Lila managed to tell her mother about the attack on the training grounds before she was forced to down a waterskin at top speed. She’d collapsed immediately, Enlightenment disengaging and inflicting a portion of her sleep, food, and water loss upon her. The four Adept Clerics had begun a barrage of various healing spells as she was given more water by the younger ones. It had been a little disturbing to watch, but the Jin’Sa had almost immediately told him to get more water from the mess hall, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument.

He’d done it, of course, returning to find that three pallets had been laid out for his friends and the older female Cleric was the only one who remained to tend to them. They all looked… Maiz wished he could say ‘peaceful,’ but they just seemed extraordinarily tired. He’d stayed there for a few hours, but there was barely anything to do once he’d retrieved all the supplies that the Cleric requested from him.

He did watch the Cleric cast spells on each of the three, though she appeared to focus the most on Lila. Most of the spells were completely incomprehensible to him. Was the Cleric actually directing her mana through those intricate patterns, targeting incredibly specific parts of the body with each cast? Maiz had seen Ziya casting Heal, the basic Cleric spell, before, and it was almost as complex. He thought it had something to do with the fact that Clerics worked through the gods. There were other types of religious titles: Preachers, Cleansers, and Paladins from the west, to name a few. Did they have some sort of different mechanism for learning abilities than regular titles?

It didn’t matter very much to Maiz, except that he would probably never be able to learn to heal directly like ZIya could. He would have a better bet making something like the bracelet, which, though impressive, was at least faintly understandable.

He fell asleep again next to his friends. When he woke, the pot-bellied older Cleric had taken over the care in the room. As Maiz opened his eyes, groaning a little at the stiffness of his muscles, the man glanced over from a wooden chair to the side, where he was sitting at an awkward angle, looking somewhat disheveled.

“Ah, yes, young man. These are your friends, I take it?”

“Yes sir.”

The man nodded wisely. “Mmm, yes. It is admirable that you want to stay by their side, boy. But, well, frankly it is completely useless. They would really be better served by some peaceful, secluded, rest.”

The old Cleric looked at Maiz. And looked. It took him longer than it should have to understand what the man was getting at, and finally he scrambled up to leave. The Cleric nodded, wise expression still on his face, as Maiz left. But as he stepped through the doorway, he saw the man settling himself on his chair, tucking his chin against his chest and closing his eyes. As he exited, there were already snoring sounds emanating from the room.

Clerics. Maiz had a feeling that half of them just pretended to be dedicated healers so they could pull stunts like that. Sometimes, even Ziya seemed to act cryptic so they wouldn’t ask her to do a bit of extra healing during training or in an exercise. Ah, well. He’s still right, I guess. He really couldn’t do much for his friends now that they were in the hands of experienced, if lazy, healers. He should spend the time being productive, and there was something he could do alone that would become more difficult once his friends woke up.

He was extremely hungry, so after having a solitary meal in the mess hall, he walked to the entrance to the Path. Along the way, he interrogated a Temple Acolyte and found that it was late morning. He supposed it made sense that he’d slept in--after all, he had disengaged Enlightenment and suffered a bit of extra sleepiness. He’d only recently started using it regularly while fighting and its rank wasn’t very high, so he still had to repay nearly half of his debts in food, sleep, and water whenever he disengaged it.

Going through the first section of the Path was incredibly easy for him at this point. Since first entering the Library two weeks ago, he’d gained four more ranks, putting him at 33--an incredible level for someone his age. He’d used some of the 20 attribute points to bring his Strength up to 31, which was useful both for his skill use and for general athletics. Unfortunately he’d had to spend a good half of the points to increase his Charisma, a necessary attribute for Minor Suggestion to function. He thought it was also a good idea to be somewhat Charismatic, if only to make deceptions about his title easier, but it still hurt to put so many points into a noncombat-oriented attribute. He’d put the final 5 into Wisdom, which was ever useful given how many spells he’d been learning. Speaking of which…

The Jin’Tira barely looked at Maiz before grunting and waving him through. Many of the portal arches in the next room were dim, meaning that someone had already been through them. It made sense, since the Warrior Monks liked to do most of their training in the very early morning. Maiz had taken to sleeping or practicing abilities during that time so that he could avoid running into them. It just felt… awkward.

He picked one at random, though if he payed attention he could probably identify most of the Dungeons associated with each arch. Indeed, as Maiz stepped through he realized that this one was the very first he had ever been through on the Path. A dark cave system full of the jackal-like creatures called Biorics.

The main danger of this Dungeon, at least to most Warrior Monks, was the darkness. Fast Feet didn’t work unless the user perceived the attacker, making the first room a potential issue because the simple Biorics were nearly indistinguishable in the darkness. Ironically, the final room of flame-touched monsters was actually easier because the flaming mouths made the creatures easy to see. Last time, Maiz had gotten around this problem by using Flaming Strike as a torch and engaging Shield Stance whenever he triggered the spell. Now, he had a better option.

There was quite a variety of illusion spells described in the Temple Library. Maiz had chosen to focus on the Shadeweaver spell Color Tapestry for a few simple reasons. The first was that it was extremely flexible, allowing him to create almost any rough image he could think of with the same basic pattern, and performing even better at modifying the appearance of existing objects. The second was that the illusions produced by Color Tapestry were physical mana constructs, not mental manipulation, and could therefore fool even powerful people if they were caught unaware. And who would ever suspect a Spellsword of casting illusion spells? Finally, unlike the vast majority of illusion spells, the illusions created by Color Tapestry lingered without his interference until the mana pattern eroded. That was just plain useful, and made the spell even more potent.

The second point also meant that, when Maiz create an image of a glowing fire on the ceiling of the cave, it provided enough light to see his opponents. It took more mana than usual to make the image glow, but it was still better than not being able to use his staff. Besides, his goal was not to use any of his “old” abilities except for Fast Feet to defeat these opponents.

