Selena smiled at Ada and Karolina as they walked into her cabin. She was sitting in a chair near the door, but when they walked in she stood up to greet them and welcome them into her “lovely little home."

According to Ada, Selena got her own building to sleep in due to her importance as the only healer in the camp. The inside of the building was actually nice, clean, and well-maintained. She wanted this, she realized; to actually be able to sleep in a clean, comfortable place.

“It’s so nice to see both of you again! Or, I guess it isn’t nice, because you’re both hurt. Let me help with that,” Selena said brightly. Karolina inspected her, wondering how much experience healing everyone in camp had gotten her. Apparently a lot, as she was at a respectable level.

Selena Lewis: [Human (F) / Healer] - Level 7

Ada went over to her first, as she had a much lower constitution so the injuries that she had were more painful. As Selena healed her numerous scrapes and bruises, she chattered away at her about the weather and how handsome James Buckley was.

Karolina looked around as Ada was healed, noticing again the new repairs done to the house and how clean and well-furnished the room was. Did Selena do all of this? Before she knew it, Ada was done being healed and it was Karolina’s turn.

Selena started healing her collarbone and then opened her mouth, but before she could start up talking again, Karolina preempted her. “How did you get your house to be this nice? Did you do it all yourself?”

Selena closed her mouth for a second, and Karolina looked at her soul to try to see what was going on in her head. It was vibrating furiously, which she could tell meant that she was angry. However, when Selena answered her question, there was no sign of that anger in her face or voice. She must have misunderstood what her Soulsight was telling her.

“No, some of the people who I’ve healed have helped me out. They were so nice, cleaning up the place, giving me some of their furniture, and even repairing the place. I didn’t have to lift a finger. I didn’t even have to ask them for help. People can be so great, you know?” Selena said.

Karolina marveled at her ability to prattle. Almost immediately after she finished speaking, she moved her glowing hands to Karolina’s left forearm, holding her arm in place with surprisingly delicacy.

“Yeah, people are great,” she replied slowly. “Actually, I have another question. Have you ever left the camp? You know, gone into the woods?” she asked. She had something she wanted to do soon that would require Selena coming into the woods, so she wanted to assess her opinion on it.

“No, no, no, of course not. James doesn’t want me putting myself in danger, and I definitely agree with him. There’s a reason that I chose to be a healer, and not some different class that gets into dangerous situations,” Selena replied.

Karolina let that line of questioning lie, and let Selena resume her gossiping. It seemed that she would have to talk to Buckley about it before doing anything. She really disliked that man.

As Selena went back to talking about inconsequential things, Karolina felt her mind begin to wander. Her thoughts drifted to her parents and how they were doing before she forcefully brought her mind away from the topic. They were fine. They had to be.

Before she knew it, Selena had finished healing her. “Well, I’m so glad that I was able to help you two. Is there anything else?”

“No, we’re good,” Karolina responded. “Thank you."

After finishing their goodbyes, they went to where Ada said Sam, the Tailor, lived. He was a twitchy little man with red hair. As they approached, she offhandedly looked at his torso; it seemed that gingers did, indeed, have souls.

He was eager to help. He went to Karolina first, and put his hands near the stains on her clothes. A brownish mist spread from his hands to her clothes and seemed to consume the blood and dirt stains. After he was finished she looked down at herself and was pleased with what she saw.

She tried to hide how excited she was about this, about wearing clothes that weren’t stained and dirty. She had cleaned them in a small stream she had found in the woods every day, but the stains were too deep to come out without soap. It wasn’t as good as having her pantsuit back, but wearing a clean gi again was incredible.

She patiently waited until Sam was done cleaning Ada’s clothing as well, then they said their goodbyes and left.

They walked into the camp with healthy bodies and clean clothes, and Karolina couldn’t be happier. She was alive, Ada was alive, and she was about to choose her next skill. Before that, though, it looked like Ada wanted to say something.

“I wasn’t kidding before, you know,” she said.

“What?” Karolina questioned.

“About owing you my life. I would be dead if it weren’t for you. Anything you need from me, anything, you let me know and I’ll do it,” she said.

“Maybe you can start by telling me why you were so rude to me before. I know you apologized, but I could still use an explanation,” Karolina said. It hadn’t really bothered her, but if she was going to be working with the woman she needed to understand her.

