Each step crunched softly against loose gravel. The trail was uneven, winding upward through tilted boulders and steep gullies. I moved slowly, feeling the air grow thinner and the mana felt thicker... Maybe denser. I wasn’t sure.
Mana is peculiar; it’s everywhere and always present in this world, much like oxygen. But the mana here felt better than usual. Sky mana, probably. My affinity makes me more compatible with it.
Overhead, the stars burned bright enough to cast shadows. Around me, night pressed in, and I had to make myself curb my excitement a bit.
Focus, Alice. It would be really embarrassing if you got ambushed by a monster right about now.
I double-checked my surroundings just in case. That’s when I saw it.
A flicker in the dark.
It could have been the wind or a trick of the eye, but I didn’t want to take any risks, so I stopped and grabbed my spear.
I narrowed my gaze and caught the shimmer of purple fur.
A small and delicate creature, impossibly vivid under the starlight, a rabbit. A Moon Hare, to be precise.
It stood on a stone outcrop, ears twitching, its wide alien eyes locked on mine.
I took a careful, non-threatening step forward.
It twitched and vanished.
It didn’t hide in the brush or behind a rock.
No, it blinked several meters away. Teleported without making a sound.
“Rude,” I whispered, grinning, and edged closer again.
It blinked once more. Then again and again. It was as if the creature was playing a game with me.
I watched, tracking the rhythm of its motion, the instinctive way it responded to me. It was too focused on me. There was no way I could approach it while it was this vigilant.
That’s when I noticed a ripple pass across the stars. I would have mistaken it for a small cloud if it hadn’t grown closer.
When it folded its wings, I was able to see it, an owl.
It dove silently, wings outstretched. Its feathers shimmered, making its bioluminescent patterns indistinguishable from the starlight except when it wanted to be seen. I only caught sight of it when it was low enough to contrast against the ground instead of the sky.
The Moon Hare twitched.
But it wasn’t fast enough.
Without a sound, the owl was rising again, its prey safely caught in its talons.
It vanished into the stars as if it had always belonged to them.
I stood still, heart fluttering.
Poor little bunny. Nature is often cruel and uncaring.
I forced myself to turn away, eyes back on the path and the dark rocks around me.
Better to focus on the road and my surroundings… lest I suffer a similar fate.
But after a few minutes of walking, that strange sensation returned, the one I’d been feeling all day. Faint, impossible to explain. It wasn’t a spell tugging at my mind or a magical lure drawing me in. It felt more like longing. A gentle pull deep in my chest, the same quiet ache I remembered from that night in Tunisia when I’d looked up at the stars and asked for something more.
Now, high in the mountains and bathed in starlight, that same feeling came alive again.
I started to walk faster.
The trail narrowed as I climbed, the gravel shifting under my boots. The higher I went, the thinner the air became, pressing against my lungs. I adapted, breathing slowly, just enough to keep steady, one step at a time.
Eventually, the trail curved around a jagged rock outcrop and opened onto a ridge.
That’s where I saw the ruins.
The first one I reached was a small, domed hut, just tall enough for me to stand upright inside.
The buildings were weathered structures, half-sunken into the rocky slope, as if they’d always been part of the mountain. The walls were made of a type of concrete that mimicked the surrounding basalt rather than the layered stone often found in old ruins. They were etched faintly with lines that might have been writing or decoration, but it was too faded to tell. The doorway was open, the door long gone, and inside, the floor was a single sheet of reflected black stone that could almost serve as a mirror if not for all the dust.
I stood at the entrance for a while, slowly listening for beasts making this place into their lair. I moved deeper into the ruins, passing two more dome-shaped buildings and what might have been a collapsed communal structure. Some of the ruins had sunk into the hillside. One had a broken ceiling, revealing a shallow interior that could have been a shrine. But what do I know? Most of the details had been lost to time and erosion. I need more studies even to begin to guess.
Then I saw it, the tower.
It stood apart from the others, rising from the cliff like a black needle piercing the night sky. It must have been thirty meters tall, built from the same dark volcanic material. Unlike the domes, it had no clear entrance. There were only a few slits cut into its surface, windows, perhaps, though none of them followed any obvious pattern. I couldn’t tell where one floor ended and another began. It was uncanny, like those weird internet images that trigger trypophobia.
