"What is to stop the Duke from going back on his word with these mines?" I asked Kiri as we approached the mine.

"My Mum and I," Kiri said. "Duke Vitja is reasonably reliable in his dealings. All these mines belong to his clans or his allies, so that brings a lot of goodwill."

I chose the open mine first as it seemed the easiest, or rather the least dangerous.

There was a barricaded place for Felix and me, but Kiri wanted to be there and watch as well. I made her stay back with Yoboc.

"I do have extreme Heat and Fire resistance, you know," she said. "It is a little-known fact that my Dad has two related affinities."

"Two?" I asked, surprised. I hadn't read that anywhere.

"He started with Granite and then developed Lava."

"So Rock and molten rock," I said.

"Yeah, and combined with Mum having the Fire Affinity, my resistances are extreme," Kiri said.

I still made her stay back with Yoboc and observe, and it is just as well I did.

I narrowed my aura to go deep into the centre of the area they wanted opened up. I checked that Felix was awake and ready.

Fire that burns in the void does not need air or other flammable material. Fire that burns in the void can burn in rock.

The trouble is that rock is not consistent. Some rocks are harder than others, and then there are cracks everywhere. I should have known this from my Mineral Lore and from the practical experience of digging through the slate underwater. I forgot.

A Solar Flare lit off 60m underground, burning the soft rock as it made its way up the cracks. Flares of fire burst out in random places as my Spiritual Energy dropped. These places extended beyond their marked circle. One such place was about five meters in front of the Deepiron shields, behind which I hid. The shield heated up but didn't actually melt.

The Solar Flare was short, and the whole area just slumped, including the area where I stood. Heat radiated from the entire area, and the small amount of vegetation left in the area began to burn.

The land where I was didn't slump very far, but it seemed like the area was going to be unstable for a while.

The good news was that Felix didn't have to intervene. I grabbed the deepiron plates and moved away from the unstable land.

I joined Yoboc, Kiri and the mine foremen as we watched the area sink and burn.

"That didn't go as we expected," the dwarf in charge said. "We will dig down and get a Prospector in here to see what happened."

I took it from that we were dismissed. However, I learned a lot. "This gives me more confidence in the tunnels," I said to Kiri.

When we were away, Kiri stopped and looked at me. "That is one very powerful skill."

I nodded, "That is the minimum I can make it go. I have some extra attributes now to make it last longer and burn hotter, but I can't make it smaller."

"Wow," she said. She shook her head as if she could not believe it.

I just shrugged. It was what it was, and I couldn't change it.

"No wonder you have it so far away. Even extreme Resistances wouldn't be enough," she said.

"No," I said. "Extreme Resistance only protects you at a distance, and even then, I have needed Felix's help." I wondered what level my resistance would need to be if I were the centre of the Solar Flare. Resistances would not be enough.

The tunnel mine went much better. I had them dig me in close from a totally separate entrance. Fire travels the path of least resistance, so it travels through the tunnels closest to where I set it off, and the tunnel I was in was not in any connected tunnels.

Yes, the rock got very hot. Yes, Solar Flare melted more than they wanted. But it didn't melt me, and it definitely opened up the weak area of the mine for them to work.

I was learning more about the skill in different areas and improving my ability to control it. This was as small as it got, but I could direct it more effectively.

I shied away from using my Cosmic Aura to direct it, as this would just direct it straight at me. I had to be in the aura, and there was a direct aura link to me. Once my Spiritual Strength grew, I could probably cast it without using my aura, but not yet.

Two down, eight to go. The Foremen would be better prepared next time, now that they knew what they were dealing with. I wonder what sort of reports the Duke was getting? Hopefully, he is getting enough for him not to try and force me, but not enough for him to think I am too big a risk.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Next stop, the Healer.

"Lie there, don't move." The healer was as brisk as she was before. This time, though, she strapped my head in place. Seems like she didn't trust me to follow instructions.

Once I was strapped in, she moved around me, mumbling and placing things. I couldn't see what because my head was still strapped facing up. She then did something behind my head, and a massive sense of Spiritual Peace descended on me. It was like I was in the eye of a hurricane. My Cosmic Aura extended beyond the enchanted diagram embedded in the floor, and the Spirituality outside the enchantment felt chaotic, whereas the Spiritual energy inside the enchanment was still and radiated peace.

Void sensing examined the enchantment and spiritually enhanced items, mostly herbs and berries, that were placed at various points. Empowering the whole thing behind my head was a Monster Core. I couldn't tell what monster it was from, but I am pretty sure it was chosen for this calm energy that is then multiplied by the enchantment.