Ada looked briefly embarrassed. “Well, I can be a bit… abrasive,” she began.

“Abrasive?” Karolina asked. “Please, don’t use such big words. I’m so stupid I don’t even know how to use a weapon, after all.”

Ada’s cheeks glowed pink in embarrassment. She looked away, apparently finding a nearby cabin very interesting. “I did say something like that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes you did,” Karolina said, finding Ada’s reaction very amusing.

“I’m sorry, again. I don’t see much point in being nice to people, but that’s not the main reason. I just—mostly, I just wanted you to leave me alone. I needed to prove that I could do this on my own,” Ada said. After a few seconds, she looked down. “But I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t get away, and I almost got you killed…”

“Hey, no. It was my decision to intervene. You almost got yourself killed, but I put myself in danger,” Karolina said firmly.

“If you say so. Anyway, enough seriousness,” Ada said with a forced smile, trying to break the awkward mood. “What’s next for my favorite monk?”

“Well, I need to pick my new skill, so I’m going back to the lodge to do that. Then I want to check in on Thomas, see what progress he’s made,” she said.

“Thomas?” Ada questioned.

“He’s my friend, a Magician. He’s been working really hard the past few days to figure out how Convert Mana, one of his skills, works,” she replied.

“He can’t figure out one of his own skills? They’re pretty intuitive,” Ada said.

“Not this one, apparently. Anyway, I’m off to the lodge to pick my skill,” she said.

“Can I come with you? I don’t really have anything else that I could be doing right now,” Ada asked.

“I guess. I don’t know what exactly the process of picking a skill is, but you can wait outside if you really want to,” she replied.

Ada nodded, and then they headed to the lodge. When they arrived, Karolina went inside and looked back to see Ada waiting outside the door, playing with her new rusty dagger. It was finally time to choose her new skill.

“Skill Selection,” she declared.

Immediately, three blue boxes appeared in front of her. She began to examine each of her choices carefully.

Tracking Mastery (F): The user knows how to track living beings through different terrains using tracks, sounds, and other clues that their targets have left behind.

Tracking Mastery seemed easy to understand, and certainly would have helped her to find Ada faster earlier. It was also another mastery skill, and Unarmed Combat Mastery had proven to be very useful.

Mana Armor (F): Gives the user the ability to form a protective bubble of mana around themselves. The armor takes damage in place of the user, and breaks when any one section is damaged enough. The strength of the armor is based on the user’s intelligence.

Mana Armor also looked useful. She very much liked the idea of not getting hurt as much. Plus, it would definitely have helped much more than Tracking Mastery during her fight with the direwolf. If her left arm hadn’t been rendered useless she wouldn’t have had to rely on Ada stabbing the direwolf to survive. However, there was the risk that the shield would be too weak to actually protect her.

Mark Foe (F): Gives the user the ability to mark a foe by striking them when this skill is active. A marked foe will feel a compulsion to attack the user. The strength of the compulsion is based on the user’s intelligence, and the compulsion can be resisted by the target using their intelligence.

Mark Foe also seemed useful. She could take the direct attention of many of the enemies that she had faced, but Ada or Thomas couldn’t. If she was able to force an enemy to attack her, that meant that it wouldn’t be attacking any of her weaker allies.

However, at least so far, she hadn’t had any problems with enemies ignoring her and attacking her allies. Especially not after she hit them. Also, the fact that it had a chance of just not working wasn’t good.

Her choice came down to either Mana Armor or Mark Foe, as she didn’t need to track others very often while she fought monsters every day. After a few seconds, she chose Mana Armor.

More than anything else, she needed to stay alive to be able to do anything, and Mark Foe would either lead to her early death or just not work. She tried her new skill, and felt much of her mana drain away and a blue sheen appear over her vision. She looked down at her hands, and saw that she was covered in a nearly transparent blue bubble of mana millimeters away from her skin.

She had a sudden fear: would her own attacks break her mana armor? She punched the wall that she was next to, and detected no change in the bubble. She tried again using Strong Blow, and even though the wall shook this time, she still detected no change in the armor. That was a relief.

She started to head towards the door when she suddenly stopped. Did she just punch a wall without it hurting at all? That was incredible. She loved her new body.

