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"Uh… hello."

He turned and looked at me and then back. "Stop moving. You shredded your mana channels back there. If you didn’t have restoration elixirs… well. You shredded ’em. We’ll keep it at that."

I shivered and lifted my arm and felt pain stabbing through my whole body.

"You can’t just drop that bombshell and then move on like nothing happened."

Kyro apparently got my lingo because he said, "What do you think would’ve happened?"

I fell silent. I knew what would’ve happened; I just didn’t want to admit it. So I looked to change the subject and found myself looking at his wrapped hands in genuine confusion.

I remember seeing them burned when I held him, but I imagined that they would heal in the water. But upon reflection, he was floating in the water for almost five minutes before I saw them in that state. That meant that mana or soul force caused the damage.

"What do we need to heal your hands?" I asked.

He paused and reflected before turning his gaze to the water. "Stop worrying about me. Just worry about yourself."

"I am worried about myself. If you’re dead or injured, we’re screwed."

"Oh, so it’s all about you. That’s rude."

"No, that’s how I talk to four-year-olds that act tough and turn down aid."

He huffed.

"And I can help you. I have access to any spell or recipe we need, and we have just about any ingredient in this forest. So… please." I looked away. "Just… let me repay the favor."

Kyro looked back at me and then groaned and scratched his head with his wrist and looked up.

"Look, I know you’re talented, I do," Kyro said. "But there’s a canyon between the things you’ve done, and what it’d take to heal me."

"I know that, but I have—"

"Yakana?" Kyro’s voice turned sharp and amused before dropping an octave. "No, you don’t. Souls have a protective barrier called a callasp. It’s a shield against the user’s own aura. You messed it up pretty bad when you merged with him."

"How did you…"

Kyro studied my expression and sighed. "Look, Mira. You gotta get rid of this mindset that you or anything else in this forest is ’special.’ Soul merging’s rare, but it isn’t unique. Hell, there’s a whole area of soulmancy that specializes in it." He looked toward the trees and took a drink. "Same’s true of Yakana. He’s an amalgamation, but he’s not the only amalgamation… He’s just a big one."

"Oh…" His words struck my mind with lightning, and I felt nervous excitement. I’m not sure why I felt that way, but imagining the power of soul merging sent my mind spiraling.

"Anyway… you’re fine, but you won’t be merging anytime soon," he said. "But otherwise, you’re fine. Now, if you relied primarily on aura attacks…" Kyro released an insane and bitter chuckle and ended it with a scoff like it was a period.

I looked at his hands thoughtfully. "That what happened to you?"

"Ye~p." Kyro lifted his hands. "Burnt right through the callasp and…" He stopped himself, shifting his tone as he said, "Anyway, fixing a callasp is way out of your league… Unless Brindle’s got a kasana bloom around?"

I opened my guide to check the status of the lecture request I sent to Brindle but found a notification regarding my evolution reward instead. I wanted to check it but I knew the conversation was important, so I pushed it aside, checking my lecture request instead. It was still pending.

"I doubt it," I said softly.

Kyro studied my disappointed expression and turned away. "Then don’t worry ’bout it. Not yet, anyway. If you succeed at the crypt… it’ll all work out."

"What is the crypt, anyway?" I asked.

Kyro deeply considered his words and answered thoughtfully. "Brindle… didn’t start out a soulmancer. He’s a druid. But… this place’s… obviously a paradise for souls. And so… over the years, the Drokai and countless others have learned soulmancy and Brindle… Well, he stumbled upon it."

"At the crypt?"

"At the crypt." Kyro tried to take a swig from his flask, but it was empty, so he pulled out the bottle from my backpack using telekinesis and filled it with a Separation style technique before returning to the front—trying to mask the grimace riding on his lips.

"So… it’s like a… place that teaches soulmancy?"

