I stared at the ledger once more. There were 423 Soulbooks available.

  Rows of names, descriptions, costs, cooldowns, and restrictions. For five silver and an empty slot in my soul, I could gain almost any power. The choice was daunting.

  “Alice,” Ko’i said gently, “we can take as long as you need.”

  Ja’a snorted. “She’s been thinking about this since we sat down.”

  I didn’t deny it. Unlike the Lightning Soulbook, which I needed to charge my electronic devices, I couldn’t come up with an easy answer this time.

  “If you’re asking for opinions,” Ja’a continued, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, “then the answer is obvious. Flight.”

  Raik closed his eyes. “Ja’a.”

  “What?” she said. “She has a strong Sky affinity. Flight needs a strong Sky affinity. It’s perfect.”

  “It’s a dynamic Soulbook,” Commander Kitchi said calmly. “With a high mana draw.”

  “So?” Ja’a shot back. “She has mana. Her soul strength is higher than average.”

  “Not as high an affinity as someone from an elemental bloodline,” Kitchi replied. “How many lightning bolts can you throw before you run out?” he asked me.

  “Twelve,” I said, that’s two bolts more than when I used to train under Lieutenant Garo.

  “Twenty-four if I use my spear artifact,” I added.

  “That would translate to roughly six minutes of uninterrupted flight,” Kitchi said. He glanced at Ko’i for confirmation. The cyan-haired Soulscribe nodded.

  “That’s enough to flee from danger,” Kan said, nodding.

  “The catch,” Kitchi continued, “is that since this is a dynamic elemental Soulbook, it would compete with your lightning Soulbook for the same mana resource.”

  I frowned. “That means for every lightning bolt I throw, there would be thirty seconds less of flight.”

  “In a fight,” Ko’i nodded, “you’d be choosing between mobility or offense.”

  Ja’a crossed her arms. “That’s still better than being stuck on the ground.”

  “Is it?” Kitchi asked. “The sky isn’t safe. It lacks cover, it makes you a target, and you can still fall from the sky.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “Don’t pretend it can’t happen,” he said mildly. “You burn mana faster under stress. Stacking two mana-hungry Soulbooks is a recipe for disaster.”

  “You’re treating her like an idiot,” Ja’a frowned.

  “I say it because she doesn’t have much combat experience,” Kitchi replied evenly. “Plus, I’ve buried enough freelancers who thought flight would save them.”

  The room went quiet.

  Calr broke it. “Then give her something that would keep her alive when everything goes wrong.”

  He didn’t look at me when he said it.

  “Something Kindred,” he continued. “Resilience, speed, or regeneration. That doesn’t need mana, does it?”

  I swallowed.

  A Kindred attribute looked ideal on paper, but…

  “It’s safer and easier to integrate,” Calr went on.

  “I’m not sure how to test for it,” I said quietly, “but I think I’m at least one-eighth Kindred, the same way I’m one-eighth Dreamer.”

  Ja’a nodded, confirming my guess with her Seer ability.

  Calr frowned. “That’s barely anything. I doubt you’d ever be breaking stone with your fists, no matter how much you train.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I still want physical training to remain an avenue for growing my soul. A Kindred attribute would bar me from that, wouldn’t it?”

  I looked at Ko’i. He nodded slowly. “Military doctrine supports that theory. Overreliance on Kindred Soulbooks is why, when both are Kindred, the average elite freelancer ends up stronger than the average soldier in the long term.”

  Ja’a frowned. “You’re saying getting too strong now… would make her weaker later?”

  “In the long run,” he said. “Yes.”

  Calr sighed, but said nothing.

  Kitchi leaned back in his chair. “Then don’t take physical power,” he said.

  He reached across the table and tapped another page.

  “Perception,” he continued. “Eagle sight. Rabbit hearing. Threat sense. Things that take decades for true Kindred to develop. In your case, maybe never. So you can afford to abandon that path of advancement.”

  Ja’a groaned loudly. “That’s so boring.”

  Kitchi didn’t look at her. “Boring keeps you alive.”

  Ko’i perked up at the suggestion. “Perception doesn’t compete for mana. It scales passively. And it enhances everything you already do.” He smiled at me. “Including your scholarly work.”

  I imagined it. Seeing enemies from a distance. Hearing danger before it appeared. Observing the universe with new eyes.

  It felt… right.

