Ikki exploded across the distance and his sword – when had he gotten that out? – was coming at my neck. I dropped and barely dodged the swing, then punched out at him, but I didn’t expect it to hit, so I didn’t throw as much power into the blow as I could have.

  But it connected, and Ikki’s sword was at my throat.

  “If you’d realized how much speed you had, you could have known it would hit,” he said calmly as we reset and launched into a fight together again. I summoned my staff and blocked the strike with it, trusting the strange symbiote-metal material it was made out of to shed the strike. Instead, I knocked his blow back. I hadn’t expected that, and Ikki took full advantage of my surprise, getting his sword to my throat again and shaking his head.

  “This is exactly what I mean. With the reserves of excess energy refined to third gate, your body is significantly more tempered than a normal mage. You might not be as strong as someone with a body that directs their magic to strength, or as fast as someone with a dedicated speed body, or as tough as someone with a dedicated defensive body. But you have a broad base of power to draw on, more than any of the more dedicated would give you.”

  As he spoke, he circled me, striking out and pushing me onto the defensive. Each time there was a gap from my physical attributes being greater than I expected, he punished it relentlessly by showing me exactly how he could have killed me. His lecture didn’t even leave him winded.

  “You’re speaking about them as bodies,” I said between gasps. “But they’re still just full-gate spells for normal people. I get for me…”

  “Ah,” Ikki said, his blade nearly taking some of my hair off as he showed how he could have driven it into my temple. “This is another cultural difference. It’s a common practice among the spellcraft traditions of Daocheng and its surrounding territory to take a growth spell that interacts with the body. Truthfully, many don’t push it hard enough to allow it to surpass a standard full-gate spell. But when you’re working to refine the body’s growth spell, it’s called body mage advancement.”

  The monolinguistic spell struggled a little on the translation of ‘body mage advancement’, like it was an imperfect translation, but I think I got the gist.

  “It’s often treated as a separate, but linked, aspect of one’s journey,” Ikki continued as he swept my legs out from under me and slammed a palm into my chest, knocking me off balance. “I think it’s worth thinking of. For you, your strength will slowly drop as you burn through energy in a fight, but you’ll then grow that back stronger. You’ve selected magic that refines and improves that, but you’ve allowed the physical training to go by the wayside.”

  As he continued to explain the cultural differences, he flipped his sword into the air, sprung into a one handed handstand, caught the sword with his feet, and drove it at my chest.

  “My own body is temporally locked using a fifth gate full-gate body spell,” Ikki said. “That helps me recover far faster and grants me near endless stamina. That would make it a poor choice for you, as you need to continually grow, not continually return to a single state. Regardless, as I am limited to third gate, I do not have access to my body right now.”

  He flipped up and knocked me off my feet again, then pulled me back up, while continuing to lecture. I didn’t see how he was able to maintain his lecture while also knocking me around, but it only served to further Meadow’s point in calling him an artist of combat.

  By the time our two hours were up, I’d been thoroughly beaten, despite the fact that as the fights had progressed, it had become increasingly obvious that I had the advantage in both speed and strength. Still, I’d managed to close some of the gap, and even if it wasn’t perfect, I was definitely more used to my own physical abilities.

  “Next time,” Ikki said in the moments before he vanished. “We will work on integrating your tail.”

  Once he vanished I flexed Starfish Regeneration. That had become something of an after-training habit, and as it activated, I felt the familiar cracking in my spirit of the spell bursting into the air, having reached mastery. I grinned as I let the minty chill of the spell rush over me, repairing all of the tiny rips and tears and chips I’d gotten from our fight, and turned to find Meadow sitting on the bench, watching me.

  “What?” I asked, and she just shook her head.

  “Nothing in particular. It’s just nice to watch you progress like a normal mage, rather than by leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Meadow said.

  I paused to consider that. It was… Kind of true. Over the past several months, I’d been training at my own steady pace, taking things at the rate they came, while working and living a normal enough life. It was a marked difference from the time that I’d spent in the Idyll-Flume, or even before, with all of Orykson’s deadlines. I hadn’t progressed as fast, that was true, but I’d still progressed well enough, at least in my opinion.

