During his final day of vacation Tercius only had until noon to raise Mana Sight to level [29], before a running J’ro came to get him. Seliana was pissed at him, apparently, for leaving early to study even on the last day of vacation.

“Let’s walk,” Tercius said, as he packed.

J’ro smirked. “Afraid she might tan your hide?”

"Something like that," Tercius smiled. He adjusted his backpack and placed Amber on his shoulder.

What he wanted was to use all of the Energy he had in his body and Well before he got to Seliana’s place. A walk would give him the opportunity to do just that. Between grunts and nods to things J’ro said, Tercius observed the mana present inside the boy’s body. From tiny mana channels in J’ro eyes, brain and head, to massive ones that went through the center of his chest, and came down his arms and legs, Tercius tried to follow all.

Occasionally, he changed the dark and light modes for the skill, when he slipped on a rock or stumbled into a pit. After all, it would be hilarious if he lost his neck, while he tried to lose his Energy.

“Tercius, is everything all right?” J’ro asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Just perfect,” Tercius murmured, averting his neon green eyes away quickly.

“It’s just… you seem jumpy,” J’ro pointed out. “Jumpier than usual,”

Tercius grunted.

“Is there something bothering you?”

Where do I start? Tercius thought, turning off his Mana Sight. There is a governing body of shadows that may or may not want to make a lab rat out of me. Maybe even a battery. But maybe they don't, I don't know. I want to go back to Nurium, it's been eight months with no word from them, and… But I can't.

Tercius suppressed a sigh, as Meditation flashed. “No, it’s all… fine,”

There was more than one reason he opted for sensory skills first, but the major one was that he wanted to know if someone was using skills or spells on him. It didn’t even matter if they were successful, he just wanted to know who had that kind of influence on him. He wanted to find out if Mistress Kalina was genuine in her offer.

If she was, then he was too, but… what if she wasn't and some trap awaited on the other end of her proposal? Students were protected and exempt by law, from many things that the rest of the population wasn't. What if by becoming a disciple, Tercius renounced some of the privileges and protections that kept him safe? If any do at all, he amended. There was no book about adoption, he checked. He had asked Mistress Helfira, and she told him that such information was reserved for later years, much like Master Ilio’s books should have been.

The only decision left was to make an uninformed step right or left. It was a gamble, and he was physically sick of thinking of it. If he had his way, he would leave things as they were just now. The current burden was something he could handle, even for a longer-term if need be. His skills would help. But if he made the wrong choice and the scales tipped…

“You can tell me if there is some problem, you know,” J’ro said.

Tercius's eyes narrowed at his young friend. Something about J'ro words was tickling some part of Tercius's ears. "That sounds like something Ana or Penelope would say, not you,"

J’ro looked away. “They… asked me about you,” he reluctantly said. “Just if I knew about something that was bothering you and stuff. And… I told them that I don’t know. And now… I was just wondering,” the boy’s piercing gaze aimed at Tercius’s eyes. “Is there something? If there is, I want to help,”

There was something in his gut telling him that he should do it, the same feeling that rose within him when Lux asked him all of those questions while they sailed for Tripatis.

Say it, it said.

And place another person in danger?

That ship has sailed. If worse comes to pass, then he is already in danger just for being near you, it said. What degree of potential danger that association would pose, is a much better question.

“I…” Tercius opened his mouth, only for a rock to lodge itself in his throat. He almost did it. He almost told J’ro, despite everything. Get a grip.

"There is something on my mind," Tercius admitted with a nod, the fingers of his left hand gripping the soft flesh at the base of his right-hand thumb. To deny it when the boy seemed so earnest in his desire to listen to his problems seemed… wrong. "But I can't share what it is," Tercius stated flatly.

“Oh,” J’ro nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Tercius said.

A silence made a wall between them, and Tercius returned his attention to Mana Sight.

Mana Sight [29] is now Mana Sight [30]

Practicing his mana sense skill was the only thing that made any sense.

Mana Sight [30] is now Mana Sight [31]

Months of practice and growth were placed in mere six hours, and by the time they arrived at Seliana's home, an hour later, Tercius had spent almost all of the Energy he harvested from Flu in the morning. Energy Manipulation swept his body over and over again, griping any stray Energy and stuffing it into his Well. His Skill Garden would handle the leftover scraps.

The last few hours of the vacation were a blur to him, as his mind drifted to the spaces and dimensions of his decisions.

A leafless tree of what-ifs grew, its roots spreading out and claiming land, even as the trunk grew towards the sky and parted to two, then four, then eight, and from there rapidly to infinity. At one point, as Seliana took the group to the nearest entrance into the Tunnel network, the twisting leafless tree covered Chameos, and Tercius could only walk to it and watch as it grew larger and larger, and took more and more from the land, jagged cracks spreading around every root. The shadow of the gangly branches grew large enough to cover his face.

