“Adam, you’re on your own again today,” Toar said, handing me a piece of paper. “Here’s a map to where you’re working, and a list of what you’re looking for. Tell me if any of it’s confusing.”

  It wasn’t lost on me that Toar was calling me by my actual name. Anything to keep up appearances, it seemed.

  I took it and quickly left. I eyed the paper before deciding I wasn’t going wherever the hell Toar sent me and would instead find my own spot.

  Like, seriously. How stupid would I have to be to follow these directions?

  Between my appraisal skill and my thermal sensor, I could find somewhere with valuable loot without getting too close to other miners.

  Even if Toar hadn’t had it out for me, I’d rather trust my own ability to find a lucrative area. There were so many untapped spots throughout the cave system, all I had to do was sample materials from a few and there was a good chance I’d find myself an earner.

  So began the search for a new mining area.

  Truth be told, I had no idea how I’d figure out what was and wasn’t valuable if it wasn’t for my [Hoard]. I’d likely have been here forever.

  I sampled multiple stones that were various degrees of worthless. For a while, I’d been wondering if even the most mundane rocks found inside a rift carried intense magical properties that had been passed over by other miners due to their lack of knowledge.

  This wasn’t the case. A majority of the stone making up the interior was as simple and mundane as the rocks I’d picked up outside the orphanage.

  Gods, that felt like a lifetime ago. It’d been less than a week. So much had happened…

  Ah well. Thinking about it wasn’t going to make this go any faster.

  I began testing crystals and ore deposits whenever I found them, assuming I couldn’t sense anyone nearby. The wall I was picking at had a silvery vein running through it, and the section protruded enough that I figured I could mine it out without causing a structural collapse around me.

  That said, the stone was tough. The fat, protruding mass of ore was more than resilient to my repeated poking, prodding, swinging, stabbing, and even smashing. It took a gargantuan amount of effort and fifteen minutes of labour in order to chip off just a small sliver of the rock, a tiny line of metal running through it.

  [Would you like to store Thurim Ore w/ Sediment Crust? Y/N.]

  I accepted the item and searched for it. Though the metal inside was fairly valuable, more so than the ariline I’d been mining yesterday, the concentration inside this stone seemed low, and considering how long it took to break off even a three pound piece…

  I spent another five minutes at it just to see if any more would begin to crack or chip off, but it was like trying to dent a shield with a toothpick.

  I gave up and moved on.

  That area might’ve been good enough for scratching by on a basic living, but it was also, at my estimate, about a third of the value of the ariline deposit I’d been shown yesterday. I’d be damned if I was going to settle for a score that low. With my skills, it’d be a complete waste.

  Not only that, but I wanted an area I could repeatedly visit. One that not only got me a ton of resources whenever I came by, but also some new crystals to play with. I doubted the ones I’d found already were the extent of what was on offer here, and I needed more.

  I used the sensor to steer away from a litter of red dots beyond a turning point on my left. I used it once again to avoid holing up in a dead end beside three more moving dots.

  Fortunately, the mines weren’t swarming with other workers. There were plenty of quiet areas.

  Unfortunately, the quiet areas also seemed to be the most bare. Big shock, I know.

  One red dot turned out to be an adult. I saw the tall man walking with a long spear tied across his back, patrolling the area west of me. He wore dusty leathers and had his long black hair tied in a ponytail.

  He glanced at me for a moment, but seemed to pay me no mind.

  I hadn’t seen many adults outside of the food and equipment facilities, at least following my tour and the original trip here. I knew from my first day here that they didn’t police the place.

  If anything, the man’s presence unnerved me. He was surely strong, and if staff here thought nothing of letting children be attacked by monsters while everyone watched, who knew what they did when no one was looking?

  Thankfully, the man made no attempt to harass me, and I passed by unimpeded, feeling as if I’d inched past the eye of a dragon too lazy to swat me.

  I was getting pretty far from the camp by now. I’d made a couple more attempts to mine along the way—one section had shown promise until the stone had crumbled to dust in my hands, revealing a dirty brown metal named rigtun which was worth less than its weight in copper, while yet another deposit had been even more difficult to excavate than the thurin; twenty minutes of smacking it hadn’t made it budge.

