When I woke up the following morning to hunt demons, I was feeling better.

Not perfect, but better.

Flying for the first time in a decade had awoken some memories in me for better or worse, and I thought I was going to need a lot of time to work my way through them, but the numbness had started to turn into a touch of acceptance, at least a little bit. It was enough for me to pull on some of the old, ragged, patched up clothes that I'd worn before coming to school, grab a coffee from the enchanted cart, and meet Salem at the dining hall.

Though the food it produced was rich and luscious, both of us ate a light meal, not wanting to get sick before we headed into battle against some demons. Especially since, unlike during our classes, we weren't going to have a watcher hanging around, ready to pull us out of the fire if we messed up.

We made our way silently to the military outpost where we'd sold our leftover hydra bits. It was bustling with soldiers, wizards, and wizard soldiers, fresh from their shifts at the wall, or just about to move out, functionaries moving equipment, and Panath Hold sanctioned vendors buying, selling, repairing, and enchanting equipment.

Salem and I walked into one of the lines that was meant for independent demon hunters, and after working through the queue, held out our badges to the inspector and mage operating the portal. He examined them, then let out a grunt of surprise.

"First years got the hunter's crest? Hundred hells, you two must have terrifying affinities."

I jerked my thumb at Salem.

"He's probably got the scariest affinity I can personally think of. I've got a solid support affinity, and a physical enhancement bloodline."

Salem actually blushed, while the mage nodded as if that explained everything and started rattling off what sounded like a standard warning.

"Our portal will send you to one of the outposts on the other side of the wall, manned by forward scouts. Antagonize the scouts and you might have your rank stripped from you. You'll have to return to the wall itself in order to access the teleportation circle back here, or teleport yourselves…"

He continued to ramble on for a while going over the rules, which basically boiled down to not hurting other hunters or their summoned monsters or contracts, keeping to ourselves, and killing the demons that were aberrant summoned. If we spotted an aberrant, we could either kill it and bring it in for a reward, or report its location. If we reported a location and it led to a kill, we would receive a much smaller reward.

With that done, he gestured to the ritual circle on the floor, and we marched forward. The moment both our feet were inside the circle, there was a flash of red light and we were cast into Etherius.

"Why'd'ya think his ether pool's red? Seems unnatural."

"Says the one with toxic green ether. Blue is the only color magic should be."

"Blue is alrigh', but green jus' makes sense. S' the color of magic."

"No, it's really no–"

I cut off as we appeared in a small cottage. Its walls and floor were made of stone, and there was a simple fire pit in one of the corners of the room with a cooking pot over it. I could smell lamb coming from the pot, alongside potatoes, carrots, onions, and some spices, but it must have just been placed there, as they all smelled raw. There was a wooden dining table near the fireplace, with some chairs in a common area where someone was sitting. Glancing backwards revealed a small bedroom with two cots, one of which was occupied.

The whole place was a pretty effective twenty foot by twenty foot tiny home, and it was honestly better than a lot of the places I'd slept in White Sands.

The woman in armor sitting in the small common area rose and glanced us over, taking in our age and snorted.

"Don't die, kids."

I pulled my staff from my Etherius locker, then began the chant for greater arcane armor. As it formed around me, I poured dragonfire in, making the plates of force magic even denser and more powerful. After that I covered us both with allies' sigils, shielded vitality, and a retributive curse that lingered over us, cursing anyone who attacked us without us making the first move with bad luck in combat.

With the defenses done, I called Orla out of my ether pool, conjured a second gadhar to serve as a companion to her, then began the spell to summon lesser air elementals. I called up two of those to serve as scouts, then cast summon wadjetktt.

With a flare of light, Amos appeared, and I bowed my head, speaking in the bloodline tongue of the celestials to address him, Orla, and the other flying hound. Though gadhar weren't sapient, they were more intelligent than the average dog, and treating them with respect couldn't hurt.

"Hello to all of you. I am hunting demons today, those who have been summoned by an aberrant into this world. In particular, I seek the horns of a humanoid demon in order to complete the rite of centered mind. If any of you object to this, you are welcome to leave, with my apologies."

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Even with all the expansion my ether pool had undergone, casting that many spells back to back had left me fairly drained, so I really hoped that none would leave, since I wanted to have as much ether as possible, just in case.

"Oh! That's okay!" Amos hissed. "We'll be making people more safe!"

I inclined my head to him, then repeated my words to the air elementals I'd summoned, both of whom buzzed without worry, barely even acknowledging that I'd spoken to them.

Salem wasn't idle either. He was using his own staff and affinity magic to cover us – even Seren and Orla – with mental shielding, checked the protective magic in his shirt, cast the flyte spell on himself, and began to chant out a spell that I couldn't place the meaning of, followed by another instance of his affinity. As his mind magic poked into me, I suddenly saw a spinning circle of vibrant green light pointing off to my left.

"Locate creature," Salem provided. "It should bring us to the neares' demon of the sor' we need."

"Now that's handy. And you're projecting a mental illusion of it into my mind?"

