Oh! Her face twitched again, that cannot be good, I mused to myself. I continue to watch the beautiful lady with short brown hair who is sitting at her desk, with her eyes closed as she rubs her temples trying to fight off a migraine.

We had ridden Git through the night, not wanting to go to sleep, and reached the guild in the mid-morning. They were not happy with us having Git stop outside with wagons full of refuse and moaning men. A few silvers came out to try and shoo us away, though after mentioning that we came to turn in a dead requisitioner with bandits and an illegal shipment of Slak, the entire guild went crazy.

The guild master came out personally to check and after having a lead mage who was too curious for his good, was forced to dig through one of the wagons to find the Slak. After finding a half dozen packages, he had handed us off to report in whole to this lady as he gathered maybe three dozen silvers and headed off to the mines and another half dozen to take the dying bandits for questioning.

Now we are stuck in the guild master’s office with this pretty assistant guild master. She currently has our three bronze badges in front of her turned over onto their backs and has not asked any more questions in a while.

The three of us were sitting on a set of chairs in front of the huge desk she was behind while Akira was smirking to himself while leaning against a back wall.

“You! Are you their guardian? Where’s your badge?” She demanded while I could hear Akira stifle a chuckle. I can feel my face heat up as I chime in, which only redirects the woman’s glare to me.

“Um… Miss… He’s my familiar, so he does not have a badge…” I say while glancing up at the woman, just in time to catch the right side of her face twitch again.

“He’s your familiar?” She asks while mulling over this new tidbit.

“Yes, I summoned him at my initiation ceremony a couple of weeks ago…”

“And who elevated you to bronze after only a few weeks?” She asked accusingly while waving her hand over the almost nude bronze plates in front of her.

“The guild master of Denvetti did, after Akira, my familiar, after he…” I stop and cannot complete what I was about to say.

“After he what?” She demands.

“After he almost killed the assistant guild master of Danvetti in a duel!” Zoe chimes in, as helpful as ever, pushing us towards the precipice.

“You trying to threaten me with a bluff!?” She asks, raising an eyebrow to us. Thankfully the tense atmosphere and the staredown were alleviated as the door opened and a paige rushes in to whisper something to the assistant guild master.

Her face twitches again as she pinches the bridge of her nose and waves the paige away. “The four of you delivered enough Slak to keep a thousand Slakers bound for a season… You lost the culprit and requisitioner. You also managed to make death seem like a luxury for those bandits that now have insects and their eggs growing and digging inside their bodies.”

“In our defense, they attacked us first and were going to rape and kill us, we only disabled most of them and had no other means of bringing them to the town,” I say as fast as possible in our defense.

“Well, I don’t know what to do with you… You’ve dropped this steaming pile of shit on our doorstep and now the guild master is on a hunt for maybe a thousand unjustly enslaved Slakers in the mines. I’ll discuss with the guild master when I see him next, just go wait in an inn until we figure out what to do with you.”

“What about our compensation and can we do some requisitions during the wait?” Zoe asks, which has the woman falter for but a moment before shifting her glare to Zoe.

“Compensation? For this turd? Are you even real bronze mages? Girl, what magic do you practice?”

“...wind…”

“Oh! So can you go help out at the mines and use wind magic to clear out some areas of poisonous fumes?”

“...no… not yet…”

“And you want to stipulate that you are worthy of being bronzes? What about you two?” She asks glaring at Jessica and me.

“We’re plant mages, miss…” I say in a hushed tone. I can feel the woman freeze while trying to process that statement.

I feel Akira put a hand on my shoulder as he pulls the lady’s ire onto himself.

“The bandits could lead you to a criminal ring or at least to stolen goods. There is value in that to your guild and your country. The beast of burden no longer has an owner and we could sell it for some compensation. Also, your guild requisitions were miss-categorized and we faced more danger due to negligence of your guild.”

We all collectively flinch as she slams her palms down onto the desk while standing to yell at Akira. “SHUT UP! Our guild is not the negligent party and don’t you dare accuse us of that!”

“Then due compensation and we’ll be out of your hair.” He says with a beaming smile.

“Fine, a thousand Dens per alive bandit and the beast belongs to the guild as we may need it to set up a trap for other parties.”

“That…” Zoe starts to yell out in protest before being cut off by the assistant guild manager.

