Vance was thoroughly enjoying his time outdoors. So much so that a few hours into the night, he was still awake. He realised he hadn't properly relaxed like this for far too long. For the last couple of months, he'd had constant simmering anxiety over one thing or another. He was glad for the calmness tonight brought. He took long, easy breaths.

He heard his friends walking off to go and relieve themselves somewhere in the woods a few times. It was an odd time for sentiment, but it gave him some tiny comfort that even powerful Arcanists have to obey some basic natural laws. He stifled a tiny chuckle at his own silliness, then he heard the leaves rustle nearby.

"Still awake, V?"

"Hey, James. You're calling me "V" now?"

"Just trying it out, V." James paused for a second, scooting up next to Vance. He laid on his back and mirrored Vance's relaxed pose, resting his head on his arms, looking up. "I've decided I don't like it."

"Yeah, good choice J." Vance extended the "J" as much as he could. "I didn't know you were friends with these guys, that's a stroke of luck."

"First of all, "J"? Yikes. Secondly, I wasn't. Tom and I hit it off after the whole fire incident. I actually hadn't met Brad and Mariah until just after. They're a nice change of pace, even if I do end up at odds with that Sellanion guy."

"Hey, on that subject, why did Duncan call you McKinley? Is that your family name?"

"Yeah. Our families don't really get along. My family are collectors of sorts. We host a small exhibit in town, it's essentially a small museum. The Sellanions are thieves disguised as archaeologists and merchants, especially his father; a nasty piece of work. Watch out for them."

"I will. what do you collect?" Vance's interest was peaked. He'd never visited a museum, he'd never seen the point nor lived in a city that had one.

"Pretty much anything of historical or magical importance that we can get our hands-on. Our most impressive piece is an intact skeleton of a demon."

Vance was just about to transition to a nice little giggle when he noticed that James wasn't laughing.

"Wait, you're serious? A demon? They're real?!" Vance was whispering, but his voice got a little loud towards the end.

"Of course they're real. What, you thought all those stories of possession and untold malevolence just fell out of the sky?"

"...Yes, actually. I was kind of hoping that was the case."

"Sorry, buddy. They're totally real. I'll bring you to the museum sometime, you can meet the family. I think you'd like them. Except for Niall. You won't like Niall."

"Who's Niall?" Vance wanted to talk about anything other than this demon revelation, he'd think about that later.

"He's my cousin, works in the building. He's really stuck up." James finished his incredibly in-depth description of his cousin in record time and moved on.

"You've got family, right? Your brother?"

"Yeah, Leon. He's back at home with d-" Vance caught himself. "He's back at home."

"Just him?"

"Yeah. I have a few relatives out in other villages but I haven't seen them much since I was a kid. Apparently, my mother could be a little...divisive."

"Alright, I've got to ask." James seemed suddenly impatient, he turned over to face Vance. He knew where this was going.

"The eyes?"

"Yeah."

Vance didn't seem surprised, he'd been asked this question hundreds of times by now.

"What I've been told is that my mother was bitten by some sort of snake when she was pregnant with me. She'd been out for a walk at the time and she made her way back as soon as she was bitten. They never captured the snake, so they didn't know for sure what sort it was, but based on the wound and her description, the local doctors figured it was a called a "Fissure Viper"."

James was silent.

"A Fissure viper's venom is pretty nasty, but usually not lethal. Unfortunately, it seems my mother was particularly vulnerable to it. She was right at the end of her pregnancy, which didn't help. She succumbed to its effects later that same day. Shortly thereafter, they got me out. Their best guess is that my eyes are like this because I was briefly exposed to the venom as well, though it was hard to tell for sure. Here, have a look."

Vance finished his practised speech then gestured at the firepit. James lit a small stick on fire, illuminating them both. Vance opened his eyes.

James closely examined the crisscrossing red patterns that covered his almost purely grey eyes. It was like somebody had stolen the light from them, then marked them with hundreds of thin lines of red. He only kept them open for a few moments, then closed them again, snapping James back to reality.

"Thanks for sharing," James said a few moments later. "Certainly looks like what I'd imagine poison would do to the eyes."

"Yeah, Dad used to tell me that. He was positive the doctor's conclusion was correct, I tend to agree."

"And there's no cure?"

"Not that we've found." Vance gestured with a hand and produced a tiny piece of fire mana. "Hence the magic. Maybe that'll work."

James thought to himself for a minute while Vance idly shaped the fire mana in his hands.

"I don't know how you'd even go about doing that, but I've heard of some Arcanists doing some pretty miraculous stuff. Who knows? Hell, it's a miracle you can work with mana at all, considering."

The two chatted for another few minutes before deciding it was about time to get some sleep. When morning came, Vance awoke to the sounds of a busy campsite. Everyone packed up their gear and made their way back into town.

The group was rowdy, full of jokes and Mariah was teaching the rest of the boys the game that she and Vance had come up with. They'd officially named it "Stutter step".

Thomas was doing his best to trip Brad over but the guy was a titan. Thomas was doing more damage to his own calves than he was to Brad's balance.