  I had no clue what the metal beneath had been or how valuable it was, but it was green with golden flecks and it looked incredibly shiny. I wondered if others had tried and failed to extract it.

  I travelled further still, moving far enough around the central cavern that I didn’t detect any heat signatures in my area, following a distant shimmering light.

  I began to walk into the craggy mouth of a large cavern, the ceiling lowering as I began to feel a slight decline around me.

  I walked, eyes scanning left and right, finding that this section of the cave contained a large amount of crystals, most of them red, blue, and white. The light trended more blue the further back I looked.

  Curious, I walked my way up to one of the larger clusters, inspecting it and seeing how heavily embedded the gemstones felt.

  This was gonna be tough. I could already tell from my recent experience that it was going to be difficult to extract these crystals without smashing them to smithereens in the process. The surrounding wall was extremely solid, and early attempts with a chisel seemed pretty fruitless.

  I squinted at the issue and considered my options. [Hoard] counted these clusters as part of the cave wall, so removing them like that wasn’t an option, and I didn’t have anything available to me in my [Hoard] that would make this job notably easier…

  Well, anything except a Power Stone.

  I was considering it, at this point. I’d yet to come across a worthless crystal here, and I assumed the reason these ones hadn’t been picked dry yet was that they were tough to extract without breaking. Still, knowing how explosive my motions became after I took a Power Stone, I was worried about being clumsy. Maybe if I made use of a Recovery Stone first to limit the energising effects, then—

  “I-is someone there?”

  I blinked, eyebrows narrowed, grabbing at the submachine gun on my chest and eyeing the thermal sensor.

  No dots showed up. But I’d heard a voice.

  “Hello?”

  There it was again. No mystery there. Someone or something was trying to speak to me… but I couldn’t detect them?

  I looked up from the sensor and listened. The sound was coming from…

  “Hellooo?”

  Further down the decline path.

  I quickly pushed away any fears that this was a monster that stole the voice of humans. Those things were likely myths, and I doubted they’d be present in an otherworldly rift.

  Still, I was cautious as I inched my way further towards the decline.

  After two minutes of crouching, I finally detected a pulse on my radar.

  There was a red dot. It was faint.

  Not a soul thief, then. Something was alive down there.

  I picked up the pace some, moving over the crest of a large slope and revealing the remainder of the cavern.

  More crystals lined the walls, though they were in a higher concentration at the far end of the room.

  By the wall, there was a small lake of water that was mainly frozen over. Inside of it, over to the left, there was a boy that looked about my age, maybe even a little younger, dutifully holding onto a large blue crystal as his arm seemed to freeze around it. Ice protruded from and even encased both of his arms, as well as a single leg.

  “Hello?”

  He wasn’t able to turn to see me. He didn’t seem particularly energetic, either. I had no clue how long he’d been trapped there.

  I surveyed the situation, trying to determine what was going on.

  Was the cause of the freezing magical in nature? It had to be. I didn’t feel particularly cold standing here. The cave was generally warm and humid, and twenty feet from the lake was no exception.

  When I stepped closer, I immediately felt a chill race up my body. Frantic eyes snapped to me.

  “H-hey! You heard me!”

  The boy blinked. He smiled a sheepish smile.

  “I don’t mean to be a bother… but if you think you could—” he panted, “—find a way to break this ice—”

  I tuned the boy out, still trying to take stock of things.

  If the crystals were responsible for the lake freezing, were they ice crystals?

  That might make sense, but, in that case, why didn’t the rest of the cave feel cold? There’d been plenty of near-identical crystals on the walk down. Were these different somehow?

  I stared more deeply at the crystal wrapped around the boy’s hands, frozen to him. I watched the symmetrical patterns rhythmically swirling around the crystal in question.

  That looked familiar. Mainly because I’d seen it recently. It looked similar to Maisie’s magic. Even more similar to the pattern I’d seen on my own palm.

  These might not be ice crystals… but mana crystals.

  And if that was the case… I wanted some.

