Only Sand and Lirael remained in the campsite. She had sent the Blood Thrall away on some errand or the other and the Core Spirit had grown bored and flown off to parts unknown.

“The ultimate goal of magic is to exert our will upon the world, alter it as we wish, understand it, and finally, construct a world of our own devising over which our dominion is absolute.” Sitting on a flat stone by the fireside, Lirael poked the blaze with a long branch, causing the flames to flare and send sparks up into the air. The orange firelight illuminated her pale face and glinted off her scarlet eyes.

“Do you know why we refer to our personal world as a Dungeon?” Without waiting for Sand, she answered her own question. “Because it is a prison.”

Tossing the branch into the fire, she extended her hand towards the sky, spreading her fingers wide as if to grasp the entirety of the Bloodskull Dungeon in her palm. “A shackle that limits our abilities. We can only diligently strive to expand it, strengthen it. The stronger our Dungeon, the greater our magical power, the more we can affect the outside world. Even the outside world is a Dungeon. A prison so vast that we don’t consider it a prison at all.”

Lowering her hand to her lap, she laced her fingers together. “At the very beginning of time, when this world of ours was still in its swaddling clothes, it had a Core. It was the eye in the sky that saw all things and its will was the Mandate of Heaven. The world revolved as it deemed fit and the fate of all living things was in its grasp.”

Her voice grew solemn. “Until, that is, it shattered.”

Turning to Sand, she suddenly asked, “Did you ever wonder what mana really is?”

‘Several times,’ thought Sand but outwardly he replied, “Apologies, but this one only knows that it is the condensed heat produced by the body.”

If mana really was nothing but accumulated body heat, then why didn’t people just bask under the harsh desert sun or lock themselves in a closed room with a blazing fire. Wouldn't that be a shortcut to magical accomplishment? In fact, he had tried all combinations involving himself and a source of heat in order to test if there wasn’t such a shortcut in his previous life. Obviously, none of his experiments had borne fruit. Except, maybe teaching him that locking himself in a sealed room with a blazing fire wasn’t the best of ideas.

Lirael shook her head, “If that were the case, mages wouldn't be that scarce and magic wouldn't be that difficult a discipline to practice. That’s just an oversimplification the orcs teach you to avoid complex explanations. Right now, you are a blind man in a forest – fumbling about in the darkness.” Reaching into one of the many pockets of her robe, she brought out a dark green crystal.

“It’s time you opened your eyes,” she said as she tossed it to him.

Quick of hand, Sand snatched it out of the air and brought it into the light. The shard resembled solid flames carved out of dark green crystal, flecked with orange where the firelight reflected off its edges.

“Pour your mana into it," instructed Lirael.

Pinching the shard between thumb and index finger, Sand complied. The lemon yellow vapours of his mana emerged within it. The crystal seemed to dissolve, merging with the mana and dyeing it a toxic green that reminded Sand of Netherfire.

As though to confirm his suspicion, the shard suddenly burst into green flames that adhered to his fingers like flaming oil. Oddly, it didn’t corrode his flesh like real Netherfire would have – as if it was an illusion of the flame rather than the flame itself. In moments the phantom flames overspread his arm, and as the last of the shard dissolved, his entire left arm was ablaze with the heatless ghostly fire.

“Keep going,” exhorted Lirael and Sand poured the last of his mana into his blazing arm. The flames washed over him like an inexorable tide, wrapping him in an illusory cloak of green fire.

As the fire reached his eyes, the world in his vision changed.

There was something wrong with the campfire. The logs in the fire sprouted phantom limbs of green that slowly blackened as they burned, and spectral red lights drifted around the blaze in an orbit, like flames that had left their candles behind, growing in number at the centre of the heat. He had to focus strangely to see the phantom campfire; it felt more like watching his mana than something physical, as though he saw with his spirit instead of with his eyes.

Even when he moved his gaze away, the world was awash in colour. The ground beneath him ran with veins of a profound black as far down as he could see, each wriggling slowly like lightning trapped in jelly. He was seeing through the ground itself somehow, which gave him a dizzying impression like he was trapped on the outer membrane of an endless ocean, and he could fall through any second.

