We spilled out of Ko’i’s shop after briefly settling the tab with Ki’i. I chose to pay fifteen silver, partly to honor my promise to Vena, partly to cover my own Soulbook, and partly to cover one of Calr’s so he wouldn’t feel too indebted to Raik. I let the Agame boy cover the rest. The air outside felt lighter, though that might have just been me being giddy about experimenting with new magic.

  Kitchi stopped at the steps instead of heading off. “Listen up. If you need supplies, rations, tools, or whatever, you can go buy them now. But don’t buy weapons or armor.”

  Ja’a tilted her head. “Why not?”

  “Because I know a metal shaper who owes me a favor,” Kitchi said, as if that explained everything. “I’ll arrange a meeting with her tomorrow on Fireday. Bring whatever gear you already own. She’ll look it over and tell you if it needs adjustments, new alloying, enchantment integration, or full replacement.”

  “What if our armor isn’t metal?” Kan asked.

  Kitchi paused, looking Kan over. Her form-fitting gear was made of some elastic, Kevlar-looking weave. If I weren’t scared of a lawsuit, I would’ve called it Saiyan Under Armour.

  “Then your old armor can serve as underarmor,” Kitchi nodded. “And I recommend anyone wearing leather or cotton gambesons get something like Kan’s. When you get new armor, it’ll be fitted on top.”

  That made sense. Both Raik and Kitchi had similar underlayers beneath their armor. Even Yoka had worn something like it. It was clearly popular because it was effective. I should get one.

  “That’s all, for now,” Kitchi finished, dusting off his hands. He gave his brother Raik a wink, then headed down the street at his usual unhurried pace.

  Raik waited until the commander was out of earshot before sighing. “Well, before we go shopping, we should test the limits of your new spells: cooldowns, stamina drain, mana draw, handling, and range. If we don’t know the failure points now, we’ll find them later when it hurts.”

  “That was almost inspiring, Leader,” Ja’a said, and then shot straight into the air.

  She didn’t even try to hide how delighted she was. The Sky Affinity Soulbook made flight theatrical; little spirals of wind kicked up dust and loose leaves as she climbed, arcing into lazy loops and flips overhead.

  I stared upward. “That looks… really fun.” For a moment, I regretted my choice. No, no, I would think about Flight again after the custom book.

  “It feels so good!” Ja’a called, voice echoing from above.

  She slowed midair, hovering in place. “Okay, now invisibility!”

  She vanished… she technically did vanish.

  Her fashionable silk shirt and tailored trousers did not.

  The clothes hung in the air like a perplexed ghost had decided to cosplay a stylish woman. The sleeves fluttered in the breeze as the trousers slowly rotated, ankles bobbing.

  Everyone stared.

  After a beat, Ja’a shimmered back into view, cheeks puffed in frustration. “Useless. That is absolutely useless.”

  Raik rubbed at his temples. “It’s not useless. It’s just not tuned to those clothes. The magic won’t affect them unless they’re part of you.”

  I frowned. “Part of her soul? Does she need soulbound equipment?”

  “No,” Raik shook his head. “Not a soul thing. More of an identity imprint. The more you wear something, the more it counts as ‘you.’ Like hair, or scars, or favorite boots you’ve walked a hundred kilometers in.”

  “It’s why he never changes armor, despite being filthy rich,” Calr added, nodding toward Raik.

  Raik shrugged. “If I keep the same kit long enough, it reacts to my fire the way skin does. It doesn’t burn, doesn’t melt, and doesn’t weigh down the fire resistance enchantment. New armor would. New armor always does until it stops feeling ‘new.’”

  Kan turned toward Ja’a. “How do you not know this?”

  Ja’a crossed her arms. “Because I’ve never used Soulbooks before? Father always said they were a waste of money. Plus, I’m never the one fighting monsters; why would I bother?” She jabbed a thumb toward Raik. “I only got these because he’s paying.”

  Raik looked like he immediately regretted every financial decision that led to this moment. Calr started laughing.

