After Commander Felicia Novus left, Tercius breathed a sigh of relief. He could not even express the way that being the spokesperson for his family drained him. There were so many angles to consider before asking a question or giving an answer and yet he plainly saw that people didn’t like it when he took some time to consider their question or come up with a question of his own. Being a spokesperson was much like playing chess, Tercius reflected, yet without any satisfaction found in the latter.

Septimus and his personality are much more suited to these kinds of tedious things…

With Mistress Kalina away, Tercius's late morning and the entire afternoon was freed up. Hours reserved to learn to color his mana and play the oud were suddenly in need of filling. There was a lot of work around the house that could use a hand or two, Tercius knew, but he did have quite the list of skill-related discoveries that he intended to explore. After he explained his reasoning, Petra and Ciron agreed and they made sure that he would have that time free of any interruptions that they could deal with.

First on that list was a newcomer — find out how Energy Manipulation, a skill whose level was currently [29], got its last three levels in about twenty minutes — but he had some ideas how to combine different list entries for more efficient use of his time. After all, since he started writing it the list had only gotten longer…

It was time to trim it down.

Tercius knew that his ability to help Rona overcome her current predicament would depend on his neutral Energy, and with that in mind figuring out more about Energy Manipulation and leveling it further became a top-of-the-list priority.

Before he dived into the Energy Manipulation Core, to start replicating the previous event and its results, Tercius decided to do some preliminary work.

What factors could have led Energy Manipulation to gain so many levels in so little time?

Tercius wrote down anything that came to his mind, no matter how tenuous, and when the hand stopped writing he took a glance at his hourglass and saw that he had taken a solid hour for the first step. Then he started sorting the entries from the list, one by one and decided to look into the top four, for now.

The first entry on the list was that some trait of the skill itself was responsible for the phenomenon. Energy Manipulation was a special skill on so many different levels. To speak nothing of the skill strata, what Tercius accidentally did with the first barrier itself allowed the skill to be used inside the Skill World.

Second on his list was Energy overload. At the time he had wielded an enormous amount of Energy with his skill, so much that some of it kept escaping his grasp.

Third was Environment. During the event he had been in the Skill World and near the Core of the skill that he had been using.

Fourth was his state of mind, at the time of the phenomenon. He had been under pressure to finish things successfully as soon as possible.

While he had a pretty strong hunch that the combination of the first three were responsible, Tercius still didn’t want to jump too far ahead. If he did that, he could miss something.

Creating tests for each of these points was his next step, with special attention made so that each test was focused on a single point at a time. That would make his later work easier by far. Unfortunately, he encountered a stumbling block soon after. Not only was he not able to come up with a way to test point one, but once he went down the list he realized that number two was too closely tied to the number three. Tercius couldn't harvest Energy outside of the Skill World nor outside of Cores. Flu always used Skill Cores as his home.

Oh. I see what I did there. Skill World is woven intrinsically into this experiment. Without access to the Skill World, none of these tests would be possible in the first place. I can strike it off completely, as things stand right now.

Tercius realized that he didn't give enough thought to each point on his list, so he remedied that immediately.

Time went by and he realized that point number one — the possibility that Energy Manipulation leveled so rapidly was because the skill itself was special in some way — had no way to be tested as of right now. The only thing that he made special note of for the future was that Energy Manipulation was a skill currently usable in the Skill World, on the account of the function that had been added at the first barrier. To test this point he would have to add that same function to another skill — he noted that Mana Manipulation was preferable for this, because of many similarities the skills shared — and see what happened then.

Then a realization hit him on the head. There was no Mana in the Skill World. The only reason that Energy Manipulation had a function that enabled manipulation of Energy inside the Skill World was that there had been Energy to manipulate… Even if he managed to apply the same function to Mana Manipulation, what would he manipulate?

I should consider Energy Sight for a Skill World function then…

He was about to move on to the next point and leave this puzzle for another time when he realized an oversight of his. Correction. There is Mana inside the Skill World… Only it’s bound inside the Skill Cores… Would Mana Manipulation work on it? If yes, would I damage the Skill's Core by manipulating its Mana inside of it? What if I were to remove that Mana outside the limits of the Core? What would be the consequences of something like that? Would the skill level decrease? More importantly, would the skill still work? Would the Core… remain stable?

So many interesting questions…

He let his mind wander on this new topic and as more questions arose he wrote them all down. For additional security and practice, he did so in Runic. After taking a good look, he took out a closed container from his amulet, opened it up, and soaked the papers into the liquid contained within the metal box. Moments later all traces of his writings were gone.

As he completed the standard step of destroying his writing material, another tangent called for him. Nothing new there, he chuckled to himself.