The healer was not going to explain it to me. I would have to look it up later, although healing methods are often varied for the individual healer.

"I am going to plant the embryonic eye and attach it to the nerve that connects to the brain. I will fuse the two spiritually and give you the first growth empowerment. Follow along with your Spiritual Senses if you can."

The embryonic eye was about the size of a pea, and she opened my eyelid and fiddled with positioning the embryonic eye near the nerve. Having someone's fingers moving in your eye socket was unpleasant, to put it mildly.

I was also following with Void Sensing and Spiritual Sensing, but I could tell I was missing all the fine manoeuvring and spiritual work. It was frustrating me. I could sense enough to know I was missing a lot.

I tried to refine my senses, to hone them. I could tell the Healer's spiritual energy was different from mine in some way. It was more than just her normal Spiritual Signature; it was from a skill, probably. It was doing the work to fuse the embryonic eye to the nerve, and I couldn't sense how.

The Healer wasn't using a lot of energy, but what she was doing was delicate work. It took her the best part of an hour. It was probably just as well she strapped me down.

When she finished, she said, "Don't move," and left the room.

I followed her with Void Sensing, but she went out to take a leak and smoke some sort of herb.

I focused my senses on my eye. It was surrounded by Spiritual Energy, which was not mine, and it was doing something I could not detect. I suspect the healer went out to give the energy time to complete whatever it was doing. That, and she needed to take a break after concentrating for so long.

I wondered how much energy the floor enchantment took from the monster core. I guess this is one reason why regrowing body parts is expensive. Another reason is how she grows the embryonic eye. I bet there is a lot of alchemy involved.

I got bored examining my eye and examined the pattern on the ground. There was a circle, and inside was a five-pointed star. Also inside the circle was a repeating pattern that went the whole way around, about a handspan wide. The pattern just looked like random lines and curves to me, but I was obviously served a purpose. That purpose had to be the barrier between the smooth spiritual energy and the chaotic energy, which was not actually chaotic, but normal.

The patterns were engraved with some sort of spiritually enhanced material. The Monster core was at the star point behind my head, and the other points had the other spiritual ingredients.

There was no way I was going to decipher what was happening in the spiritual when I couldn't sense most of it. I used my Map skill to map the pattern out anyway. I could probably figure out most of the ingredients with some time in the Lore Society.

The Healer came back after her smoke. She checked what she had done and then said, "Right, the hard part is done. I am going to give you five bursts of energy over the next hour, and then you are free to go. I will see you in three days. No strenuous activities and no temperature extremes, and keep the patch on at all times."

I guess that means there will be no more mines for the next three weeks while this is growing. Healers Orders.

I could tell the Spiritual Energy she used to speed up her growth was different again. I assume the skills she used flavoured the energy to what she needed.

I paused. I am making progress. I used to be able to tell one person's spiritual energy from another's, but I had no idea that the skills changed the flavour of the energy, and now I can sense it.

I used my senses to focus on the energy she sent into the eye. Trying to sense more. She spent about two minutes sending energy and then took a ten-minute break. I watched the energy work in her breaks, and the embryonic eye grew marginally. Then she repeated it four more times. She did a final inspection, and then I was free to go.

"Drink this once a day with food," she said, handing me three potion bottles.

"What does it do?" I said.

"It stops infection and helps the body acclimatise to the new eye," she said. "It has been specially brewed for you using the cloned material, so don't let anyone else drink it. They would not find it healthy."

Right. I thanked the healer and went out to greet an impatient Felix.

"How did it go?" Kiri asked.

"The healer seemed pleased," I said.

"Must have been very good then. That healer has a reputation for being very hard to please."

"She wasn't talkative at all," I said. "She barely explained anything."

"Well, you now have two eyes instead of one, and in a couple of weeks, you should even be able to see out of it," Kiri said.

"Yeah," I replied. "This was the critical section. If she didn't get this right, my vision won't be right, and we'll rip it out and start again. I won't find out till she takes the patch off."

"Don't worry," Kiri said, "she doesn't work for the Duke because of her bedside manners. It will be fine."

I settled down into a quiet few weeks in the Lore Society. It wasn't until I reached Journeyman Level in mathematics that I finally started to understand some of the principles behind astral navigation. Then I started to appreciate my Astral map and Level Astral Navigator. Journeyman-level Mathematics earned me a point in Mental Agility.

The two moons were still playing on my mind, and I found a sailor's book which tied the moons to the tides. I had no idea how that worked, but the high and low tides definitely aligned with the moon's phases.

More mysteries.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.