I had been serious about renovating the cult temple, and to that end, I had been playing around with my new Affix in the area with the most destruction. When I created a field of Gravity on one side of a large stone brick, I found I could attach another brick to it.

Which was where the effect of my created Gravity field ended.

In normal, natural gravity, it didn’t matter where something was positioned or what it had around it. Everything would always feel the constant tug of gravitational forces.

But for the fields I created with Field Manipulation, it looked like I could only target one thing if it covered up the entire field. I probably needed to stop thinking of it like actual gravity back on Earth.

The mass of the target object didn’t matter. I created another field on a wall and pressed my robe against it. The hand beyond my robe felt nothing, though the cloth itself was stuck fast.

Essentially, I would need to treat the fields I created as mostly a single-target ability, so long as said target covered up the field’s entire surface area.

Somewhat of a bummer, but it would also allow me to control the field’s effects and applications better. I could just create more if needed. Sure, it cost a decent chunk of mana—I couldn't keep more than five dinner-plate sized active at the same time at my current Spirit level—but there was potential for growth.

What was more annoying was the fact that my idea of using gravity fields to help reconstruct the temple had gone poof. Right. Of course. I shouldn’t have forgotten about the Natural Limit of Existence.

But that also reminded me there was a bypass to that, and from what I remembered, it had to do with Augmentations.

I glared at my Spirit Attribute. It really needed to cross into Silver soon.

Escinca offered to send another letter to Kostis, detailing my successful dungeon trip and everything. “Rather strange that a pupil doesn’t have a direct line to his master, wouldn’t you say?”

“Uh, yeah, it is.” I scratched the back. “Master Kostis isn’t really the type of person to take things like this seriously, is he?”

Escinca smiled fondly. “I believe that the fact my letters can even reach him is quite the blessing.”

Fair enough. There was an art to writing letters to people like Kostis. Demanding that I needed some apprentice-time from someone I nominally called my master was rude, at least when said master was an Opal-ranked mage whom most of the Mage Guild feared.

Instead, Escinca politically asked what times Kostis was likely to be at the Guild. I could make sure to be present then too.

The Elder listing my accomplishments and discoveries would sweeten the deal as well. After all, one of the main reasons Kostis had ever decided to help was because of his interest in my Path and general progression, which I had now advanced significantly since we had last met.

“You know,” I said. “I never got to ask you how the postal system works here.”

“Postal system?” Escinca asked.

“Uh, how you send and receive letters and other packages.”

“Ah, yes. The Pipe Missives.”

“The what now?”

Escinca got up to show me a large canister on a shelf. I had noticed it in his office before, but I hadn’t paid a ton of attention to it. It reminded me of food thermos that people used to store lunch for work. Escinca opened unscrewed the lid on top, rolled up his letter to place it inside, then stoppered the lid again.

“Kostis Daxsilszaz,” Escinca said, pressing his hand on top of the lid.

A soft thrum emanated from the strange canister, followed by a whirring sound that grew louder and louder. Faint light glowed from within and runic symbols lit up on the sides, threads of yellow mana revolving around the lid. Seconds later, the canister stilled.

“All done,” Escinca said. When he opened the lid again, there was no letter inside.

“Huh.” I inspected the canister. It was faintly warm to the touch when I brushed my hand against it. “So this thing… you called it a Pipe Missive? It teleports letters to anywhere and anybody?”

“Yes, more or less. Although, it requires the willing participation of the recipient to work. You need their name and active touch to register them in your network.”

“Interesting.”

First Darkstick lamps. Now Pipe Missives. And of course, I had seen more everyday things like magical streetlamps and self-driving carriages. This world had its own version of technological innovation, based on the mana that was present everywhere. Made sense.

We didn’t receive an answer from Kostis for a day or so. Definitely not that day, nor the next.

So, I focused on just training. I visited Gutran and worked on both my fundamentals and on improving my Vitality and Agility.

The former just needed me to be able to take hits. We came up with a solution to speed that process up. Gutran just had me wear the heaviest armour he had and then layered it on with even more armour until I was basically a walking armour manikin. We joked that me getting lost around Ring Three in all that armour would be amazing advertisement for his smithy.

Normally, it wouldn’t be possible to layer armour like that. But we used different styles of breastplates and vambraces and all that, jury-rigging them together, occasionally brute forcing them with ropes.

And then Gutran hit me. Hard.

