"Are you ready for this?" Nathan asked.

"I am," Katie answered.

"Alright," Nathan said. "Remember, now that you're going to be fighting with magic, you should keep your distance from the monsters. Move back if you need to, but most importantly, do your best to keep them from getting close in the first place. If you can't just take them out immediately, aim for the legs. Knock them off-balance so they fall to the ground, then take them out while they're down."

Katie nodded, then the two of them left the cafeteria, Nathan leading the way to where his familiars said a monster awaited. They were nearing the end of their run, so the monsters were stronger there, but Nathan had assured Katie that her Magic was high enough to defeat them, as long as she didn't waste too many shots.

For the last few days, they told her not to practice her magic at all, to allow her Mana to restore to full for her first session using it as the method to kill. That would allow them a better estimate of how much she could do and handle. Since she had decided weeks before that fighting physically was not her thing, knowing sooner was better.

When they reached the monster, Katie held out her right hand, manifested a push of force, and shot it at the demon. The last two weeks of training had consisted of her practicing not just shooting them, but giving them a more condensed form, creating miniature force bolts.

Her first shot hit the demon in the left breast as it began to run towards her, and she followed Nathan's advice, aiming at its legs. Her first shot connected with its left leg, her second missed, and her third and fourth shot hit it in the right leg, just above its ankle. The impact knocked its leg back, sending the demon to the ground. Katie shot at it several more times, wearing out the rest of its Health and hitting its legs anytime it tried to stand back up. Once she no longer received Health notifications and her attacks were piercing its skin, she shot at its back, aiming for the heart. It took her three tries before she succeeded in killing it, and then she sighed.

"That was a lot of work," she said.

"Maybe," Nathan said. "But you still killed it, and you did it a bit better than when fighting with martial arts. Magic is definitely your suit. Want to face a couple of more that don't use magic before going up against one with magic?"

Even though it was nearing the end of the run, there were still a few F-1 demons which spawned. Nathan and Keith suggested to Katie that it was the game's way of providing a slight 'relief' from the magic attacks they would face normally at that point. When they played on Normal Difficulty, the F's stopped after four months rather than going up through the end, but they were on Beginner, which allowed a few to still spawn even towards the end.

"No," Katie responded. "I want to go up against a G-3, now. If it's casting magic-"

"Ah," Nathan said. "You should go up against at least one more F-1, first. Get used to actually fighting with magic. Your aim was a little worse than when you practice because you were in a combat situation. Give it another round to adjust to using spells on a living, attacking target, then go up against something that's going to throw magic back."

Katie thought for a moment, then realized that made sense.

"Okay," she said. "Where's the next one?"

Nathan led her to a classroom, where an F-1 lurked in a back corner. As soon as it saw her, it bared its teeth, and she raised her hand, releasing force attacks as quickly as she could. Since she couldn't aim at its legs, she aimed for its chest, her attacks barely slowing it. To keep her distance, she moved around the room, keeping desks between it and her until she'd taken out its Health, then killed it.

"That one was more frustrating," she said.

"Because you couldn't get it on the ground," Nathan said. "But did manage to kill it anyway. It took you more attacks."

"Yeah," she nodded. "I should have increased the strength behind them, too, shouldn't I have?"

"There's always room for improvement," he told her. "You can work on being able to do that quickly in the next run we do. Remember, this session is for you to get a taste of fighting with magic rather than might."

She nodded.

"Ready for a spell-casting demon?" He asked.

"I am," she answered.

"Come on," Nathan led her through the school to the gymnasium, where a G-3 waited, flying lazily through the air.

"Uh, Nathan," she said as the demon looked at her. "There's enough space in here for it to fly."

"You still have more than half of your mana," he told her as he pushed her forward. "I'll step in if needed, but you should be fine."

She nodded, then raised her hand up and shot a force push at the demon. The creature moved to the side, then raised a hand, a ball of flames forming above it. The demon tossed the fireball at Katie, who dodged it as Nathan moved to the side as well, avoiding being set aflame. Katie began walking slowly, evading another fireball before sending an attack of her own towards it.

The demon dodged once more, and Katie released another force attack as she continued moving. With another flick of its wrist, the demon sent another fireball her way, and she jumped to the side, sending another force attack its way.

They began sparring like that, both attacking and missing, or barely-striking the other. A few times, the demon erected a barrier in front of itself to protect itself, other times, it took the hit. Neither made much headway on the other, Katie unable to get a good strike against the flying monster and the demon seemingly unwilling to give up its distance to fight close-range.

As Katie began to wear down, her mana almost completely spent, a flash of fire seemed to come from nowhere, a streak of flames that ripped through the demon.

"And that's a match," Nathan told Katie, who looked at the end of the trail of fire, finding Ichtvar flying towards his master. "We didn't actually expect you to win that one. Once you're mana's restored, we can face you off against one in a hall or classroom, where there really isn't a way it can get that aerial advantage."

"What was the purpose of me fighting that, then?" Katie asked.

"Experience," Nathan answered. "You probably gained a Level when Ichtvar killed it, right?"

"Yeah," she answered.

"It's basically the same thing your old team used to do," he told her. "But this time, you actually got to fight, not just be a punching bag. Come on, let's go take a shower and get you cleaned up and into clothes that aren't burned."

Nathan rubbed Ichtvar's head, then the phoenix left and the demigod led Katie to the showers. Half an hour later, they joined Keith in the cafeteria, where the psychic was busy writing what appeared to be gibberish on a sheet of paper.

