The mental shielding spell had started out disorienting but smooth, a numbing landscape of physical experiences. Yet that all changed when I hit a specific verse that made my head explode with overactivity, straining my mental capabilities to the maximum. Everything started looping and playing back, memories on repeat, moving through my head. I wanted it to stop, so I focused, and the focusing led me to the chant and as I chanted, my brain slowed, easing away those strange and vivid memories.

Next came sounds. They exploded in my mind, battering my head from all directions. I wanted to stop and cover my ears, but my body was still frozen. So I closed my eyes over and over and over like I did with Yakana and then focused on the chanting. Soon, the cacophony dimmed to normal background noise. I pressed it further, moving on until I felt like I was underwater, drowning out the noise—suppressing it. It was intense.

Now, drowned out by the memories and the sounds, a new sensation hit me—

—pain. My entire body marbled with pin-prickled gooseflesh, waving around my body like a cloak. It felt like electricity was cracking in my chest as well.

Son of a bitch! I thought, finally breaking away from chanting. I knew it!

I wanted to quit under sheer spite, but I couldn’t move. I was still locked and frozen in that empty chamber, listening to Lithco’s voice speaking out to me. There was no choice, so I closed my eyes further, trying to endure the pain as I began chanting again.

The effects weren’t immediate.

I felt like I would never make it. That I had to give up because my concentration under pain was too lousy, but once Lithco’s chants became repetitive and I memorized them, I found myself doing chanting without thinking. It was like a level in a video game—something I had to clear before moving on. So I did, pressing forward, chanting and chanting until my pain disappeared, taking my body with it.

Now I felt naked. I couldn’t feel my body or hear or make vivid memories.

That’s when intense smells assaulted me. I almost gagged but understood that it was temporary. I chanted on without breaks, eliminating even smell.

Taste followed.

And then chaotic mana streams.

Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing—memories and thoughts and mana. Soon, I had suppressed all of them, and all that was left was feeling that numbing feeling in my mind. It felt so… therapeutic once everything was drowned out. It was as if there were cool rivers of mana circulating through my body, moving through my head and back down my neck, back, and spine, suspending me in a void.

How pleasant, I thought, searching through that mental space. It was tranquil despite the bombardment, like watching a storm out of a sound-proof, hurricane-proof window. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t feel it, hear it, smell it, or taste it.

It was peaceful.

Before long, I closed my eyes further, digging deeper, going further, falling down and down and down—

—until I woke up.

It was my alarm, blaring in my mind, telling me it was time to wake. I shot out of that trance, feeling like my body was breaking free from multiple layers of thin ice.

I looked around, disoriented and saw that the time was 6:01 a.m. Earthian time. I’d soon be permanently kicked out of this wonderful safe haven, losing the bath with it. It was a tragedy.

I groaned and got up, finding Kline yawning and walking around like a zombie, pawing at his face as he walked to his water bowl and lapped some water up.

“Good call,” I said, grabbing my water bottle. It tasted refreshing, clear, and rejuvenating, but without feeling necessary. It was strange.

I looked at the bath. This was the last time I would see one for a while, yet I didn’t have time to take one. I had a deadly day ahead and still had a lot of work to do.

Despite that, I couldn’t look away.

It didn’t make sense why I was so fixated until an idea broke me out of my morning grind. I reached into my backpack and pulled out my field notebook, tattered with hundreds of observations about organisms that no longer existed in this world. I opened it to a blank page, tattered with the indents from my last observations, and started copying the design of the circle the best that I could.

I’m not sure if I can recreate this, but it would be cool.

Once I finished, I grabbed the brivelt meat off the fireplace.

Burnt… I took a bite. It flooded my body and soul with energy, but it still tasted like burnt charcoal and disappointment. I needa skill.

I stood after, hitting the bathroom before walking out into the brisk morning environment, shivering from the damp mist clinging to my skin. Kline trotted ahead, then stretched his front limbs before kicking out both legs.

I smiled and turned back to the door. “Thank you….” I didn’t get a reply, but that was okay. I looked back to Kline. “Are you ready?”

Kline meowed.

“Okay,” I said. “But I’m killing the reiga this time.”

He shrugged and trotted off toward the alchemy station, which was the universal base of operations since it would remain functional long after the trial. I was considering building my base there.

Unfortunately, there were no reiga there. It seemed they had finally learned their lesson. However, there was a baby fox-like creature that blended together with an illusion, like someone pressing a white paintbrush to a black canvas and swirling it around. It was my first chance to use my powers.

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I activated Moxle Dilation, allowing me to see its form moving back and forth as Kline teleported circles around it, herding it in place—giving me time.

Moxle Dilation was far smoother with the mental shielding. Thinking felt effortless. The world felt whole. Then I upped my acceleration and rushed forward, grabbing the fox by the throat, channeling all my magic energy into my hands, and called the alchemy skill Blend.

I regretted it. The fox’s body flailed around like a dead chicken stuck in a house fan, spitting blood all over the place as if it didn’t have the decency to die calmly. I immediately released the spell so I didn’t have to watch in slow motion and was bombarded with sounds like D-Day shelling crashing all around me, but I started chanting the mental shielding spell, and it all disappeared.

It worked… I thought. It really worked….

I looked up to share my victory with Kline, but he was staring at me, mouth agape, not even blinking.

