The ax twirled around as I spun in a circle, stopping it mid twist and snapping it up in a slice that would have cut someone's jugular. Sweat dripped from my face, and my muscles were weary and slightly painful.

I wonder how much more training I need before Ax-mastery goes up again, I thought as I stepped back, taking a few deep breaths before lowering the ax and flexing my arms.

My top two were still sore from practicing the last of the spell's gestures. All around, the room had changed greatly from a month ago, when I'd arrived. Tables had been placed together, forming a small shack, and the massive bag of supplies had dwindled to something that could fit in a handbag.

The Librarian’s tome lay on one of the tables surrounded by open spellbooks. One of them, a small thin one, made me shiver when I saw it. I quickly averted my eyes, wondering if I could ever look at thin, leather-bound tomes again without having nightmares of excruciating pain.

Probably not, I thought. Part of me vaguely realized I'd just mirrored a thought I'd had months earlier.

Still, as I sat down with my back against the flipped-over table, I couldn't help but be proud of myself. It had only taken me a few days to try the symbols again, which was better than I'd expected. I closed my eyes, sighing contentedly.

A moment later, I hung in a white oval room with slightly shiny, transparent walls. Based on the size of my small blue soul ball, the room seemed twenty meters across and had a dome-like top. Dark clouds, lined with reddish taints, spread out behind the glass-like barrier, and in it, I saw shadowy motions. I effortlessly hovered closer to the wall, gazing outside at a slithering formless thing with dozens of eyes passing by. It took a single look in my direction, but its red, lidless eyes traced over me without any awareness.

I can't believe all these things just hover around everyone, and nobody knows.

I'd need to get Eliandra her own mindscape somehow, or she'd have to stay in places where Rathica's presence could guard her. A small plop came, and I turned just in time to see an open tome with an eye on each page enter my mindscape. The first time I'd seen it, I'd freaked out, but by now, I'd grown accustomed.

"Est, Par asks if you can come out. He needs to speak to you," Fnip said. His voice sounded a lot less agitated since he was able to hide out with me, more like when I'd first met him.

Over the course of the weeks, I'd gotten used to his wacky nature, and my opinions had reverted once more. Par was dangerous, while Fnip could be dangerous, but was mostly annoying if he was afraid. Sadly he seemed to be afraid most of the time. Only in my mindscape did he relax. At first, his presence had bothered me, but as he was a near-infinite fountain of knowledge, I'd gotten used to it. Although he wasn't allowed to tell me everything in the library, he could tell me anything in a book I'd read part of, saving me from having to read them entirely.

"If it's about if he can enter my mindscape again, tell him no," I said, turning my attention back to the odd chaos. That god of fear just kept trying. As if I was going to let him in here, no matter what he promised. Fnip didn't respond, making me realize I'd probably been on point. Not really a surprise. The deity asked every few days, and it had been almost four since his last attempt to persuade me.

A thing that looked like a tiny squid with mouths on the ends of its tentacles, attached to a body that was a single eyeball, floated past. I was about to ask Fnip what type of mind bug this one was when a warping piece of cloth with teeth in the middle wooshed out of the chaos, snatched the squid then whooshed away again.

"Man... how come everybody isn't raving mad…" I muttered, shivering. Seeing the scary mind creatures, I decided it was time to do another mental exercise round, no matter the pain. As soon as I thought about it, I shivered again, but this time out of fear of the pain.

"Mortal minds have long since grown accustomed to the parasitic intrusions, and as long as they aren't too stressed out, everything is fine," Fnip said as he floated beside me and stared outside.

Before I asked another question, I called up my status to double-check my knowledge. It had become almost second nature by now.

> 32/33: Muscle mass

> 03/120: Fat

> 31/40: Coordination

> 30/30: Stamina

> 06/10: Learning rate

> 539/744: Knowledge

> 07/60: Well spoken

> 9/100: Karma

My muscle mass hadn't grown, no matter how hard I'd been pushing myself, but I wanted to get it to thirty-three.

Gained another ten since yesterday, I thought, mentally shaking my head. Being in a library, I tended to pick up new information. Still, with my mind set on my fourth mental exercise, I would gain another hundred knowledge, so a few questions would be fine.

"Last time, you told me that only very few mortals know of mindscapes, and most of those don't know about these mind parasites. Why don't the few that do know just share this knowledge?"

"Some do. But most people don't believe them, which in part is to preserve their own peace of mind," Fnip said as he drifted along the walls of the small confined space. His voice turned into what I called his 'teacher voice', and I'd found him a lot more amiable that way.

"Besides that, there are primal-chaos-born, mostly deities really, that actively hunt and either enslave or kill mortals with mindscapes."

Of course they do, I thought.

"Did you think on what I told you before?" I asked.

Fnip sighed sadly. "I've thought on it at great length, and I can't come up with a single way."

So, besides what Laurel has planned, there's no other way besides getting Rathica to make me a new body and start over, I thought with a shake of my head. You would have thought that in a library this big, there was another trick… Still, I didn't believe Fnip was lying to me about this.

