Zahn spent the bulk of the next three days training alongside his new friend, Gardor. The happy thick had invited the Player over to talk more about the Fire Pepper business, and had summoned the Shaman to stabilize Ethan in the meantime. The Custom was happy to leave the Warlock buried in the ground and followed his overly muscular new friend to his own training group, made up of hulking men wearing no chest armor. The group of Barbarians introduced themselves by their profession, and he learned Gardor was the master of clubs among them. Each of the disciples were set to gain Skill Mastery over their chosen weapon before returning to their tribe, and sending the next generation out to do the same. The group had their own commons smaller than the ring he shared with Ethan but private and claimed as their own land.

Gardor offered training in the various Barbarian arts in exchange for the magic self-enhancement that Zahn had learned so far, and when they shook hands on the deal both parties heard a distant bell echo. Announcing the Gods themselves had approved their bargain, the massive muscular warrior attempted to teach the much smaller Player all about the attacks he’d need. They covered Rage, demonstrating with another Barbarian as the war axe master swollen to bursting out his belts and pelts before swinging his red arms through the air and tossing one of his team a good fifty feet. While in their enlarged state the hulks gained a bright red appearance and vulnerability to slashing, when demonstrated the master in question painted lines across the sand with his wound. Zahn dodged getting painted by their display, slightly regretting his choice of team when the man’s Rage ended and he healed the damage away.

When the group determined he couldn’t learn their primary skill they tried to teach him the various secondary feats, augmenting his Jump with how high he tucked his legs up to his chest in order to add an impact when landing. Their own variant of the same attack caused significant damage when paired with a slashing or bashing strike but despite his enthusiasm the lowbie couldn’t gain their full range of Abilities. When the sun set on their first day of training, the team of mighty warriors invited him to join their commons for roast meat and stories of battles fought long ago.

The night in the strange commons passed quickly, with their resurrection hearth decorated as a shrine and braziers burning in each corner of their rooms. The mighty warriors were happy to pass along stories of their tribe and culture to an outsider who brought his own knowledge, and they were eager to bring home the news of a use for the Fire Pepper they grew high on the steppes.

The second day of training with the Barbarians saw Zahn trying to explain that each warrior had his own Mana Core inside, and by noon he was set to duel against them. By empowering his body with magic during the fights he found himself faster and hitting harder than before, and able to use weapons he didn’t meet the requirements of. He checked his status window while empowered and found nothing visibly changed, but he was able to draw and handle a sword needing thirty-five strength. When he tried to explain his confusion to the Barbarians they took it as evidence of his ability being strong, and set Gardor to learn it from him.

The third day was spent nearly entirely working alongside his first Barb friend to use his magic and fill his own body. Zahn spent the whole time pushing mana to the ends of his limbs, trying to pack the channels to their brim and overflow. He could see the bright blue light swirling under his own skin as if he’d been painted with the inside of some mirror realm but the glowing magic wouldn’t do more than mist off his skin until he spent it. Holding the mana inside throughout the day and teaching Gardor taught the lowbie another lesson he’d only read about, and subsequently forgotten.

That evening he found Ethan again, the ‘lock nursing his pride as he went about lifting weights alone near their door. Zahn had slept on the layered pelts offered by the clanmates, not even bothering to check on the other Player. As he approached, the blond turned glowing blue eyes on him and whistled a long note.

“Looks like someone’s overdone it. How’d you pull that off?”

Zahn looked down at his arm, trying to find something clever to bite back with while asking for help. The formerly deep blue colors had shifted to gray, staining his aqua spectrum. Each vibrant swirl and gradient he’d been admiring as he strengthened himself had gained outlines and shadows of grayscale that spread the longer the channeled. His day’s effort of pushing energy into itself had somehow changed the nature of what he was using, and his body began to ache near noon before the pain steadily increased. Zahn had watched his mana bar steadily decline for an hour before trying to talk to the only other magic vision caster he knew. “It’s been costing more and more mana to maintain this. I can push it, but even if I built up the amount of mana needed to pack each limb ahead of time, something’s wrong at the ends.”

