Akari darted to the side, feeling the polished pinewood floor beneath her bare feet. She reached out with her left arm, and her fingertips grazed the flying surgeball, stopping it just before it hit the back wall of the dojo.

“Nice catch,” Kalden hollered from across the room.

She fell into a wide stance and prepared to hurl it back. Roughly eight inches in diameter, the ball was wrapped in soft layers of blue and yellow leather. She turned it toward the ceiling and began cycling the mana from her soul.

Akari had struggled to sense her mana at first, even after drinking that potion several weeks back. Her stomach had gone supernova after the first sip, and she’d bolted to the bathroom before she turned the carpet blue.

But then the feeling vanished. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t sense the mana again.

Akari sucked at meditation, too. She wasn’t a calm person by nature, and her thoughts raced even faster when she tried to quiet them. That led to a downward spiral of overthinking, and scolding herself for her failures.

Eventually, Kalden gave her a small jar of liquid mana to practice on her own. Every night before bed, she took a swig of the minty-flavored potion and tried to sense its path through her body. She chased shadows for days, mistaking every physical sensation for her soul. The lessons didn’t even tell her what to look for.

“Your soul exists in the Ethereal,” the Grandmaster had said in his second video. “Outside of our dimension. It’s anchored to your body, but it’s not a part of normal human biology. That means the feeling is unique for each person. No one can tell you what to expect.”

Kalden succeeded after one week, and that sowed the first seeds of doubt in her mind. What if there really was a difference between Bronze and Golds? What if she’d never be as strong as him, or even as strong as a Silver?

Akari crushed those thoughts before they took root. She had to move forward, not wallow in self-pity.

After sixteen days, she finally felt her soul. She felt it in the final moment when the mana vanished from her stomach. Only, it hadn’t really vanished. It was still there—not as tangible as liquid, but there, nonetheless. It followed a path outside her body, like a doorway to another realm.

Her thoughts followed the mana through that doorway, and her soul waited on the other side. She saw it as a swirling sphere of light in her mind’s eye. And when she pushed on that sphere, the mana rushed through her channels.

These ‘channels’ existed outside her body too, but it sure as hell didn’t feel that way.

“Pain is normal,” the Grandmaster had said. “You’ve never used your channels before. It’s natural to feel a bit stretched.”

‘Stretched’ was a gross understatement. This felt like a fist-sized marble rolling through her torso, pushing her organs aside like a train plowing through snow. Her heart rate doubled, her lungs felt too tight to breathe, and she had to clench her jaw to keep from screaming.

The tightness spread up her arms, with every muscle and bone protesting along the way. When the energy finally reached her palms, it burst out of her in a rush of pure relief.

Now, two weeks later, she could move and release her mana with little conscious effort. Even the pain had subsided.

After all those years of searching, she’d become a real mana artist.

Akari glanced back across the dojo to where Kalden waited, then she forced her mana into the base of the ball. The energy left her hand in a river of pale blue light, pushing the ball several inches above her outstretched palm.

This wasn’t quite as impressive as it sounded. Surgeballs had mana-based cores that responded to pressure from the players’ channels. They also had sigils that forced air mana toward the ground, and this helped them float through the air.

Still, it looked cool. And with enough practice, she’d be able to move any small object with her mana.

Akari took a step back until the ball hung between her and Kalden. She fell into a more narrow stance this time, with one foot in front of the other. Mana raced through her channels, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.

She extended her right palm toward the ball, and the energy followed. Mana struck leather, and the ball soared directly toward Kalden.

He leapt to the right and released a burst of his own mana. This struck the ball at an angle, slamming it against the wall between them.

Kalden stepped forward and shot a second burst of mana from his left hand.

Talek. She’d only practiced with her right hand so far. In theory, though, you could shoot mana from any part of your body. Your feet, your head . . . even the center of your chest.

This second burst sent the ball hurtling toward her again. Akari bit her lip and tried to copy Kalden’s technique—hitting the ball from the side rather than striking it head-on.

“Focus on control for now,” the Grandmaster had said. “Power comes later. Too often, students rush into making real Missiles, the same way they rush into aspecting their mana.”

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Strangely enough, that was all he’d said about aspecting. But at least that answered her question about it being a prerequisite. The Grandmaster had even demonstrated pure Missiles and Constructs in the third video. Did that mean he’d never aspected his own mana?

Still so many questions.

Akari ducked as the ball soared over her head, bouncing off the wall behind her. She stretched out her right palm and hit it with a burst of mana from behind. This lent it more speed as it flew toward Kalden again.

From there, they fell into an easy rhythm of pushing the ball back and forth. It was actually kind of fun. Who would have thought she’d like playing surgeball with a Gold in his basement? Of course, this wasn’t real surgeball. The actual sport involved a lot more cheering, and shouting at the TV.

But as a control exercise, she had to agree with the Grandmaster’s videos. If she could hit an eight-inch ball in midair, then she could definitely hit a live target.

Akari shot the ball toward Kalden again, but it came back faster than she could blink.

She reached out a hand and tried to knock it off course, but her channels were empty this time.

Damnit.

She pushed harder, but her soul felt like a wrung-out rag.