  “Hey… are you gonna rescue me?

  “If not, I’d really appreciate if you found my group—”

  “I’m gonna rescue you,” I responded, annoyed. “I’m just thinking.”

  “Oh! Okay.”

  The brown-haired miner smiled.

  “I can’t feel my legs.”

  I ignored him as I stared at the water. It was like a sheet of ice. Could it support my weight? Would standing on it trap me too?

  I needed something to test with.

  Normally, I wouldn’t reveal my [Hoard] to anyone, but this boy was either dead or he owed his life to me, and I was willing to take my chances. I summoned one of the larger metallic parts I’d snagged in the storage room, some kind of tank track, weighing about forty pounds.

  The miner’s face contorted as I materialised the heavy object and then carried it over to the other end of the lake, gracelessly dropping it and watching as it smashed apart the ice, revealing floating crystals beneath.

  The ice quickly reformed, and the instrument I’d dropped entirely froze over.

  Yeah. If that happened to me, I was fucked.

  But there was no way to reach the boy without standing on the ice. Furthermore, those crystals floating in the water had my name on them. I wanted at least a few.

  I sighed. I’d wanted to level my [Pain Tolerance] a few more times before I did this, but…

  I pulled out one of my two Pyre Stones. The same one I often used to heat things.

  I stabbed it into my arm.

  My heart caught fire.

  It had always been stipulated that Pyre Stones could teach their users fire-based skills if consumed, but that it was ill-advised to do so if one didn’t have sufficient fire resistance.

  One level in [Pain Tolerance] was not sufficient fire resistance.

  I learned that as my skin blistered and burned. As I felt literal flames erupt along my arms and chest. I felt as if I was being pressed down in a furnace, as if each of my organs was about to simultaneously burst.

  I could barely see as I pulled out another superior health pot. Thankful that I was able to navigate [Hoard] by instinct, I began to gulp back a hearty dose of the healing serum just to find that while it healed my current injuries, it didn’t extinguish the flames.

  This trial wasn’t over. I either withstood it or I failed.

  I could barely think. But in the brief reprieve from blinding pain the potion gave me, I had a realisation.

  I was on fire. Magical fire.

  Better use that to my advantage.

  I cannonballed into the ice. It smashed apart as my bubbling skin hit the water, immediately soothed, as all the while my heart raged.

  I fumbled around blindly in the darkness, searching and searching for a familiar prompt.

  As soon as my hand brushed something, as soon as I saw a system prompt:

  [Would you like to store—]

  I IMMEDIATELY hit yes, banking on the hope that whatever I’d managed to grab was one of the many crystals I’d seen floating beneath the water.

  It was dark below. Too dark to see. The only light came from above, from the parting in the ice I’d made.

  It was steadily beginning to reform. I was still burning hot, my lungs screaming, but I didn’t know if I would cool too much to melt it on my way up if I didn’t leave soon.

  Still I grabbed more crystals. Three. Five. Eight. As many as I fucking could. I knew their value more than anything.

  As I floated below the water, as the ice above me narrowed to a slit, I brought a Rush Stone out of my [Hoard].

  I stabbed it into my arm so hard it remained embedded, shooting out of the water and landing roughly on the still-melting icy surface below.

  I had to keep running so my path didn’t melt away beneath me. My arms were still scorched, though I was no longer burning, my skin sizzling with heat even if flames no longer licked me.

  I ran up to the boy. He looked completely horrified.

  Wordlessly, I placed a hand to his frozen limbs. The ice began to melt away. I was so hot that I cut through the ice without meaning to, that my passive energy was simply potent enough to melt through it.

  I tried to grab the other miner, but he only screamed.

  I was too hot. I was burning him just by contact.

  But he couldn’t feel his legs, and I needed to get off the ice before it melted beneath me…

  I jammed the superior health pot into his hands.

  “Drink some.”

  “Wuh-wha?”

  “Drink some!”

  He did as instructed, taking a panicked gulp.

  Immediately, the boy moved to standing. He pulled his hand away from the crystal that had once bound him, and at once, the pair of us began to scramble up the riverbank and back to the safety that laid above.