  “You’ve also just about got your spells sorted for early third gate,” Meadow continued. “You can squeeze in Foxarmor, and I have one more idea for another spell to work with, but otherwise you’re nearly done with selecting spells. It will be time to work on mastering and ingraining them.”

  “For everything but death mana, at least,” I pointed out, and Meadow nodded.

  “For everything but death mana,” she repeated. “That’s the tricky one, I will admit. You have many options. The four classical types of undead are all options: skeletons, zombies, ghosts, and shades. But I’ll leave Orykson to talk about those.”

  “Then you have something you wanted to talk about?”

  It wasn’t really a question, more of a statement of fact. Still, Meadow nodded.

  “I do. With your many gates and penchant for mixing life and death, I think you would be better suited to specialize in a single undead, one a life and death mix, and round it out with some generalist death magic like a harvesting spell. But if you want to do something else, you’re welcome to.”

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  I plopped down on the grass and shook my head.

  “Nah. It makes sense. Why, what were you thinking about? Vampire magic? Mushroom magic?”

  “Vampiric magic is one of the three options I know of that combine life and death well enough to be a full branch of magic,” Meadow agreed. “The others are fungal magic and… Well, the last has a dozen names. It’s sometimes called detritus magic, or autumn magic, or wood, paper, cloth, or vegetable magic.”

  I frowned. I had said mushroom magic, hadn't I? Meadow saw my look and explained.

  “Fungi are more than just mushrooms, but yes, it does include mushroom magic. Molds, mildews, plant rusts, smuts, lichen… Most types of rot and decay are plant or fungi, and you have the rare chance to take on all of it, rather than merely a chunk,” Meadow explained. “In my opinion, this suits your magic the best. All fungi are life and death, but many also have other properties, like mental, knowledge, abnegation, or more. Your fungal folk village can show you some things already, and you know of a mushroom nexus and an older village not too far from the blink foxes.”

  I nodded seriously, then asked a question.

  “What are its strengths and weaknesses? For all of them, actually.”

  “Its biggest weakness is that it lacks pure offensive power. It has sensory effects, poisons, draining, rotting, infecting, and other indirect methods of attack, but to my knowledge there’s not a general fungal spear or the like,” Meadow said. “In terms of advantages… It’s rarer and hard to counter. Thanks to Dusk’s realm you’ve got a perfect habitat to grow and use dozens of different types of magical fungi and use them in battle as an integration of your plant magic. You can already use life mana alone to force mushrooms to work in your potions, but there is a pure death spell you can use – Fungal Intertwinement. It’s a meta spell to mix death mana into your Harvest and Enhance Plant Life spells. That will massively spike that utility, and allow you to use them in battle like you can with plants. Not only that, but the synthesis between plants and fungi is large, and with your Kirin full-gate spell reinforcing connections between things somewhat related, I suspect that you will be able to make your fungus spells enhance your plant spells, and vice versa. Its ability to enhance your senses, bind people in place, drain their energy, and protect yourself also suits your hit and run, non lethal combat style well.”

  She gave me an earnest smile.

  “It requires the smallest investment for what, in my personal opinion, has the best synergy with your magic and the most diverse set of powers, and leaves you the most room to develop both life and death in the fashion you want.”

  That was a lot of advantages, and something that I wasn’t going to take lightly, but I waited to hear the rest.

  “Vampire magic’s advantages are largely in raw power. It can strengthen the body, unleash blood attacks, drain vitality, heal yourself and others, and even create blood thralls. It’s the most common one to find resources for, and the raw power offered by blood magic has been enough for some who have magical affinities they don’t want to seek out a vampire to turn them,” Meadow said. “In terms of disadvantages, though, it has its own fair share. It’s the most common of the three mixed methods, and its reliance on a lot of lunar and solar energy from your body also means lunar and solar mages can more easily counter it. Its spells are more common, which makes them easier to access, but also easier to research. Its easy to get your hands on things like instant blood clotting potions to prevent someone from draining vital blood from you. Finally, it’s not the kind of tool that’s meant to handle someone gently.”