Everywhere he went, it followed him, upending its roots to be seen by him, always. But Tercius never looked at it.

Seliana left them at the Doorway, sending off each of her charges with a hug and a kiss.

“Tercius…” she said, when she finally came to him, placing a warm hand on his cheek.

“Nn?” he grunted, as she lifted his face upwards so that she could look him in the eyes.

“I haven't heard you speak a word since… yesterday, I think. Is everything all right?” Seliana’s eyes grew worried with whatever they saw.

He smiled, but the corners of his lips barely tugged upwards. “It must be the weather,”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” she answered with a similar smile, as she patted his cheek. “You know, the great thing about weather is that from time to time it changes. Useful ability, that,”

“Change…” Tercius murmured.

Seliana shook her head and leaned in to hug him. "Listen to me Tercius. If you need anything, just send a word. I'll be there," she whispered. "Now off you go, your friends are waiting for you,"

Inhaling deeply, Tercius looked behind Seliana. Up and up, until his eyes gazed at the top of that imaginary tree he conjured. Twisted knots propelled the truck upwards, while gnarly branches seemed to rip and tear the sky, scarring the world. Each branch represented something he and everyone else would or would not do in life. Some ended abruptly, cut off just when they moved from the main trunk. Others extended well past the majority, swayed by the winds, bending and twisting, and broken, but still clinging for dear life. Yet most branches were in between, neither short nor long. And in the center of that chaotic nest, some branches had signs of potential life.

They just needed some work, and proper work could only be done by the willing.

“Thank you,” Tercius said, and made his way through the reflective Doorway.

***

The return to the Academy was followed by new classes and a few new teachers. Just like Sonia told them, there was a class where the students were introduced to the museum.

The museum was a sprawling complex built into the floor of the Pyramid's second step, and within its display vaults were hundreds of thousands of rare items from all over the world.

For example, he had read of the indigenous tribes of the islands of western Isgea, most of whom haven't existed for centuries, yet inscribed plaques under clay vases mentioned their names. Examples of everything from basket weaving and agriculture, to iron swords and carved wooden staves, filled the walls, ceilings, and floors of the numberless hallways of the museum, all of them carefully labeled and then preserved.

During the days where he looked at the items on display, Tercius often wondered how many of the items still had living owners.

Other than the museum, they were introduced to the concert hall where both magi and non-magi played instrumental music, with an occasional vocal accompaniment. The colosseum was where the more combat-oriented magi gathered and practiced their craft, and where they prepared combat performances for an audience every week or two. If he was honest, he had enjoyed both more than what he thought he would.

The bones of the magi society were old, and some of those old bones still walked the planet, Tercius joked to himself. The fact that their society was still present, meant that they must be doing something right.

Besides immersing himself in the society, from an anthropological angle of course, Tercius took his time to think about the many add-ons he could apply to his skills, and he even dedicated some time to thinking about new skills that would be useful to have. He did a lot of research about certain skills, browsing books and asking any teacher willing to speak with him on the subject.

At the Academy, his theoretical lessons about mana skills continued on with Master Lazarus, while Mistress Helfira handled the practical side of the skills in one-on-one hour-long lessons.

"Try again," Mistress Helfira said. "Just one thing. You should tighten the Runes a bit faster so that your morphed manas don't mix so freely,"

Breathing deeply, Tercius used Mana Metamorphosis to morph his mana to appropriate elements as he rewrote the Runes and remade the spell construct from scratch.

“Passable, for now,” Mistress Helfira crossed her hands over her giant robe, and inclined her head at a fist-sized stone on her desk. “Try it,”

He launched a part of the spell forward in the search for a stone easily, and the spell parameters he made found the candidate within a moment. The latch was attempted and successfully completed, but when he tried to recall the stone to his open hand, the spellwork almost exploded in his hands.

Panic flashed as he saw the chaos that was produced by the second of lapsed focus, as the morphed manas mixed freely in the center of the construct. He shouldn't have allowed that to happen! Mistress Helfira had warned him, repeatedly! Like a ghost, Mistress Helfira was by his side in an instant, a small spherical shield engulfing the construct in a fraction of a second, and gained further strength from the elder with each second that followed.

The spellwork flashed and exploded with a muffled yet oddly deep boom, the shield bulging to odd shapes, but ultimately holding firm and settling into a sphere within a moment. He swayed as he felt a part of him cease to exist.

"That's recoil if you remember from Lazarus's classes, but let me explain anyway. It happens when your mana is destroyed in relatively large quantities over very small amounts of time. The destruction produces the lingering effect that comes back to you through the link that Mana Manipulation shares with your mana. It does get easier the more you do it, but it takes time for your body to adjust. At first, the recoils manifest with effects that range from mild migraines to outright passing out for hours," Mistress Helfira said, patting him on the back. She was right about the migraine, he noted as he rubbed his temples.

