While the other cadets in the room focused on reproducing their magic—their abilities—over and over, Det stared at his hands. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He put his hands together, then pulled them apart. He let the energy flow into his fingers, then pulled it back up into the node in his palms.

  The energy from his left maintained its higher viscosity during the trip to and from the tips of his fingers, though it didn’t take significantly longer, like he would’ve expected it to. Then again, this wasn’t like he was comparing two liquids—such as water and honey—but instead an ethereal, magical energy. It wasn’t entirely unbelievable that the regular laws of physics wouldn’t apply to it.

  That also meant Det was able to change the viscosity of the energy with a thought—an intent—in his right hand. At first, it took a few seconds for the energy to change consistencies, but with each swap, Det not only watched the process like a hawk, he also learned from it. Yes, his body could do it on its own with the proper stimulus—wanting it done—but it wasn’t quick or efficient.

  Watching the energy change, for some reason, always went from the outside of the spinning whirlpool to the inside. It took time to reach the center, at which point the entire node became full of that type of energy. His body wouldn’t change all of the energy at once. Couldn’t? Was it something new getting added, and that was why the whirlpool went from outside to in?

  No, even studying it for several minutes straight, there was no outside catalyst entering or stimulating his energy. The energy was changing itself.

  So, why can’t it all change at once?

  That question was a little too far ahead of Det for the moment, but it gave him a goal. Once he understood what was happening to the energy.

  Another two minutes of observation—with his eyes closed—confirmed what he’d been starting to suspect. The energy was changing forms, similar to how matter and energy did. Where something like water could be mist, liquid, or solid—from fog, to an ocean, to an iceberg—his internal energy had its own stages.

  The energy’s normal form was the mist, that was what was running through his channels. It was quick, easy to manipulate, and filled his magic in a heartbeat. Or, two seconds, technically. In his node, now, was the liquid form of the energy, not that it was an actual liquid, but more a metaphysical one. And, much like how the energy seemed to ignore the law of physics around viscosity and how quickly it moved, it likewise didn’t require the mist to condense to become the liquid. There was no loss of volume, or potential volume, depending on how one looked at it.

  As far as he could see, one second the energy was mist, and the next it was liquid, like both states were natural to it. But, if both moved into his renditions at the same pace, what was the point of having two different forms to the energy?

  Luckily, Det had two hands, two waiting renditions, and a way to answer his question. With his left hand on one image, and his right on another, he simultaneously pushed the different energies through his fingers. Just like he expected, the two energies filled the renditions at the same pace, completing within two seconds of beginning.

  “Go play with the others,” Det told the two new ink-kittens who ran over to join the growing, moving pile. As soon as they were out of the way, he grabbed two more prepared paintings, and immediately repeated the process, concentrating on what he’d noticed the first time.

  There it was. That answered one question.

  The two types of energy filled the renditions at the same pace, but they did it in different ways.

  For the energy in his right hand—the mist-like substance—the energy spread through all the ink evenly, then built up in all corners at the same pace. It meant the furthest point, for example, had the same amount of energy in it that the connection-point between rendition and Det’s fingers did. It was a gradual, equal, accumulation of energy throughout the entire painting.

  On the other hand, the painting on his left side—the one with the thicker, liquid-like version—filled from the entrance in. The energy was so thick it filled the ink-pipes of his rendition from top to bottom. Starting where his fingers touched, the initial sections of the painting were entirely full before any energy reached the furthest points. Det almost imagined it like a massive slime, filling a sewer tunnel from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and then gradually moving deeper. Because of its viscosity, one section of the sewer could be full, but two inches away, empty. At least until the slime moved further.

  Again, neither process was faster or slower, all the concentrated energy invested into filling the rendition and activating it. As such, two seconds later, another pair of kittens joined the growing army. Which, all things considered, was probably good, since it wouldn’t be long before some of the kittens started vanishing from around the room. Thirty minutes went fast, since he hadn’t built them to last any longer than that.

  Which means I should prepare another turtle for Eriba.

  That didn’t take long to sketch out, and Det put the rendition to the side until it was needed. The quick side-project done, he went back to his kittens. Now, he understood why his energy moved differently, and even had a few ideas how he could use it to his advantage.

  However, it still didn’t explain how to change the energy. His body could do it for him, but Det wanted to do it himself.

  It took over an hour of experimentation—broken up by people demanding new kittens several times—to get his first breakthrough. Somehow, in that instant when Sage had interrupted him for his third kitten, Det had changed a small section of the energy within the whirlpool of his right hand into the liquid form.

  It happened so fast, and was so shocking, Det could only blink as the energy swirled once, twice, three times inside the whirlpool before it returned to its mist-state. Not wanting to waste a second—or the inspiration from what’d just happened—Det slapped his whole hand down on a kitten rendition, then practically thrust the newly-nya’ing-kitten into Sage’s chest. The other man caught the little cat before it could be crushed, and easily got the message not to bother Det again until lunch time.