Ethan spun a weighted staff over end, rotating his body with the motions. “And? Looks like you’re using dead mana, shouldn’t do that. ‘Specially not inside yourself.”

The lowbie shook his head back, “No, the Tome says that’s just mana leaving. Mana spent from spells going back into the realm as it disperses, the same as loose mana leaving this realm.”

The blond Warlock turned to face him, planting the staff in the sand. “And, if you’ve been casting the ‘buff me’ full-body spell all day, where has that mana had the chance to go? From what you said before, that book describes the caster’s body as one of the best places for mana to be because it won’t try to disperse nearly as fast. You have pre-cast, already-spent magic juice crammed up inside you like rust, and you’re pumping it full of even more magic like that’s going to solve anything. Your problem? Turn that shit off, dude.”

Zahn stared down the lecture before nodding silently and relaxing. He watched as his nearly drained mana bar flickered before filling rapidly again. The glow he’d spent hours building up began to dissipate, then the mist of energy coming off his skin shook as more of the colorless power sluiced itself away. “Thanks.”

Ethan huffed, “Come on. You can’t seriously tell me you didn’t think of just not casting that, right? What did you even want?”

The Custom wasn’t aware of having double intentions, but as soon as he was asked he knew the answer. “I want to finish our project, we have some work to do. I need to finish the tablet, you need to commune with Chaos again. We can work together, as long as you’re not holding a grudge here.”

The other Player cocked an eyebrow, “Who’s holding what? I never lied to you, and I’m not the one assuming there’ll be a problem working together. You’re the dramatic one, mister thirty-seven. I’m over a hundred, I’m not going to be a bitch about one fight.”

Something he said tickled the lowbie’s memory, “Hang on. How are you that old and only level twenty-eight? You should have escaped by now.”

Ethan looked over his shoulder at the late afternoon filled with Gladiators. “We can have that conversation later. For now, don’t the meatheads want something from you?”

“They’re good guys, just from a completely different culture. Make a great roast.” Zahn felt right coming to their defense, even if the brutes could each rend the skinny caster apart. “I’ve taught them all I got, and we’re working on getting them able to use it. Maybe with practice, who knows, they don’t even know that they use mana in some attacks.”

Ethan rolled his eyes again, “Big shock. If you can convince even one of them to touch his own mana it’ll be a culture-wide event. Are you trying to tell me I should be expecting to cook for your ass again?”

Zahn shrugged as he turned back towards the tribesmen, “I don’t intend to make you fail your quest to train me up, and we have work to do. I don’t mind cooking.”

“Not a chance,” the blond’s call chased him over the sands. “I’ve spent years on my recipes, you’re not fucking them up now.”

* * * * *

That night found both Players sharing camaraderie as they went over their general knowledge of the spell during dinner. Ethan once again served some mesh of stewed ingredients while Zahn poured over his Tome of Magic and smoothed out more of the bumps on his stone slab. After putting the dishes up, they were finally ready to begin working again.

“I have a condition,” the Warlock turned his Grimoire over in his hands while he spoke. “If you get to see mine, I’ll see yours. All of it, ‘cause mine’s got so much in it you’d probably break reality if I just let you see the whole thing. You get a page from mine, and I get to read yours.”

“Probably gonna need more,” came Zahn’s bored reply as he ran his hand over the lumpy surface he’d be carving into. “No way to know what else I’d need until it comes, so you might as well stick around to expand my permissions as I need them.” Casting his Earth Shape spell over the slab repeatedly altered the canvas each time, but by weakening degrees after each cast. “This is about as good as it’ll get, did you find a rock in the last few days lying around?”

Ethan stared into his book without speaking as he fetched a pebble from his pocket. Tossing it over, Zahn caught the rock and fused it to the rest of the tablet with a smirk.