“Are you related to the smugglers? Did he will it to you upon his passing?” She gives us a smug smile, waiting for any of us to forge a linkage with the guilty parties.

“No? Then I think we are done here. Don’t go too far as we may need to confirm more details with you.” She said while waving us off.

“Um… Miss… What about our plaques?” I ask while pointing to the three bronze plaques still in front of her. She frowns for a second before picking them up and tossing them to each of us.

“No completion stamp at this time until I discuss with the guild master on how to handle this.” As she waves us out of the office, broking no more discussion on the matter.

We left the guild with mixed feelings. While I know that we are happy to leave the wagons behind with their ungodly contents and passengers, I’m going to miss Git. However, that could be the bliss of finally being off our feet for some travel.

“How about we go sell some of our silk and buy some training materials before we find an inn?” I ask the group as we finally exit the guild.

“We’d have to do that in the reverse order instead.” Zoe replies, to which I return a quizzical look, not sure as to why we’d not buy stuff first.

“Come on, look at how many people are giving us a wide berth. We are probably nose blind to the smell, but they certainly are not. We need to clean up so that we do not get kicked out of stores or have prices jacked up on us for being undesirable patrons to their stores.”

“Oh, I guess you have a point there, so… to the baths!” I say as I try to sniff my hair and clothes as casually as possible. However, I only smell the bar of soap that I’ve been breathing in for the past few days only.

We searched around town to find their only inn and while they did not have baths, you could draw some water and use a sponge to bathe. We scrounge up our only funds and can put together a measly 450 dens to rent a pair of their lowest quality rooms for the night. One for us three girls and another for Akira. As much as it pains me at the extra expense, it must be done for privacy and modesty’s sake.

We bid Akira farewell at his door on the second story and enter our room right after it.

“We’re so poor now, the guild didn’t even give us the Dens for the bandits,” I complain to the group as a whole as I look at our small cramped room with a single bed for the three of us to sleep in. A small trunk at the foot and a basin of water in the corner with room temperature water.

“Um… If you girls don’t mind… After we clean up… Can I… Or rather, would you allow me to go sell and trade your silks, on your behalf… No commission… I… I…” I look over at Zoe who is trembling slightly, looking at the ground, not able to look us in the eyes while she presses her fingers together.

“I don’t mind, but why so nervous?” Jessica looks over and agrees with me.

“Phew… I… was just hoping to maybe start setting up some trade connections with merchants in the area. I cannot produce silk, like you two, but I’ll try hard and would need the connections to maybe build my own trade network in the future.”

“Oh, not a problem!” I say with a smile on my face, however, a small pang of pain goes through my heart. Would we lose Zoe from our group? I know we kind of got lumped together because of circumstances. She seems to know what she wants to do with her life and I’m still lost, just going with the flow. I had not thought so much as to what else we would do, or what I would do going forward. I had more or less been caught up in the motions of everything happening around us and had not put too much thought into any of it.

“Stop frowning silly,” Jessica told me as she guided me over to the water basin. She fished around in her pack a bit before pulling out her bar of soap and a knife to shave off a few small slices to toss into the water along with some herbs and sprigs from her pack.

Once she was done, Jessica knelt in front of the basin before pulling me over.

“Come, let me wash your hair for you.” She said while pulling me back to lie across her thighs to prop me up so that my head can rest over the basin, dunking the back of my head into the water. Jessica began to comb her fingers through my hair and into the water, massaging my scalp and I could not help but close my eyes and ignore the pain in my neck to enjoy her gentle ministrations.

“...thank you…” She said in a strangled whisper. Cracking my eyes open a bit, I can see that her eyes are watering and collecting tears and threatening to break free. Violet, however, takes one of her cute little ram horns that she had made and goes in to swipe the tear as it threatens to fall.

I don’t know what to say, so I instead try for humor and deflection. “For letting you massage my scalp? Anytime!” While I try to rub my head into her fingers a bit more to play into it. I get a small chuckle out of her before she goes back to her dark and brooding thoughts.

“Not that… Just… Thank you for getting him off… of me…” She said, choking on the words at the end. I sit up, not caring that my wet hair was now soaking the back of my clothes before I pull her into a hug, dodging a horn as I rest my head against hers.

