After a few minutes of climbing, during which Arisia swore every oath Henry had put Zerathstra through and then a couple to really emphasize that she couldn’t use or spread what she learned against him in any way, the two arrived in the stadium-like space he’d visited only a day prior. He’d learned that this was where the tournaments would be held.

  Arisia took a sharp right, toward a little set of stands that looked oddly like consoles. Henry eyed her for a second, and decided to wait on a question that’d been bugging him over the last few minutes, and instead he trailed after her. Arisia stood over a panel of layered and glowing inscriptions, dislodging a few crystals here and there and moving things around.

  Henry watched, fascinated, and after a couple of seconds, she glanced back at him and pointed to one of the smaller panels.

  “Touch that one and push some mana into it. It will allow the barrier to recognize you and allow you through.”

  Part of the secrecy oaths was that she’d help him keep his identity and abilities secret—or at least, she wouldn’t actively spread them—so Henry was happy to comply.

  Still, a tiny part of him, deep inside, was a bit leery about soul oaths and their limits. Could they be weakened? Could they be circumvented? From what he’d learned from Stormsong and Arisia, the wording didn’t matter. The intent and the spirit of the oath did.

  I’m just being paranoid, he told himself as he put his human hand on the large round crystal.

  At the end of the day, it always came back to ‘why would any of these powerful beings bother lying to him?’. He’d been in this settlement for less than a day, and to be frank, he’d been at the A-rank’s mercy. If that being had wanted to come after him, there was nothing Henry could have done. The many B-ranks could have been an issue as well, but so far, they kept to their words and they’d been nothing but hospitable and friendly.

  Still, there was one last question Henry needed to ask, but he told himself he’d do it in a bit. For now, he pushed mana to his arm, only for the right side of his chest to crack and shatter like half-baked clay.

  Henry stared at his missing chest and shoulder, then up at the tightly-lipped instructor. With a sigh, he tore out a bit of his stomach, hunched over the crystal, then with his kraken arm, he touched the crystal and shoved his mana through.

  The crystal ball lit up with a green-yellow hue, vibrating with power as his trickle of mana joined the torrent held within the pedestal. Out of thin air, a wall—no, a panel of matching color surged up and surrounded the training grounds in a completely opaque dome.

  Arisia stepped back from behind her console, face flushed as she shook her hand, then she nodded toward the newly raised barrier and moved toward it.

  Henry expected her to bump into it or have to push herself through, but she passed through as if it wasn’t there. When Henry did the same, he only felt the soft energy pass over his skin.

  Henry came face-to-face with the instructor and found she had her wood-framed glasses on once more. She studied his ruined body for a second, then looked at the kraken body peeking through the chest. “Why did you not create mana channels in the body you’re wearing?”

  Create what?

  Henry blinked and decided that, just like being in the doctor’s office, he should be honest and direct with his answers. “I didn’t know it was possible,” he said with his illusory voice. “I don’t even know how to do it or what mana channels are.”

  Arisia hummed, and her notebook and pen appeared once more in her hand. “We’ll add that to the list. For now, I think you should dispel the body. It’s getting in the way of everything.”

  Henry eyed the packed earth below him, then looked back up at the scribbling woman.

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  “I’m not very… mobile. I think. I mean, I’ve got a couple of theories I could test, but I haven’t been up here for long, so I’m not sure.”

  Arisia nodded along and without stopping, she asked. “Fair enough. What are the theories?”

  “Well, affecting myself with Telekinesis didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. But I figured I could lift something and hang on to it, though it’s still a bit awkward. Otherwise, I could use Control Water to make a small water bubble and move with it, but it’s a bit more complex than I expected. The last theory is to make myself some joints and stand on my arms.”

  The instructor listened, eyes sharp. “Why do you think Telekinesis isn’t working well? I’ve seen how you carried the dolphin with it, so you’ve got passable control over the skill. What do you think is the reason you can’t carry yourself with it?”

  Henry considered the option for a moment, and was about to go check the skill description and began freeing up an Octomind or two when Arisia snapped her fingers. “I’m asking you, not the subminds in your head. You do have a submind skill, right?”

  Henry stilled in shock, then nodded. He hadn’t expected her to literally be able to see or sense what he’d been doing. Was it telepathy, or could she see through his Aspects, somehow?

  Arisia paced around him, eyes trained on him like a hawk. “Then don’t use them. You need to learn these things. The subminds can follow your lead and reproduce your successes, and it’s fine to delegate some tasks to them, but they’ll always be only as good as you are. If you’re lazy and don’t push yourself, then they’ll stagnate. So. Unless we’re actively working on the subminds, keep them idle.”

  This is going to be such a pain in the ass, but she’s probably right, Henry thought as he summoned a small boulder out of storage and held it aloft with Telekinesis. He could feel the weight pushing down on his control, but it wasn’t taxing. He moved it side to side, then brought it near to him right before dispelling his human shell. He plopped himself on top of the round, barnacle-covered rock.

  Instantly, he felt his control of Telekinesis falter. Not because it was being disturbed or overpowered, but because suddenly, the angle felt weird.

  It was as if he had a heavy dumbell in his grip. He could hold it just fine in a normal posture, but if he tried contorting his body aside and tried to hold the weight at an angle, it just wouldn’t work. It’d get too difficult to hold onto.

  “I think it has to do with the distance? Wait… No.”

  Arisia kept quiet and waited for him to work the problem through. Henry peered at the child-sized boulder under him and felt at the feedback he was getting from Telekinesis. He didn’t have the right word for it, but it felt… laggy. Stuck in a way, as if he was trying to turn a door handle by trying to turn the door itself around.

  Oh.

  “It’s a point of origin thing, too… right? When I usually use the skill, I’m moving objects in relation to myself. The two sets of coordinates stay distinct. But if the origin and the target overlap or get too close, then things get wonky.”

  Arisia gave him a nod and a smile. “That would be an advanced subject to cover, but considering your skillset and what you’re trying to do with the domain ability, you clearly need to understand the process a bit better.”

  The woman scribbled in her notebook, and Henry longed to take a peek behind her back and see everything she had written so far, but it was time to address the kraken in the room.

  Henry produced a coughing sound, which made the woman slow down, blink, then look up in surprise. For a moment, he enjoyed her slack-jawed expression.

  With great effort, Henry made the boulder he was sitting on approach the woman, and came to a stop when he was around ten feet away. “Back in my world, there’s a common saying that goes ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’. I don’t always agree with it, as people can and should be kind to one another, especially when it costs them nothing. But I’m not naive enough to believe everyone thinks the same.”

  Arisia’s expression sobered, and with a flick of her wrist, the notebook disappeared while Henry asked the question that had been on his mind. “Why are you helping me? Why are you willing to invest time and effort in training a complete stranger?”

  How do you actually benefit from training me, he wanted to ask, but that one felt a bit too cynical to voice, and in any case, he’d get his answer with the prior two questions.

  Arisia nodded along. When he finished, she held her arms behind her back quietly for a moment, then she asked, “What do you know of the System governing this world?”

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