Logan picked up his gear bag and made it to the top of Mariv's spiral staircase to descend when he realized the gnome wasn't following. With one foot hovering over the step, he turned and cocked an eye. "You said practice, right?"

"I did." The gnome's smile made it clear Logan was missing something.

"Shouldn't we do it outside? I don't know what these skills will become until I use them, and I don't want to tear your house down."

Mariv chuckled. "You don't have to worry about that." He waddled to the center of the room to the grid on the floor. The gnome had once used the grid to paint illusions for Logan before.

"Do you recall what I said about us gnomes and how our home of the Waterwoods have wells of pure, untyped mana?"

Logan nodded. Those wells were now apparently corrupted, but at one point the gnomes were able to bottle the pure mana and take it elsewhere to give it a type.

Mariv repeated as much, then added, "The reasons we could bottle pure mana is through a special shielding process. It requires gnomish sigilry engraved in a purified material. The wells back home use obsidian, but my floor here is made of petrified yew wood. It is not as good as obsidian as a conduit, but it works for my purposes."

The gnome stepped onto the nine-squared grid, which had five bands around it. He waved a hand, and just as Logan had seen once before, one of the bands glowed with a pearlescent light.

At Mariv's urging, Logan activated Aethersight.

Mariv then began a series of gestures as he used different skills to varying effects. What remained consistent, though, was how the spells were contained within a dome around the bands, as if the mana were confined to a large indoor snow globe.

Some of the effects would have been visible without Aethersight, like frost rime gathering along the invisible dome's interior, thereby showing its bounds. But the more Mariv cast different skills, the less available mana was found inside the bubble, as if it were a vacuum of mana.

Logan had actually seen something like that in the Cave of Cursed Music, when he had activated Aethersight and examined how, as certain puzzles were solved to open doors into adjacent chambers, ambient mana pulled away from doorframes within that cavern. Logan believed that was to prevent magical means of opening the doors outside of the puzzles. This was different, since the barrier that separated the mana supply remained in place from the sigils the gnome had on his floor, rather than just when puzzles were solved.

As Mariv continued to drain the pool of typed mana within his containment field, it eventually was filled with blank strands. Logan had seen colors disperse from ambient mana before, especially when lots was used, but these blank strands (which Mariv said were different than the untyped mana from his homelands wells) usually weren't noticeable when strands emptied.

Mariv waved a hand and the bubble burst, only visible to Logan by the fact that suddenly the ambient mana around them swirled in eddies to fill the empty space.

The gnome waved Logan over. "As long as you don't completely drain all the mana of a given type, you will have a resource to practice it with while in a safe space."

"It won't backfire and damage me, will it?"

Mariv scrunched one eye and wrinkled his nose as if considering possibilities. "I doubt it."

Could he look any more confident? He sighed and shrugged. Nugget hopped off his shoulder and glided over to Razor again, nestling against her but watching Logan.

Logan walked over and stood inside the band. Still tuned to the Dream affinity, the pearlescent band shone.

So far, his skills had used the same quantities of mana as their sister versions, but he didn't know if that would always be the case.

If so, though, he wanted to start with the one that required the least mana, which so far had been Unrelenting Hunt and Feral Echo. He honed his eyes without looking at anything in particular.

Feral Echo!

The oscillating mana inside him vibrated faster, like water sloshing in a cup carried by a toddler. Then it felt like it spilled over and crashed inside him like a wave hitting a shoreline.

Feral Echo (Life) is now Moodprint (Dream)! Did you feel that? That's something you might ask the people around you, because how else would you know what they felt? And that's feel like feelings. Not physical touch. But now you don't have to ask that question because you can tell anyway! Stronger and basic feelings will stand out more, and feelings may be subjective. Judge wisely. This skill requires concentration.

Skill level is retained. Return to Feral Echo when Life Affinity is reassumed.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Logan's vision pulsed lightly, and he sensed a minor distortion in the air. It wasn't distracting, and it wasn't a true visual distortion because it didn't make things harder to see. There were two particular places where an invisible haze seemed to linger.

One was over Mariv, who watched intently, sipping from a drink Logan hadn't even seen him pour. He tapped his finger against the cup's handle and Logan could feel curiosity emanating from the gnome. It made him smile, and he explained the sensation to Mariv who clapped happily.

He shifted to inspect the other hazy aura, which surrounded Nugget. Suddenly, he felt less happy. Poor guy. He's worried sick about her. "She's going to be fine, buddy. Right Mariv?"

"Yes, she just needs rest at this point." The gnome waddled over to the dragon and idly pet his back. The sense of worry seemed to lessen, and the dragon chirped at both Mariv and Logan.

"I suppose you can tell just how happy I am to hear you have this skill."

"Actually, no. I still only sense your curiosity." Logan tried to focus harder, but nothing changed in the intensity of his perception of the gnome's emotions, or the quantity of other emotions. "I think I'm only able to pick up on a single emotion. My guess is it only picks up on the strongest one, too."