  Once I reached the shore, I laid out on my back, trying my hardest not to hyperventilate.

  I was through the worst of it now. My skin was no longer actively burning. The heat radiating in my core was beginning to slowly settle.

  In hindsight, jumping in that icy pool might’ve been the only thing that had stopped me burning myself to a crisp. I really thought consuming the Pyre Stone would be similar to the Spirit Stone, that I’d just have to deal with a ton of pain. I don’t even know if my superior health pot would’ve saved me there.

  I simply laid there for a time, eventually sitting up, growing more and more comfortable with the prospect of moving once the heat of my body had returned to more reasonable levels.

  I still felt hotter than before, but it was more as if I had a strong fever now than it had been when I was literally on fire.

  Other boy seemed to go through a cycle of yapping and gawking at me. I eventually asked him if he was okay, and when he said ‘yes’, told him to shut up.

  I just laid there with my thoughts for a minute, weathering the pain, mulling over the decisions I’d just made.

  It’d been worth it. For that many crystals, plus a means to use my Pyre Stone without dying, it had been worth it.

  Speaking of which:

  [Pyre Stone absorbed. Skill selection in progress. Please choose one of the following:]

  [Scorch (common): A short to medium range fire-based evocation, capable of burning enemies with little to no Fire Resistance.]

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  [Flame Barrier (uncommon): A passive sheen of flame that develops around the user’s body, causing the user to emit heat and providing a barrier against various attacks. User is resistant to the heat produced by their own aura. Toggle ability.]

  [Burning Fist: (uncommon): enhances physical, unarmed strikes with Flame Mana, causing strikes to burn and bolstering their momentum. Toggle ability.]

  I read through the options. I hadn’t realised I’d get to choose an ability until now. Suddenly, the pain I felt was inconsequential. I was fully locked in on making the right choice here.

  I immediately discounted [Scorch]. Being able to burn someone from a distance sounded like a neat trick to catch them off-guard, especially if I got good at casting it, but I had no idea what kind of damage it would deal. Would it sear their skin or literally set them ablaze? Too many variables to consider there.

  Between [Flame Barrier] and [Burning Fist], I leant towards the former.

  I understood that [Burning Fist] would likely be the strongest power boost I could receive, especially considering how physically weak I currently was. I even understood that the ability to burn with my strikes could potentially help me to exhaust or chew through tough and armoured opponents, something I was sure I’d struggle with otherwise. Combining such an ability with [Unarmed Combat] even sounded tempting.

  But the prospect of [Flame Barrier] seemed too good to pass up.

  There was a good chance I could’ve died just now. I had very strong healing available, but it was quickly becoming limited, and it was likely causing me to take too many risks.

  I had no defences. Having a way to mitigate incoming damage felt important.

  But it wasn’t only that…

  [Flame Barrier] was an aura effect that would go over my entire body. If there was any skill out there that would teach me to circulate my mana, as well as to push mana through the various gates in my body, it was surely this one.

  I locked it in within thirty seconds. Once I did, I gave a sigh of relief.

  “Hey. Hey, are you okay?!”

  I realised I’d been laying there with my eyes closed for a while. Miner boy was slapping me over the chest and looked a few moments from trying to resuscitate me. He looked distraught.

  “Fine,” I breathed, opening my eyes and sitting up. I looked down at my arms, seeing they were covered in light burns. “What were you doing down there, anyway?”

  He started answering, but honestly, I got distracted by my skill increases. Multiple had gone off during that whole debacle.

  [Peception: 6 >> 7.]

  [Pain Tolerance: 1 >> 3.]

  [Intimidation: 5 >> 6.]

  I started laughing when I read I’d gotten a point in [Intimidation]. Had I really looked so terrifying doing all that?

  Evidently so, because the boy flinched.

  He’d been explaining his origins when I’d randomly burst out laughing for no reason. Yeah, he probably thought I was pretty deranged.

  “Sorry,” I said, wiping a tear from my eye. “Sorry. Start again. I’m listening this time.”

