Spire Sea [near the long shadow of Hiruk continent], local time [1794.04.11]

  Leaving behind the two overeager interrogators—now hunting the ‘fresh meat’ he had presented them—he entered the infirmary.

  Walking closer to the hospital bed, he tried to synchronize his steps with the ship’s movements. And, of course, he failed, stumbling just before facing the mass of steel lazily swinging his way. The semi-random movements of the ship were still beyond his ability to predict, so an unexpectedly deep tilt took him by surprise.

  After dodging the platform by lightly jumping back, he sprung upwards just enough to be caught by it. It took him a moment to find his balance after he landed, but it wasn’t difficult to adjust. Maybe he wasn’t a powerhouse in the physical PE department, but he knew how to find his footing and utilize the Enhancements when moving his body.

  Two steps later, he was looking down at the pale face of the girl. She was breathing laboriously, as if on the verge of suffocation. It was her fever at work, probably magnified by her poor mental state and following nightmares. He hoped she had enough mental PE to draw from their mind-stabilizing effects, but that could only happen if she had chosen her Class and didn’t focus purely on physical PE.

  The chances of that weren’t high.

  The situation of her Soul shouldn’t leave any mark on her physical body if she wasn’t in possession of relevant implants or enhancements, and the ones that dealt directly with a Soul were very rare. Because of that, it was impossible to immediately assess the damage her Soul has sustained. But that’s also why Zeph was so surprised seeing how hollow her face was. Her sunken eyes were moving rapidly under the closed eyelids as if looking for an escape from the death itself.

  No matter how hard he tried to explain that logically, his instincts were stubbornly persuading him, again and again, that it wasn’t merely a physical affliction. That her Soul was the major culprit here. Or, maybe, it was merely a result of his own ignorance and preconceptions – all Cororians he saw in such a bad state were on the verge of death, most often caused by the complications stemming from their Soul.

  However, her Will should still be influenced by her Soul and it should manifest in the behavior of her Mana inside her body, so some observations could still be made to assess the situation. However, the Doctor didn’t seem to be learned in Soul Arts, so Zeph was already planning what to do during his meditation sessions to remedy their lack of information.

  It wasn’t an immediate issue, though, even if her Will had depleted fully at some point as Ferrandis had suggested. If she was still alive then she withstood the process and started to form a new brand of Will, which meant she was recovering. Of course, a life-threatening Soul wound would be an inevitable outcome if Ferrandis’s guess was right, but even if they knew how bad it was, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about that right now. Soul Manipulation wasn’t increasing the Tabu Skill without a reason – operating on Souls was extremely dangerous for all people involved.

  Sometimes, it was better to let the patient pass away in peace, allowing their Soul to reincarnate in a different time and place.

  In any case, the most worrying was her mental state. Her gray hair was a testament to the level of stress she has gone through. It was impossible to mistake it for a natural color because of a few stray, black strands that still adorned her head.

  It was the first time he saw a person going full-white at such a young age, and it made his heart sink.

  Although, he was still forgetting that her real age was a bit higher. It wasn’t an intuitive reaction for him yet, to look at people through the lens of slowed aging. Especially in cases of the younger ones. The kids in the orphanage were looking their age for the most part, so it was a first for him, truth be told. It was easier to imagine an adult being ancient despite their looks than to internalize that the young one was double her apparent age.

  It was doubly difficult for Zeph because he never had kids – he could only guess how old a child was going by their appearance alone, and it was getting even more convoluted now.

  Right after realizing how much common sense he lacked, he paused.

  Does it matter? That isn’t the way I should look at things if I want to help her… analyzing everything logically isn’t going to help me, he noticed.

  The ‘Will clash’ was a very possible outcome if he acted blindly when trying to check her Soul. Even a basic level of mutual understanding should help him – assuming his theory about clashing Wills was any way close to the truth.

  Because of that, in an attempt to understand her and her situation better, he started reconstructing a picture of how her life should have looked like up to this point. Imagining something he knew very little about wasn’t going to be precise, but he would need at least a clue about how her mind was working before attempting anything.

  Her apparent age was an effect of her upbringing – she had to be Soul-bonded by her family to survive in higher Mana density, so her shared Regeneration was probably above 100 for all her life, bare the last few days. Thankfully, Regeneration’s effects on lifespan were atypically weaker on low values and non-linear in progression, so 100 wasn’t slowing aging that drastically. Moreover, because of Regeneration’s nature, the faster a body was growing, the less the process was being influenced by Regeneration.

  That meant, she should have been growing quite normally for a young child. A slightly prolonged childhood, he could imagine.

  But one or both of her parents were Bonded to her, which meant they were probably projecting a lot of love and care through that connection. She should have been slightly pampered in that way. But there were also cons – with a psyche so much weaker than her parents', their personal traits, hidden wishes, and overall mentality should be much more influential. He wasn’t sure about the full scope of this effect, but he has learned enough about Soul-bonds to have an idea.

  She may have been pampered, but she was also amendable. Obedient not so much to her parents’ words, but to their ingrained thoughts and values that were shaping her.

