“Tet’s balls, lad!” cursed the Body-enhancer. “Are you sure?”

  “It's true,” said one of the Earth practicians who had hung back during the melee. “I was keeping count.” He jutted his chin at Caen's glaive. “That has to be an artifact of some kind. Ploughed straight through carapaces like nothing I’ve seen today.”

  “Oh,” the Body-enhancer said, nodding. “Rich people.” He looked relieved.

  Caen didn't bother correcting the man. It hadn't even occurred to him to hold back. He’d never needed to. Flickering Soul-sense was just that much of a hard counter to the ants' Body-enhancement.

  Caen moderated himself in the next skirmish and several skirmishes after. He took his time whittling down the ants, and never killed more than three per altercation.

  He kept practicing Mimicry on his teammates. He was able to Mimic the Kinesis practician's affinity once. It took every ounce of self-control he had to not immediately start testing out the few Kinesis spells he knew.

  Whenever he used Soul-sense on the ants, he noticed two active thread clusters in their soul structures. One of those, he understood, was Body-enhancement and it stayed active at all times. The other, however, only became active just as the ants were about to spit out that green glob of acid.

  It was one of the reasons why he hadn't been hit by any of those yet. It surprised him to learn that the saliva attack was a magical one. Venefic magic, most likely, which concerned toxins and acids. And this made Caen think.

  It would be invaluable to have a means of predicting what discipline of magic a person used or was about to use just from observing their thread cluster. Soul structures appeared to Caen as not just a visual tapestry. They involved sounds, vibrations, texture, impressions, and more. He was as yet unable to interpret them all, but that was sure to change as he focused intently on learning their secrets.

  Caen hung back as they finished off another wave of ants. He connected to the Summoner. Summoning wasn’t a true discipline; it fell under the discipline of Binding magic, which was often referred to as Contract magic. Caen hadn't yet adapted any decent Binding magic spells, and the schemas he had in his main grimoire required a lot of setup and preparation.

  The Summoner's soul structure presented only one prominent thread cluster. Her summoned creatures also possessed an active thread cluster that bore similar characteristics to one another. Caen wasn't yet skilled enough to determine an affinity from just sensing it, but these seemed like they might be representative of the same discipline of magic. From what little he'd read, Summoning magic entailed a practician entering a long-term agreement with the denizens of the Xgthfr Swarm Planes. It was very mysterious, and he simply hadn't been able to find a lot of information about it.

  He watched on with curiosity as the Summoner had her worms hold down an ant. She began severing its remaining limbs with a crystalline blade that shone with soft light each time it bit into skin. Then she wrapped the ant's thorax in a length of rope.

  “What is she doing?” someone asked.

  Another worm, this one toothless and without spikes on its body, popped into existence beside her. It moved over to the thrashing ant and began vomiting an opaque gel on it. The process was as slow as it was uncomfortable to watch, but in a minute, the ant's limbs and parts of its head were covered in the opaque gel. She held the rope in her hand, dismissed all but one of the vicious-looking worms, and turned to the team lead.

  “I will be taking my leave now,” she rasped.

  “Don’t you need a permit for that?” asked one of the team members.

  “I have a permit.”

  The team lead shoved someone out of the way as she approached, a lamp in her hand. She beckoned with her fingers to see the permit, and the Summoner handed a thick piece of paper over to her. After a moment of inspection, the team lead grunted and handed it back along with some meal tokens.

  Caen watched her thoughtfully as she hauled the ant behind her. Around him, the other members of the Attacker team moved about, drinking water, washing off sections of their skin or armor where they'd been shot with green glob, or just chatting.

  “Alright,” the team lead said. “We move.”

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  “Actually, I'm low on mana,” Caen told the team lead. “I'll be leaving as well.”

  She gave him two meal tokens as well. One for each hour he'd spent here.

  Caen walked slowly behind the Summoner, letting the distance between them widen. She was dragging the ant back with her. It couldn't move its legs inside of the gel prison she'd constructed around it. But it was alive, which meant that Caen could see its soul structure and Mimic its affinity.

  There weren't many ants roaming this section of the Plane, but there were tunnels aplenty on the path, and those awakened trees littered the copses. Caen had to take stock of this while he isolated the more prominent thread cluster on the ant's soul-structure.

