The next day was pretty standard. Tactics practice, training, some formation drills. We had a mock battle against the fifty third on friday to test our formation drilling, and I wasn't entirely worried we'd lose. Granted, the fifty third were a total joke, but we had been too until recently. Once I finished that, did the wishes for Camden (I was up to nine stockpiled) and then retired to my barracks.

Unlike the barracks for Hamill's training crew, or the barracks for the centuries, the officer barracks were, if not nice, at least more private. The rooms were about fifty by fifty feet inside, though they were built as five by five, and barely more than closets from outside.

I was in my room alone, but after an hour of my training there was a knock. I didn't bother getting up, just sending a silent 'come in' to Callie. She stepped inside, raising an eyebrow at me sitting on the floor in the middle of the room with a pile of rocks. She raised an eyebrow at my position on the floor, looking at the pile of stones trying to see how there were special.

They weren't of course. They were rocks. Not even particularly sturdy ones. G-rank rocks.

"What a flattering use of your alone time." She said wryly. "When you said you wanted to enjoy your solitude I assumed you had some sort of training to do. But I see now that your interests are wide and varied and I shouldn't have made assumptions. If I'd known I was driving you to play with loose rocks I'd have given you space ages ago."

I rolled my eyes. "Your rapier wit is as sharp as ever. Now if only you would stop clubbing people over the head with it, you might actually be funny."

She smirked, flipping me off as she strolled across the room to slump into my bed. "You love it. Now, explain your thought process here? I can tell emotions and hear things you send me on purpose, but you really do just seem to be playing with rocks like a moron."

I held up a hand, rock in my palm, and focused on it, flexing my soul. The rock dissolved into a pile of fine dust. I waited a second, then focused again, and it reformed into stone, though still in the shape of a pile of dust.

"Damn." She said with a whistle. "You've got that much control over Pit of Despair?"

I grumbled and tossed the pile shaped rock behind me into a pile of the vaguely cone shaped stones. "Yes, but that's not what I'm trying to do. Turning it to dust is fine, but when I turn them back I'm trying to restore them to a the shape they took as stones."

She seemed confused until she caught on. "Ah, you're trying to create a tangential Skill. Something like my shadow manipulation."

"Or like my staff forms." I agreed. "We can create Skills that effect other Skills. Even though Pit of Despair is a subskill, I should be able to make a Skill that can act on the things it does. It can dissolve and reform rock. With enough effort I SHOULD be able to alter the rock while its in its dust state. The first step to that is figuring out how to return the dust to its original shape. Once I can do that I can figure out how to assume more control over what the dust does as dust."

It was going to be a massive boon in combat, but more than that, I was pretty sure I could learn to make it into a crafting Skill. Seeing what my wishes had done with that room amazed me. If I could establish foundations, I could probably exploit that even more, or rather, Callie could. Plus the idea of being able to make things out of stone was cool.

"Is your Sapphire Soul Body really that strong?" Flexing skills was hard work, or it had been. Doing something like this...it was taxing, even for me. I was packing a massive skill effect into a small area, then I was reversing it early, and I was doing it on repeat. It was hard. My soul was strong now, like a powerful leg. That didn't make picking up grains of rice with my toes any easier.

I shrugged. "It gives me more stamina with skill alterations for sure. As for the effect..." I blew out a breath. "Probably? The thing is, this isn't doing one thing. Making my skill take a shape and tweaking a parameter is easy enough. This is fine control over time. It's difficult and draining. If you liken changing a skill to drawing a picture of what you want, this is more like trying to draw a picture while holding the pen with chopsticks. It's hard to put into words."

"This is your first time making a skill like this. She pondered. "Unique Skills are hard to make, and I imagine this will make it even tougher. You soul should help, but I bet this'll be a challenge." She perked up, the bond telling me she had an idea. "Wait a second. Here I want to try something." Sitting down in front of me, she took my hands in hers, placing a rock on my cupped palms. "Alright, now turn it to dust but don't turn it back."

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I did as she told me to, and the rock dissolved into fine powder. Before I could ask what next she focused, and a wave of shadows climbed up onto my palm. I felt through the bond as she SHOVED the shadows into the sand, hard, using her own soul and an ability I hadn't seen her use in a while. The power to imbue darkness into objects. It was temporary and inefficient on most materials, but her blue soul made it possible in this instance.

