Cal might have sounded confident, but he knew this was a gamble. He spoke out loud for Tavia’s comfort as well as his own.
The idle thoughts disappeared once [Mist Walker] took hold. There was no room for them.
His mind stretched—pulled in a way that alarmed him. The most frightening part was the brief loss of control as he was forced to ride the whims of whatever [Mist Walker] did.
The mist formed and covered the maximum [Mist Walker] allowed—ten acres. It was invisible to the eye, spread so thin that no one else could have told anything had changed.
He’d thought using mana tendrils was overwhelming, but that was nothing compared to the information pouring into his mind now. The mist’s reach left him floundering, yet it informed him of everything within. Everything.
Even the surface layer of soil, which was so infused with mana that consuming a pinch would act like a high-grade mana potion. He felt mana rushing into the area from the edges, though it was rapidly decreasing. He sensed the tear in space—the rift—fluctuating as something pushed it to widen, driving mana through at tremendous rates.
Cal saw Tavia moving in slow motion in his arms before realizing it wasn’t her moving slowly—time itself hadn’t changed.
No, not time. It’s my perception.
He wasn’t sure why his mind hadn’t collapsed under the strain. He could feel it wanting to buckle, yet something prevented it. Whatever the mechanics behind [Mist Walker], they weren’t natural. This was beyond his current capabilities, no matter how fantastical the trait was.
Cal contracted the mist. He might know everything it covered, but he couldn’t act on any of it. A useful effect—with no immediate application.
The mist thickened with every foot he drew it in, though it wasn’t noticeable until the coverage dropped to a single acre.
Cal could sense the flow of mana in the air—not just the vague, chaotic movements he’d felt before. He sensed each individual strand, each string, numbering in the billions within the acre.
He’d thought the earlier flood of information was overwhelming, but this was worse. Even with something forcing his mind to comprehend it without turning to sludge, it took him a moment to process what he sensed.
He drew a shuddering breath and forced his attention to the rift—though focus wasn’t quite right. His awareness of everything within the acre remained undimmed.
It was inhuman… and that fit perfectly. He didn’t feel very human at the moment.
He tried to squeeze the rift shut, and managed only to slow its widening.
Cal contracted the mist again, drastically this time. It shrank to several hundred feet—just enough to keep the rift within—and condensed into true mist.
He blanked out—at least as much as this state allowed.
The mana he sensed was no longer comprised of individual strings—he wished it were, that would be manageable—but billionstrillionsmore of particles moving in tandem. There was no separation, no end to their connections, so complete he could even faintly feel particles beyond the mist.
His mind wanted to shut down, but again, it wasn’t allowed to. He couldn’t even call it torture; he couldn’t feel the strain, though he thought he felt it. It made sense, yet it didn’t. For all the information he absorbed, he knew little about the workings of his body. He feared what would happen after [Mist Walker] ended.
He wasn’t sure how long his mind stalled—or should have stalled, since information kept pouring in—but it couldn’t have been long. Tavia’s mouth was only forming her second word, nowhere near finished. The thought of an hour in this state should have been enough to push him over the edge, but again, it wasn’t allowed.
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Cal regained control of his actions and tried to close the rift again. This time he made progress.
It was slow, but it was closing at a rate he could see—a feat, given his slowed perception of time.
Cal saw, felt, sensed Tavia stop and turn. By the time she faced the rift, it would be closed.
Information about the ground covered by the mist continued to flood his mind as the rift narrowed. It wasn’t all smooth.
Something beyond the rift tried to interfere—furious that its will was being subverted. Cal felt the anger as it reached through the tear to strangle him, but [Mist Walker] was more than a match to negate the attempt.
The intent behind that reach belonged to a monster beyond anything he had encountered, barring the higher beings who had sent him into his second life.
No matter. I’m safe while [Mist Walker] is active.
Cal shivered as the rift sealed for good. He watched to see if it would return and was relieved when it didn’t.
