I tried to better observe what in the world was going on. There was still no telling just how much time had passed, nor could I determine how much time was left in my vision. But I had a solid lead into what was happening inside the Nether Vein now. I wasn’t letting it go just yet.

  On closer inspection, I noted the man looked kind of deformed. I had thought I’d need to amend my original impression to humanoid, like a Rakshasa. But no. It was a human being. Just one who had strange growths and missing chunks all over.

  He was a real mess.

  The problem was that I had no context about him. I didn’t know where he had come from or how long he had been here. I definitely had no idea what his goal was supposed to be.

  All I could really be certain of was that he wasn’t too powerful. For all that he was changing the very layout of the Nether Vein, I didn’t feel an impressive aura or sensation of power from him. He wasn’t even as strong as the Councillors, from the impression I got. That honestly just made his situation even stranger.

  There was something strange going on all around me. It felt like whispers brushing past my ear. The edges of my vision were tangled with Netherthreads.

  Hmm, maybe the protection of the Councillor’s feather was running out. I’d need to hurry.

  As such, I focused on what exactly was happening. The man was carrying a strange, lumpy material that nevertheless glowed like someone had set a disco ball inside an orb of lava. Molten strands came off the thing to weave throughout his whole body, digging into all the misshapen and missing chunks of the man’s body.

  I didn’t know what that was, but I felt it was important somehow. Something to report back once I emerged.

  The other curiosity was the lack of Netherthreads attacking him. They were present, swirling and swimming around him, a few even latching onto the… well, I couldn’t call them injuries since the man clearly wasn’t acting injured.

  The point was that just like the strange, magma-like substance, some of the Netherthreads were interacting with him too.

  I tried observing the mechanism of just what the man was doing. Sadly, I didn’t get much time to do so. I barely saw threads of mana thicker than my head creating a fake wall of the same weird magma, which was solidifying into the typical metal the Nether Vein was made out of, before the wall completed, blocking my view of him completely.

  Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. Although, the growing pressure from the Netherthreads trying to interfere with my vision was creating my own little climax.

  I once again had little idea of how much time passed, but I eventually spotted a miniature army approaching from the opposite side that the man had come from. The side that was still visible to me. Wait, no, that wasn’t an army. It was too small.

  That was the expedition.

  That realization finally shattered whatever protection Se-Vigilance’s feather had provided, because my vision was now blocked by a storm of swirling dark tendrils.

  I gasped a little as I swayed on my feet. The Councillor’s little pavilion materialized around me, anchoring me to actual reality.

  “Are you alright, Seer Moreland?” Se-Vigilance asked.

  I needed a few seconds for my brain to recalibrate itself back into my regular body and surroundings. “I’m fine, I think. You were right. The Nether Vein was trying to get to me through the vision, which didn’t happen last time. I guess, aside from not Sacrificing a piece of the Nether Vein, I also hadn’t entered it yet.”

  “If you’re alright, then please elaborate on what you saw.”

  “Yeah, about that… not sure you’ll believe this, but you’re being stonewalled—kind of literally—by a person.”

  Se-Vigilance’s eyebrows arched up in surprise. I went on to explain everything that had happened in my vision, everything I had seen and witnessed. Well, not everything. There was no point in trying to reiterate the whole history of the Nether Vein. I didn’t even remember it all.

  But I made sure to talk about every single detail about the strange man I had picked up.

  “Someone who came in from the other side of the Nether Vein,” Se-Vigilance mused. “In other words, a different entryway.”

  “You’re not surprised by what he was using to control the Nether Vein?” I asked.

  “Well, I am curious how he gained control of the Nether Vein, yes. But some things are clear. I am familiar with the material he was using, for instance. Klevacite. A denser form of it, at least. It’s what we’re using to construct our bastions of exploration.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  The Councillor didn’t appear too shocked or surprised about what I had discovered. If anything, she looked like I had just injected her with a cocktail of pure adrenaline and a Red Bull. That spot of livid Netherthreads looked more like they were trying to escape before the pressure within her neck eradicated them.

