After Crazy Legs turned off his aura of Prince-Charming, it took the girls a full minute to recover from the effects. Once they were completely free of the influence, the first thing Crazy Legs did was… apologize. According to him, he had—possibly—the sleaziest power in existence. He was a walking roofie, and he planned to expose every person in the room to it.

  Not the best choice of words, considering the ability.

  Crazy Legs wanted to do it so they could resist it, though. He’d already talked to the illusion instructors from day six, to ask to be part of any future training. In his ideal world, nobody would be vulnerable to his magic, or others like it. When Aria had asked him why he hated his own magic so much, he’d answered with ‘personal trauma’, and left it at that. Respectably, though, the man couldn’t change what he had, so he’d decided on how to make the world a better place with it.

  He didn’t want anybody to be the victim of that kind of violation.

  Det suggested he not spring the magic on people—like he just had with them—in the future, if he wanted others to trust him, and Crazy Legs took the advice with a brief blush and a nod of agreement. He’d figured they would’ve seen him practicing, until he considered they were all sitting in front of him, with their backs to him the entire time. His magic required somebody to be looking at him for it to work. For now.

  The fact his magic was going to get stronger through the class was a whole other thing, and they decided to all meet and chat about it another time. Mainly because Det wanted to get back to his own practice, and getting Crazy Legs’ whole story would take time.

  So, with Det’s arms and legs almost back to normal—and the energy through his channels feeling smoother by the second—he briefly explained what he’d learned to the others. About his energy, its different forms, and how it moved through the channels of his body.

  “I suspect,” he finally said, after most of the explanation. “The more liquid-like energy will make it easier to do what Beauty wants us to.”

  “Why haven’t you tried yet?” Aria asked, her head cocked to the side with the innocence of her question.

  “Because of the energy reversal,” Det said.

  “Aren’t you better now?”

  “… yes.”

  “What are you waiting for?” she pushed

  “Yeah, Det, what are you waiting for?” Crazy Legs echoed. By the look on his face, he knew the answer as well as Det did—because Aria had asked him to explain!—but was just having fun with it.

  “I… guess I should get back to it,” Det said flatly.

  “Let us know how it goes!” Aria said, spinning back around in her chair at the same time she swiped the ink-kitten from the top of her head.

  “Good luck, Det,” Eriba said quietly, ducking a quick bow behind her long bangs, then returning to her desk. “And, thank you for explaining.”

  “No problem,” Det said. “I hope it helps.”

  “It will,” Crazy Legs said as he picked up his own chair and went back to his desk.

  Finally, with the crowd around him thinned out, Det took a deep breath and settled himself in for the next round of testing. He’d managed to consciously get part of the energy in his node to change. It had just been a small part, the first time, and far too much the second time. Almost like he’d turned all the energy solid.

  The process, as it was, kind of reminded Det of flexing. Exerting pressure. Not gradually, though. Instead, it was from nothing to full contraction all at once. Flipping the switch. His intent was wrapped up in it as well, and there were probably a few more components he’d need to tease out. The problem with his second attempt had been how far he’d taken it, somehow.

  When his ReSouled body made the changes for him, it naturally—though more slowly—converted the energy into the safer liquid version. Why didn’t it use a solid form of energy? Why did a solid form of energy in his channels even exist? Questions for after he figured out the liquid part.

  One step at a time.

  Det’s goal was a distant thing, but he knew as well as anybody, rushing wasn’t going to get him there any sooner than doing things right along the way.

  With a few more renditions prepared in front of him, Det again allowed his body to slowly transform the swirling energy within the node of the left palm into its liquid form. “Slowly” was actually pretty relative, with the length of time being measured in rapid heartbeats. In his right hand, Det left the energy gaseous.

  His body had recovered from the energy reversal, and he definitely didn’t want to repeat the episode. He’d do what he succeeded at last time. Just a small part of the energy he wanted to become liquid within the mist.

  Flex, he both thought and did, the process coming easier on the third attempt. Before his eyes, a small portion of this misty energy immediately liquified. It didn’t take heartbeats. Hell, it didn’t even take one heartbeat. It was mist, then it was liquid, just like that.

