Frantic questions rose from all sides, followed by a rising anger at himself and the stupidity of his actions, but one concern superseded it all. In a rush, Tercius pushed away {Distant Mind}.

He had to find out.

Taking deep breaths, Tercius ignored the buzzing noise in the back of his head, as the mother of all headaches started to hit him from above. There was a drill there, one twisting slowly but deeply into his skull— then he felt the familiar presence in his chest and the headache was forgotten, a sinking feeling rising quickly in his stomach.

His magia pool was double what it was.

No… no…

He reached for the magia again and found it once more. The Seal was gone and the Well was back. When the being formed the Skill, there was likely a large surge of energia in his body, one that washed away the delicate Seal.

The notification stubbornly hung in the very center of his vision, as if taunting him.

{Zerakronoz} develops {Spirit Bond}. Obtain Yes?

“No, no, no…” he muttered, his mouth dry.

Just near him, in the darkness of the cave, a great shape stirred at his words. Bleats echoed in the previously silent cave and then something nudged him just over his legs.

Everything inside him was twisting unpleasantly. He was hungry, thirsty, and… a strange mix of disbelief and anger taking over him. No, no, no… This couldn't be happening. He had to think, he had to think!

Ignoring Lucky’s bleats and nudges, he called {Distant Mind} to take him away. That was the only sensible idea now. He had to take action as soon as possible and for that, he had to have a clear head.

As soon as he was back in the void, the effects of his Skill washed over him. The anger, the disbelief, the thirst, the hunger, and everything else that had crept along, all of it went away as minutes passed. He kept his thought placid meanwhile, only allowing himself to think once everything was at a zero.

Without the Seal, he could not approach the monastery. He could not continue this journey… nor could he go back, for that matter. With his Well so open, he could not go anywhere where juvenile spirits could be found, and here, in the Izmittor mountain range, he was surrounded by them on every side. He was stuck, right here where he was. And for how long would it be safe here?

His plan to take the Seal and make a Skill was gone as well, shattered with the Seal itself.

No, no, no. He was going about this from the wrong direction. All of those were mid-term and long-term problems. Short-term problems— as in things that needed to be done right now— should be his absolute priority.

He knew the list by heart by now. Check the safety of the shelter, repair any damage done to it, then get food and water for Lucky and himself. Then he could take time to think about and act on the rest of the mess.

Leaving {Distant Mind} behind, he completed all three in that order. The beings that had stood outside his shelter for the past five days— oh Hells, five days— were seemingly gone. At least they were not heard inside. He did not use {Magia Sight} to check, as he was not sure what the spirit could sense, but rather he checked out the shelter’s entrance with {Stone Sight}, where he found only a surprisingly small amount of damage, which he promptly repaired. After that, he made a few long holes through the entire two meters of wall and looked around.

The moonlight fell on the calm forest. Dotted immediately around the entrance were dark shapes… He counted twelve bodies, all centered around what looked to be a charred crater that had to be a meter across, but he neither saw nor heard anything else. The chilly fresh air gave him another drilling headache. The stink in his cave, something which had been slowly growing over the past few days, seemed to be coming straight from one of the Hells.

Growing food for Lucky came next and it took him hours, but just in case he didn’t want to leave his shelter before daylight. While Tercius was stuck with the spirit, Lucky had obviously eaten everything Tercius had left for him and at some point the ram had taken an interest in the blankets from Tercius’ bed. When Tercius took them back from the ram, two of them had missing corners and one had a rather sizable hole right in the middle. So feeding Lucky was a priority, as there was no need for anything else to fall prey.

Even to his own nose, he already smelled like an aquaphobic caveman— no need to look like one.

Finally, when everything else was done, he sat and chewed on the same dry biscuits he had been eating for the last eight days, softening the harder pieces with a bit of stale water, then chewing some more to mix it all up, and finally gulping it all down with great difficulty. By now, the biscuits tasted as he imagined a piece of cardboard would taste, but at least it kept him fed and on his feet.