  On the other hand, he knew nothing about her interaction with her peers or society as a whole. It would be proper to expose her to the wider world, but even if she had superhuman PE in comparison to people on the planet’s surface thanks to her Bond, stratum-one was a dangerous place. She could have been sheltered her whole life for all that he knew about those people.

  Wait, Aisha mentioned something about that… Weren’t the families with kids moving closer to the lower Mana density? Yes, that seems right. The parents are weaker because of the Bond, and the child should be easier to raise and protect in such an environment, he reminded himself before humming in thought.

  But if their ship was flying so high… Is she even a child of normal citizens? If not, could such a pampered child be in possession of enough will and ability to actually survive in higher Mana density without her parents’ support?...

  In the end, he could only awkwardly scratch his head. It seemed his ability to empathize with the girl reached its natural limits.

  He sighed with resignation. Aisha would be sooo angry if she knew how many of her lessons I wasn’t listening to… Or should I call them sermons?

  ~~~

  At the same time, somewhere in Lurona city, a certain Priestess stumbled – without any apparent reason – while walking down a flat, stone road.

  “What the frix?” she cursed while looking around.

  Shaking her head, she moved along. “At least nobody saw that…”

  _______________________________________________________________________________________

  Spire Sea, local time [1794.04.13]

  Zeph practically moved to the infirmary, spending there most of his time during the past two days.

  It was easy to overwhelm the girl’s miniscule Mana generation if he was constantly present. Even the platform, the patient’s bed, and nearby walls were now saturated with his Mana. It was possible because the Mana-gathering system wasn’t present here, only a Mana-control-and-release mechanism that was making sure there was no interference between patients. Skillful people like the Doctor could also use it to minimize the presence of their Veil, but it was unnecessary in Zeph’s case.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  There was now a heavy curtain separating their quadrant from the rest of the facility. The thing was greedily sucking up all dense Mana that dared to touch it, making sure his Veil had an outlet.

  Filling the whole infirmary with his Mana wouldn’t be optimal, to say the least.

  All in all, this level of saturation was allowing physical contact between the girl’s skin and his undiluted Veil, strengthening its ethereal effects. Because of that, he now had a cozy little corner all to himself – with a hammock and basic furniture occupying most of the space. Initially, he wanted to visit only for meditation sessions, but the effects of his Veil were way too pronounced for the Doctor to not have him there at night.

  Yes, there was a risk he would influence the girl’s mentality somehow if she stayed for days in his Veil, but it would still be a better result.

  Because in his absence, her nightmares and physical state weren’t improving at all.

  The presence of his Veil was stabilizing her mental state and significantly slowing down the degradation of her health. Also, the Doctor was constantly monitoring her condition – still wary of the irregular influence his Veil demonstrated – making sure they hadn’t ‘overdosed’ the young one.

  Zeph was glad for the old Doctor’s assurances that everything seemed in order.

  He was also worried that this method could be detrimental in the long run with such intense exposure, and, initially, he had his doubts about the Doctor’s ability to gauge the full scope of the aftereffects. If the whole phenomena was based on his Will—as it probably was—the physical symptoms could not be enough to assess the situation.

  But after a few lengthy lectures about the girl’s brain activity, its structure, her hormonal levels, and all that advanced medical mumbo-jumbo, he decided to surrender and at least have some faith in the old Doctor’s medical knowledge and years of expertise.

  Thus, he had become a semi-permanent addition to the infirmary. As a passive, stress-relieving apparatus for a certain patient, that is.

  Sadly, he still wasn’t able to study what was happening on the Soul side of things.

  Every time he tried to feel around in the Soulscape during his meditation, he suddenly and involuntarily paused at the last second. It was as if his instincts were stopping him from committing to a dangerous jump. At the same time, if he tried to force the action, he could feel a very bad premonition starting to build up in his guts.

  Even though his Veil was basically surrounding the girl, theoretically allowing him to at least try to peek at her Soul, he never dared to ignore the warnings from his budding auguring ability.

  However, he also felt that he was close to amending that problem. This semi-mental block felt irrationally familiar, so he quickly connected the dots. Gru was, probably, aware of what he was trying to do, somehow stopping him and throwing imperceptible hints his way. That was the only explanation, and he felt it was right when he thought about it.

  Also, he didn’t like the alternatives. He had never experienced something like that before, so it was hard to explain logically...

  Possible mental illness (or a few) aside, he had an inkling that his Soul-related General Skills contained the information he needed to proceed. He just had to level them up a bit more. Looking at his current progress, a few details immediately stood out.

  ‘Soul’, his knowledge-type General Skill, was on the brink of rising in Tier. That would widen its knowledge base considerably – hopefully, the higher Tier contained something related to Gru’s teachings about Soul interactions. There was even a small chance it would expand in that direction, or at least give him an option to specialize, but he doubted he met the criteria – his training with Gru wasn’t that long of an affair, nor was it very fruitful.

  On the other hand, ‘Soul perception’ was lagging behind a bit in levels. But it could gain a lot from pure application, despite also being a knowledge-type Skill. As so, after the Tier-up, it had the potential to become even more aligned with his current needs.

  The problem was – he wasn’t sure what he was lacking. Additionally, even if he decided to brute-force the current issue and work with what he could immediately perceive, he wouldn’t be able to tell if it would be worth pushing his development in that direction.

  However, if they started to run out of time, he decided to use his abilities despite the clear warning signals. He would hate to damage an innocent Soul because of his incompetency, though.

  But those weren’t the only Skill that caught his eye. There was one that could help with his other Skills, his understanding, and his block all at the same time…

  ~~~

  Waking up from another deep meditation session, Zeph sighed tiredly.