  The boy’s name was Eric. He told me he was the newest member of his group, though I couldn’t properly remember him from my first day. He’d been sent out to mine on his own, in order to ‘prove his usefulness’ to the group he’d ended up in, and as such, had ended up freezing himself while trying to handle a volatile crystal he’d extracted.

  I was beginning to grow bored until he mentioned he had a [Miner] class.

  “Wait, seriously? So you’re actually built for this job?”

  I was completely reevaluating him now. Sure, he looked young and scrawny, even smaller than I was, but if he was a dedicated [Miner], wasn’t it stupid of his group to send him off on his own? Shouldn’t they nurture that potential?

  “Yeah. I tried telling them so, but they think I’m an idiot,” Eric said. “They don’t really listen to anything I say. That’s why I wanted to bring them one of these crystals. Just to prove what I could do.”

  “Well, have you managed to mine anything else cool while you’ve been here?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Eric nodded. “Yeah! All sorts. I’ll show you.”

  With that, Eric took off, and I follow-limped behind him.

  It took us a couple of minutes to reach the mouth of the cavern, where off to the right there was a mundane cart sitting in a corner.

  I’d seen it on my way in, but assumed it was empty and abandoned. Who was stupid enough to leave valuables they’d extracted out in the open like that?

  Eric was, apparently. Sheesh. The amount of gems and metals shimmering and shining in his cart, it looked like the literal contents of a treasure chest.

  “You can have that, by the way,” Eric said. “That’s just the stuff I got today.”

  I stared at him. I had expected I’d end up asking for something to pay me back for literally saving his life, but I hadn’t imagined it’d be two weeks worth of treasure.

  “You’re sure?” I asked, in utter disbelief.

  “Yeah. Just let me keep the cart, please. They’ll probably stop feeding me if I lose it.”

  I continued squinting at the contents of the cart, still in utter disbelief. “You really mined all of this yourself?”

  He simply nodded, as if this wasn’t worth more than my whole group pulled some days.

  We began transferring the contents of his haul over to my cart, though I told him to hang onto some of everything.

  I still ended up with the majority, but from the sounds of his group it wouldn’t be good for the boy to go back empty-handed.

  And while some might argue it wasn’t my problem, it most certainly was.

  Because I for sure wasn’t done with this cash cow.

  “You wanna meet me here again tomorrow?” Eric asked, repeating my words, scratching the back of his head. “Why?”

  “You need someone to keep you safe,” I said, “and I need someone to teach me to do…” I pointed at the cart again. “That.”

  And so it was decided. Eric would meet me tomorrow, I’d receive training and awesome loot, and within no time, I’d be powerful and debt-free.

  One thing I did before leaving was store everything in my [Hoard] at least once, the biggest progress I’d made to Level 3 [Hoard] in a while, though I was still well below halfway. Eric must’ve assumed I was a Tier 3 or 4 monster with an [Inventory] skill and incredibly valuable potions, that or a very lucky Tier 2. The way he looked at me was almost reverent.

  I kept some of the materials I’d stored inside my [Hoard]. I figured it was worthwhile to do so. If I came back with all of this, it’d look suspicious, but I wanted to impress either way. To show Toar that not only was I not playing by his rules, I was decidedly winning.

  I stopped by to grab my commissioned dagger on the way back to camp; it was a convenient time to do so. I got a funny look as I picked it up, but I wasn’t really sure why. Maybe because it was an expensive weapon?

  I inspected the blade. It looked excellently crafted. I still didn’t know what I’d ended up getting, so I placed it in my [Hoard] to inspect it. The description read:

  [High-quality Steel-Mythril amalgite dagger, 9 1/2 inches long, (6’ blade), 3 inches wide. Weight: 1.6lbs. Appears unused. Mythril composite allows for a sharper cut while maintaining the durability of steel. Mythril is also an effective conduit for evocation magics. Approximate value: 70-120 gold pieces.]

  Yeah, they’d really delivered with this one. It was pretty relevant to what I could use right now, too. A magic conduit.

  Regardless of how evil Tattia might’ve been, one thing I could say was that she’d honoured the contract she’d signed.