“I’ll always try to be there for you Jess…” I know it is a white lie, but it is what she needs as she starts to break down into another cry. Violet decides to pull me into a hug as well and I can feel a crown of vines snaking through my wet hair as a bit of pressure is used to pull us into a weird three-way hug.

After calming down for a bit, we finally school our emotions and go to separate and cannot. Jessica and I now have conjoined tiaras of vines holding our heads together. We try and fail at first to separate, which has Zoe laughing at us from the bed, before we also devolve into laughing fits, unable to separate because of Violet’s actions.

After a lot of cooing from Jessica where she’d simply ended up drumming on Violet until she finally released us. We resumed our sponge baths, each of us washing each other’s hair while stripping and scrubbing our skin red and raw to try and get rid of the last remnants of the journey.

“Cara. Could I borrow Akira to look like muscle while I go around trying to sell and barter to get us some things?” Zoe asks after we were done bathing and our hair had mostly dried.

“Sure, are you just trying to get Dens? Or are you looking to maybe barter to get us some other items?”

“I can do both, what else would you want?”

“Hmm… Well, Dens and a lot of salt could be good.”

“Why salt?”

“Akira mentioned that there was a skill to try and grow plants in harsh conditions. You know salting the earth would make it pretty harsh, so I was thinking salt.”

“If you want to do that, then some seeds would also do well, perhaps iron grass? They’d be used in binding mining tools or reinforcing supports in the mines, so they probably sell or have some available.” Jessica mentioned to the group while giving it some thought.

“Oh and maybe a carriage for the way back!” I chime in again, beaming from ear to ear while I smack the bottom of my fist into my other palm during my moment of genius.

“I’m not sure we’d have enough for that…” Zoe said, looking downcast as though I was putting her under a lot of pressure to take what silk we have and convert it into a giant wishlist.

“But, we’ll have a thousand Dens from each bandit, that is like seven thousand for them.” I protested.

“Oh, you should not count what you do not have in your pocket. We could get into trouble if we make an agreement and the guild manages to pull or reduce the number of Dens they’d reward us with. Maybe more healer hall fees.” She said, pointing out that nothing was guaranteed and reminding us of how the guild managed to force us on this requisition without funds due to that same reason. Also, the bandits were in pretty terrible shape, but surely the guild would not dock our reward for the care of criminals that they interrogate, Slak, or execute.

Not wanting to argue the matter, I grabbed my pack, and dug out all the silk I had been using as padding. Jessica followed suit and we both handed over a fluffy pillow of 800 silk each to Zoe. I felt guilty about not having more, but after our encounter with the Ursa, we had not made anymore, too distracted with the extra weight of the event, and then there were the bandits. I think the main reason we forgot was due to the bliss of finally being off our feet and relaxing finally.

I watched Zoe happily empty a bag onto the floor and stuff it full of silk as she left to go get Akira for a shopping trip. Jessica and I settled into a comfortable silence within the room, and I decided to take a peek at my grimoire.

Cara Foregess HP 98 / 100 Mana 1,100 / 1,100 Stamina 96 / 100 HP Regen 0.2 hp/day Mana Regen 265 mp/hr Stamina Regen 400 stm/day Fortitude 10 Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Intelligence 10 Tenacity 10 Psyche 10 Recovery 10 Mana Depth 10 Mana Pulse 7 Mana Compression 5 Mana Depth (Lv 10) (10 / 11) Deep stretches the soul. Unearthing its potential. A burden to fill. Increase mana by Intelligence² * Mana Depth (1,000 mana) Mana Pulse (Lv 7) (7 / 8) Tortured and deprived. Thy soul struggling to breathe. In need of respite. Increase mana regen by Psyche * 0.001 * Mana pulse per second (0.07 mana/s) Mana Compression (Lv 5) (629 / 729) The soul as the forge. Compress the intangible. Birthed within this world. Compress 10 mana into reality from 10 / (0.1 + 0.1 * Mana Compression) (16.7 mana) Artificer (Lv 1) Craft mana itself. Soul to shape reality. Bent and shaped to whims. Reflect a portion of the soul to an object. Supplementing and possibly enhancing the foundation of the soul. Soul Bound Artifacts Grimoire (0 pages) Soul Bag (245 mana embers)

I’m so close to seeing how the compression changes on leveling up. We both get comfortable within the room with the door locked from within while we go ahead and try compressing our mana. I figured that Zoe ought to be gone at least an hour, dragging poor Akira through the streets to try and look like hired muscle.