  Sitting up, he swung his legs from the side of his hammock. His body felt stiff – it needed stretching and exercise. He planned to remedy that soon, just after getting rid of that pesky, throbbing headache.

  Looking around with half-focused eyes, he quickly noticed that Makani was in the middle of treating the girl.

  The man was visiting the infirmary regularly – at least five times per day. Mostly to work on the girl, but his oxygen therapy seemed to work like a charm for anyone who felt tired, improving their condition temporally – like a small shot of adrenaline.

  Also, Zeph had a rising suspicion that this impromptu oxygen therapy didn’t have any detrimental effects on Cororians. Not only because their bodies were studier thanks to PE but also because an adaptation to a higher oxygen levels seemed like a reasonable evolutionary path taking into account the conditions on this planet.

  Either way, it made the Manacaster immeasurably popular among the whole crew. The man had become a walking and free-of-charge coffee vending machine. People were nagging him constantly as everyone wanted their fix to be delivered on time – going as far as to interrupt his sleep. Makani was suffering for it… just as he should.

  The traitor had to atone for his sins. Zeph may or may not have suggested to a few people that the Manacaster was quite a bit prideful and prone to bending under heavy complimentary assault.

  But that wasn’t important right now. Seeing the man, Zeph had an idea.

  After forcefully aligning his mind and waking up his body – he would take Willforce Morphon’s abilities over oxygen intake every time of the day – he jumped down and unhurriedly walked to the platform.

  This time, he didn’t fumble his entrance and smoothly stepped on the moving contraption. The waves were much calmer lately, probably because they left the area of influence of the floating continent, but he had become much better at it after those two days.

  He waited for Makani to finish his job, stepping beside him and looking at the proceedings without a word. He didn’t want to break his focus.

  To the naked eye, nothing was happening. But through his omnipresent Veil, Zeph could easily make out the area of effect of the Spell, as well as the surface parts of the construct. The main reason it took so long and required so much concentration was the interference caused by Zeph’s Mana saturating the immediate area. Even if Makani’s Veil was pushing against it, miniscule amounts of Zeph’s were still penetrating deep into it. And because Zeph’s Mana was quite ‘stiff’ thanks to the contaminations’ Magicules and his ability to control it, the resulting release of Ambient Mana caused by the contact was much higher than in a free environment.

  But after a few minutes, the session was finally over – marked by Makani’s heavy sight.

  “What do you want?” he asked with resignation, turning his head to look at Zeph with his tired eyes.

  Zeph barely managed to stop a smirk from showing on his face. “I need a volunteer. For training.”

  Makani’s eyebrow rose questioningly. “For what training?”

  “Hmmm… Do you remember those special medicaments we took with us?”

  The second eyebrow joined the first. “The ones useful for your Profession? If you are trying to do what I am thinking you are trying to do… Have you gone mad?”

  “Oi! Watch your mouth, traitor!” he half-joked, half-warned the man. “I don’t have much choice here,” he started, glancing at the girl. “I just want to train my Skills, as I should during this trip. Don’t call me mad just because you will suffer through the proceedings,” he deflected the issue, trying to cover for Makani’s bluntness. He wasn’t lying, though.

  Makani started massaging his eyes, suddenly looking even more tired.

  _______________________________________________________________________________________

  Spire Sea, local time [1794.04.14]

  The temperature of the air was becoming noticeably warmer at this point of their journey.

  As their ship traveled further south, the cold winter winds started to recede, replaced by a warm breeze coming from the lands of Corora’s Tropical circle of latitude. However, the temperature of the water was stubbornly low – no warm currents welcomed them just yet.

  Ten days have passed form their visit at the Green Crest town, almost three of which were wasted on the rescue mission. They were nearing the Dzyl Archipelago – their destination. According to the captain, it would take them another four days to navigate through the shallow waters and the local geopolitical territories before they would reach the final island. And it was a very optimistic version of the events.

  Thanks to Vuld, they have skipped over the most risky waters of the southern coasts of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom, but the same couldn’t be done here. No shady deals could help them this time, and any conflict could slow them further. Also, their information about the state of the islands was very much outdated. That’s why they were going to stop at the closest port that seemed safe – to gather information.

  Or, at least, the crewmembers were going to do that. Zeph had radically different plans.

  First of all, he wasn’t in any condition to leave the ship. Or walk properly, for that matter.

  Secondly, he did it. He found the solution. Mostly by actively practicing on Makani, but his Skills have crossed the threshold almost at the same time, showering him with even more intricate techniques he could apply.

  But he wasn’t planning to study them. The third and main reason was – they were running out of time.