  Well, most of it. I was still wondering where my supply of nuts was.

  ***

  “Did… did someone set you on fire?”

  Jackal stared at me with utter incredulity, his dark eyes flicking over my half-ruined uniform.

  “...not exactly?”

  Jackal simply sighed. Then he raised his voice.

  “Maisie! Adam set himself on fire!”

  Shit.

  The healing process was brief. Most of the remaining burns were minor, apparently, and surface-level wounds were pretty easy to patch over, but my skin would be sore for a while.

  The camp was quiet around this time. Everyone but Toar had returned, and half of the group seemed exhausted. Marcois seemed in better spirits, slowly picking at some veggies as Finn took inventory of his—much smaller than mine—haul and Ceri took a snooze.

  Once Maisie was all done, I walked back to my cart. I returned with a large green gem, swiftly depositing it in her lap.

  She stared down at it. I could see the shiny stone reflecting in her eyes as they widened.

  In fact, it drew everyone’s attention.

  “What is—”

  “I told you I’d pay you back,” I explained.

  She clutched the large gem nervously, holding it both hands, then stretched them out towards me.

  “It’s too much. All I did was heal you.”

  I shook my head. “No one’s ever healed me before. No one’s ever taught me like you did, either.”

  She blinked at the stone a couple of times, then looked up at me.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “This thing looks expensive.”

  “I’ve got plenty more.”

  She didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Her eyes flicked between me and the rock before she finally set it down beside her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Jeez, where the hell did you get that?” Jackal asked, staring at the fist-sized crystal set beside Maisie, jaw hanging, teeth exposed.

  A few moments later, he’d walked over to my mine cart to inspect it.

  “WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THIS?”

  That got Finn’s attention. He hopped up to inspect the cart himself as Ceri stirred awake, her eyes flicking open.

  “Well, y’know, I hit walls and—”

  Jackal stormed over to me and grabbed me by the shirt. I winced as he lifted me up to my tiptoes.

  “Don’t mess with me, you little asshole. You just got here, how are you hauling better than half the group combined, while I’m here eating three meals a wee—argh!”

  He pulled away suddenly, dropping me as I felt intense heat surge into my torso and chest. It’d been instinctual, completely reactive. I felt a faint glow around my body.

  It hadn’t burned me, but it had definitely burned him.

  “Ow!”

  Jackal backed up in a flurry, waving off his hand as if it had caught flame. “Ah… what the fuck?!”

  I stared at him, first confused, then understanding.

  “You seriously learned to use magic in a day? What the fuck is with this kid?!”

  Maisie rushed up to inspect Jackal’s fingers, grabbing his hand. As soon as she had, rather than making any attempt to heal him, she turned to me, looking somewhere between ecstatic and horrified.

  “Is… is he serious? You learned a spell already?”

  “Is that weird?” I asked, partially annoyed at myself for accidentally revealing it, partially astonished I could even do it already. I’d thought I’d have to practice forever to make use of [Flame Barrier], the fact I was able to use it by instinct was—

  “Incredible!” Maisie said, excitement winning out, once again staring at Jackal’s scorched fingers, squeezing his hand as he yelped in protest. “Look at that! You actually singed away some fur!”

  “Yeah! It’s superb, isn’t it?”

  Jackal sounded about ready to murder Maisie. Thankfully, she let him go.

  I was hoping to train my magic in secret and not let the others know about it until everything was over. Now that that wasn’t a possibility anymore, I needed to think of an alternative.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone learn magic that fast,” Maisie commented, staring at me as if I were a monster. “How did you do it? Did someone teach you that spell? Who?”

  “Maybe he learned it from a skill crystal,” Marcois opined between bites of a carrot.

  “A skill crystal… Do you listen to yourself, Marc?” Jackal tutted. “Peak Tier 1’s can barely handle skill crystals. A noodle like him would fucking explode. We’d be picking up pieces of him for weeks.”

  “I’ve used one before,” Marcois defended. “Back home. I didn’t die. It wasn’t very potent, though.”

  “Yeah, well it’d have to be a big fuckin’ crystal to take you down, wouldn’t it?”