Still, he made a note to himself to try to find some edible fruits tomorrow morning, or maybe hunt something, for a bit of sweet, roasted meat… Just thinking about it made his mouth water and mind drift away from all the immediate problems… At the end of his meal, he was tired enough to just pull on the blankets over himself, yet as sleep pushed him to close his eyes and drift away to rest, he pushed back.

The void of the {Distant Mind} took him again.

The notification, so stubbornly clinging to the center of his vision, taunted him.

{Zerakronoz} develops {Spirit Bond}. Obtain Yes?

This would be a Skill to which he would gladly say a big fat no. So where was the no? How did the spirit take away his choice? All Skills had a choice— Under the smelly blankets, Tercius shifted uncomfortably. Not all Skill did, did they? At least, some Skills were thought to have no choice at all. Whole families and tribes all around the world were born with wereshifting Skills— these simply being present at the moment of the birth.

And why was the spirit’s name there and written in such a way? That anomaly captured his thoughts— Threads of a crazy idea swam on the edges of his awareness, slowly forming into a cohesive whole.

The spirits… were Skills? At least, did they begin their life as such? Autonomous Skills that began their life on pure instinct, only to reach the stage of rational thought at some point in their life? Could it be?

His thoughts became a tangled mess of excitement, but he straightened them out soon enough and liberated enough focus to operate at the peak again.

What a fascinating idea!

When he asked Mistress Kalina about the history, and particularly the origin, of the spirits and Divines, during the crash course she gave him, she had only been willing to divulge that they were a result of an accident, not a word more. His thoughts jumped to the brief conversation he and Mistress Kalina shared about his {Spring of Crystal Thoughts} and the creation of Skills. A jolt ran through his tendril thoughts, as a new tendril question arose.

Did magi of the Pyramid create the spirits then?

Did they create the… Divines? What were the Divines then? A special spirit, or rather a Skill, just on a bigger scale than the usual spirits? Or perhaps the Divines were an unintended consequence? Something in between?

What if the Imperial spirits, and therefore Divines, were also the work of the magi?

Oh…

The possibilities opened before him like a vast grassland. Images of magi working behind the scenes, usurping the old world order by giving rise to a new one over and over again, whenever the population rose above a certain number. All of them had a gram of logic to them, but he curbed his thoughts back. No need to delve too deeply into that endless hole, no matter how much it called to him.

All of it was proof-less speculation based on other speculations, based on some things he learned from second or third-hand tales. The bottom line, one he learned quite early in an old life in another world, was that there was no one individual or group that you could trust about everything.

Shaking all these thoughts away, he focused on what truly mattered now.

How could he protect his Well? What were his options?

The Seal was seemingly gone, and he would not check for remnants of it, not while the spirit was inside of him, potentially observing everything. Gone along with the Seal, was his idea of creating a Skill based on it.

Removing the Well entirely… seemed the only plausible idea, but… An auto operation was out of the question, mostly because bar some rudimentary anatomy and a crash course in mundane and magical first aid he had no true knowledge of how to do such a thing.

A wave of regret swept over his thoughts. He should have asked Mistress Kalina to remove his Well for him. If he had just endured his first idea, and argued his case, then not only would he have been in a unique position to see a form of Stripping by doing so, but something like this would not have happened. He shouldn’t have been tempted by the easy path.

As regret flowed away, stripped by his Skill, Tercius realized that he had an option.

He could in some way use his new means of control over energia and attempt to destroy, consume, or in some other way remove the magical organ that he had spent painful weeks growing, the implications and consequences of which he could only begin to fathom.

His thoughts lingered in the void, contemplating the idea. The potential benefits, the possible downsides…

While he went over everything a couple of times, another thought came to him.

