Katai had never gone this far down before. It felt like he was drowning, fighting against the confusing currents that intertwined the space. Which is precisely why he’d never gone this deep – even meditating for a few minutes made him uncomfortable. It felt like he wasn’t in control.

“What can you see?” Silas whispered, helping to ground his thoughts.

He looked around at what could only be described as a crimson void. Kenemen had called it a ‘projection’, and said it was a common visualisation for high-level or high-aptitude Mages. From what Katai gathered, it was the primary way for Mages to train using their magic, outside of actively using their skills. Katai’s late night Lacerate sessions had been the far more painful and gruesome way of training. Meditating and exploring this ‘projection’ was far more efficient and allowed for a lot more experimentation – without relying on his Class skills. Which was a lot more useful than most people would think.

After all, as Hiram liked to say, a Warrior can fight and train, even without his skills – so a Mage should be able to do the same. A Mage could still use his magic and needed to learn how not to rely on their Class-gifted skills. Something Katai was very much guilty of when it came to his magic.

He focused on the maelstrom that was rushing past, buffeting and jostling him. This is all in my head, right? Why is this so difficult! He frowned and tried to focus.

He caught brief snatches of glowing red, and darker crimson lines, that twisted into shapes as they moved through the endless void, disappearing from his gaze before he could make out any details. He got enough of a look to see the vague shape of some arcane glyphs.

The space itself reminded him of the Class selection screen, except instead of an endless empty void, it was filled with various shades of red that swirled constantly throughout his view.

“Anything?”

The pitiably curious voice made Katai smile. Silas was taking his new Class of Loremaster very seriously, pushing Katai to really explore his powers. Naturally, he wanted to know anything he learned while he was in this other state.

Katai squinted and focused on one of the brighter symbols that was approaching. He tried to move his incorporeal body as it approached, without success. It was much harder to do the simple things in the ethereal world.

C’mon, this is it! I got this. The squiggly line flew past and he tried to hook it with his hand, forgetting he had no body and reaching for it without thinking. He groaned as he saw it sail past, just as the countless other strands before it. His view gave a sudden jerk however and he found himself flying after the symbol.

If he’d had a mouth, he would have whooped with joy at finally succeeding. Somehow, he’d created a tether, hooking the glowing shape with a thin strand of his own blood. Perhaps an instinctual use of Blood?

Katai didn’t question it, concentrating on pulling himself towards the glyph. That alone had him stumped for a while, as he had no arms. The answer of course was his power – slowly consuming the closest part of his tether, pulling it into his insubstantial body.

Finally, he found himself flying close behind his target, the two of them hurtling through space together. He stared intently at the undulating shape, committing it to memory.

Silas’ Class would be really handy right now. It didn’t help that the shape was slowly changing and Katai wasn’t sure at what stage it was in – was it in-between two different shapes now, or was it fully-formed? Was it a string of symbols forming a message, or a ritual of some sort? It could be anything really; ancient knowledge, a new way of using Blood magic, or even some kind of warning against misusing Blood magic.

He spent as long as he could in the Blood realm, ignoring Silas after telling him he needed more time. Left alone, he watched, committing every change to memory, or as close to it as he could manage. Once he started seeing the same shapes coming up several times, he realised he’d seen everything he was going to see. Happy with the steps he’d taken to ensure he’d remember, he unlatched himself and floated away, back into the chaotic mess.

He opened his eyes, breathing in sharply as he came back to the real world. He almost fell over, even seated as he was, his back and buttocks sore from sitting in the same position for what must have been hours. The sun had been low in the sky when they’d started their meditation session. Now it was floating on the other side of the sky.

Half the day? Wow, no wonder I’m so stiff. He stretched, groaning with pleasure as his muscles relaxed.

“You’re done?” Silas wasted no time in scrambling over, his face alight with excitement. Katai nodded with a smile and grabbed a sturdy branch from the nearby wood pile.

“What’d you find? Did you have another Breakthrough?”

“No, nothing like that. I did find something though, let me show you before I forget.”

Katai started tracing the symbol, making one continuous line of script out of the most distinct shapes he’d been able to recognise. He was pretty confident that he’d recognised when it was a new symbol and what was simply a transition into a new one.