  I just smiled. There were far worse ways to learn about magical mechanics than trial and error in an empty courtyard with friends.

  Ja’a tried again. She turned invisible once more, except this time her shirt came off. Ten seconds later, she awkwardly struggled to put it back on, which looked harder because the body underneath was invisible. Then Ja’a herself reappeared, looking pleased with the result.

  “My bra disappeared,” she said, laughing a little. “It’s not that old, barely a few months, but I guess it counts as part of me. I wear it because it’s comfortable… I bet my purple pajamas would turn invisible, too.”

  “Stop acting like a fool,” Katar scowled, “and let’s focus on something relevant.”

  Ja’a stuck her tongue out at him and slowly lowered herself closer to the ground, probably trying to conserve mana.

  Katar, on the other hand, drew a knife from his belt because, of course, Katar had a knife in addition to both of his swords.

  “Holy girl,” he said, waving the blade toward Vena, “come here so I can cut you and see how much sturdier you’ve gotten.”

  “You’re going to stab her?” Calr frowned.

  “What? She can heal herself, can she not?” shrugged the swordsman.

  Vena actually smiled, really smiled, probably happy someone wasn’t treating her like glass. She approached Katar without hesitation.

  Katar didn’t hesitate either. He slashed her arm in one practiced motion. Vena only flinched a little and didn’t scream, even when a shallow line of blood appeared.

  “Hm,” Katar said. “At least as sturdy as Yon when it comes to cutting. And definitely sturdier than Kan.”

  I blinked. “When did you slash them to get that reference?”

  Kan shrugged. “He asked to cut me after the spider mission. I obliged.”

  “I test all my Kindred teammates,” Katar said, matter-of-factly. “I like to know how much to hold back during sparring.”

  He turned to Shingo. “Your turn, giant boy.”

  Shingo walked over just as calmly, and Katar opened a shallow line across his arm as well.

  “I can’t tell well because of your fat,” Katar said, frowning as if assessing butchered meat. “Skin isn’t too solid, but the fat is denser than normal; you probably can handle blunt damage better than cutting.”

  The mute boy just nodded.

  Vena healed herself, then whispered a short prayer to mend Shingo’s arm.

  “Are you going to cut me? And Calr?” I asked, half-joking, half-not.

  “No,” Katar said. “You two aren’t Kindred. I doubt you’d be any different from a standard Bloodline or Soulit type like Raik or Ja’a.”

  “Thank the Lady, her Husband, Damada, Morr, and even Shana if she’s listening,” Calr mouthed; the religiously skeptic boy apparently having rediscovered his faith… and several other faiths that didn’t belong to him.

  Now that Katar had thoroughly settled the question of who could be cut without screaming, all eyes shifted to me.

  “So,” Raik said, “Stormshark’s Whisper?”

  I nodded and drew a slow breath. The Soulbook was supposed to be toggleable, so all I needed to do was focus. The effect unfurled like a second awareness sliding into place behind my eyes; a quiet shift in how the world arranged itself around me.

  Then the perception hit.

  Living beings lit instantly. Not with color or heat, but with tiny arcs of electric intent; faint storm-lines running through muscles, hearts, and nerves. Vena glowed the brightest, her body pulsing like a contained solar flare. Kan was a close second, her Kindred physique humming with a denser charge distribution. Calr was fainter, not weaker, just diffuse, a steady field with no dramatic spikes to draw attention like Vena’s or Kan’s.

  And then there were the particles.

  Flecks of charge clung to fences, stones, puddles, and even people’s boots; negative and positive, constantly shifting and recombining. Sometimes opposites were pulled toward each other. Sometimes similar charges were repelled. Like invisible magnets searching for the path of least resistance.

  “God,” I whispered. “I’m seeing lightning’s preferred routes.”

  “What does that even mean?” Calr asked, inching closer.

  “It means lightning doesn’t choose targets randomly,” I said. “It follows charge gradients. This lets me see those gradients.”