  And that annoyed me, because Ja’a was right, too. It was the boring option. I could choose to fly or gain super strength, but I was considering perception instead.

  Raik cleared his throat. “There is another path.”

  He flipped the ledger again.

  “Static Soulbooks,” he said. “Elemental abilities: Fire, light, earth; with cooldown requirements instead of mana.”

  Ja’a perked up. “Now that’s fun. You could be throwing fireballs.”

  “I’ve got fireballs covered,” Raik replied. “But Light Beam, Mudslide, or Ice Shards. You’d be adding versatility to the group.”

  “It would be useful in combat,” Kan noted.

  “You could even pick defensive options,” Calr added. “Static Barrier or Earth Wall.”

  “Infinite choices,” I sighed.

  Ko’i smiled faintly. “True. But each book offers an answer to a specific problem.”

  Answers.

  I stared at the page.

  Flight promised freedom… for six minutes.

  Kindred attributes promised safety, at the cost of future growth.

  Static Soulbooks promised more combat options. But hadn’t I promised myself to be a scholar first?

  Perception, on the other hand…

  Vena had been quiet the entire time.

  Now she spoke.

  “Alice,” she said softly, “what kind of power do you want to live with?”

  I looked at her.

  “With miracles,” she continued, “when choosing a path to strive toward, we ask what kind of life we want, not what kind of power we prefer.”

  The room held its breath.

  I closed my eyes.

  I thought of the Sunless Reach. Of the days I spent watching the stars, exploring my magic, and finding clever ways to use teleportation.

  Then I thought about freelancing. How I’d enjoyed the rat hunt, hadn’t enjoyed the spider mission, and had almost skipped the Pikar Steppe entirely because of a moral dilemma. I was doing this work because I wanted to be useful to my new friends, and because I felt indebted to Raik after he saved me at Weavershall. But I wasn’t fooling myself.

  I would be far more useful to his challenge by teleporting between settlements and accepting new missions on his behalf rather than by flinging a few extra fireballs.

  I needed a more reliable way to gather star mana without having to visit the Sunless Reach every time. That meant understanding my power better.

  I opened my eyes.

  “I am, first and foremost, a scholar,” I said. “I want power that reflects that.”

  Raik smiled.

  Kitchi nodded.

  Ja’a sighed.

  Then Ko’i slid the ledger toward me.

  “You’ve narrowed your choice to perception,” he said. “But even then, you still need to decide what kind of perception you want.”

  Ko’i placed a stack of Soulbooks on the table and then gently turned it so it faced me again.

  “If you’re choosing a perception Soulbook,” he said, “then the first decision isn’t which book. It’s how much complexity you’re willing to live with.”

  “The most popular option is this one.”

  He slid a Soulbook out of the stack.

  “Hunter’s Heirloom.”

  Kitchi leaned forward immediately. “Good book.”

  Ko’i nodded. “Very. It enhances all baseline senses evenly. Sight, hearing, spatial awareness, and threat recognition. Nothing extreme, nothing specialized.”

  “Reliable,” Kitchi said. “It’s a must-get for most scouts in the military.”

  “It doesn’t overwhelm the user,” Ko’i added. “And it never becomes a distraction.”

  Ja’a wrinkled her nose. “That sounds… painfully sensible.”

  Raik smiled faintly. “The generalist path is often boring.”

  “I’m not aiming to become a scout, though,” I frowned.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Ko’i set the book aside and placed three others side by side.

  “The next category is enhancement,” he continued. “Refining a natural sense with Kindred attributes.”

  He pointed at the first book.

  “Eagle King’s Sight. It offers a long-range vision with exceptional clarity.”

  Ja’a groaned. “Ugh. She has a spyglass that does a better job. Hard pass.”

  I nodded.

  Ko’i didn’t argue. He simply pointed to the next book.

  “Catlord’s Gaze,” he said. “Superior low-light vision and improved depth perception, without the usual drawbacks.”

  “What do you mean, ‘usual drawbacks’?” I asked.

  “Well, cats are nearsighted,” Ko’i said calmly. “I magically curated this book to grant only the advantages.”

  “And did you kill a stray street cat for its soul?” I narrowed my eyes at the Soulscribe.

  “Of course not. Stray cats don’t have enough soul strength to make a Soulbook. No, these are made using the soul of a Duskwalker predator.”