Salem nodded, and the soldier eyed us with an approving gaze.

"Good luck hunting out there, kids. Glad you're not running in like a bunch of idiots. I've seen too many first time hunters die that way."

I grimaced at that, but nodded my thanks, and we exited the cottage, and I drew out the broomstick I'd created, then leapt on top of it rather like a surfboard. The enchantment held me in place as we rose into the air, Amos, Orla, and the new gadhar beating their wings, while Salem and the air elementals used air magic to lift themselves without worry.

We stayed fairly low to the ground, not wanting to garner the attention of any of the particularly powerful or dangerous flying demons who might be in the area, but still zipped across the barren wastes as fast as we could.

As we raced around the narrow canyon walls, outcroppings of stone, and shifting sands, the spell in my vision began to change, numbers that I'd not noticed at first shifting with each motion. It took me a moment to realize that it was measuring our distance to the demon it was tracking, in rough estimates of paces.

When we were about a hundred paces away, I started to catch the smell of something foul. We slowed our approach as we got closer, until Salem's spell indicated it was only ten paces away, just around the bend.

It was stronger than the rot demon that had tried to parlay with Wesley and me, and stronger than Greta, but still a good bit weaker than Gerhard or Shé Rui. Maybe around the level of a single fifth circle spellcaster, or a dangerous fourth? Bloodline magic didn't map well to spell circles.

"Strong demon," I said. "We should be careful. Are you ready?"

Salem nodded, and we shifted around the corner. The demon on the other side was easily seven feet tall, and just as broad, with huge batlike wings, curling ram horns, red skin, and arms as thick as a barrel. The moment it saw us, it let out a bellowing roar and exploded forward, claws extended to our throats.

My gadhar both barked, blue light blowing the demon back, while Salem flashed his wand down. Blood began to ooze from the demon's nose, but it rose to its feet, slipping on the stone for a moment. That was long enough for me to fling a silver coin at it with coinshot, and for Amos to unleash a burst of bright white light from his fangs, searing at the demon's eyes.

It screamed in pain and red light began to rise off its body, healing its wounds and concentrating around its wings. It snapped them, and razor winds glowing with red light rushed over us, countered by an air eruption from Salem bolstered by my air elementals. Salem followed up with a mind spell that caused the demon's head to jerk and spin.

Then it rushed forwards, thrusting its deadly sharp claws at me. My curse caused it to overshoot, but its raw strength and command over its body was enough to counter the poor footing.

It spun and I wove a shield and another retributive curse in front of me. The demon cracked the shield, but Orla and the other Gadhar both barked, throwing it back, while Amos wrapped his serpentine body around the demon's neck and began to choke it. My air elementals wrapped around his wings, doing the best they could to stop it from simply flapping them and throwing everyone else with the cutting wings again.

Salem slammed his staff into the ground and shouted several long words, and the demon's eyes glazed over as its will finally broke.

"It's still fightin', hurry," Salem warned, gritting his teeth. I nodded and leapt into motion, burning a touch of my bloodline to dart in, grip its horns, and tear them out. As the thick material snapped, Salem thrust a palm out and another air eruption caused it pound against the rock.

Psychic power flowed from him, and red light rose from the demon, concentrating around the demon's mind. They locked in struggle for a long moment, which bought Amos time to sink its fangs into the demon's throat.

An instant later, the light in its eyes died, and the body began to dissolve.

"Tha' was so much harder 'an tryna jus' kill it," Salem groused. "Hundred hells."

I resisted the urge to make the obvious joke, and just stored away the horns inside my locker.

"It was, but it's a good sign that we were able to do so," I said. "At the very least, one of us can do the ritual now. Ready to find another humanoid demon?"

Salem stretched, re-cast his flyte spell, which he must have dropped in combat, then re-cast the locate creature spell.

We were attacked a handful of times by a group of small, birdlike demons as we made our way to the next fight, a three winged beast with bird legs, a human torso and arms, and the head of a bull, like some sort of warped minotaur chimera. It smelled of storms, which ironically enough, made the fight relatively easy. My air elementals, gadhar, and Salem's own nascent air magic worked together to counter most of what it could do, while I layered a few shields on, Amos went for the eyes, and I snapped the bull horns off.

After that, we flew back to the wall, an easy task seeing as the magical construct of multicolored ether glowed brightly in the distance, and after a couple of quick divinations by a solider, were ushered to a teleportation circle ritual, and sent back into the city.

The moment we got back, we headed back to the campus. I did my best to ignore the wolf-whistle that Jackson made as I headed into Salem's room for the first part of the ritual.

The entire thing would take three days to complete, with three hours of work from Salem each time as he placed components, joined me in the chant, and joined his ether to mine in shaping. After the first section was complete, I left, while Salem started working on his own application of the magic. I felt bad I couldn't help him with this, but he was a true psychic, while I hadn't even dabbled in that sort of magic.

I settled down in the common room and started working on my report breaking down the spell portions for arcane passage.

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