Blinking, Verus came to. He was looking up at the cloudy sky. Clouds sure were nice, much better than an endless hungry eternity full of monsters. That was an oddly specific and horrible thought… Why was he making that comparison?

Ugh, his head hurt. He had a headache like someone had tried splitting his skull with an axe. Why was he lying on the ground? He couldn’t remember what he’d just being doing. It had undoubtedly been something dumb though. He could feel that.

A face suddenly appeared as someone leaned over him. It was a rather weird face, with purple irises and with a purple gem in the center of its forehead. Oh, it was Inanis! What was he doing here? Where was here anyway?

Verus frowned. This seemed important. He’d been in a cave… and then at a pond. Had there been a waterfall? Was that what he was hearing? He was certain a mirror had been involved somehow. Had someone hit him with it? That would explain his headache.

“You are perhaps the most foolhardy person in all of existence. It's almost commendable,” Inanis told him. “You would have certainly perished if I had not retrieved your spirit from the eternal plane. Do you so yearn for utter dissolution that you would feed your soul to the devourers? If you regret overcoming the flames once, could you not simply shed your flesh and let your soul fray as others do?”

“What?” Verus asked him. He was still confused, which was probably a normal effect of talking to Inanis.

Sighing, the black-haired young man reached down and offered his hand. Verus took it and was promptly pulled to his feet. Inanis might be skinny and pale, but he was stronger than he looked.

Once standing, Verus took a moment to look to each side. Some of his memories returned. He was still next to the koi pond and the waterfall. His friend Warin was standing nearby and staring at him with a worried expression.

“What happened?” Verus asked.

“Great thoughtlessness. You appear to have used that mirror to project your spirit into the great beyond,” Inanis replied as he pointed at a pile of broken silver shards on the ground. “There, you caused all kinds of problems and I had to retrieve you, which broke the mirror. Saving you took some effort. Truly, I would not have bothered if you were not so incredibly amusing.”

A genuine smile appeared on Inanis’s face, the first Verus had ever seen. “It is actually amazing how much trouble you’ve managed to cause. They will be speaking of this. Oh, yes. It was quite the unexpected show.”

“They?”

Inanis didn’t answer. He just grinned in a way that hinted at more than a little madness.

“You were unconscious for over a day,” Warin explained a moment later. “Nothing we did woke you, and then Inanis showed up. He managed to help, although I have no idea how.”

“I don’t remember that,” Verus replied as he rubbed the back of his head.

“That’s probably for the best,” Inanis told him. “In your stupidity, you gazed far deeper into the abyss than even I ever have. It is a wonder that you’re not mindlessly repeating nonsense while drooling like my elder sister. Father should let her soul go.”

Warin’s worried frown grew deeper. “Will Verus be alright?”

The pale disciple leaned closer and inspected something within Verus’s chest. “For now, I suppose. His journey has marked him profoundly. He is not as he was. Only time will tell how much he will suffer for this, but I find it best not to dwell on the future too much. It’s full of terrible inevitabilities.”

Inanis looked up and met Verus’s gaze. “Was it worth it?”

A few scattered bits of memories returned to Verus. There had been a restful place, and he’d absorbed some ki. Turning his senses inward, he felt some traces of strange ki within his core, although it was transparent and hard to detect. The energy was slowly dispersing into his body, but Verus had a feel for it now and could replicate it in small amounts. The essence in his core had subtly shifted.

Despite his headache, an excited grin appeared on Verus’s face. Without a doubt, he’d found his attunement. He could feel it.

“Yes, I got what I was looking for,” he announced proudly to the world. He also had some weird memories about giant moon fish and hugging a golden light, but that was probably just nonsense. Best ignored. They were already fading into a muddle of barely remembered nightmares.

“Did Verus really look into the eternal plane?” Warin asked with a skeptical look on his face. They’d been taught it was a holy place and that looking upon it could destroy the merely mortal.

Inanis ignored the question and asked the formerly chubby disciple one of his own. “Do you know how to make tea? I brought some leaves and a kettle, but I appear have forgotten how to use them. It is vexing.”

“Alright, sure. Let me start a fire,” Warin replied before turning to get to work.

Verus turned around to help but stopped when he noticed what had been directly behind him this entire time. About a dozen feet away stood a pillar of translucent crystal, and Escora had been stuck inside it. The young woman had a look of surprise on her face but didn’t seem conscious. She was perfectly still. Caught in a moment.

“Um…”

Warin noticed his attention and winced. “She tried to stop Inanis from getting to you when he first showed up, so he froze her with a wave of his hand. He says she should be completely unhurt though. At least, I think that’s what he said.”

Verus glanced back at Inanis and quickly scanned his spirit. It hadn’t been obvious before, since he seemed to be dampening his presence somehow, but he was definitely at the Tempered Realm. Even taking that into consideration though, the skill involved in such a feat reminded Verus that Inanis was considered one of the most powerful outer disciples. Even Highcloud seemed to consider him a threat.

Inanis noticed the attention and met his gaze. “Power comes to those tempered by ki and insight, but the line between enlightenment and madness is thin and perilous, as you have seen. Don’t let yourself forget everything and become blind like the others.”

Er, had he just read his mind? No, that was silly.

“Excuse me. I’d like to know what you did to my companion,” Verus asked him politely.

Inanis blinked and turned to frown at the figure in the crystal. “She was annoying and inconsequential, so I sealed her away. Why are we talking about this?”

“A seal? Can you unseal her?”

