They got their things from Guinevere's room and left the estate. Guinevere escorted them down the cobblestone road till they found a carriage that was headed into town.

  When Caen mentioned how he wasn't really into biking like she and Zeris, Guinevere told him that she'd take him freerunning sometime. She said it was a fun exercise that any Body-enhancer would enjoy. They said their goodbyes and left for the Drenlin train station.

  * * *

  After returning to the commune, Caen headed down to the workout area in the hamlet for his strength training.

  It was almost 10 in the morning by the time he met up with Vensha. They ran a few miles out to the empty field they usually sparred in.

  He had a few vines wrapped around his body while they fought. It was important to start fighting with everything he intended to use in the trials. Of the three disciplines he would be registering, Flora magic and Body-enhancement were the only combat-relevant ones, so he needed to learn to fight with them comfortably.

  This presented him with new problems. Caen could not yet use so many disciplines quickly enough in a fight against someone as skilled as Vensha.

  He struggled to alternate between each discipline smoothly enough. Vensha gave him no breathing room. Even with the passive augmentations from a boosted Body-enhancement affinity and his own Dream-guarding affinity, he could not rebuff her attacks easily.

  She slammed him into the ground many times. One of those times, they'd needed to take a short break so he could recover.

  “I'll talk to Uncle Vai about learning multicasting,” Caen said.

  “Too much of a slog for most,” Vensha replied. “But you might have an advantage there. Come on.”

  Caen abandoned the vines and manipulated his fragment into a gauntlet on his off hand. With an empowered body, they exchanged sword blows, and Caen slipped into her guard to deliver a gauntleted punch to her side.

  Several things happened at once.

  Chasma peeled away from his knuckles faster than he could blink. Vensha's Body-enhancement affinity cluster grew prominent as she brought down an elbow onto his now-bare knuckles.

  “Mother of Spirits!” Caen swore, flapping his hand in pain.

  Vensha chuckled. “Congratulations. You forced me to use a spell.”

  “I'm immensely joyful,” Caen said dryly, glaring at her while massaging his knuckles. He turned a softer glare on Chasma, Mimicking its spirit receptor.

  Once again, Chasma expressed its reluctance to inflict harm on living things. It wanted to be harmless. It wanted to protect.

  Caen looked at the fragment thoughtfully. It had reacted the same way yesterday with Passionfire, and now in the middle of a spar, where no real intention of harm was intended. In Parthra, duels were possible and even encouraged as long as both parties freely consented to it. He would have to explore what exactly the fragment considered harmful or ‘alive’.

  Caen conveyed understanding and regard to Chasma.

  He told Vensha, and she nodded as though this made perfect sense to her.

  “Mafrolem hasn't been able to manage attacks with his fragment either. Not that he cares much for melee. I assumed that since yours looks and acts different, it'd be capable of more.”

  “Speaking of Mafrolem,” Caen said. “He offered to show me a few things in Flora.”

  “I'll get a hold of him tonight. He'll yap about your fragment if you let anything slip, you know that right?”

  “I won't let anything slip.” Mafrolem was a good sort, but he couldn't keep secrets to save his life. He often made jokes about it, even.

  Vensha lunged at Caen, and he parried her thrust. He manipulated his vines to—

  Caen froze. Vensha kicked him. He fell to the grass and tumbled several feet back. He slid to a stop, shuddering.

  His soul was changing again. His existence furled up forcefully, shutting off his magical senses.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Power surged through Caen. All his senses sharpened. His mind was inundated with a keen awareness of his body and how best to use it, move it.

  Caen didn't just feel strong. He felt… whole; complete.

  Sitting up, Caen unfurled his existence. His soul structure was much more vibrant than it had been moments ago. He could sense portions of it with a distinctness he'd previously lacked.

  The cord of connection between him and Chasma, his fragment, felt more solid, even though he wasn’t currently connected to it.

  “What happened?” Vensha asked, rushing over to him in an instant. He could somehow feel the weight of her approaching presence.

  “Body-enhancement just rose out of abjection,” he said. He extended his existence towards her and could immediately tell the difference between their souls. The richness and quality of hers outclassed his.

  She flinched.

  “Sorry about that,” Caen said, rising to his feet. “My soul feels stronger.” The strength in his body was notable, too. He clenched and unclenched his fist, then smiled. “This all but proves that the soul is a product of body, mind, and spirit.”

