“I don’t understand,” Lukas let out a harsh breath. “I’m perfectly capable of manipulating lifeforce inside my body. Why is this simple trick so hard?”

After finding a freshwater pond, he had quickly cleaned himself up, getting rid of the stench exuding from his body. Moss, he learned, was a perfectly good substitute for commercial scrub. Really, this entire experience was turning out to be a life-changer for him. No contact with the outside world, no phones, computers or internet. No courses to attend, no social norms to entertain— nothing at all. Just a primal lifestyle that involved gaining strength, fighting monsters, and feeding to satiate his hunger.

And the crazy thing was, he was starting to enjoy it.

There was something beautiful about the utter simplicity of it. To stay in a world where danger lurked in every shadow, where even the weakest of things could kill you if caught off-guard, to wake up and travel all day, learning and training and fighting your way to the top of the local food chain— it invoked a part of himself that he never wanted to recognize.

A part that didn’t concern itself with good or evil, with right or wrong.

A part that loved the feeling of dominating another creature and seeing life slowly leave its eyes.

A part that wanted to willingly tread in her shoes.

“This simple trick,” Inanna sniffed, “involves converting lifeforce from its raw form into something far more complex. Tell me mortal, what do you think your lifeforce is?”

“A form of energy that my body produces,” Lukas replied without skipping a beat. “It augments my bones and muscles, and helps me fuel my attacks.”

“It is astounding how every time my estimation of you rises by an inch, you push it down by a foot.”

Lukas’s grin faltered. As a sophomore in college, it was his prerogative to be grumpy. However, that wasn’t the same for sophomores trapped in an alien world with no option but to adhere to the whims of a goddess. So instead of saying something smart, he swallowed his inner wise-ass.

“Why don’t you explain it then?”

“Not a bad idea. It seems like the only way we’ll get around to doing something productive.”

There she went again. Maybe the entire heart-to-heart discussion was a one-time fluke?

“Lifeforce, simply said, is an energy of creation.”

“An energy, you say,” Lukas pointed out. “So that implies there’s more. Like mana, maybe?”

They were back inside his mindscape, which, interestingly enough, had taken the form of one of his university classrooms. The virtual floor had morphed into all kinds of rocky structures to provide an illusory environment for easy practice, while he sat down in a simple wooden chair. Meanwhile, the goddess sat atop the professor’s desk, her legs crossed as she looked towards him, instructing him to better use his own abilities.

Inanna gave him an appreciative smile. “Correct.”

Lukas scratched at his stubble, his face scrunched up in confusion. “Here’s a question. When you say ‘energy of creation’, what does that mean? What kind of limits does it have?”

“Everything and nothing.”

I swear, she’s just being cryptic for cryptic’s sake,

“I’m truly not. Creation is limitless, formless, boundless. Limited by nothing save your own frail form and skill.”

“A form of energy that can do anything and everything? Sorry, but that just doesn’t make sense.”

“Not everything does. Not everything must. But I can see why your mortal mind would limit possibilities to those constraints.”

“Now you sound like a bigot. Bigoted against mortals.”

Inanna laughed at that. It made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

“I’m not insulting you. You are limited to a linear comprehension of existence because of the illusions you believe in.” She smiled again. “But understand this. Creation is the mud unto which Gods breathe life. If you evoke creation energy with the intention of nothing, then nothing is what you create.”

“Isn’t that what I do with Burst? Create nothing? I just… push it out, without anything particular in mind.”

“Which is why it was the first skill you managed to acquire. Creating nothing is easier than creating something.”

“It’s hardly nothing, you know,” he refuted. “Even the Burst attack has energy and momentum. It exerts force. It’s not nothing.”

She lifted her head and laughed. “I did not mean the concept of true nothingness, mortal. To be of inconsequence, to be formless, to be raw and unshaped are all definitions of being nothing. Even your present form, despite your newly gained strength and wisdom, is nothing compared to a higher being.”

“Like yourself?”

Inanna beamed. “Exactly.”

Lukas fell silent. It was true that he’d learned how to employ lifeforce in a variety of ways. Pumping it into his legs while running let him move faster, without pause, and most importantly, without getting tired. Using it as a Burst attack felt like an accumulation of kinetic energies around his appendages, similar to those Qi or Chi things that martial arts practitioners kept babbling on about. And when he was injured, lifeforce healed the broken bones in his arm like it was a regenerative ability.

Now that he thought about it, that was too much versatility for a single form of energy. The closest thing he could equate it to was some kind of stem-cell equivalent of energy.

This was starting to get interesting.

“Tell me more,” Lukas implored, giving the goddess his undivided attention.

A serene smile blossomed on her face, the kind that made flowers bloom and breezes blow.

“Every material being out there has lifeforce blazing through their forms, mortal. Some are naturally attuned to it, others not so much.”

“And mana?”

“Mana is a usable form of the natural energy of the World around you. Some have the ability to synthesize it. Others figure out different ways to wield it.”