He stepped back and admired his work. Kenemen and Emilia stood nearby, having wandered over when they heard Silas talking, to look on with varied levels of interest. The result was a short line of distinctly alien letters, like nothing Katai had seen before. He’d caught glimpses of Common growing up in the village. Letters that some of the Elders kept and shared with the younger generation – usually official orders from the Noble family that lorded over the local area, or reports from the local Trader, filled with lists of goods traded and accounted for.

This however, was as similar to Common writing as a Warrior Class was to a Questor. There was none of the simple, blocky lines. The glyphs that Katai had transcribed were flowing and clear, even with his rough attempt at reproduction in the soft ground. Each character blended smoothly into the next one, creating a sequence of elegant lines.

Just looking at the script made his scalp prickle – for some reason his body recognised that there was power to the text. Even when it was just some strokes in the dirt.

“Um, wow. Katai, what is this?”

Katai shrugged, looking up to see the excited glint in Silas’ eyes.

“I honestly have no idea. Kenemen do you know anything about this?”

Kenemen shook his head. “Mages generally have some kind of internal representation of their power, that’s the whole point of the projection. Yours looks like it’s glyph-based. It could be unique to you, or something only other Blood Mages would understand. That’s all I know.”

That caused thoughts to spin through Katai’s head. It could be unique to me? Hmm, I wonder if Emilia has something similar. We could compare our experiences and see what form her power takes.

“Emilia, have you...?”

Wordlessly, she shook her head. After a moment she spoke up, her tone thoughtful. “I think I’ll join you in your meditation sessions. I’d like to discover this ‘projection’ too.” She nodded to herself firmly and looked back at Katai.

Katai nodded his acceptance, not really caring whether Emilia wanted to join him or not. He was too interested in finding out more about these ‘glyphs’, as Kenemen called them.

“Are you getting anything from it?” He asked, turning to Silas who was still staring at the symbols.

Silas blinked and shook his head, keeping his eyes on the script, a frown of concentration appearing as he stared intently.

Katai looked at the others, who had begun to lose interest. If he didn’t know anything about the squiggles in the dirt, then they had other things to do with their time. The others wandered away, leaving Katai and Silas to continue their studies.

“My Appraise skill isn’t giving me anything. It won’t even let me target it, just says it’s dirt, first discovered in the Rift of the Sacred Polentiates.”

Katai snorted. “Well, I don’t know how useful this other realm thing is going to be if we can’t understand anything about it.”

Silas nodded distractedly.

Katai sighed and looked at Silas. He couldn’t help but smile at the look of intense concentration his friend wore. He was normally pretty laid back, always ready with a wisecrack joke or stupid comment. The new Class had given him some focus. It was good to see him taking something a bit more seriously.

Which reminded Katai, he hadn’t reviewed his own Classes in a while, or what he’d gained from the crazy escape yesterday. He’d been too exhausted, both physically and emotionally, to do anything other than sleep. He’d even neglected his nightly self-inflicted Blood training.

He brought up the messages he’d gotten first, interested in seeing what kind of progress the mad scramble had produced.

Lunge has reached level 8 (Expert).

Sense Blood has reached level 8 (Proficient).

You have defeated Megasoma – Mature (level 14)…

…

You have defeated Megasoma – Mature (level 43).

Parry has reached level 5 (Expert).

Battle Cry has reached level 9 (Novice).

Lacerate has reached level level 3 (Proficient).

Bond of Blood has reached level 9 (Novice).

Congratulations! You have gained 1 Warrior level.

1 Attribute point awarded for reaching level 35 Warrior.

That was better than he’d expected! Not bad at all. I’m close to reaching the next stage in both Battle Cry and Bond of Blood. Now I know how to level the Bond quickly, I can go hunting and find a bunch of Megasoma to bond with. Lunge is not too far off reaching Mastery either! Hopefully I get some good options when it does. Would be pretty disappointing to have to lock it down before it evolves even a single time.

He broke off from his musings, trying not to get too ahead of himself. It wouldn’t do him any favours to get his hopes up – skill increases often resulted in relatively minor changes, up until Mastery at least. Better to just wait and see what he got.

With that thought, he brought up his attributes and allocated the point he’d gained into Strength. His thinking was that his main enemies in this place were Megasoma variants, who usually had very high defence, making it hard to injure them. He had to put everything he had into his strikes to punch through the tough carapace. Hopefully the extra point would make a difference.

Finished with the modifications, he looked at his updated status.