  “Thank you, Augur Moreland,” she said. “Your insights will help greatly.”

  She was turning away, about to go over her map, probably already figuring out plans about how best to proceed.

  “How are you so confident, Councillor?” I asked. “I feel like I just gave you a vague idea of what’s going on.”

  “Don’t worry. I believe I have enough to be going on with, and I know how we can proceed further. The only thing that bugs me is the source of this mysterious man, though if he still exists within the Nether Vein, then perhaps we can find out for ourselves soon enough.”

  I frowned at the way she used ourselves. “Are you… inviting me along?”

  Se-Vigilance turned back to me for a moment. “The invitation was implied, yes. I am not barring you from declining, of course.”

  “Of course. I’ll think about it.”

  Internally, I had to admit that the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go back into the Nether Vein. I needed opportunities for growth, for new ranks to come faster than what just training alone could provide. I needed opportunities for breakthroughs. The Nether Vein would be prime grounds for that.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  At the same time, I didn’t want to rush into things without enough thought and planning. These expeditions tended to take a little while. Who’d look after the Sun Cult while I was gone?

  “Thank you, Councillor,” I said as I took my leave.

  “No, thank you.” She offered me a brief parting smile. “I will be looking forward to your participation, should you choose to accompany us.”

  I met the others before I left. All three were very curious as to the contents of my meeting with the Councillor, and I explained everything.

  “No, Khagnio,” I said, scowling at the Scalekin rogue. “She didn’t want to dissect my body to see if otherworld people have a different biology despite being the same species.”

  He looked at me, partially affronted. “I hardly said anything like that, mageling.”

  “Khagnio is right, Ross,” Cerea said. “He’s not smart enough to think of things like that.”

  “Oi!”

  “You’d do well to agree, Ross,” Ugnash said, smiling at our bantering. “I’m thinking of going in myself. Khagnio might be a rat bastard—”

  “Oi!”

  “Snake bastard, Ugnash,” Cerea corrected.

  “I’m going to kill you guys and make it look like the Nether Vein did it.”

  I laughed at that. “What about you, Cerea? Thinking of heading in as well?”

  “Well…” Cerea looked at all of us with a slow smile. “If we’re all going, I wouldn’t mind joining my good old friends.”

  “I just don’t want to fall behind the other pricks at the Adventurer’s Guild,” Ugnash said. “Believe you me, they’re going to hold the fact they’ve gone deeper inside the Nether Vein over me until their dying breaths if I let them.”

  I snorted. “As good a reason as any.”

  The idea of adventuring with my friends really was appealing. Oh, yes. It seemed everything around me was tempting me to go into the Nether Vein again, to join the next expedition before it set out.

  Since I was already so high up on Zairgon, I swung by the Kalnislaw lands. I wasn’t sure if they were even supposed to be called that. Naming them Sun Cult lands was odd. Thinking of them as Moreland lands was hilariously silly.

  I was pleased to find that the construction was well underway. The Anymphea were almost halfway done with their greenhouse efforts, having created the frameworks and glasslike plates they were setting between the frames. Then there were all the intricate manatech they were establishing in the greenhouses, which would need a bit more time to be finalized.

  The problem was the lack of resources. With how much the Anymphea had been hurrying to get away from the Blight Swarm, they hadn’t been able to secure as much of the raw materials as would have been ideal, so they didn’t have anywhere near enough to construct greenhouses for the entirety of the vineyards.

  There wasn’t a ton I could do either, other than helping to procure the few that were available in Zairgon and sending orders for out-of-city requirements. Essentially, we’d need some time to finish it all.

  Of course, I needed to work on the artifice I had promised, but I was waiting for word from Linak on that.

  “Are you truly alright with resuming the blood seeds, Lord Moreland?” Yerenc asked. He looked like he was trying hard not to grin. “Not that I mind, you understand. I do appreciate not completely discarding the roots of our prior operation.”

  “Yes, well, the old suppliers of your blood seeds weren’t willing to sell to me, or to anyone who’s not a Scarseeker,” I said. Admittedly, that wasn’t my whole motivation for wanting to move away from them, but it certainly hadn’t helped. “We’re lucky they approved of Hamsik. Weird way to run a business but whatever.”