Lukas couldn’t help but think back to the mythology he was familiar with. Stories of Merlin throwing around lightning against Morgana and the Saxons came to mind. Strangely enough, America had a startling shortage of mythos, unless one were to include European myths and pagan cults that crossed borders after Christopher Columbus’s voyage across the oceans. There were some references to wiccan societies along the Mexican border, but that was about it.

If the Gods were real, if mana was real… Did that mean those stories were real as well?

“Well, what about me?” he asked, a hint of nervousness coloring his tone. “Can I use mana?”

“Use it, yes. Synthesize it? Doubtful.”

Lukas frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Before I slumbered, your world was new. Different. The natives of antiquity were able to synthesize forges, ornaments that acted as foci to harness the natural energies into elemental energies. Into Mana. They used it to cast enchantments, conjure weapons, and the like.”

“So if I were to gain a proper… forge, then I could use it too?”

“Theoretically, yes. It is also possible you might not have an aptitude for it.”

“Always the optimist, I see.”

The goddess merely smirked.

Lukas cupped his chin in thought, thinking back to the amazing things she’d done with that nifty little fire spell when she was possessing her. Not long after, he had gained the Mana Manipulation skill temporarily, before his schema was forced to unlearn it. Was that why? Because he had no aptitude for it?

“Is that it?” he asked aloud, knowing she was reading his inner thoughts.

Inanna paused for a moment, studying his features. “No, that was not what I meant.”

“You’re hiding things from me again!” he accused.

“Your paranoia is amusing, mortal, but I speak no lies.”

Lukas stubbornly raised his hand, almost like he was back in his university days. Given the atmosphere and looks of his mindscape, the action fit the setting just fine.

“You said that creation has no limits, except my own skill and limits. But I didn’t know how to use lifeforce to make my bones stronger or heal my tissues. How was I able to do it, then?”

“Because you used lifeforce, of course,” Inanna replied, looking at her fingernails. They looked perfectly manicured, enough to make any model or professional actress jealous.

Lukas blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“A common event,” the goddess sighed. “But if I must… which part did you not understand?”

“What’s lifeforce got to do with any of this?”

She stared at him, as if he’d suddenly grown two heads. “Tell me, mortal, how exactly do you think your body heals itself from ailments?”

“With medicine.”

“And without this… medicine, the body cannot heal itself?”

“It can, it's just slower that way. The meds have chemicals that induce changes in the body’s cells and reinforce the immune system and…” he trailed off.

She kept staring at him.

“...What?” he asked, suddenly feeling like he was missing something terribly obvious.

“No,” she said at last. “Just… no. I’m not going through this. Not at this point.”

Lukas wondered what she was talking about, but decided better than to ask her about it.

“Unfortunately, you do not have the time or luxury to go into the theory of spiritual essences. Not here inside this anomaly, at any rate. Know that a user of lifeforce is far more strongly connected to his body, and thus can revert it back to complete health at a faster rate.”

“So the better I get with lifeforce, the faster I’ll heal?”

“Generally.”

“That doesn’t make sense on so many levels,” Lukas argued. “Even if lifeforce is creation energy, I’d still need to develop some kind of skill for this entire healing thing. You can’t just say that an immune system gets better by getting better with lifeforce.”

Inanna merely shook her head. “Seeing mortals set constraints on their own perception of the world never fails to astound me.”

“But—”

“You are currently sitting inside your mindscape, talking to a being more ancient than your planet itself about manipulating forces that should rightfully belong to the realm of Gods. All the while, the mere thought that the most versatile substance in the world can directly affect your health and immunity makes your forehead crinkle in consternation?”

“Frankly,” Lukas admitted, “I still sometimes feel like this is all just a dream, and I’m still back in my room.”

“What a fascinating thing it must be then,” Inanna smiled. “To dream when you are not asleep.”

Zuken Banksi had never been the believing sort.

He had far greater faith in logic, in calculation, in diligent effort and performance. It was why priesthood had never really caught his eye. Even though the Banksi clan was of Asukan descent, Zuken was never one to place a lot of faith in gods— Asukan and heathen alike. After all, even Gods could rise and fall, be created and unmade. Gods and Goddesses had their own ambitions and agendas, and marching to someone else’s tune just wasn’t his style.

That was why he’d opted for the neutral path.

He became a spiritist. Trained his kami. Gained strength. And once he’d accomplished all that, he turned to politics and business to gain political and social power.

Power. That was the one deity Zuken could wholeheartedly believe in. Social, political, physical, magical, esoteric— power existed in a variety of forms. One only needed to recognize it for what it was, then use it to suit their own ends.

And right now, he needed to look no further than Tanya to find some.

Traveling through the desert had been mostly mundane, and apart from the entire travel-by-night and sleep-by-day inversion, it was a situation Zuken ultimately felt lukewarm about. Happy, because they’d been able to enter the anomaly quickly without any injury. Sad, because he was unable to evaluate his third member’s prowess when placed in a dangerous situation.