"You have to promise me you will come back as many times as you can," Fnip said. "I'll keep looking for a way to push Par out, and soon as I do, you can safely bring me along!"

"Just keep searching," I said. You won't find one if you haven't in the last gazillion years, I thought. I kept that to myself and focused on exiting the world. A second later, I felt my heavy flesh wrap around my mind. The world around me felt dimly lit compared to the bright room. I took a single look at the small, brown leather book with the mindscape growing mental exercises in it and shuddered. Then I pictured the ugly mind parasites that floated all around me and lay down.

Without giving myself time to second-guess it, I closed my eyes and pictured the first of the gestures. The pain came instantly, like a hammer blow, and I curled up slightly.

A few minutes later, I lay on the ground, my arms outstretched upwards.

Not again, I thought, shivering and taking care to keep from vomiting. Doing that while lying down was a good way to suffocate yourself.

I'd failed. Again.

Every time had been more difficult than the first. Although the pain stayed the same, horrible burning mess, it seemed more difficult to focus on the hand with every consecutive attempt. Fnip hadn't been able to tell me why, but from his reaction, I could tell he knew why. So did Par.

It took a few minutes before I managed to crawl back up. I'd tried twice in a row after my first failure and quickly found that it didn't work. Without a few days' rest, my mind wasn't able to even get past the third step.

Guess I'll try one more time before I leave here, I thought.

I headed to the table and slumped in a chair, looking at the spellbook in front of me. It had toppled from a stack to the side, opening on a spell I'd only skimmed over a few days ago.

Strangling swamp-vine whip (casting time < 10s)

Twenty-one gestures

A favorite of the dominatrixes of Gurgolin Two, this spell requires high coordination to use. However, if mastered, it grants the wielder the ability to create a black multipurpose whip that has a surprising range, and that can regrow lost parts. After it wraps around a hapless victim, a quick jerk will rip it in half, and the remaining part will strangle the target.

Yeah, that's probably more fun than it's useful, I thought as I pushed the book away. Besides, that was far too many gestures for my current paltry learning rate. Searching through the books, I located the one I wanted all the way at the bottom. Because I didn't need the spells for knowledge right now, I'd looked for a long time for this one.

Regrowing-Thorncaster (casting time < 8s)

Fourteen

A simple yet highly effective assassin’s weapon, this spell creates a wrist crossbow on the arm that casts it. Requires a piece of wood to be touched directly after the casting is finished. The Thorncaster is capable of firing hand-length thorns. The material depends on the wood used when casting the spell. The crossbow will stay until all of the wood is consumed for bolts. Can fire one bolt every three seconds—six bolt capacity.

I nodded, grinning at the potential of the weapon. I'd looked at fireballs, energy beams, and a whole slew of other ranged spells, but besides needing far more gestures, I had no prior knowledge of most of them. A few plant-based spells did massive ranged damage, but those would have taken far too long to learn. Besides, this had an added benefit. All I'd need was to bring nuts to turn into saplings, and I had them ready. No casting mid-combat, unless it was a drawn-out fight. And if I could find some superior wood, then these bolts might deal a ton of damage. I looked at the last of the gestures, quickly working through it. Over half of the gestures were ones I'd learned before, and this was also the reason I'd picked another vegetation-based spell. This last one was so similar that I had the feeling it wouldn't take too long to learn.

I guess this is why people specialize in spell areas, I thought as I began using my bottom two arms to move through the motions.

It took me two days to make the gesture with all four hands, but that was the easy part. With the final gesture learned, now I'd have to chain them together. In the end, even with the gestures similar to the ones I knew, it took another week of finger-breaking, mind-numbing practice to get it all in.

--

Come on, come on!

As my left top hand held a small sapling that I'd grown from a pale nut I still had with me; my other three hands were trying hard to cast the Thorncaster spell. I'd almost made it shortly before, which was why I'd prepared the sapling. Almost fumbling it, one of my hands made the last gesture. Although it was shocking and halting, it was good enough for the familiar green glow to erupt from my hand. I stopped with the other two and grabbed the sapling.

A ping came from my status, but I ignored that too, as my eyes were glued to the sapling. The tender green leaves dropped off one by one as the wood began morphing and bending, glowing bright green as it wrapped around my wrist and lower arm. It lasted for two seconds max, and then I had a small crossbow-like device attached to my arm, looking like it had always been there. A single hand-length dart sat in it, slightly curved and with a gleaming, deadly sharp point.

"Hah!" I shouted, then started laughing as I rose to my feet and looked around. The wooden stair, ten meters away, beckoned.

"This better work as advertised," I said, but the boyish grin on my face would probably have told anybody I was happy with my little toy. Raising my arm, I suddenly realized I had no idea how to fire the dart. Inspecting the device showed no release mechanism.

It's a spell, I thought as I wondered about something.

