"So let me get this straight," Keith said as they appeared in the cafeteria of the extended Survival Challenge's school. "They have markings that appear when they get pregnant, and the markings say which sex the baby is and how many babies there are?"

"Yeah," Nathan unbuttoned his shirt, allowing his familiars to pull out of him as Keith pulled off his shirt, allowing his own familiar to release. "I haven't had a dream sequence of Ichtvar's shitty BDSM fantasies where they've had more than one baby in a pregnancy, so I'm not sure how the sex-tell works for that, but-"

"Those are not my BDSM fantasies," Ichtvar told Nathan. "Those are dreams of your own design."

"We all know that's not true," Nathan told the phoenix. "Why do you get off on being a slave?"

"I don't," Ichtvar huffed. "I assure you, Nathan, that those are not my fantasies. They're dreams onset by the nightmare, though it seems they're going to persist."

"Uh-huh," Nathan folded his arms across his chest.

"I'm going to go kill some monsters," Ichtvar began to fly away. "You two have fun with your stuff."

"He's running away," Keith told Nathan as the trio of familiars exited the cafeteria.

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Definitely running away."

"So you woke up after Varnol passed out?" Keith asked.

"I guess that dream sequence ran closer to real time than the others," Nathan shrugged as he buttoned his shirt back up. "My estimate puts it around then. Shame, I'm pretty sure sex was going to happen, and I'm glad we disconnected, because I know you just got horny even without that."

Keith snorted.

"Alright," he said. "Magic training, muscle training, or enchanting?"

"Orb," Nathan held out a hand. "I want to test it now."

Keith nodded, then pulled out his enchanted orb, which Nathan attempted to use, receiving a view of Samantha, right as he left her.

"It seems it works the same in artificial dimensions," Nathan told Keith. "I'm going to go do martial arts."

"Let's get our stuff set up first," Keith told Nathan, who huffed, but helped set up their air mattresses.

Nathan changed out of his clothes and into a white martial arts gi with a black belt, then tossed another gi to Keith. Rather than being the lighter gis, it was a thicker one, meant to hold up to any grappling that might occur.

"Get changed," Nathan ordered.

"If I'm doing martial arts training," Keith told him. "You're doing magic training."

Nathan swore under his breath.

"We're in here for five months," Keith told Nathan. "And if you do a second one with me after, it'll be ten months. That's plenty of time for you to actually get the grasp of at least the basics."

"I've already trained for-"

"Seven months, yeah," Keith said. "I'm aware of this, Nathan. I helped you, remember? You still have issues, though. You should at least be able to manifest a barrier to protect yourself immediately. It still takes you a couple of seconds to form a decent-sized one, and that's if you aren't controlling its edges."

"I use weapons and my body," Nathan said. "My force punches are enough magic."

"And I use magic," Keith held up the gi. "If I'm cross-training, you're cross-training."

He stared at Nathan expectantly.

"I'll teach you how to do the belt after you get changed."

Nathan turned and began moving more tables, creating a space for training in. He pulled out a few of his storage cards and activated them, pulling out boxes with training mats in them. He opened them and laid out the mats, then turned around as Keith approached, giving the proper bow before stepping onto them.

The mage's gi top was open, showing off his slender frame. It wasn't as lacking in meat as it had been when the game began, mostly because of Nathan's insistence on him learning martial arts during the two previous Survival Challenges. Seven months of physical training every day or two was enough to build up a little bit of muscle for the mage. It wasn't much, but the change was noticeable.

"At least you don't look like a twig stripped of its bark," Nathan muttered.

"You know I can hear you muttering, right?" Keith asked.

"You know I don't care, right?"

"Alright, amoeba-shield," Keith said. "Let's get this over with."

Nathan glared at Keith, then began the lesson, first teaching Keith how to put on the belt properly, then teaching and correcting moves, practicing as he went. When Keith finally stopped, he sat on the side and watched as Nathan continued to practice on his own. The warrior's solo training was a lot more intense than Keith's training, and by the time the mage had recovered from the lesson, Nathan was soaked in sweat and breathing heavy.

"I'm making lunch," Nathan stripped off the gi and changed into his usual outfit.

"Magic lesson after," Keith said.

"I'd rather not," Nathan muttered as he made his way to the kitchen. "I can't wait for Day Five and have some real ingredients to work with."

"You told me to train, you agreed to the deal."

"Whatever," Nathan muttered.

As Nathan worked on lunch, Keith began putting into place the protective and restorative runes around the cafeteria. When lunch finished, Nathan cleaned the dishes, then Keith set him to work creating strings of force magic.

"Why?" Nathan asked.

"Just do it," Keith told him.

"No."

Keith held up his hands, pressed his palms together, then pulled them apart, fingers splayed. Five strings of force magic were strung between his fingers, the rich violet of his mana in color and roughly a half-inch in thickness. A moment later, they turned into strings of water, then light, then fire, then back to force magic.

