At the front zone, Caen fiddled around with some dry plant tendrils he'd foraged from the forest in the Odaton camp. Having Mimicked the tree’s Flora magic affinity, he slowly and carefully tried to weave the plant tendrils together using a spell chain and several modifiers.

  He'd adapted quite a number of Blood healing and Flora spells and hadn't gotten over the feeling of casting them. Mimicking the affinities of planar creatures didn't give him any passive augmentations, but even that was instructive.

  Some Cutter teams consisted of Flora practicians who tried to contain or simply slow down the awakened trees' branches whenever they went into a frenzy. Not many of them were successful, of course.

  Caen had tried using Flora magic on an awakened tree that was being cut down, and the tree had reacted just as violently as the time he'd cast a light sedation spell on one.

  The stumps at the front zone didn't react on the surface when he cast Flora spells on them. However, since their soul structures overlaid even the roots dozens of feet deep in the ground, he could see the roots sort of squirming. And affecting them through spells was so much harder than he suspected it should have been.

  Spells that directly affected the form of a living thing were usually hard to cast. Healers even had to contend with the unintended resistance of patients when casting spells on them. Which was why Blood-healing and Spirit-healing weren't combat-efficient. Using someone's ‘self’ to affect them negatively proved extremely difficult. All the more so when they utilized that aspect of themselves regularly.

  He cast a spell on a portion of a surface root of the tree he was currently connected to. It was a few feet away from him. Stacking several modifiers on the spell base, he was able to make it wiggle just a fraction, and for much shorter than his calculations indicated the spell should have lasted.

  He went back to casting spells on the plant tendrils in his hand.

  * * *

  Caen sat cross-legged outside the command tent, ignoring the weird looks the guards and passersby were giving him. His progress with his speculon had been coming along slowly. Sh’kteiro had assured Caen that this was to be expected.

  After a few weeks of repetition, he had seized the sensation of warmth firmly in his mind, immersing himself in it. He'd gone days without opening his eyes once, and wearing his goggles everywhere he went had stopped earning him odd looks. His speculon was constantly pulling in light, allowing him to see.

  He found it curious, however, that the Planar light deflected off his speculon. It didn't enter like normal light did. It bounced off. If he could potentially emit light from his speculon, why couldn't he absorb it into his speculon as well? Regular light had no difficulty entering after all.

  When he'd asked about this, neither Sh'kteiro nor Sh'leinu had ever had a reason to draw Planar light back into their speculon. Sh'kteiro had explained that whenever he sent out a mote of light as a ping, it bounced off a speculon and returned to bounce off his own speculon, after which the mote of light dispersed back into the Plane. The time when he'd demonstrated that aesthetic Planar light display from his speculon, Caen had noticed how the light had lost cohesion and dissipated like the smoke of a snuffed-out candle, almost fading into the atmosphere. Still, Sh'kteiro insisted that all Planar light returned to the Plane.

  At Caen's request, Uncle Teiro tried absorbing the light he emitted, and it worked. So, Caen had been trying to replicate this for a while. It followed in his mind that if he could absorb the Planar light into his speculon, he might be able to emit Planar light from it as well.

  When Sh'kteiro's ping came, Caen focused all of his attention on receiving it into his speculon. But it pinged off, imparting the usual warmth. By the time the second ping arrived, however, Caen saw a mote of coruscated Planar light for the briefest instant just as it moved into his speculon.

  It did not deflect or bounce off. There was a warmth of a different kind. A palpable heat source. It felt as though it were… behind his speculon.

  Caen's smile strained his cheekbones even as Sh'kteiro hurried out of the command tent, a look of pleased surprise on his face.

  “You were successful?”

  In answer, Caen sort of leaned back into that heat source. He willed his speculon to emit, willed it to expel. It was like focusing light through his being. He pushed out from somewhere else and through his speculon.

  Beautiful and chaotic spirals of impossible colors filled Caen's vision. Planar light. It was diffuse and wispy, yet almost substantial. It spilled out like rainbowed mist, though of course, when he raised a hand to touch it, he couldn't. It was light after all. This looked nothing like the elaborate and intricate patterns Sh'kteiro had displayed, but Caen felt a tinge of triumph nonetheless.

  Uncle Teiro let out a deep, joyful laugh as he approached.

  Sh'leinu stepped out of the command tent, smiling. A frowning woman in military uniform peeked out but closed the tent flap.

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  “Oh my,” Sh'leinu said, looking at the light pouring through Caen's speculon. “This happened so much sooner than I expected it would. Congratulations, dear!”

  Caen hopped to his feet. “Thank you, Mom. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?”

  “Oh, they can wait,” Sh'kteiro said, laughing and patting Caen on the shoulder.

  Caen switched to Olden Vishic. “How do I send out the Planar light as a signal?”

  “You just learned the most important step,” Uncle Sh'kteiro assured him. “The rest will come very quickly. Don't worry.”