  Now that he'd gotten passive augmentations in the core four disciplines, his soul had received an upgrade.

  “It felt as though something was watching over my shoulder for an instant,” Vensha said, cracking her neck. “Might make for a good distraction. Let's find out.” She raised her sword and smiled.

  * * *

  Caen returned home about an hour later. The sun overhead felt more invigorating than it had since he'd left Parthra. The passive augmentations from his Body-enhancement, Blood-healing, and Flora magic affinities were synergizing and helping him better weather the harsh sunlight.

  He slowly and carefully stepped into his home and learned that he was only a little bit bothered by the cold.

  “Which one did you get today?” Zeris asked. She was rummaging through the cooling box.

  Caen scoffed. “Why would you assume—”

  “Body-enhancement,” Vensha said, stepping into the house behind him.

  “Ah. I guessed that'd be it. You're walking funny.”

  Caen’s movements were too smooth, too unnatural even to his own perception, and Vensha had said as much. “These passive augmentations are doing too much,” he said, with a pleased smile, as he all but glided towards the dining table.

  Thanks to the time construct in the corner of his vision, he knew that it was about 10 in the morning. He grabbed a blue Parthran fruit from a bowl on the table. “I'll go get ready. Uncle Vai is probably back by now.”

  “Yeah,” Zeris chuckled. “I've missed him.”

  * * *

  On their way to Vai’s, Caen cast a Body-enhancement spell on himself to impede his physical movements. Even still, the unnatural smoothness of his stride drew a few gazes.

  When he'd gotten his Dream-guarding passive augmentations, they'd synergized with his Blood and Spirit-healing, giving him a soft awareness of people around him. Now, however, that sense was much more prominent. His attention felt drawn to the ‘souls’ in his vicinity. It was a vague awareness of the general position of living things, even those outside his field of vision.

  “Zeris and Caen,” a stout man with ruddy cheeks answered the door. “Master Hshnol asked me to show you in.”

  Caen and Zeris thanked him and headed up to Vai's room, which took up the entire top floor, with its white and gold marbled walls.

  Caen could feel the softness of the plush carpeting as he walked on it. They climbed the circular, tiered platform. Vai lay asleep on his gaudy canopy bed, arms crossed over his chest. His moustache was uncharacteristically unkempt, though his bowlcut hairstyle was as perfectly groomed as ever.

  Zeris chuckled at the sight, and Caen shook his head. They sat on a pair of padded wooden chairs beside the bed.

  Vai's soul structure stood out so vividly to Soul-sense. This was of an even higher quality than Vensha’s soul. Vai was probably a peak Attuner.

  If I hone this, I might be able to determine an Attuner’s substage quickly.

  Caen Mimicked Vai's Dream-guarding affinity. He could cast the Astral projection spell with his own affinity now, but he was erring on the side of caution since he'd be having a passenger today.

  “You better not accidentally sever my consciousness and get me eaten by specters,” Zeris warned.

  An ungrateful passenger.

  Caen cast the spell chain and was startled by the swiftness and precision of his finger movements. Performing the gesture components had been little more than a spasm of his muscles. The next second, he was swallowed by the purple of the Deep Astral, Zeris beside him.

  One moment, their Astral forms floated in stark nothingness; the next, they found themselves slamming onto a couch in Vai's mansion.

  Bright lights flashed from the walls and ceiling, and loud music blared all around. The floor was covered with large rolls of fabric in every color.

  Uncle Vai and Hshnol stood at the center of the room. Well, Hshnol stood while Vai sat on his floating rocking chair. He was in a wide-collared, orange shirt, and his mustache looked just as unkempt here in the Astral as it did in the Material Realm. He and Hshnol both examined a large hypercube hovering before them, as it spun on an axis and shifted through different shades of the colors yellow and blue.

  Hshnol nodded at them in greeting, and Caen returned the nod politely.

  “Zeris! Caen!” Vai exclaimed when he noticed them. He zoomed over and gave them hugs. The music and flashing lights dropped to moderate levels.

  Zeris glanced at the sea of fabric on the floor and at the strange hypercube. “Uncle Vai, what's all this?”

  “Hshnol and I are picking out new drapes for my prison cell in the commune. I'm changing things up. But forget that! I'm so happy to see you both alive! Hshnol nearly gave me a heart attack when he mentioned what happened to you. Come on, tell me everything.”