Faye started running.

“Militia, move back to the Guild! On the double!” she shouted.

The people around her stared at her like she was raving, which she supposed it might look like to them. She was telling them to abandon the defensive front they had established.

Then, she realised the problem.

[Mana Sense] was active. She had started reflexively using it more often, only turning it off when something too mana-bright affected her vision. Mana did not strictly affect her vision, except that was the way the skill interpreted the input.

More importantly, other people were not seeing the same thing as she was.

Flicking off [Mana Sense], Faye looked up again and saw nothing…

No, wait! There was something floating through the air, but it was thin strands of floating twine.

She pointed up, shouting again, “The floating twine is a dangerous spell!”

That got some attention. The people were not idiots they just had no idea what it was she was reacting to. Shifting her mental stance, she realised that the people would not move fast enough. There was only one thing for it.

Her internal source of mana was roaring merrily, flaring with each beat of her heart as the mana reacted to her heightened emotions — or that was what Faye told herself when she sensed it doing that.

Which spell? Fire Dart can be split, like I did before… but it would not be enough by a mile. Scorching lance is just as useless, it’s a beam, I don’t want to try splitting it right now. Blades of flame? I would chew through so much mana…

As she stared, she shifted the grip of her sword from hand to hand.

“Come on,” she muttered to herself.

Fortunately, some of the militia nearby had heard what Faye had said and had recognised the danger, they were pushing their comrades away from the falling spellthreads. Some of them had moved toward those trapped under the threads and were shouting for them to move.

It was too slow.

The only good thing about the spellthreads were their floating nature, which seemed unaffected by the breezy winds. It meant their rate of progress was steady.

Part of Faye wished they would move faster, because then it would feel like there was less she could do.

With it moving slowly, each moment she delayed, the less she could argue that she could not have done something to save them all.

She reached out her free hand. Forming mana together into a wide spread of [Fire Dart], she split it as many times as possible.

The darts burst out from her hand in a massive cone that scattered wide across the sky. Each one burnt through the spellthread they touched, but coming into contact with the foreign mana caused the darts to fizzle out.

Faye grimaced. She threw another cone of darts out. Both took out a chunk of the falling spellthread closest to her, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

Time for something else, she thought.

Instead of gathering the mana close to her hand to form it into multiple darts, she pushed outward with it but kept a mental grasp of the mana as much as she could.

When she imbued her swords, the mana would need to enter and surround the metal of the sword without destroying it or changing the nature of the blade at all. It was an efficient method of using mana, or it was after she had refined the process.

Now, she was using a similar technique, but instead of imbuing the mana into an object, she was trying to project it into an aura, or an area of effect spell.

The further she pushed the raw mana, the worse her hold on it got and she realised that the edges of her control were basically evaporating into lost mana. At the limit of her control, she closed her eyes and mentally pushed her intent into the cloud of mana.

The whole thing erupted and crackled, thicker portions of mana combusting faster and more violently than thinner sections. It was as if a cloud of sparklers had lit off in an uneven wave. Turning [Mana Sense] back on, Faye panned her gaze across the area her mana had reached, roughly ten metres from her in a wide arc in front of her.

The spellthreads had burnt up, just as when the darts had hit them.

She grimaced, because though the spread of mana had worked, she had used far more of her reserves than she had hoped to create the effect and it was not as if she had covered the whole area. The people were not all safe.

Ailith had realised the problem by now, though, and Faye could hear that she was ordering her people back from the front. Faye would have been happy, except that her friend was sticking around.

Faye almost smacked herself. Of course Ailith was staying there. The briars had sensed the changes in the defender’s concentration and as soon as the militia had started to fall back, the briars had charged forward to fill the gaps.

The tall, armoured form of the Guardian was staying put to ensure that the briars in that area were thinking twice about moving forward. Her maul struck out in massive swings of power, the system-assisted strikes sending waves of disruptive energy outward to strike down briars that were up to five metres away from Ailith.

Faye had started running again. She pushed aside the fear of the spellthreads touching her, they were floating closer each second — now reaching the tops of the roofs in the square. Only around a third of the people had moved completely out of the danger zone though.

Standing underneath the spellthreads, Faye was able to see exactly where they were coming down. It was not as uniformly spread as it had seemed from the side lines. Here, the threads were clearly aligned in weaving columns across the square, spread out and uneven, but columns nonetheless.

