The next few days passed in a blur of practice. Anika knew she should probably rest during the lesser week, but with her increased Vitality, she felt less tired by the time spent in the dungeons during the greater week. And the cherry on top that was creating water out of thin air had sent her into a hyperfocused mission to master her new ability.

  On Duromi, Leka took Anika to the Water training room for a lengthy lesson on the intricacies of creating physical magic effects water. Anika had originally thought that magical creation would contradict every bit of physics she had ever learned, but magic actually had a lot of rules it followed.

  While they did, effectively, create something out of nothing, the amount of magic in the area could limit how much they could create at once. Each person had a hard limit to what they could manipulate or create, and that was based on both level and personal aptitude. However, the amount of ambient magic in an area also impacted how much they could create. If an area had limited magic, the amount of physical substance they could manifest from that magic would be less. Thankfully, dungeons always had a large amount of ambient magic, as the system caused the magic to pool in those areas.

  Anika still felt she had a long way to go in understanding the intricacies of how magic worked, but it sounded to her like the system worked like different states of matter. Ambient magic filled a space like gas that could then solidify into the substance of its magic. Having water magic made this even easier to understand, especially when the ambient magic cycle had used the water cycle as a basis in the book she read. She could compare ambient magic to humidity and clouds and Create Water just condensed the water.

  From what Leka said, this actually made water stronger than other magics on their planet, which had high humidity. Even if an area had low ambient magic, she could pull the water from the air around her to create the water needed for her spells. Anika wondered what this meant as far as her ability to do ethically questionable things like sucking the water out of someone’s body… a thought for another time.

  With everyone practicing spells like Create Water in the training facility all the time, Anika had wondered how the place maintained enough ambient magic to keep practicing. As it turned out, elements created by magic partially dissipated back into magic, and the pure act of using magic shed some of a person’s magic back into the world. As a resource, the magic didn’t just disappear once used. Some of it retained its physical elemental form, and some of it dissipated back into ambient magic, ready to be used again.

  How they used that ambient magic sounded a lot more complicated than Anika initially thought. Though her system enabled translation stated that the Anima stat impacted mana, mana didn’t really exist. At least, not in the same way that it did in video games.

  Strictly speaking, what the system called mana was actually a capacity for ambient magic. Each person drew in ambient magic and their Anima processed it into the elemental magic of their affinities. That magic then could create and synergize with ambient magic outside the body to enhance a person’s ability to create and interact with their element. If an area had low ambient magic, it would take a lot more of their internal magic to produce the same amount of Water, for example, as they could in a high magic area. That’s why spells and abilities didn’t have a ‘mana cost’, because how much ambient magic their own bodies had to utilize changed based on their body’s capacitance.

  Anima also controlled how quickly a person could process ambient magic to refill their reserves. Even someone with no ambient magic reserves, in an area with high ambient magic, could still produce effects with a small trickle of magic coming in. In a low magic area, however, it would feel the same as being out of mana in a video game. For her part, Anika felt that she could easily continue to think of mana in a traditional video game sense and things would turn out alright. It was close enough. She did want to read more about the process at some point, but it didn’t impact her ability to practice for now.

  Creating Water, for Anika at least, seemed much easier than manipulating water. She just imagined the water appearing in front of her, and it did. Of course, making sure the water she conjured didn’t just splash down into the pool or evaporate back into magic before she could control it was a whole other story. If she just wanted to create water and have it fall into a bucket or onto a fire, she could do so easily. Creating Water and smoothly transitioning into Manipulating Water felt like playing one of those carnival games where you had to get the tiny rings onto bottles and they just constantly bounced off the top. Anika’s frustration with manipulation almost caused a bit of a breakdown one day, but she managed to regain control of herself without Lily around. After a minute. Or five.

  Lily had taken Anika to her word and had spent her time running around like the adorable extroverted child she was. She’d trained with Tulor in the Aether training center a few times, but most of her time she spent down in the village with Philip or other acolytes. The young acolytes at the temple were delighted to babysit her capybara companion and practically fell all over themselves to volunteer to accompany her to the village. Anika didn’t quite trust Lily to go alone and not get into trouble - her wisdom frequently failed to accomplish simple judgement tasks. She’d grow out of it sooner or later, Anika hoped.

  Lily had decided she liked Tikal, and had gone to the leatherworking shop several times to watch him making armor and help with small enchantments, though nothing as strenuous as making her own Aether enhanced spatial pocket. When Lily went to the village with Philip, she stayed with him as he followed his nose to the artisans cooking the most delicious food. The Mizeta woman who had taught him to turn the spit last week happily passed the task on to Philip in exchange for food, and Lily found it entertaining to work with all the different cooking tools and contraptions.

  Neither of them had learned the woman’s name yet, which Anika found a little crazy. How could you work with someone several times and still not ask their name? Not that Anika would probably remember the name if she had to learn a lot of names in one day, but she at least politely asked before forgetting.

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  Anika wanted to go into town at some point in the future and learn more about the types of crafting, but she probably couldn’t do much until her magical control became more consistent. While she didn’t love having so many people around and dealing with unfamiliar things, if she had a target objective - like learning about alchemy, for example - it made it much more bearable to be around new people. She would leave wandering and exploring to Lily. And then when she had good control of her magical manipulation abilities, she could just ask Lily to show her the best artisans to learn from. Always let the extroverted friend do the heavy lifting when it came to meeting new people!

