I gave my… friendly acquaintance a long look. She stared at me, arms crossed and leaning against a wall. “So?” she asked. “You gonna say anything?”

  Slowly, I walked up to her, then tapped my index finger against her forehead. Just for fun. I smiled. “Been a while.”

  “It has, things have been a little… tight.”

  “Right, I’m sure they have,” I said. With some of my Qi, I summoned a tiny ptform in the air and sat down on it, crossing my legs. “Anything to report?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. More contracts have been made. Earliest is for tomorrow. Whitney park, highest grade currently accessible.”

  I tapped my foot. “Got it. We’ll cover it. Any more?”

  “Yes. I got you a list,” Olivia said, handing me a sheet of paper. It was organised, but handwritten, leaving no digital traces. “A couple in the next weeks. Things seem to be speeding up. And at the end…”

  My eyes widened a little. “A new grade?”

  Olivia nodded again. “Looks like it. Sanctions are getting lifted quicker, since Neamhan is saturating.”

  “There aren’t nearly enough people to defend-”

  “There don’t need to be,” she said, meeting my eyes. “The sanctions don’t care how well a pnet makes use of the power granted to it. It doesn’t matter how its inhabitants do. They exist to give us a fighting chance, not a guaranteed victory. And…”

  “I get it,” I said. “We’re getting screwed over, then.”

  With a sigh, Olivia uncrossed her arms, drumming her fingers against the wall nervously. “We are. We’ve been for months, right from the start. Fio, again, just behead them already.”

  “Please stop telling me to kill people,” I replied with a weak smile.

  “Then tell me you refuse to consider it, go on,” she huffed, annoyed.

  And she had me there. It was becoming a shockingly reasonable course of action in my mind. Olivia worked for Zinnic, again. She had gone through the recruitment process and the background check, and they kept a close eye on her because of their history… but with a pitiful act she had managed to score a grunt job.

  With her new, staggering levels of talent compared to everyone else on this pnet, she had rather quickly ascended the ranks of the corporate leader. Now, she was the head of one of their teams, and raking in boatloads of cash for Zinnic by clearing gates. Their golden child, if you will. Zinnic’s prodigy.

  Except, of course, she wasn’t that at all.

  Olivia despised Zinnic. She had been discarded by them at her most vulnerable. And it had made her change the way she saw the world, the way she assigned value. To her, an institution that had tossed her aside was worth less than street trash.

  No, she did not work for Zinnic. She monitored them for us. For our guild. And there was a rather simple reason for it.

  Zinnic was working with the keepers.

  In fact, the two were working rather closely together. So much so, that Zinnic got to survey and decide on good locations to have important gates open, so that they could be the first at the scene.

  Zinnic would then try to stretch out the clearing into a multiple day operation, so that as much Echo as possible could bleed through the gate into our world, because that way, they got more resources from the usurpers, too.

  And whenever they did, our guild would come up, get government and public backing, then clean the gate up in a single dive. And each time, it was a tedious and annoying process.

  But at the same time, I did not feel comfortable just killing the head of Zinnic like Olivia wanted me to. There were successors lined up, and killing those would also be necessary. Soon, I’d be murdering my way down the command chain looking for a decent person to take over the company.

  It was pointless, and no one in our guild exactly wanted to step in to repce them, in managing the dealings with the keepers or in organizing mass hunter teams. In a lot of ways, Zinnic did good work, sending their mages and cultivators to clear minor things that stopped day to day life.

  The newest gate that was set to open up in two weeks from now was category four. The highest we’d seen yet, and a pce promising a reasonable challenge for a single person at wellspring rank.

  If the trend kept on going, then within two months, we could expect another increase. A category five gate. By then, I was determined to have either broken through, or we would need to bring our entire guild to clear it up.

  But that was far away. For now… “Right. I’ll see about Zinnic. We’ll come up with something.”

  “We better. I imagine that things will change in a different way, too. There’s been whispers, but I’m not high up enough on the dder to really figure this one out,” Olivia said.

  “Too secret even for you?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Real big shots only. Meaning their absolute elite, top brass. Only suits and the very best of their hunters. Y’know, White Tiger level.”