They continued testing it out, and when Logan activated Aetherlens, he was surprised to see there was no change in the ambient mana levels. He supposed he hadn't actually thought of it before, but he had initially received this skill as a better alternative to Tracking. The other skills explained what types of mana they used, but this one just came directly from his mana supply.

"Ready for the next?" Mariv asked.

This time, Logan raised a hand. Regardless of what this skill would manifest as, he was remembering its other versions. CryoPyre shot cones of flame or ice from his palm, and Invigorating Flame required him to face a target to imbue with buffed strength. So when he cast the skill, he aimed at the bubbly wall, and one of the longest System prompts he had seen yet for a skill popped up.

Invigorating Flame (Life) is now Dreambrand (Dream)! For some people, the idea of burning alive is a nightmare. That will especially be the case if you're the one behind it. You probably won't make many friends with this. Gather flame around your hands. Physical contact will inflict burn damage. The level of burn damage caused increases based on your Willpower and level with the skill. Deal double burn damage to sleeping targets. Additionally, if the target is sentient and you burn them within proximity to their brain, you have a chance of [75% times your skill level] to inflict either Fear, Sleep, or Confusion.

Skill level is retained. Return to Invigorating Flame when Life Affinity is reassumed.

Wispy flame sprouted along the back of his hands, but it didn't burn. He had his hand outstretched in case the skill had worked similar to CryoPyre, but now he brought his hand closer to his face, turning his hand to inspect both sides.

"What does that do?" asked Mariv when Logan told him the skill's name.

"It looks like it's a combination of an attack and a debuff. My CryoPyre skill is good at dealing damage, and this can too, but it seems like its real strength lies in the ability to afflict status conditions."

Logan had suffered from burning himself, which usually inflicted damage over a period of time, where both the amount of damage and amount of time could vary depending on the caster and the target, and probably a lot of complicated math checks. But something else that condition did was weaken the inflicted person's attacks.

Of course, he would have to get close in combat if he wanted to use it since it required physical touch, but his Dexterity improved every time he leveled up, and he definitely planned to keep pace with improving his Agility. His Measured Touch trait would probably be helpful too since it improved his manual combat. Plus, he would only need to land one hit before it weakened opponent's attacks. Yeah, that would only be physical attacks and might not be as helpful against a magic user, especially a ranged one, but as his skills broadened he could build an arsenal for all kinds of situations.

At level 25, he would have somewhere between a 35% to 40% chance to inflict one of three additional debuffs on top of the burning effect. The sleep debuff was the best of the additional ones. Assuming the chance for each was equal, that meant it was really around a 12% chance to inflict the sleep condition, too. And if that happened, the burn damage would double.

He was able to dig deeper into the conditions to the skill, and was glad to see that the burn afflicted by Dreambrand would not wake a sleeping opponent, although a burn from fire, whether from another skill or a standard non-magical flame, would wake them.

"Astounding!" Mariv said with a gasp so loud he startled Nugget. Nugget quickly nuzzled back into Mariv's palm to remind the gnome to keep petting his snout. "You should never underestimate the effects of a well-placed debuff. Can the burns stack?"

"Um, it doesn't say so."

"Hm. Perhaps it will with a threshhold perk. Did you already reach a threshhold perk in one of the alternate versions for this skill?"

Logan shook his head. "It's only at level 21."

"We would know what the next perk does if you used a perk divining rod."

"A what?"

Mariv hopped off the couch, much to Nugget's annoyance, and paced in a line. He was rushing the explanation and clearly his mind was on the calculations Logan had presented him as he explained what was probably something commonsense here.

"A perk divining rod allows you to see the upcoming threshold perks for your skills, as well as the stat score required to unlock them. They are exceptionally rare, and few premium trainers even have one. It would be far less expensive to borrow someone else's than to purchase your own. Many skills are simple enough and the threshold perks are well known, but as skill rarity increases, especially if the skill is typed with an affinity, the possibilities can vary broadly, and occasionally even by person. For someone seeking to hone their strengths to the fullest, the perk divining rod is crucial."

Logan gave a wide, hopeful grin. "I don't suppose you have one lying around?"

Mariv looked up from his pacing to give Logan an apologetic look. "No, I'm afraid not. I did once, but I traded it with a fellow diviner." Mariv gestured to Razor. "I'm glad I did, too. That cloak-projection decoy I used to trick the reaver about Razor's true location during combat was part of that trade." That explained to Logan why, during the reaver fight, Razor had only appeared to disintregrate. "But alas, last I recall he lives deeper in the woods. I doubt he's still there since the blight probably encroached on his home by now."

Logan was unsurprised when he saw the notification pop up.

New quest available! Seek out the perk divining rod! You may find hints within the blight, or you may not. Who knows? Reward: Variable knowledge Accept? YES/NO

Quest accepted!

This was a quest Logan was especially excited about.

But he still had one more skill to test.

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