  I didn’t think I had much of a leg to stand on regarding ethically sourced monster souls, considering I was speaking the language through the sacrifice of a monkey. Still, I wasn’t sure I could have handled the idea of farming kittens for their eyesight.

  “Owl Sage’s Vigil is next,” Ko’i continued, pointing at another book. “Excellent movement detection and enhanced light sensitivity.”

  “Light sensitivity, huh?” I considered the option more thoroughly. Would that let me see more stars, even outside the Sunless Reach?

  My theory was that the Sunless Reach eliminated all light pollution, making it perfect for stargazing. Now that I had a telescope, I could probably improve my sky observations elsewhere, but light pollution cared little for tools and only cared for light contrast. Enhanced light sensitivity might genuinely improve my chances of spotting shooting stars outside the Reach.

  Ja’a noticed I was thinking it through and sighed dramatically, slumping back in her chair.

  “Are you actually considering this over flight?” she declared.

  I nodded.

  Ko’i smiled and set the book aside before showcasing another batch.

  “Then there are books that grant new senses.”

  That got Ja’a’s and Calr’s attention. I couldn’t help being intrigued as well.

  He slid out a heavier Soulbook, its cover faintly textured.

  “Mimic’s Horizon,” Ko’i said. “A spherical perception field that offers full spatial awareness around the body.”

  Calr looked excited. “From a Vault Mimic, right?”

  Ko’i nodded.

  I looked at him. “You’ve fought one?”

  “Yon fought it, while we misfits watched,” Kan said.

  “Mimics are so cool,” Calr continued. “They don’t have eyes, yet they see everything around them. The one we encountered almost ate poor Vals in an ambush, if not for Yon.”

  Ja’a leaned forward. “Okay, that sounds awesome.”

  “And yes, you can see through people’s clothes with this one,” Kitchi added, answering a question no one had asked, as if it were the most frequently asked one. “I tried it for a bit. Pretty neat, if a little short-ranged for my liking.”

  Raik tossed a glass of water over his brother’s head. The water evaporated on contact with his fiery aura.

  “You could’ve said ‘see through walls’ instead of ‘clothes,’ you pervert.”

  Ja’a laughed, while the rest of the girls, including me, gave the commander the stink eye, especially Vena, who looked ready to stab him.

  Calr, on the other hand, eyed the book with unmistakable interest.

  Ko’i coughed softly and set the book aside before picking up another.

  “Echo of the Nightwing,” he said. “Sonar perception and three-dimensional mapping.”

  Ja’a’s eyes lit up. “Okay, now that sounds fun.”

  “It’s very effective in darkness,” Ko’i said. “Smoke, fog, or caves.”

  “And I wouldn’t need to scream like a bat?” I asked.

  “No,” Ko’i said dryly. “While it uses the Soul of a Void Bat, it was refined in a way where you emit an inaudible pulse every few minutes for the mapping process.”

  “Shame,” Ja’a muttered. “Would’ve been funny.”

  “Wouldn’t the mapping process make her a target for audio-sensitive creatures?” Calr asked.

  Ko’i nodded and then continued.

  “That’s why I prefer Stonefather’s Tremor,” he said. “It helps you perceive movement through solid surfaces.”

  “That’s situational,” Kitchi said. “Excellent underground, but limited elsewhere.”

  “And finally,” Ko’i said, pausing a moment longer before lifting the last book, “Stormshark’s Whisper.”

  The name alone made me shift my head in curiosity.

  “It allows you to perceive lightning and the storm that brews inside every living being,” Ko’i continued. “We obtained this book from the Aetherfin Leviathan, a shark monster that lives near the Living Storm dead zone in the elemental Bloodline Realm.”

  I blinked twice. Electromagnetic perception?

  Kitchi raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a beginner’s book. The sense is too foreign.”

  “You are right,” Ko’i agreed. “But, Alice may be a beginner freelancer; she is a scholar; she could handle it.”

  Ja’a tilted her head. “So she’d… see magic?”

  “Not exactly,” Ko’i corrected. “She would sense life through a lightning lens.”

  My thoughts were already racing. Could this help my mana sense? My star-mana research? Probably not. Unless I was misunderstanding something fundamental about how star mana worked.

  “That would synergize dangerously well with your lightning,” Calr said slowly.

