I walk through the streets of the worker district of Aurus as the sun starts to dim, wishing I had brought a cloak to ward off the oncoming cold. It’s the beginning of Autumn now, meaning I can’t put off mending the patches any more. Rain I can deal with, but I hold a special hatred in my heart for cold.

  Why couldn’t I be one of those chimera with fur? Bet they don’t have that problem. Then again, hair in general kind of seams like a pain to clean. Might be worth it if I didn’t have to deal with all these teeth though.

  As I turn the last corner to Edrius’s workshop, I’m met with the disapproving stare of Merria.

  “Been fighting again?” She asks.

  “I didn’t start it this time, I swear. Just forgot to cover the extra marks for the food,” I say as I hold up the bags of ingredients as a peace offering. And a possible shield.

  “Hmph. Were you hurt?” She asked, giving me a once over.

  “... Not this time,” I say, glancing at my HP.

  Damn. If I had just waited a few more minutes she wouldn’t have known.

  I’m not sure exactly how she does it, but Merria has the uncanny ability to know exactly how much HP you’re missing. She still won’t tell me how to do it, but I’m sure it has to be some kind of catalyst or ability. Probably similar to the tattoos in their ability to interface with our system.

  I’ll just have to be glad that they didn’t break my HP entirely.

  If that had happened, she wouldn’t have let me out of the shop for a week.

  After staring at me for a moment longer, she sighs and takes the proffered bags from my hands. After weighing them, she frowns and turns to go inside after gesturing for me to follow her.

  I sigh. Looks like I’m helping make dinner today. I don’t bother to give any excuses; I already know what she’ll say. Probably something on the lines of, “Everyone should know how to cook. Just because you can’t be a cook doesn’t mean you should eat your vegetables raw,”

  That wouldn’t be so bad, if it wasn’t the same three ingredients each time: A crunchy, smelly stem called a kiper that was more water than plant, a large root called an oonce that would float away if you left it uneaten long enough, and a blood red leaf from an herb called demon sprout you were supposed to smoke in a pipe. Merria forbids the two of us using it like that for three reasons.

  The first is that she says I’m too young, and she doesn’t want to ‘set a bad example’ by smoking it in front of me. The second is that it “addles the mind” and makes people do stupid things. Third, she likes to grind it up and use it as a ‘seasoning’.

  We make soup today, like most days. Merria complains that we can’t get any bones for a “proper broth”, like most days. I don’t really know what that means, but I’ll have to ask one day.

  I have to almost drag Edrius away from his research, as usual, and as usual I can tell however much he has in dexterity and intelligence, he has almost nothing in strength. I wonder what that must feel like. I was able to adjust gradually to the changes in my stats as I leveled up, but I pumped my dexterity first so I could better pick pockets at the market. By the time I got all the dexterity I wanted, moving through the world felt slow, like the very air had turned thick and heavy. Edrius must have many times the dexterity I have, but only a fraction of my strength to speed up his movements.

  When we’ve all had our fill, I turn to the workshop to fill my quota of copied catalysts for the week, but Edrius stops me.

  “You can finish those tomorrow. You need to work on your mana compression today,”

  I groan. I totally forgot about that.

  “Oh ho! Finally realized being a warrior isn’t all bonking people with swords, ‘ave you? I’m afraid even the meatheads o’ this world have to deal with the frustrations of mana control,”

  “Yes, Edrius I understand,” I say, already dreading what I know will come next.

  “Yes, who?” Edrius says, holding his hand behind his ear like he couldn’t hear me.

  “Yes, master Edrius,” I grind out.

  “Music teh my ears,”

  I hate mana compression practice. Even sensing mana is hard for me, so I clearly wasn’t meant to learn such an advanced technique.

  Well, okay, maybe ‘advanced’ isn’t the best way to describe it. If I had to, I’d say it felt like trying to grab a handful of water and strangle it without letting any of the liquid escape my grasp. Edrius kept telling me that if it felt that way then I wasn’t doing it right, but it wasn’t something he had ever actually done. Evidently, it was something that only really benefited warriors.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The ‘why’ on all this is rather vague. All Edrius would say is that it would be helpful for someone like me to have denser mana. The only reason I keep with the practice at this point is that it seems like it helps me copy catalysts. Specifically, it makes using the mana tools necessary significantly easier.

  “... with how you treat yer mana, I’d think it owed ye money,” Edrius says, leaning against the wall opposite the window.

  “Well maybe if it would just cooperate maybe I could give it a break,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Seems like yer blamin’ the victim,” Edrius says, eying the squirming ball of mana between my hands.

  I snort, causing the already stressed mass to explode into motes of light around me.

  “Shit!” I exclaim, scrambling to take the motes back into myself through the breathways in my hands.

  As Edrius laughed, he waved me away.

  “Don’t bother, kid. We’re well past your bedtime,”

  I stop what I’m doing and frown, “ What are you talking about? It’s barely sixth bell,”

  “No Alexia, it’s just past eighth bell. Haven’t you noticed the light?”

