Raylan collapsed against a tree trunk once they were sure no pursuit followed. His lungs burned with every breath. Marcus slid down beside him, still pale from blood loss despite the potion working through his system. Elara remained standing, bow drawn, eyes scanning the fog‑choked forest.
"Who was that?" Marcus rasped. "That shot… was it someone from the Academy?"
"No." The ghost emerged from the pocket watch in Raylan's hand, half‑formed and flickering in the dim light. Its tone held rare thoughtfulness. "That was likely someone else. Someone who did not appreciate being attacked."
"Can you tell who?" Raylan asked.
"Not precisely. The distance was too great, and the fog interfered." The ghost's form rippled. "But… I detected multiple ghosts around us at that moment. Peculiar things. Unfeeling, uncaring… merely watching. And the spell itself felt strange. The mana signature was… compressed beyond what a Rank 1 should be capable of sustaining."
"Ghosts? Necromancers?" Raylan frowned.
"Rank 1?" Elara added. "That shot—"
"Was Rank 1 mana," the ghost insisted. "Undoubtedly. But the control was something else. Someone very clever, and very dangerous."
"Should we try to find them?" Raylan asked. "At least offer thanks."
The ghost laughed—a dry, bitter sound. "Boy, whoever cast that spell had no desire to be found. They ended the threat and vanished. If they wanted gratitude, they would have stepped forward. Leave them be."
Raylan looked toward the distant swamp, now swallowed completely by mist and gathering darkness.
Whoever you are, all three of them thought, we owe you our lives.
"Let us keep moving," Elara said at last. She pointed through the trees, where a dull glow broke the horizon. "I can see the Worm Outpost."
Amber and Valen reached the Worm Outpost as night's first shadows crept across the marsh.
The Outpost stood on slightly higher ground, a low plateau rising out of the swamp like an island. Wooden palisades and stone walls ringed a cramped collection of buildings that looked as though they had grown there haphazardly over decades. Smoke from dozens of chimneys drifted upward, mingling with the mist.
Unlike New Castle Outpost, which belonged wholly to the Radiant Academy, Worm Outpost was public ground—maintained by local guilds and frontier merchants who made their living on the edge of Dawn Forest. Its ownership changed hands through coin and influence, but its function remained the same: last safe rest before entering the deeper labyrinth beneath.
Because of that, it never truly slept.
Parties emerged from the swamps in staggered groups: five or six grimy adventurers here, a twenty‑strong mercenary company there. Some laughed loudly, waving skins of alcohol. Others limped through the gate in silence, armor caked with blood and mud. Porters pushed carts loaded with monster carcasses, bone bundles, and sacks of mana‑rich soil toward the central market.
Amber and Valen approached the gate, where two guards in mismatched leather sat beneath a lantern. One flipped through a ledger while the other inspected tokens.
"Academy," Valen said, presenting his Radiant insignia.
The guard barely glanced at the token before waving them through. Students were a familiar sight—and lucrative customers—here.
Inside, the Outpost felt like a compressed city.
Narrow lanes wound between crooked buildings of stone and timber, some three or four stories high but so thin they looked ready to topple. Signboards creaked overhead: inns, healing halls, weapon‑smiths, alchemists, pawnshops. Voices overlapped in a constant low roar—haggling, orders shouted, arguments flaring and dying.
Closer by, Valen noted a stall where a scarred woman in muted colors bought monster claws by weight, tossing them into crates marked with various sigils. Further away, standing above the rooftops, a stone archway jutted from the plateau's far edge and plunged down into darkness.
Even at this distance, he could feel the cold mana leaking from that arch.
The Worm Cave entrance, he thought. Local labyrinth. High undead concentration. That chill—death‑aligned mana mixed with something burrowing and wrong. Fitting name.
Small shrines were built around the arch, offerings piled at their bases—candles, coins, carved wooden charms. Frontier folk paying respect to whatever spirits watched the depths.
North walls and market belong to the Merchant Guilds, Valen recalled. South side is the Guild State's territory. East is the local lord's tax office. No one claims the Cave entrance itself. Too many have died trying.
Efficient division of profit and responsibility, Valen noted. No one wants to be blamed when the worms crawl out.