She walked out the door and saw Ada still standing there, fiddling with her dagger. She gasped and dropped her dagger.

“Wow. You look very blue,” she observed.

She dropped the armor, feeling a little embarrassed at the attention, and felt the minor drain on her mana stop.

“So, I’m guessing that the blue bubble of doom is your new skill?” Ada asked.

“Yeah. Mana Armor,” she confirmed.

“Nice. Wish that I had cool magic armor. Anyway, we’re going to meet Thomas now, right? The guy who can’t figure out his own skill?”

“Yes, but it’s more complicated than that. It’s—” Karolina sighed. Ada was just messing with her, or at least she was pretty sure that she was.

They walked together over to where Thomas’s little group of magicians usually met. Only Thomas was there, surprisingly.

“Hey Karolina, I’ve been waiting for you. I finally figured out how to use Convert Mana, so I wanted to show you it. Who’s this?”

“Ada,” she laconically introduced herself. “So, Tom—”

“Thomas,” he interjected.

“—Tom,” she continued without missing a beat. “You’ve finally figured out how to use one of your own skills. Why should she be impressed?”

“Why is she here?” Thomas asked Karolina, apparently doing his best to ignore Ada.

“Sorry about her. She can be really annoying, but she did save my life earlier today,” Karolina replied. She turned to Ada. “Also, Ada, be nice. None of the other magicians could figure it out either, and Thomas is smart, so if it took him this long then it was difficult to figure out."

Thomas looked pleased. Ada sighed and said nothing.

"Saved your life? What happened?" Thomas asked, concerned.

Karolina sighed and explained what had happened earlier, with Ada occasionally chiming in. Thomas looked nervous when they talked about the overwhelming threat of the direwolf and when they talked about how close they had come to death, and then interested when Karolina mentioned her new skill.

"Well, I'm glad that you're alright. Thanks for saving her, Ada, I guess,” he said.

“Hey, she saved my life first. Also, sorry about messing with you about the skill thing. It’s been a long day,” she replied.

“That actually makes me think of something. Ada, what’s your sleeping situation like?” Karolina asked.

“I’m in a cabin with four other women. They kind of suck, if I’m being honest,” Ada replied. “Why?”

“Do you want to sleep in the lodge with us? Now that we’re friends, it would be nice to share the same building,” she replied.

“Sure, I guess. I already like you guys better than them,” Ada replied. Karolina looked over at Thomas, who nodded. Then he seemed to think of something, and he started to smile.

“Wait, so you’re asking her to shack up with us?” Thomas asked.

“We sleep in a lodge, Thomas,” Karolina deadpanned. “And that’s not even what that expression means.”

“Well, lodge up isn’t an expression,” he replied, clearly pleased with himself.

“Is it too late to change my answer? Because that was embarrassing to witness,” Ada said, but she was smiling, too. “Anyway, if I’m moving in with you idiots I have stuff to do. I’ll see you all back at the lodge later." She gave a short little wave, and then walked off.

Thomas and Karolina watched her leave, and when she was gone, Thomas spoke. “I’m not sure if I like her yet, but you vouch for her, so I’m fine with her staying with us."

“She can be annoying, but she has a good heart. I’m pretty sure, at least. We’ll see,” Karolina replied. “Anyway, you said that you finally figured out Convert Mana? What did you have to do?”

“Yes, I did! The problem wasn’t in our understanding of the skill, actually, it was in the lack of relevant examples to use it on. Convert Mana requires that we convert our natural, untyped mana into another kind of mana, but we couldn’t visualize other kinds of mana because we had never seen them. So we needed to work on increasing our natural mana perception, so that we could actually see other kinds of mana. Only then could we use our skill to convert our mana into those other kinds of mana,” he explained. He seemed really excited about what they had found out, and his excitement was infectious.

“Wait, so you’re saying that you’re able to see mana now, and it's not a skill?” she asked.

“Yes. I was the first one to figure it out. I was able to see fire mana forming in a campfire that Andrew set. Then I was able to convert some of my mana into fire mana,” he explained. He held his hand up, palm upright. She looked at his palm and saw nothing. She waited for a few seconds, but there was still absolutely nothing there.

She stared at him, unimpressed.