“Done. So, you want that deal?” The lowbie stood as he summoned his book closer, flipping its pages as if a wind blew. “Let’s go, I have carving to do.”

Finally the ‘lock looked up, nodding. “Yes. Hold out your Grimoire, there’s some ceremony to this.” Zahn copied the other Player, holding his book out with one hand and grasping Ethan’s with the other. “Repeat after me. I hereby grant permission for this user to delve into my Grimoire. He may see this page alone. Now you say, ‘and the rest’ or I’ll only be able to see what you have open.”

“Seems cheap,” muttered the Custom. “And the rest.” Happy?” Releasing their own books, each Player scooped up the opposite before bending to read them.

Zahn found the spellform he’d been copying days before, and found its shape roiling before he even touched it. Each individual segment of the curling looping design was made of the angular Chaos runes, and each rune spun on its own axis that in turn spun the connecting bits. Without each joint breaking or becoming hinges on every possible angle he couldn’t make sense of how the spellform could possibly stay intact, but it apparently worked. He poked at an approximation of a corner to spin the shape, trying to find an angle he could layer runes over each other with. Spinning and twisting the shape over and again left him frustrated, and he looked up to find Ethan glaring into his own book.

“What? You can’t even read Magi.”

“Your spells are wrong.” The Warlock didn’t look up as he glared daggers into the pages, as if being angry would be enough to fix the current crisis. “You have a tier zero spell, which isn’t supposed to exist. And you have a scale for it that rises up to third tier. Even the labels are wrong, there is no such thing as ‘Searing Spit’ to begin with. Everything here is wrong.”

“Ah,” Zahn found his temper rising, trying to find a middle ground with someone shitting on his spells felt like facing down a personal attack. “Ahem. Of course they fucking work, I cast them myself. Just drop points of Investiture into a spell if you wanna rank it up wise-ass.”

Ethan looked up at last, charging his Mana Vision. “Cast. I know what this spell is supposed to look like, so show me.”

Zahn huffed a breath before sending mana to his throat. Holding the intake for a count of five, he exhaled the coal-sized missile of fire into the Hearth. “There. Fire spit.”

The Warlock scowled, holding his palm to Zahn’s spell page. “Fire Spit!” From out his other hand, a pebble of light formed and hovered in midair inches away from his skin before rocketing itself forwards into the flames. Its speed was much faster, but strength was less than a fraction. “No you asshole, that’s fire spit. And you’re not even casting, you can’t! I have your book! You literally cannot cast a spell from it right now, that’s raw Psychic-pepper bullshit. Gods I hate you.”

Zahn frowned at the difference, thinking back to when he learned the spell. “The system itself told me it’s the same thing, why would it lie to me about which spell I’m casting?”

Ethan waved his hand at the other’s face, “Hello~! That’s exactly what I’ve been saying! You aren’t casting, you don’t go through any of the same motions. It’s like you’ve done whatever the Monsters did, and you’re copying a Hellhound’s fire breath attack.”

Zahn blinked, thinking back to his first death. “Funny enough I have seen a whole bunch of those attacks coming right at me. And they killed me in the same area where I saw the Fire Peppers growing, so it makes sense that they’d have the same result if they just ate the plants.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” the Warlock sounded more tired than angry. “I swear if there’s some bullshit about you picking up Monster attacks I’m going to punch your teeth in.”

Zahn looked around his HUD for another sudden ‘Players can do this’ message and found nothing coming. “Nope, looks clear. Let me try something.” Closing his eyes and thinking back to that first death, he remembered the late afternoon sun shining over the treetops. He felt the cool air of the higher ground, the bared trees around him giving a view of the red-tinged forest surrounding him. The hill sloped higher away, strewn with bushes and bright red fruits hanging low over the craggy ground. Smelling the hint of sulfur and wisp of smoke, Zahn opened his eyes and found everything tinted behind a sheet of red. Ethan and the Hearth were lit with a bright orange and yellow glow to show their heat signatures and the rest of the commons sat cooler towards blue in the corners.