  The walk back to the front zone of the aperture took over twenty minutes. Time pieces always acted wonky within Planes, so Caen had to split off a tiny portion of his mind to keep track of the seconds. If only he could cast that time display spell whenever he wanted. The Summoner hadn't noticed him for good reason, other than the fact that he was behind her. She had wisely opted not to use any light sources, and Caen didn't need to use any either, thanks to his speculon. He let the Summoner dictate their walking pace, and she moved slowly.

  Once he was done, he could feel no passive augmentations affecting him. He still didn't know for sure what this affinity was, but he already suspected that it might have something to do with Body-enhancement. That was the first spell he cast. His spirit moved with relative ease, and the visualization did not weigh as heavily on his mind as those often did for him. The spell took. His muscles tensed with more compactness than he was capable of through mundane means.

  Smiling to himself, he dismissed the spell and disconnected from the ant. He wanted to test the degree to which he could halt the reversion of his affinities. Already, he could feel the changes he'd made to himself reverting. He let it happen for several moments more before connecting back to the ant. The cord sprang into place between them, fainter and wispier than before. The regression began to slow but didn't stop. With conscious effort, he got a hold of his relevant thread cluster, wanting to halt its reversion. His focus was steel.

  The regression slowed even further and soon came to a stop. The cord of connection grew firm and more stable. His attention was firmly keeping his thread cluster in place. He cast the same spell. It took just as before, but his spirit strained much more than it had moments ago.

  Caen tentatively pulled back, and his thread cluster continued to revert once more. He clamped down on his thread cluster again and cast another spell. It was even harder to do so this time.

  He began conforming his thread cluster anew. The Summoner crossed through the Aperture, and the cord of connection between him and the ant winked out. Immediately, his thread cluster began to revert yet again. He quickened his steps, clamping down on the thread cluster with steely focus. This slowed down the reversion, but did not stop it.

  By the time he crossed through the Aperture himself, his thread cluster had completely reverted. The Summoner continued hauling the ant behind her. Her summoned worm skittered by her side on sharp, sticky legs, causing the few people out here to jump out of her way.

  Caen cracked his neck and stretched. His reserves were about half of the way full, and he was starting to feel the beginnings of will fatigue. It was well and truly nighttime now.

  He walked out of the building that wrapped around the Aperture. A suspended platform of wood hung overhead and sat on thick beams to either side of the Aperture. Someone up there burst out laughing, but quickly quieted down.

  Caen whirled his head upwards. It had only been a moment, but he recognized that voice.

  He walked around to the side of the wooden construction. It was roofed and lined with a low railing. “Zeris?” he called.

  Someone poked their head over the edge.

  “Caen?” Zeris asked. She was wearing specialized goggles. “Hey! When did you—”

  “This distractible girl,” scolded Ladia, Zeris’s tutor. “Will you pay attention to what I'm showing you?”

  Zeris winced. She waved at Caen and retreated from the edge.

  “I’ll find you later,” Caen called. His stomach rumbled.

  * * *

  After spending some meal tokens on porridge, Caen took copious notes of his discoveries today as he ate.

  He asked an elderly woman whom he'd seen other kitchen staff report to if he could get more meal tokens for helping out in the kitchen, and she told him that twelve hours of work amounted to one and a half meal tokens.

  Caen immediately understood that this was simply an attempt to deter idle combatants from avoiding the Plane, seeing as twelve hours in the Plane would give him twelve meal tokens at the very least. He didn't bother asking if the core kitchen staff were paid using the same cutthroat system. They obviously weren't.

  The camp was alive with activity. It wasn't nearly at the level of a rave, and there was still a loose semblance of decorum, but people sat in large groups, talking, laughing, and eating. It all made him wonder if the other batches from Drenlin and the surrounding cities had arrived. They'd been told at the orientation earlier today that the combat and support volunteers were from various provinces close to Odaton.

  Caen's unpleasantly warm tent was empty, save for one woman who sat in her cot, reading a book with a dark, hardcover. A grimoire, most likely.

  Caen hurried to his own cot and took out his bag from beneath it. He retrieved a box with some of his Scripting equipment. He needed to erect a ward around his sleeping area. It would be an incredibly rudimentary kind, but it should be more than sufficient for his purposes.

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