The night went by quietly. The abilities of each tent kept any of the monsters from bothering us. I finished healing my damaged meridians. It hurt, like working through sore muscles when you over-exert the day before.

I took my meridian cleansing spell and pushed through the first twenty-five percent of my mind meridian. However, after taking the pill, I noticed an unfortunate side effect. The blockages didn’t just dissolve and get passed out through my natural waste system. Instead, it dissolved too quickly to be processed appropriately.

Instead of it all being passed through my kidneys, bowls, and sweat, some of it settled in my other meridians. I could still pass Ki through them, but it was more sluggish. I had to take extra time and clear my already open meridians again.

From now on, I would have to clear my meridians in stages and re-clear my others. Unfortunately, this will make it take much longer to finish the body cleansing stage than I had hoped. Oh well, there are always consequences of using shortcuts.

I had informed Magnus of this development. That way, he wouldn’t be surprised when he started work on his next meridian.

I kept the middle watch for a few hours. The sounds of fighting echoed from a way away, keeping me alert. Occasionally, there would be a loud squeal of pain and terror coming from the darkness nearby, as a predator caught its prey. Once my shift ended, I woke Cody for his turn to keep watch and grabbed a few hours of sleep for myself.

The tents were terrific; even putting the Ki and Magic effects aside, the tents reduced sounds coming in from outside. I could crash and wasn’t disturbed by the unfamiliar sounds of the night. It wasn’t wholly soundproofed; I could hear what was happening outside the tent, as long as it was within the twenty-foot radius of the protective effects.

The sun rose bright and early the following day. The haze of smoke seemed to have cleared, mostly. The air smelled fresher than it had in a while, that is, until I caught a whiff of myself. I hadn’t had a proper shower since the weigh station, and it was a bloody day since then. It might be time for a quick clean-up before we start our day. I looked over to Magnus’s side of the tent to wake him but he was already out of the tent. His stuff packed up. I put my bedding into my inventory and woke Rukia. She had been out cold, lying next to my feet.

Once we were outside, I saw Magnus had already started a small fire in one of those bowl-shaped portable fire pits. He had a cast-iron kettle in the coals, heating water. “Morning,” I greeted him.

“Morning, the others are already up. They are relieving themselves in the bushes nearby.” He replied, while letting me know where the others were.

I let out a long stretch, still a bit tired, but not as much as I should have. “It looks like improving your stamina reduces the need for as much sleep,” I commented. “I’m nowhere near as tired as I should be, with only a few hours of sleep. That or cultivating before bed helps.”

“I think it’s a combination of both, bro. Cultivating usually leaves me refreshed if I’m not pushing through a new meridian. On the other hand, I haven’t really improved my endurance stat except for a point here or there, so it’s not much of a difference yet.” Magnus said.

“Well, anyway, I’m glad you are heating some water. We should give ourselves a bit of a wash before we head out. I’m pretty ripe, and I still have dried blood and sweat clinging to me.” I pulled out a stockpot and poured a gallon jug of water into it. “Add some hot water to this, and it should make it warm enough to be bearable.”

“Shouldn’t we be saving the water?” Magnus asked.

“Between the dozen or so other jugs I have and the refilling water bottles, we should be fine. We even have a mage on hand to refill the charges for the magic version. That reminds me.” I paused for a moment as Cody and Rowan returned to the camp. “Rowan, can you refill the charges in the magic tent? It will save us from having to use beast cores.”

“Huh? Oh. Just a sec.” Rowan said, before turning to the tent and inspecting it. He turned back to me and said, “Yeah, I can, but it’s going to take a min. It needs six hundred mana to fill. With my Regen….” Rowan looked at his status before continuing. “With my mana Regen, it will take at least fifteen minutes if I dump most of my mana pool in first.”

“That’s fine. I’m planning on cleaning up a bit before us all head out.” I looked the two over for a moment. I noted the grime clinging to them as well. “It might be a good idea for all of us to have a quick wash.”

Rowan’s face reddened at the thought. Washing in front of us making him uncomfortable.

“You can wash in one tent with the rest of us staying out here. To give you some privacy.” I paused as the kettle whistled. Magnus took it off the fire, poured some into a travel mug, and then poured the rest into the pot. It steamed before settling down.

I put a finger into the water and found it pleasantly warm. “I’ll tell you what, you go first, and we can then take turns going in and washing.” I pulled out a bar of soap and a couple of towels from my inventory.

Rowan nodded, face still red, collected the washing things, and went into the tent. His dragonling followed in shortly after. My eyes tracked the movement before looking away. Rowan had his shirt removed, and I could briefly see his chest bound up in elastic bandages.

I looked back towards the campfire. Magnus had a thoughtful look on his face. Not wanting to make a scene, just in case, I messaged Magnus.

John: Dude, what are you doing? He is 16

Magnus: What? Oh. No it’s nothing like that.

John: What is it like then? You know as well as I do what he just left behind.

Magnus: Bro, I aint like that. Rowan, he reminds me of my brother.

John: You have a brother?

Magnus: No, I had a brother.

Magnus let out a deep sigh, looked me in the eye, and spoke, “About fifteen years ago, I was living in another state with my mom. She had custody of me, and my dad had custody of Trevor. Like Rowan, he was never comfortable in his own body. The doctors called it Gender Dysmorphia. My dad did his best to help. He never used Trevor’s dead name, almost always used the right pronouns. No one is perfect, and Trevor knew he was doing his best.”

After another deep breath to manage his emotions, Magnus continued. “But they lived in Texas. And Texans being Texans, the community did not accept Trevor. They bullied him a lot, name-calling, minor acts of aggression like knocking books out of his hands or knocking shoulders as others passed. Things like that. I’m sure there were more, but Trevor never wanted to upset me. He was trying to protect me while he was being tormented every time he left the house.”