  I look around. It’s a bit dark, but I can’t really tell the difference from now and two hours ago. Right. Being half whatever I am means my eyes work differently than a human’s. Makes it hard to notice when the sun dims.

  “... no, I haven’t,” I say, still picking the motes out of the air. “But I think I’ll keep practicing anyway,”

  “I thought ya hated mana compression practice,” He says, a knowing smile on his face.

  “I nearly had it that time. It’d be a waste to stop now,” I say, avoiding his gaze.

  I wasn’t lying when I said I hated the practice itself, but… that feeling of progression when I attained a new level was addicting. Like the burning I feel in my body after a hard fight or run, knowing I would come out the other side stronger than before. My mana compression was already at a clean 1.1x according to the instruments Edrius used on me. I had a feeling I could break through that if I could just figure out this next step.

  Edrius shook his head and left the small room we used for testing new catalysts, presumably going back to his workshop to do more research.

  I started my practice once again, going through all the steps Edrius taught me. Step one: Expel your mana through your breathways. I’ve only ever kept the breathways on my hands and feet open, and it’s a pain to reopen a breathway you’ve had closed for a while. It’s a bit of a struggle, as it had to be all of my mana to work properly, but I got there in the end.

  Step two: Form that mana into an easy shape, like a sphere or a cube. I usually have more success with a sphere. I take a moment to look at my mana at this point. Unaspected mana like the type most people generate naturally doesn’t really have much of a use on its own, which is why changing the aspect of your mana is so useful. That’s not to say that aspecting your mana is always a good thing. Unaspected mana can turn into other aspects much easier than, say, fire mana could be re-aspected to earth mana. Unaspected mana also looked relatively bland when out in the open like this, just like a vaguely glowing orb of clear liquid, swirling with subtle eddies.

  Step three: Squeeze the mana into a smaller space, maintaining the shape as best you can with your will alone. The first time I tried this, I attempted to physically compress the ball with my hands, failing spectacularly. This time, I gently apply my will to the entire surface as evenly as I can and start to squeeze. It’s easy at first; I was an old hand at this step by now. However, I soon run into the problem I always have. This time, it was the left part of the sphere that bulged out as I slipped up slightly. I instantly rush to patch the gap in my will without overcorrecting.

  Step four (optional): Curse at the small ball of uncooperating little shit that wanted nothing more than to explode in my face.

  “Sonovabitchmotherfu-”

  “Language!” I hear a muffled shout from Merria across the house.

  I cut myself off from an angry retort.

  Remember who’s roof you’re under Alexia, you don’t want to have to deal with the communal bunks again, do you? I think to myself, reasserting control over the unruly ball of mana.

  “Sorry!” I call back.

  I try to be calm as I slowly compress the ball of mana, and soon I’m back to where I was before I was thrown off by Edrius’ joke. Just a bit more and…

  I feel a metaphysical *pop* as my mana takes on a smaller, more stable form and settles down between my hands. I suppress a yell of triumph as I slowly, carefully proceed with the next step.

  Step 5: Take the mana back into my body at its new density. By far the most important step, but not the greatest challenge. If I can’t pull this off, I’ll have to start this cycle over from scratch. Very carefully, I will the mana back into my body through my breathways and feel it settle in my body. After a few nail-biting seconds…. success. Now all I need is to wait for my body to get used to the new density, and I’ll be able to generate mana of that density naturally. Lucky for me, the best way to make sure that happens is to get some shuteye.

  I get up from my position sitting cross legged in the small room and look out the narrow opening in the wall that passes for a window. It looks to be well into the night at this point, and I can see the clergymen putting out the lights on the large church in the center of our district.

  I make my way to the main room of the building, where I usually sleep during the colder days of the year. On warmer nights, I like to sleep under a tarp on the roof where I can count clouds until I fall asleep, but it’s much too cold for that tonight. Instead, I grab the blankets with the least holes from a drawer and wrap myself in them under the table. In that familiar position, I eventually nod off.

  The sensation of something flooding into me wakes me up instantly. It feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before, like water crashing into me, but also somehow through me at the same time, eventually settling into my being. This new feeling comes with a sense of newfound power, until now untapped and waiting to be used, as well as a notification I never dreamed would come again so soon.

  Confused but elated, I instantly will my skill tree to appear and allocate {Weakest Link}. Before I can enjoy my newfound strength, another notification pops up, adding to my confusion.

  Then my tattoo starts glowing, and then burning like no pain I’ve ever felt before. I start screaming, I can’t help it, can’t make the pain go away as I start clawing at the accursed thing but it just won’t stop hurting. Like a million tiny wasps were burrowing into my right hand, the burning was slowly but steadily expanding, encompassing everything, everywhere, at all times. There was nothing but pain.

  The last thing I see before I black out are Edrius’s light blue eyes as he rushes into the room, and I slip into blissful unconsciousness.