The cordial turned from a liquid to a strange mist as Nic drank. It poured into his body and flowed through his meridians, slowly insinuating into his flesh; Nic felt it reaching across his nodes, investigating each one with a wisp of power, before moving onwards.

It roamed through his body before pausing in a dark region.

Suddenly a hot, stabbing pain flared out from that ‘harmless’ wisp of mist. It began to rotate, taking shape like an eight-armed galaxy as it spun tighter and tighter, grinding away at his Essence like a millstone or a drillbit; it was boring its way into him and he could only clench his jaw and fight to keep from crying out as the sensation magnified, becoming a vast, stifling wall of gray pain…

And then it was done. The mist dispersed instantly, flowing outwards and cutting new meridian channels to support the single, perfectly-formed node that had been cut into Nic’s being. A new aperture in the web of stars and lines that was the inner flow of his Essence.

Nic stood on shaky feet and walked to the edge of the lake, where he could see his reflection rippling atop the waters. He pushed aura into the new node…

His entire body blurred, a thin mist pouring out of his skin and surrounding him like a cloak. Within that haze of mist he was constantly flickering, appearing in slightly different places. He took a few steps side to side, warming up into a martial stance and practicing his footwork, and he was delighted to find that the effect amplified the more he moved…

The faster Nic was on his feet, the more the illusions branched out from his true position. It would become harder and harder to find him in the haze of fog.

He pushed more aura into the node, and the cloak of mist condensed in around him. Now his entire form was translucent and ghostly, letting the colors and shapes of things behind him show through. His aura was totally disguised- sensory techniques such as his Eight-Eyed Mantle would find it impossible to pinpoint him, if they could even detect he was there.

Why were bloodline abilities so sought after?

The first reason was simple: they were stronger than techniques at their level. Even a technique that was custom crafted for its wielder and perfectly attuned to their body would only just be ‘on par’ with a bloodline treasure, which remade the body until it was perfectly suited to carry out that ability.

Second, techniques were limited. You could only learn so many, and each one you etched into your meridians would increase the cost of raising any technique’s rank. Bloodline abilities had no such limit, as long as they were compatible. The Mist-Vapor Spirit Cordial in particular was a mild, neutral ability that wouldn’t interfere with gaining more bloodlines in the future.

That was why it was so highly priced.

Finally, techniques would someday reach their limit. An E-Class technique could only advance 15 ranks, an F-Class 10. Bloodline abilities were only gated by the class of their bearer, and could advance endlessly alongside you.

The price had been astronomical, but Nic had acquired something that would be with him for life. It was slippery, evasive, stealthy; it suited him perfectly.

“Sofia?”

“Yes, Nicolas? Congratulations on your new bloodline power, I think it was a good choice.” She sounded distant and distracted. In fact, she’d been distant and distracted the last few times they talked.

“What do you think of Earth?”

That actually took her off guard, and caught her full attention. “What do I think of-” She repeated, then stopped herself. “I think it’s a good opportunity, I suppose?”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s not what I mean…” Nic laid back, resting his head against a rock that sat among the tall, river-wild grasses. “What do you think of it? Do you ever stop and just, you know, look at things? The sky, the fields…”

“I haven’t… really had time, I suppose. I’ve been busy managing all the newcomers to Winterhome…”

“What do you think of them, then?” Nic pressed on. “Any of them you like?”

“I, mm. I’m not sure where you’re going with this. Some of them have… potential, certainly…”

Nic almost laughed. She really was terrible at saying what she felt; Nic had barely managed to get her to slip up and call him Nic now and again, instead of Nicolas.

“Okay okay. I’ll stop with the weird questions.” He sighed, and straightened up. “How about something you enjoy? I need advice on forming my core.”

“Oh! Yes, that’s a fair bit easier, although…” Her voice contained a hint of a grimace.

“I don’t think I really laid the groundwork very well, did I?” Nic admitted. He’d picked up whatever Shards and abilities seemed useful, rather than gravitating towards a single theme or unifying ideal. The result was a mismatch of strange and disparate powers.

“I’m afraid not. Your abilities aren’t pointing in any one direction.”

“Now, cores are tricky at the best of time. To build a proper one you need to unify together strands of power from each Shard. If you can connect multiple elements, or all the elements, from a single Shard, the resulting core will be stronger; if you have Shards that don't connect to your core at all, it will be a Fragmented Core, the lowest kind.”

A core was the center of cultivation. It combined the energies in the body, so instead of each Shard processing and controlling aura differently, they would become one and the same; a unified force.

And without one, stepping into D-Class was impossible. His body could continue to evolve, but minus a solid core, his cultivation would remain at E-Class.

Nic broke off a sprig of emerald spring grass and chewed on it as he let her continue.

“Currently your Primordial Mist contains elements of wind, poison, and time. Your Mire-Caller Shard contains earth and water. Your Totemic Hieroglyphs contain divinity, nature, and death.”

“Taking time, time, earth, and death, you could create a Rot Core...”

“With water, poison, and nature, you could form a Mire Core…”

“Divinity, wind, and water… Raindragon Core…”

Nic called her to a stop, asking, “What if I added a fourth Shard? Or spliced in a new Secondary.”