"Something like that." He stared into the fog for a few seconds and then elaborated. "It’s actually a trial—or a series of trials. Three, to be exact. Step one is finding the place, which I assure you isn’t easy. The second teaches you soul shaping, and the third… Well, the third’s kind of a joke. But I guess you got me and well, maybe Brindle. Maybe. You’d be lucky to hear from that fucker again this millennia."

He took another drink, and I responded with a wry smile.

Then I looked around. I didn’t see any beasts around.

"Uh… is it… safe here?" I asked.

"Safer," Kyro said. "Nothing’s migrating up or down, so… we should be fine. Actually, we better stop and cook. It’ll be a long week."

"Alright."

We embanked near a meadow as the sky set ablaze with the sunset. It was nice to stretch my legs and relieve myself, even if it were painful.

Kyro set up the barrier but not the fire. I didn’t ask questions as I pulled out the magnesium flint and rained sparks onto kindling, setting dry, dead brush and leaves ablaze. I blew on it twice as I added sticks, then pulled out third-evolution meat to try to cook—but froze. I didn’t know if I could handle cleansing third-evolution meat. Last time I did it, I suffered a severe backlash. Now, I didn’t have a callasp. I was nervous, but Kyro simply laughed and said, "She’s nervous… Now that is funny."

I took that as a go-ahead and cleansed the meat. To my amazement, it was not only possible but also felt rejuvenating, as if I was filling a dry well. I tried to keep going, but Kyro stopped me, saying, "It’ll go bad if you remove the aura. So keep it till you cook it," and I pulled back, cooking what I had. Then I threw strips to Kline, who purred at my legs and rolled on his back and begged for attention.

It was nice.

The fire was warm, and the crackling calming. For the first time in a long time, I felt like the world wasn’t falling apart, and I was very grateful. Still, Kyro’s wounds hung in the night’s air like a guillotine, and his personality, thoughts, and history remained unknown.

"So…" I said. "What’s your story?"

"Lend me money and I’ll tell you," Kyro responded.

I frowned. "I wanna know your story, not an excuse."

"Sometimes, they’re the same thing."

I huffed. "You’re a god."

"Demigod."

"And you’re here."

"Quite so."

"Why?"

"It’s safer here. Quiet. Usually peaceful." His eyes glided to me. "Not now. But that’s natural."

My frown reached limits I didn’t find possible as I glared at him. "Just… please?"

Kyro chuffed and looked at me with these dark, glazed-over eyes, drunk and broken, pained and lost, and said, "Why?" almost accusatorily.

I had never seen him so drunk. He must’ve been hit far harder than he let on.

"’Cause I’m stuck with you. Might as well care… or feel better about you dying. Something. Right now it just feels like… I don’t know. I’m just confused and I don’t know what to think."

Kyro took a deep breath and leaned back and said, "Probably doesn’t seem it to a human, but I’m super old. Old enough for Brindle to’ve saved me."

"Wait, Brindle… that was…"

"A looooooooooooooooong time ago. Long story short, he met me… before…" He looked at the flask and said, "This. Back when I was young and ambitious and trying to conquer the forest for… who knows what reason. Something stupid."

Kline lifted his head and looked at Kyro. It was an interesting story.

"’Nother long story short, fucker didn’t let me pay ’em back. In fact, he spent the next… twenty thousand years teaching me magic to prepare me to do some shit that he never had me do… fucker." He took a bitter drink and looked at me with bitter eyes. "’Stead he says… Kyro. You’re weak and pathetic. But you’re not useless, curse yourself a few times and teach the next generation… that’s how you can pay me back."

The depression scarred on Kyro’s face as he drank told me that Brindle didn’t say that—it was the way he interpreted it.

