After giving up on escape, I’ve settled on a different route instead.

  It’s not like I have to run. For all I know, my crew is dead—and with them my connections. The only one left is probably Krieg, and ain’t nothing touching his ass.

  So maybe it’s smarter to stick around, take this training, and pry out some answers—especially about that promise. ’Is it the same one Swart keeps hinting at? No clue.’

  And let’s be real, Gold-Eyed Freak Koln definitely knows what he’s talking about. If the training I’m picturing lines up with what he’s offering—and not some perverse, kinky garbage—I might actually get something out of it.

  ’I’ve been talking a lot more loosely in my head lately. Guess something finally snapped.’

  “Welp,” I sigh, brushing off the dirt before heading back inside after yet another batshit internal monologue.

  Just as I reach the threshold, my sphere pings—familiar mana: the Void Panther. He’s parked beside the cave mouth, returning from a hunt with one of those hyena-deer clamped between its jaws, carcass still pristine. ’Call me a pantherologist—I know their habits. They kill me while I sleep— they’re fast, strong, elusive, and this one even swallows nearby light until he’s nothing but a moving shadow.’

  ’Insane. Insane. Insane.’

  ’I’ve totally lost it. Not only am I holding full-blown conversations in my head, I’m also going along with whatever this kidnapping freak suggests.’

  I don’t have a choice, so I shove aside my lingering qualms—probably caused by the repeated physical, mental, and spiritual abuse—and follow the panther inside.

  It pads past me like a smug housecat, carcass swinging from its jaws. I trail behind until we reach the same subterranean lab. The dinner setup has changed: a larger table now stands in the center with two chairs facing each other. Koln is at a side bench, gleaming butcher tools ready. The panther drops its catch by his boots; Koln scoops it up and, with surgical precision, sections the meat. The premium cuts he grills over a mana burner, filling the cave with a mouth-watering aroma.

  I hover awkwardly. ’Do I sit? Stand? Our meet-cute involved kidnapping, after all.’

  When the food’s ready, he gestures to a chair. I oblige. He lobs the panther its massive portion, then plates ours on actual crockery with spotless cutlery. We eat in near silence—civilized dinner in a mad scientist’s lair.

  Afterward, Koln washes the dishes himself. I just wait; he lays the law, not me. Finally, he sits across from me, golden eyes locked onto mine. He opens his mouth, and at last my ready ears catch the few—but precious—words he chooses to share.

  “I will train you in our ways—your ways.”

  “My ways? What do you mean?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Lay a hand, and you will hear.”

  I sigh. “Yeah, because getting a straight answer would be too easy.”

  He chuckles. “Yes.”

  “Glad we agree,” I mutter.

  And just like that, he’s gone again, leaving me alone in the lab—a man of few words and even fewer social skills. He starts a conversation, drops a cryptic bomb, then walks off. ’Fantastic. More riddles.’

  ’Please let “our way” mean combat drills and genuine power-ups—not some fringe crystal-wave nonsense.’

  Well, I guess I’ve got a teacher for now—hopefully a good one, not a cult recruiter. I’ve got a bed (huge plus), great food, and a questionable toilet situation… but hey, progress.

  ’I mean, there’s also the small matter of the crippling insanity—holding conversations with myself like I’m two people sharing one skull. Should I blame the panther for this, or Swart, the enigma who placed me into this honeytrap?’

  For tonight, though, I actually sleep. I climb into bed and drift off.

  Somewhere in the dark, my sphere prickles—an icy warning that jerks me awake. The panther is on me.

  I roll off the mattress, sliding to the floor and bracing for a counterattack. But the big shadow isn’t trying to kill me. He just stands there, tail flicking, then crawls onto the bed like an oversized housepet. ’Snuggling? Seriously?’

  He curls at the foot of the mattress, lightless eyes half-lidded. ’This thing has murdered me more times than I can count—even if he can’t remember, I can.’

  I lie back down, keeping a wary eye on my once-nemesis until exhaustion wins. Eventually I accept that the universe’s deadliest cat is apparently having a sleepover, and I let myself slip into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

  ***

  I wake the next morning to Koln’s aloof, gold-eyed face hovering over me—close enough that I jolt upright. ’What in the Void is this guy about to do?’

  In his hands he cradles a black orb the size of my head, a sphere that drinks in the surrounding light the same way the panther does. On top of that, it tugs at the very mana hanging in the air, greedy and insistent. ’Is he planning to bludgeon me with a light-eating, mana-sucking bowling ball? And poor Frederick—still stranded on the coast like a personified coconut.’

  Koln gestures for me to rise and follow. I do, padding after him down the main hallway. We take the same left-hand curve as yesterday; as we pass the branch on the right, I flick a glance into the darkness—still unexplored, still prodding my curiosity—before Koln’s pace pulls me onward.

  At the corridor’s end we step into a dust-choked library. Shelves sag under forgotten tomes, every corner draped in webs.

  Koln moves to the center and lifts the orb. It flares with shifting chromatic light as he channels mana through it, then draws the energy back and begins weaving a spell. A calm wind, tinted by the orb’s hues, glides through the room, stripping dust and cobwebs from every surface. Debris spirals toward him, compacts into a tight ball, and ignites.

  He presses the dark sphere into my palms. Its pull on ambient mana is immediate, almost famished.

  “Inject, control, return—repeat.” He nods toward the freshly cleaned shelves, then walks out.

  Left alone with the orb and a mountain of books, I sigh. ’Study time. Of course it is. The cryptic bullshit never ends.’

  ‘Inject’—so I’m supposed to push my mana into the orb. ‘Control’—keep it swirling inside? ‘Return’—draw it back out, maybe refined… or maybe this is just a focus drill.

  I try it.

  The instant my mana touches the surface, the gluttonous thing guzzles every drop like a starving leech. No matter how carefully I feed it, it just keeps devouring, never giving a scrap back.

  ‘Figures. That’s why I’m stuck in study hall—there’s clearly more to this than three cryptic words.’

  Another thought needles me: ‘Why am I being trained at all? And what is this promise?’ But for now, only one path leads to getting stronger, and—annoying or not—this orb is it.

  I scour the shelves. They cover everything from geography to culinary arts—and plenty of oddities in between. I stack a fresh pile on mana control and refinement, then add a few general-history tomes for good measure. ’I still know embarrassingly little about the wider world, even after tearing through Brono’s collection.’

  I crack open the first book on basic mana control. It covers how to awaken your mana sense, practical applications, and a bit of history. Rainer’s old lecture finally makes more sense: most people are born able to perceive mana—usually they see it in shades of blue—but that doesn’t mean everyone can turn into an Attack Mage. Each soul carries a unique nature and a purity rating. Most natures aren’t suited for offense, and purity seldom runs high enough to channel the kind of power needed for battlefield-level spells.

  ’So that makes me an extreme outlier. Nature dictates the color you see, and purity sets the ceiling. I see mana in full chromatic—every shade—so I can, in theory, tap any nature and crank it to eleven. Which means this power isn’t from the scraps of lore I lifted back in Aspiration’s folly; it’s hard-wired, a birthright etched into my blood. Technique still matters, but nature and purity matter more. So… whose bloodline runs in these veins?’

  I slam the primer shut. ’Basic stuff—already under my heel. Trivia’s neat, the rest is fluff.’ I slide it aside and yank the next tome from my stack.

  Hours blur as page after page drifts past. My eyes burn, shoulders ache, and the library’s air tastes like parchment. Eventually I’m slumped over the desk, beaten like a stray mutt. ’Still no full answer, but the outline’s starting to take shape.’

  I shove back the chair and shuffle toward bed. Study session—done.