  She paused, then shook her head.

  “No, that’s not true. There are vampires who dedicate their blood magic entirely to healing, but I don’t think that’s the path you want to go down.”

  “Correct,” I agreed. Kene was already a stellar healer, and while my starfish spell was great, I didn’t need to suddenly turn into a healer as well.

  “Then I mostly stand by what I said,” Meadow agreed. “When used offensively, it’s very easy to kill. Things like the Curse of Bloodletting can be used to disable, but without prompt healing, it can very easily kill a person. It can be used for self-buffing and nothing more, of course, but using it only for that is handicapping the possible synergies and strength, and not much better than simply using life spells. Finally, it will require you to invest much more of your death and life gates than fungal magic, cutting off a lot of freedom in both gates.”

  I nodded slowly. Blood magic certainly sounded potent, but I wasn’t entirely sure if it matched my style. I wasn’t opposed to self buffing or taking offensive spells – I wouldn’t have taken Mantle Dragonfyre if I didn’t want a hard punch.

  But did I need more hard punches and physical enhancement? I wasn’t a pure melee fighter, after all. Hadn’t the lack of melee been the exact reason I’d skipped over the Coral Claw spell? Still, the power it offered was tempting.

  “What about the last one? Detritus magic?” I asked. “I haven’t heard of that one.”

  “You have, though likely not by name. You’ve seen how alchemists preserve plants with life mana beforehand, in order to use their dried versions?”

  I nodded.

  “That was to detritus magic, in essence, what plant magic is to fungal magic,” Meadow explained. “Detritus magic uses the manipulation of dead wood, fallen leaves, and other dead or dying plant material. Though they call it fabric magic, weaver or weaving machines that use death magic enchantments to manipulate linen, cotton, or silk in order to move them are using this same general type of magic. It’s quite commonly used by chefs who aren’t confident in their preparation of good quality ingredients.”

  She sniffed, and I had to resist a laugh. I’d heard that there were uses for death magic in the kitchen, but that they were frowned upon.

  “It also has plenty of uses in combat,” she continued. “Controlling wooden staves and weapons, binding people in woven straw, and manipulating cloth magic. But I won’t lie, where this type of magic really shines is preparation. Spending time building and making things, layering your spells into them, and stockpiling ahead of time. You’ve heard stories of witch’s scarecrows coming to life?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s where this type of magic shines,” Meadow said. “You can temporarily reinforce the structures in dead plant material with life and death, giving it a facsimile of life and animation. Now, for advantages and disadvantages…No beating around the bush, one of the biggest disadvantages of this type is that it’s mostly death. It uses life, just not to the extent the other two do. It will somewhat limit your ability to take other spells relating to whatever undead type you work with. It’s also not got a lot of raw offensive power, or much ability to simply snap and create effects. Finally, it’s not incredibly distinct. Many occupations use a touch of it,

  She held up a finger.

  “Now, it has got its fair share of advantages. The very same lack of distinction makes it both easy to learn and hard to counter, even more than fungal magic. Few people prepare for animated clothing or straw to attack them. Since you’re manipulating dead plant matter, it should, similar to fungal magic, have crossover with plant magic. This type works very well with skeletons, ghosts, and shades. Skeletons are essentially dead constructs, much like these are animated dead matter, so the two halves can cooperate. The little bit of life and abundant death that makes the detritus animate also can, with the right spells, bind a spirit to an effigy of life, giving them a more physical form. Finally, there are a few spooky poppet spells that you can cast with straw dolls and ghosts.”

  Well that wasn’t fair. Animating detritus sounded cool. I wanted to learn all of them, though I knew that wasn’t practical. I leaned back, lost my balance, then accepted it and flopped onto my back.

  “That’s a lot,” I groaned.

  “Think about it,” Meadow encouraged. “This is a major choice. It deserves contemplation.”

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