"Don't question it," Nathan told Katie as she gave the psychic a confused look.

"How did it go?" Keith asked.

"She can handle herself somewhat competently," Nathan answered as he sat beside Keith and examined the paper and its notes. Katie sat across from them and watched. "As long as she doesn't get overwhelmed or doesn't face something that has something like an aerial advantage, she'll manage just fine on her own in the next round."

"Alright," Keith looked at Katie. "So in the next run, do you want to do Optional Challenges? Or do you think you'll be fine just killing things normally?"

"The Challenges are just for Points, Stat Points, and Skill Points, right?" She asked.

"Yeah," Keith answered. "We were looking at it mostly to boost your Stats."

"I think I'll be fine without," she answered. "I just need to practice my spell a bit more, and learn to adjust its strength from its norm while casting it repeatedly."

"Good idea," Keith told her. "Do you know what you want your second spell to be?"

"Barrier," she answered. "I haven't decided what other type of magic I want to learn yet, but I do know I want to learn to cast a barrier, to defend against attacks with."

"Good idea," Keith said. "We can work on that next run. It's a little different from a force push, but you already have the basics for it, especially with you shaping your force push into a form."

"Alright," she responded. "I know Nathan said not to ask, but what are you enchanting onto the paper?"

"It's…" Keith stared at the paper for a few moments, then looked at Nathan, then looked at Katie. "Yeah, Nathan has the right idea. I'm not telling you."

She frowned, but decided not to press it. Keith didn't seem like he wasn't answering because of Nathan, but because he agreed with Nathan on not revealing.

"Alright," she stood. "I'm going to go read some more. You two… do whatever it is you're doing, I guess."

They nodded, and she walked off. The pair of enchanters looked at the paper as Keith erected a magic barrier around them. Without a word or thought towards it, the two had managed to develop their own code while there, a code which used several events from their lives as reference points, and it hadn't been easy for them to convey it to each other when first developing the code without revealing things to those who might be observing. However, the result meant that only the two of them could crack it.

When Nathan saw the first few things written down, he realized what Keith was planning. If it worked, everything would change. The entire state of the game for them would become different. An incident like the siren king and his spear would become a laughable incident.

"How sure are you that you can make this?" Nathan asked.

"I need to do more experimentation," Keith answered. "And study the catkin's notebook even more. But give me a year, maybe two, of solid research on this, and I can probably get it to work. From his notes, it was clear he'd spent a lot of time in the runs doing research."

Nathan traced several lines of the code with a finger.

"This part here would be the start," he said. "Right?"

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "I think that would be the start of how to put this into action. If we can properly develop this enchantment… we'll have a remedy to many of our problems."

"When we leave here," Nathan said. "I'll contact Master Torzin and have him follow Ichtvar to Evala's world. I want to see if he has any other notes she didn't keep on her. Once they're there and have returned, I'll have them help us guide a permanent gate there. Ichtvar shouldn't have an issue locating Evala's home, since he's met her."

"Going to try to go before Samantha gives birth?"

"No," Nathan said. "You said she'll give birth within a few days of our return, right?"

"As far as my check said," Keith answered. "The most likely time of birth will be the day after we return, on… well…"

"The anniversary of his namesake's death," Nathan nodded, tracing another line on the paper as he read it. "The permanent gate will take time to build, a few days, from what you said. I want both of us to oversee at least part of that. The orb doesn't get placed without our presence, anyway. We'll head over there once the gate's finished, and that should give us time for Cyrus to be born and us to adjust a little. Enough time for him to leave the hospital and everything. Then we'll head over there with him, and-"

"Would that be a good idea?"

"I'd like to see someone stop me," Nathan said. "It'll also give me time to make the amulets."

"Amulets?" Keith asked.

"Yeah," Nathan leaned back in his seat. "Breezy finally revealed how he managed to stay in another world without the universe ripping him back to his native world. I can work it into an amulet. I'll see if I can't use Master Torzin's forge. Hopefully, he has some mithril, and if not, I'll have to find some."

"I know how you can get some," Keith told him. "Though I suppose it'll be only you going? Since you'll be the only one who can communicate with them?"

"Ichtvar made a suggestion," Nathan tapped his skull. "That you try to copy down my knowledge of their language and create a sort of translation orb, so that you can at least understand them. Possibly a device which also shows you how to say what you want to say in their language, after inputting what you want. With your psychic powers, knowledge of enchanting, and knowledge of computer programming, that should be feasible in just one or two more runs, right?"

"If I devote everything to it," Keith told him.

"Then do that," Nathan said. "It'll be useful for when we start having guests from other worlds here on Earth, too."

"Wait," Keith said. "Won't having the permanent gate now mean we'll start having people over?"

"We'll do our best to control that," Nathan said. "Even shutting down the gate if necessary. But seeing if Evala's brother had more notes is more important than anything else. If it gives us the ability to create this remedy, then we need it. Now."

"Okay," Keith folded up the paper. "I'll get started. Want me to try to do the copying with Katie's knowledge rather than yours?"

"If she'll let you," Nathan said. "But I'd rather you try me. That way, when you go to do the full copy of my knowledge of her language, I know how it feels while you're in my head. That should help me to guide you to the right language."

"Got it," Keith said. "Thanks for trusting me, Nathan."

"You've proven yourself trustworthy," Nathan told him. "But do know that if I suspect you're tampering with my mind, I will cut off your dick and feed it to your own ass. Understand?"

"Understood," Keith hastily responded.