Zu Mari looked around the balcony. Nira and Menya were doing their hushed whisper thing again, while various groups of captives either grumbled rebelliously or looked about uncertainly.

He made his way to the sisters, introducing himself with a polite bow. "Hello, I am Zu Mari, and I have a proposal for you. I plan to beg Nira for an apprenticeship since I'm currently studying dimensionalism. Would any of you be interested in joining me? I think we could work well together."

Needless to say, they agreed without hesitation, and so it was that Zu and Alie approached Nira together as representatives for their little group, asking for private tutoring in place of the standard acolyte trials.

Zu explained that he was an acolyte dimensionalist and needed a master's guidance to move beyond playing with warping light, while the four sisters had unknown parentage of high potential, and all of them would be ready and willing to work for her in whatever way she saw fit.

Nira, never one to give up a potential advantage, accepted.

Menya looked on with distaste, looking as though she'd swallowed something bitter. Zu considered her, wondering if he might be well served by choosing her as his mentor in the future someday, but discarding the notion for now. Nira was a dimensionalist, and that meant she was his top priority at the moment.

The next several days passed without incident. Zu was given a more advanced book to study this time, and Nira walked him through several of the exercises instead of leaving him to his own devices. Being able to prove he could twist reality even a little dispelled her 'oh, well, prove yourself' attitude from the previous loop before it could get started, and she took him on in good faith as a promising but underdeveloped student.

Zu progressed much quicker this time, between his improved understanding of the subject and Nira's constant care.

So when the loop reset again a mere five days later, he knew it wasn't him.

"When the Master arrives, you will bow. You will not speak unless asked to, you will not move unless—"

Before Nira had even finished speaking, Master Elvanis slammed down from above. "You, come with me." He pointed out a different four, including one of the sisters. They went, some more trepidatious, her reluctant to be parted from her siblings - Zu thought it was Melie. The same force snatched them together and dragged them away.

Zu couldn't help a shiver of dread that went through his body at this confirmation that Master Elvanis was doing something. Experimenting, taking different captives each time.

He knew his decision to have Luja Ni extend the loops past his death was a wise one.

"No one's noticed yet, have they?"

"No. But one time won't catch anyone's attention. If it happens more than once, that's when it'll start raising alarms. But you're certain this is necessary. I will do my part."

Zu smiled proudly. "That's my girl."

"I wish." The voice was barely a mutter.

Zu blinked, narrowing his eyes. "Did you... say 'I wish'?"

"Why would I say that? I am the personification of a concept, not a human female subject to whims and hormones."

"Because it really sounded..."

"I did not! Now pay attention, or you'll ruin your cover yourself."

Zu smiled and nodded. "Sure."

He could have sworn Luja Ni made a sort of eep sound, before retreating into his soul with what could only be described as bashful embarrassment. Zu shook his head in wonder. Spirits could be so strange sometimes.

"—and you all will be allowed the glory of proving your worth," Nira was saying. "Follow me, I’ll show you to a preparation room while your first trial is made ready."

Zu raised a hand. "Hey, I'm an apprentice dimensionalist, but I've been separated from my old master. Anyone here who could teach me dimensionalism?"

Menya and Nira looked at each other, clearly some silent bidding war going on between them. Nira slumped, looking away, and Menya grinned and stepped forward. "I am a dimensionalist. I will take you on."

Interesting. He wasn't planning to switch mentors this time, but he'd forgotten the hierarchy that seemed to be in place between those two. He should have guessed that Menya could snatch him away if he made his offer too vague. Something to keep in mind next time.

"The rest of you, off to the trial preparation area. I'll be along in a few hours."

Menya led Zu briskly through the halls, down the stairs two flights, and to a much nicer set of rooms that resembled Nira's only in passing. She had thick carpets on the floors, hangings on the walls, and her bookcases were carved ornately as opposed to the plain unornamented ones Nira kept in her own room.

"Here is where you will stay until you prove yourself to me." Menya pointed to a box on the floor. "Everything you need is in there. Don't kill yourself before I return. Don't try to leave; it will have the same effect." Without a backward glance, she left.

Zu wasn't sure what to make of her. He opened the box, finding it contained a slightly less horrible robe - still nothing to write home about, but better than nothing he supposed - and a set of books on dimensionalism. They were different from the series Nira had been using, approaching the problem from a distinctly different angle.

Instead of focusing on twisting reality, it centered on binding points to each other, with the warping effect only touched on briefly and in passing.

Zu read the pages proudly, understanding a lot more than was spoken. The grounding he'd obtained from Nira proved invaluable. He knew that if he'd started with these books sooner he would have been incapable of understanding them. Now that he had a solid grasp of the terminology involved, he could read them and understand everything about them.

Not to say that he could instantly master everything in them. The exercises were much, much more difficult than those in Nira's books.

These sets required focus on a level Zu had never attained before, a stilling of body and soul, a complete merging of yourself with the spell you were trying to enact, inserting yourself as the string tying two different points of reality together, and then compressing yourself to draw them into each other until you could pass from one to the other through the link that was your self.

Not easy. Not the sort of thing you could do on a whim.

But Zu Mari was not one to be deterred by hard work. He'd striven so long for no reward; now he had a reward clearly in view and he would not be stopped from attaining it. No matter what it took.