  “And with research,” Ko’i added. “While it’s useful in combat for detecting ambushes, its real value is how it broadens your understanding of the world.”

  Silence settled again, heavier this time.

  Kitchi leaned back, arms crossed. “If you want my advice,” he said, looking at me, “Hunter’s Heirloom will keep you alive.”

  Ja’a shrugged. “Mimic or sonar sounds way cooler.”

  Calr hesitated. “Stormshark’s Whisper sounds… risky. But it fits you.”

  Ko’i didn’t push any further. He simply lined the books up in front of me.

  “None of these are wrong,” he said. “But each one shapes how you notice the world.”

  I looked down at the row of Soulbooks.

  In all the ways I could learn to see.

  And wondered which sense I was willing to change.

  Then a thought hit me. This choice wasn’t for life. I could always sever the link with a Soulbook and choose something else. Why was I treating it like a life-or-death decision?

  Because everyone else was.

  For Kan, Calr, Vena, or Shingo… for anyone other than Raik and maybe Ja’a, this was a life-or-death choice. They didn’t have the privilege of wasting five silvers on a wrong decision. Five silver coins would buy you food for half a year.

  Me, on the other hand? I could pick one, try it, dislike it, sever it, and move on. I had the safety net of money and options.

  And then, following that same line of thought, a better idea hit me.

  “Can you make a custom Soulbook,” I asked slowly, “that combines my lightning magic with Stormshark’s Whisper?”

  Ko’i considered it for a moment, then nodded. “Probably yes. And as a custom book, I could most likely make it better than having both separately.”

  “Perfect,” I said immediately. “Then let’s do that.”

  Ko’i grimaced. “Well. First, I am currently busy with language research. Second, I would need to order paper made from wood as close to your place of birth as possible so I can create a proper map of your soul. Without a soul map, I can’t even begin working on a custom book.”

  Paper from my place of birth.

  Good luck traveling to Earth.

  Luckily for me, I had this.

  I rummaged through my bag of holding and pulled out my trusty backpack. From it, I took out a notebook.

  “Would this work?” I asked, handing him the empty notebook. “For the soul map, I mean.”

  Ko’i frowned at it. “I have never seen such a colorful outer cover,” he said. “But yes, this should work, as long as it was made close enough to your birthplace.”

  I nodded. I’d bought that brand specifically to support a small local business. I hoped I hadn’t been scammed and sold a mass-produced import.

  Oh well. Even China was closer to my birthplace than whatever Ko’i had planned.

  “I still need to treat the paper so it can host a fragment of your soul,” Ko’i continued. “And I am still busy with my research. It will take time before I can free myself for a custom commission.”

  “Oh, I completely understand,” I said easily. “I’ll take Stormshark’s Whisper for now. For the duration of Raik’s challenge. After that, we can talk about a custom Soulbook.”

  Ko’i smiled faintly. “Perfect. That will let you familiarize yourself with the perception method, and even help you decide which aspects you want emphasized in the custom version.”

  Stormshark’s Whisper was set aside for me to bond with later.

  Ja’a was next.

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “Flight,” she said immediately, then flipped a few pages. “And invisibility.”

  Ko’i raised an eyebrow. “That is a mana-hungry combination.”

  Ja’a grinned. “I can afford it.”

  That much was true. Apparently, as a Soul Seer, her soul was abnormally large, broad rather than dense, which translated into a mana pool most freelancers could only dream of. The offset was a slow recharge rate, so she could afford to be initially wasteful as long as it got her to safety.

  “And invisibility?” Kan asked.

  She rolled her shoulders. “I’m not using pixie dust again. Two gold coins’ worth, gone in one mission at Pikar Steppe. Never again.”

  I winced. That had been an expensive cloud of sparkles.

  Ko’i made a few notes. “Flight will compete for mana with invisibility under stress.”

  “Good,” Ja’a said. “If I’m stressed, it means I need to be somewhere else as soon as possible.”

  Kitchi snorted. “That’s not how that works.”

  Ja’a ignored him, already looking satisfied as her books were marked and set aside.

  Vena was next.

  Unlike me, she didn’t linger. She studied the ledger for barely a minute before pointing.

  “That one,” she said softly.

  Ko’i nodded. “Sevenfold Radiance. A Static Soulbook with light affinity.”

  He turned the page so we could see.

