Jace shut his eyes and envisioned the Soul-Circle, the little ring of grey energy at the top of his spine. After all his recent practice with his spiritual senses, it was getting much easier to envision the ring.

  Today, he called it up in a matter of seconds. “So…” he whispered. “How do I actually open it?”

  Kinfild chuckled. “That is the tricky part, now, isn’t it? A fully opened Soul-Circle will have nine segments. To split the segments, you’ll need to create a wedge of Aes and split the circle. The more segments, the harder it will be to split the circle, hence the requirement for a higher level and more Aes.”

  Jace nodded. “I see. So…doesn’t sound too difficult.”

  “The more even your splits,” Ash said, “the more powerful the circle will be. Try to make each segment the exact same size. It takes a great deal of planning and personal vision to accomplish.”

  Jace nodded again. “What…exactly does a more powerful soul-circle get me? Better senses?”

  “That, and a stronger core,” Kinfild added. “When you reach the phase of Soul-Circle Blending, you will draw the circle down and imprint it onto your foundation pillars. Drag them together, bind them, and they will become an incredibly strong core-ring. Your Aes will be purer, and upon blending the soul-circle with your pillars, you’ll double nearly all your attributes because of how much strength it radiates.”

  “I’ll get to work, then,” said Jace.

  For the next hour, he focussed on the core, concentrating on the ring. He guided his Aes up through a large channel. Like the core cloud and foundation pillars, the soul-circle had a large, vacant gap around it, where he could freely manipulate his Aes.

  He formed the Aes into a perfect wedge, then picked the exact right place in the soul-circle and drove it in, like an axe cutting a tree-trunk. Instead of shattering, the soul-circle just split apart slightly in the precise place. It was soft and malleable, more like cookie dough than metal.

  He viewed his status sheet, and now, it read:

  Name: Jace Scott Baldwin

  Worldjumper #: 5

  Class: Core Hunter

  Advancement Progress: Soul-Circle Opening – Stage Two (1.00%)

  Standard Level Rating: 36

  A good start, but it hadn’t used much Aes, and he still had plenty left, and it hadn’t been difficult to cut at all.

  But, instead of just hacking at the soul-circle aimlessly, he used the same wedge of Aes and guided it to different places around the circle, making soft indentations. Like Ash had said, the circle was supposed to be divided into even parts, and Jace couldn’t just eyeball it. He needed to plan.

  He made little indents at even intervals around the circle, then adjusted them. It was hard, with how small the circle still was, but already, with the single cut, it seemed to be expanding. The circle was bending, reaching away from the place where he’d left the two cuts, and he let it.

  Once he finally was satisfied that he had nine even intervals, he targeted his second planned location and jabbed the wedge of Aes through it, splitting off the first arc perfectly and leaving the rest intact.

  When he checked the main status sheet, he’d jumped straight to Soul-Circle Opening – Stage Three (1.00%).

  At first, there was no change. At least, not that he noticed.

  But then, when Perril returned to her arcane flame at the center of the tent and drew the last of the Vitality out of the insect, Jace felt waves. It was hard to explain, but…almost like a tremble in his bones, except throughout all of his channels. Perril was moving lots of Aes, and it was causing vibrations in the Split.

  Instead of just danger, he could sense that.

  He cut the soul-circle a third and fourth time, creating two more arcs. They drifted away from the main circle, expanding, but stayed in orientation. Kinfild had been right—given time, they’d expand to about the same size as the main core, and he could drag them down and imprint them.

  Now, the status sheet read: Soul-Circle Opening – Stage Five (1.00%)

  When Perril triggered a technique card to maintain the orb of Vitality transferring magic, Jace sensed the card appear right away. Not as a feeling of warning, but rather, of noticing its wires and runes and the impression they made. When she triggered it, he sensed the very specific pattern.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  But when he tried to make a fifth cut and bring himself to the sixth stage, his Aes resisted. The soul-circle had become tough and springy, and he just didn’t have enough Aes, no matter how much Aes he funnelled into the wedge.

  He’d just need more, then. He’d need to improve his level rating, which there’d be plenty of time for in the coming days.

  As he waited to Perril to finish—she had to be getting close—he inspected his own injuries. He didn’t exactly have a mirror to see his face in, but the wounds were no longer bleeding, and instead, a couple bubbly red scars ran across his flesh. His eye felt swollen, almost like it wasn’t working properly.

  His body was much the same. Whatever Rallemnon’s abilities were, it wasn’t just a regular blade, and it didn’t cut normally. Though the wounds were healing, he doubted those scars would ever go away.