He had another option… one that filled him with apprehension and a certain degree of revulsion for even considering it, but the pragmatic side of him cautioned that no option should ever be excluded from consideration. He could attempt to do what high-ranking members of the clergy did, at least those that had a Well of their own. Mistress Kalina was quite clear that juvenile spirits would rarely claw their way into already occupied territory, therefore if he had a spirit of his own…

{Zerakronoz} develops {Spirit Bond}. Obtain Yes?

So convenient that he had been given a spirit. His thoughts curled at this, sensing a deeper network of threads around him.

Was there someone or something out there pushing him towards just this?

Of course there was.

It would be foolish, hopeful, and counterproductive of him to think otherwise. That foreign presence that had lingered inside Zerakronoz back there had expressly wanted for Tercius to be an "attendant" to Zerakronoz, whatever that meant. Divine Sky, he decided to call it regardless of what or who it was. It had also sent Zerakronoz and others to collect him and bring him back, with the goal of him unlocking something for them, but that didn't turn out as it wanted. Looking back at it, it seemed to Tercius that an alteration to the plans had been made just as he was about to try to attack and dismantle the mind of Zerakronoz. But maybe that was just staged to appear so?

His thoughts swam around. Did he imagine that weakness, or was it truly there? If so, could he exploit it to get himself a better grounding in all of these grand plans that seemed to be everywhere around him like a spider’s web?

The thought of the scope of that web unnerved him, but like it or not he was already caught in it. He could struggle and alert the spiders, like a good little prey, or he could keep calm and find out more about the whole thing, possibly even enough to liberate himself of it in time.

And who was it that revealed him to these beings? The spirit in his own home? A strong possibility. The magi? Another strong possibility. Something he did since parting with the three Mistresses? If so, then the possibility was strong that the spirits in the Verdant Grove would have had something to do with that. Or perhaps these Divines truly were omniscient, as some of the Rona’s tales claimed…

He had no idea which of those options was the one and, either alone or in different combinations, he had no idea which one was worse… Although, if the Divines were truly omniscient, then how could their religions get into the state they were currently in? It was possible that they were just good at information gathering, but not to an omniscient point.

Perdinar was right. It was paramount that he learned and grasped the capability to take care of himself and others.

Better yet, he would help others learn how to take care of themselves. Inklings of old plans for everyone in his family swam past him and Tercius felt a surge of warmth building in anticipation. Plans for Ciron and Rona, for Petra and Septimus, for Neiran, Aurelia, Leo, and even baby Portia, for Amber and four or so guardian dogs he had yet to get. Maybe even Lucky. The smelly ram had grown on him. A few other animals drifted past his thoughts, a Night Terror, a salamander, and a few other highly useful animals. Acquiring some useful plants could be another option, as well. Depending on how things in these mountains went and where its loyalties were, the spirit in his home could be included in that circle. No need to limit himself with the same standards and biases as the magi, after all. If Lux wanted to join in, he would also be more than welcome.

All that and more swirled in his thoughts.

He would create a group of hidden monsters capable of stealthily taking down any kind of threat to them.

Only then would he know of freedom from worry. Only then could he leave behind them and his home completely unburdened, finally free to travel this new world on his own!

Tercius calmed the wild thoughts down. He didn't even realize how excited he got. As his Skill drained the ripples of the excitement away, he saw that he was once again jumping far ahead in time.

Calm and focused on immediate problems were the deals of the day, he firmly reminded himself.

He could attempt to destroy his Well or he could get over himself and reach some kind of an accord with the spirit. Those were the two options he had right here, right now.

Both carried their own risks and complications, their futures hidden in the fog of obscurity and guesswork.

He knew which one of them was more likely to work, because he knew that it had been working for thousands of years, but picking that option would mean that he would have to do something he didn’t want to do. The other option was far more in line with what he wanted, but it carried an unknown risk the scopes of which he couldn’t begin to grasp the edges of.

Reach out for protection to a being of murky allegiances and hidden agendas, or do it all on his own and stumble blindly into unexplored and potentially highly dangerous territory?

Of the two, it was the second one that called to him with a primal attraction.