  “Can you use magic, Marcois?” Ceri asked, her voice a sleepy drawl.

  “Nope. Just needed some help learning to spell.”

  “To… to spell?” Jackal asked, the first time I’d heard him respond to Marcois with anything besides an insult. “Like… to use spells?”

  Honestly, I was curious myself.

  “To spell words,” Marcois explained. “I grew up speaking Orthali, common language was hard for me.”

  Jackal looked like he was about to make another joke, but he recalculated. He slowly tilted his head, his face creasing.

  “Hold on. How the hell did your folks get you a skill crystal?” Jackal asked, scratching the back of his head. “Just how rich were your parents?”

  “They weren’t rich,” Marcois said, waving his hands. “We actually had the smallest estate in—”

  “Estate?!” Jackal repeated the word as if it were demonic. “What the fuck is estate?! Why the fuck are you here?!”

  Marcois didn’t answer. He bowed his head and took another bite of carrot.

  “Seriously, don’t tell me you guys all come from rich families…”

  “I don’t,” Finn answered.

  “Me either,” Maisie added.

  “What about you?” Jackal asked, pointing a finger at Ceri.

  “I’m the eighth princess of Astasia,” she replied.

  “Where the fuck is Astasia?”

  “I dunno. I made it up.”

  “Grr…”

  Jackal waved his seared hand again, then used it to point an accusing finger at me.

  “And you. Lemme guess. Pampered nobility. Came down here to prove mommy and daddy wrong about your shitty class offerings.”

  I think the look I gave him after told him everything he needed to know.

  “Okay, maybe not. Still… I don’t get it. You’ve got no class, you survived that monster-ridden deathtrap, you’re pulling back half a cart of crystals like it’s nothing, you learned magic in a single day, you—”

  “Who’s learning magic?” came a growl-laden voice, emanating from behind me.

  Great timing.

  “He is!” Jackal loudmouthed, pointing straight at me. “Look what he did to my beautiful fur!”

  He waved his slightly wounded hand in Toar’s face as he approached, who peered at it closely.

  Toar inspected the damage before walking straight back over to me. He towered half a foot above me.

  “You did that to him?” Toar asked.

  “Yes.”

  There was no point in lying. Everyone had seen it.

  “Can you show me?” Toar asked.

  This fucking asshole. Of course he wanted me to reveal my spell to him.

  “Go on,” Finn said, egging me on. “Show him. It was impressive.”

  What did he want here? Was he hoping I’d alienate myself to the group? That I’d be too scared to show him what I could do?

  No. He was hoping I’d rise to the bait and try to prove myself against him.

  Good thing that worked for me.

  “That was my first time using the spell,” I admitted. “Jackal tried to pick me up and I burnt him.”

  “Really?” Toar asked, cocking his head. He opened his jaw a little as he mulled the prospect over.

  “Mind if I try?”

  I could feel myself beginning to sweat as the beastkin looked down at me. I shored my mental energy and tried to conjure the most focus I could.

  “Go for it,” I answered, uncaring as possible.

  Toar grabbed me by the shirt, same as Jackal had. He lifted me a foot off the ground with ease.

  Once again, I felt a rush of response from a set of internal systems I didn’t quite understand. Mana bubbled beneath the surface of my skin as it rushed along my channels to defend the point of incursion.

  This time, rather than just letting the feeling bubble and warm, I leaned into it.

  I ignited a torrent of mana, so much that I felt my chest grow hot on the surface, that I was sure I could hear a light sizzle.

  Toar didn’t flinch or pull away. He continued to hold me, his expression calm, hoisting me in his grip as I pushed yet more fire into his curled fingers, enough that my clothes started smoking.

  I could see faces around me growing concerned, but I barely registered any of them. The only thing I saw was the look in Toar’s eyes.

  He looked amused.

  “Yes… that’s quite impressive,” he said with a chuckle. “I can feel that.”

  What kind of monster was he? I was putting two, no, three times as much energy into this as I had with Jackal. This wasn’t a reflex, it was active focus. How could he withstand it?