I didn’t approach the tower. Not yet. It didn’t feel dangerous, but it did feel… more poignant. Like a boss room in a video game, something you weren’t meant to touch until you were ready.
Instead, I made a full circuit of the ruins to check for threats. I kept one hand on my spear, arcing my taser lightning to banish the shadows in any crevice or corner.
I didn’t find signs of any predators, cults, or elemental activity.
Just faint hoofprints in the dust, likely left by some kind of goat or mountain antelope. I also spotted a foxlike creature at one point, long-limbed, with enormous ears and pale fur like a fennec. It was too small to be an actual threat and bolted at the sight of me.
Aside from the animals, the ruins were empty.
It felt safe enough to stay.
I returned to the first dome and set up camp just outside its entrance. The ground was flat and clean, and from there I had an unobstructed view of the sky. I decided to make a small fire to keep warm; the sky was so bright I doubted a single bonfire would dim it. I used my taser spear to light some dried wood and kindling. At first, I sent small lightning arcs at the pile; they sizzled like static and vanished. But the lighting didn’t convert to flame like I had hoped.
Weird, this worked before when I tested it. That’s why I didn’t bother buying a fire starter.
That’s when it hit me. Everything here was saturated with sky mana and, therefore, is resistant to my lightning Magic. Lucky for me, I remembered something I’d seen on YouTube, where a popular Iranian-Canadian electrical engineer nearly killed himself trying to make a Jacob’s ladder. I shortened the circuit by nicking the prongs with my utility knife, sending a hot spark of flames that landed on the tinder and, after a heart-stopping second, bloomed into a stubborn fire.
I ate a quick snack, travel rations and dried fruit, then lay back against my sleeping roll, cushioning my head with my backpack.
Above me, the stars shimmered in layers, crisp and impossibly bright, millions and millions of them.
They filled the sky in such impossible numbers that I couldn’t even tell where one ended and the next began. The constellations I knew from Earth were nowhere to be found.
The sky here was stranger and foreign, but not entirely unfamiliar.
There was one constellation I recognized. Vena had shown it to me months ago, during our first sleepover; a Holy pattern, somewhat circular, like a crown of laurels. The Faithful believed it always pointed toward the Main Temple of the Lady, no matter the realm. It arched over the ruins now like a marker painted north.
Makes sense, the rift gate to the Kindred Realm was in High Rock, and that was the closest way to the mythic realm.
I watched it drift for a moment across the sky, and let myself breathe.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, I didn’t need to do anything: just me and the stars.
Then the first shooting star streaked across the sky.
A quick silver arc. Perfectly beautiful.
My mana stirred in response.
It wasn’t a surge, more like a spike, or a refill. The way you’d imagine a mana potion might feel. It was as if something subtle had changed inside me all at once.
The feeling was hard to describe. My body wasn’t tense, but my mana was different, as though being gently realigned.
It felt… fresh.
Like drinking ice-cold water after a hot cup of tea.
I sat up slowly, pressing a hand to my chest. The sensation faded after a few seconds, but I knew something had changed. My reserves felt Fuller.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Was that from the shooting star?
Before I could decide, another one streaked across the sky.
This time, I paid close attention.
Again, the same feeling, a cool rush that settled into my mana. There was no external effect, no weird glow or dramatic swirl of light, but something had shifted. I wasn’t imagining it.
I decided to test it.
I pulled a bronze coin from my pouch and held it tightly in my palm.
“I wish this were silver,” I whispered.
Nothing happened.
My mana didn’t respond. The coin remained bronze.
Alright, so no spontaneous wish-granting ability. I sighed.
I wasn’t too surprised; it would have been way too broken if it did.
I dropped the coin, and I waited for the next star to fall. I didn’t know if I was being lucky or if something was special about this place, but it didn’t take more than ten minutes for the next one to show up.
This time, I decided to focus on something else: A place.
I pictured the rooftop of the dome behind me. I focused on it, its shape, its angle, the texture of the stone.
And I made a wish.
“I want to be on top of the roof.”
This time, I felt the magic move.
Something shifted, first the star-mana, then my own reserves. It pulled hard, draining energy in a rush that left me gasping for breath.
In the next instant, I was lying on the stone roof, staring up from a slightly different angle.
The rooftop.
It worked.