  I grimaced at the name. White Tiger was one of Zinnic’s absolute elite, a cultivator who’d reached the realm beyond wellspring back on Eden. I could fight him toe to toe now, but if I didn’t break through by the time category five gates opened…

  Shaking my head, I pushed the thought aside. “Right. Anything at all you can tell me?”

  “Nothing concrete,” she said, crossing her arms again. “Just theories. More gates, maybe, or something to do with Echo.”

  A frown spread on my face. “Right. What a pain.” I really hoped that meant Neamhan would get something like altars or somesuch. We needed a bit of an edge in terms of growth to keep up if the usurpers were pulling out the big guns.

  Were the keepers approving of this? They’d been keeping me safe, but maybe with my breakthrough approaching, time was starting to press on them a little too much? Ugh. I wasn’t gonna get an answer just from thinking about this sadly.

  “A real pain,” Olivia said with a small shrug. “I swear, if we get something like the eclipses, I’ll flip my lid. No more darkness. There’s a reason I don’t live near the poles, dang it. I like my sunlight.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “I need my sun, Fio! If we have a sor event, I hope it’s a second sun blossoming or something.”

  Her joke got a small snort out of me, shaking me out of the worrisome thoughts. “You’re an idiot,” I said.

  Olivia smiled. “Yours truly,” she said, giving me a small salute. “Well, that’s all the info I have. Anything new with you?”

  I shrugged. “More persistent recruiters, maybe? We’ve been dealing with them, though. Other than that, business as usual.”

  “Hope it stays that way,” she said, pushing herself off the wall. “Really do.” Then, she started walking to the entrance. “Alright. Let’s get a couple more worthwhile weeks in before things go to shit, right?”

  With a small snort, I started following her. The concealment on me was still in effect, so, with a very short hug, we wished each other goodbye, and I took off into the sky.

  - - -

  I pyed with Qi in my hand, maniputing it to match Ann’s Mana.

  It was a game we pyed often, an exercise to improve both of our control. “Do we have to do this in the bathtub, too?” I asked her.

  She gave me a beaming smile. “No breaks! You think you become a master cultivator by just zing around? Where’s your determination to lock yourself into a cave and practice for ten years?!”

  A moment ter, she was left sputtering as I spshed her with water. “Idiot.”

  “Lazybones,” she countered with a grin.

  “But seriously. It’s kind of annoying having to keep my hand above water,” I compined again.

  Ann rolled her eyes this time. “Fine then. Let me teach you a little trick.”

  With a flick of her wrist, the mana construct lifted off her hand, appearing in the air behind her head. Then, a second one appeared on her other side. She smiled brightly at me. “This,” she expined, “is a little bit of dualcasting practice for spells with mobile anchors. Rather than summoning the magic in my hand, I summon it behind me. I can move the anchor point forward for more range, or behind me to catch assassins unaware. Useful, right?”

  I grimaced. “Yeah,” I hesitantly answered, speaking the truth.

  Instantly, Ann’s grin turned evil. “It is, right? And I’m talking, which tells you just how good I am at duelcasting. Fio, tell me, am I looking at my magic right now?”

  “... No.”

  “That’s right. It’s behind my head,” she said. Then she reached out and grabbed my chin. “Which means I get to focus my eyes on just. You. And you…” she let go of me and pced her hands on her cheeks, “you get to stare at your Qi until you can do the same.”

  The grimace on my face deepened. “Fine then, I’ll show you,” I grumbled.

  Very slowly, the Qi construct moved up and away from my hand, wavering as it floated through the air, then popped like a soap bubble.

  Ann tapped my nose. “Oops,” she teased. “Looks like you gotta try again.”

  I frowned, then sighed, and focussed, closing my eyes. The Qi fred to life again, bubbling out of my wellspring, tracing down my arm, into my fingers, and the cing around them in a geometric array.

  Lines of magic interwove, building upon one another, until, eventually, they settled into a cuboid shape. Then, they kept twisting, because a regur cube wasn’t quite enough. Instead, there was a pattern to it. Repetitive, but also changing with each iteration.

