They head back through the , ign all of the valueless items scattered around by the ants.

  “Why did you say my mana manipution leasure to watch?” Emily asks Ivor as they rise through the earth.

  “You're very good at it. Your mana movement is so fast and precise it’s like watg an artist at work,” he signs back, fusing Emily more.

  “But mana manipution is easy. You just have to will it into shape and it follows without resistance,” she says, raising her hand and p out a small ball of mana before f it into the outline of a fming bird, perched on her finger.

  Enzo and Ivor roll their eyes at her.

  “For you maybe. Us normal people have to forana to listen to us,” Enzo says, raising his hand and gathering an orb of broarticles before slowly guiding it into the form of a bird.

  His mana struct takes him ten seds to plete and has shaky, poorly defined lines. Emily raises a brow, her mind suddenly filled with questions.

  Why is it so different for me? I already know I’m abnormally good at setting a mental image and maing my elements with raw mana, but what about this? I have a basia manipution skill, but that only gives me ten per t more effid trol, and I geed it just by practising a little bit. It’s never felt like f it to listen.

  She pulls up her system as they step out of the and into the well-lit cavern above. She ss through her status for the cause and her eyes pause on one of her talents.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Magical Genius]

  User is a natural-born mage.

  -Grants instant prehension of new magiowledge]

  -Mana strength increased by +50%

  -Increased aptitude for creating new spells

  _____

  Magical genius, could it be this? It doesn’t say anything about mana manipution though. Do skills and talents give uioned bes?

  Emily’s broken out of her thoughts by their other friends approag them.

  "You get anything iing?” Dante asks.

  “One hundred and thirty-six lesser earth crystals, twenty-six normal, and five greater,” Emily says with a proud smile, pushing her questions about her talents to the back of her mind. “That, and a sed circle burrower ant queen.”

  Tom aer both look shocked at the reveal of the queen, surprising Emily, but Juliana and Dante only react to the crystals.

  “Damn, that’s over half our entire haul from the st trip!” Dante says excitedly.

  “Wait, a borrower ant queen?” Hester asks.

  “Yep. She was sleeping on ah crystal vein,” Emily expins. “You two know about burrower ants?”

  “Ah, yeah,” Hester responds with a nod. “A while back there was a y near orm, our home town. The Dahlia family made a big deal out of parading the queen back through town after killing it, saying that it was a rare and valuable find.”

  “Well, it’s used to make an elixir, so I see why they were happy.”

  “An elixir?” Tom asks with shock. “What type?”

  “It’s called Earth Drops, ah attribute elixir that will increase the mana capacity of a sed circle earth mage.”

  “Oh mages?” Tom says with a hint of disbelief.

  “Well, not exclusively. A mage with a different attribute could take the drops, but they’d get a much smaller increase, so most don’t have the same i in them as earth mages.”

  “Oh, cool. Will there be enough for me to have one?”

  “Ha, yes. It will e out of your cut from the expedition though, since a single queen only make three portions. Anyway, we deal with that once we leave here. For now, are you guys done harvesting all of these ants, or do we need more time?”

  “We’re done,” Juliana answers for them. “We’ve collected every gnd that’s still intact.”

  “Perfect. Let’s get going then. I’m hoping we reach the luminis yer by nightfall,” Emily says, gng around at the several entrao the cavern and quickly pig out the ohey ehrough.

  They retrace their steps, back to where the path split, and tihe way they were going before Emily diverted to the . They jourhrough the dark tunnels, killing anything that stands in their way until they see a faint blue glow ahead.

  “Just in time,” Emily mutters, gng down at The Clod seeing it’s almost midnight, the test she’ll keep moving iunnels.

  “Pardon?” Juliana says behind her, not quite catg Emily’s quiet musings.

  “I was just saying we’re cutting it close. We were going to camp in this cave for the night even if it didn’t have any luminis.”

  They step into the cavern as they talk, finding an open room, filled with shining blue flowers, with seven paths brang off ahead.

  “Is this the same room as before?” Enzo questions, looking around at the paths.

  “It’s impossible to tell,” Emily says, tossing the barrier disto the air, activating the light and sound arrays. “If it is, it’s ged pletely. Even the dimensions are different.”

  They quickly set out sleeping bags, crushing some of the blue flowers to make spad lighting a campfire. Hester cooks them some a, and they eat quickly before turning in for the night.

  ***

  In the m, they pick the first of the seven routes out of the cavern a off. The tunnel angles noticeably downwards, leading them deeper into the earth.

  They run into a group of screamers half an hour in and this time Emily notices in advance, casting a sound-isoting barrier before lettieammates bombard the flyis with spells. Emily quickly strips the corpses before they tinue on.

  Just under an hour ter, after killing a few bugs along the way, the dark tunnel joins auhis one overflowing with light. Emily grins, sensing there isn’t anything living close to the entrahey walk through, and spins ooes to walk backwards.

  “Wele to The Crystal Waters,” she decres, spreading her arms open in an exaggerated manner as the light swallows her.

  Ivor, Enzo, and Dante have mild reas, chug and rolling their eyes at Emily’s performaom, Hester, and Juliana oher hand are dragged into Emily’s show, looking around in amazement and gasping at the sight of the beautiful underground river. Their eyes roam from the swirling, clear water, with a yer of shifting fog just below the surface, to the glittering crystals lining the ceiling.

  I see why Oscar was dramatic before. It’s fun to watch their reas.

  Emily smiles, pulling her gaze away from Juliana’s glistening eyes to take in the cave herself. It’s much the same as st time, and she doesn’t see as or resources of value, so she makes her way to the water’s edge. Her friends follow her, curious about either the water itself or Emily’s as.

