There we stood, in an unused lot next to buildings that a year before would have looked strange and alien. I was a mage of level 24, about to attempt to use a spell at the highest level. That was when I first actually began to understand that I didn’t know how magic worked. I had no trouble performing magic, of course. My familiarity with my spells had increased with practice, but I’d run into so many odd things with my magic that I couldn’t process.

At the moment, however, my mind was more focused on achieving some sort of success. I stood with my largest mana crystals- not even quite four mana each- and pretended I knew what I was doing. Strangely enough, I felt actual confidence in us from Midnight, even though he could feel my doubts.

In the field in front of me was nothing. The former location of a portal, closed by another super doing their job. I didn’t think about that. Instead, I did my very best to pretend it was still there and I simply had to widen it once more. I gathered mana, more than I had ever used. I crushed the mana crystals in my hands, which were immediately happy to return to their gaseous form. The intent was to use them to replenish my draining mana, or to directly feed the spell, or something. I did my best to avoid thinking about the fact that I was pushing beyond my determined limit of half my mana spent in a single process. Midnight also gathered his mana, not trying to cast Gate or anything like it but working with that mysterious Alter Portal… spell? Ability? Whatever it was that I had gotten.

I grit my teeth, the only thing keeping me conscious as mana flowed out from me being the painful way my broken tusk pressed against my face. It was pretty stupid to attempt a 20th level spell when I only had an 11th, and that was if I knew completely how the spell worked and where I was going. Instead, I had to reach for a destination I didn’t really know about, wherever the portal that no longer existed had once gone.

In front of me, the world distorted, a circle expanding into an oval shape, no longer showing brick but wilderness, rocks and forest. Something warm trickled down my face, running over my lips. “Go!” I grunted, pressing through the portal myself. I had no idea how long I could hold it- it was supposed to last at least a minute, but two seconds had almost completely knocked me flat. I felt Midnight step through, then someone pushed me forward to make more room. I turned to look at the portal and was glad that everyone else was speedy, Sophia having stepped right after me while Tylissa, Izzy, and Shockwave came through a moment later.

Then the portal snapped closed, the shock of the magic reverberating between Midnight and I. I fell to my hands and knees, retching, while he similarly collapsed in a pile.

“Turlough!” Izzy’s face was slightly higher than my field of vision, and I tilted my head and eyes slightly up. “Are you… alright?”

We both knew the answer to that question. It should be plainly obvious to anyone, as I touched my hand to my face. It came away with four distinct patches of blood. That should be… my two tusks cutting into my face, and trails from my nostrils. I turned my head, snorting blood out of my nostrils. Before I could answer, however, Midnight did. “I leveled up,” my Celmothian companion commented. “Almost twice.”

“Freaking cheater,” I laughed. “Getting experience for normal things.”

“I don’t think wrestling open lingering traces of portals is normal,” Midnight pointed out.

I shakily tried to stand to my feet. Izzy’s offered hand was more of a token gesture- Sophia was of more practical assistance, yanking me onto my feet. “Can you walk on your own?”

“Ever since I remember,” I grinned. I didn’t wave off her grip on my upper arm, though. I just stood there for a moment, taking deep breaths. I felt the mana inside myself. Out of a maximum of twenty-nine, I should have spent twenty, leaving myself at nine remaining. Or rather, I should have probably passed out at fourteen or fifteen. Instead, I was fully empty… but I’d remained conscious. “I’m absolutely out of mana,” I stated. “Still kinda dizzy.” I could feel my mana recovering- not just the normal background amount, or the slightly enhanced rate after all this portal stuff. I just continued to breathe as a mana crystal flowed into me, restoring my to nearly four points of mana, while the basic rate of recovery was several times the norm of one per minute- though I couldn’t be precise until more time passed. “I think I’m alright now,” I stated.

“Not to rush anyone,” Shockwave said. “But we should probably get started here.” In their blue outfit, Shockwave clearly stood out among the natural terrain. “While I have this Physical Freedom thing still going, I should zip about a bit.” Then they were gone- with only the sound of dozens of people running and not the usual commotion.

“Right,” Izzy said. “Tracks.” She began to look around with a frown, and for a moment I was worried we’d gone somewhere different. Just any random place, and I’d failed to trace the portal to where we needed to go. “There. Sneaker prints. Pretty clear, too.”

Tylissa was even more relieved than I was. Sure, Jerome was my beloved apprentice- but he was her son. And her only family, as far as I was aware. “Let’s go then. Um… can you do something with magic…?” she looked towards me.

Midnight answered that for her. “We’re both quite tapped out on mana for the moment. In… twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, one of us can try Locate Object. It would be best if we were closer before attempting that.”

“And we don’t have any mirrors for Scrying,” I explained as we walked.

At some point, Sophia had shifted to be around eight feet tall, presumably to be ready for battle. Calling her Great Girl while using her powers would have been appropriate, but with just a mask it felt weird. Then again, everything about supers was weird.

We walked along in silence, except for occasional sounds of Shockwave passing in front of us in their expanding spiral pattern. Izzy’s eyes kept looking everywhere, at the ground in front of us and the surrounding trees we were heading into and possibly things I didn’t see. She was still confidently leading us, so that was good at least.