  I extended my aura experimentally, just a whisper of mana pushed into the world, and the particles reacted instantly, rearranging around my hand. I felt the contrast between differently charged spaces, a tension waiting to snap.

  “Oh,” I breathed, as understanding crystallized. “I can countercharge.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Raik said, smiling, which in this world’s culture meant: Excellent idea, you should definitely try it.

  I shaped my aura tighter. Instead of creating a full bolt, I simply charged a small patch of ground positive near an existing negative patch, and the lightning arced between them.

  It wasn’t my usual lightning. The arc snapped along the charged pathway with frightening efficiency, like it had been waiting for my input all along. The mana cost was half what it should have been. My pool barely moved.

  “I only made the starting point,” I said, staring at my hand. “Then let the charge walk the natural path. I could probably shift the endpoint too, for less cost than brute-forcing it.”

  I tried again, aiming to push a charged ground point further left, but lost control when the charge drifted too close to Raik’s aura. Right, auras interfered. That mattered when using magic at a distance.

  Raik blinked. “You’re telling me lightning has natural paths?”

  “It has preferences,” I corrected. “They’re not stable enough to be called actual paths.”

  I caused another bolt to form: clean, fast, and obedient.

  “Interesting,” Katar murmured, rubbing his jaw. “Faster than normal lightning magic.”

  “And cheaper,” I added. “Half cost, maybe less. I could probably induce and guide real storm lightning with this.”

  Calr looked like he was about to pry my skull open and scoop out the physics knowledge with a ladle. “You need to teach me how nature works, as you see it.”

  “That’s not just perception,” Raik said. “That’s battlefield control.”

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  Ja’a whistled low. “Scholar Soulbook, my ass. That’s terrifying.”

  Kan nodded thoughtfully. “You’ll need practice. Sadly, storm season is still a few months away.”

  I smiled despite myself. I was no longer even slightly jealous of flight; an extra sense was wonderful. Especially since I could still see the charge trails even when my eyes were closed.

  Good luck blindfolding me. Or sneaking up on me. With more training, I was pretty sure I’d eventually see behind me, too.

  “Alright,” Raik said, as if formally declaring my turn completed. “Lady Vena, Shingo, your turn.”

  Vena stepped forward with a mix of nerves and excitement, while Shingo straightened his spine.

  “We’ll test both of your new Soulbooks at once,” Raik explained. “Vena, you will fire your Radiance Strikes. Shingo, you will defend with your barrier spell. The barrier must be cast over a training dummy.”

  The two-and-a-half-meter Kindred boy dragged a dummy into place, set his palm to the paving stones, and a translucent hex-patterned dome shimmered around it, a full 360-degree shell of force.

  “You don’t actually need to touch the ground to cast, remember?” Raik asked. “Static Soulbook, only the intent matters.”

  Shingo nodded.

  “Can you make other shapes?” Calr asked. “Flat shielding instead of domes?”

  Shingo shook his head, then made an expanding and retracting gesture with his hand. He dismissed the dome and recreated it slightly larger.

  “Ah,” Calr translated, “you can only resize. But not shaping variation.”

  The mute boy nodded once.

  “Your turn,” Raik said, looking at Vena.

  Vena inhaled sharply. She extended her arm toward the barrier, a focused look settling over her features.

  Red light bloomed at her fingertips, pure offensive radiance. The ray shot forward, fast and sharp. It hit the barrier, and the dome shattered instantly, hexes bursting outward like glass under a sledgehammer. The dummy behind it didn’t budge; every bit of force had gone into breaking the ward.

  “That’s stronger than I expected, high-impact attack,” Raik summarized. “Your soul is stronger than his, so the break makes sense. Still, the barrier fulfilled its function. The target is intact.”

  Vena nodded and waited for Shingo to form a new dome before shifting colors.

  Yellow ignited next; less explosive, more directed. The ray lanced forward.

  Crack!