Attributes had multiple different functions, and sometimes, the differences weren’t big. For instance, Spirit wasn’t just raising my total mana capacity that I could sustain within myself. It was also raising the speed at which I could use mana and channel my Aspects.

Similarly, Vitality wasn’t just boosting my stamina levels and the total damage I could take before I went down. It improved my ability to take hits directly.

Therefore, taking stronger and stronger blows would help raise Vitality a good deal. That was what led to Gutran not holding back at all, unleashing a strong percentage of his full strength against my massively armoured self. I could bear it because Gravity made it feel like I was wearing a muslin sheet, not multiple layers of steel.

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Still, the hits were difficult to withstand. Gutran knocked me around like I was a ragdoll, and at times, when a bit overboard, I was definitely thrown off my feet.

“Sorry,” Gutran said, rubbing his wrists after helping me back up. He didn’t sound very sorry. “Been a long while since I got to use even a tenth of my real Power.”

“This is a tenth?”

Gutran smiled and shrugged. “My poor armour is taking a beating, though.”

He had used his bare, scaly fist to knock me around, trying to minimize damage by not using weapons. That had still left dents and impressions multiple armour layers deep. Plus, I was achy and sore too. I did shudder a bit, imagining taking those blows directly with no protection at all. It was not a pleasant image.

By the end of the second day, I had gained another rank in Vitality.

[ Rank Up!

Your Vitality Attributes has risen by one Rank.

Vitality: Iron X ]

Perfect. Just one step away from Silver. At least that meant I could stop getting knocked around by Gutran, because trying the same old things wasn’t going to work. I would need some sort of breakthrough to make the Attribute hit Silver.

I wasn’t too worried about the imminent mana implosion. Well, it wasn’t imminent anymore, which was why I wasn’t worried any longer.

Using Sacrifice constantly on my own Gravity uses eventually led to pushing the countdown back. It was hard to time or count just how much of Sacrificing my own casts actually pushed back my core deciding to self-destruct, but when I checked my status early next morning, I found that the countdown hadn’t changed. I had taken peeks infrequently throughout the earlier day, but it hadn’t shown any increases.

Still, it was a relief to see it was working. Though, it clearly wasn’t a reliable method. If hours upon hours of Sacrificing the effects of my Gravity Aspect could only add one day to the countdown, it wasn’t a process I could put much faith in. Just a stop gap.

I discovered another interesting side of Field Manipulation as I trained with it and tried to figure out how I could use it on myself during combat.

Turned out I couldn’t apply the Affix on living organic matter directly. I had tried creating a field on my palm. That would have had a lot of potential applications. Trapping an opponent’s weapon, drawing them towards a punch, and so on and so forth. I could have done that by using Field Manipulation on my armaments, of course, but what if I was bare handed?

Well, in that case, I was screwed. The deep violet threads refused to form any sort of field on my skin, no matter how much mana I used or how many strands I pushed out. Not even when I used Sacrifice.

Annoying. Clearly, it was an unnegotiable limit for the Affix. Weird, since I could use Siphon and Infusion on myself just fine. I’d just have to get a glove.

On the second day after Escinca had sent off his letter, we finally got a reply. Kostis appeared rather ecstatic that I had not only returned safely but had also made excellent progress.

We met up at the Mage Guild later that day, after I had trained with Field Manipulation some more. I had started trying to combine Field Manipulation and Siphon. It surprisingly worked like I had tentatively hoped it would.

Basically, it was Siphon’s effect of weight reduction but applied in a field now. Where Field Manipulation enhanced Siphon itself was in how it managed to reverse gravity entirely. I had been a little amazed to see the reversal effect making a brick float upwards without me needing to push the brick up.

Alright, now I was positive that Field Manipulation was amazing.

“Ah, Ross.” Kostis bared his fangs in a wide smile. He had invited me over to one of the galleries overlooking the actual main hall of the Guild. There were a lot less people milling about up high, and we were also closer to the giant sprites, which were even more distinct from the ones in the Sun Cult temple up close. “Escinca intimated that you have a great deal to tell me.”

I smiled at the Scalekin mage with the gems studded where some his scales were missing. “I’m sure you’ve got a great deal you could tell me too, master.”

Kostis’s slit-pupils thinned, but he laughed loudly. “I certainly could. Tell you what—if your story impresses me, I might drop an extra tidbit unrelated to whatever questions you have.”