He checked the boundary. Another rush of mana was arriving, and a tremor from above, though there was time before it affected this area.
He frowned, concluding the sinkhole was imploding. Even with his slowed perception, the mana pouring in was increasing exponentially.
He held out as long as he could, accepting the burden of so much mana added to the torrent of information, just to make sure the rift wouldn’t reopen at the last moment.
Cal pulled the mist inward as the surge passed his limit. He doubted it would harm him, but it could ‘stall’ his thoughts for a second—and that was long enough for the incoming surge to reach Tavia.
That would be… undesirable.
He drew the mist tight until it covered only a meter around him, though it couldn’t be called mist anymore. It was practically water, a milky, opaque shell.
He made sure Tavia wasn’t submerged and willed it to become an impenetrable shield. The tsunami of mana crashed harmlessly against the outer wall. Slabs of rock fell, crumbled on impact, and slid away.
The implosion could be ignored. Follow current novels on novel·fire·net
Cal was thankful mana didn’t have forms smaller than particles for him to discover. He’d had enough of having his mind stalled.
With the mist held small, he could focus on what he’d dismissed before. [Mist Walker] drew absolutely no mana from his reserves. Instead, there was a link to something external.
He accepted it quickly—he hadn’t spent his own mana. That’s was fine, logical even. [Mist Walker] let him wield abilities beyond what anyone should be allowed, at least by the limits of his knowledge. Perhaps some people could reach this level of power, but likely only in first-rate guilds.
What’s the difference between what I can do with [Mist Walker] and what a god can do?
His focus shifted to the link leading outside. He tried to pry information from it, and the headache that slammed into him almost shut his mind down—a shock, in this state.
He blinked away the surprise and tried again. This would give him the answer as to why [Traits] were so much more powerful when used to full potential compared to spells. He pried at the link, pushed through the mind-splitting pain, and reached for something—anything.
He couldn’t just ignore a link that granted him so much power. Not when he could multitask and his mind was apparently reinforced against negative effects. Even if [Mist Walker] appeared on his interface, he knew this wasn’t normal.
The link gave. He understood it originated beyond this space. It was a rift—subtler, but a rift all the same.
Cal halted out of pure surprise. It felt like ages since the interface—or rather, the Laws of the World—had spoken to him.
He opened his mouth to ask a question, and no sound came out.
You have exceeded the intentions of [Mist Walker] by a large margin. The original penalty is insufficient.
Something snapped. A backlash tore through the link and slammed into him. His knees buckled, but Tavia held him up. Somehow the watery shield didn’t waver—but it was only a matter of time.
Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, and there was little he could do to stop it. It hadn’t been an hour since he’d activated [Mist Walker]—not even close—but his actions had clearly changed the time limit.
Cal wavered between consciousness and oblivion, trying to hold on until the sinkhole finished imploding.
He felt the slabs of rock continue to pummel the watery shield—then he lost consciousness.
Tavia stood over Cal, shielding him from the hail of stone. Facing outward, arms braced, she held a wall of fire that erased anything that touched it. Rocks, gravel—any debris that tried to crush them—vaporized.
The cost was mana. A lot of it.
With a growl, she yanked a mana potion from her storage pouch and drank, staving off collapse, then returned to sustaining the spell. It was her third. Even as an [Apprentice Mage], keeping the spell active for over thirty minutes was too much. Her arms trembled as the strain wore on her muscles. She didn’t know how long she could hold on .
She cursed the guild for the umpteenth time. This was suicide either way. If Cal had kept the rift open, mana overexposure would have poisoned them. Closing it, which she still couldn’t fathom how he’d managed, had dumped them into this mess.
Tavia didn’t know what he’d done in the end, only that he’d pulled off a miracle. If they got out of this alive, she fully intended to jump his—she stiffened. Her fire no longer caught anything falling through.
With a grunt, she thrust her hands upward. The wall of fire surged, burning away the last of the debris and clearing their path to the surface.
Spent, Tavia collapsed onto Cal and stared at the light above.