Raising it again, I imagined shooting the dart at the stairs. With a thud, a black dart slammed into the wood, piercing almost halfway in. My eyes widened, and I was about to whoop in joy when I felt the device do something. As I watched, the wood that sat to the sides began thinning, and within a second, another dart formed. The small crossbow looked a bit worse for wear, and with a frown, I shot the dart at the staircase. It hit the stair a distance from the first, and another dart was formed. Deciding to see how it would work, I fired all remaining four bolts, and with each one shot, the Thorncaster ate more of the wood that kept it together. When the last one fired, I almost worried it would malfunction and hit myself, but it worked without a hitch. As the bolt was still midair, the wood of the Thorncaster seemed to disintegrate and slide from my hand, slowly turning to wood dust.

I gazed at my arm for a moment, then grabbed four more nuts that I had in my pocket. I didn't have many, but I was going to try what I had pictured.

A few minutes later, and some failed attempts later, I had four Thorncasters, one on each of my arms. Waving them around, I couldn't push back the rising desire to test them out. Preferably on something that was trying to attack me.

I continued playing with these four until they broke and had to resist creating four new ones. I only had five more nuts left and those I wanted to use shortly before leaving, which would be soon.

The Librarian's tome lay not too far from me, and I put my hand on it for the first time in weeks.

"So. Finished your stupid little spell?" Par sounded annoyed, as he had since I'd told him that if he asked me to bring him out of here one more time, I'd put him with the eye-books.

"Don't be like that. I'll put you with those romance books about the dominatrixes of Gurgolin Two. That should cheer you up," I said, barely holding back my laughter.

"Yeah. You just laugh, mortal," Par hissed, and a wave of fear surged from the book, making me shudder before I got a grip.

"I'm about to leave," I said, my good humor fading. "Where do you want me to put the tome until I return."

"Wait? You're returning?" The bristling anger dissipated slightly, replaced by surprise and curiosity.

Not because of your pleasant personality, that's for sure, I thought. It pleased me to no end when I got no response from Par. I'd managed to keep a lid on most of my thoughts, at least those not born from strong emotions. I couldn't wait to see if this worked on Rathica too.

"Yes. I'll keep returning to learn new spells," I said.

"That means you will need to keep expanding your mindscape," Par said. Something in the way he said it made it sound like that would bring about something. I couldn't decide if he was implying a good or a bad thing.

"Yes…?" I said, drawing out the word in an attempt to get him to elaborate.

"..."

I sighed and shook my head, picking up the tome. "So. About that spot for this lovely prison of yours?"

"Just leave it on the table," Par said, uninterested.

Yeah. Not going to happen, I thought. That would mean that if someone came here, the book was too easy to find. I had the distinct feeling that was why the book was in such an obscure place to begin with.

"Fnip, where do you want me to put you?" I asked.

"It's all fine. Just do as Par said," Fnip said, his voice sounding like someone who'd just heard they would be executed in the most gruesome manner.

Fine, then you guys don't get to decide!

Whistling, I moved to the control pillar and stared at the symbols. After a second, I decided on a pattern and pressed it, making sure I'd remember.

"What are you doing?" Par asked.

"If you guys can't come up with an appropriate hiding place," I said as I stepped away from the panel and watched the massive bookcase slide down. "I'll just put you here."

Fear emanated from the tome, and although my hair stood on end, I largely ignored it. Par had tried to bully me into doing his will a few times now, and I'd started to get used to it.

After a few moments, the bookcase stopped at a section filled with grey and brown tomes of different sizes. Looking at them, I tried to find anything that would make this a bad hiding spot but couldn't find anything. I moved to the bookcase, searching for a spot, and finally found the perfect one. Next to a dozen mostly brown books were two slightly bigger ones that stuck out a bit. Sandwiched between sat a small brown one, and with some force, I managed to stuff the Librarian's tome next to it.

With a finger on it, I faked a sad sigh. "Now you guys be nice, alright? I'll try and come back!"

"Try? You-" Par began roaring, and another wave of fear came from the book, but I just stepped back, releasing it, and his outburst cut off before it could start. I felt bad for Fnip, who would have to listen to it for a long, long time, and after a moment's hesitation, I closed my eyes and moved into my mindscape. As soon as I entered, the familiar plop came, and the open tome shot inside, eyes wide open.

"Why did you have to anger him before leaving? Couldn't you have left the tome on the table as he asked?" Fnip said, his voice close to crying.

"I don't trust him one bit. For all I know, that was his plan all along," I said.

"No, he wouldn't…" Fnip began, then fell silent.

"Well… perhaps he might. But now he is in a foul mood and will be for a while," he finally said.

"I know, and I'm sorry for you. Keep looking into a way to eject him from the Librarian's tome," I said, taking a final look at the chaotic clouds around my mindscape. "I've got to leave now and see how things have progressed on the outside."

"Come back quickly," Fnip said.

I didn't reply but exited my mindscape.

Finally, time to leave this place, I thought, more than a little happy at the prospect.