They turned down a side lane and stopped before a narrow, four‑story building wedged between a smithy and an apothecary. The mansion was oddly tall and thin, its plaster cracked but recently painted. A small sigil of the Radiant Academy hung discreetly above the door.
The Academy's reserved lodging.
Amber, who had been mostly silent since the swamp explosion, slowed her steps.
Valen glanced at her. Her face was composed, but tension showed in the set of her shoulders and the way her fingers worried at the edge of her cloak.
"You have been quiet," he said.
She hesitated, then met his eyes. "I keep thinking about that spell," she admitted. "If you had not been there… I would have died without even understanding what happened."
Valen said nothing. The truth needed no embellishment.
Amber continued, voice low. "At the Academy, it was easy to believe I was strong. Sparring on even ground, written exams, instructors praising technique. But out here…" She looked toward the Worm Cave archway looming in the distance. "A single mage hidden in the mist nearly burned us alive. And we have not even faced Blight yet."
She exhaled slowly. "Part of me wants to turn back. Go home. Let the true heirs and heroes handle this."
Honest self‑assessment, Valen noted. Rare in nobles. Or anyone, really.
"Yet you are still walking forward," he said.
Amber gave a humorless smile. Her hand brushed the hilt of her saber. "If I run now, I do not know if I will ever be able to pick this up with the same confidence again."
They stood for a moment in the noise‑filled street—market shouts, clanging hammers, muttered prayers near the cavern gate.
"I have a way to increase your strength," Valen said at last. "Enough that even such ambushes will not catch you helpless."
Amber's head snapped toward him. Her eyes searched his face, wary and hopeful at once. "At what price?"
"Nothing you are not already paying," Valen replied. "And nothing that demands you give up yourself."
More specifically, nothing that requires exposing Iris, he thought. A Spirit Channel will suffice for now.
"What is it?" she asked.
"We will speak inside."
He pushed open the mansion door. A wave of heavy, stew‑laden air rolled out, mixed with faint swamp stench that seeped even through stone. The ground floor was a simple dining hall—wooden tables, benches, a tired woman ladling soup into bowls. A few Academy cloaks dotted the room, their wearers eating in weary silence.
Valen doubted anything here tasted entirely pleasant with the swamp's odor in the background, but food was food.
They checked in with the steward, received brass room tokens, and climbed the cramped staircase. Their rooms were small and nearly identical—bare stone walls, a narrow bed, a stool, and a wash basin. Like cells more than chambers, but they were dry and relatively clean.
Valen set down his backpack and removed his cloak, hanging it from a peg. He changed clothes, then used a combination of water, rotation, tempered heat, and air spells to wash and dry the used garments. He had shown Amber the same technique during their travels.
Efficient. No reliance on inn laundry. Minimizes infection risk, he thought, watching moisture steam away in thin curls.
He did the same for himself, ridding his skin of swamp residue with controlled jets of warm water and air.
After a brief rest on the slightly lumpy mattress, a soft knock came at his door.
"You wished to teach me something," Amber called from outside.
"Come in," he said.
She opened the door slowly, hesitating only a heartbeat before stepping inside with squared shoulders. Determination sat strangely alongside uncertainty in her expression. She closed the door behind her and took the single stool. Valen remained seated on the low bed.
"Do you remember," Valen began, "when others mentioned my first chosen spell was Mana Sharing?"
Amber nodded. "They said it was a strange choice."
"It is the foundation for what comes next."
He studied her for a moment. She met his gaze directly. Trust level adequate, he decided.
"If you agree," he continued, "we will form a Spirit Channel between us. With it, I can supply you with mana continuously as long as you remain within range."
"Range?" Amber asked.
"Assuming full mutual trust and no interference, approximately half a kilometer," Valen said.
Amber considered. "You would share your mana with me, all the time?"
"Enough for you to cast as you wish," Valen said. "You have seen my recovery. The barriers in the swamp were not something an ordinary Rank 1 could sustain."
Her brows drew together. "Why? What do you gain?"
Valen acted as if thinking deeply. "A reliable vanguard."
That made her huff a faint, humorless breath. "Practical as always."
She fell silent again, weighing the offer.
"Such a long-distance channel requires trust," Valen added. "If either side holds back, the range and stability suffer."