  Just… what had he done differently? It wasn’t his body doing the instinctual transformation for him, as that would’ve come from the outside in, as it always did. He’d tried condensing it from its gas-form to the liquid, but that didn’t work. He’d sped it up, slowed it down, flipped it over, and even considered giving the energy a slap on the ass along with an “attah’boy”. None of it worked. So, what was it?

  Grimacing, Det shook out his hands and stretched his fingers, working out the kinks and soreness of…

  … kinks and soreness? Since when did I get kinks or sore?

  Det stared at his hands, an ache in them like he’d been manually changing tires all day. He hadn’t felt something like that in years. More than years. Not since his time on Earth. The feeling from then was so normal, he hadn’t even really noticed it. But, since he’d become a ReSouled, aches and pains were a thing of the past. Short of getting stabbed or bitten, of course.

  Why were his hands sore? It wasn’t like he’d being doing anything strenuous.

  Or…?

  Or!

  Beauty had said magic was like a muscle. One that got stronger through use. What if that wasn’t just a colorful analogy? What if it really was a muscle? One that Det had been flexing non-stop for the last hour to keep his energy condensed.

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  Or…more accurately, what if it was an organ? Like his lungs. One that worked—on instinct—to do what his body needed it to do? Det didn’t have to learn how to breathe. His body did it for him. He could learn how to hold his breath, though. How to take a deep breath. No, he didn’t know the ins and outs of what his lungs did to convert his breathing into oxygenation for his blood, and that kind of annoyed him when he thought about it, but it was a lead.

  Overall, his ReSouled body was a bit of a mystery. It reduced pain, possessed supernatural strength, among other attributes, and also had the potential to use magic. Abilities. Skills. Whatever somebody wanted to call them. Yes, Det wanted to know what his body was doing to transform the energy from one form to another, but that got put on the backburner for the moment.

  If using his magic was like breathing, then everything that’d happened up until that point was like his lungs doing their thing. For the last hour, Det had done the equivalent of holding his breath, without realizing it. Like when a baby gets put underwater when they’re little. They know to close their mouth, even if they don’t really know why they’re doing it. That was Det, with his head below the surface.

  When Sage had startled him, he’d ‘held his breath’ without going under.

  So, Det held his breath. Yeah, that didn’t help. He tried ‘holding his breath’ in his hand. Nope, that didn’t do anything either. His hand didn’t breathe, after all. He was still missing something.

  The magic came by instinct, so he’d likened it to an organ. Beauty, on the other hand, had repeatedly called it a muscle. Saying that it could be strengthened and improved through working it.

  Det looked at his two hands again, letting his body convert the energy in his left hand into its liquid form, the whirlpool changing over the course of several heartbeats. In his right hand, the energy stayed in its mist form. His body could convert it for him, and maybe he would need to lean on that. This was magic, after all, and if he needed the mist to condense down to…

  His mind trailed off.

  He was looking at this all wrong. Det had been trying to associate how his body was working to how something like a car would work. Logical action and equally logical reaction or response. But, cars—and everything he knew from Earth—followed the laws of physics. He’d already acknowledged the energy in his body wasn’t following those rules. Acknowledged, but not really processed.

  The energy didn’t need to condense from mist to liquid. There wasn’t a change of state the energy needed to go through. It was mist, or it was liquid. It was never something in between. His problem was he was trying to change the energy. He couldn’t spot a catalyst or process, because there wasn’t one.

  In his left hand, he let his body return the energy to its mist form, carefully watching the whirlpool as it shifted. It was true. His body was making the liquid become a mist. Almost like flipping over a line of pancakes from one side to the other. Except, there was no flipping involved. It was mist, then it was liquid. And they both felt so natural.

  The one difference he did notice was how it was easier for his energy to be in that mist form. Like he’d put down something heavy he’d been holding.

  Taking all those observations, Det turned to his right hand, focused on the one small spot of energy in the middle of the whirlpool, then… did something. It wasn’t taking a breath, and it wasn’t flexing a muscle. Not exactly, at least.

  It was more akin to flipping a switch with his intent.

  And it worked, creating a spot of floating liquid in the whirlpool of twisting mist.

  “Yes,” Det hissed to himself at his desk, and immediately looked at a bigger section of the energy in his node. The same, excited, mental acrobatics as before flipped the switch, but something different happened. In his eagerness, something about his intention tried to flip the energy too far.

  All at once, the whirlpool of energy froze. Solidified. There was a second of pain, like a pinch, and then the energy was back in its mist form.

  And Det slumped at his desk, his body exhausted like he’d just sprinted up a hundred flights of stairs. Up and down his arm—no, his whole body—his channels were in chaos, with the energy coming from his gut not sure which direction it should be flowing in.

  “Ah, an energy reversal,” Beauty said, kneeling in front of Det’s desk, ink-kitten on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’ll pass. It’s what I was explaining before, and it doesn’t feel like yours is too bad.”

  “Feels pretty bad to me,” Det wheezed. “Like I’m having a heart-attack.”

  “Pressure on your chest?” Beauty said. “Weakness in your arms?”