The previous day Tercius had decided on the function that would take Visualization [40] and carry it over its barrier.

Visualization [40]

Lowers the influence of the surroundings on you and gives focus to details of a visual memory. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of its use by a small degree.

In action, at its current level, Visualization blurred his peripheral vision while his eyes focused entirely on the center where he got to replay a memory that he had. He also had some liberties. For example, Tercius could pause a vivid memory he had, and zoom in to see someone’s face. If he had taken a good look at that face at the time, he would be able to see the same face now. When he could recall something visually, the skill worked without a hitch. Particularly vivid long-term memories, ones which left a particular impression on him even in his old life, were not an issue. Short-term memories, likely due to freshness, were also easy.

In any case, the problem was that he was using Visualization to retain everything that he ever wrote about skills. Things had been… manageable before he went to the Pyramid and started his book-a-vore days. Now he kept images of an unknown number of books, filled with hundreds of pages. Books that he read at Perdinar’s, the dorm libraries, the library at the House of Pain and Pleasure, the Librarium of the Pyramid…

A lot of that information had been retained the good old-fashioned way, but even more was saved as a slide of well-looked-at images. Memories captured with Quick Learner were crystal clear, he had to admit, but Tercius had not been able to use that skill all the time.

That was what drove him to imagine a specialized skill for permanent book storing, something quite similar to Visualization, but from what he saw the other day he knew that even with Energy at its disposal that skill crystal had a while to go until it got the Mana it needed.

A nicely thought out function for Visualization fueled by a lot of Energy could be just what he needed now to bridge the gap.

Since he figured out how barriers actually worked, Tercius had had a few functions for Visualization in mind. But many of those fell away when he realized that he didn't want the skill to enhance him to the point where he would remember everything that he ever saw. Oblivion and forgetfulness were good for a lot of things. Just imagining what someone like Perdinar, who was almost a millennium-old, witnessed made Tercius appreciative of what many considered a weakness of the mind.

The remaining functions he envisioned were all along the lines of selective long-term storage of visual memories, selective being the keyword. The only issue he had with these functions was that Quick Learner already did all of that and more.

So instead of wasting this opportunity on something he already had, Tercius had spent time thinking about what skills he had right now, what skills he would soon have, and what he wanted for Visualization. At the intersection of the trio, seemingly an act of some spark of inspiration, he saw something which in its simplicity gripped him with a gravitational pull.

Visualization.

The name said it all. What was visualization?

The ability to imagine vividly. To form a mental image and hold it.

Visualization was already capable of these things, but for his imagined function Tercius took that capability and he pushed it a little further into the direction he wanted.

From a dot, crystal clear lines were drawn, curved, or perfectly straight. Letters and numbers, Runes and musical notes. Simple and small then complex and large objects were created by those lines he drew with his mind. A two-dimensional circle and a three-dimensional planet, a three-dimensional leaf, and a two-dimensional tree. When an error was made, he was able to erase it. Where color was needed, he would add it. What he wanted to save for future use would get a good look with Quick Learner. The best part was that everything was permanent for his mind’s eyes only, up until the moment he dismissed it.

Tercius felt giddy as he refined the function’s look before his eyes.

Before long, Tercius was harvesting Energy and although the pain dulled his giddiness, it was not able to snuff it out completely.

Since this tangent with Visualization and its function had veered him off his original course, that of exploring and figuring out the mystery of fast-leveling of Energy Manipulation, Tercius decided that since he was already harvesting Energy he might as well harvest till that point where his Energy Manipulation had trouble containing his plunder.

So he did.

The proverbial bucket was soon filled and Tercius got to that moment where he strained to hold the enormous sphere of Energy—

Energy Manipulation [29] is now Energy Manipulation [30]

Like water slipping through his fingers, Energy started leaking away despite the claim his skill had over it. A small part of the Energy that he claimed rushed into every pore of the Energy Manipulation Core, integrating itself and pushing the Core boundary marginally outwards in all directions.

Just to confirm, Tercius topped up his newly expanded control domain with Energy, and once more as soon as things started pushing some limit which Tercius felt shuddering deep inside of him, the results were repeated.

Energy Manipulation [30] is now Energy Manipulation [31]

That all but confirmed it.

But… just to be sure…

Energy Manipulation [31] is now Energy Manipulation [32]

Arms screaming with agony and body twitching with pain, Tercius’s trembling head looked at the enormous sphere of Energy that he collected. There was more Energy there than what he had used for the initial creation of Spring of Crystal Thoughts.