  And then there was the problem of his hand. It still hurt like hell, but now, the pain centered around his forearm, where the tourniquet still tied it, bunched up tight. Most of the flesh on his hand, along the line where Rallemnon had sliced off part of his hand, was still weeping blood, and it’d be worse without the tourniquet, but eventually it’d stop.

  Just…it was going numb. It was dying.

  With a grimace, he stared at it for a few seconds. But there was nothing he could do.

  “Rallemnon,” Jace whispered. “What…exactly were his techniques? How could he hit me while I was in hyperspace, passing through physical objects?”

  “He uses a smoke-aspect mixed with a shield-aspect,” Ash provided. “The smoke aspect is a subset of darkness, and his shield aspect gives it more strength than usual—at the cost of speed.”

  Jace said, “A shield…like the anti-hyperspace nets, then.”

  “Indeed. You are lucky he didn’t have more time to build a proper net to catch you.”

  “Some warning would’ve been nice, then,” Jace grumbled.

  “Last I knew,” Ash said, “he had not altered his Path to accept a shield aspect. And I doubt Kinfild knew that either. I am sorry it had to go that way, Jace, but if—and more than likely, when—you have to face him again, you will be prepared.”

  “Yeah,” Jace said. “I still need to—”

  “Aye, it’s done,” Perril announced. “I’ve done all I could.”

  Jace sprang to his feet and ran over to Lessa. He hadn’t exactly known what to look for, but if no one said anything, he doubted he’d notice any sort of wound. Her skin had sealed over perfectly.

  “It will take a while to recover from such shocks,” Perril said. “But she will wake up again. I highly suggest that you return to the surface and rest.”

  “I don’t think she’ll be too happy about that,” Jace said.

  “How so?”

  “She wanted to be here, miss,” Jace asserted. “I don’t really think I can tell her not to, and besides, she’s not a kid. She can make her own choices. I don’t think I’d be a very good friend if I didn’t let her do that.”

  Perril snorted, but seemed somewhat pleased by the answer. “Then promise me this: she is a mortal, not a Wielder, not a mage. She has no enhanced attributes. You must keep looking after her. And she must learn to look after herself, if she is going to be a bold and brave adventurer, so that she can return the favour one day.”

  Jace swallowed. “Don’t worry. She’s already saved my bacon a couple times.”

  “Saved…your bacon?”

  “Uh, yeah. Saved me.” Jace cleared his throat. “Anyway—”

  “She would die from the spiritual pressure if we gave her powerful armour, as would any mortal,” Ash said, tone suspicious. “That is not a good solution.”

  “I don’t mean fancy enchanted items or whatever you sort are peddling,” Perril said. “She’s your marksman, aye? What with the way her finger calluses are and all, I’d say she’s the one using the plasma rifle.”

  “Yeah,” Jace said.

  “What if you helped her with the role? Found her a better rifle, made her better able to move…an automated skeleton of sorts. We’re in a Luminian tomb, and there’s more Luminian Steel and automatons than the Brakamen could’ve dreamt of.”

  Jace chuckled at the idea of Lessa walking around in an exosuit, not because he couldn’t imagine it, but because he could, and it was an extremely amusing mental image. “But there’s just one problem. We…we don’t have anyone in our group who’s good with anatomy and can just build a suit of robot armour for her.”

  “Robot?” Perril shook her head. “Aye, he speaks odd. And you’re not a group; at this rate, you’re a party. I was listening in to what you three were saying, yeah, and I’ve got some ideas of what you are.” She crossed her arms, then stepped closer to Jace. “Whoever you are, you seem like a good person. The kind we’re sorely lacking.”

  Where is she going with this? Jace thought. He kept that to himself and only nodded along.

  “I’ll admit, I was planning on running, until I saw how loyal you were to her,” Perril said, tilting her head toward Lessa, “and how well you were treating her. Well, I’ll put it this way: I know anatomy, I can heal, and I think I could help your little party. I can help you put together some power-armour for your friend, and I can help you”—she stared directly at Jace’s injured hand—“fix that up. It wouldn’t be the first time I attached an artificial limb. So, what d'you say? I help you, you help me get out of here?”

  Jace glanced at Kinfild, then at Ash. Neither of them nodded, but neither protested—though Ash looked significantly uncomfortable with the proposal.

  “Alright,” Jace said quickly. “We’d be glad to have a healer with us, and…yeah, I wouldn’t mind some help with the hand. But we’re delving deep, and we’ll need to move quickly. We’ll have to work on our projects along the way.”