“Sorry, what?” Cassie asked.

  “Well, we need to actually induct you two as well. All we’ve done is talk so far, but I need a display of your abilities. And you need to sign the contract.” Ren stood as he spoke, causing his chair to disappear. “After all, that’s why we’re here. Now, where would you like to go?”

  At this point, I finally noticed that my body hadn’t settled down. If anything, it was still going haywire over the amount of magic around me. The only reason I wasn’t feeling it was because of the way my body was going haywire.

  “Hey, Ren,” I asked. “What would you say the ambient mana concentration’s like here compared to outside?”

  He tilted his head and raised his hand. Somehow there was a book in it now, and he flipped through a few pages. “About ten times the normal amount, too help with mana regeneration for training. Why?”

  “Ah,” I said as I stood up. Then I promptly tripped and fell over, because I was far faster than I had been expecting. “Yeah, that would explain it.”

  “Explain what?” Ren said. Now there was a pen in his hand, poised over an entirely different book that he held on a force construct.

  “You see this?” I gestured to my skin, which had gotten even more excitable over time. At this point I was equal parts pink and teal now, and both were swirling around each other like aggressive clouds. “This isn’t how I normally am. The last time this happened was when I needed to take in more mana for… reasons.”

  “Really?” Ren asked. “Ah, I see. You are absorbing rather a lot, aren’t you? More than when you got here, that’s for sure.” He stuck out his tongue as he scribbled in his book, which was weird to see because his tongue was also made of force.

  “Anyway, I have no idea what’s going to happen if I ratch it up again,” I informed him.

  “Maybe you should just not,” added Cassie.

  “Well, you should. We need to find out,” ordered Ren at the same time.

  I looked at Cassie and shrugged helplessly. I rather wanted to know, and I was pretty sure this didn’t violate my promise.

  “Alright, here goes.” I shut my eyes and shifted into my Fey form, to the effect of… nothing. No change.

  “Huh?” I muttered. I swept my vitae through my body to see that all of the effects I would have received were already being covered purely as a way to process the sheer amount of mana here. I couldn’t stop absorbing it, so my body was just burning through it as fast as possible.

  That sounded good, but that wasn’t the only effect. My body was being… weird, again. Specifically in a way I wasn’t entirely sure how to comprehend. It was like some of my body was being painted over by mana. Not a massive amount, but enough to worry me if I suddenly lost it or something. Fortunately it wasn’t concentrated anywhere specific. If anything, it was notable how uniform it was.

  “Hey, Ren?” I asked again.

  “Yes, Julie?” He asked. He hadn’t stopped scrawling in his book since he’d gotten it out, which was a little distracting. Still, you couldn’t blame a man for his hobbies.

  “Have you ever heard of someone getting converted into mana?”

  That got his attention. He stopped writing almost immediately and banished both his book and his pen. “Exactly how?” He demanded.

  “Like… If you wrote something, then covered it in white paint to write something else,” I described. Not the most concise description, but it wasn’t exactly something I saw every day.

  Ren did not relax. If anything, he got more tense. “Oh dear. This isn’t good. Hold on.” He waved an arm and instantly I felt… cold. Like I couldn’t breathe and had too much oxygen at the same time. My skin started flashing all different colours as my head began to pound.

  “Ah,” Ren said. “We’re a little late, I see.” He waved his arm and the room returned to normal. I leant heavily on the table as I gasped for air. I was too busy catching my breath to see, but I heard Cassie yell something at Ren, and then the sound of a bolt of lightning.

  I looked up to see Cassie holding her wand and glaring daggers at Ren, who was frowning at me with one arm held towards Cassie. He was fizzling with residual electricity, but didn’t seem to mind. “Julie, this is very important. What do you know about the fey that changed you?”

  I sat heavily in my chair and shrugged with one shoulder. “Not much. What did you just do?”

  Ren shook his head, waving dismissively at Cassie. She didn’t react except to move a little closer to where I was sat, moving between me and Ren.