Grabbing my rune stone and pushing my mana to compress as many embers as I can to try and reach that threshold, I get closer by forming another 66 mana embers. I kept my mana in a starved state throughout the process of being in the void of my inner world. I was getting more and more used to it, using this as an opportunity to reflect and feel calmer than ever before in my life.

Waking up, I find Zoe in our room pouting to Jessica who’s apologizing. Seeing that I’m awake she turns her pout to me.

“You locked me out of our room.” She said with a fake pout, trying to not laugh or have her smile break the forced act.

“If we did, then why are you in here?” I return with my own best harumph while crossing my arms and looking away.

“Hehehe, Akira picked the lock with a blade of iron grass that we bought. The lock might as well not exist.” A look of triumph was plastered across her face.

“Well, I’m going to have to chat with him about breaking into the chambers of ladies,” I reply all too loud to hopefully have him hear through the wall. We all break out into laughs, after which Zoe rushes over to the far side of the bed to pull out some packages and bags.

“I was successful, I managed to get you about one and a half Dens per silk, plus several couple bags of salt.” She said as she handed two small drawstring pouches and a much larger one to each of us.

Opening the much larger bag I see that it is all salt, which means that the much smaller ones are seeds and our funds. I do my best to hide my disappointment at the size of the smaller bags until I open it and have a silver Den roll out onto my palm. This is the first time I’ve ever made my own silver Den and the amount of pride I feel is amazing. We check our spoils and we have a large bag of salt, a bag of what I assume are iron grass seeds, and finally our silk gains.

“We could probably rent a carriage ride back home for maybe one thousand to fifteen hundred Dens. Also, we cannot sell any more silk in this town, as ten thousand dens worth of silk appearing in a mining town is odd.” She said while muttering to herself.

“Wait, ten thousand?” I ask as both Jessica and I snap our attention over to Zoe.

“Well ya, you each provided eight hundred silk at a market price of six or so Dens, it is close to ten thousand.”

“But we only got like one to two Dens each!” I ask in bewilderment.

“Yup! I know! But every hand that it changes between bumps the price some. If you just wanted to buy raw silk, you’d probably be charged six Dens. More if you want it spooled. Going out to find it is difficult and a requisition at a low price could be done, but you’d wait a long time to get the silk. It is a balancing act and a turn in of too much is suspicious for non-merchants.” She said while going to the bed and grabbing a pillow to put on the floor against the wall and taking a seat on it.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I wanna train my mana as you guys are putting more and more distance between us and I cannot even use the rotweed seed or Den-izens yet,” Zoe said as she made herself comfortable. Jessica went over to discuss with her how to go about compressing mana to hopefully help her do that.

I looked at the last pillow on the bed and decided to take it and leave the entire bed to Jessica. I made myself comfortable, excited to see how the next level of my compression skill will look. Opening up my grimoire, I kept it open so I can see what happens as I pulled on my mana and rune stone to compress more embers.

Cara Foregess HP 98 / 100 Mana 1,200 / 1,200 Stamina 100 / 100 HP Regen 0.2 hp/day Mana Regen 301 mp/hr Stamina Regen 400 stm/day Mana Depth (Lv 11) (11 / 12) Deep stretches the soul. Unearthing its potential. A burden to fill. Increase mana by Intelligence² * Mana Depth (1,100 mana) Mana Pulse (Lv 8) (8 / 9) Tortured and deprived. Thy soul struggling to breathe. In need of respite. Increase mana regen by Psyche * 0.001 * Mana pulse per second (0.08 mana/s) Mana Compression (Lv 5) (695 / 729) The soul as the forge. Compress the intangible. Birthed within this world. Compress 10 mana into reality from 10 / (0.1 + 0.1 * Mana Compression) (16.7 mana) Artificer (Lv 1) Craft mana itself. Soul to shape reality. Bent and shaped to whims. Reflect a portion of the soul to an object. Supplementing and possibly enhancing the foundation of the soul. Soul Bound Artifacts Grimoire (0 pages) Soul Bag (311 mana embers)

I watched as I did my best to split my focus between compressing embers and watching the numbers within my grimoire quickly recede and regrow to show the changes until the threshold was passed and I could see and feel the rapid change to my mana compression and being able to instantly make many more.

