Archmund swore. He rushed down the hill towards the expanding ring of fire. This was absolutely the worst time he could’ve lost control of himself. He hadn’t studied the ecosystem of Granavale County or its fire management systems nearly well enough to know if this was normal or the start of a horrific tragedy, but he had no intention of starting a brushfire just before the Harvest Festival. Regardless of the actual danger, it was a terrible omen.

  He reached into the pouch at his waist.

  He had his tetrahedral Ruby, but it wouldn’t be of much use. The techniques he’d mastered were Infrared Lance and Microwave. Both could start fires. Neither could quench them.

  He had his Quartz of Barrier. He could shield himself from bursts of fire, but he knew he was very far from being able to create a circular barrier that could keep the fires contained. He had to try.

  This land was his land. He was Archmund, heir to Granavale, and these lands were his to govern and guard. If he let them burn now, when he had put so much into raising them up, he would be a failure and also it would just cost a lot to rebuild all of this and to buy grain from other parts of the Empire.

  The fire was hotter than he’d expected. It was the contrast against the cold morning air and the brisk winds. He could bear it, as he had in the Dungeon, but the heat clawed at his skin.

  He held the Quartz of Barrier in front of him and swung it through the air in an arc.

  Nothing happened.

  Methods of putting out a fire either deprived it of fuel or deprived it of air. Normal fires, when not sustained by magic, needed both. In time, if he mastered the Quartz of Barrier, he would be able to do both.

  He considered using his Infrared Lance to burn barriers into the plains — a controlled burn, designed to stop an uncontrolled fire from spreading wildly. He dismissed it almost immediately, as he knew there was a real risk he would make things worse.

  And that was how he ended up pinching his nose, waving the smoke out of his eyes, and wildly stomping on bits of fire as it spread.

  It looked extremely silly. It was also incredibly ineffective.

  If he could run back to the manor or the town, he could get some help, maybe a bucket brigade or maybe one of the Water Gems that they allocated to the gardeners. But that meant letting the fire spread.

  Even as he stomped, he channeled his magic into the Quartz, trusting that it would somehow help. And it did — but only for his comfort. His boots stopped smoldering, and his legs didn’t feel as hot. But it didn’t help directly with putting out the flame, it just made him less painful in doing so.

  He stopped, dropped, and rolled, using his body like a steamroller across the edge of the ring of fire. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t work very well.

  Just when he was about to despair, the air fell still.

  He gasped for breath, and drew little.

  The air was thin. Sound was distant.

  The crackling fire quieted.

  He sucked in a breath, then another, but the air was gone.

  It wasn’t from the fire. There was a vacuum.

  Then, with the tumult of the four winds, the air rushed back in. It rushed over him, the atmospheric torrent roaring like a waterfall as it filled the vacuum, and he was grateful that he was already lying down for it would have knocked him to his feet.

  When the winds quieted, he pushed himself up.

  There was a figure not twenty paces from him, at the foot of the hills.

  Mary smiled sheepishly at him. “Sorry?”

  Though she drew deep breaths, she seemed fully energized. But that wasn’t what drew Archmund’s eye.

  She held a glistening hand fan, crystallized of the purest Gemstone.

  “I guess there’s no hiding it now, huh?”

  That was more than enough excitement for one day, so they started walking back to Granavale Manor.

  Since she walked ahead of him, he discreetly checked his skills.

  So that was why his clothes hadn’t burned.

  “So… how’d you get that?” he said, casually, gesturing to his fan.

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  “You gave it to me.”

  “I did?”

  He vaguely remembered dragging a bunch of the spoils of war into Granavale Manor the day he’d come out of the Dungeon, hoping to keep them in storage, before collapsing into his bed and falling asleep. He supposed it made sense that he’d given some to Mary to hold.

  “I guess I did,” he said.

  “You did,” she said. There was something unidentifiable in her voice.

  “Did everyone see me do it?”

  “Your father. The cook. The head maid. Not too many people,” she said, not looking back at him.