  “I tried to lower the ambient magic of the Arena to standard atmospheric levels. It would have worked if we’d caught this sooner.” A third book appeared in his hands, which he placed on the table. It was titled Changing: What To Expect.

  “I believe that being here has kickstarted the early stages of your Changing early, Julie. I’m sorry.” He manifested another chair and sat heavily in it.

  “That… makes no sense at all. I’m not exactly accomplished when it comes to magic, if you didn’t notice.” I winced. I was starting to feel… off. Not exactly bad, just sort of numb. It felt a bit like I’d been caught up in static.

  “Well, there are many things that could have caused it, but in reality it’s a combination of factors. You are fey, and thus predisposed to change in all its forms. You are also borne somewhat of magic already, which means you were always going to go through the Changing somewhat early. There’s also the common misconception that Changing is about skill, when really it’s about exposure.

  Most mages Change later in their career because that’s how long it takes to get a certain degree of exposure to magic. Sorcerers and Warlocks both tend to Change early because of their propensity towards workings of larger magnitude, for example. However, even if you’re eating up a dozen times more than you normally do in here, I reckon that you’ve been cycling mana through your system significantly more frequently than most do.”

  “Huh. Wait, Cass,” I turned to her. “Didn’t you say I was absorbing more after I burnt your hand?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Yeah, but that was temporary. When you were all weird.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled.

  She put a hand on my shoulder. “You do just kind of absorb it constantly, to be fair.”

  Ren clapped his hands, drawing our attention back to him. “The upshot of it is as follows: Julie, you aren’t leaving the Arena for a while. I have no idea how long. I or another qualified mage will be here at almost all times to keep an eye on you and document how it works, because this is the research opportunity of a lifetime. Any questions?”

  “Yes,” we both answered in sync.

  “Right, of course,” Ren muttered. “Go on then. Out with it.”

  We shared a look and I nodded for Cassie to go first. “We’re getting something out of this,” she stated. “I mean, that’s the second time today you’ve messed her up.”

  “That was two statements, not a question.” Ren answered.

  “Okay,” Cassie responded. “What are you giving us in compensation?”

  Ren paused for a moment before sighing. “Fine. You can have double pay for a month if you make it through examinations. Technically you’re meant to get a couple weeks leave for your Changing, but you don’t even work for us yet.”

  Cassie turned to me in question. I just shrugged. I hadn’t been expecting this to happen, but I certainly hadn’t expected compensation.

  “Deal,” she said, sticking her hand out to Ren. He let out a long-suffering sigh and shook it.

  “And your question, Julie?” He turned to me, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the sheer smugness radiating from Cassie.

  “Actually, I have a few questions.”

  “Oh, good,” Ren muttered. “I do have an actual job, you know.”

  “Well, stop with the snarky comments and you’ll get to it faster,” Cassie responded. I was starting to the sense she really didn’t like Ren. He didn’t respond.

  “Firstly, why can’t you just lower the mana gradually. I mean, I acclimated to a higher concentration, surely I can do the same in reverse.”

  Having an actual question seemed to lighten Ren’s mood a bit. He actually reminded me a bit of Almon in that regard. “Well, this is beyond mana sensitivity at this point. If my understanding of your physiology is correct, you function a little like a monster, requiring mana due to a more intimate connection to it compared to most. As such, I imagine you’ve actually been making miniscule leaps of progress into your Changing already.

  Now, if this was the case, you would have been seeing consistent jumps in various traits for some time. Does that sound accurate?”

  I nodded and gestured for him to continue, interested despite myself. “Well, in that scenario your body would have seen the consistently high mana here as both threat and resource, processing it faster and using that increased mana to fuel your Changing in greater strides. Now, this essentially means that your body has a far higher minimum requirement of mana for now, thus confining you to areas like the Arena with enough to sustain you.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Yeah, that was a lot.