I scrambled upright, panting, both shocked and exhilarated. I glanced down at my body and made sure that nothing hurt. My mana felt drained, like when I used to train with Garo. Other than that, I was fine.
It worked.
It cost me a lot of mana, more than half of my regular reserves.
That was a steep price… but I had just teleported. It was repeatable. And it was linked to the stars.
I spent the next few hours watching and measuring. The shooting stars came regularly, eight or nine per hour, some faint, some brilliant. Each one gave me the same boost. I began jotting down notes in my journal.
Observations:
- The new mana, let’s call it Star-mana, feels distinct from my regular mana. Brighter. Colder. It integrates into my regular reserves after about two minutes.
- Three shooting stars are enough to replenish my mana pool fully.
- Star-mana cannot be used to grant general wishes; it appears to be specific to teleportation.
- The cost of teleportation scales with distance. If there isn’t enough Star-mana, the spell will use my own mana instead, which is risky.
- I can’t teleport using only regular mana. Even if my reserves are full, I need at least a trace of Star-mana to begin the spell.
- There seems to be an emotional component influencing mana cost: my desire, or the level of certainty (Al Yaqin) that something will work. The first teleport cost more than the rest because of my lingering doubt. Now that I know for sure that I can teleport, the cost has dropped drastically.
- A wish to be back home, even if it worked, might leave me drained and stranded there, unable to return here.
I stared at the stars again and couldn’t help but grin. I had magic of my own, not something granted by a god or a magic book you could buy. This was what the Bloodline people referred to as Innate powers.
I had magic. I didn’t know how or why, but I could teleport if I looked at a shooting star.
Going home was no longer just a theory; it was a possibility.
But only if I could learn to control this.
I needed to figure out how to store Star-mana before it converted to regular mana… or maybe even how to generate it without looking at the stars. Until then, every shooting star was a learning opportunity.
“One step at a time,” I told myself.
Then I lay back down, eyes wide open to the stars, and waited for the next one to fall. Experimentation was key.
The first test was simple: could I shift my posture mid-teleport?
I focused on wishing myself from lying down to standing; just a small jump, only a few meters.
It worked without a hitch. I felt a minor jolt from the shift in gravity, but it wasn’t disorienting. It reminded me of my very first teleportation, from Earth to Hano. One moment, I was kneeling in a garden, the next I was standing in a roundabout surrounded by strangers. This test was not entirely new territory; it was more of a justification of something I already suspected.
My next attempt was less successful. I tried to hold onto the Star-mana, to keep it from converting into my regular mana. I wanted to freeze it in its pure form, to control it. I even tried circulating it through my body like the characters in cultivation novels, pushing the mana through me to “refine” it.
It was useless.
The Star-mana barely moved. Even when I managed to get it flowing, it felt detached, as if it had no interest in responding to my efforts. I couldn’t even cast a basic lightning arc with it. I had to wait until it transformed into normal mana before I could do anything familiar with it.
Frustrated, I started thinking sideways.
If I couldn’t control it directly, maybe I could store it. Perhaps I could find something, or someone, that naturally resonated with it.
That’s when the idea hit me.
Moon Hares. They could teleport, just like me. Maybe they used Sky-mana too. Their cores could work.
It didn’t take long to find one of the little magenta-furred beasts. They were common enough up here. Catching one, however, was an entirely different story.
The moment I made any sound, any movement at all, it was game over. They blinked away instantly, often before I’d even gotten close. I had to track several hares, stalking from one to the next across the rocky slopes, each failed attempt forcing me to start over.
Eventually, I got lucky.
I caught one just before it blinked; I hit it with a lightning arc mid-twitch. It went down with a soft thud.
I crouched beside the still-warm body, already reaching for my knife.
There was no Monster core.
Of course, there wasn’t. Why would there be? Only monsters generate mana cores. These hares weren’t monsters at all. They acted rationally, skittishly, just like any natural animal.
I sighed. What a waste of time.
At least the meat tasted good.
Back at the ruins, I turned my attention to something more promising: my spear.
Nina had told me the weapon could be summoned once per hour, thanks to the bound soul of a Nightmare, some sort of teleporting monster-horse. She’d said the creature’s soul had been converted and tethered to mine, making the spear an extension of me. It was soul-bound, yes, but also spatially tuned.