  Anika left the training facility and headed for the dining hall. Lily and Sinaya had gone to town today as Zali had wanted Philip to spend more time practicing his magical abilities before they went into the dungeons next week. The new week started tomorrow, and Anika wondered if they would meet with Nilendi and the priests again on Kinemi or if they would have time to do their own thing. The knowledge that they would have some large Chaos Eruption arriving nearby soon served as the other driving force for Anika’s single-minded practice. If they expected her to participate, she had to competently defend herself, at the very least.

  Anika heard Lily before she saw her, the capybara’s cheerful chattering carrying through the halls. She waited at the door to the dining hall, and as soon as Lily turned the corner, she bounded towards Anika, Sinaya trailing behind.

  “Anika! I had so much fun today! Sinaya took me back to Tikal and he let me help him. But she also took me to a play ground with lots of people and I got to run around a lot and I even jumped up on a bench because I practiced using my magic to help me jump higher and now you don’t have to lift me onto the chairs. Though the bed is a little taller and I don’t know if I can jump that high yet, but Sinaya said I jumped pretty high on the playground and I felt really strong!”

  Anika smiled at her capybara, surprised she still had air in her lungs after delivering that monologue at high speed with no discernable punctuation. “That sounds like fun! And I am proud of you for figuring out how to use your Aether magic to help you jump. You will be levitating yourself in no time!”

  “Yes! I want to learn to levitate myself but Tulor says that I need to have more magic because it is harder to levitate yourself than something else because of something with the way magic works. I didn’t really understand the explanation but I think you would understand if you talked to Tulor.” Lily danced and jumped in circles around Anika’s feet, and Anika noted that she did, indeed, seem to be jumping much higher than she previously could.

  “You’re definitely jumping high enough to get on the chairs. Let’s go get some food and you can demonstrate how well you can jump on the benches now!” Anika shuffled towards the dining room, slowly herding her energetic companion towards the food. Sinaya giggled at Lily’s antics and followed them inside.

  “Yes! I am very hungry today! I want more jiri fruit! It is so yummy I could eat a whole plate of it!” Lily sped over to the start of the serving line, levitating a plate for herself and Anika.

  “You’re lucky today, they don’t always have jiri. But I saw some when I poked my head inside earlier. However, you also need a balanced meal of greens with your fruit.” Anika served Lily a hefty scoop of salad and topped it with jiri, grapes, and talorin, then served herself a mix of meats, root vegetables, and bread. And a single sweet pastry, of course.

  They sat at one of the Degeta sized tables, Lily effortlessly reaching her spot on the bench rather than her previous labored leap that usually required a boost from Anika. Anika cheered Lily appropriately before turning her attention to Sinaya.

  “So, Leka told me you are going to be joining us in the dungeons this week?” She tore off a hunk of bread and buttered it, glad to have such a simple thing that tasted like home.

  “Yes. I have reached level 10 through practice and I turned 17 earlier this season, shortly before the priests summoned you. I finished the dungeon orientation course last week. They had me show you around with the intention that I would join you once you had become accustomed to the dungeons yourself. I am one of the top acolytes in training.” Sinaya spoke with a slight hint of trepidation, as if afraid Anika would reject her as a party member.

  “We get to have a dungeon party with you! Yay!” Lily hadn’t bothered to swallow the hunk of leafy greens in her mouth, so her voice came out cheerfully muffled.

  “Lily, it’s not nice to talk with your mouth full! Even if we are happy to have Sinaya join us.” Anika gently rebuked her companion, causing Lily to frantically chew and gulp down the last of her leaves before continuing.

  “Sorry Anika! But it will be so fun! We can have fun like we had in town today!”

  “I am glad that you will welcome me to your party.” Sinaya smiled and dug into her meal, clearly having waited for approval in case she determined that her presence intruded on the pair.

  “I know you are a fire mage, what kind of spells do you have? I would guess you mostly fight at range like I do. That could be difficult when we don’t have Philip around.”

  “Actually, fire mages frequently fight with melee weapons. Fire infusion enchantments on weapons are incredibly strong, as the fire helps the weapons penetrate certain types of defenses. If I had the Time secondary magic, I would always fight in close combat, as it gives multiple buffs to speed that work best when close to an enemy. But I have Essence as my secondary, which give me abilities that cause my Fire to steal an enemy’s Vitality and Anima. Fire spells primarily focus on amplifying damage done with Fire, so Essence can provide strong regenerative powers.”

  “So Fire and Essence basically gives you lifesteal powers? Lifesteal is always strong in games! So what do you use, a sword?” Anika wished she had cool lifesteal power, but she could cast healing spells, so she couldn’t complain about her abilities too much.

  “Vok has us learn a wide variety of weapons prior to going into the dungeons and encourages us to practice several forms of attack to ensure we pick the right style. I trialed many weapons during my orientation assessment. I do fight with swords, but I do not think it is my best style. I met with him in the morning before we head to the dungeon to find out which weapon he has chosen for me this week! I am very excited to have my first assignment!”

  Sinaya actually demonstrated some emotion with that phrase, and Anika hoped that meant she would continue to open up rather than acting like a timid schoolchild in the dungeon. She had given Anika more deference than she deserved, and she hope that having a party member who had years of training in this world would help to increase the skills that she and Lily had to learn in a shortened time frame.

  “Anika, maybe Vok can give me a weapon too! I could have my own arrows to shoot rather than stealing yours! I can keep them in my scarf’s spatial pocket! Can you talk to Vok for me?”

  Anika sighed, wondering how to talk her capybara out of carrying an arsenal in her scarf of holding. She’d figure it out later.