  “Wait, exactly how much do you know about changelings, if you have an ‘understanding of my physiology’?” I was curious how much I could trust this guy’s knowledge.

  “Well, my University thesis was on magical physiology. While true fey may be wholly magical, changelings are at their core magical creatures, not magic itself. I have some experience.”

  I considered my next question. “Well, in your expert opinion, what’s this going to do to me?”

  Ren actually laughed at my question. “Well, that’s up to you.”

  What?

  “What do you mean,” I asked cautiously.

  He shook his head. “Come on, Julie. Think. The Changing isn’t the physical changing of the body. The Changing is bringing the body closer in line with magic. You’re a shapeshifter. You can use that magical body of yours for whatever you want.”

  Didn’t Almon say something like that? About directing the Changing?

  “I… don’t have any idea what to do with that information,” I admitted.

  “Well, when you do, let me know. A friend of mine teaches a side course at the University on the Changing, I’m sure he’d love to hear what it’s like for you. I would too, by the way.” Ren stood again. “Now, we do actually have to induct you at some point. You should be physically capable, correct?”

  I nodded. Aside from the static feeling through my entire body, I was fine.

  “Good. In fact, I would recommend keeping active. Given your pre-existing reliance on mana, the more energy you burn the quicker this should go. Now, let’s get started before you turn out to be allergic to movement or something. Truly, never have I been more disrupted.” He waved his hand and suddenly we were in a circular arena filled with sand.

  He muttered something under his breath and made a complex gesture with one hand. A moment later a humanoid force construct appeared in the centre of the arena, the same sparkling blue as Ren’s own body. “Cassie’s going first, because she tried to hit me. Do your worst.” He gestured at the force construct, which had turned to face the group. It began to walk forward, and turned out to be rather slow.

  Cassie wasted no time, fortunately. In seconds her wand was bursting with lightning, sending strike after strike at the construct to little effect. She kept sending lightning for several seconds, stopping when it became clear that it wasn’t working.

  Rather than short bursts, she clearly decided to just try sheer force instead. She brought her empty hand level with her wand and began to move rapidly through a series of gestures as she incanted under her breath. Electricity began to pulse through her wand, hands and upper arms.

  In a crescendo she raised her arm holding the wand and pointed it at the slowly advancing force construct. In a matter of moments a small, dark cloud manifested above its featureless head. The cloud began to crackle, until all at once it let loose a single Lightning Strike from directly above the construct, releasing a resonating crackle and kicking up a small cloud of sand and dust.

  We stood in silence for a moment as the dust cleared to reveal the force construct. It looked almost identical to before, except now it was covered in sand and had a single small crack etched into its head. It was still walking, only feet away from Cassie.

  When it reached her, it brought up a heavy fist and swung, leaving Cassie to summon Shield to try and deflect the blow. However, it never landed. The construct froze mid motion as Ren stepped forward.

  “Hmm,” he murmured as he examined the construct. “Not bad, as far as power is concerned. I’ve seen better Lightning Strikes, but I’ve also seen far worse. You listed yourself as studying for seven years, and casting for two. Not bad at all. Your spellcasting was efficient and without hesitation. This much is good.”

  I could see Cassie puff up a little from the praise. No matter how much she disliked him, Ren was clearly an accomplished mage. Praise from him was a good sign for my talented friend.

  “However,” Ren’s voice cut through his own compliments like a knife. “You were also foolish. What did you do wrong, Cassie?”

  Cassie thought. “I didn’t break the construct?” She answered, although she sounded unsure.

  “No. That was a result, not an action. You doubled down.” Ren explained. “You saw that your attacks weren’t capable of incapacitating your opponent and, rather than consider another course of action, you simply relied on brute force. That left you in a terrible position when you failed. You are applying to be an adventurer. We are in the business of tackling problems above us in terms of power. Having magic does not make you immune to that.”