  “Red light is kinetic impact,” he explained. “Orange light burns. Yellow light pierces. It’s the spear, while red is the hammer.”

  He glanced down again. “Green light corrodes, like acid. Blue light freezes. Indigo light stuns or slows, depending on soul strength.”

  Finally, he rested his thumb on the last mark. “Violet light counters other magic. You can throw it at an incoming projectile or break a magical barrier.”

  He closed the book gently. “Seven beams. Each one has its own cooldown.”

  “It’s perfect,” Vena nodded.

  “It is on theme,” I sighed.

  The Soulbook was too versatile to be truly good. The cooldowns had to be terrible, or it relied heavily on soul strength. But as a cleric of the Holy, Vena had the second-strongest soul after Raik, so she should be fine. That was why the experienced people didn’t protest her choice.

  “For your second slot?” Ko’i prompted.

  I leaned closer. “You should take poison.”

  Vena blinked at me.

  “Think about it,” I pressed. “A disabling toxin. You incapacitate them, then heal them afterward. You win the fight without killing anyone.”

  For a moment, I thought she might consider it.

  Then she shook her head.

  “No,” she said firmly. “Poison is a death affinity. Even when used gently, it is still aligned with decay and ending. It’s anathema to the Holy path.”

  Ja’a frowned. “You’re really that strict?”

  “I have to be,” Vena replied. “Or I will never make it to Paladin.”

  She turned back to the ledger and pointed again.

  “Dragon Scales.”

  Ko’i nodded approvingly. “Increased resilience, improved damage tolerance. A passive Kindred Soulbook.”

  “Would that give her actual scales?” Ja’a asked.

  “No,” Ko’i explained. “It just reinforces the skin.”

  Calr looked surprised. “You sure? You could take something flashier.”

  Vena’s hands clenched slightly in her robe.

  “I’m tired of being put in the background,” she said quietly. “Tired of people shielding me, deciding for me, holding me back because they think I’m a weak healer.”

  She met his eyes.

  “If I’m harder to kill, they’ll stop doing that.”

  Ko’i marked the selection without comment.

  Two books, chosen cleanly.

  I watched as her Soulbooks were set beside Ja’a’s and then mine, feeling the contrast sharply.

  Ja’a chased freedom and escape.

  Vena chose endurance.

  Next was Kan.

  “Do I even need a second book?” she asked after a moment. “I already have Chains’ Manipulation.”

  “Of course you do,” Raik said. “Everyone’s filling their empty slots. Might as well get something useful too.”

  “I’m not in the habit of letting people pay for expensive things for me,” Kan sighed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Raik reassured her. “You’ll probably pay me back tenfold in the coming months.”

  “Fine, then I’ll pick this one.”

  As a fully Kindred person, Kan deliberately avoided any Kindred Soulbook that would directly hamper her growth.

  “Life steal,” she said.

  Ko’i paused, then nodded, pulling the ledger closer. “Life and water affinity: Blood-derived power.”

  He turned the page so we could see. “It converts freshly spilled blood into mana and stamina.”

  “I wanted something to restore my stamina, same as Katar, so I can train longer,” Kan said, nodding toward the swordsman sitting in the corner, working on his blades and completely uninterested in our choices.

  “But I don’t want Second Wind because it’s a Kindred book,” she added, explaining her logic.

  “That lets you act as a secondary healer too,” I said slowly.

  Kan shrugged. “If the monster is already bleeding, I might as well make it useful.”

  I hesitated, then asked, “Are there any drawbacks to blood magic?”

  Ko’i looked up at me, mildly amused. “This is a Soulbook. The only drawbacks are what the Soulscribe chooses to include.”

  He tapped the page once. “And I don’t make books that turn people into vampires.”

  Note to self, vampires are real, or at least something similar to vampires, close enough for a phono-semantic matching.

  “So you don’t need to worry,” Ko’i finished. “There are no corrupt books that mess with your mind in this shop.”

  “Then we can finalize,” Ko’i said, asking us all to spill a single drop of blood onto our chosen books.

  We watched as our names were written in red across the pages.

  A second later, Ja’a was floating near the ceiling, laughing out loud. Calr followed suit, double-jumping through the air beside her.

  “Do that outside!” Ko’i shouted.

  A heartbeat later, both of them vaulted out the window.

  Raik facepalmed.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Doing missions with those two was going to be fun.

  here is an illustration of vena