“Remarkable,” Meadow said, setting her teacup down on the table across from me. “My goodness, you’ve certainly had a productive couple of days.”

  “Yeah,” I said, then grimaced. “I still wish I knew who’d set the bounty on me. But I’m glad it’s finally over.”

  “My guess, though I don’t know, is one of a few people,” Meadow said. “If the same group who attacked you in the idyll-flume had known about Dusk for some time, it’s possible they did it to try and stop you from entering. I doubt that. More likely, Vivian, the previous apprentice of Orykson. She’s petty enough that she might try to kill you out of spite. I also think Orykson himself is possible.”

  I grimaced, uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was right. He’d clearly been behind pushing Mallory and I to fight – trying to get me to kill her had been a shade too obvious. I could see him viewing an assassin as good training.

  “Finally, it could be any number of his rivals. She’s been chasing you for a while. While I doubt the Storm King is petty enough to try and kill you just for turning down his offer of becoming his immortal servant, it’s… possible. Especially if he and Ikki are arguing again, and the Storm King wishes to hurt him. Ikki has taken a liking to you.”

  “I thought the Storm King and Orykson were allies?” I asked.

  “Oh, they’re both allies and rivals. Even enemies at times. They’ve both lived long lives. At times they’ve fought, and at other times they’ve worked together.”

  “That sounds… Difficult. But I can see it. Being an immortal must lead you to having some incredibly deep bonds that last centuries or millennia. Especially given how you’re likely to have power over a ton of people – Orykson might have entirely different and deep relationships with a hundred different guild leaders over a decade, let alone centuries.”

  “I don’t believe anyone who has forgotten what it means to be a person, to have friends, to see the beauty of nature, the good and bad in the world, and the infinitely complex world that exists within the mind of every single person, should be running the world. It is one of many reasons I never sought immortality. I can’t judge anyone who is immortal, but it is all too easy to begin to view people as passing tools. It becomes easy to look at a poor, powerless person, and view their life as being worth less than your own. You might form bonds, but only with those who are going to live as long as you. It’s understandable, but it was a tragedy to me. One I have no interest in pursuing.”

  It was a kind and subtle insult to Orykson, but it made me laugh a little. I reached out to put my hand on hers – I’d felt something very similar to that when I’d talked to Orykson, a rejection of his cool, cold calculation of life, as if people were just sacks of grain to be passed about.

  “Well, we should take a look at these new spells of yours,” she said after some time had passed. “Let’s see what it is.”

  I nodded, reaching into Dusk and passing her the sheets of paper where I’d copied down the various spells to the best of my ability. I started with Foxarmor, tapping it.

  “This clearly started off as two spells a long time ago, but has evolved into one large spell,” I said. “Would I be better off trying to split it up again, or leave it as one?”

  “I would say it’s best to leave it as one,” she said. “It evolved that way for a reason. Having it as one spell also reduces the strain on your mana manipulation. That’s a skill that becomes increasingly important as you grow, and have to juggle multiple spells and supporting meta spells.”

  I nodded and quickly sketched the spell, flowing power through it to form the circuit in my body, then stood from my chair and almost lost my balance.

  Moving with the spell was easy. So easy, in fact, that it had caused me to lose my balance.

  I didn’t feel any faster. The world wasn’t any slower, not the way that it was when I blasted Tortoise Time. The projected field that tried to push things back to where they’d been in time and stretch out space was there, but it wasn’t really slowing things down, and the internal effects weren’t really speeding me up.

  But helping move my body in space where it wanted to be was deeply strange. Flexing my hand into a fist didn’t require me to flex my hand, it just… happened. Taking a step was easier and more fluid than I’d ever wanted it to be. It was bordering on thoughtless motion, and while it didn’t allow me to take action without thinking, it was close, cutting out some of the time between my mind’s direction and my muscle’s actions. If I ever reached the effortless grace in motion that someone like Ikki had, I could only imagine that this spell would be even more potent.

  I let the spell fade and sat back down in my chair.

  “That was deeply strange,” I said. “I may call Ikki soon, to get used to sparring with it. Once I get a handle on it, it’ll be great, but until then, it’s almost disorienting to be able to move so smoothly.”

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  I passed over Foxswap then, and Meadow looked at it, pursing her lips.

  “A good spell, but given how full your space and time gates are already, I’d let it wait until you’ve passed into mid-third gate.”

  “I think I’m nearing the mist wall with my life gate, and I’ll look at digging that out right away,” I said. “Space and Time need a bit more time to get up to snuff, and Death is lagging.”

  “Now that you’re catching up with your other gates, Orykson should be preparing some different options for your death gate,” Meadow told me.

  “Orykson? Prepare options?” I asked jokingly. “Between this and the spell in my brain, you must really be rubbing off on him.”

  “He’s slow to adapt, but he does,” Meadow said. “He long ago mastered the art of being the second worst threat in the world. Though frankly, right now, I’d put him squarely in third. He’s just the only one I can consistently do anything against.”