  “Then I'd like to get ahead of that, if it's okay.”

  So the next few minutes were spent explaining to Caen how to emit only a very small but energetic burst of Planar light. He spent a good while repeating their instructions with more intention than he’d had to when he'd first emitted the Planar light. He was soon able to send out pings of his own.

  * * *

  After a few hours at the healing tent, Caen went to grab lunch. Someone called his name a few times, and he turned to see the person in question running towards him.

  “I've been looking all over for you,” the young man said, sounding slightly annoyed. “You applied to join a Delver team, yes? You've been instructed to meet Major Hulte at the Courtyard tomorrow by 6 in the morning with the rest of your team members. Do you understand?”

  * * *

  By 3 in the morning, Caen headed down to the Courtyard. He'd done his boosted physical training last night and had slept an hour earlier than usual just so he could come out here sooner. He intended to run through the other parts of his morning routine while he waited for the rest of the Delver team. His reserves were nearly full—fuller than they'd been in days.

  Within the fenced compound, there were only so few people here, and the apothecary was closed.

  Caen did a double-take. A young woman decked in black armor was sitting with her back to the wall. She was asleep. Guinevere.

  So much for being the first to show up.

  Caen sat on the floor with his back to a wall as well and began performing his magical exercises. Over the past few weeks, he'd fully adapted every spell he could already cast in his abjection. He'd also adapted several other spells that should have been utterly impossible and suicidal to even so much as attempt adapting with lower affinities. And then he had very slowly and carefully begun trying to cast those spells in his abjection.

  This was clearly and simply something that should not have been possible in the slightest, especially considering the fact that he was abject. An adapted spell was proof that one could cast it. Abjection was proof that one could not truly adapt spells. Yet he'd adapted all these spells to his mind and spirit. It was a paradox, an exploitation that was only possible due to the fact that he had Mimicry.

  As he cast these spells, he paid attention to his mind and spirit, but more importantly, to his soul structure. He felt a strong sense of ‘contradiction’ in what he was trying to do. Due to an understanding borne from many injuries to his mind and spirit, he knew that he would sooner hurt himself than adapt any of these spells. But then, the spells were already adapted to his mind and spirit. Or at least to a version of his mind and spirit.

  Magical instincts were not absolute or optimal, and he felt as though his were currently bewildered. Still, even beginning to attempt casting these spells was a lot easier than it should have been. Caen continued to observe his soul structure with a portion of his mind as he worked.

  A few hours later, the Courtyard had grown noisy. More people had streamed in as time went by, several of them going through the Aperture.

  A woman whom Caen assumed was Major Hulte, dressed in a military jacket, walked into the Courtyard, trailed by six soldiers in uniform, and… was that Ladia? A scowling Zeris was walking behind her.

  Caen got off the floor. Guinevere had too, and was walking towards them. The time was ten minutes to 6 in the morning.

  The woman came to a stop just off to the side of the Aperture and waited with her hands behind her back. She was drawing stares from everyone here, and the other soldiers not in her group seemed to be standing straighter and stiffer.

  “Major Hulte?” Guinevere called out as she reached the group.

  “Guinevere Black, isn't it?” The major said. “Welcome to the team. Stand to the side quietly as we wait for the others. You too, Ereshta'al.”

  Did she know the names of everyone on the team? Caen moved to stand beside Zeris. She looked like she hadn’t slept all night. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ladia came to find me early this morning. Said she was being called on for an impromptu investigation, and she felt that we could all learn from the experience. Those two idiots weren't in the hall, and so she dragged me instead.”

  “Impromptu investigation?”

  Zeris shrugged.

  Caen waited as the other members of their Delver team filled in. Each time, Hulte acknowledged them by name. Just five more combatants, making their team sixteen in number, which wasn't even half the size of the Delver team he'd seen with Sh'kteiro. Caen’s brows were creased by the time she turned to speak to everyone. Guinevere, however, was frowning.

  “As you must have heard, I am Major Hulte. This is a brief investigative mission. I'm inspecting a recently cleared-out tunnel in the Odaton-plane Plane, and you'll be accompanying me for general support.”

  “I was under the impression that this was a Delver team,” Guinevere said.

  “Not at all,” Hulte replied after a long, complicated pause. “Your performance here, however, will greatly improve your chances of being selected to join a Delver team.”

  One of the combatants lifted a hand.

  “I won't be taking any questions,” Hulte replied. “Put your hand down. Keep your eyes sharp. I don't expect us to find ourselves in a combat situation, but it's preferable if you stay ready for such an occurrence. On me.” She turned on her heels and began heading into the Plane.

  “Well, she seems fun,” Zeris whispered to Caen.

  All but one of the soldiers accompanying Major Hulte didn't share that sentiment, if their facial expressions were anything to go by.

  As long as Caen got to test his diagnostic spells on an awakened tree's crucial point, he would be fine.