Surprisingly threats work when you have a potential bomb strapped to your chest.

  Nobody knows what I’m capable of. It’s advantageous to use that, right?

  Im spending all night playing with my innate magic, I realised I can make it solid and liquid fairly easily depending on how much of my own blood i flow into it, I even made a small ball of the material that I can glide between my fingers like a coin.

  I’m sitting by the water, nobody has bothered to visit me, staying on the other edge in the safe food clinic.

  If I told them I had been possessed, which I was, they’d most likely try and kill me, at least this way I skip the eventual backstabbing.

  I’m sure they are plotting ways to take me down at the moment, a lucky implosion spell maybe, have one of my friends sneak up on me, kill me instantly.

  It’s like lobster when they fall into a vat of boiling oil trying to escape, I’m trying to free everyone, but everyone wants to have their own success story.

  I put the ball of my innate magic in my pocket and play around with magic some more, trying to activate the heating spell that null taught me a while ago, I plant my hand in the mud and visualise the one symbol.

  I feel the mud bubble and then my hand boil, an unwelcome yelp comes from me, the skin is completely red... I stroke the boiled hand as I think.

  Implosion is made of 4 variables, the carry variable, explosion variable, a downwards gravity variable… then the damage multiplier…

  Lilith had explained this fairly poorly, and to be honest my mind hadn’t really been in the right state to absorb all the information.

  I try the downwards gravity variable by itself, it does just that, pushes things down, the mud squishing into itself and compacting into dirt, the water seeping out and making it into a square puddle.

  The one thing I learnt about the damage multiplier is that it’s universal, you just have to think about what it’s setting the damage to and then it does it, there aren’t specific numbers.

  I try the downwards gravity with the damage multiplier at 200%.

  The mud crushes instantly into dry dirt, creating a square hole around 1 foot deep. It’s similar to the implosion spell with the sound it makes.

  I visualise the heat variable with the downwards gravity variable, hoping it is a combination spell.

  All it did was compress air, I couldn’t target it on the ground, it just made the air visually distort like you are in a desert and far away terrain looks all bumpy.

  “Boring.” I lay back on the mud, I should have studied more.

  I look down at the water. I wonder if a boat would work, a boat…

  I get up and move toward the apple tree, getting way too close to comfort to the people guarding the food clinic at the front door, I climb up and take an apple, biting into it and stealing a seed.

  I can cut up the wood with my innate magic, use downwards gravity magic to compact them into planks… then a boat… and I can get everyone out.

  Of course, I don’t know what’s on the other side of the sea but… it’s stupid not to try.

  I go back to where I was, taking the seed and planting it into the mud, I try to optimise the grow magic spell, remove the 3 variables that burn body fat…

  The combination spell in parentheses carried into whatever I’m growing, that’s all I need. This is different from doing the implosion spell on the fly since I only need to activate it once. Constantly activating this would genuinely be balancing a juggling act instead of just throwing something.

  I hold my hand on the seed, 1, 2, 3, 4... 1, 2, 3...

  “Hey.” A bored voice from around 2 meters behind me makes my heart race.

  I turn and see her, the boss. Dressed in a black white tank top and grey sweatpants. She appeared completely out of nowhere, scratching at her neck below her messy white and black hair.

  “Hey...” my voice loses its air, my voice coming out in a weird breath.

  “I was told you had died at the dinner party.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It got around.”

  “Okay. So-”

  She holds her hand up, “I'm going to put an end to this silly experiment really quick, and then we can talk, with her gone and all... urgh...” She drifts her feet through the mud, “do they want it painless?”

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  Painless? “don't kill us. Please.” I sound pathetic again, every hair in my body is pointing upwards, trying to flee from her presence.

  “I'm not killing you, relax. Just them...”

  I can't argue the ethics to someone who has none, I take a big breath in to speak properly. “Don't kill them... they can help you.”

  “Okay?” She snaps back instantly, expecting the best from me.

  They need value, everyone needs value.

  “So... I have a ring, right? I have innate magic, just... give everyone time to learn magic... and... we can all help... and they can have rings too...” What am I even saying?

  “Yeah, so I get arrested this time? You know the only reason I let it get this far is because ‘Lilith’ begged me to, she cried and screamed at me to let everyone live.” She turns on her heel, “teaching humans magic serves me no purpose, I have nothing to prove, and my life doesn't depend on whether or not it was a good idea to teach a human magic.”

  She swings her arms around and steps toward the food clinic, “and now that Lilith is dead. Theres no point to this anymore. A cleanup. So, as I said, do they want it painless?”

  Dead? She’s dead?

  “Dead?”

  “Yeah. She was executed, captured in the middle of the ocean by some big league and shot in between those pretty little eyes.” She pokes at my forehead, speaking like this is a completely normal scenario, “I'm mad, I never got to learn what her innate magic was.”

  She steps away, her face still bored and uninterested, “you haven't answered, so I'll go with painless, to respect the dead.” She starts striding towards the food clinic, the mud not stopping her or slowing her down.