"So, of course, fucker’s ’bout to die, and I haven’t paid back my debts to him, so I say… sure. So… I spent the next millennia cursin’ the shit out of myself… and returned to Serenflora. Got my ass chewed out by Nethralis’s mom, but… it was good. True to my word, I taught the kiddos and… built up the army. Back in those days, I was a somebody. Had some abs and some humor." He laughed with a sad, self-deprecating laugh and shook his head. "And… people liked me, you know? I was useful. Back then, we… we were few, actually. Jacksmore wiped us out so… one person could make a difference. Well, extra long story short, the number of us grew over the next few millennia, and before long, we had quite the little settlement. And, of course… the magic I could teach, well… I taught all the teachers, and eventually… well… no one really needed a cursed idiot that couldn’t use magic, did they?"

Kyro lifted the flask to his lips, pulled it back, looking inside as if to view his reflection in the liquid then drank it, smiling bitterly with regret.

"Nope, they really didn’t. Every once in a while, they’d send me out to the Fifth to train the next warriors, but… that stopped, too, after…" He paused and swayed, gripping his head. "Look. Time’s a curse, kid. I’m pretty sure ninety percent of Serenflora’s my great great grand whatever, but it only takes a few centuries of celibacy and a couple wars for everyone to forget you. View you like that crazy drunkard you became, wondering why all the old folk’re always so damn lenient about your antics…" Kyro took a deep swig and nodded. "That’s just about the gist…" He grinned and laughed and collapsed on the ground, moaning drunkenly and giggling. "It’s kinda funny, isn’t it? Live ten years, and you can sum up your life in ten minutes. Live twenty, and you’d need a week. At fifty, people can write a tome, but… live tens of millenia? And you can sum it up in seconds… What a joke."

Kyro closed his little eyes and passed out, groaning and curling up—skillfully positioning himself to puke should the need arise.

I looked to the sky after that and took a deep breath. "What a story." I looked at Kline, who was watching Kyro worriedly. "What do you think?"

He looked at me and meowed this strange meow before getting up and reluctantly curling up next to him. It made me wonder what happened when I was evolving—what had to happen before Kyro fell into the water like a meteorite.

A vivid flashback put me back in the center of the pond, watching that massive soul monster fall in tandem with Kyro. It was his creation. And that made sense—

—because he was Brindle’s student.

But more importantly, he was the person who protected me with his life. That spoke volumes and told a story that no amount of drunken ramblings could express.

I pulled out my Darwin shirt and laid it on the little guy like a blanket and then set up my tent—but didn’t go inside. Because at that moment, I remembered something important that compressed my limbs with steam and sent my mind running.

My evolution reward.

I quickly opened up my guide and went to the reward.

It read:

"Owing to incredible luck, offensive levels of aid, and cosmic talent that has allowed you to merge with a forest spirit to bypass the need for silly things like practice and talent, you have managed to establish a Kyfer core to jumpstart the road to power you never asked for. Congratulations."

My cheek twitched.

"That said, you should be proud. No matter how much the multiverse elite beat their children and import resources, these cores just don’t form. Their users have large learning curves that you skipped with the aid of lifetime achievement skills and tutorials, resources that cost more money than you can imagine, a genetic advantage in soulmancy, natural psychomancy, the aid of two gods—and at least a little talent.

"But no matter how you’ve done it, you are the only person in the last eighty thousand years to accomplish it. As such, you have a core that breathes mana without resistance or blockage, allowing you to use as much mana as your mind and channels can intake and handle. So long as you can survive the endless challenges that raw power can’t handle, you have a legendary opportunity for power. Congratulations."

The message was bittersweet. It felt like I didn’t earn it. But when I read the next lines, that changed. It read.

"Aid and advantages aside, the I, the almighty Oracle who judges all and manages the multiverse, do not just provide rewards based upon outcome but rather numerous factors including but not limited to skill, talent, adherence to The Path, the experiences people face, the neophyte’s accomplishments and versatility—and you have gone through hell and accomplished things that no integrated neophyte has ever accomplished. You’ve risen to the occasion and have spared no opportunity to gain power, temporarily sacrificing your dreams of botany to obtain dominion over your life and build relationships with forest denizens that have rejected almost all top walkers since the Jackmore War. For that, I award you the following…"