Mana Compression (Lv 6) (44 / 2,187) The soul as the forge. Compress the intangible. Birthed within this world. Compress 10 mana into reality from 10 / (0.1 + 0.1 * Mana Compression) (14.3 mana) Soul Bound Artifacts Grimoire (0 pages) Soul Bag (389 mana embers)

I had no time to pause and reflect entirely on the changes that took place, simply committing them to memory for me to mull over in the void. With a final push, I emptied my mana and sought refuge from the discomfort within the void.

Once I was within the void I thought about the changes that I had read before coming here. If I’m doing the math right, I’ve just increased the number of mana embers I can create by a lot. I should be able to almost do 84 in a single go. However, the next level went up by a factor of three…

I mulled things over for a while before growing bored with doing math and sought to spend my solitude doing something else. Thinking back on how Akira mentioned it was possible to forge the magic for the storage artifact I pulled in the dim embers from around me. They were dimmer than usual as I was forcefully keeping myself in a mana starved state to try and push Mana Pulse further along.

I sweep my invisible hand through the void and collect a couple of mana embers and turn them into thin gossamer ribbons of mana. So fragile that they could break if I am not too careful. I proceed to weave them into a pair of runes, each an identical version of my mana expulsion rune that I had carved into the stones for us three girls. I leave the center-most section devoid of anything.

Pushing them apart, I feel lost on how to proceed from here. There must be close to an infinite number of possibilities to fill a sphere between the two. After mulling it over for a while, I throw caution to the wind and devise it is best to start from the outside and work my way in. I grab another set of gossamers of mana, where I pull and weave them into a thin sheet and wrap the sphere from the top rune to the bottom-most section.

Upon completing the outside skin of the sphere, I don’t feel anything, no inspiration as to where to go from here. Thinking back as to what was supposed to guide the process, I finally remember that Akira mentioned that I need to envision my intent and that the mana would guide me.

“I want you to embody a storage artifact’s capabilities,” I say to the void, however as though merely lacing my intent into the mana, I’m immediately rewarded with a vomit-inducing ‘wrongness’ within the entirety of my mana world. If my ethereal version of me could empty her stomach, I’d have possibly done it a hundred times over.

Bearing with the nauseous discomfort I try to weave more embers into the sphere to form another layer between the inner circles of the runes. My reward is another wave of nausea and ‘wrongness’ that washes over me.

“By the devourer, you are awful,” I mutter to myself as I reach out to the inner circle and start to rapidly squish and pull this horrid sphere in and out. Venting my frustrations on my mana, by contorting it into all sorts of horrid shapes, I realize that the ‘wrongness’ and nausea can be pushed to become more extreme or to recede slightly in doing it.

I finally realize my blunder and how my mana is trying to guide my intent. I take the top of the inner sphere and pinch it down into a shallower tube. I am rewarded by the ever so slight decrease in the ‘wrongness’ that is still pervasive and making my ethereal stomach roll.

I continue to play with this, molding it and shaping the interior sphere until any further change only makes me feel sicker. I had briefly tried dropping the thought or intent of the storage artifact and without the intent laced into my mana, the feeling went away in its entirety. However, in doing so, I become blind as to what to do to fix anything.

Looking at my weird sphere that now has an odd tube with a giant disc-like bulge in the middle, I go over my options on how to tackle this problem in the best way I can. After thinking it over, I finally decide to take 64 embers and make a four by four by four grid within a small section of the sphere.

I proceed to lace my intent again with thoughts of a storage artifact and can feel the overwhelming ‘wrongness’ coming from the sphere. I then proceed as quickly as possible to remove a single ember at a time from the grid before replacing it if it did not feel right.

I can feel success on the horizon as I manage to reduce this first section or quadrant down to just thirteen must have embers. I copy this success and quickly work my way through the rest of the sphere. In doing so I’ve managed to fill it with 440 embers. The sphere still feels wrong, but at least the nausea has become bearable, or I’m just getting better at ignoring it.

I slowly spin the sphere and can now see some patterns that are almost begging to be connected. I accede to the begging and take another gossamer thread of mana and use it to engrave the interior of the sphere to connect some of the dots.