  “They’re Scarseekers, my lord. Your mortal ideas of acquiring wealth and growing influence are not at all their priorities.”

  “Yeah… yeah I’ve seen a lot of evidence of that.”

  The state of the Kalnislaw lands was pretty strong proof of that line of thinking. I supposed Glonek and his ambition had been an outlier. Though that begged the question why bother getting the status of a Great House then.

  It was the addition of new workers for the fields that I was actually looking forward to. Or rather, the return of old workers who had been forced to leave their jobs due to lack of finances and the fields just no longer being tended to and all that.

  “You let us take care of these fields, Cultist Ross,” said the man whom the rest of the fieldhands seemed to have elected their leader. He was a Scarthrall, one of those who had no wish to fight and grow, unlike my fellow cultists. “Most of us here are pretty familiar with them.”

  “I’d help,” I said. “But uh…”

  The man grinned. “We all have our roles. I’d lead the cult if I had to, but uh, well…”

  I laughed shortly. “Fair enough.”

  Trusting Yerenc and the others to take care of it, I finally left for home.

  Over the next few days, I focused on training some more again. Linak had sent a letter saying that his son had gotten ill again, so he was obviously preoccupied with more important matters than crazy artifice ideas, though he assured me the illness wasn’t serious. He promised he’d get to working on it as soon as he could.

  I sent a quick reply saying that he should focus on his son for as long as he needed and to let me know if I could help in any way.

  Since Linak was busy, I took my time with my new mana core business. Mostly because it was really difficult to feel like I was making progress with it.

  I focused for hours and hours on end, just sitting and concentrating on my mana directly, trying to coerce, cajole, and push it all into one spot that wasn’t the mana core I already possessed. This one I was trying to focus in my head. One whole day spent on it and the only real thing I achieved was a minor pulsating headache.

  It could be that I needed something extra. Master Kostis had mentioned that mages often used supplements to further their training. Sometimes, they were even necessary.

  I felt like I had made some progress, but I was going to seek out more information as soon as I could.

  One of the things I hadn’t properly trained was my Agility. I needed to settle on a new Agility Augmentation. Power and Vitality were done, so that was the only Attribute I had left that I needed to figure out an Augmentation for. At least, until Thauma hit Gold too.

  Going in line with my focus on absorbing and redistributing energy, I wondered if I could do something similar for literal speed.

  “It’s not impossible,” Gutran said in between our most recent training bouts. “Do you have any specific ideas for it yet?”

  “I was thinking of draining an opponent’s speed when they’re affected by my Aspects.”

  “That would be extremely annoying for your opponents. And also potentially quite effective too. You’d just need to make sure that the mana used to power your Aspects isn’t being used up to constrict them instead.”

  “Good point.” He was right. I wouldn’t want to decrease the intensity of my Aspects just for one Attribute Augmentation. That would suck.

  The real problem, though, was that neither of us knew how we could train Agility up to even acquire an Augmentation like that. Since it was a more mage-like Augmentation, Gutran suggested I should get pointers from the Mage Guild. If only Master Kostis was still around…

  At least two days of dodging and reflex training got me a rank in Agility. Oh, and I finally had Ritual’s new Affix too.

  [ Affix Unlocked!

  You have acquired a new Affix for your Ritual Aspect.

  Affix: Circle ]

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Thauma, Fervour, and Agility Attributes have risen by one Rank.

  Your Ritual Aspect has risen by one Rank.

  Thauma: Silver V

  Fervour: Gold V

  Agility: Gold IV

  Ritual: Silver III ]

  Circle was going to be pretty interesting because I had already figured out a couple of uses I was going to test soon. Specifically at the vineyards to see if my idea worked.

  But the next day brought with it a surprise.

  “Here,” Revayne said, handing me an extremely official envelope, her face still behind her book as usual. “An invitation.”

  It was strange she had come to meet me in person at the temple. Had to be an important summons. “An invite? Thanks, but for what?”

  “For my wedding.”