Amber looked down at her hands, then back at him. "You are asking me to let your mana flow directly into my core through a Spirit Channel."
"Yes."
She studied him a long moment. Memories flickered behind her eyes—their first meeting, his calm in the face of chaos, the absolute focus in his eyes when he stood between her and an incoming inferno.
Amber snorted softly despite herself. "Very well. Let us try."
Valen extended his right hand.
She reached out and clasped it. Her grip was firm, faintly cold.
"Relax your mental barriers," he said. "Not entirely. Just enough to let the channel form."
She nodded, closing her eyes.
Valen did the same, drawing his awareness inward. He followed the familiar pathways of mana through his spirit, then extended a thin, precise tendril outward through their joined hands. It brushed against Amber's presence—bright, taut with tightly coiled will.
For him, the sensation was almost routine. He had practiced similar links dozens of times with the spirits under Iris's control. Mapping pathways. Testing limits.
For Amber, it felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and stepping forward.
A foreign current touched her core—not cold or hot at first, simply other. Her spirit flinched by instinct, throwing up reflexive walls. She forced herself to breathe, to remember that she had agreed to this.
Trust him. Or turn back now, she thought.
She let the walls lower, just enough.
The channel snapped into place.
Mana poured into her like floodwater breaking through a dam.
Heat bloomed in her chest, racing along her channels. For an instant, it burned—sharp, prickling, as though every nerve were being scoured from the inside. Her fingers tightened around Valen's hand.
"Focus," Valen's voice came, calm and close. "Guide it. Do not let it pool."
Amber dragged in a breath and casted the internal Self‑Restoration spell. Healing runes she had repeated countless times flared to life, now supercharged. The foreign mana obeyed her intent, merging with her own and flowing along prescribed routes.
Pain shifted into something else—warmth, relief.
The constant ache in her limbs from trekking faded. The lingering bruises from the Ironback Bear fight dissolved, muscles unknotting as if smoothed by unseen hands. The faint headache from swamp fumes cleared.
She felt… light. Clear. Like she had woken from deep, unbroken sleep rather than trudged through mud and flame.
Her spirit, always cautiously rationing power, now swelled with abundance. Spell forms she had considered too costly for extended use suddenly seemed trivial.
So this is how he moves so calmly through battle, she realized. To him, mana scarcity simply does not exist.
Beneath the power, though, was something else.
He is sharing this with me, Amber thought. Opening a path directly into his core. Showing me, without words, that he trusts me not to reach back along it with a blade.
Warmth bloomed in her chest again, unrelated to mana this time.
"Good," Valen said quietly. He withdrew some of the pressure, stabilizing the flow to a steady, manageable stream rather than a torrent. "Your adaptation speed is excellent. Most people would still be clenching their teeth."
"Most people are not royal," Amber replied lightly, though her voice came out softer than she intended. "Etiquette lessons begin with learning how not to show discomfort."
She opened her eyes.
Colors seemed a bit sharper. Her thoughts moved more quickly, yet with an underlying calm—as though a weight she had not known she carried every day had quietly been lifted.
"How do you feel?" Valen asked.
"Like I have been lying to myself about what true stamina is," Amber said. "And that if I do not make proper use of this, I will shame every teacher who ever invested in me."
"Then the channel is functioning as intended," Valen said. He released her hand and rose. "Let us go down for dinner."
Amber stood more reluctantly. Part of her wanted to sit and simply feel the new steadiness inside her, to trace its edges, to memorize this sense of potential.
But she followed, while asking a question from behind his back. "Are you going to tell me your endless mana secret someday?"
"Of course" Valen answered with a positive and light tone without turning back.
They descended the narrow staircase back to the common hall.
The smell of stew and burned bread hit first. Then the ever‑present hint of swamp. Voices overlapped in weary conversation.
Amber spotted three familiar figures at a corner table—Raylan, Marcus, and Elara. They were bandaged, tired, but alive. Seated with them was an old, tall mage with a long white beard, and a flowing dark robe that marked him unmistakably as an instructor of the Radiant Academy.
Valen paused on the last step, eyes narrowing slightly.
Interesting. The Academy sent a Watcher to this Outpost after all.
Amber straightened unconsciously, shoulders pulling back, as the old mage's gaze lifted toward them.