The sphere vibrates briefly for a split second on me, as though a contentful sigh was being released when the connections are formed. I pull more threads and things are quickly starting to come together. I engrave swirls and complicated patterns are starting to arise and are easier to form as the feeling of wrongness is subsiding quickly.

I find that there are a lot of mirrored sections including the entire bottom of the sphere which makes filling it out a lot easier. I pull back from my creation as the sphere is almost complete. It is bobbing up and down on its own now, making working on it a bit frustrating. The mana sphere is dancing and singing to a silent song as it bobs within my mana world.

I had been so focused on the interior of the sphere that I did not take notice that with every bob, a wave or ripple would push out on an almost invisible fabric or haze, only visible with the glow of the embers.

Counting up what I’ve used within the sphere, I find that I’ve managed to have used 960 embers of mana to create it so far and there still seems to be something missing. I grab a few more embers from my quickly diminishing supply and I sweep them through the entire sphere until I find 40 spots where the magic sphere is demanding a single condensed node of a mana ember.

I notice there now is a singing quality to the mana as it bobs, like the waters lapping against the shore.

“Of course it would take a thousand mana to complete the sphere, why would it not be so greedy?” I say to nobody in particular from within my mana realm.

Looking up from my completed creation, I cannot help but feel that the darkness is encroaching on me. I had been using the embers to push it away as I filled the interior of my giant body. However, now, there was a singular bright sphere of mana embers bobbing up and down, twisting the fabric… of space… as it moved.

I count out a final three hundred embers that I am keeping close to me, pushing the darkness away. The light of these small embers is nothing in comparison to the brightness of the sphere, where I can also feel that the light from it is slowly permeating the darkness, pushing it away with every bob and tinting it with the soft and gentle orange glow of my mana.

I still have the three hundred embers leftover and I think I need to use them inside the empty inner section to draw out a constellation of stars as Akira mentioned.

I wait around a bit more as I realize that the tug on my consciousness to leave the void has been there for a long time already. Concentrating on that tug, I follow it, leaving my mana world, and my eyes flutter away, getting used to the bright light within the room.

Looking around, I can see Zoe and Jessica are awake.

“What took you so long sleepy head?” Jessica asks, frowning a bit at me while Violet waves lazily back and forth on top of her head.

“I got caught up drawing a magic sphere, it was intricate and difficult but I’m confident that it felt right for a storage artifact.” As soon as I uttered the word ‘storage artifact’, a ripping feeling can be felt from my stomach. I double over in pain while clasping my stomach and hiss in pain as my breath catches and I cannot breathe.

“What’s wrong Cara? Cramps? Do you want me to get some warming herbs or anything?” Jessica asks as she starts to get up and slowly approach my hunched over form.

It hurts.

It hurts so much.

I don’t know what is happening to me.

“AKIRA! HELP!” I scream with the last of the air in my lungs, which has the two girls looking at each other in confusion briefly as I hear the door slam open and Akira runs into the room to kneel beside me.

I feel another spasm of pain as there is a small tug on my mana. I somehow know that Akira must be using what few mana embers he managed to save up since the fight to do something.

“You are developing your soul storage and you need your mana states to be spinning as fast as possible before offering up the required mana.” He says in such a hurry that I almost miss what he was trying to convey.

Gritting my teeth as much as I can, I follow through and spin my inner world that feels as though it is collapsing into itself. Spinning faster and faster I can feel the pain alleviate and I push a thousand mana into this deceitful creation of mine.

Shortly after offering up my mana and keeping my inner mana world spinning as fast as I can make it, I feel more drawn out, stretched, as though my very soul has been stretched to the devourer in the sky and could snap at any time if I am not careful.

Breathing in my first lungful of air in what felt like an eternity, I manage a few steadying breaths before I can look up and see the worried look of Akira.

“WHY!?” I ask, failing to keep the pain out of my voice.

“There is normally some discomfort, but nothing like what you just went through, what set of constellations or stars did you use from the night sky?” He asked, still kneeling beside me, afraid to touch me as though he might hurt me if he were to do so.

I freeze at that question. After a long pause, I finally get my mouth to work. “I didn’t use any… I did not remember any stars so it was empty, I was hoping that tonight, I’d be able to pick some…” I manage to get out, as Jessica and Zoe look on with worry.

“You used the devourer?” Jessica whispered, her eyes going wide and covering her mouth.