“A new Secondary could help. The easiest way to reach two elements from each Shard would be to add a second death aspect to your Mire-Caller Shard, allowing you to fuse divinity, death, water, and time into a Lethe Core, calling on the power of the underworld’s river of souls. It’s not a bad option. As for a new Primary…”

“If you did so without thinking, you’d be lucky to form a Core at all. However, if you acted very carefully, it’s possible there is one solution. If you gained aspects of fire and space, you could unite the four elements, space-time, and divinity into a Cosmos Core. An extremely powerful and rare typing, it ranks among the top hundred.”

“Fire and space…”

“The problem being, space-related Shards are hugely difficult to acquire. Especially for those trapped on backwater worlds.”

“Ah.” Nic grimaced. Of course they were.

“Another solution presents itself, Nicolas. Concepts. Someone with high achievements in the Concept of Ink could meld rune and water Shards together seamlessly, preventing the rune Shard from interfering in a water-based Core, or vise versa. To them, the two ideas are so linked that they become one. After all, the Core is an expression of your power; how you understand the world shapes how the Shards combine.”

Chase the rarest of Shards or learn to philosophize until all things became one; Nic saw no good ways out. The rich scions of powerful clans would obviously never encounter these problems. They’d absorb multiple Shards with the same elements, making it easy to fuse them into a coherent whole.

If he wanted his troops to advance, he’d have to caution them to follow the same path.

Sighing, he got to his feet. Nic had chosen to let the ogre Settlement have the majority of the kills today; whether he could win out on the third and final day would depend on his performance tomorrow. Tomorrow…

He’d skip the slaughter and move directly against the ogres.

If he had to guess, they were trying to push as many kills onto a single body as they could, moving that one individual up the unseen ladder for the most wretches slaughtered. It was the logical way to play things out if you wanted to claim the prizes both for individual achievement and for your Settlement.

But it also gave them a single point of failure.

Tomorrow, Nic’s plan was to kill whichever body they’d accumulated their points on.

Thankfully, he’d just acquired a way to sneak past their sentry unseen.

---

Late that night, Nic slithered down the walls of the valley. The paths, rocky footholds, and descending falls of rubble were easy to maneuver over, his body as light as the morning fog. He moved like a phantom and left no trace.

The old slave saw nothing as Nic crept down a wall, his hands and feet anchored with sticky tar as he slid into the water. Not a ripple echoed up as he swam down, into the next underground tunnel…

The emergence of the hunting ground had torn open a hidden palace underground. Luminous strands of glowing coral grew from the floor, emitting hazy blue light, and Nic swam alongside massive blind fish with thin protruding jaws like sets of snapping scissors. Tiny lizards with skin as pale as glass drifted by, nibbling on coral…

He emerged into a maze. Honeycomb-like tunnels stretched in all directions, formed from rough, identical passages of stone. Fringes of moss and croaking colonies of frogs inhabited the crossroads between them.

In the distance, his ears detected a slight noise. The rhythmic step, breath, step of someone practicing.

His cloak of mist disguising him, Nic scuttled onwards…

---

Nic arrived in time to watch the enemy bed down for the night. They had erected a protective screen of wards around a small area, setting up floating layers of runes that connected in hexagonal patterns. A small floating lamp shed light over their campsite.

The ogre Rakdhat, their leader, the one whom Nic had briefly dueled in the prison of Makepeace…

He stood alone at the edge of the wards, his staff whirling around his body, moving faster and faster as his huge feet shifted with surprising grace, leading a dance-like flow of lightning-quick moves. The staff was a heavy piece of iron capped with curled brass dragons, but in his hand it was an adder, bending to strike from all angles.

The ogreblood practiced alone, in a trance of motion. Each time the dance came to an end, he would lean the staff over his shoulder, clap his hands together, and bow towards the north. It added a solemn and religious air to his constant pursuit of perfection.

Nic found himself watching with an odd respect.

Nearer to the lamp, an older, scrawnier ogre was kneeling down, consulting a tiny manuscript written on bark paper. His face was rough and craggy like a mask of stone, horns curling out of his gray braids. He leafed through, reciting in a low mumble.

The swordswoman, Tharsa, was among them. She’d returned to a human form with the belt wrapped around her waist, restraining her ‘sister’. She was flicking a ball back and forth, letting it rebound off the wards with a rippling thrum of energy, coming rolling back to her hand as she rested atop her bedroll.

“Bored…” She complained.

The hermit mumbled.

“Boooored…” She sung.

The staff hummed as Rakdhat swung it through the air.

She twisted up her lips, irritated, and Nic simply watched. It was going to be hard killing them after this, he realized.

After taking in the idle rhythm of their life, watching them like a ghost in the shadows.

A ghost in the shadows…

He blinked and honed in on a strange patch of darkness. Sitting there, chewing on its toes, was the goblinoid creature he’d seen accompanying Rakdhat in the prison. Its eyes were lightless, its face patterned with a slave brand like Old 13’s…

Nic smiled. One shadow watching another…