“We’ve only got a little less than a week before we have to go back out,” Sylph said. “Do you really think that’s enough time to master this new Ether?”

“Master it?” Henry asked, chuckling. “No. But enough for you to get a rudimentary grasp over its use. You should still also be able to use a lot of your previous magic. That knowledge isn’t lost – your energy is just different. Your companion, artificial or not, already made it so that you could see the Ether that corresponds to Dark magic. Just be careful, as your new Ether may not act the same way, even for the same spells.”

Sylph committed his words to memory before giving Henry a nod. “Understood. I’ll keep your words in mind. Thank you.”

“Appreciation accepted,” Henry said. “And with that, it’s time for me to go. You kids can handle the rest. There’s no reason to keep the magical barrier going any longer than we need to.”

He slipped forward, sliding into the ground and reconnecting to Damien’s feet. The translucent purple energy flickering around them popped and faded away into small wisps of smoke.

“How do you feel?” Damien asked.

“Better than before. Being able to feel the Ether again is a huge weight off my shoulders. It’s different, but it’s still there. I’m going to need to practice a lot this week if I want to avoid suspicion form the professors.”

Damien nodded. “I’ll be practicing as well. Just don’t push yourself too hard. We really don’t want a repeat of last time.”

An embarrassed grin crossed Sylph’s lips. “I’ll try to contain myself. No promises, though.”

It was already a late hour, so the two of them didn’t spend much more time talking. Both were too tired to get anything serious done, so they got cleaned up and headed to bed to prepare for the following morning.

The next two days passed in a blur. Damien practiced the Devour spell relentlessly until he could bring the magic to bear in just a little over a second. He remained within the first training room, allowing Sylph the usage of the second, farther, one. He saw little of her aside from when they went to bed late into the night.

On the dawn of the third day, Henry declared that Damien’s mastery of Devour had reached a level where he could begin learning the second half without accidentally blowing himself up.

Damien quickly checked to make sure that the plateau was empty before scurrying into his training room. His shadow rose up, not fully breaking away from his feet as Henry took partial form beside him.

“This portion of the spell is called Expunge,” Henry said. “You can roughly think of it as the opposite of Devour. Instead of absorbing the spell coming at you, you essentially spit out the spell that you’ve stored using Devour.”

“Does it have to be from the same location?” Damien asked. “Devour is hard, but I think I could probably make two different Devour spells at the same time.”

“It does not,” Henry said, his tone smug. “That is the reason I chose to teach you this spell as opposed to another shield spell. While it is an effective defense against ranged attacks, it is actually also a very powerful offensive tool. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Damien felt Henry’s mental energy reach forward, tentatively taking over his body. It was a courtesy more than anything – Damien couldn’t have stopped the Void Creature if he’d wanted to. Regardless, the motion was appreciated.

The boy shifted back, allowing Henry to take over. His companion had him raise an arm and traced the rune for Devour in the air before them in purple, glowing script.

“Watch closely,” Henry said with Damien’s voice. “If you remain concentrated, you can actually insert the Ether into the rune without detonating it.”

Henry cast out a net of mental energy, illuminating the room with lines of Ether. He then did exactly as he’d said, injecting the energy into the glowing rune through Damien’s palm. At the same time, Henry sent a tendril of mental energy into the rune, asserting his will over it.

He had Damien walk several feet to the side. The moment Damien stepped away from the rune, it grew slightly brighter as if it were trying to activate. However, Henry forced it to remain in stasis.

After a few moments, Henry pulled the strand of energy back. The rune instantly triggered, and a perfect circle of darkness sprang to life in front of them. Henry repeated the spell one more time, then gave Damien back control over his body.

“It can be like a trap,” Damien said aloud, forgetting to speak inwardly as he tried to wrap his head around all the possibilities of the spell. “And with magic that I don’t even know how to cast. But… isn’t this kind of Void magic? You said that the Void spell was just basically a mimicry spell, right?”

