Pushing and pushing and pushing.

  A myriad of flavours for a myriad of pain, all condensed in one of the ethereal channels in my right arm. Pushing far enough that the pain reached both points where muscles connect to bones. The rivers of my ethereal self (spirit?) were a myriad of pathways coiled together like muscle fibers, and this was just one of a dozen I had been focusing my efforts on.

  It screamed in a language of pain I was still learning to endure, something all encompassing and yet condensed, and the sensation has no limits.

  With the body there was a point where nerves couldn’t fire any harder, signalling pain to their maximum capacity. It was a high ceiling, one I definitely hadn’t reached with the ethereal equivalent, although it often felt like it.

  But what I was doing didn’t involve nerves, so it didn’t have the limitation of possessing an end. Someday I might experience a pain that was near transcendent…and if it made me stronger? I hoped I was able enough to actually endure it. But I knew that this rush was more desperation than strength, and desperation was just another facet of weakness.

  Every day I condensed the mana in that one specific pathway, at the same point every time. It was starting to give me a more intimate perspective of my mana’s circulatory system. It didn’t flow like blood, or like a river really. Blood flowed based on the pump of the heart, and rivers were things of high elevation to low. This just moved on its own, as though it were natural to gain momentum from nothing.

  And it covered the entirety of my body.

  There were the main pathways where mana flowed with wild abandon, coiling in the dozens with their borders molding together. Then there were the thousands of pools that branch off and stayed still as a lake. They encompass perhaps a tenth of my reserves, and I couldn’t use them for some reason so I didn’t consider them when calculating my mana usage.

  I’d be the first to admit that I didn’t know what the point of there being a poorly designed mirror of the biological system was, especially when it didn’t seem to serve any life sustaining purpose.

  Then there were the vents. Those essentially puffed out mana into the environment when I was full of the shit, since production didn’t stop. They didn’t see much use considering my constant training so I generally ignored them.

  I could theory-craft all I liked but at the end of the day I wasn’t going to come up with anything concrete. Just a hypothesis.

  I had mana, I used mana, when I used mana my capacity increased.

  There, simple and concise. Now I was trying to find another truth.

  Pushing and pushing and pushing.

  If this did something, anything, then I truly did have other avenues of growth…and it did. I tested it on my other pathways, but other than my increasing resilience to the pain, I could go much further in condensing the energy in that one pathway compared to the others. I didn’t know if that meant anything, but it was change, and change was good.

  If it wasn’t?

  Well, I’d never heard of spiritual injuries, not even spells that could do such a thing, so I assumed they didn’t exist. That was a dumb as fuck assumption, one in which my entire plan hinged on, no matter the formation of cracks in my pathway.

  The pain was debilitating, I’d long since pushed past the point where I couldn’t even stand while enduring the suffering. Every second I added more mana to the mass forming in my arm, causing more cracks, ones that I hoped stayed after I let go. I was going to have to do that soon, this hurt.

  But pain was just an obstacle, just an obstacle. Something that was blocking me from being more, something borderline blasphemous to my need for growth.

  Yet, eventually, I always submitted.

  I let go of the mass in my arm, letting it return to its regular flow.

  In an instant, all the cracks disappeared. Nothing to present as proof for my suffering. I sighed and opened my eyes. I was getting strange looks from the people on my table, probably because of all the sweating. That was fine. I continued to munch through a small helping of bread and some meat stew. It was a little more gamey than proper swine, but I enjoyed it.

  I dabbed my bread in the soup to give it some flavour, and eventually finished my bowl. I got up and delivered the bowl alongside my cutlery to the kitchen staff to clean and reuse. It was all made of wood, it would be a shame to put it to waste.

  The guild could definitely afford silverware, what they couldn’t afford was the thieves that’d constantly be taking that shit, so they went with something basic. Sure, some went missing, but nothing significant. At least that was what one of the butchers told me, and I was inclined to believe her.

  I stepped out of the hunters guild, taking a brief moment to absorb the city with my eyes, appreciating the simple splendour. I took a deep breath through my nose.

  Smelled mostly like shit, but the same could be said for any proper piece of civilization. One got used to it pretty quickly. I noticed the absence when I was wandering between destroyed villages. Though the smell of decay replaced it then.

  Strange how I never thought of it. Guess what you god used to had a tendancy to slip the mind.

  I walked down the streets, avoiding the clear pickpockets looking for their next mark, heading to the southern edge of the diamond city. Eventually I found myself in the increasingly familiar slums, people wearing more weathered clothing than I was used to seeing in the other parts of the city. I put my fingers in my mouth and let out a long whistle after stopping at one of the alleys.

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  Shouldn’t have made their signal a whistle, made me think of my father.

  In no time at all, Riri poked her head out with a scowl on her face. “Do you have to make that noise so loud? It hurts my ears.”

  “You’re just jealous I can whistle and you can’t,” I said.

  “Please, I couldn’t manage to make myself suffer through learning that.”

  “Your loss,” I shrugged. “Where’s Gar?”

  Riri blinked, then flicked her eyes to the floor.

  “Riri?”

  “It’s nothing,” Riri mumbled. “He just…isn’t feeling well! He’ll be back to play in a few days, everything's all good!”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’d make for a terrible liar, even if I were a human.”

  Riri deflated and flicked her eyes back to me. “He told me not to tell you…” Riri whined.

  “But you’re going to tell me.” I nodded. “Because otherwise I’m going to beat your ass.”