  A neat hole formed at the center of the barrier. The beam continued, thudding into the dummy’s chest and leaving a shallow, spear-like mark. The dome didn’t collapse; only a cluster of hexes near the impact was shattered.

  “Piercing attack,” Kan noted. “It should be more lethal than the first against unarmored targets.”

  “Can he repair his barrier?” Vena asked. “Or must he cast anew?”

  “Anew,” Raik replied. “That’s the drawback of Static Soulbooks; they may cost no mana, but they lose fine control as a limitation.”

  Shingo raised another dome.

  Next, blue light flickered over Vena’s hands, cold and clean. The strike hit and blossomed into icy mist across the barrier. Frost crawled along the hexes, thick enough to fog them over, but nowhere close to breaching.

  Orange followed, blue’s counterpart, blooming in a thermal plume. Heat rippled the air, light bending through it. The barrier held again, though the front half dripped condensation and hot vapor where the two temperatures canceled.

  “Temperature attack,” Kan murmured. “Useful if kinetic force doesn’t work.”

  “Or if the target has an elemental weakness,” Calr added.

  “Or to cool drinks in hot weather,” Ja’a grinned.

  “Oh! I should teach Louis how to make ice cream,” I said without thinking.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Ja’a replied, “but I want some.”

  “Green next,” Raik prompted, pulling us back to business. “Corrosion, right?”

  Vena nodded.

  The green radiance didn’t strike so much as cling. It crawled over the dome, slowly corroding a small round hole through it, like acid biting through metal. By the time it finished, the hole was coin-sized. The barrier remained mostly intact, but the dummy remained untouched.

  “Defensive magic is stronger than offensive magic when they’re at the same level,” I said, remembering something Knight Ami said in my first week in this world when we were talking about paradoxes.

  “It could be overwhelming if she throws two lights at once,” explained Kan, “but yes, one-on-one defensive magic often has a slight advantage.”

  Shingo formed another dome.

  Indigo came next, sharp, narrow, and quiet. It hit the barrier, passed through without resistance, and struck the dummy. Then simply vanished, absorbed with no visible effect.

  Ja’a blinked. “Did it miss?”

  “No,” Raik said, eyes narrowing. “Indigo is a stunning effect. It requires a living target.”

  “It did go through the barrier, though,” Vena observed.

  “Yes,” Kan confirmed. “The barrier didn’t even interact with it.”

  “That’s good to know,” Vena nodded.

  She hesitated only a moment before channeling the final color: violet.

  It wasn’t an attack so much as a disruption. When it hit the dome, it didn’t crack, break, or pierce. The barrier simply ceased, snuffed out like a candle.

  Shingo staggered, clutching the side of his head with a silent grimace.

  Vena gasped and rushed to him. “Oh no… oh no, I’m sorry… stay still!”

  She touched his shoulder, hand glowing softly, as she whispered a prayer. Healing light threaded through him, soothing whatever backlash he’d taken.

  “That worked better than expected,” Raik said, a small grin tugging at his mouth. “It is more disruption than negation, enough to cause recoil.”

  Shingo lifted a hand toward Vena and gestured that he was fine. Then tapped his temple to indicate just a headache.

  Vena still looked mortified. “I didn’t think it would hurt him. He was fine when I shattered his barrier with the red one.”

  “Don’t worry too much,” smiled Calr. “Shingo can handle it.”

  “He volunteered,” Katar shrugged. “That counts as informed consent.”

  “That’s not how consent works, sword-brain,” Ja’a snorted. “And technically, he didn’t volunteer. Raik volunteered him.”

  “Close enough,” Katar muttered.

  “Shingo, can you cast more barriers?” Raik asked.

  Shingo shook his head. Then he hesitated, made a wobbly gesture with his hand, and finally raised a single finger.

  “Probably only one left,” Calr translated.

  “So six total,” Raik nodded. “Not bad, assuming the recharge doesn’t take forever.”

  “We could probably get more if we help him grow his soul,” I added, already cataloguing potential training methods. Maybe something with his new Gravity Soulbook.