After Thomas lost his bouts 11-0, he decided that he needed to get some new trousers. His were caked in mud and scrapes from the successive losses.

This was the catalyst that caused everyone to start splitting off towards their various destinations. Vance opted to reject the offers of guidance he was given. He decided to put his mana sense to the test once again.

He hadn't used it in the city very often, it had been a little overwhelming. He took a deep breath, pushed his mana sense out in time with his exhalation and took in the surrounding area. There were a handful of people nearby, outlined by their various mana membranes. He could sense the earth mana that permeated all of the stones beneath his feet and larger concentrations of wood mana to his left and right that made up the buildings.

He kept his breathing calm and steady and his will was holding firm. He walked his way through the city streets, his awareness stretching out to almost 30 feet from him. This gave him a good amount of space in which he could maneuverer safely, though he still tripped on the occasional loose part of the road.

This sense, more than any other feat he could achieve with his magic, was a feeling he truly loved.

The further he got into the city, the more he had to stop for short breaks. The amount of information became overwhelming when there was too much activity but he was adjusting. It took him over an hour to get back to his room, but he'd taken a longer path than normal, just because he could.

"Next time, I'll keep it up the whole way." He promised himself as he approached his room. When he got inside, he went for a little nap. Nobody had given him a schedule for classes yet, so he assumed he'd be informed when they were held.

When Vance awoke, he was struck with the inclination to try something that he'd wanted to for a while.

He went outside into the college grounds and searched his mana sense for sources of earth mana. Of course, he was surrounded by them. When he eventually located a reasonably sized stone with enough weight, he picked it up and went back inside.

"Alright. First, earth mana," he said to himself out loud, sounding extremely sane alone in his room.

He shifted some ambient mana into earth mana and kept adding to it until it was roughly the same size as the stone he'd gathered, then he shaped it to match the shape of the rock he'd picked. Earth mana was slow to shape and quite unresponsive. It wasn't quite as hard as metallic mana, but much tougher than fire or water.

The shape and mana density he had chosen was based on his memory of the stone Thomas had given him, he found that with his precise mana sense it was quite easy for him to get the measurements right, or close to.

Once he'd matched the shape to his satisfaction, he thrust the mana into the stone and bound it in place with his will. He shook out his hands, then began creating his gatherer construct. This one was tricky because he had to shape metallic mana to create its core, but he was getting better at that.

Within a few minutes, he'd bound the gatherer construct in place. The tiny metallic ball began to rotate, pulling ambient mana to its centre.

For the next step, he'd be able to provoke his fire core into action, which would make it a lot easier. Ordinarily, filling one's core with mana took time and a little effort. In his case, he just needed to provoke the feather construct, so he got his candles out.

He easily put together the funnel-shaped construct that made up the majority of the shifter. Once he had that held in place, he began constructing the fire lattice.

Though he'd done this once before, it was still very tough. Thomas wasn't kidding, it really did take a lot of fire mana.

The lattice was formed entirely from strings of compressed fire mana. Vance supposed that most students simply weren't taught the importance of such a thing, even if they practised it a little bit here and there for tricks like this.

He finished the lattice in about 10 minutes, locked it in place and then realised he was sweating pretty heavily. He took a break, using his mana sense to closely observe the mana as it crept through the lattice from the gatherer, turning into fire mana.

He gave his will half an hour or so to recover then got to work on the enhancement construct that Thomas had shown him. This one was nearly entirely made of fire mana, so it should be fairly simple.

It wasn't.

As it turns out, setting up that lattice-like construct across a flat plane is one thing, creating an entire sphere of it? Much harder.

He had to bend each strand of mana and keep them woven together whilst he worked on the next. Then, once that was complete, he had to hold it in place while he created a tiny flame-based core at the centre.

After some seriously hard work, an extreme effort of will and concentration so intense that it gave him a headache, he locked the construct in place. When the construct didn't dissipate, he sighed with relief and rolled onto his back, fists outstretched into the air above him.

"Yes!"

It'd taken him nearly 6 hours to finally get it done. He had to constantly stop and let his willpower recover, losing his progress each time. He didn't want to think about how long it would have taken if he hadn't had such an "interesting" fire core.

He held the unnaturally warm stone in his hand and smiled in satisfaction. He decided that this would be another excellent training method, so he set himself some homework. He would make one of these a day until he could do it as quickly, or more quickly than Thomas could.

He spent the next few days isolated away in his room, making firestone charms. He realised that he could use them to help increase his core's fire mana output by increasing the intensity of the nearby candles.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Vance was getting a little fed up with being stuffed up inside, so he decided he'd head out for a while and see if he could find Mariah and the others in the college.

But first, he wanted to practice his mana sense a little in the city.

He left his room, locked his door and made his way outside into the waiting sun. He walked through the streets using his mana sense, still utterly delighted by his sharpened senses. He made a few questionable turns that led him back on himself, but he was largely just wandering.

He stopped by a few of his favourite food stalls and visited the nook on the way. It was the third time that he picked up on the short, pointed piece of metal being carried by the man not far behind him that he was positive he was being followed.