He lost his balance and fell backwards. Reflexively, his hand shot out to steady him but the odd changes in his sight meant that he misjudged the distance and ended up sprawled upon the ground with a sprained wrist.

As he cut off the supply of mana to his new shard, the spectral flames covering him disappeared and his sight returned to normal. Getting his uninjured arm beneath him, Sand pushed himself up to a seated position. “What was that?” he asked.

“That,” replied Lirael, “was the truth of the world.” Waving her arm in a gesture that encompassed the entire Dungeon, she continued, “Everything in the world has magic in it – from a mere rock to every creature that ever lived, or ever will. Ordinarily, you can only look into yourself and see your own mana but with the help of that shard you just assimilated, you can observe the mana of the myriad things. Aura is what we call the mana of the world and the ability to see it is Aura Sight.”

She paused to gather her thoughts before forging ahead. “The world before the Shattering was a mundane place. Animals didn’t grow into Beasts. Plants didn’t bare their fangs and swallow men whole. Magic was the sole province of the Core and the mortals dared not blaspheme its authority. Scholars call it the Mundane Era.

“But when the Core shattered into innumerable fragments, the entire working of the world changed. The larger fragments turned into Natural Dungeons – pocket dimensions that had all sorts of strange and unusual environments – while the smaller fragments became skill shards that were assimilated by animals, producing the first beasts, and by men, giving rise to the first mages. But that wasn’t all. Whatever had shattered the Core was extremely thorough, turning most of it into Dust that spread across the world. The Shattering inaugurated what would come to be known as the Arcane Era.”

Sand listened to Lirael’s recounting of the origin of the world enthralled. All of this was entirely new to him.

Lirael continued, “As the Dust settled, it seeped into the world, interacting with the myriad things to produce different kinds of Aura. When a fire burns, it interacts with the Dust in the surroundings to produce flame Aura; when a river flows, water Aura is generated and wind Aura is created during storms. As for magic, the process is similar to how you move your arm. First you think of the movement and then your arm executes it. The flame Aura is like the thought of the blaze – when it is altered, the fire changes accordingly. All skill shards actually work on the Aura of their targets rather than the targets themselves.

“What we call mana is actually our personal Aura. Day after day we absorb Dust through food, water, and even with our every breath. Once our body produces heat, it interacts with the Dust to produce mana. As for external sources of heat – they would only serve to contaminate our mana with heterogeneous Aura. Not only would it not help us advance, it would only hold us back.

“As for beasts, their bodies allow them to condense the Dust into shards, granting them skills. Upon their deaths, the shard can be obtained from their corpses. Unless they are stored in proper environments, or fused by a mage, the shards slowly dissipate into the world as Dust.”

Observing himself closely, Sand found flecks of dark green crystal embedded all over his skin, sparkling as they caught the firelight. Sensing them with his mana, he found that the crystals had actually lined all the pores in his body. “What shard is this?” he asked.

“It’s called the Netherfire Aura shard,” replied Lirael. “I obtained it from that Wight you killed. This shard was the main reason why I dropped you off in that snake nest. Aura shards are rare and need some processing before they can be used. They allow you to transform your mana into a particular type of Aura and this one is particularly suited to the Undead Marrow due to its toxic nature. The amplification it gives to flame skills isn’t bad either, but most importantly, like all Aura shards, it grants Aura Sight.”

She shook her head, “How the Orcs managed to advance their magic to their current level without Aura Sight I will never know, but in the Metropolises, the first shard every mage fuses is an Aura shard. Without a thorough understanding of the workings of the world, how can you alter it to suit your needs? And how would you even go about constructing a world of your own?”

Patting her thighs, she stood up and gazed into the distance. “Anyway, that’s enough of that. It’s time we did something practical. Hmm?”