“So you used the void? What you call the devourer in the night sky?” Akira asked again for clarification.

“I didn’t mean to! I thought I could just pick some stars later on! Will there be something wrong with me? Can I undo it?” I ask, as my hands become clammy at the possible ramifications of making an unknowing deal with the devourer.

“Only one way to find out,” Akira says as he grabs one of my boots that are by the open door before he passes it to me.

“Use this. Pull the required mana that is demanded and drill a tunnel entry from the outside of your mana sphere to the inside section of it, having the tunnel spin and do not touch anything within except for the outside and inside spheres.” He said as he handed me my muddy and scuffed up boot from the arduous journey here.

I followed Akira’s instructions, imagining a tunnel being drilled through the intricately carved magic sphere that I fought with for the past several hours within my mana world. I feel a little less than a tenth of my mana evaporate, which leaves me closer and closer to fumes. My inner grumblings about current mana levels are instantly quelled when I see a gorgeous orange circle begin to form from nothing in front of me.

Remembering how Akira had pushed his hand through the black version of this gateway to retrieve a sword, I reach out and push the boot through the entry and it disappears as soon as it crosses the threshold. My hand does the same thing as Akira’s had, any part of me that crosses the boundary turns into an orange smoke, like a sheet of fabric that is pushing back on me. I can still feel the boot in my grasp, but it is cold, my skin prickles from the absolute cold that I’ve thrust my hand into.

I quickly retract my hand and feel the connection snap shut and I am now short one boot with a hand that is quickly returning to a normal temperature. I look at my hand as I slowly clench my fingers in and out of a fist as Zoe starts to scoot closer and closer while looking at me with that odd look she gets from time to time.

“Now bring it back.” She whispers, while trying to not breathe too hard, her blue eyes are shining in reverence at my amazing boot vanishing act.

Doing the reverse drains my mana extremely close to empty and I find that I needed to spin the tunnel in the opposite direction and do so from the inside to outside while thinking about my poor lost boot. I manage to summon the orange circle and reach in to pull my boot back before I drop it into Zoe’s lap.

She yelps briefly at how cold it is, but my boot quickly comes back to a decent temperature.

“How big is it?” she asks in a hushed tone while looking around at the window and walls, possibly checking for any merchant competitors.

I do my best to blush and look away before replying, “It’s rude to ask that kind of question…” which gets Jessica to sputter before she drops to the floor at the joke. Zoe just looks down at the boot with a small smile as we all start laughing together.

“To be honest, I don’t know, Akira?” I turn to ask while holding my sore sides from the laughs.

“Well, it is volume-based… So, I think it starts at about the size of your head. You can make it permanently bigger at any time, but it will require an equal amount of mana. So next it would be double what you already spent.” He said while closing his eyes and trying to remember some long-forgotten memory.

“Wait, that took me, like a thousand mana and you are saying that I just need to add another thousand to double it?”

“No, you’ll need to reforge it as you expand it to use two thousand mana to double the volume.” He said in correction, as I thought briefly that I’d just need to reinforce it.

“And you can store anything within it?” Zoe asked, trying to mine as much information as she could.

“Anything without a soul, liquids should be in a container and you need to spend mana according to the size of the door you want to open.”

I watched as Zoe gave a small nod before getting up and going back to her pillow to try and train her mana once again.

“Can I redo it? With a set of stars?” I ask in a small whisper.

“No, anything else will feel wrong and only what you forged just now will work for the rest of your life, as it is a part of your soul,” He replied, closing his eyes and turning his head away slightly.

“I think I’ll hold off on creating a storage artifact until I can memorize some stars tonight,” Jessica said as she looked over to me, worry still evident in her gaze, concern for what kind of trouble I may have gotten myself into with the devourer.

I give her my best carefree smile before I pull my grimoire over to myself to take a peek.

Cara Foregess HP 98 / 100 Mana 114 / 1,300 Stamina 100 / 100 Soul Storage (Void) (Lv 1) (1 / 2) Forge touch the heavens. Soul fragment of hope is stored. A secret hidden. Store up to 1u of soulless hope. (Void) Even gods cannot perceive the contents of your soul

Well... that is new, I'll think it over inside the void... fuck... I guess I can train Mana Pulse as I kind of botched the Mana Depth just now. I should be done in time for us to grab some dinner.