Katai D’Castro

1st Class: Warrior – level 35 (+1)

2nd Class: Blood Mage – level 20

Skills - Warrior

Lunge (Expert) – level 8 (+1)

Parry (Expert) – level 5 (+1)

Bash (Proficient) – level 3

Battle Cry (Novice) – level 9 (+2)

Skills - Blood Mage

Sense Blood (Proficient) – level 8 (+2)

Lacerate (Proficient) – Level 3 (+1)

Bond of Blood (Novice) – Level 9 (+4)

Attributes

Strength: 20 (+1)

Dexterity: 19

Constitution: 31

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 16

Charisma: 17

Magical Aptitude

Blood (Life): 65%

Water: 9%

Resistances

Blood (Life): 65%

Void: 31%

Spirit: -16%

Wither (Life): -16%

I really did gain a lot yesterday. So many skill upgrades, for not much experience. I probably didn’t get a lot of kills, since we were trying to escape and not get held up. Ah well, there’s plenty of them out there. I’ll just have to suggest another expedition once everyone’s recovered.

He looked sidelong at Silas, discretely examining the distracted Warrior. None of them had suffered any serious injuries in the escape, but he was sure there would be plenty of cuts and bruises.

Katai frowned as he looked more closely at Silas – was he bleeding through his shirt?

“Silas, you’re bleeding.” Katai said, gesturing at his rolled-up sleeve, a bloodstain visibly starting to soak through.

“Oh, uh right!” Silas stumbled over his words, his eyes widening when he saw the slowly spreading stain. “Thanks Katai. It’s nothing to worry about, just a cut from yesterday.”

Katai narrowed his eyes at his friend, who nervously cleared his throat and looked away from the penetrating look.

Is he hiding something? He’s acting suspicious all of a sudden.

“I better go get this cleaned up. We can talk about your Blood realm later, ok?” With that, Silas strode off, not waiting for him to reply.

Hmm, definitely suspicious. Why though? It’s just a cut. Is he embarrassed or something?

He thought about it, but couldn’t come up with a logical reason for his friend’s behaviour. Eh, it’s probably nothing, he thought, putting it out of his mind. He had some ideas to run past Kenemen.

“You want me to lure the big guy in, cut him ‘just a little’, and then distract him while you’re forming the bond?” The voice of Kenemen came from the ground next to Katai.

“Yes, that’s about right. Think it’ll work?” Katai replied, his eyes glued to the giant beast that was slumbering in the clearing, just meters away. Loud, rumbling snores disturbed the peaceful setting, probably serving to scare off the locals. Not Katai and Kenemen though.

The two of them were nestled in the thick undergrowth at the edge of the clearing. Katai was in awe of the size of the thing, the sight bringing back memories of the first behemoth they’d found and the single strike from the Questor that had brought it down.

They weren’t here to kill this one however.

“Why don’t you just sneak up and make a little cut? It’s asleep, you could form the bond before it’s properly awake. I doubt this thing will react very quickly, it’s top dog around here. Nothing else can, or would want to, hurt it.”

Katai considered the idea and slowly nodded his approval. “I guess we can try that first. You’ll be there with me to distract it though, if it goes wrong?”

“Of course, and if it chases us afterwards, I’ll lead it away. Can you find your way back on your own?”

Katai almost cursed at the question. Um, maybe? We should have brought Silas; he’d remember the way back. There were so many twists and turns and backtracking to find this guy, I have no idea where we are.

“I’ll be fine. Which, uh, direction would I need to head towards if I somehow got turned around?” Katai kept his face expressionless, but Kenemen didn’t buy it for a second.

“Just wait for me, I’ll come find you.” He sighed, shaking his head.

Oh, that’s right, he’s got some kind of tracking skill. That works too.

“Ok, well I’m good to go.”

“After you.”

Katai gulped and ever so slowly rose into a crouch. He stepped forward, feeling leaves and grass rustle quietly against his legs, wincing each time he stepped on a dry leaf. Every sound was magnified as he crept along, but he told himself to keep going.

Kenemen is right behind me. He can kill the thing with one hit, I’ll be fine, even if it does hear me. The internal pep talk helped, but only a little. He was sweating by the time he got within range of the beast.

Ok, now to gently cut the guy and run the fuck away.