Time to… make that… beautiful function happen…

Visualization [40] is now Visualization [41]

The function took only a part of the Energy that he kept under his control inside the Skill World. Less than one part in seven, in Tercius's rough estimate. With that tangent solved and with an abundance of Energy still at hand, Tercius decided to push through his pain and continue with the Energy Manipulation, if for one more confirmation level.

Like always, Flu stayed in one place during harvest, making Tercius’s job somewhat easier than if he had to chase after the chained wisp. The actual pain was enough of a pain.

Energy Manipulation [32] is now Energy Manipulation [33]

That settles it… completely…

Whether due to something inherent to the skill itself, the proximity to the Core, presence of enough Energy, straining of the skill’s capability while under a combination of previously mentioned factors, or even some factor that Tercius failed to see currently, a method to power-level the skill was at hand. He didn’t know the why’s and how’s yet, but those would soon be revealed.

Despite the part that held the desire to continue to power-level the skill some more, Tercius couldn’t commit to more harvest. The pain had gotten so bad that his hands, the hands he was projecting to this space, were not obeying anymore. They were… locked away while trembling. The rest of his projected body was seemingly going the same route and his mind… Tercius was, despite his screaming desire to rid himself of this pain by escaping to that void of Meditation, still holding on to the enormous balloon of Energy with his willpower alone.

For Willpower and Pain Management, he wanted to power through it on his own, at least this once.

At least… this once… Fuuuck…

Breathing deeply as his projected body shuddered, Tercius forced his attention to the gray fog. He would find the Core of Spring of Crystal Thoughts and dump all of this Energy into its pacification.

You can… leave this place… once you finish that…

Tercius stepped into the fog. His legs were nowhere near as unresponsive as his arms, but even they shared some pain that made him unable to do anything else but move one leg in front of the other.

When was the last time… I walked through here…

Tercius’s projected eyes widened, as a full-body shudder went through his projection.

Like flashes of light small realizations collided before his tired eyes and he came to see what it was that had broken the first barrier of Running. Like Energy Manipulation, that skill was usable here, in this World. Same with Visualization and Mathematics and Precision. For the past few months he had been asking himself the question of what exactly had been the function that had taken these skills over the edge, and now, walking through a world of fog in the throes of pain, he figured it out.

At one point or another, Tercius had used all of these skills to orient himself in this fog and move through it faster, and… he had somehow taken that for granted even as he wondered what it was that had made his skills cross that barrier.

How did I not see this before…

Tercius had no idea where the Cores of those skills were when related to the Core cluster whose positions he knew of. He would have to wait for the wisps to make a new effigy to those Cores and then see if it was possible to level them in some way similar to what he just verified as possible with Energy Manipulation.

This new function will certainly come in handy… I will need to make some maps… Core Cluster Maps…

Following a trail of Energy arrows, Tercius walked with perseverance. It might have been his imagination, but he could swear that the bleakness of the gray fog somehow made things more bearable, pain-wise. But he still needed a lot of repeated self-assurance that the pain was only pain and that it was shrinking and fading into nothingness.

Just a moment longer… just one moment more…

By the time he arrived at his destination, an enormous sphere of white Energy behind him, the pain was somewhere below that of Well formation. Near the end of the journey, he had even gone for a run.

The core of Spring of Crystal Thoughts was enormous, to his naked eye almost double the size of the Energy Manipulation Core. Tall and slim hexagonal pylons of silverish-white were sticking out of a floating crystal star that rested inside the center of the skill’s pale white Core. From what he saw through the boiling skill’s Core, smaller crystals grew everywhere between the major ones, seemingly filling every cranny observable. A very small part of the skill’s Core was peaceful, and considering that the Core was just days old and didn’t have a lot of time to pacify itself, he attributed that layer to level [16].

Tercius didn’t stop to observe the skill for long. He wanted to unburden himself of the Energy that he carried and then be gone for a quiet minute inside Meditation.

He approached the Core and started injecting the Energy into the peaceful part of the skill’s Core. Thirsty for Energy, the chaos at the center of the spherical Core took all that he offered within mere instants, visibly receding its boundaries. By the time Tercius pumped all that he brought with himself, the skill’s chaotic innards had shrunk considerably. Somewhere north of a quarter and south of a third of the Core’s chaotic volume was gone, his naked-eyes estimate said.

Tercius wanted to take more precise and accurate measurements of the Core and its current state, but in the Skill World, other than eye-balling it, his options were limited. That was why he pinned for Mathematics to get to its next barrier…

With a long look at the Core, Tercius let himself be pulled back from the Skill World. After a lengthy rest in Meditation, he returned to reality. A small weight pressed down on him and when he opened his eyes he saw Amber, who had made herself comfortable on his chest. The lioness had been left with Aurelia earlier in the day, as a sort of preparation for something that he considered as an option for when Mistress Kalina returned.