  Wonderful. This could provide plausible deniability. If anyone asked why she suddenly became smarter or stronger or stealthier after coming into his personal employ, he could simply point at the Gemstone Handfan he’d given her in public view of all the servants. It wasn’t unheard of for commoners to wield Gemgear — they made up the bulk of Mercy Stirpstredecim di Omnio’s Sacred Guard, after all — and they weren’t bound to their noble lords for life. Commoners wearing Gemgear would improve their strength far more than others, until they could walk the world as heroes.

  And this way if Mary wanted to leave, she could. She’d only imagined a life as a lowborn woman, but now, even if she didn’t realize it, she could be a hero.

  “So… can you do that again?”

  The next day, they stood at the base of the hill with the apple tree, about twenty paces apart. It was technically Mary’s day off, so she was wearing a simple green shirt and brown canvas jeans. It was a lot more practical than her maid uniform.

  She held up her Gemstone Handfan. It caught the morning light, refracting the sun through a thousand emerald facets. She gave it a cursory wave.

  Nothing happened.

  Archmund frowned. “Are you putting your magic into it?”

  “What does that feel like?”

  “You know when you charge a Ruby, you feel something happening inside of your soul and your spirit, and it made the light happen?”

  “That’s with Gems. If you give Gems magic they release their Enchantment,” Mary said. “Everyone knows that. But what on earth is this fan supposed to do for me?”

  Nevertheless, she tried. Archmund had no idea if anything was happening — he could only sense Mary’s magic when it mingled with his own donated reservoirs, pooled in his Rubies — but the next time Mary gave a swing of her fan, a gust blew past him.

  “Huh,” Mary said, looking at Gemstone Fan. “I guess it works.”

  “Now can you do that thing with the vacuum?”

  “With the what?”

  This world lacked the wide cultural context of vacuums. There were doubtless scientists in their hallowed halls creating vacuum chambers for testing purposes, but vacuum cleaners were decades of innovation away, and so domestic servants like Mary had little reason to know or care.

  “You made the air go away,” Archmund said. “Can you do that again?”

  Mary gave the fan a few more waves, and a few more gusts of wind blew past Archmund, but nothing like the crippling majesty of the vacuum.

  She shrugged apologetically.

  “I’ll say one thing, this sure is easier than using your Rubies!” she said.

  There was a lot to unpack there. Maybe Mary was better suited for Gemgear than Gems outright, but he’d never given her a Gem he hadn’t already claimed for himself.

  In a moment of fear and pressure, Mary had demonstrated an immense control over the winds via her Gemstone Handfan. Without an acute existential stressor, she was unable to reproduce such power. He’d heard of how adrenaline could push the human body past its natural safeguards and allow it to access immense strength — stories of how mothers would be able to life a two-ton car in order to free their trapped children — and it seemed like it might apply to magic too.

  “Try it again, I want to try something,” he said.

  This time, when Mary waved his fan, he raised his Quartz of Barrier and fed it his magic.

  He felt nothing.

  “Are you doing it?”

  “Look around you,” she said, rolling her eyes with a smirk as she waved her fan again.

  He glanced to the side, where the grasses were roiling and the first fallen autumn leaves flew past him wildly.

  And yet he felt nothing.

  “Huh,” he said, looking at his Quartz of Barrier. “I guess it just works?”

  Mary shrugged.

  When he got home, he checked his Gemstone Tablet to look for changes in his stats

  His Charisma had increased. The only thing he could think of related to that was his efforts invested in teaching Mary to read and to use her own level of magic, but other than that his stats hadn’t changed. He’d maintained his pushup routine, but it seemed like he was starting to hit diminishing returns on that for of exercise.

  His Constitution had increased. Perhaps that was a reflection of his cardio level, or perhaps it was a passive ability granted by Bodily Barrier.

  He tapped the “Items” tab to expand it to greater detail.

  There was only one major change in the status of his items: Despite depleting the Reservoir of his Quartz of Barrier, his Attunement had jumped from 3% to 15% from his practice session with Mary. There was something to this project-based learning thing after all!

  And yet.

  He was just guessing which projects would be most effective.

  It was blindingly obvious that he didn’t know enough about the fundamentals of magic. He was groping around like an idiot via trial and error, when his peers, like the Princess Angelina Grace Marca Prima Omnio, had the best private tutors money could buy since the age of four.

  He needed a magic teacher.