That sounded like a nice deal, so I told him all about my dungeon delve. I wasn’t sure which exact details Escinca had or hadn’t mentioned. All I knew was that Kostis was well aware of my current level of progress. But if I repeated anything he already knew, he didn’t stop me.

Kostis was nodding and smiling by the time I was done. “Quite the debut adventure you’ve had, my boy.”

“Well, you found a great team for me to work with.” Khagnio’s behaviour notwithstanding, but Kostis didn’t need all the details.

“I sure did,” he said with serpentine smugness.

We proceeded to talk about the actual reason I had decided to meet him. Namely, the fact that I could get an Augmentation for my Power.

“Mine is rather simple, actually,” Kostis said. “It’s called Mana Boost. Essentially, I can use mana to temporarily raise the rank of my Power Attribute. Very handy, if I do say so myself.”

“Wait, you only have one Augmentation?” I asked. “Aren’t you an Opal-ranked mage?”

“Well, yes, but the official rank designation for Guild purposes depends only on the rank of your primary Aspect. It’s not like it’s based on the average rank of all your Attributes and Aspects and Icons and so on. It’s not even based on the rank of your Path. Otherwise, it would be a bit of a pain to track.”

And here I had assumed that Kliezeg with his glass cube had been evaluating my whole overall rank or something, rather than only looking at my Aspect. “So… your Power isn’t at Opal.”

Kostis smiled, flickering out his forked tongue for a second. “It’s at Silver VI if you’re that interested. Unlike you, dear boy, most mages don’t need to raise their Power.”

He had mentioned the number “six”, which meant everyone here saw their ranks numerically. Though, I still suspected it wasn’t Latin numerals.

I wasn’t going to lie—hearing that big bad Kostis’s Power was still “only” in Silver was a bit of a shock. But that made sense. He had said his Augmentation could temporarily increase his Power’s rank. With an ability like that, there was no point in training up an Attribute higher. Of course, I didn’t know the limits of an Augmentation like that, but still.

It was smart. Mana Boost freed up all of Kostis’s time and effort to spend on other, more important Attributes, while still making sure the neglected one didn’t fall too far behind.

“But that’s probably not for me,” I said.

Kostis nodded like that was only natural. “I’ll send you a list of different Power Augmentations different sorts of mages pick up. Battlemages tend to have higher Power ranks with more focused Augmentations than mine, for instance. Same for Spellswords. You can look into those to see if any interest you. Or…”

“Or, I can take the time to see what I can already do and find something that either complements that or covers something I can’t do with everything else.”

“That would be my ideal suggestion. But that doesn’t mean my list will be useless. Maybe you can peruse for ideas.”

I nodded. “I would appreciate any guidance, yes.”

We talked a bit more about the other areas I was working on. Kostis was very interested to hear that my Paths were closing in on Silver too. Considering the theme of stars, he suspected I would be able to learn Aspects like Heat or Light as soon as my Path of the Newborn Star hit Silver. I would do well to figure out which I wanted to go with.

What he was most interested, though, was my mana core.

“You will need to raise your Spirit to Silver as fast as you can,” Kostis said. “Not only to advance your abilities with mana and your Path as well, but because you’ll need the right Augmentation to train up your mana core as well. I imagine you don’t wish to deal with your mana implosion for the rest of your life.”

“I would definitely prefer not to.” I leaned on the gallery railing, staring at the large, multicoloured and abstractly shaped sprite floating through the strange chandeliers. “But you said that before, I think. That I’ll need to undergo whatever actually happens during mana implosion to awaken my mana core. I need to be ready to handle it.”

“Correct. Spirit has a special Augmentation called Threaded Reinforcement. You’ll need it to tie your mana core to your body, and I’m quite certain that is the only way you’ll be able to handle an implosion of mana.”

As much as I did want to finally be rid of the constant mana implosions warnings, I still wasn’t convinced about the importance of the core itself. Sure, Sacrifice could make use of the enormous amounts of mana it gathered, but if I wanted my other Aspects to make proper use of the same, I needed to raise my Spirit as high as it could go. Probably well higher than Silver.

“You seem unconvinced, Ross.” Kostis had picked up on my expression, apparently. “How about I show you something neat I can do because my mana core is awakened?”

Now I was interested. I straightened, facing him again. “I’d be grateful if you did, master.”

Kostis smiled, then stretched out his hand. A second later, it turned into pure smoke.