“Oh, sorry. Forgot that you can’t see mana. Well, there is a little fire mana above my hand right now, and I can assure you that it is very impressive,” he said.

“Wait, if we can’t see mana, why can I see your mana bolts? Why could Ada see my mana armor?” she asked.

“Oh, good question. I actually asked the System about it back during the introduction. So, low-ranked beings, like us, can see spells but not raw mana,” he started explaining.

“So, raw mana of all different types is everywhere, but it doesn’t naturally form into spells because they require a consciousness to create them. When mana is formed into a specific shape and imbued with intent it creates spells, such as my mana bolt or apparently your mana armor. That’s what separates raw mana, which we can’t see, from spells, which we can see. Does that make sense?” he lectured.

She could see how interesting he found all of this, and to be fair, she found it interesting, too. Were people able to create their own spells, instead of just using what the system gave them? What did the different kinds of mana look like?

He also mentioned that the System told him all of this during the introduction, which reminded her of something incredibly important it had mentioned back then. Class evolution.

“Huh, interesting. Also, did the System mention anything about class evolution to you during the introduction?” she asked.

“Yeah, it did. When I asked about it, it mentioned that your class first evolves at level 25. You’ll get three options, just like when choosing a skill, and you have to pick one. Why do you ask?” Thomas replied.

“Oh, I just didn’t know what level it happened at, and it sounded important,” Karolina replied. Level 25, huh? That seemed like something she could worry about later. “So, can you teach me how to see mana?” she asked.

“I think so. We figured it out by using Mana Bolt, but your Mana Armor should work just as well,” he said. “OK. To start, I need you to close your eyes. Focus on your breathing, and try to make sure that you have as few distractions as possible. Nod when you think you’re ready.”

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She was pretty sure she was as undistracted as she could get. She nodded, feeling silly.

“OK, I’m about to ask you to use your Mana Armor. When I do, I want you to focus on the sensation of mana leaving you, and try to feel where the mana goes after it leaves your mana pool. It might take a few tries, but if you really concentrate you should be able to sense it. OK, use Mana Armor."

She activated her skill and thought that she sensed her mana, but when she tried to hold on to the feeling it slipped through her fingers, leaving her wondering if she had actually felt anything at all. She shook her head, and then they waited for her to regain her mana and they tried again. And again. And again.

She began to feel frustrated. Was this really the best way to do this? How important was being able to see mana, anyway? Was Thomas just messing with her?

It felt like she was getting closer, maybe, but there was no good way to tell. She didn’t know how much time she had spent doing this, but she refused to have all that time wasted. If Thomas said this was the best way to do it, then it was the best way to do it.

It took a few more tries, but then it finally clicked. She felt the mana leave her and then sensed it gather around her and form into a protective coating. She hurriedly opened her eyes to tell Thomas the good news, but forgot what she was going to tell him. Everything looked so strange.

The air was filled with mana, and it was beautiful and overwhelming. Different colors of mana flowed through the air like a million separate rivers. Innumerable colors of mana were present in the air, far too many to be able to pick out specific colors. It was too much, there was too much to see, too much to pay attention to.

She looked over at Thomas, who blessedly wasn’t covered in mana like the rest of the world. He looked the exact same as he did before she learned how to see mana, except... he didn’t. His soul seemed to be releasing a purple mist that dissipated once it got a few centimeters away, which she could only guess was a type of mana. Soul mana?

Just as she started wondering about it, all of the mana disappeared. She blinked a few times, but it remained gone. Which was probably a good thing, now that she noticed how much her eyes were hurting. They were watering, and she hadn’t even noticed.

“It finally worked, then? You’ll have to concentrate really hard for it to work, but now you should be able to see mana on command,” Thomas said.

Karolina wondered why anyone would want to. It hurt her eyes, and made it impossible to focus on anything else. Also, all of the different kinds of mana were so mixed together that it was almost impossible to pick any one kind out.

Except that purple mana—that had been incredibly distinct. And mana that existed near the soul? That had to have interesting possibilities. She would have to experiment further with that.

She looked around, and noticed that it was getting dark out. They had been trying this for at least an hour, maybe more. She felt a rush of thankfulness for Thomas.

“Thanks Thomas,” she said. He smiled back at her, and then they started heading back towards the lodge. It had been a long day, and she was glad that it was finally over.