“... How far do you think he went?” Tylissa asked.

“He had all night,” Izzy said. “Even if we assume he was asleep in that cave most of the night, he’s had a few hours. He shouldn’t be too far. Don’t worry, we can catch up even while tracking.”

“I wish I knew how to track,” Shockwave said, suddenly standing next to us once more. “It would be so much faster. I could have caught up already.” Shockwave was just casually strolling with us now. “Not that it’s that useful in an urban environment. Nothing to leave behind footprints.”

“You’d be surprised,” Izzy said. “Stepping in a puddle, knocking over a bag of trash, brushing against sludge. Distinct prints are also very helpful, even if you get a partial one.”

“Too bad you can’t get a portal power,” I said. “... I think.”

“We’d have to connect to your world for that,” Shockwave pointed out. “And we haven’t heard of anyone with normal powers getting a portal power.”

“Just me, I guess…” I frowned, my cheeks hurting slightly from the tusk abrasions.

“You don’t have a normal power, dude. Also, it’s the same thing as what you already had!”

“It is not,” I shook my head. “It’s all weird!”

“You know,” Izzy said. “I don’t really get the whole portal power thing. I mean, I trained with Tylissa obviously. We were able to learn new things and improve them without points. And I understand getting better at some things with practice, but this is the magic crap. Like, I got actual advancements and everything.”

“Wait,” I said. “You learned new things and leveled them up too? I guess that makes sense. Still just scout stuff, I assume?”

“Obviously,” Izzy said. “It was pretty weird to suddenly get faster from running around. Like, I know that’s supposed to give me experience and levels so I can spend points on things, but I get that too. I’m like… double dipping.”

Fast Movement was one of the basic abilities of a scout. Something tickled my brain as I thought about that. “Wait, didn’t you already have fast movement before all this?”

“Obviously,” Izzy rolled her eyes. “It was like, the main thing I used while working as a messenger.”

“... Then how did you improve it?”

“Practice,” Izzy said. “Like I said.”

“But… that’s… not how it works…”

“It is though,” Izzy grumbled.

“Wait, do you mean you migrated everything to… after the remaining points line?”

Izzy tilted her head, “What do you mean? Why would anything be after that?”

“Because… because you can’t improve anything through practice normally. And the things that end up there can.”

She stopped, turning around and looking up at me, her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you talking about dude? You’re not making any sense.”

“But that’s how… it works…” My head hurt. A lot of it was probably from that whole thing where I overused my mana and should have probably gone comatose, but that wasn’t all of it. “Here, let me lay it out for you.” It wasn’t possible to show my status screen to anyone- Familiar with special bonding abilities excepted- but I could at least lay out what I saw.

Turlough (No surname)

Level: 25

Experience: 1629/1755

Storage +3

Firebolt +3

Shocking Grasp +3

Grease +2

Force Armor +6

Mage's Reach +2

Translation +1

Haste +4

Disguise

Familiar Bond +3

Enlarge +2

Energy Ward +3

Sonic Lance +2

Scrying

Shield +1

Stoneskin +1

Variable Freedom +2

Gate

Remaining Points: 3

Mana Crystal Deposition +2

Water Breathing

Basic Light Magic +2

Locate Object

Alter Portal +1

“So like, Alter Portal got better with practice already, but I’ve done all kinds of stuff with Scrying and it’s exactly the same,” I explained. “So… it doesn’t work like that.”

“Maybe scouts are different,” Izzy shrugged. “Or mages.”

“Or maybe you’re different,” I proposed. “Maybe you have some special talent for this.”

“... Nah,” Izzy said. “I’m not bad at what I do, but I’m not particularly special. If anything, it’s probably you.”

“You think maybe… it has to do with Curse of the Barbarian?”

“No,” Izzy stated clearly. “I don’t. That just messes with experience. And the weird part of this is not experience. I think it might just be you. Maybe your brain works different.”

“If it’s any help,” Midnight interjected. “It’s certainly different from a Celmothian.”

“I’m not sure if that does help,” I admitted. “Since we don’t have any other Celmothian and non-Celmothian bonds to compare to.” It did give me something to think about. Was it really something with me? Could I have improved my proficiency with spells I already knew?

I wasn’t sure about any of it. The only thing I knew was that I didn’t understand how magic worked, even though I had thought I did. Which was pretty stupid, considering I’d been studying magic for less than two decades. I wasn’t even close to Master Uvithar’s understanding, let alone some archmage.

My thoughts were stopped with Izzy’s movement, holding up a hand. She bent down low to the ground, her spread out fingers hovering over something. “Wolves.” Then she took a few steps, comparing to a large print even I could make out- once I had an idea where it was. “Perhaps a worg?”

“What’s that?” Tylissa asked nervously.

“A big wolf,” I said. “Mostly.”

“And it could just be that,” Izzy said, not quite sounding sure of herself. “We should keep moving. It’s just after noon, and neither are really terribly active during the day, but I’d like to get out of here as quickly as possible.”