“Whoops. Not it.” Closing his eyes again he tried to focus the fire mana down from his face and sent it out his mouth with as gentle of a breath as he could sigh. Hearing the crackle of fire and rapid impacts he opened his eyes to see a steady stream of the tiny Fire Spit casts leaving his mouth as if he were vomiting beads. It felt like shooting peas without a straw and had about the same effect against the magical coals heating their rooms. “Go’ et!”

Ethan groaned at the display, “Oh I fucking hate you so much. Your rank zero fire spell is the rank one spell we get. Your stupid default is a higher rank, just like the Monster you copied by eating its food. So as long as you base your spells of this one, they’ll all be higher ranked. Oh man, fuck you so much.”

“What do you mean? I can make stronger versions of this, so..?” Zahn closed his mouth and hefted the larger book in his lap to manipulate the Chaos spellform as he listened.

“Right, you never went to magic high school.” Ethan leaned on the back of the closest couch, waving Zahn’s Grimoire around as he spoke. “If you don’t want to buy new spells from a teacher, you need to make them out in the world. Sometimes it’s from Beast or Monster inspiration, sometimes you can copy another class or school’s thing and make new spells that way. But the basics, is changing how you cast spells you already have in order to make new ones. See, if you think of Fire Wave as a spell that rises from the ground like water before rolling over like an actual wave, whoever invented that spell based it off of something water. If it’s cast like a bunch of smaller missiles working in unison, you’re looking at some fru-fru book-learned nerd that probably never won a fight in his life.”

“You’ve met Master Orinoth then?”

Ethan looked over, “Who? No, I’m talking about Elves in general. They’re big on theory, not so much for action. Anyways, most mages will turn their basic Fire Spit - the one cast out of their hand, mind you - and try to make it bigger, or swell, something like that. Anyways, they make it into a bomb and get their paws on Fireball, which everyone everywhere wants in their party. I’ve seen entire ads for party qualifications that just list how many times in a row they can cast Fireball. And I mean, like,” he gestured again towards the wall, “full. A bunch of the things.”

“Aha,” Zahn lauded himself as he found the right configuration. Rotating and twisting the endless mess of Chaos runes upon itself finally gave him the hard-edged curving eight he’d been told about. “Go on,” looking up at Ethan he found a deadpan stare to meet him.

“Because you’re totally paying attention. Anyways, if you use the pepper’s fire attack as your base, it’ll fuck up your spell rankings when set against the other fire spells you were taught. You’re better off just learning spells externally instead of modifying this one, and save yourself the trouble.”

Zahn looked back at the spellform’s page as he compared it to the mostly cleared slab, “Well maybe not, remember I told you I spat it into my hand. There’s some strange red patterns I can clearly see on my palm, maybe it’s just a matter of fueling them with mana in the right way. That can be my experiment after we crack this thing, no pun intended.” He pulled the wide slab closer to him before setting the Warlock’s Grimoire on it and pushing against the surface with Shape.

Ethan looked nonplussed as he watched. “I don’t think you’re listening man. Your basic spell isn’t basic. You’ve landed some kind of freak magic instead, and it’s not going to help you later on.”

“Look.” Zahn leaned back from his work to give Ethan his best raised eyebrow, “You already said I need to modify my spells to improve them or learn new ones, yeah? So, as I do that I’ll just mod them into whatever tier they’re supposed to be, easy. It goes Fire, Flame, Searing right?”

The ‘lock scowled down at the thin book in his hands, “Yes. But there is no Spit version of third rank, by then it’s Bolt or Blast or something. The spell and its rank change each time, so it makes no sense to keep using Spit for them all.” He flipped it open to a random page and found purple text. “Of course none of your Psychic shit is in easy-to-read spells. Fuck that.”

Zahn shook his head with a grin as he turned back to his carving. The outline was simple enough to copy yet the segments making up the chain were all rotating on their own axis and defying straightforward work. Because why would it be easy.