  She crouches on the riverbank and reaches into one of her belt’s pouches. She pulls out a small, fist-sized meical boat.

  It has a small, wind-up motor ected to a propeller hanging off the stern and a few small ones embedded into the sides and bow. There’s a small lesser water crystal mounted on top of the motor, and several runes are scattered across the entire boat, from the hull to the tiny internal gears.

  Emily pces the boat oer’s surface, fag downstream, and ects a stand of mana to it. Half the mana activates the boat's array and links to it, giving Emily a rendered uer view, using the same reflected waves method as her vibration pack. The other half verts into maa, eg to a small gearbox and flig the pre-wound eo a, eg it with the front a propellers to send the boat out into the middle of the stream while resisting the weak surface current urging it forward.

  “What’s that for?” Juliana asks, watg the little boat drive out into the tre of the water and e to a halt.

  “It scouts uhe water like my spider does the ground,” Emily expins, standing up and turning around. “Because of the ge in medium, the spider ’t tell when there are beasts ier. Si would require a much more plicated array ara weight from another mana crystal to power it, I decided just to make another mae for scouting the water instead of upgrading the spiders.”

  “You’re so well prepared,” Hester says with respe her voice that slowly shifts into amusement. “I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if you said you’ve prepared a way for us to breathe uer.”

  “Ha,” Emily chuckles. “Not yet. I’ll have to work on it.”

  Hester rolls her eyes, but Emily pulls up a new folder in her o work on the idea when her sleeping cores wake up in a few minutes. Her bird nds on her head, and she quickly switches the unneeded light pack with a thermal pack before sending it out down the river.

  “Let’s keep going,” Emily urges, stepping out ahead of the group again. “Hopefully this river will lead us back to the same ke. If not we’ll have to try to search for another point ected to the end.”

  They walk downstream, following the river on its winding path. After an hour of walking, Emily’s boat detects something lurking ier as it guides the way ahead of them.

  She casts lightning orb, a sed circle spell, and, after travelling a few metres, drops the crag ball of electricity into the water, surprising her friends. Steam rises, and the water is instantly filled with millions of volts.

  No one says a word, as everyoches the water where Emily has attacked. After a few seds, as the lingering charge of her spell fades, four piranhas rise to the surface.

  “I bet they’ll taste good,” Hester ents as Emily detaches the bdes from her Cws and throws them into the heads of two of the fishes.

  “They’re already half-cooked,” Emily responds with a smirk, reeling in the bodies.

  She pulls them up onto the riverbank, dropping them at her feet as she pulls the bdes free and tosses them again. With the st two kills firmed, Tom puts them in his bag to harvest ter, and they tinue downstream.

  They run into a few more piranhas, and a couple of groups of bugs that were settled in the light of the river, as they steadily tinue downstream, following the left baually, the crystals above the water start to dim, signalling the arrival of night.

  “Let’s set up here,” Emily says, halting ieps and tossing the barrier disc out above the river.

  The anchors fly into the surrounding walls, suspending it in the air as its light array takes over from the crystals on the ceiling. They y out sleeping bags as Tom aer start filleting the fish.

  Once all of the sleeping bags are set up, shrouded by the fog c the floor, Emily settles dowo the twins at the small fire they have started. She g the offcuts pile, filled with all the parts of the fish that they ’t eat and don’t care to keep, sihing in the fish is a valuable material worth taking back. Her eyes are drawn to the fish’s gills and curiosity grips her.

  She picks up one of the decapitated heads with the gills still attached and runs a full maa s. She carefully is the route water would take, being taken in through the piranha’s mouth before flowing out through the gills, over the tiny, yered frills of flesh.

  Fasating.

  She makes a few notes, adding to her design ideas, before tossing the head bato the pile. Emily leans against Juliana, with almost all of her focus on her design, drawing out blueprints for a piece of gear as she tio tweak and refihe spell to add to it.

  Hester fries the fish fillets in a pan with a sprinkle of salt before handing them out for everyoo eat.

  “Are we going to be okay oing the things we kill? Won’t we get ill from ing etables?” Tom asks as he digs into his fish.

  “I’ve never really thought about it,” Enzo responds, looking at his food thoughtfully. “It’s just on practi expeditions to eat the things you kill instead ing lots of rations. I guess the mana in the meat probably pensates for the ck of variety.”

  “Partially,” Emily adds, instantly drawing everyone’s attention. “Mana-dense meat and pnts both act like a fully banced meal. And even if they didn’t, you’d be fine. Mages’ bodies are modified by their mana from the moment of awakening and are far more robust than normal humans. Even a first circle mage would be able to survive just fine on a siype of food.”

  “Wait, just being mages affected our bodies that much?” Hester asks with surprise.

  “Yeah!” Emily firms with aed nod. “In fact, even at first circle it’s close to impossible for you to catch a mortal disease. It would o be enhanced by an energy like mana in some way to affect you at all. Then there’s the rest of the ges as you increase in circle.”

  “What ges with each assion?” Tom asks Emily. “Your life span increases and you get stronger. Right?”

  “Yes, those are two of the effects. Every time you gh an assion, from the first to fourth circle, your body is refined closer to the perfect human. It improves your life span, strength, flexibility, hand-eye coordinatioal processing, hearing, eyesight, and yeneral fortitude.”

  “Woah,” Dante excims. “How much a person even be improved?”

  Emily pauses, uo answer his question. A small frown creases her brow as she g a ellio go over her past stat increases.

  “I have some notes on it but haven’t dohe maths yet. Give me a sed,” she says, diverting all of her processing power to the task.