  The exercise was about creating a chaotic system that needed manual control to be maintained. I opened my eyes, following the lines, correcting the little mistakes. It was easier to find them all that way.

  Breathing in, I slowly shifted the anchor point, dragging the entire construct over a little with each tiny shift it made. It was halfway between rebuilding it fully each time and just moving the point of origin of it all.

  Then again, I say that as if it was simple. The point of origin was where my Qi fed into it, which meant threading my Qi through the air unobstructed to wherever the little cube floated. Which meant keeping control of my aura, or manifesting Qi outside of it.

  While I worried, the construct popped again, this time crumbling into tiny, dissolving shards, falling into the water like glitter. Ann giggled. “Seems I’ll be the only person getting some eye candy tonight.”

  “Just you wait,” I grumbled. “Just you wait.”

  - - -

  I went and cleared a gate with Matt the next evening. We both had time on our schedules, so it just ended up that way.

  This one was more pleasant than the blood ke stuff I dealt with - which didn’t mean it was pleasant, per se.

  The gate was underwater.

  Ivan stood at the beach, his fellow scientists loading equipment onto a boat. “Do we really need that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Need? No. But it will work better if we’re there. Oh, we also have oxygen masks for you.”

  I looked at the diving suit, full with flippers and goggles. Then, I sighed. Everything was better than a bodysuit, I supposed. “Alright, hand it over.”

  Gleefully, he handed me the smooth neoprene suit, and with a sigh, I got into it. When I was done, I didn’t yet wear the flippers on my bare feet. Those could wait just a little.

  Instead, I chose to ugh at Matt, who had already put on his goggles and flippers, on the beach. “You look stupid,” I told him.

  In response, he manifested a sword of pink petals and I very rapidly jumped over the wave of sharp Qi he shot at me. It was harmless, of course, but he made a funny breathing noise with the oxygen tank in his mouth, before spitting out to tell me he was gonna get me, and so I ran ahead to the boat, still ughing.

  The government wanted the gate cleared due to it actually leaking pollution into the ocean. Also, the fact that there were species of fish exiting it that were messing with the local ones while looking simir and being horribly poisonous to eat.

  A few minutes ter, Matt and I threw ourselves backwards over the side of the boat. Diving down wasn’t too troublesome, since we could easily withstand the pressure, and the oxygen was enough to st our enhanced bodies for days.

  I made a little light by conjuring a glowing spear from my Qi - keeping it floating behind me.

  Which was a neat trick I had practiced with Ann, and one I found much easier when doing it for spears rather than for tiny puzzle cubes. Was using it as a glorified fshlight my image of dignity? No, but I was also diving underwater to go… heh, spear fishing.

  Eventually, we found the gate - a glowing circle of swirling power, as well as the fish that came out of it. They were a lot like bass, except for small purple scales around their gills. Matt waved his sword, and they were swept aside in a wave of pink that left the water stained red.

  With a nod at each other, we dove into the gate.

  It was a high category three gate, so probably would need a team of core realm cultivators, but just Matt and I could handle it fine. He took care of the flocks of tiny fish, and whenever some whale sized monstrosity tried to tear us apart, I’d take care of it.

  He ughed whenever I got tripped up with the flippers. One of his oxygen tanks got smashed, so he swapped the mouthpiece he was using. Ivan had insisted we keep different ones and repcement arts, because of course he had seen it coming.

  Because why wouldn’t he suspect metal eating piranhas in a gate.

  After a couple dozen minutes of sshing and stabbing our way through too many fish bodies, and finding the boss to be an anglerfish who we quickly stabbed and sshed to death, the dive went uneventfully.

  But on the way up, night rolled around. And, despite the minorly poisonous water, it glowed a little as we moved through it.

  That’s why it’s one of my happiest memories from that time. The magic of my own cultivation mixing with the mundane magic of bioluminescent pnkton…

  I bubbled with ughter, and the water glowed around me as the air rose. Matt joined me a moment ter, and we both blubbered away with ughter as we rose to the surface amidst a glow of gold and pink and the fluorescent green of the ocean critters.

  And it was beautiful.