  I run after her, “Lilith connected our hearts with a spell, she isn't dead.”

  “that's not... what you are describing isn't possible, for a multitude of reasons.” She sighs, “she was just tricking you, that's all you were good for in her eyes.”

  She wasn't, Lilith wasn't lying, I clearly got the injuries she got in the ocean.

  She reaches the first hut, through the door I can see that it's that old man, I don't remember his name, Gerry? Gerald? He is with two kids sleeping by his side, huddled around him like he is the only person in the world.

  She holds her hand out and it everything, the hut, the man, and the children pull into a single point, a tiny little glowing black dot, she steps toward it and taps it gracefully, shooting it into the sky, “Thats food for the stars.”

  What should've made me scream in rage had only just irritated me, like someone had shouted at my dog rather than kill a child in front of me, I grab the ball of my innate magic I had hidden in my pocket and throw it at her overhand, she turns her head as it bounces off her cheek.

  Not a single emotion changed as the ball hit the mud, she just seemed bored, “okay?”

  I unharden the ball and shoot it as a spike into her neck, it barely makes it half the distance before the liquid falls to the ground, I'm unable to control it, “huh... that's interesting.” She crouches down and dips her finger in the liquid, “burns... its fighting to counteract my magic... like little creatures...”

  She licks it, “most people have variables ingrained within themselves, they call it innate magic. Do you understand?”

  “I do...”

  “Well... usually people are born with 2 or 3 variables, and that makes peoples innate magic have basic properties like fire or gravity spells. But sometimes, and this has been the driving force of most breakthrough research, people are born with longer equations. I was born with 12 variables that allow me to displace matter.”

  Why is she lecturing me?

  “I see you are confused. The fact is: I have no clue what combination of variables would make this liquid.”

  This is perfect, “okay well I'll let you... uh study it if you let everyone live.”

  She smiles “let me? Oh, how grateful I am.” The entire food clinic disappears behind her, just gone, turned into a yellow light that shoots into the sky and explodes like a firework. Everything being illuminated with pink, red and yellow. “As I said I am here to end this experiment.”

  Everyone in the food clinic is dead.

  “Use this as fuel to further your success... that anger? Study. Use it to study.” She places her hand on my cheek, “and I want... you to keep trying your best, okay? Hey don't cry.”

  She taps me twice and then hugs me tightly, “I taught you a good lesson... all that matters is getting stronger, otherwise people like me will step over you.” She pulls back, still holding my cheek, “let me take you back to Lilith’s manor, you had living arrangements there, right?”

  The light had dimmed, the empty space where the food clinic always stood tall is gone, that was the cornerstone of everything good in this town. I'm sure there are survivors. I'm sure there are people left alive.

  “By the way, what’s your name?” The girl starts destroying huts at random, pointing at them daintily, going “pew” for a few of them, each time a little dot shoots into the sky.

  “Can we go home?” I don't answer her.

  “I'm not done.” She picks out a few more in the distance.

  “Who cares. Youve killed them all, destroyed their paper, they are going to starve to death anyway.”

  She nods, “I suppose you’re right, trapping ants in a bottle is better than squishing them, right?”

  Not by much. “Sure... yes.”

  She stops, “okay, let them starve. Remember chose this. To extend their suffering.”

  “I did.” I did.

  She grabs my shoulder forcefully, “I'll take you to your home.”

  What was once the mud towns bleak destruction is now a cabin with the lights on, through the window I can see Null cooking,

  her hair is tied up and she seems to be humming a tune, as she turns to the sauce she is making she sees us and waves happily, probably didn't know where I was.

  She opens the door, “Master Fay! I made-”

  The boss points her hand out and Null disappears. “I forgot about her.” Turning into the same glowing point that floats into the sky.

  Everything goes blurry in my mind. “Is she dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  ...

  “...Kay.” I walk down the path into the cabin, the food that was once being made by Null left unattended, two plates on the table had been set, alongside tea. The food was a simple spaghetti dish, probably was making a meal every night waiting for me to return.

  The boss disappears.

  I grab the pan, making sure the mince cooks correctly, it needs to be brown right?

  The sauce was in a separate bowl, I pour it onto the mince, it was tomato sauce with little bits of green in them, spring onion?

  I turn up the stove, the sauce begins to bubble a bit, jumping out of the pan onto the counter, ill clean that later.

  I clumsily drain the boiling spaghetti outside, some of it spills out onto the grass, I bring it inside and pour it in with the sauce.

  I mix for around 4 minutes before I pour it into both plates, some drips off hers and onto the table.

  I leave the pan on the floor, the stove still on and sit down at the table, “okay! Let's eat.”

  I take a bite, the spaghetti was undercooked, the sauce made up for it though.

  I'm back home. Everything is great. I'll still need to plan a way to help everyone. But everything is perfect right now.

  “Thanks Null.”