As my eyes widened in shock, I felt her reach out with Shadow Manipulation Mastery, guiding me along our bond as she showed me what it looked like to alter and shape the dust. It wasn't going to give me a dust shaping Skill, but it showed me...how. Little mental constructs and tricks for how to move something like what she was working with, supplied by her baseline Shadow Manipulation Skill and refined through practice.

Finally, panting and sweating, she let the shadows flee the dust, slumping back to catch herself on her hands. I shot her a concerned frown. "That too much?"

She shook her head. "Not even a headache. Not yet at least. You were right. It's not the same as taxing your soul through brute force. Less like muscle fatigue and more like a hand cramp from making lots of tiny motions. Unpleasant but bearable. How was that though? Did it help?"

Focusing on the pile of dust again, I pushed with my skill. Pit of Despair wanted to return the dust to stone in its current shape, but Callie had shown me what to do, even if I had to do it with a whole different Skill. I focused on the feeling of the shifting shadow sand that I'd felt before through the bond, then enforced that feeling on the dust and SHOVED with my whole soul.

The dust smashed back together into a spherical stone shape, but did so with such force that the stone exploded into a puff of smoke. I winced. Little too much english on that one. I focused the same way, but instead of shoving my soul against the concept, I pushed it slowly. Raising the amount of soul strength I used as I went. The dissolved rock in palm began to slowly float up into a small cloud of stone dust, before putting itself back together into an ovoid rock.

I was panting by the time I finished. Callie had been right. It felt like a muscle cramp in my soul. Fine manipulation was harder than brute force in some ways. No possible breakage or massive headache, but the dull throb wasn't that much better.

Callie was bouncing in excitement. "That's amazing! Did you get a Skill?" She was fascinated by the rock, taking it from me and studying it carefully.

"No, but I didn't expect I would." I said with a chuckle. "Not from that. I made the rock its original shape, but that's just reversing the course of the Pit of Despair. Now I need to take it further. I put it back to 'rock' shape. Now I need to change that rock shape. I think a perfect sphere would work best."

I turned the stone to dust, then focused again the same way. This time, as I pushed with my aching soul, I had to split off a second consciousness with Piece of Mind to alter the shape, since this was taking all my focus. As I watched, the stone began to reform again, slowly taking its old shape, but my other mind pushed and prodded, altering the flow of the dust with some of the mental constructs we'd just learned from Callie.

Rather than an irregular stone, the dust reformed into a completely perfect spherical shape. When it finished, I slumped forward, the strain on my soul having magnified exponentially when I had my other self working with it. That was a good way to train with it, and I filed away the information for not only myself, but Callie, who still needed to reach Sapphire.

I spent the next hour working on some serious soul strain. I hadn't had a chance to put my new soul through its paces, especially since the rank up, but the dull throb turned into the usual soul strain headache eventually with my flagrant use of Piece of Mind. Still, I was able to learn quickly and advance my new training method, learning to shape the stones as they reformed.

Pyramids, diamonds, and as I went on, even more variable shapes. I made an hourglass, and what might, if one squinted, be considered a duck. By the time I finished going through my paces my head was in agony, but I had a bright grin on my face as I checked my stat sheet and found a new Skill.

Minor Dust Construction Mastery. An odd Skill name, but it WAS a Skill. I felt the click in my head as it became one, and I felt the soul strain decrease exponentially when it did. I wasn't twisting Pit of Despair into knots anymore, I was using a unique Skill I'd made. On PURPOSE. It was a great feeling. I would have practiced with it, but Callie forced me to stop. "I'm not letting you give yourself an aneurysm because you want to play with your new toy." She said firmly. "You have training tomorrow anyway, you can deal with it after."

Sighing, I nodded grudgingly and got up, dumping the rocks on the floor as I climbed up onto my bed and wrapped myself around her. She snuggled up against me. I could feel her pride and happiness for me over the bond, chased by some worry about the soul strain. She was able to stay in here because apparently the gender specific dorms weren't enforced for officers. Sleeping next to her again was easily the best part of my rank up. I'd missed her terribly, and I found I couldn't sleep right without her in my arms.

"I think this is going to be the beginning of an amazing power." I told her as I started to drift off. "I can't wait to see what I can do with it." This unique Skill was completely different to any earth shaping Skill I'd seen or heard of and I was going to test it thoroughly. With my Perception letting me see the specifics, I could create incredibly dense and sturdy stones. I bet I could even focus Pit of Despair to make the dust even finer. Tomorrow after training I would start testing. I had so many ideas.