Although he was not sure if he would go through with this…

Since the idea that he could use Familiar Bond to stay in touch with Nurium — all the way from the other side of the planet — first came to him, it had refused to leave.

But…

While so far there had been no indications that their bond had any kind of distance limit, for the first time since Familiar Bond was established the two of them would be separated by a continent worth of distance. What if that kind of distance created the so-called “bond straining”? Tercius had read that almost all bonds would snap if bond straining was pushed too far…

It was Master Zver, a beast tamer and enchanter, who told him that items enchanted with bond-like spells — like the necklace-bracelet pair that he bought for Amber and himself — would only power down if the distance limit proved too much of an obstacle. To make these enchanted items work again, most just had to be brought in close physical proximity to each other, while the rare bond enchantments crafted at the pinnacle of enchanting mastery could restart their work as soon as items were back within their respective outermost limits.

Yet all of those bonds, that he read or knew of, were spells and enchantments. Familiar Bond was a skill. But… it was a skill whose Core was non-existent, so far. Tercius did not need to pacify it, there was no growth in levels similar to that of the other skills, and yet the skill had experienced tremendous growth.

In the beginning, he only could tell where Amber was and within hours of getting the skill, he had noticed the ease with which he and Amber understood each other. Neither of those two initial abilities stopped growing. The ability to exchange Energy thought the bond appeared half a year ago. Then, just weeks before now, he developed the ability to see through Amber's eyes. He was also pretty sure that Amber could do the same or, if not, she would soon be able to.

Clearly, Familiar Bond was growing in some way. He had to ask himself what was next? Maybe something similar to what he already had? The ability to use Amber’s other senses? Or something more… He did think of this earlier, but what if he actually gained the ability to shapeshift into a river lion? Would he keep his mass and only alter his physiology?

I’m going off on another tangent here…

As he shook off the idea of a massive river lion out of his head, Tercius finally arrived at the only factor he knew that allowed him to even entertain this idea of continental separation between him and Amber.

Since the moment the two of them developed this bond, Tercius and Amber had crossed the boundary of the Pyramid’s space a dozen times. While Tercius could cross the boundary by himself, since he didn’t know how to, he never took Amber with him. Whether the Gatekeeper or another mage, it had always been someone else who took Amber over the threshold. At each of those crossings, from a moment to a minute of time, literal separate spaces had been between the two of them and their bond came out of that with no negative effects whatsoever. None that he noticed so far, at least.

Maybe consult Perdinar, just to be sure? Or… Mistress Kalina? Should I be sharing something like this in the first place?

Tercius checked his hourglass and saw that he had missed lunch, but wasn't hungry anyway. He also realized that the pain had once more distorted his sense of time. Somehow he thought that he would be late, when in fact he still had a couple of hours free.

Maybe a few more levels for Energy Manipulation and then dumping the leftovers into pacification?

Energy Manipulation [33] is now Energy Manipulation [34]

Energy Manipulation [34] is now Energy Manipulation [35]

Energy Manipulation [35] is now Energy Manipulation [36]

Energy Manipulation [36] is now Energy Manipulation [37]

Energy Manipulation [37] is now Energy Manipulation [38]

Energy Manipulation [38] is now Energy Manipulation [39]

Energy Manipulation [39] is now Energy Manipulation [40]

Each level expanded his Energy control capacity by a little bit more and each level took only a part of the Energy that he harvested and claimed. He was able to fill up his Energy capacity within a few minutes and soon the barrier stopped him.

Incredible… and so, so dangerous to know…

With pain coursing through him, Tercius stepped out into the gray fog to find the Core of Spring of Crystal Thoughts once more, as he imagined what a secret like this would be worth. This depended on a lot of preexisting abilities, abilities which, as far as he knew, only he had. He could never utter a word of this to anyone.

When he fed the Energy that he brought with him into the greedy Core, he saw that today’s efforts had halved the chaos in volume.

After a brief rest in Meditation, Tercius saw that it had taken him a little over two hours to do what he did. Two hours. It took him a moment to snap out of his stunned state, but when he did he just added two additional entries to his “skill” list.

I need to get Energy Sight to [40] as soon as possible and add the Skill World function… And test Visualization, Running, Mathematics, and Precision as soon as the wisps come my way. Added to the list.

Before he left his room, Tercius went back for some more Energy which he kept strictly neutral. Thanks to Meditation and the way that Energy influenced the body, Tercius emerged from his harvest revitalized. The presence of Energy was what finally woke Amber up. Through their bond, she took half of the neutral Energy from his Well and immediately converted it into Energy suited to her within a blink of an eye.