“The migraine will go away soon, don’t worry. Never try this alone until I allow you such liberties and… ease the amount of mana you put into your spell. You saw what happened. That could have destroyed your eyesight, hearing, and possibly charred your frontside, if not outright killed you. Now tell me what is it that you think that went wrong, and we will try again,”

His new skill leveled rapidly with Mistress Helfira, and the days when he had one-on-one spellwork lessons with her were the ones that he anticipated and woke up early for. Once or, more rarely, twice a week he had her guidance for an hour, and it propelled his speed of learning, but most of all practically assured his safety.

Tercius learned that he could have pulled away mana from the unstable construct, if he had reacted in time, essentially dismantling it to a weaker form that would have made a smaller explosion, but few students learned how to do that in practice. It was considered an advanced technique, from what Master Lazarus told him, and one that few mages mastered because if you did a single thing wrong even very small explosions tended to create a very large recoil.

It was near the end of August, or Octium as Magik named it, that Tercius had his eleventh hour-long practical session with Mistress Helfira.

“Begin,” the robed woman said, her hands behind her back.

He used the index and middle finger of his left hand to draw the Runes, while Mana Metamorphosis [5] and his knowledge of different morphic shapes of mana worked their miracle by transforming mana from one shape to the other, changing it from the inside out. Each Rune made was pushed into the construct of the spell, finally completed in just under a minute.

"Hold," Mistress Helfira commanded as she raised a single aged finger in the air, and brought it down like a hooked sword of judgment.

A small mana shape flew towards the center of the spell, morphed to some special shape that would make considerable damage, should his work prove subpar. The mana dart hit the center dead on, implanting itself in the complex Rune that would be his controller for the search of the stone. His mana leaked around that dart and the construct wobbled and fell apart even while he tried to mend it. Mistress Helfira simply had more experience and stronger skills, that little dart made her a thorn in his spell that he couldn't pull out.

But he could move his construct, he realized and with that thought, he quickly went to work.

A part of the construct that held the dart fell apart through his command, and he moved the remains further away, leaving Mistress Helfira’s mana dart behind. Instead of doing staying behind, the dart raced after his construct, but he didn’t allow it to reach his work. Tercius started running around the office, his construct hovering in front of his arms, while the small dart tried to catch him.

“Mistress,” he said. “What is this supposed to teach me?”

"Oh, this?" Mistress Helfira asked. "It will teach you … something, I'm sure. As for my intention… I do confess that I am a bit bored. You see, I had a long day," she said with a shrug of the giant gray robe as if that explained everything. He noted that the dart didn't stop the pursuit, even while she spoke.

Tercius evaded the chair Mistress used and stopped his run. "Why didn't you say so, Mistress? I can just let you win if that will cheer you up,"

"Spoilsport," the elder snorted as the dart dissipated. With an aggrieved look and a dainty wave of a hand, she said, "Oh very well, let's continue,"

Spell prepared, he launched the search part of the spell, even though he technically didn’t need it. A rock was found and the next part of the spell was launched towards it, landing successfully within two seconds and latching on the rock as firmly as possible.

“I’m rocking the rock,” Tercius hummed in a cheery tone, as the stone leaned forwards only for gravity to return it back, while he fiddled with the return construct.

“Oh my…” Mistress Helfira said dryly. “One day, Tercius, your generation will be the cornerstone of our society and I quake at the thought to what depths our foundations might plunge to, should we let the minds of our youths remain as sharp as a water polished river rock,”

Tercius snorted as the rock started rolling across the table surface towards him. The mana should be upped in that part of the construct, he noted. Around a quarter of a pulse, it seems like. “Well if our stones fall on the wrong side, at least we’ll have fossilized backs to shoulder us, Mistress,” Tercius said as he looked at the white-haired Mistress. “Although, I do hope they don’t crumble away under pressure,”

“You mean like your construct?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” he said, alarmed, as his eyes searched for the flaw, only for his focus to lapse. The spell fell apart and a shield to came to life around the explosion, containing it completely. “Oh for all the Blazing Hells! Mistress!” he whined. “I was just about to do it,”

The woman clutched her side and started laughing.

It took her a while to recover. “And that’s a win. I feel better already. You should have seen your face, it was worth Repository points. Oh, don't make that sour face. I taught you a lesson as well,"

“You won’t make me lose focus again, Mistress,” he said firmly as he started remaking the spellwork.

“How about a bet to add some excitement?”

"Err… Against you, Mistress? That would be like chopping off my foot and then running a race. I think I'll have to pass this time. How about we just do what we are here to do? That alone should prove exciting enough."