  Raik turned to Vena. “And you?”

  “My red light is ready again,” Vena said, touching her fingertips together. “And yellow feels close.”

  “So, ten minutes cooldown-ish,” I said. Raik nodded in agreement.

  “But…” Vena looked uncertain. “I don’t think I can just throw them off cooldown indefinitely.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Even if it doesn’t cost mana as a Static Soulbook, your soul probably charges a tax for overuse.”

  “That is correct,” Raik nodded. “It would feel like a lesser backlash from the Perfect Soulbook.”

  Everyone who’d tried that winced a little, including me.

  “Next is Kan,” Raik announced. “We want to test your life-steal ability, but before that, we need to tire you out so we can observe stamina recovery.”

  Kan rolled her shoulders. “Should I do laps around the courtyard?”

  “I have a better idea.” Raik pointed at Shingo. “Heavy Field. Full strength, please.”

  Shingo blinked once, then placed his palm to the ground. A ripple of distortion spread outward: gravity magic, or something close to it. The air thickened, not hot or cold, just dense, as if someone had convinced the world to push down harder.

  “Kan,” Raik continued, nodding at the zone, “jump drills. High knees. Don’t pace yourself. Burn through everything.”

  Kan didn’t complain. She stepped into the field and immediately slowed, muscles bunching and straining. Her elastic armor clung tighter around her legs as she forced herself into bounding jumps. Each impact shook the paving stones. Even her hair moved strangely, dragging downward like wet sand under a tide.

  “Holy hell,” Calr muttered. “That looks awful.”

  “It is,” Raik agreed with sympathy.

  Curiosity got the better of me, so I stepped into the field as well. My muscles strained instantly, and I felt twice as heavy, maybe more. I could still move, but breathing became hard. Satisfied, I staggered back out, leaving Kan to her punishment.

  She kept going. Sweat beaded along her brow, then trailed down the line of her jaw. Her breath came short and mechanical, like a piston forced to turn under resistance. The Heavy Field demanded constant effort, perfect for draining stamina without causing real damage.

  I found myself impressed by Raik’s thoughtfulness when designing these tests. Especially since he must have improvised them on the spot.

  After nearly two minutes, Raik lifted a hand. “Enough. Out.”

  “I can still do more,” Kan protested, even as sweat dripped from her hair.

  “You could,” Raik agreed, “but Shingo is almost out of mana.”

  I glanced over. The giant boy was down on one knee, shoulders rising and falling, his aura trembling at the edges.

  Kan stopped immediately as the gravity field dissipated. “Right. Good call.”

  She wiped sweat from her forehead. “Thank you for your help, Shingo.”

  Shingo sat fully on the ground and nodded once, still catching his breath.

  “So how should I test my life-steal ability?”

  Before Raik could answer, Katar casually lifted his hand. “Use me; I can handle pain,” he said, as if volunteering to be stabbed for science was a normal afternoon activity.

  Raik shook his head. “I have the largest soul here. If things get out of hand, I’ll suppress her magic. Better margin of error just in case.”

  Katar didn’t argue. He just grinned, and with one smooth motion, he cut Raik’s forearm again; apparently, stabbing his friends was becoming a habit for him.

  Kan stepped forward and activated her Soulbook.

  Raik winced as the blood began to stream from his wound, pulled with purposeful intent toward Kan. The red drained from him and flowed into her like a siphon. As it touched her skin, it misted into red light before disappearing into her. Her posture visibly improved, fatigue unknotting from her shoulders and chest.

  The Life-steal Soulbook worked.

  But then Raik’s aura flared: warm, steady, and iron-willed. The blood flow slowed from a stream to a trickle, as if someone had partially clamped a hose.

  “Stop,” Raik ordered calmly.

  Kan immediately cut the skill. Her eyes widened, all bravado gone. She ran to her boyfriend in three steps, worry blooming across her face. “Raik, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice steady but thinner than usual. “Just lost a bit of blood.”