The ball slammed into her left temple, and her glasses flew off her face. The force knocked her back, and she landed in a heap on the hardwood floor.

“Sorry!” Kalden shouted as he jogged over. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Akari felt around for her glasses. She caught a blur of movement as Kalden knelt down and picked something up. Then she felt the smooth plastic in her hand a second later.

“Sorry,” he repeated as the world came into focus. “I got a little carried away there.”

“It’s fine,” Akari said. “Just ran out of mana.”

Kalden offered her a hand, then seemed to think better of it.

“Oh, for Talek’s sake.” Everyone thought she disliked human contact, but that was bullshit. She just didn’t like people who invaded her personal space without an invitation. Especially when it was a surprise.

She grabbed Kalden’s wrist and pulled herself to her feet. His hand was warm, but not half as sweaty as her own.

“How much mana do you have left?” she asked.

Kalden hesitated, closing his eyes for a few breaths. “Half. No . . . maybe two-thirds?”

For some reason, Kalden always outlasted her. Maybe she burned through mana quicker? Just as well; the more mana you burned through, the faster your soul would expand. It was sort of like building muscles that way.

Speaking of muscles, she really needed to work on those, too. Physical strength mattered a lot more than she’d expected in the world of mana arts. Especially when you were first starting out.

Kalden clearly spent a few hours in the gym each week. As for Akari . . . well, she tried to stay fit, but a part of her had always assumed she’d get stronger after she became a mana artist. That was embarrassingly stupid in hindsight, and it just meant she had more catching up to do.

Did Kalden’s muscles let him burn through mana more efficiently than her? Something to research later . . .

“Alright.” Akari let out a long breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Just let me get a drink, then I’ll be good for another round.”

“Yeah, about that . . .”

She frowned. “What?”

Kalden scratched the back of his head. “That was our only bottle of liquid mana.”

“What? Your mom’s bar is bigger than most restaurants!”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t practice much these days, remember?”

Great. Akari’s mana would still regenerate on its own, but that took a few hours. Apparently, that process happened faster in places rich with ambient mana, but Kalden’s basement wasn’t on that list.

“So what’s with the dojo then?” Akari asked as they passed through an arched doorway into the bar.

“It’s a Gold thing.” Kalden opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. “Gotta keep up appearances.”

Akari accepted her bottle and drank half of it in one gulp. By now, she’d dropped the thought of Kalden drugging her. He couldn’t even throw a ball at her without apologizing twice. “So . . . Golds need to look like they train, even when they don’t?”

“That about sums it up.” He made a vague gesture toward the computer. “In the old world, your rank was something you earned rather than something you were born with. I guess some of that still permeates our culture today.”

In other words, Golds were born wealthy now, but they pretended they’d earned it. But why had things changed? And how did Kalden have so much mana?

She’d asked him before, and he had some stupid theory about how Golds started with a higher base mana number than Bronze. Typical. One minute Kalden would act self-aware, then he’d try to justify the Golds’ rule with some made-up biological difference.

Kalden was studying to become an alchemist, though. Even if he wasn’t, his family had access to all sorts of resources. Who knew what fancy enhancement pills or elixirs he’d consumed over the years? Even diet might be a factor.

What’s more, he’d only given her a fraction of that first bottle. If that bottle was gone now, that meant he’d drunk most of it himself. More mana meant more daily practice. Not much she could do about that, though. It wasn’t like Kalden had agreed to split it fairly.

Still, time was running out. She’d made progress these last few weeks, but was it enough to defend herself, or to earn a living?

No. Hitting a ball was one thing, but she was still weeks away from forming a real, tangible Missile. For that, she needed her own bottle of mana, and a pint-sized bottle cost fifty coppernotes or more.

“Sorry,” Kalden said. “I feel bad about the mana.”

Akari shrugged. “What’s your mom got against you learning mana arts, anyway?”

Kalden didn’t answer that. “I might be able to scrounge up some money without her finding out. Then I could buy us some more mana potions.”

Us? Akari narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She raised her shoulders again. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

“Yeah, well, I want to make sure I’m pulling my weight. And I can’t believe that money is our biggest barrier.”

No argument there. Kalden was one of the richest people in town, for Talek’s sake.

“Well,” Akari said after a short pause. “I did have one idea.”

He leaned forward, putting both his elbows on the wooden bar.

“Remember those abandoned subway tunnels we talked about?”

“Sure.”

“I researched them some more, and only some spots are off-limits. Otherwise, you can hunt mana beasts there and get paid for it. You just need a hunting license.”

“A license . . .” Kalden hummed in consideration. “I guess that part falls on me?”

She gave a brisk nod. “You turned sixteen last week, right?”

“I did,” he said slowly. “But someone might recognize my name. It’s the same problem I had with Magnus’s dojo. If word gets back to my mom . . .”

Damnit. Of course he’d go all goody-two-shoes again.

Kalden must have seen her frown because he pressed on quickly. “It’s still a good idea. Tell you what—I’ll ask Maelyn about it. I know she’s done some group hunting in the past. She might know what to do.”

Akari drew in a deep breath, feeling her spirits lift again. She’d always dreamt of getting paid to fight, and now things were moving quicker than she’d ever imagined.