“What?” I asked. I looked down at my shirt and learned that my Darwin t-shirt had been dyed red and was dripping on the ground. I could suddenly empathize with Carrie after the Black Prom, bloody from head to toe, being silently judged by someone in front of them.

It felt awful.

“Listen, Kline,” I said. “I didn’t know it’d do that. Otherwise—”

The fox’s head, which was hanging by tendons, dropped to the ground with a splat.

Kline causally turned around and trotted off.

“Kline!” I yelled. He didn’t listen. “Kline! I’ve seen you far worse… Kline! God damn it. Purify!”

I purified myself, and blood sloshed at my feet, leaving me clean in a macabre scene. Then I slung the fox over my shoulder. Mark my words, I silently grumbled. That cat’s not gonna eat a bite of this. Not one bit.

I stewed all the way back to the alchemy station, where I sliced up the fox, kicking around the carcass to prevent Kline from biting into it. It was ridiculously petty.

Eventually, I gave up and let him feast as I shoved the preservation tub into my full backpack.

“Hey Lithco,” I said. “I refuse to risk my life when I already have two legacies waiting for me. So give me an updating map of the safest path to and from the lignan bugs. I also want to use a second request that’ll tell me if there’s a better strategy for doing this.”

I got the answers and grimaced. According to the Guide—I had the best strategy, given my time restraints, location, and magical limitations. Or, rather, that there weren't any recorded strategies that had proved particularly effective. Unlike much of the Multiverse, information on the Areswood Forest was extremely limited, and everything I had read so far had come from the same author: Brindle Grask. If he didn’t do it, Lithco could only infer, and he wouldn’t do that unless there was tight logic or a mathematical proof for doing so.

So when it came to strategies for accomplishing this mission, it looked like I was on my own—and the strategy I had was wild.

2.

Aiden sat in the room with the vraxle. Neither of them had spoken in the last twelve hours, and Aiden doubted that they would talk any time soon. He got a meal handed to him by adventurers who had since lost their fear. That bothered the wyvern, chuffing when they got near, hitting them with hot breaths that nearly made the food tray clamor to the ground.

Here you go, they would say without comment before quickly leaving. Then, the silence would resume.

Aiden threw some meat to the wyvern at one point.

Do you expect me to eat something so small? the wyvern had asked.

Food is food, he replied apathetically.

Your brazenness is truly limitless.

It’s not brazenness, Aiden said, taking a bite of a roll. I’m just treating you like a person. I’ve yet to meet an animal that liked being looked down upon.

The vraxle chuffed and looked away, lying back down. He couldn’t move, and he had already tried yelling at Aiden and insulting him. But Aiden had long since forgotten why he was there. He just wanted to let the vraxle fly again. That’s all he wanted to accomplish, and he planned to sit there however long it took to make it concede. It’s not like he’d be asking much.

3.

Elana watched Mira hiking through the forest, taking long, deliberate steps for four hours. It seemed boring until she realized that Mira was approaching the outer edge of the barrier.

“He didn’t…” she muttered in disbelief. Kori and Hapsel and her entourage had left the night before after watching Mira do mental shielding, and she denied requests to return. Now, it was her and her anxiety and disdain for Brindle Grask, the thing that had sent Mira to the outer ring. “He’s trying to kill her,” she whispered. “He’s actually trying to kill her.”

Despite what the hellish scenes would have observers think, Mira was dropped in the safest part of the Fourth Ring. Above her was the warzone pushing for the Fifth Ring; below her were the beasts hunting in the bramble, an even harsher training ground that chiseled even the weakest of spirit beasts into stone. Only Mira’s area, the area known as “the Divide,” had relatively few beasts. Yet Brindle’s quest was taking her straight out of it, thrusting her into a darker, stronger area of the forest.

I should’ve fought back… Elana thought. This was never over, Mira. This was always about the forest—at any cost. It’s sick.

4.

Brindle watched Mira carefully. She was nearing the barrier. “You said she’d get a notification?” he asked Telgan.

“Yes. If she tries to leave, it’ll warn her.”

“Do you think she will?”

“We’ll see.”

Mira abruptly stopped walking and reached out her hand, slowly pushing her fingers forward and backward, noting the change in the barrier. She spent five minutes there, staring at the Guide and speaking with Kline. Then she walked through the barrier and pressed onward.

“Quite bold,” Brindle said.

“It is.” Telgan looked at him. “Are you trying to kill her?”

From what Brindle understood, his quest was absurdly dangerous, even by legacy quest standards. Still, he had no choice in the matter. “This is the least that the guardian would accept,” he said.

“Rather brutal exchange,” Telgan remarked.

“I disagree,” Brindle said. “The Diktyo River catalyzes most evolutions in the forest. Before I made pacts with guardians, the river was pink year round. Protecting the water sack plants is the key to peace. There is no role more vital.”

“Still,” Telgan said.

Brindle felt a sliver of remorse—an emotion that he had long since forgotten. Mira had no choice but to accept Telgan’s mission, which involved a water source. She now had two legacies and a chance of living. Despite that, he was forced to give her a legacy that would risk it all.

And yet—if she succeeded, she would regain access to the most sought-after alchemic ingredient on Dranami. She would obtain access to a catalyst for her evolution. She wouldn’t be hunted by the guardian’s network.

Mira had much to gain, but it didn’t change the nature of the situation.

Brindle nodded and echoed Telgan’s statement. “Still.” They watched on, witnessing Mira’s undying resolve. For the second time, he was wishing for a human’s success. How strange. Strange, indeed.