“No,” Henry said. “This is Space magic. You are essentially trapping your opponents spell within a spot in space, then releasing it from another. The longer you wait to release their spell, the weaker it will become. Void magic is… different. It isn’t just mimicry – it’s theft. It takes a spell and changes it drastically. Think of it as evolving a spell to its max possible capability. Just focus on Space magic for now. You’re getting a good grasp on it, but you’ve got a long way to go before you can even think about the Void.”

Damien nodded. He gathered the Ether in his hands and guided it as he envisioned the Devour spell, drawing the rune in the air. Pressing his palm against the floating energy, he sent the Ether into it.

The rune brightened substantially. Damien’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he reached out with a strand of mental energy. He pressed it into the spell, trying to envelop it. However, unlike when Henry had done it, the Ether stubbornly slipped out from his grasp like an eel. Damien pursed his lips and yanked his hand back, hoping that his weak grip would be enough to contain the Ether.

The rune detonated and the Devour spell went off. Damien cursed as the spell faded away. After a moment of gathering his thoughts, Damien drew the Ether back down to his fingertip and repeated the process. The second attempt gave him similar results. The moment he took his hands away from the spell, it detonated almost instantly.

I don’t get it. How do you keep the spell from activating? The moment I take my hand off it goes boom.

“You’re just poking it with your mental energy,” Henry said. “It’s just like casting a spell. Intention is key. Imagine that your mental energy is forming a perfect sphere around the Ether, not allowing it to return to its natural state.”

That’s what I’m doing! I can grab and move the strands of Ether normally with my energy, but I can’t seem to completely wrap it up after I’ve put it into a rune.

“That’s because the Ether strands are in their natural state. They aren’t trying to resist you like the spell is. Just try casting it again. For now, you can try using more of your energy to contain it. You can work on optimizing it later.”

Damien nodded, going through the process of casting the spell once again. Once the rune formed in the air before his palm, he sent the Ether into it. The rune grew warm against his touch. He bit his lower lip as he sent out two tendrils of mental energy, twisting them around the rune and forming a blobby orb. The Ether within the rune pressed against his energy, trying to worm its way out.

Do you think this will work? Or do I need more?

“Give it a shot,” Henry said after examining it for a moment. “You don’t have to be too worried with this spell. It’s not going to hurt you if it miscasts like Gravity Sphere would. You should just abuse your high magical energy and cast it until something works.”

Damien let go of the spell, hopping a step back. The rune flickered in the air, remaining there for an instant. The pressure doubled and a small crack formed in his cage. The spell immediately went off, throwing his mental energy to the side.

I did it!

“For about half a second,” Henry said, chuckling. “If you want that to be of any use in a fight, you’re going to need to be able to hold the rune in place for a minute or more.”

That did little to dampen Damien’s enthusiasm. He mentally stuck his tongue out at Henry and redoubled his efforts. The hours ticked by. Damien cast Devour dozens of times, not stopping until a throbbing headache wrapped its steely fingers around him. By the end of the day, Damien was able to keep the rune suspended in the air for nearly five seconds.

He staggered into the bathroom, squinting against the pain. One long shower later, the pain had receded enough for him to rejoin the outside world. Damien wandered back into the main room, drying his hair off with the towel.

“Did your training go well?” Sylph asked from behind him.

He jumped, tripping over his own feet and falling face first onto his bed. Sylph burst into laughter behind him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I was preoccupied,” Damien grumbled, flicking some water at her. “And yes, my training went well. I’m assuming that question means you’ve managed to make progress as well?”

In response, Sylph held out her hand. Her nose bunched up in concentration. A small ball of pale greyish green energy twisted to life above her palm. It condensed into a pinprick of light before flaring outwards, forming into a blade.

“You can cast magic again!” Damien exclaimed.

“Yeah, although the color is kind of messed up. I really hope my spells don’t all look green,” Sylph said, a small frown crossing her features. “Delph is going to wonder why all my magic looks different.”