Pushing out mana once again, she concentrated it in the same area as the threads. Moving the mana less distance to reach the threads meant that she could ignite it quicker and clear more of it in a shorter period of time.

Flicking [Mana Sense] on, Faye looked over the area. There were still too many strands of the spellthreads for her to feel comfortable leaving it. But her mana would not last if she kept using it so inefficiently.

To her surprise, there was a section of the thread closer to the gathered militia at the edge of the square closest to the Guild’s hall. Then, as she watched, one or two of the men there leant backward before launching something high into the air.

The balls of… whatever it was touched the spellthreads and made them crumble, as easily as the darts and Faye’s sparks had.

Pausing, Faye looked at the ground. Here and there were pieces of discarded equipment, broken cups, bits of broken bramble, and other detritus. She looked up.

Surely not?

Bending down to pick up a hefty piece of wood, she straightened, considered, and then threw the wood straight into a clump of the spellthreads… which promptly broke apart as the wooden projectile pierced them and sailed through the air in an arc, coming back down and taking out another strand of the threads.

“Throw anything!” she called.

The square quickly became a maelstrom of improvised projectiles arcing up and disrupting the strands of decay magic. Only the larger pieces of debris were able to disrupt two strands of decay before they disintegrated into the same dust that the decay magic fell apart into.

Over the next few minutes, with the strands coming close enough that a taller person might be able to jump and touch it, the defenders were covered in a coat of fine dust. It clung to the skin, sticky almost, which meant it was not just dust. Faye could not bring herself to care, though. She hunted through the sky for more pieces of decay mana.

[Mana Sense] could not show her any. She relaxed a fraction of an inch.

The militia, after realising what they needed to do to protect themselves, had started ranging forward again. The defensive line was ragged and bulged out dramatically where Ailith was still holding back most of the sentient plant life.

Then it was back to the grind of pushing the briars back to the edges of the square and the street entrances.

Faye took a breath and walked toward the nearest breach.

Time to get back to work.

An hour later, the square was quiet in the winter sun. The defenders were quietly talking amongst themselves, the wall of militia had broken up into a staggered line of wary men and women. The others were taking a well-earned break.

Faye floated from brazier to brazier, offering words of encouragement. The militia were all happy to see her, and most of them thanked her for what she had done with the briars, the spellthreads, and whatever else that had caught their attention.

She tried not to be too embarrassed by the words, but it was too much for her. Soon, she was not stopping to speak with the groups. Instead, she walked past with a smile plastered on, her hand constantly bouncing up to return greetings.

Ailith met her in the middle of the square between two of the braziers.

“Hey,” Faye said as her friend approached.

“Good job,” Ailith said by way of greeting. “I saw some of what you did. Particularly the light show. You aiming to become the festival master?”

Faye laughed. It was good for her that her friends were not the same as the militia and other townsfolk. They were adventurers and used to the kind of things that Faye could do. Gavan would have been able to do everything she had done with the mana, and Arran would have cut through the briars much quicker than even she had.

“Thanks,” she said. “I think I’ve got a shot at it.”

Ailith snorted. “Alright, you’re out of rotation. Go inside, get some food, get some rest. The main wave was broken, I doubt they have enough numbers to send back our way.”

A distant boom sounded again. They both turned to look.

“There’s nothing we can do about that fight,” Ailith said with a small shake of her head. “So we are to hold the square.”

“Did any of the Primalists show up?” Faye asked, suddenly struck by a thought. “I did not see a single one.”

“Nah, neither did I. You’re right, that’s odd, isn’t it?” Ailith replied.

“Aye, it is,” Faye muttered.

“Stop that,” Ailith commanded with a stern look and a light tap on Faye’s hand. “No more thinking, you’re off rotation I said.”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Faye said with a grin.

“Actually, you might find I am, I’ve been in the Guild much longer than you have. Seniority rules.”

Faye stuck out her tongue. “Alright, I’ll go inside.”

“Good, and tell Gavan we want one of his teams out here to check over the survivors.”

That final word brought the mood down. Faye had avoided looking at the small row of bodies covered by rough spun cloth. There were at least a dozen.

“We did well,” Ailith said, noting Faye’s look. “Without us, they would all be lying on the ground.”

Faye nodded, taking a deep breath. “Right. Right…”

Then, without another look, she turned and strode to the Guild’s doors.