  “Yes,” Det said quietly to himself again. This time, though, he didn’t let his excitement get ahead of him, and took another deep breath instead of trying again. When his mind and body were back under control, he repeated the process a fourth time, creating a fourth drop of energy spinning in the mist.

  Unfortunately, almost as soon as the second drop fully formed, the first fell apart. Dissolved back into mist. A minor setback, but nothing he was going to let discourage him. So, he tried again. Same thing happened. He created a new drop, only to have the first one vanish again. A third time repeated the same situation.

  Okay, let’s try something a bit different.

  Instead of forming a second, isolated drop of energy, Det instead focused on the mist immediately around the existing drop, and visualized that liquifying. In the blink of an eye, the size of the drop doubled, now about the size of his pinky-fingernail.

  Better yet, it was stable. It followed the flow of the energy endlessly swirling around his palm, with no signs of degrading or breaking down. There was even one more perk he noticed as he watched the mote of liquid energy revolve.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  No strain. It wasn’t like the energy his body had instinctually transformed in his other hand that felt like minor calisthenics the entire time. It just took more concentration and focus. Mental work, instead of physical. Now that he had a bigger sample to study, as well, it also became clear the two liquified energies weren’t equal.

  The purity of the drop in his right hand was much higher than what he had in his left hand. The left hand wasn’t actually, fully liquid. There was still mist moving around with it—kind of like a pipe that was really only sixty-percent full of running water, with the rest of the space filled with air—but he hadn’t had a good example to compare it to before.

  Interesting.

  So far, he’d learned that while his body could do the process for him, it was both slower and less efficient. If he took it back to his lung analogy, it was like holding his breath versus taking a deep breath before holding it. The second would be the superior method, if the goal was something like staying underwater longer.

  Letting the energy in his left hand go back to being mist—a more natural state for it, apparently—Det focused on his right hand. The first thing he did was stop trying to keep the drop of liquid energy in that state. Since his left hand went right back to being a mist, he expected the same thing to happen in his right hand, though at a slower pace.

  He was absolutely… wrong.

  The drop didn’t change in the slightest. It was liquid now.

  Was that a good thing?

  In case it wasn’t, Det tried to see if he could pull it apart, back to mist. Like snapping his fingers, the drop dispersed into its mist form. Another snap, and it was back to liquid. Once more in each direction provided a new insight. It was the same mist turning to liquid every time. There was no mixing or diluting.

  It was also exactly the same size every time. He didn’t manage to make it any bigger, and when he tried to create a second drop, he felt the first one starting to fall apart. Since the new drop liquifying in the mist was much smaller than the first, Det released the pull of the new drop, and the first stabilized again.

  There had to be a reason he couldn’t keep two drops going at the same time, but he couldn’t spot any logical reason. He also couldn’t seem to make his current drop any larger again. Each time he tried, it held for a second—not even—then the edges frayed off, back to mist again. The size of the drop in his right hand was his size-limit.

  For now?

  Was it a Rank or practice thing? Time would tell. In the meantime, there was something else to test.

  Holding the drop in his right hand, Det looked to his left. A little bit of concentration, and a tiny drop of liquid appeared in the node. Only half the size of the drop in his right hand, it spun around within the metaphysical node without a care in the world. It also didn’t affect the drop in his other hand. Another second of concentration doubled its size, bringing it to Det’s limit, and just like that, he had one in each hand.

  Or, was it one in each node?

  Still not entirely sure if the liquid energy was a good thing or not, Det moved up to the nodes in his elbows, and repeated the process. His shoulders came next, and he suddenly had six of the drops floating in his arms.

  How that would help him, he still didn’t know, but it was some kind of progress.

  When he’d let his concentration lapse before, the single drop in his right hand had remained, so it was time to see if that was true for all of them. Since he’d used most of his kitten renditions in his earlier practice, making more of those would be the perfect distraction.

  A few stretches of his fingers, and Det picked up his brush and got to painting. Each image took barely fifteen seconds, and he worked for five minutes straight until he had twenty more images—his current limit—ready for him to summon a new litter of ink-kittens.