One of the opponents jumped at him, letting out a snarl. It was a creature similar to a jackal but with more pronounced teeth, much more powerful hind legs, and charcoal fur. Its fellows seemed wary, as if they could tell that Maiz was much more powerful they could handle, even with a over a dozen in the pack. Or they were just being polite to their fellow who wanted to go first.

Maiz skipped easily out of the way, activating Nightwalker as he did so. The Shadowblade skill synergized incredibly well with his Fast Feet, allowing him to control how his feet gripped the ground and drastically improving his mobility. In theory. It was Massahn-touched difficult to use, which was made painfully obvious to Maiz as his feet nearly slid out from under him, prompting him to increase his grip-strength and immediately fall over from the jerking stop. Godsdammit. He’d really thought he’d made a breakthrough with that, considering how he’d used it in the Path the last few days, but apparently there was something about fighting that was making him lose the careful balance of the skill.

The other Biorics seemed to take Maiz’s fall as a sign of weakness, because immediately he had four or five bounding at him, snarling through their massive teeth. He swept hand at them as he struggled to his feet, releasing a burst of mana that felt like storms and stopping their charge for a moment. Once he had figured out how to change his mana without a pattern like the Spellsword abilities used, Air Blast had become very easy to learn and execute. It was one of the Aeromancer spells Maiz had found mostly in memory of Hakim, but it had ended up being incredibly useful, mostly because he had so few ranged attacks.

Once he got to his feet, careful to keep his grip of the floor at a normal level, he surveyed his enemies. Against a group like this, simply sweeping through them with Windblade would probably have been the smartest option. However, he had to practice his new abilities, so instead he stepped forward and around the pack, quickly finding himself surrounded. A few were slow to react, understable given his Agility was at the Apprentice level, and Maiz targeted one that hadn’t turned to face him as he dodged a flying opponent. Unseen Assault. His staff blurred in his hands as he unleashed a fast series of powerful strikes on the beast, killing it before it had a chance to see him.

He himself whirled, and dodged around another attacking Bioric. With a flash of inspiration, he spotted one that seemed ready to jump. He quickly directed his mana, and cast Blood Paralysis, the only Sanguimancer spell in the entire Library. As the beast jumped, it twisted, muscles bunching up in odd ways. Unfortunately, the spell didn’t have quite the dramatic effect it had on the snakes in the last Dungeon--likely because the snakes had been extremely vulnerable to manipulation of their muscles--but the slight damage from the constriction of the creature’s muscles combined with the trauma of falling without bracing itself was enough to leave it dead.

Maiz debated killing another one with a single-target ability, but honestly this fight was not at all suited to that sort of practice. He’d only picked up a few more of those in any case, and after using it in the last Dungeon he’d decided to stop working on Iceflower. He was spread thin enough as it was, and once he reached Journeyman, his Flaming Strike would be able to take on any elemental aspect, rendering the need for an ice spell moot. He’d come to similar conclusions about Spirit Lance, Firebolt, and Venom Blade. Though he’d been concerned about not having enough ranged attacks, many of his abilities favored close combat as it was, and he didn’t plan on fighting in an artillery line in any case. That meant it was time to practice his Crushing Aura.

Maiz continued to dodge around attacks with ease, even managing to use Nightwalker to slightly improve his dodging as he began directing his mana. The first step was simple: he focused on the idea of weight, like Earth and Air mixed with pure force. That had been the largest hurdle to learning this spell, and Maiz had been forced to resort to actual meditation before he figured out how to conceptualize it properly. He let the idea flow into his mana pool, and soon his magic felt saturated with the proper identity, heavy in his mind. While he felt the customary phantom chill at directing it, he also felt the same heaviness spread throughout his body as he began to form the spell.

Maiz hadn’t realized it before, but his mana was naturally “pure,” without a type that he could discern. It was the mana that Enchanters and Spellswords used, and Maiz was uncertain whether his was that way because of his Nameless title or because the first spell he learned was Flaming Strike. Considering that he could change his mana type by thinking about it, either answer was plausible, but in any case he'd found that different types of mana had different natural properties. Air mana tended to moved quickly and chaotically, difficult to control but fast to respond. Blood mana felt extremely physical, pulsing in time with his heartbeat and flowing in smooth currents.

This “weight” mana was the slowest, most viscous that Maiz had encountered. He formed the pattern over the course of a full two minutes, creating wide, solid patterns throughout his body that seemed to build up a subtle pressure. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as it should have been, considering how much attention he was devoting to dodging and incorporating Nightwalker into his movements, but the mana took so long to move that actually directing it was trivial.

When the last bit of the pattern oozed into place, Maiz’s entire body felt the chill of his mana. He released the energy and it flowed outwards, forming a sphere with a radius of a dozen meters. The energy lingered in the air, and he expelled more until the mana pressed down on everything around him. The Biorics stopped attacking, beginning to whine as their bodies were slowly pressed to the ground. As the energy shaped by the pattern accumulated, the whines became choked and eventually stopped. The cracking of bone signalled to Maiz that he could stop the spell, and he did so, his mana pool drained to a quarter of its total.

The Biorics had all been crushed into the ground, bodies squished as if something heavy had fallen on them and been removed. Maiz nodded, though he felt a little queasy at the sight. He should have made some good progress on his abilities, and it was good to see the extra damage that Crushing Aura was now producing. He needed to get it to the Apprentice ranks as soon as possible so that he could begin reducing its exorbitant mana cost, and this was another step on that path.

Of course, he’d like to do that for every one of his abilities. There is no way I’m learning another one until I’m an Adept at least. With a sigh, he continued on to the next room. There was more work to do, and not enough time to do it.