“I’m perfectly capable of using proper sealing techniques despite my low Realm,” Inanis answered as he turned to look at Verus again. “You should already know that my bloodline deepens my connection to the eternal plane. It’s a simple thing to phase out the material.”

“Pardon, but I was actually asking if you would do it.”

“If you wish,” he said before turning to wave a hand in Escora’s direction.

Immediately, the crystal shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow and then vanished. Escora stumbled forward a moment later, looking incredibly confused.

“You! What did you do?” she growled as she pointed at Inanis.

Thankfully, the pale disciple completely ignored her and began walking over to where Warin had set up a fire.

Despite that, Verus hurried over to Escora and raised a hand in warning. “Shhh, don’t anger him again. He’s here to help. I think he saved my life. If you act politely, he probably won’t do anything more to you.”

Escora glared at Verus. “I’m not afraid of the likes of him.”

“Maybe you should be,” Verus told her before explaining what he knew about Inanis Praestigiae and his capabilities.

This seemed to mollify Escora enough that she stopped visibly seething, so Verus hurried over to join Warin and Inanis at the fire, before anything else unexpected happened.

Warin poured their visitor a cup of tea as Verus sat down next to him.

“This is quite good tea. I envy your mastery,” Inanis remarked after taking a sip from one of the cups he seemed to have brought with him.

“Thank you, I make tea a lot,” Warin replied with an amused grin.

As Verus watched the pair discussed several different snacks, with Inanis going into oddly detailed descriptions of what each food tasted like. Verus mostly listened, although he did join in a little to be polite.

“Yes, I enjoy tasting things,” the pale disciple explained. “It’s a pleasant distraction from my sight and the memories of the things I’ve seen. Taste is a much simpler and more personal sense. I never have nightmares about things that tasted horrible.”

This remark led to moment of silence that Escora exploited. She’d approached so that she was standing nearby, and she was still glaring hostilely at Inanis. “What do you want from us? You didn’t come here to have tea.”

Inanis frowned as Warin and Verus both tensed up.

Slowly, the pale disciple turned to look at Escora, and she flinched away from his cold stare. “What do I want? Ignorance would be nice. Can you give it to me? No. How about peace? If I snuff out your spirit, will I get that? No, I think not. Thus, you have absolutely nothing of value. I am here simply to distract myself. That is all I want from Verus.”

Escora hesitated before nodding, and Warin quickly spoke up to change the subject. “Yes, peace and quiet is always nice. I rather like it myself.”

Inanis turned back to Warin, studied his spirit for a moment, and smiled. “Then you have nothing to worry about. For peace will find you soon enough and you are well endowed with ignorance.”

“Thank you,” Warin replied sincerely as he poured Inanis another cup of tea.

A thought had occurred to Verus as he listened. “Excuse me, but I’m curious. Even if you could see that I was in trouble, how did you get here so quickly.”

“I’ve been watching you and keeping close since our last meeting,” Inanis answered with a perfectly straight face. “Even before this you were still the most interesting soul around.”

Verus suppressed a shiver at the thought of being watched. None of them had seen any sign that they were being followed. Just what was this strange and powerful disciple capable of?

“Well, I really should be going,” Inanis said as he got up and began gathering his things.

Warin glanced up at the sky. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night? It’s going to get dark out soon.”

This earned him a glare from Escora, but she didn’t say anything.

“No, but thank you for the wonderful tea. I will have to remember how you prepared it,” Inanis said as he shook his head and turned to look at Verus. “You’ve attracted too much attention for me to remain with you for long. I can feel the eyes from beyond began to turn their attention this way. You cannot hide here.”

That said, the pale disciple began walking toward the forest.

“Wait, do you have any advice for me before you go?” Verus called after him. Despite all the nonsense he spouted, the pale disciple was both powerful and knowledgeable.

“Don’t die,” Inanis replied as he kept walking. “The flames would be the least of your concerns this time.”

What? Verus wished he knew what Inanis was talking about, but at the same time, he was very glad he didn’t.

Warin watched their guest disappear into the trees with a concerned look. “Is he really travelling through the Reaches all alone? How does he sleep?”

“Maybe he doesn’t,” Escora remarked darkly. “Anyway, good riddance. We don’t need a creepy imperial noble like him around.”

“He would have made a powerful ally,” Verus replied.

“We don’t need him. We’re doing fine. Soon, I’ll hit Tempered Realm and then I’ll be able to defend myself from the likes of him.”

Warin and Verus shared a skeptical look, but they didn’t challenge their companion. It was clear she was feeling defensive after being defeated so easily.

With their guest gone, Escora seemed to remember that Verus had been unconscious before he’d shown up, so Verus had to explain to her that he was feeling fine and had actually made some progress toward his ascension to the Tempered Realm.

“I should have something to show you soon,” he remarked proudly to his companions.

Escora gave him a dubious look. “During a hunt, you need to know your own capabilities and your prey’s. You can’t go charging after the lord of the forest and expect to catch him. Next time, ask before doing something as insane as peering into the spirit world. There are far easier ways to gain enlightenment.”

Verus was sure he’d accidentally done far more than merely look into the eternal plane, but he didn’t correct her. When she went back to cultivating and Warin took guard duty, he immediately began experimenting with the new type of ki he’d drawn from the eternal plane. Here was his path to becoming an inner disciple and then an elder. Now that he had a rare attunement, he could ask the drunk elder for a cultivation technique once he got back to the sect temple. In the meantime, he needed to figure out what type of ki he was attuned to and how to use it.