  He shook his head. “We’ll get back to you. For now, think over other ways you could have tackled that opponent with the tools you have available. As a wizard, you are likely to be the most versatile member of any adventuring team. You need to consider these things. Now,” he turned to me. “Julie, if you would take the stage.”

  I stepped forward, patting Cassie on the shoulder as I passed her by. She’d be fine in time, but she didn’t always take criticism too well.

  I watched as another force construct appeared in the centre of the arena and drew my sword. I felt a bit silly as I did so, given that I’d just watched this thing tank a lightning bolt to the face. Still, it was what I knew.

  Rather than make the same mistake Cassie had, I decided to seize the momentum and rush at the construct. From the start of it’s attack on Cassie it looked to be pretty slow, so I figured I could outmanoeuvre it while I figured out how to actually damage it, or at least do something.

  Sure enough, it tried to throw an obvious haymaker at me as soon as I got close. I moved to the side and lashed out with my sword, to the equally obvious result of absolutely nothing. I didn’t even leave a mark, and I may as well have done nothing for all the reaction I got from the blank construct.

  The construct whirled on me and tried to throw another punch, but it was just as slow. Maybe if I wasn’t juiced on way too much mana I would be in danger, I was pretty comfortable dodging it. Just for the sake of it, I swung again. Again I did nothing.

  We continued like this for a while as I considered what to do. I couldn’t really think of anything I could do to stop it, so I decided to experiment. I needed more information so I held up one arm, which I covered in chitin with a thought. Underneath it was still normal, but the chitin on top was the thickest I’d made yet.

  When the construct next threw a punch I braced for impact and took the hit. It hurt rather a lot, but it just barely didn’t break through. It did certainly leave a mark, though. My chitin was actually dented a little. Still, it seemed like it was strong enough to work as protection.

  While this information was good, it wasn’t a plan. I was pretty stifled by this thing, to be honest. Of all of my tricks, most were useless. This thing had no vitae to drain, nor eyes to trick with illusions. That left me with a useless sword and my shapeshifting.

  I realised that I didn’t actually have to kill the construct, just stop it. Going full offence was never going to work, because I couldn’t match Cassie in raw power and she’d failed there. No, I needed to think outside the box.

  Maybe I could stop it moving? But with what? It was physically larger than me, and for how slow it was it was at least strong, judging by the punch I’d taken. So if I wanted to restrain it I would need leverage.

  I had an idea that made me feel… uncomfortable, but I had to use what I had. This was by far going to be the most out of the box thing I’d used my shapeshifting for to date, but needs must. Keeping most of my attention on dodging, I focused my internal senses on the fingers of my free hand.

  Oh, this is going to feel so strange. This is not how I pictured today going.

  Steeling myself for discomfort I removed the bones from my fingers, causing them to become little more than tubes of muscle and sinew. Next I began to lengthen them, adding more and more mass to them as they stretched and extended. At the same time I replaced the skin with the more elastic, rougher version I had used inside the joints of my chitinous arm design.

  Next I twisted them together, tightening them like a cord of uncomfortably fleshy rope. Then I followed a similar set of actions with the rest of my arm. Finally I shifted away the outside of each finger where they connected, leaving them as a single mass of thick flesh, muscle and sinew. A pale, sinuous nightmare tendril where my arm had been.

  Dear gods, ew. Oh, that feels so weird.

  My brain still thought I could move each finger individually, which was very confusing because I technically only had one huge, boneless arm-finger. To move it properly I had to move all of my fingers in unison. When I was done my rope-arm was about the width of my hand and half as long as I was tall. It dragged along the ground as I dodged, which wasn’t a sensation I was forgetting any time soon.

  I grimaced, but soldiered on. I was enduring this for a reason, after all. Dropping my sword, I shifted my other arm to be covered in chitin and advanced on the construct. With my chitinous arm I blocked a heavy blow as it tried to capitalise on my proximity. With my arm-tentacle I wrapped around its legs, grabbing it and holding tight.