There was a gravitational pull there, a call to freedom, to mystery and exploration. He already had too many debts to settle and if he did it all on his own, he would owe nothing to no one. So what if he harmed himself in the process, some part of him asked? He would repair any harm done as well, given time. Healing was one of the magical professions on his “to learn” list.

Any physical or magical side-effects from the magical removal of the Well could very well be further motivation for learning Healing faster and diving into the field of Wells with the Mistress of House of Pain and Pleasure—

As Tercius' thoughts further spun out of control in a wild manner, unrestrained as they ought to be in the endless void, another part of him, one left to safeguard just for this eventuality, acted with extreme prejudice. A tiny, dark tendril of focus, one that had remained clear and focused on the primary goal throughout it all, severed all those rampant tendrils of thoughts, so full of wants and desires, shaking him to sense and turning him back to rationality, pulling him out of an endless hole and reminding him of the reason he was here in the first place.

“Focus!” the thought thundered. “First remember the original goal for coming here, then start collecting all the scattered thoughts, one by one.”

A sourness rose within him. He ought to have better control over himself than this, but once you started onto a path with enough stream, the thoughts could become a runaway train, one of those twisting, high-speed ones, where you simply couldn’t get off of no matter how much you tried. To return to lucidity, a complete derailment was needed or, as he learned long ago by accident, something to pull the plug for you.

One by one, he collected the thoughts, all of them now free of those spikes of emotions that he thought were the main reason for spinning out of control.

The original goal… was getting Rona and Septimus. To do that, he had to deal with his Well. He dived into deep thought on the subject, considering the options he formulated so far, carefully examining each. Delving deep into his entire meeting with the spirit yielded even more results, things overlooked.

Finally, he knew what had to be done.

Within moments, he reached for the only presence in the endless void, the tiny marble, the effigy of {Energia Manipulation} and a gate to anima. He was back in human form here, a simulacrum given shape likely for some habit or preference. Alterations to it were possible, but difficult and focus-intensive, so he never bothered with them. Without dallying or allowing for time to think on his plan, Tercius headed out of the Core and into the anima proper. The journey through the glum surroundings was long, but a tiny strand of harvested energia guided him like a compass that pointed to his desired destination. Deep within the gray fog of Tercius' anima stood a massive dark sphere, its surface completely smooth and metallic looking. On the surface of that sphere, patches of crystals grew in all colors and shapes. The smallest crystals were like moss, and it was on these patches that the larger crystals grew.

The Garden of Skills, Tercius called it.

Straight ahead was the anomaly— a glowing egg of clouds and lightning.

In front of his eyes, the notification hung yet he ignored it, stubbornly clinging to that frame of mind he constructed to complete this task. Tercius reached for the egg, placing both of his hands on the slightly shifting surface, only to reach for {Distant Mind}.

With a spray of jet darkness, he was back in the void, only where he used to be alone, now he once more had a familiar bird in front of him.

“Surprise.”

Tiny, disoriented, and growing more confused by the passing moment, Zerakronoz tentatively moved around. In a whisper of surprise and disbelief, the spirit’s sliver of a thought sent out a vibration that was picked up by his tendrils.

“H–how?”

“Everyone seems to have some trick up their sleeve these days, so I didn’t want to be the one left behind. Well, I guess that in your case, I should say “under a feather”.”

A wave of fear vibrated the darkness. “But… but… how did you—”

“That’s a secret, I’m afraid. But let’s talk about this Skill you gave me without my approval, Zerakronoz—”

A tiny signal went out of Zerakronoz’s growing form, a little more than a vibration from a fallen speck of sand. Tercius felt it and his thoughts sprang forth like a net, encapsulating the signal into a spherical cage before it could spread.

“No need to call anyone.” Tercius’ thoughts buzzed and echoed all around Zerakronoz. The bird’s distress rose in shivering feathers. “Just you and I are more than enough for this conversation. I just want some honest, plain answers. Is that too much to ask for after all you did?”