  Det nodded. “Pins and needles in my legs, too.”

  “All symptoms of a minor energy reversal,” Beauty said. “The first time is always the worst.”

  “How long will it last?” Det asked, though his breathing was already coming a little easier. It no longer felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest. Just a sumo wrestler. His arms weren’t draped like wet noodles across the desk, and his legs tingled instead of hurt.

  “A few more seconds at least,” Beauty said. “Expect minor symptoms for at least another minute or two. I wouldn’t try using your magic in that time. Doing so can cause an exponential escalation of symptoms if you get another reversal.”

  “Can a reversal kill you?” Aria asked. She’d turned around in her seat at some point, and had a slight look of worry on her face. She was definitely squeezing the kitten for comfort, too.

  “Unlikely,” Beauty said. “You’d probably pass out—or at worst, go into a coma—before you could kill yourself. Of course, if this were to happen to you during a battle outside of the dueling ring, that could very well be fatal. Most Uncored won’t wait for you to wake up before they go about properly mauling you.”

  “At least it would be a proper mauling, instead of an inappropriate one,” Det said, rolling his shoulders to help work life back into his arms.

  “They prefer you to be awake for the inappropriate ones,” Beast offered helpfully. “They like the screaming and fighting back.”

  “Wonderful,” Det grumbled.

  “It’s really not,” Beauty said quietly, a haunted look in his eye. “Now, you seem to be just fine. Give yourself another few minutes before you try anything like that again.”

  “Yes, sir,” Det said. A big part of him wanted to jump right back into things. He had it that first time, but had let his emotions get ahead of him for the second. If he waited too long, would he lose the feeling of what he’d done right?

  Then again, another reversal would… suck.

  “What did you do?” Aria said, still half-turned in her seat, even though Beauty had left.

  Beside Det, Eriba listened as well, a collection of gadgets crafted from Wordless parts taking up her entire desk.

  “I was changing the consistency of the energy running through my channels,” Det explained.

  “You were whating your what in your what?” Aria said after a few blinks of her eyes.

  Det blinked as well. “Which part of that is the trouble?”

  “All of it?” Aria said. When she looked over at Eriba, the other woman nodded as well.

  “Beauty talked about what channels are,” Det said.

  “Yeah, I didn’t really get all that,” Aria said. “He said we should take a class about it, so I kind of didn’t listen to anything after that. What’s it all mean?” With the question, the woman put the small ink-kitten on top of her head—where it promptly nestled down on her dark hair—then crossed her arms over the back of her chair.

  Det looked down at his hands flat on his desk. Explaining things to the woman meant he wasn’t practicing them. Then again, his channels still felt kind of raw. Beauty said he needed to wait until they were recovered, which would take a few more minutes.

  “I’ll give you the short version of what I know,” Det said with a resigned sigh.

  “Oh good,” Aria said. “I get easily distracted. Small words please.”

  “I want to hear too,” Eriba said, voice barely carrying above the sounds of magic from the rest of the room. “I’m not making much progress.”

  Considering Eriba would be fighting at Det’s side at some point, he had a bit more of a reason to make sure she knew what she was doing. It was an easy nod to include her.

  “Count me in,” a third voice said, and Det twisted even further to the side to see the man normally seated behind Eriba pulling up a chair. “Assuming you don’t mind?”

  “For how many times you made Beast chuckle, you’re definitely welcome,” Det said. “I’m Det.”

  “Everybody calls me Crazy Legs,” the man said.

  “Is that your superpower?” Aria asked.

  “Nah, I just like dancing,” Crazy Legs said, face straight. “It’s actually the short form of what everybody called me back on my pillar.”

  “What was the long version?” Eriba quietly asked.

  “Crazy Legs, Too Much Dancing,” Crazy Legs said.

  “That is much longer,” Eriba said with an understanding nod.

  “Right?” Crazy Legs said.

  “So, what is your superpower?” Aria pressed.

  “Endless charm and wit.” Again, with a perfectly straight face.

  “I don’t think that’s usually… a superpower,” Det started.

  “It’s mine,” Crazy Legs said. Then, something happened. Like a light bulb had turned on, or the sun had come out from behind the clouds to shine a beam of light down right on Crazy Legs. His features softened, the corners of his eyes sparkled, and his uniform shifted to reveal the lines of his chiseled, ReSouled muscles. “I am very charming.”

  With the words, Eriba and Aria practically melted, their faces going into full swoon. For Det, it wasn’t quite the same. The man was unfairly attractive, sure, but not in the kind of way that made Det jealous. Crazy Legs was too much best-friend-material to be able to dislike, and Det opened his mouth to invite the guy out for a drink after classes, when Det’s mind suddenly went nope.

  Just like that, the aura around Crazy Legs lost the warm glow, and the comforting feeling that went with it vanished just the same. Aria and Eriba were practically falling out of their chairs in his direction, an aura of light surrounding their eyes matching whatever was coming from behind Crazy Legs.

  “Huh,” Det said. “Charm really is your superpower.”

  “Told you so,” Crazy Legs said.