  Through it all, his drops of energy had remained stable within him, showing no sign of fading with his inattention. That could be helpful. He’d have to test if they remained while he slept.

  Before that, though, were the kittens. The whole point of this had been to accomplish the task Beauty had put before the class. Reinforcing just a part of their magic.

  Would the liquid drop of energy move through the smaller channel of his fingers? How would it affect his kittens, or his renditions in general?

  It was time to find out!

  Rubbing his fingertips together in preparation—a little too much like an evil genius, if he was being honest with himself—Det put one hand each on a waiting painting. Just one at a time, was the plan, but this way, he wouldn’t have to wait between renditions if he was on to something.

  Starting with his right hand, he mentally took hold of the drop of liquid energy, and directed it toward the channel of his index finger. It took a minute to actually isolate it and move it separately from the mist around it, but even that was good practice. His previous manipulation of his energy had been about moving all of it slowly or quickly. Now, he was practicing moving just a very small part of it, while leaving the rest in place.

  This brought on a new kind of strain, but more of the mental fatigue than a physical one, like he’d experienced before. It wasn’t anything more serious than focusing on a particularly difficult puzzle, so Det pushed past it easily enough.

  When he got the drop to his finger, the smaller channel didn’t prove any impediment to the energy traveling down it. Again, considering the size of his finger and how large the drop felt, physics clearly weren’t a thing his ReSouled body was worried about. Down his finger and out the tip, the drop moved seamlessly into his painting.

  Outside his body, the drop was significantly more difficult to manipulate. It immediately wanted to seep into the ink and make a nice, comfy home for itself. Det pushed back against that, but it was like trying to hold onto Jello after jumping into a swimming pool.

  It slipped through his metaphorical fingers and infused a small part of the painted kitten. The… tail… based on where Det had placed his finger. That wasn’t nearly enough energy to bring the rendition to life, and Det didn’t push any more energy into it. Summoning more kittens wasn’t his current goal, even if it would’ve helped him see the effect.

  No, for now, he wanted to be able to move the energy where he wanted it.

  A flare of misty-energy from his right hand overloaded the painting, causing the sheet of paper to vanish in a black, phosphorus burst and sizzle that made a few people around him jump.

  Understandable, since he’d been producing kittens for them the entire time. They had to be wondering if they were each cuddling exploding kittens at the moment.

  Let them wonder.

  Det moved right on to the painting at his left hand, repeating the process. Like before, the drop of energy became insanely difficult to control the moment it left his body and entered the painting. He only managed to move it a fraction of an inch more than the first time. But, more was still more.

  A second of concentration brought two new motes of liquid energy to life in his hands—after flash-frying another painting—and he started on his third, then his fourth. By his twentieth, he’d been able to control the drop of energy for an entire inch, reliably, before he lost control.

  By forty, it was three inches.

  By a hundred, he could move it almost the entire length of the kitten.

  By a hundred and fifty, it was just as easy as moving it through his own body, and he finally settled on which part of the kitten he wanted to try enhancing. In place, the mote infused the ink around it, visibly empowering it both to Det’s eyes and senses, and he allowed his misty energy to fill the rest of the ink of the painting.

  It took the usual two seconds, not counting his playing with the energy, to summon his rendition. And, when he did, he had more than just succeeded. He had created, possibly, the most weaponized version of his ink-kitten he’d ever seen or imagined.

  Large, sparkling eyes stared up at him, their power making his heart absolutely melt as an awwww escaped his lips unbidden.

  This was the cataclysm of cuteness. The apocalypse of adorable. The darling of disaster.

  All around the room, twenty-one other heads turned in his direction—or more accurately in the kitten’s direction—to get pulled into the irresistible pull of its magic eyes.

  Who could say ‘no’ to those things? Certainly nobody in the room.

  Other than Det.

  Not only had he created it, but that kind of effect just didn’t work on him. Instead of getting suckered in by the unbridled kawaii of the kitten, Det was high on a different thing. Success. It wasn’t even lunch yet, and he’d reached the first goal.

  Taken his first step in making his magic stronger.