Luckily, the snag with the drilling spell had solved that issue.

It was clear right away that Tanya was powerful, overwhelmingly so, and still Zuken had reason to believe her final attack was a half-hearted attempt at best. He may not have been the best fighter out there, but he was still a damn good observer.

He knew what it was like to see spiritists push their kami to maximum efficiency.

And Tanya was doing no such thing. If anything, she was actively inhibiting her kami. It was as if she had unleashed only a part of it out at all, and even that portion generated more power than Zuken had ever seen being used. How a powerful kami like that ended up in a freelancer bremetan’s hands was anybody’s guess.

Now, here he was. Exploring an anomaly far more dangerous than anything he’d ever attempted before, with an unknown variable like Tanya watching his back. Frankly, it was a very, very unfavorable situation that he could have gone his whole life without experiencing had Lord Naowa not forced him into this deal.

But if he solved this problem, he’d become a licensed, freeholding Guild Master.

Sometimes faith is the only downpayment you have, Zuken reminded himself. You don’t have to have it all figured out from the beginning.

At least the road ahead was clear. Continual Lights were truly a blessing.

He plucked out a pair of trinkets from his bag. They looked like thin cylinders with a cap on one end— an insulator that kept the sigils engraved within from activating. Once the cap was ripped off, the sigils would begin drawing energy from the world around it and emit a bright light.

A continual one, as its name suggested. At least until the sigils faded, which wouldn’t happen for at least another few days. It was exactly the kind of thing an adventurer would keep on his person at all times.

“You realize those lights are giving us away, right?” Tanya asked, interrupting his thoughts. “You might as well give them a giant target to aim for.”

“We just need to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable, Tanya,” he replied in an almost standoffish manner, his eyes constantly roving around. The anomaly— or what seemed like the anomaly —was a vast passageway built in stone and moss. In all likelihood, there were other passages identical to this one, all extending in different directions and intersecting in random places like a giant labyrinth.

He looked down below, at the rocky floor.

Then up at the high ceiling, lined with stalactites.

This really isn’t my kind of place.

“Well,” he murmured, “at least it has passages to walk across. My suit won’t get all dusty.”

“Just wait,” Tanya promised, smiling as if she knew something he didn’t. “Dust is the last thing you’ll be worrying about.”

“Well, I for one can’t wait to kill some monsters,” Elena chimed in, pulling out a pair of knives from… somewhere and doing her best ‘killer’ impression as she scraped one knife against the other.

“With your skills, the only kind of monster you’d beat is a dead one.”

“Bitch!”

“Dumpster fire.”

Zuken rolled his eyes at their antics.

“So,” Elena asked, looking at him, “what’s the game plan?”

“The plan,” he exhaled, briefly glancing at Tanya, “is to cause a detonation and destroy the anomaly’s core. I’m hoping that your sensor abilities might be useful in finding weak points in this place. Even if we end up unable to damage the core, a planned detonation of key locations should at least crash the entire thing.”

He looked at the two of them. More importantly, at Tanya’s blank look.

“What? Isn’t that obvious for any reasonably smart adventurer?”

“Not likely,” she admitted. It looked like it pained her to do so.

“Really?” he asked. “It seems pretty obvious for someone whose aim is to destroy the whole place.”

“Well, there’s your caveat,” Tanya retorted. “Adventurers normally come into anomalies to fight monsters, gain experience, and level up their skills. Not to rig it with explosives and send it crashing around them.”

“Is that right?” Zuken mused, eyeing her up and down. “Now I’m even more curious how you collapsed the underwater anomaly. That, along with your powerful kami, one would think you’ve been hiding your true strength.”

“One would be spot on,” Tanya replied, almost conversationally. “But that’s not the point here.”

She’s more confident now. Is it because we’re out of Haviskali? Or is something else afoot?

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “Then tell me, how would you approach this?”

The blonde spiritist remained silent for a moment, lost to her own thoughts. “I think,” she began, “that even if we managed to get close to the Core, it would rip us apart. Anomaly cores have powerful defenses, usually in the form of hybrid prototype monsters specifically engineered for that purpose. Considering how this place is underground, we might be able to reach the anomaly core, and I might be able to engage those defenses for a time. You two would have to deal with everything else.”

“Assuming we can,” Zuken added.

“Assuming you can.”

“‘Maybe’, ‘might’, I’m hearing a lot of words I don’t like,” Elena nervously noted.

“That’s because this is all still speaking optimistically,” Tanya glowered.

“So… let’s call it a Plan B then?”

“Plan C,” Tanya corrected. “Plan A is that we leave this place right away and run. Level-3 anomalies are horribly lethal, and this one’s been underground for who knows how long? We don’t even know what kind of horrors are roaming these tunnels.”

Zuken opened his mouth to say something, but froze as a single, luminous eye opened in the dark and held his gaze. A second later, several more eyes joined the first one.

And then something erupted out of the walls, the light of the trinkets reflecting off of their shiny metallic teeth as they came rushing towards his face.