Maggie had been hovering just inside the Guild’s door, ready to ambush Faye the moment she appeared.

“Finally! Most of the others rotated through ages ago. Come on, want to talk to you whilst you eat.”

Faye followed Maggie into the dining room, gathered the food the cooks had prepared for the defenders — this was a light meal of charred vegetables and beans on lightly toasted breads, it was better than the stew.

“The Administrator’s concerned that you haven’t had enough time to consolidate,” Maggie said. “Honestly, so am I, now that I have had time to think about it.”

Faye nodded. “Okay, so what does it mean, practically?”

Maggie took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully for a moment before answering.

“It is different for every person, but many of us find that some kind of meditation is helpful. Your problem is compounded by your recent system adoption and the rapid, rapid rise of your level. We have never seen someone rise so fast. The Guild has records of others that have had similar rises in advancement, though,” Maggie said, and here she pulled out a small hardback book with a faded red cover. She flipped it open to a specific page and read out a few words. “It says, ‘the test was a success, better than my wildest dreams. We stimulated the subject’s experience gain beyond levels previously seen. Through the event, the subject was encouraged to strike the monsters as quickly as possible, which were then immediately dispatched by our team.’ Okay, blah blah, the author carries on like that for a little while, describing the method… but then, ah, here, ‘now the subject has crested we can determine that there is a disconnect between the subject’s attributes and the physical representation of the system on the world. Without the traditional time involved, which is years longer than our tests took, it seems that the subject is unable to fully utilise the power the system offers. Test is a failure’.”

Faye digested what Maggie was saying, taking another bite of her excellent food.

“So,” she said, after a minute’s thought, “they were experimenting on kids to get their level up much faster than usual?”

Maggie’s face fell and she nodded. “Yes, I know, it’s awful. This account is old, one of the oldest in our library, and it is a copy of an even older text. There is a chance that it was mistranslated somewhere along the line… but the research appears to have been on children, yes.”

Faye held up a finger. “Or on another otherworlder.”

Her friend perked up at that, smiling brightly.

“Though that is not much better…” Faye finished.

“No, it really isn’t… but since this account research into the effects of rapid advancement on the level that we’re seeing with you is scarce, to say the least.”

Faye nodded, because it made sense to her. This was a world where knowledge was literally power, and the people with the power wanted to keep it for themselves. It made sense but she hated that it made sense.

“Okay, so,” Faye continued, “in that account, it sounds like the… person subjected to the experiment had something bad happen to them.”

Maggie hummed around her mouthful of vegetables. “Mmmhm, yeah. Sorry. Mmn, this is good. Ah, yes, so from this and the few other pieces of research I have seen, alongside what we can consider common wisdom, it’s known that levelling without taking chance to consolidate your power risks the power fading away.”

Faye frowned. “I don’t want to let my power fade. But it doesn’t make sense that the power would… just fade. I have definitely gotten stronger, faster, probably. I can’t tell you by exactly how much, though.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Maggie said with a shrug, “sorry, it’s just a matter of personal interest. Really, what we know for sure is that those who practice and train between levels will typically gain additional skills, better reflexes, and stronger connection with their system in general.”

Faye shrugged. “Sounds like an easy decision. What do I have to do?”

It turned out that the meditation that Faye had started back when she had first learned her first spell was something that many adventurers would use to help the consolidation process. Maggie was not sure of all the details but Faye did not need to know the full story.

If it resulted in better advancement, she would do what it took. There was something intoxicating about advancing through levels and doing so to the best of her ability.

As she meditated, she played with the mana she sensed inside of her body. Right then, it had quietened to a flickering hearth fire. Faye had no idea if her mental visualisation of the mana source was a result of her spells, or if the spells were a result of the mana source being a flame…

But in the end she decided it did not really matter.

A quieter mana source meant that she was able to manipulate it easier. When it was raging in battle, it responded well to being shaped into the structures the system had made for her spells.

Now, calmly breathing in for one…

Two…

Three…

Four…

Five…

And then breathing out for one…

Two…

Three…

Four…

Five…

The mana was less like a fiery lance of energy and more like a fluid and mouldable piece of gel that was eager to take shapes she made.

The system notification sound pinged.

Congratulations! You have developed your skill to the point it can be levelled.

[Spellcasting — Basic] has levelled to 2.

Faye opened her eyes and grinned.