"You'll probably only manage one," Keith said. "And it'll probably be an inch in thickness. Try to reduce it down to the half-inch you saw me do, and only three inches in length. It's a technique for controlling mana and force magic and branching out into other forms of magic. Once you have it down to half an inch in thickness, try to extend it out to six inches in length."

"What about two and a half in thickness and nine-"

"Stop," Keith rolled his eyes. "Do you remember Madeline's whip of flames?"

Nathan nodded.

"It's a fire magic based on this technique," Keith told him. "Same with my wind whip."

"I don't like whips."

"Just do it!" Keith said. "I'll be working on the wards, so you work on that. That's your magic training."

Nathan grumbled under his breath, but worked on the spell anyway. Occasionally, when he got bored, he began shooting small amounts of force shots at Keith, but a glare from the mage stopped him before the fifth shot.

An hour and a half of magic training later, Nathan grew too bored and sat at a table, pulling out several cards of enchanting supplies, then began working. Since they had already worked on all the guns they could, he worked on enchanting an orb to imitate the Black Orb's namesake.

When Keith finished enchanting the cafeteria and kitchen, he found Nathan sitting at a table, a crystal orb resting on a stand in front of him. The warrior was leaning back in his chair, head hanging back, eyes closed, and a pen in his right hand, tapping the inside of his wrist.

Deciding to leave the warrior to his thoughts, Keith sat down and began working on improving the enchanted storage cards.

"Keith?" Nathan said after nearly an hour.

"What?" Keith asked as Nathan sat upright and looked at him.

"Mana can turn into nothing, right?"

"Yeah," Keith responded. "That's what happens to mana after it's used – it dissipates into nothing. This happens quicker for things like mana crystals. Ichtvar mentioned it with Merlin's mana seed things."

"Doesn't that mean that mana can form from nothing?" Nathana asked. "If mana can defy the 'you can't turn something into absolutely nothing' rule, doesn't that mean it can also defy the 'you can't make something from absolutely nothing' rule?"

"I guess it would," Keith answered. "But all the research into the subject I've seen has come up with a dead end. There were even theories that mana was actually drawn from an other dimension, and returned to it, but no one could ever prove it – they always came up to another dead-end."

Nathan's expression changed to concentrated, and a moment later, he shook his head.

"Ichtvar says that's true in some universes, but not this one," Nathan told Keith. "According to him, he doesn't know of any universe where ambient mana exists along with a dimension of mana – the dimension draws into it all would-be ambient mana. Only things that store mana, like animals and plants, would have it."

Nathan tapped his pen against his wrist several times in rapid succession, then shook his head and set the pen down.

"I'm going and taking a shower."

"You're not taking the orb with you," Keith told him.

"Tch!"

"And it's closer to three than two and a half, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Nathan nodded. "Give me the orb."

"You're not perving on some random women until you find one who's naked," Keith told him. "Just use your memories of not-pregnant Samantha. Or Katie, I know you've seen her naked. Or those other ladies you had sex with. Eralen, too. Speaking of Eralen, her new name is 'Ichtnol', right?"

"Yeah."

"Think Ichtvar's projecting?" Keith asked. "Her new name starts with 'Icht', while the slave's name starts with 'Var'?"

"Pretty sure Ichtvar isn't desiring to be a woman who gets off on torturing others," Nathan said. "But those are definitely his fantasies about getting tortured. That reminds me, I still need to kill him. How long does it take for a phoenix to go through puberty?"

Keith shrugged.

"Whatever," Nathan said. "I'm going and taking a shower."

Nathan made his way to the showers in the school, stripped off his clothes in the changing room and moved them into his Clothing Box, then entered the showers and began washing. As he did, he thought about Samantha, with her soft breasts and firm build.

He did miss her, and it bothered him. He also regretted going into the extended Survival Challenge because it meant taking longer to see her again. See her in-person. He missed her kisses and her touch, and he hated himself for it, even though he didn't understand why.

Well, he knew why. Because the Well of Souls designed him to. It didn't change how he felt, though. After her initial rejection of him, he preferred to be alone and had grown used to it.

Then she admitted her feelings for him, and it seemed that things went out of control from there. Keith entered into his circle of friends, as well as Michael, William, and the others.

Nathan let his mind return to what it was like to have sex with Samantha. He wasn't sure if it was them being soul-forged together, or having his senses awakened, or whatever, but he enjoyed sex with her more than others. Not that he was going to stay exclusive to her, since he was going to sleep with Katie, too, and he was glad that Samantha didn't care about that.

When Nathan finally came, he cleaned up, then finished his shower and dried off, pulling on his pants and shoes, before returning to the cafeteria and setting across from Keith.

"Not putting on your shirt?" Keith asked.

"I'm a nudist when I'm alone."

"Got it," Keith responded, then tapped the card in front of him. "Hey, for this storage card, I was looking at how we could simply the enchantment while increasing its power – its storage space and uses. I was thinking we could try to turn one of the orbs into a storage orb using a bigger version of the spell matrix, then reduce it in size once we have that down. Thoughts?"

"We can devote half of all sizes to that," Nathan nodded. "I want to work on this power orb, too, but storage is important as well."