  Vena stepped in, hands already glowing. “Let me heal… ”

  “No.” Raik lifted his uninjured hand. “Kan should use my own blood.”

  Kan bit her lip. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded once. Kan focused, and the same stolen blood that had fed her now reversed course, ribbons of red slithering back toward Raik’s arm. The wound closed over as the blood reclaimed its place.

  Vena frowned as the light died from her hands. She still touched Raik and focused for a bit. “That cost more blood than letting a shallow cut seal on its own,” she said.

  “At least we know it works,” I said. “And that it could still save someone if they had a major arterial wound. It’s better to lose extra blood than bleed out in seconds.”

  Raik flexed his hand experimentally. “Agreed. But for now…”

  “Keep the bleeding to monsters,” Kan finished for him.

  “And the healing to the cleric,” added Calr.

  “Only one thing left,” said Raik. We all turned to Calr.

  “Time to test your Golden Hind’s Grace.”

  We moved over to the guild’s outdoor obstacle course, the same one I nearly attempted while high on Perfect State. It hadn’t looked that intimidating then. It looked very intimidating now.

  “You’re trying for speed,” Raik instructed. “Clear it as fast as you can.”

  Calr swallowed, eyed the course, then sprinted forward.

  He shot up the first ramp with decent momentum, but the moment he vaulted a hurdle, he jumped twice as high as he meant to, windmilling briefly before landing in an undignified stumble. His new Soulbook had clearly boosted his agility far past what he was used to. The next obstacle turned him into a pinball, springing off every wall with his shoulder from too much vertical momentum and not enough control. But by the halfway mark, something clicked. His jumps smoothed out, his landings sharpened, and he finished with a respectable sprint to the final rope.

  I genuinely clapped at the comeback.

  Katar scoffed. “Move. Let me show you how it’s done.”

  I, being a responsible scientist of magic, pulled out my phone and timer. Katar tore through the course with fewer stumbles and more confidence; his only struggle was the long jump, where he had to catch the ledge rather than clearing it with a single jump.

  Kan snorted at the stumble. And when Katar finished, Kan stretched casually. “I can do better.”

  And she did, nearly a full minute faster, barely breathing hard at the end. Katar looked personally offended by reality, despite knowing that as a Kindred, she was more physically inclined.

  Calr, watching both runs, had his eyes half-fogged in the same way he got when he activated his mind powers. When he attempted the course again, the difference was staggering. He was smoother, his timing sharper, and he even managed a proper vault-roll combination. He beat Katar’s time by a lot and came in just behind Kan.

  Raik lasted about three seconds before he decided he wasn’t letting his friend have all the fun. He shed his coat and breastplate, combed his spiky hair back with his hand, and sprinted with an expression that was entirely too excited for a commander. His time landed just behind Katar’s, though to be fair, he got stuck on the monkey bars because his shoulders were too broad.

  Once Raik had cracked the dam, the rest of us joined.

  Vena and I went slow and steady, no fancy vaults or flying leaps, just dignified caution and the occasional awkward climb. Ja’a outright cheated, choosing to fly whenever the course offended her. Shingo, poor boy, failed half the jumps outright; the platforms were simply not built for someone who weighed as much as small livestock.

  By our final attempts, the scoreboard looked like this:

  Calr: 4.3 minutes,

  Kan: 4.4 minutes,

  Katar: 5.5 minutes,

  Raik: 5.6 minutes,

  Vena: 7.5 minutes,

  Me: 7.7 minutes,

  Ja’a: 4.1 minutes, disqualified for flight-based cheating

  Shingo did not finish; gravity was too cruel a tyrant and wasn’t on his side despite his recent Soulbook acquisition.

  We ended up sweaty, breathless, and laughing. For a brief moment, it didn’t feel like training for a monster culling or an impending nightmare challenge. It felt like kids daring each other to jump higher and run faster.

  We decided to grab baths and fresh clothes before going for a supply run. Even heroes need to make sure not to stink.