Following her line of sight, Sand saw the Blood Thrall that had been sent away returning with a barrel larger than himself hugged in his arms. Approaching the campfire, he set it down on the ground with a grunt, raising a ring of dust and causing a bit of its contents to slosh over the sides. The barrel was brimming with blood.

Stepping back, the Thrall stood as still as a statue as Lirael walked up to the barrel and placed a hand on its rim. Having inspected its contents, she beckoned for Sand to come over.

When he arrived by her side, she explained, “This here, is a Blood Carp. It’s an odd creature that has taken a unique route to survival. It feeds its predators. It’s quite simple really, if those who would consume it are sated with food then wouldn’t it mean that none will be left to harm it?”

Peering over the edge of the barrel, Sand couldn’t make out anything other than a distorted reflection of his face in the rippling surface of the blood as it settled down. If there was something in the liquid, then he couldn’t see it. But it didn’t take him long to understand what Lirael wanted from him and he activated the Netherfire Aura shard. This time, he concentrated the flames on only his eyes.

His dark pupils blazed with ghostly green fire and the world revealed its true colours once again as his Aura Sight kicked in. The blood in the barrel, which he had considered devoid of anything, now possessed a phantom red glow and in its depths, swimming around frantically was another, denser lump of scarlet Aura shaped like a fish.

“Good,” commended Lirael. “That’s the Blood Carp. It has two main skill shards. The Blood Source shard and the Dissolving Blood shard. The Blood Source shard lets it produce a large amount of blood in a short time. When it feels a threat, it spits out a large quantity of blood into the water as a form of smokescreen and distraction. Then its body dissolves into blood and mixes in the bloody water to escape under the function of the Dissolving Blood shard. Having lost sight of its prey and with the presence of easily obtainable food in the form of the blood, the predator generally stops the pursuit.” Dipping a slender finger into the blood, Lirael turned to Sand with a smile, “Right now, merged with the blood as it is, without your Aura Sight, you wouldn't even be able to catch a glimpse of it.”

It didn’t take much for Sand to surmise that the Blood Carp was the identity of Lirael’s fourth Core Spirit and either the Dissolving Blood or the Blood Source shard was one of the shards that made up her Dungeon.

“Watch carefully now,” said Lirael seriously as she concentrated on the blood. “This’ll be your schoolwork for the foreseeable future.”

Her fingertip bloomed with a bright glow that permeated the entire barrel of blood. In Sand’s Aura Sight, thousands of hair thin tendrils of scarlet Aura burst out of her finger and travelled down the sides of the barrel, caging in the unsuspecting Carp. Suddenly, as though sensing the danger it was in, the fish-shaped blob of Aura swam frantically up to the surface, but it was too late.

The Aura net collapsed inwards, ensnaring the Carp. The more it struggled, the more entangled it became, until finally, having exhausted itself, it was kicked out of its intangible state. Dropping out of his Aura Sight, Sand found that, where there had only been blood before, there was now a handsome carp with blood red scales and a white underbelly floating helplessly in the blood. Only the twitching of its whiskers and the chaotic rotation of its eyeballs demonstrated its panic.

Lirael withdrew her finger from the blood and regaining freedom, the fish immediately merged with the blood and disappeared from sight. “Did you catch that?” she asked.

Sand nodded.

“Alright then,” she said as she put the wet finger in her mouth and sucked it dry. “I’ll leave you to it.” Pointing at the Thrall pretending to be a sculpture, she addressed Sand, “Vlad here’ll be teaching you the basics of hand to hand combat. Feel free to practice your Aura manipulation with Mr. Peek-a-boo during your breaks. Your training will be over when you can do what I just did.” Her smile turned into a sadistic grin, “Trust me, you’ll want to hurry. Vlad isn’t the gentlest of instructors.”

Then she was gone and the Thrall… Vlad finally turned to face Sand, his eyes glowing an evil shade of red beneath his cowl as he took a basic guard position. Sighing, Sand shrugged off his shirt and tossed it away, settling down into a stance of his own. He had fought a Thrall in his previous life, he never wanted to fight one again.

But unfortunately, life wasn’t giving him too many other choices.