  I tried to push even further, feeling my legs buckle as I diverted more mana from places I didn’t know how to source from and tried to ungracefully shove it through my body.

  The result was more heat in my chest, but also my belly and even my head.

  It felt like an inferno was roaring inside of me. But I couldn’t back down from this.

  Still it wasn’t enough. There was a hint of discomfort in his expression, but I could see the look radiating in his eyes. See the reflection of my dangling form.

  It was a look that told me he’d seen the extent of my power… and he wasn’t impressed.

  Good.

  Toar swiftly dropped me, not making any effort to wave off his hand or pour water on it like Jackal had.

  “You learned that in a day?” Toar asked.

  “I’ve been practicing it for a while,” I lied. “I only figured it out today.”

  “Oh,” Jackal said. “I thought you—”

  “Nope,” I insisted. “I’ve known that spell for years. Read it in an old book. I just never understood how to use it until Maisie taught me.”

  “That makes sense… I don’t even think there are skill crystals in here.”

  “I think there’s some,” Marcois mused.

  “That looks pretty nasty, boss,” Finn said, staring at Toar’s hand. “Maybe get Maisie to look at it?”

  It was worse than I’d realised. Unlike with Jackal, I’d burnt all the way to Toar’s skin, and that skin looked blistered and seared from twenty seconds of contact.

  “Psh, that’ll heal in a day. Worry less.”

  With that, Toar walked over to my cart and took a look inside. He whistled at the contents.

  “Wow. You’ve been hard at work today. How do you get time to study magic and mine like this?”

  I didn’t answer. Toar started poking around in the cart.

  “Shame a lot of it’s worthless.”

  “Seriously?” Jackal asked.

  “Yeah. Half of this isn’t on the buy list. Other half is junk. I’d have to beg staff to take this.”

  I knew that was bullshit. I’d stored the entirety of that haul before placing it in the cart, and a majority of it was valuable.

  “Wouldn’t be a problem if you’d gone where I sent you. You get lost?”

  “I went where you sent me,” I lied. “This is what was there.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Toar interjected. “I went to check on you. Make sure you hadn’t been beaten up again. The place was exactly how I left it, and there’s nothing green there either.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I won’t dock your pay this time. Next time, go where I tell you.”

  ***

  Getting chewed out by Toar was a problem. Getting my haul confiscated was worse.

  Thankfully, I’d scored a big win today.

  Toar had seen the extent of my magic… he thought I was weak. Thought I’d brought my full force to bear to try and prove I could hurt him, and while it wasn’t enough to get through his shell, I’d measured the extent of his durability.

  And he’d measured the limit of my power… for now.

  [Selecting skills for combination:]

  I saw two slots before me. I dragged [Unarmed Combat] into one. [Flame Barrier] into another.

  I was about to hit combine, but there were two things staying my hand.

  The first was a third slot.

  I stared at it. That hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  I could combine three skills?

  Curious, I tried to drag in [Jumping], only to receive an error message.

  [Warning: only ONE skill below level 10 may be added to any skill combination.]

  Huh. That meant that besides these two skills, I could only add [Fortitude]?

  Sounded like a safe bet to me.

  I threw the skill in. I stared at the screen.

  [Do you wish to combine [Flame Barrier (uncommon), Fortitude, and Unarmed Combat?]

  I hit yes. My heart was beating fast.

  [Material sacrifice required for skill combination. Higher value materials have a chance of yielding superior skills.]

  This was why I’d kept the best of the haul I’d been gifted safely inside my [Hoard], just in case Toar tried something.

  I looked through my amassed items, already knowing what I was searching for.

  The metal was called surium, incredibly valuable at ten gold pieces a pound. I had no clue where Eric had found this. I’d only had to save his life to get it.

  This rock contained over four pounds of it. Double the amount I’d worked half my life for only a short time ago, searching for a destiny I was cruelly denied.

  Now, I made my own fate.

  I placed the ore inside the material slot, and the metal dissipated as if it had never existed.

  I hit [accept].

  I felt power flood my core.

  you can read six weeks ahead on my Patreon!