I had to try.
I tossed the spear a few meters away, then summoned it back to my hand to expend the cooldown.
Just like when I practiced with it, the spear magically appeared in my hand.
I then waited, watching the sky. The next meteor streaked by, and I focused hard, funneling the new mana toward my weapon.
The transfer was slow, like pouring syrup through a funnel, but it worked. A few drops of Star-mana flowed into the spear before it was converted into my regular mana.
I threw it again and tried to summon it, even though it was on cooldown.
Nothing happened.
I frowned and walked over to retrieve it manually.
Then I remembered, my new teleportation magic using Star-mana needed a wish. Not just intent like a regulated static spell, it needed a clear, formulated desire.
I tried again, standing with the spear in my hand.
I threw it once more.
“I wish for the spear to return to me,” I said aloud.
And it came back.
I grinned.
Even better, it had worked after the Star-mana had already settled inside me. That shouldn’t have been possible.
The only explanation was that the spear had held the Star-mana longer than I could.
I guess that made sense. The spear didn’t have any mana of its own.
That meant, in theory, it wouldn’t automatically convert Star-mana the way my body did.
I spent the next hour focused entirely on the spear’s interaction with Star-mana.
Test One: Mana retention
The spear could hold only a small amount of Star-mana, barely enough for a single teleport. Any jump longer than a few meters still required me to supplement with regular mana.
Test Two: Soulbound backup
As long as I had some Star-mana in me, I could still wish the spear back into my hand, even if it wasn’t preloaded in the weapon.
Test Three: Access
I could pull the Star-mana back into me and use it for teleportation.
Test Four: Compatibility
Nothing else I owned could hold Star-mana. Not my clothes, not my gear, not even the tattered fur of the Moon Hare. Only the spear, and only because it was part of me.
Test Five: Lightning compatibility
Could my lightning magic interfere with Star-mana stored in the spear?
It didn’t. I blasted a rock with lightning using the spear to channel, and the star-mana remained stable. That made sense, in a way. I couldn’t cast lightning using Star-mana directly, so it probably didn’t resonate with that elemental aspect.
Test Six: Normal mana storage
I could store normal mana into my spear, just enough for a single lightning bolt, which could be useful, but not as useful as storing Sky-mana. Especially since the spear was limited in how much mana it could hold.
Test seven: Messenger spear
My last experiment was more ambitious.
I took out a scrap of paper and wrote a short message:
Dear Vena,
Please write something back, anything, if the spear appears next to you.
Alice.
I tied the note to the spear with twine, waited for the next meteor, and focused.
“I wish for my spear to safely appear next to Vena, in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.”
The star fell; the wish took, and the spear disappeared.
The mana drain was immediate and sharp. I felt it pull down half my reserves, maybe more.
I sat down and waited, nerves humming. I gave myself half an hour to rest and recover, letting the stars refill me.
Then I made another wish.
“I want my spear back.”
And it reappeared, this time with a second note tied in its place.
Dear Alice,
By the Lady, you startled me. I will not ask what you are doing, because I am sure it’s too complex for a letter.
But I have good news: the preliminary vaccine is working. Forty-seven out of fifty piglets are immune.
The Green Fever vaccine works. Lady bless you!
We’ll talk more when you’re back.
Vena.
I grinned.
It worked.
I could send messages.
Sure, it was limited, but it was possible.
I was exhausted. Part of me considered hiking back down to the village inn for a bed, but it was at least an hour and a half away, maybe two.
Then I blinked.
Why would I walk?
I packed up my things, I killed the fire, I funneled a burst of Star-mana into my spear, and finally, I made my wish on the next meteor.
“I want to appear safely next to the inn.”
One breath later, I stood at the doorstep of the inn. The setting sun painted everything gold and orange. Somehow, I had completely lost track of time in the Reach’s eternal night.
The old innkeeper raised an eyebrow when I appeared on his doorstep out of nowhere, but he didn’t make a fuss. He offered me a plate of food and a tired nod.
As I ate, I wondered if I could have pushed the magic further and sent myself all the way to the Freelancer Guild dorms.
Maybe I could.
But not tonight.
I would rest, and tomorrow I would return to the Reach.
There was more science to do.
I had experiments to run. Research to conduct.
And right now, I was so, so glad to be alive.