hypnotic yellow swirls. “What the hell are you wearing?” Victor cleared his throat and held up a hand. “Sorry, that was rude. I mean, but seriously, Dar. That suit’s making me dizzy.”

Dar lifted the hem of his shirt and frowned. “You don’t like it? The saleswoman said it was the latest fashion on Foh.” He saw Victor’s confusion and clarified, “That’s the homeworld of some of Sojourn’s more influential citizens. I bought it to attend a gala at Lord Drok’s estate last night. Is it so bad?”

“I mean, to me, but . . .” Victor trailed off, shrugging. He moved closer to his master and clapped him on the shoulder. “What do I know?”

“Indeed. You’re young and have hardly traveled. Come, Victor, let’s eat—I’ve been drinking and carousing for twenty hours.”