Magnus had to pause again, this time to wipe tears from his eyes. “One day, Trevor didn’t call me to talk like usual. I thought little of it at the time. But the next day, my dad called. A group of Trevor’s classmates had cornered him in a secluded place. They surrounded him, pushing him around in an enclosed circle, shouting taunts. One of them ripped his shirt off in the process, and they saw the breast bindings he used. So they ripped that off of him too.”

Magnus had to stop his story for a moment. His voice caught in his throat. He took a sip of his instant coffee and a couple more deep breaths before he could continue. “Those fuckers recorded the whole damned thing. They might have done more, but someone showed up after hearing the commotion. The teens scattered, leaving my brother huddling on the ground, covering his chest with his arms, choking on his own sobs.”

I opened my mouth to commiserate with him. That was a horrible thing to do. There is a reason they classified it as a hate crime. Magnus held up his hand for me to stop before I could even begin. “The next day, he was found. He was found hanging from a tree with a note to me and my father. He apologized to us in the letter. He apologized for being different, for causing shame on our family, and he apologized for what he was about to do.

“My brother committed suicide because society couldn’t accept him for being transgender. Despite all the love and understanding my dad tried to give, those sons of bitches made him feel worthless and a burden. So it wasn’t long after that, I moved back to Texas to live with my dad. I almost tracked down each and every one of those fuckers and taught them a lesson. But my dad knew what that would do to me, what it would do to the rest of my life, and talked me out of it.”

Magnus shook in anger when he spoke about those who tormented his brother. I could feel his aura radiate a deep but restrained rage. He kept it contained, but I could almost see an inferno trying to burst out from behind his eyes. Even as they glistened with tears.

“So no, I don’t have any designs on Rowan or anything like that. He reminds me of my little brother, and I want to help him. The next time we make it to a shop, if Rowan wants, I want to find something that will help him transition fully. To help him feel comfortable in his own body. With everything around us, all the magic and mystical shit, hell, the gods are fucking real. Something should be available to do this.” Magnus’s voice rose slightly towards the end, Rowan came out of the tent, freshly washed and wearing a clean shirt.

Rowan had tears in his eyes and, without a word, walked around the campfire, gave Magnus a fierce hug, and began sobbing into his shoulder. Cody had tears in his eyes from the story, too. He said nothing, but just kept watch for monsters while Magnus and Rowan had a bonding moment.

I went into the tent to clean myself. I had to wipe my own eyes as I did. We needed to get moving. Magnus may not have been physically there for his brother, but I needed to be there for my wife and son.

Once I got back out, things looked more like normal. Well, as normal as things could get when monsters pop out of nowhere and people can throw fireballs. Rowan looked more relaxed and was openly chatting with Cody and Magnus.

“So it looks like each spell is made up of different glyphs. There are different glyphs for range, spell effects, schools of magic, and so much more. But if you know the glyphs, you can use a system assist after reaching apprentice rank. With it, you can build your own custom spells. That’s what I picked for my Apprentice skill perk. The Spell Crafter.

“It opens a window with a bunch of slide bars to adjust the range, potency, and stuff. I don’t have many glyphs yet, but if I study enchantments, I can pick out spell glyphs they contain and add them to my Glyph library. If they are in the library, then I can use them in the Spell Crafter window.”

Rowan paused in her excited explanation when I stepped out. “Oh, right, I need to finish charging the tent. BTdubs that enchantment on the tent is really inefficient. From what my enchanting skill is telling me, it’s just a mass-produced piece of shit. Sorry.” Rowan cringed a bit when that last part slipped out of his mouth.

I chuckled. “No worries, I know it's mass-produced. I got it because it was a cheap option that could keep me safe. If you can do better by all means, go ahead. You won’t hurt my feelings any.”

“Well, it’s going to take a bit to figure it all out. Just getting the skill didn’t teach me any actual enchantments or anything. It just dumped a lot of theoretical knowledge in my head. So I’m still trying to sort it out.” Rowan said apologetically.

“If we come across a friendly settlement, we can try to get you a basic guide to enchanting. If it’s like my Ki formations book, it will give you some samples and basic enchantments to play with.”

Rowan nodded and actually smiled at me in thanks before touching the tent and closing his eyes. A soft blue glow radiated from his hands as he channeled his mana into the tent.

I looked at the other two. “Ok, get cleaned up. We need to be rolling as soon as Rowan is finished. Let’s hop on our bikes and see how far we can make it before lunchtime.”

“Just a sec guys,” Cody said. “Um… after the system announcement about stage two, did you guys get a message about your abilities changing?”

We all looked at each other in confusion, not sure what he was talking about.

“No, no we didn’t. how did yours change?” I asked.

“Well, um, the message I got said something about analyzing ability use and something else, I don’t remember exactly. But it basically said that each ability won’t have its own separate pool of uses any longer. Instead, they all contribute to a Divine Charge pool. And each ability uses a certain number of charges and may have a cool down now. I mean, I get the change, it’s more flexible on what I can use and when, but why now? What does it mean?” Cody asked, confusion plain on his face.

After thinking a moment, I gave my thoughts on the matter. “It seems that this System,” I through up air quotes when saying system, “Isn’t set in stone. As for what that means, I see two possibilities. Either the System is capable of self-adjustments, or there is something out there watching all of this and patching in new updates as needed. I don’t know which one scares me more.” I shook my head then said “But its no use worrying about it right now. There isn’t anything we can do to figure it out and we need to get packed up and hit the road”