He looked at the pebbled, rough skin of the giant. Its carapace looked much more pliable than the smaller Megasoma. Perhaps it’d be too heavy otherwise? It was also an interesting colour, more of a dull grey instead of the usual dark green. It was definitely still the same race however.

Crazy how much variety there is in this one species. Also, how the hell do those little juvenile Megasoma eventually grow into this monster? It’s like three times my height, at least!

Seeing it lying down didn’t lessen his fear either. It could probably kill him with a casual swipe of its club of a hand.

Ok, I need to stop procrastinating. Let’s do this.

He held his breath and aimed his blade for a softer-looking area that he could easily reach. That happened to be the creatures protruding stomach. The fat lump rose and fell regularly as it breathed, the size of that alone wider than him and Silas combined. He didn’t want to see the size of other body parts if this was in proportion.

A short, violent thrust later and the creature was awakened with an annoyed snort. Katai saw with relief that he’d managed to draw blood with a small cut. Even with all of his strength put into that one blow, he’d only scratched it. That’s all he needed, thankfully.

That feeling of victory lasted all of a split second.

A clang rang out, and Katai felt a burst of wind rush past him. He blinked and Kenemen was there, blocking the hand that had reached up to grab the insect that had dared to disturb its slumber. Red, angry eyes blinked in confusion and looked at Katai, before the beast roared.

Katai winced at the full volume blast.

“Quickly! I can’t hold it for long!”

Katai was shocked into action at the angry shout from the Questor. He sounded like he was straining at the strength of the slowly-waking Megasoma, as the giant slowly pushed him back with one hand.

Desperate for the attempt to work, Katai quickly focused on the trickle of blood coming from the belly wound and gingerly placed his bleeding palm against it.

I really hope it doesn’t notice me right now. He winced as he felt the warmth of the creature’s blood, convinced that he’d be detected at any moment and crushed.

He felt the skill take hold and the expected resistant started to push back. It was much stronger than the mature Megasoma though – much, much stronger. That wasn’t unexpected however.

With a frown of concentration, Katai frantically pushed at his skill, envisioning his power being pushed into the beast in front of him, burrowing deep into its massive body through the small wound.

Pressure built up in his mind as his Blood magic battled against the natural resistance of the giant, time slowing down as his mind raced. He could sense the body convulsing against his intrusion, though it hadn’t physically moved. Kenemen was doing what he needed to do – wrestling the thing to a standstill.

Without any warning, the skill took hold, the resistance and pressure dissolving away in the face of his onslaught.

A message pinged in his mind, but he didn’t stop to take notice. He leaped back from the rising giant, who seemed to have finally realised it was up against worthy opponents, and fled without a second thought.

“It’s done!” He called out to the Questor as he ran, his voice filled with a mix of pride, fear and excitement. He didn’t look back however, knowing Kenemen could take care of himself. Katai was the only one in any real danger here.

He made it a couple hundred meters down the path before he decided that it was safe enough to stop and listen for pursuit, the lack of anything in his Sense giving him some confidence.

We did it! He laughed, dizzy with the energy coursing his body. Relief washed through him and he collapsed, hiding himself in a crevice between two large boulders. He leaned against the cool rock and smiled. That was crazy, he chuckled and shook his head, and Kenemen went toe to toe with it! Damn he must be strong.

After he took some time to rest and recover from the tense run, he checked on the connection.

Exactly what I thought. It’s got a massive health pool. The new bond connecting him to the creature was normal, a thin strand of crimson stretching out into the distance from his core. He couldn’t see the creature’s core, but he had a sense of its health and vitality. Silas had what he was thinking of as a ‘regular’ pool of vitality. It felt smaller than his had been when he first gained the Blood Mage Class. At the moment Silas’ health wasn’t quite at the max, likely recovering from the injury Katai had spotted earlier.

The giant on the other hand, was magnitudes of size larger. Its vitality matched its size, many times bigger than Silas, even quite a bit bigger than his own.

Wow, this is going to help my training so much. If I can use it to power my skills… imagine how many uses of Lacerate I could manage. Then I’d just wait for it to recover. Even using a small portion of its vitality would be a huge benefit.

I bet that last message was an increase in the bond skill too. Next stage?

He smiled with anticipation and opened up the notifications, his smile growing wider as he read the message.

Your understanding of the skill Bond of Blood has increased! Novice > Proficient

Bonus: The maximum number of bonded has increased to 6.