Pulling out a ball of neutral Energy out of his body, Tercius didn’t have to wait for long for the Spirit to appear out of nowhere.

With whitish-green eyes, Tercius observed the spectral cat-like being as it pounced at the Energy. The Spirit of Protection incorporated its food into its being in a single passage without the use of its mouth. It just… full-body phased through.

Energy Sight [24] is now Energy Sight [25]

Tercius left his room with the satisfying realization that he could combine his Energy Sight leveling with Spirit observation.

After having a bite to eat, Tercius transferred the rest of his neutral Energy to Ciron, under Petra's wistful gaze, and then he took Aurelia and Leo to the outer garden. The enthusiasm for the same games was somewhat lacking, so Tercius did what any big brother was supposed to do.

He motivated them.

Between his bouts of Gardening specific high-value bushes and roots, all of which were in dire need of some serious help, he used his newly developed prowess with coloring his mana. Tiny motes, of all the colors that he knew to morph, floated around the garden. They were especially present around Aurelia and Leo, as the duo worked on something that Tercius assigned them as their duty.

It was a real exercise in control, he had to say. With time, as things became easier for him, he started transforming some of those motes into butterfly-like constructs. They were crude from up close, but the general shape was there — wings joined to a stump. The kids seemed to enjoy it when, for each job done, a tiny butterfly landed on their noses.

It was incredibly satisfying to observe how the kids reacted to his constructs. There was no fear, like he expected, only curiosity and wonder. While he noted that the kids would need to be educated on the dangerous fauna and flora, he figured that that could wait one more day.

Aurelia tried to grab the butterflies but failed. The constructs being completely incorporeal meant that hers was an effort in futility, but even after he told her that she didn't seem to care. Leo, on the other hand, seemed content to just observe Tercius's creations. The kid placed his arms behind his back, much like Ciron sometimes did, and his green eyes almost crossed as he observed the butterfly that rested on his nose.

The shrieks and laughter eventually drew out the human denizens of the house, who were followed by a trio of well-fed cats, Amber among them.

The cats immediately started chasing and jumping after the motes and butterflies that Tercius maintained, while Petra, Portia, Kriti, and Ciron headed to the small pavilion in the corner of the garden to sit and observe. His mother carried the infant close to her bosom, while Ciron and Kriti brought refreshments in tall pitchers.

Tired, the kids soon went to the pavilion to join the others as Tercius continued his quest of returning his grandmother’s garden to a somewhat presentable shape. He didn’t want the old lady to see what Petra and Ciron had done while she was away.

Their intentions were good, after all. It was only their experience that was lacking.

That same evening, after the kids were put to bed, Tercius had a conversation with Ciron and Petra about what they thought of getting some dogs as additional home security. He also explained the skill that he and Amber shared and proposed that Aurelia and Leo could also, with his help, develop a similar skill. He found them completely agreeable to the idea.

Petra’s eyes practically blazed at the mention of puppies, while Ciron cracked a rare smile and shared a small story of a dog that he had had when he had been a boy.

What they didn’t settle on was the number of puppies that would be taken in nor their races…

***

***

***

As the new day arrived Tercius found himself having some pre-journey nervousness. Knowing that Mistress Kalina could pop up at any time, Tercius didn’t leave his house nor did he start anything which he couldn’t drop at once. He gave some thought to what he might need on this journey and even remotely useful things he packed into his amulet. There was space in there, so why not?

He talked to Ciron and Petra about the money that he stole a few nights ago and he gave each of them five kvartas, while keeping the considerable rest at his person, for now. After he returned from this search and recovery mission, he would turn over almost everything. For now, in case someone came searching while he was gone, it was better for everyone that he had it and they didn’t.

Hells, in Spheros, he could sell away the jewelry for even more coins. Although… from what he saw, the mages did have a lot of jewels… Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, all with a gem or seven… Not every mage, but quite a lot of them. Especially outside the Academy staff. Tercius decided to keep his gem-encrusted loot, for now.

And… maybe a visit to that nobleman, just to check his disposition on this affair, was in order upon his return?

To fill up his time, Tercius harvested some Energy, claimed it, and flooded his body with it. Then he took up practicing two of his lowest leveled skills. He took a big piece of firewood, inserted it into a wall, in one of the basement rooms that had a door, and with some expert-like Precision, Small Blade Mastery [1] and Dexterity [11] started climbing in levels.

Soon he had no more Energy to spend and Small Blade Mastery climbed up to [12] while Dexterity rose to [13].

And as luck would have it, that was then Mistress Kalina returned.