  With my horrible grip secure, I darted away again as I yanked with my shifted arm. The construct wasn’t actually all that heavy, and it soon found itself being dragged to the ground. With it toppled I leapt onto the construct and straddled it.

  Next I added whatever density I could to my body. I thickened my bones, plated my body in chitin, even added more mass to the nightmare I had for an arm. Whatever it took to keep the construct from moving.

  As it lay there I snaked my rope/arm/tentacle/mistake around its arms, squeezing tight to stop it from moving its limbs. Somehow, the worst plan I’d ever had actually worked as the construct fell completely still.

  Ren stepped forward, but said nothing for a time. Finally he spoke. “What, by all that is holy, was that?”

  I clambered up off the ground as the construct disappeared. Internally I was thanking every god that I got to keep an intuitive understanding of my previous shapes, because I did not want to manually create that thing ever again. Externally I shrugged.

  “I couldn’t break it. What did you want me to do?”

  Ren sighed. “Just… maybe be less nightmarish next time. I’m not forgetting that sight any time soon.”

  I got a proper outside look at my weird arm tendril for the first time. It was… less than pleasant. My shifting was rushed and sloppy, which meant that from the base of what used to be my fingers the tentacle almost followed the contours of five digits, but only under the skin. Paired with how long it was compared to my body it was… disconcerting, to say the least.

  Yeah, I’m not looking at that any more. I can do better than this.

  Channelling my intuitive understanding of my body, I got to work. Unfortunately, my biological study session hadn’t really introduced me to tentacle monsters, because I hadn’t made it to marine life. Still, I had an idea of how to improve it a bit, both visually and functionally.

  The main change I instituted was to shift the muscles to the outside, forming a ring. I hoped that this would help with more precise motor function and keep the outside of the tentacle visually consistent. Next I properly dissolved the former finger structure to rebuild it to better function as a single prehensile limb, rather than the crude rope it was at the moment.

  Finally, just because I could I added a chitin spike on the end, which was bladed down one side. I thought that I may as well, because more reach was more reach. If I was going in on horrific flesh constructs, then I at least they would be practical efficient flesh constructs.

  “-ah she gets like this sometimes,” I heard Cassie say as I broke concentration.

  “Gets like what?” I asked. At some point I must have sat down, because I was currently sat cross legged on the sand with my new bladed tentacle on my lap.

  Cassie just waved in my general direction. “You know, all focused. Used to happen before all this, but now whenever you find something new to haunt my dreams with, you turn a limb into it.”

  I winced. “Sorry. Look though, it’s better now!” I waved with my tentacle, which was a strangely satisfying movement. It was still only as thick as my arm, but it was long. I reached out with the end and gently wrapped it around Cassie’s hand from where I sat.

  I had expected her to jump away, but she didn’t. She just grabbed it. “Why is it warm?” She asked.

  “...It’s called blood, Cass,” I responded flatly.

  Ren clapped his hands again. I had to admit, it was a pretty good way to get someone’s attention. “Okay, enough. Julie, put the tentacle away.”

  I did as he said, almost reluctantly. For all that it was very strange at the beginning, it was surprisingly fun to have a limb that could move in so many ways. Then again, it was also nice having fingers.

  “Thank you. You did fairly well, incapacitating the construct. However, you were very reckless. You took multiple hits that you didn’t need to. I assume you were relying on the healing abilities you listed.”

  “I was experimenting!” I protested.

  “You were stalling,” he corrected. “Regardless, you both passed. Good job, welcome to the Guild, etcetera. Normally, you would be taken back out to sign your contracts, but due to some, ahem, oversights, you need to do so in here. Someone will be along soon, but I do need to go and do my actual job.” Without another word, Ren waved his arm and returned us to the gazebo we had been in earlier. Then he just strode through the portal like the last hour had been completely reasonable.

  I looked over at Cassie. “I guess we’re waiting then.”

  She just shrugged, and I couldn’t help but agree.