  “Okay…” Riri mumbled.

  So, spells, what's up with those?

  I didn’t know anything about how they worked, just that they allowed for some ridiculous bullshit. All vested into the body of one mage, or gods forbid, a chain spell. If I were to step back and really think about it, spells had more implications than the battlefield. How did you speak to someone who could end you with the flick of the finger? How does that power dynamic allow for anything other than subservience?

  Every major political entity was also a renowned mage, entirely because of how dangerous they were. This led to a more martial kind of society, since most mages of any caliber worth mentioning were baptized through the blood of monsters or war. The Taiman empire was a prime example of how that shit fundamentally fucked around with the philosophy of people. Much more might makes right than I was comfortable with. But there were points where that power became convenient.

  The spell I knew might not have been potent considering my capacity, but it was more than enough to break the faces of children. My fist cut through the air, a veritable brick crashing into the guts of a boy standing almost a foot taller than me. He fell to his knees, and vomited out his lunch along with some bile.

  I took a step back, collecting spit and blood in my mouth and spat it out to the side. The boy had a second or two of rest before my foot crashed into his skull, knocking him out entirely.

  Surrounding me was the moaning of two, alongside another four unconscious.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you punks were thinking, but it clearly wasn’t anything intelligent,” I said, calm as could be. Or at least trying to radiate calm, that was pretty menacing right? Right. “Attacking a hunter's friend? Even if I’m only an apprentice, I’ve faced monsters that make you all look like babies. This shit didn’t need to happen if you didn’t push fate off a fucking cliff.”

  “What—” a cough, from a girl on the floor. “What is that even supposed to mean?”

  “Figure it out yourself, I’ve got shit to do.” I scoffed, turning around to look down the street of bystanders. They all seemed appropriately horrified by the ass whooping, considering I beat the asses of six fools. I only wanted one of them to be fair, but the others were adamant on being a barrier, so I gave them the treatment they so desired.

  Not that I wasn’t hurt, I got less than I gave but I still got plenty. My face was a testament to that. Riri walked up to me, hesitant to leave the crowd, and gave her shoulder in silent support.

  I didn’t thank her, at least not verbally, giving a slight squeeze to the girl's shoulder which she replied with a squeeze of her own. Walking was…feasible, but the world felt less nausea inducing with some help. We made our way through the slums, passing by plenty of humanity and so little else. I thought I saw a beast-kin, but they looked like a carnivore. Those didn’t live long if they were poor.

  Eventually we reached a small shack. We pushed aside the cloth and entered to find three children laying in their cots, unable to move from hunger or beatings.

  Not far to their right lied Gar, whose eyes lazily tracked us before widening in surprise.

  “Yir! Wha—what are you doing here?” Gar sputtered.

  “Checking on my friend, dumbass,” I said, spitting out another glob of blood. I’d been doing that a little too frequently, causing me to be a bit worried for the health of my gums.

  Gar's gaze turned to a scowl as it moved to Riri, who shrunk under his gaze. “I told you not to tell her! Look, she’s all beat up now, and you don’t even have a scratch. Did you just leave her to get her ass beat?”

  “Okay, firstly, I would’ve found out no matter how hard Riri tried to hide that shit. She’s a horrendous liar.” I pointed out. “And secondly, I beat their asses. Him and all his friends. You might even hear about it later today if the news travels fast enough. Pretty sure I caused a few fractures even. Definitely misaligned some noses, but it’s not like they hadn’t broken them before.”

  One of the resting girls, who looked a little thin for my liking, sat up and stared at me with a scrunched brow. “How many could you even manage? You don’t look all that strong.”

  “Don’t be stupid, she’s an elf,” a different boy grumbled from his cot, not even bothering to look at us. “Elves are all insane, she prolly would’ve fought to the death if it came to that. Fucking knife-ears.”

  “Well, fuck you too, random stranger,” I said. “I guess I won’t be sharing the succulent venison I’ve brought from the hunters guild.”

  That didn’t even seem to grab his attention, though I could tell he was putting on a show from how quiet he got. I smiled something wide. “You can have some if you apologize.”

  “Can I have Urik’s share instead?” the girl said, mouth practically on the verge of drooling. “He’s a grump and all he’s been doing is grumping. He doesn’t deserve delicious meat!”

  The boy got up with a grumble at that. “Oh fuck off Eorin, your stomach would probably explode from that much meat.” He looked at me sheepishly and diverted his gaze to the ground with a scowl. “Sorry for insulting you, knife-ear. Is that good enough?”

  “Yeah, just about.” I shrugged, rummaged through my bag and walked over to hand him a few strips of salted and dried venison. I did the same for Eorin before heading over to Gar, outstretching some meat that he didn’t’t take. Scowling at me instead.

  “Why would you go out of your way to get a beating just for what? To prove a point?” Gar said. “Was it even worth it?”

  I shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s the principle of the thing. Can’t let my friends being attacked go unpunished. Besides, I like fighting.”

  “That’s a fucking lie,” Gar snorted, then looked me hard in the eye. “Promise you won’t pull that kind of shit again?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then you can keep your deer meat.”

  I raised a brow, then shrugged. “Suit yourself, Riri! It looks like our portion just got bigger.”

  “I…don’t want any either,” Riri mumbled.

  “Both of you are sentimental dumbfucks, but fine,” I snorted, then took a bite out of my strip of meat.

  It tasted like iron with the blood mixing in my mouth.