“Maybe it’ll go back to normal once you get some more practice with it,” Damien said. “But you’re feeling fine aside from that, right? No weird side effects?”

“None,” Sylph said. She pulled her shirt up slightly, exposing her midriff. “The spot where I got stabbed felt like it had changed to a stonelike substance when I woke back up, but it seems to be returning to my normal flesh. Does this mean I can’t die?”

“Let’s avoid testing that out,” Damien said, politely averting his eyes and flushing. “And for the love of the mess hall food, don’t let Delph know. If he realizes he can stab you and get away with it, he’ll be doing it for the next month.”

Sylph let her shirt drop back down and grimaced. “Good point.”

Her stomach rumbled. A moment later, Damien’s stomach joined her. They both laughed.

“I think it might be time to get dinner,” Damien said. “Are you able to control your magic enough yet?”

“Dinner wouldn’t hurt,” Sylph agreed, but she frowned. “I’m not sure yet. There are moments where everything feels fine, and then a minute later I can barely keep myself from leaking Ether. I think it’s improving, but I really can’t tell.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just go bring something back for us again, it’s not a big deal. We’ve still got almost four days until we’ve got to face anyone.”

“Thanks,” Sylph said, grinning at him.

Damien just nodded, grabbing his mage armor from the side of his bed and throwing it on. He pushed the stone door open and slipped outside. Neither Mark nor the Grays had returned from their quests, so he was able to easily make his way down the mountainside and onto Blackmist’s campus.

As he had for the last few days, Damien made a beeline for the general store. The ever-present clerk cocked an eyebrow as the boy entered the shop.

“Don’t tell me you’re here for more food.”

“I’m here for more food,” Damien said, scratching his head and giving the man a sheepish grin.

“I’m not running a grocery store. Why don’t you just get food at the mess hall if you want to eat on campus? Or heck, just buy it directly from a supplier. They sell to students, you know.”

“I don’t have anything to cook with yet,” Damien said. “Come on, it’s not like you’ve got a dozen snack packs lying around for no reason.”

The clerk let out a grumble as he grabbed two packages made out of brown paper out from below the counter. He set them down in front of Damien, who grinned widely and counted several coins into the man’s outstretched hand.

Damien grabbed the food and waved to the clerk as he headed back out of the door. “See you tomorrow!”

“You better buy something normal next time!” the man yelled after him, but there was no anger in his voice.

“I bought magical herbs that one time,” Damien called back, letting the door shut behind him before the man could respond. Another student shot him a confused glance, but Damien just shrugged at them and headed back towards the mountain.

As he walked, Henry stirred within his mind. “Speaking of medicinal herbs, your body has likely absorbed all of the previous herb you used. You should ingest the next one tonight.”

I’m not even sure that the last herb did anything. Are you sure?

“I’m always sure. And it did do something – your body’s inherent Ether has increased significantly. Your muscles recover faster and you gain strength quicker than you did before. The herbs aren’t going to make an instant difference, but they’ll help increase your foundations.”

Noted. Does it matter which one I take?

“Not really, you’ll be using all of them eventually anyways. Just take the one you won from the tournament,” Henry said with a dismissive mental shrug. “Sylph shouldn’t take hers yet. I doubt it would do much, but she doesn’t need any extra magic working around inside her right now.”

Got it.

Damien finished the rest of the walk in silence. Sylph was sitting on her bed with her back facing him, staring at something in her hand. When she heard Damien open the door, Sylph shifted to face him, scooting back slightly to find a more comfortable seat.

“Here you go,” Damien said, tossing her one of the brown packages. She caught it with one hand and gave him a smile.

“Thanks, Damien,” Sylph said. “How much did it cost?”

“No problem. It was just two silver,” Damien replied, tearing open the package to reveal a small bunch of grapes, a slice of cheese, some crackers, and what looked to be several strips of dried meat.

“I’ll pay you after we eat,” Sylph said, opening her own package. The two of them dug into the food without another word.