  “Who are the others?” I asked curiously.

  “Vivian, the Death Queen. She’s slowly losing hold of her friends and people, and when something eventually cracks her strength, it will all come apart,” Meadow said. “Then there’s Tom. He’s far worse of a person than Orykson, and worse of a leader too – at least Orykson largely gave people the right to self rulership and stole Kijani and Elohian social policy after seeing all three could work. I’ve some interesting prospects about unrooting his power, though. The Farmer, in particular, has brought Vinopae into prosperity despite working under Tom, and Tom’s now increasingly reliant on imported food, which puts pressure on him to improve.”

  “What about the Storm King?” I asked curiously. “Or the Space King?”

  Meadow froze for a second, her face flickering between dozens of emotions in seconds.

  “It’s… complicated. Anyone who manages to claim the Title of a Mana King – Space King, Knowledge King, Storm King, and so on – follow unique limits and rules in order to maintain their existence. Even if I could – which I cannot – I would never allow myself to take on the title of Life King except in the most dire of circumstances. More than that, I can’t say.”

  “I see,” I said. I remembered Ikki mentioning how there were many things he simply couldn’t say, rather than wouldn’t, so instead of pressing it, I withdrew the spell from the World-Tortoise.

  “What do you make of this? Looking at it, I can tell that it lets me bind living matter like plants or fungi into my body, letting them grow, but I’m not clear on how many, or what it does.”

  “Up to three,” Meadow said, pointing to bits of the spell. “See these three channels that spiral out through the entire design? If you were to take one plant, all of them would focus on that single plant. But I don’t think it’s just living matter. This is a world spirit spell, after all. Note the telluric flows? I expect a stone could work quite well.”

  “Oh, really?” I said, then leaned forwards and my eyes sparked with interest. “Yeah, I can see it. So I can bind stones, plants, or fungi. Up to three. It strengthens their powers, allows them to grow… it almost reminds me of a spellbond?”

  “I wouldn’t expect the effects to be quite so dramatic,” Meadow said, shaking her head, “After all, there’s only a portion of your mana flowing through it. I would consider it to be more like turning those things into spells for you, with active use, and giving you an ingrained effect.”

  “Ahh, yeah, I can see that. There’s also kind of give and take. If I took something like the Dewdrop Feverfew, which taps out at third gate, a lot less power could be diverted into its ‘ingrained effect’. On the other hand, it allows something that would normally plateau to grow beyond its limits.”

  “Indeed,” Meadow said. “Then there’s the fact it interlinks the arrays to an extent… It presents a few interesting options for you.

  I glanced up, tilting my head.

  “What sort of options?”

  “Alchemical options,” she said. “If you took in healer’s heart, emperor’s tree, and soultoad’s seat, for example, you could likely throw together fairly powerful healing potions essentially on the fly.”

  “Gibbous windbush, my lightening-stone, and diaphonous dandelions could let me form flight spells,” I said. “I could fly with hudau mana!”

  “Firecreep, ash willow, and something like a sunstone, summersteel, sun lotus, or popping flamesmut would allow you to create firebombs,” Meadow agreed.

  I let out a low whistle, and she nodded.

  “That’s only one option, though,” she pointed out. “After all, you already have good aerial mobility, can brew firebombs and cast Mantle Dragonfyre, and can use Starfish Regeneration. Another would be to take in the strongest possible options. For you, that likely means healer’s heart and ninelight morels, then adding a third if you find it.”

  I considered her words and nodded, tapping my chin.

  “If I want to do power for power’s sake, focusing on just the morels would likely make the most sense. There’s also the option of taking things that synergize with my powers, though. I can’t cast Spirit Trap, but I have spirit-gourds. Adding them like this might let me skip some of the problems. I could also take in my emperor’s tree, to cover for my terrible temporal mana regeneration, and a third to cover another hole. Maybe the spirit-shield lichen? Not sure.”

  “Indeed, though if we’re talking about synergy, I’d suggest something else. Taking in something like your spread-crystal, which is a spatially expanding crystal that serves as your temporal basin, would cover both space and time. The morels could be used for life and death. Then you’d only need something for Hudau. Predicting what the ingrained effects would do is hard to say, but that shows a direct and strong synergy with your power set. To use everything in battle, you still would need to use your magic to pull it all together, so a fungal mana source with strains of something deeper, alongside a reserve of spatially-tainted temporal mana, could be quite useful. Not flashy, but incredibly useful.”

  “It would be very useful, that’s certain. Another thing to consider is offense,” I said. “Blademoss got an upgrade, but it’s still eventually going to need another one. If I took some in, and sought out two more offensive plants, fungi, or stones, it could let me use attack spells I normally couldn’t. Or I could a more balanced set of muddy armoroot for physical strength, blademoss for offense, and find some magical mineral for defense?”

  “That is an option, certainly,” Meadow agreed. “I think that would be somewhat of a waste.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but it’s worth considering,” I said. “I’m ordering another cup of tea while I think this out.”

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