My hair was still wet when I got home to Ann. She saw me, and smiled. “Fire spell?” she asked.

  “Fire spell.”

  A moment ter, my hair was no longer wet. Instead, I felt thoroughly warm. The heat would have been enough to make an ordinary person’s hair curl and smoke a little - not enough to burn, though. Mine was entirely unimpressed.

  The water was gone though, which was lovely. I changed into pajamas, and came down in time to see Matt trudge in. He’d bought some groceries in a 24-hour shop before heading here. “Fire-”

  “Yes, please,” he nodded, then received the same treatment I did.

  “One day I gotta learn magic for that kinda stuff,” he said with a smile.

  “Never needing to move to get a gss of water is lovely, too,” Ann commented. “The taste is off, though.”

  “Might be too pure,” I commented. “Like distilled water, right? Maybe add just a touch of earth magic.”

  She tilted her head for a second. “Hm. I might try it, but that’s much harder. The trace minerals… would I need to form individual atoms and molecules of different metals and such?” Then her face twisted into a grin. “Well. It’s a challenge alright…”

  I shook my head at her antics as I plopped down on the couch. “Sure, you go, girl.”

  Matt grinned. “Fio, go and recruit more people who are good at magic. I wanna learn it,” he said.

  “Oh shit it, nerd. You wouldn’t spend a second doing anything but cultivating.”

  He grinned and shrugged. “Alright, you caught me. It’s one of my best traits, isn’t it?”

  Ann gave a dramatic sigh. “Truly. Imagine being that one-track in your mind. Couldn’t be me.” She did, in fact, have two magic exercise cubes floating behind her, constantly weaving intricate patterns.

  “Yeah, never,” I ughed, and then worked on one of my own. This time, I gave it a bit of my own spin. It wasn’t a tiny puzzle cube… it was a tiny puzzle spear.

  My lovely girlfriend gave it a suspicious look. “Is that… harder?”

  I nodded, smiling. “Yeah. But it includes more of my techniques, so it’s easier, too. And it practices more facets of my kit.” I summoned a second one, then a third. “C’mon Ms. Mage. Can you do better than me?”

  Ann blinked once, then grinned. “You’re on.” Then, her brows furrowed, and she went up to three cubes, too. Soon, a fourth one spawned, shakily. It wobbled as it took residence behind her.

  Focussing, I tried to make a fourth spear happen, but just as it came together, the other three crumbled apart. “Dang it. Well… I can always turn it into an endurance match!” I said, summoning the three again.

  Matt plopped down on the couch next to me, wearing his rabbit t-shirt. “Right, right. Movie night or what?” he asked.

  I ughed, and so did Ann. “Movie night,” we agreed. Despite it, neither of us dispelled the exercise.

  Only a couple seconds into the movie, Matt had shifting flower petals forming the shapes of swords behind his back, too. He managed four. The rat.

  Then Ann upped her number to a very, very shaky five. In fact, they seemed rather close to exploding and setting the house on fire, but neither me nor Matt pointed that out to her. She was entirely absorbed in the magic, and barely heard the movie. But that was fine, too.

  It was more about the company than the substance, anyway.

  - - -

  Days passed like that. In a manner that was almost, but also most definitely not peaceful. We fought every day, for hours, because that was our job now, y’know? It was what we did.

  I would wake up, put on clothes that I didn’t care about getting ruined too much, walk to a gate or three, kill some usurpers that were rearing to invade our world, then head home. There, I’d patch up clothes for the rest of the party, having picked up more sewing in my free time, and goof around a bit with my friends.

  When the evening rolled around, I often went on walks. The government had tried giving me bodyguards… but what was the point of that? Even at my base level, I was as strong as a core level cultivator. Would a gunshot hurt? Sure. Absolutely, even. But it would not kill me.

  Honestly, at this point, even if my heart exploded, I could probably use my Qi to push my blood through my body until Reya got to me.

  And her healing… well, it wasn’t for no reason that she was called a saintess. She had studied anatomy and medicine since we came back here, having read through a small library. With the talents we had, too… yeah, she was good, alright. Really, really good.

  She had healed terminal diseases. She could even perform minor de-aging; A fact we decidedly didn’t advertise, since it bought a few months at best, and would get rich old men bashing our doors in. Well, more than they already were.

  Suffice to say, I had seen her remake hearts almost from scratch, so a bullet wound wouldn’t be too much trouble. And even then, just in case, I could just swap back to a reality altered version of myself from a couple seconds ago, when I had not yet been shot.

  It cost quite a chunk of Qi, sure, but I also regenerated it faster than anyone at the core stage had any right to, my wellspring constantly overflowing. I couldn’t imagine how frustrating it was for cultivators above my level to be constrained back to glorified core realm cultivators.

  And I didn’t wanna imagine. Cuz… Fuck ‘em. None of them had stopped the eclipse, had they? None of them had stuck around and seen Orvan die. Did all of them deserve that resentment? No. But did I have a lot of sympathy for hidden monsters? No.

  There was only one cultivator of that rank I respected: my master, Rae. The old man whose house I was currently walking towards. It was quiet this te at night. The street mps buzzed quietly above me, some damaged, and the cobblestone clicked faintly as I walked.

  My eyes were only half open as I found myself in my inner world. I’d always walked while cultivating, and wasn’t abandoning that habit now. Within myself, there was a sky.

  It was my path, now. Stride beyond Inflicted Skies. Or stride, for short.

  And that’s what I did. I took a step. Not on a path, not on a predestined course, but one I set myself. The sky above me bent and wavered, trying to push me down, as was the nature of this technique. It was tough. Heavy and impassable, it seemed.

  But I’d pass it. Eventually. I knew that much.

  Right now, I was tasting real freedom. I would not let anyone take that away from me. So every time I cultivated I took my experiences, the ughter I shared with my friends, and took another step towards that sky.

  And another, and another. It buckled and pressed against me with the weight of the entire world. With the keepers and the usurpers, who spanned dozens, maybe hundreds of pnets. Who had dozens of divines on their side.

  They were so, so far above me. Pressing me down.

  Still, I put one foot in front of the other. This wouldn’t stop me. Nor would the next step afterwards. I just needed to keep walking. And so, I did, each step heavier than the st, until I arrived at my destination.

  Ingrid’s garden was one of the few spots of greenery in the city. She had received some help from Ivan in propagating it, and now managed a rger spot of greenery around their house. They’d even managed to get a couple of tree seedlings sprouting. Genetically modified and with moduted atmospheric conditions, but it slowly propagated itself in that way greenery did.

  I smiled as I hopped the iron grate on their house. It wasn’t that te yet, and the lights were still on inside. Smiling faintly at their muffled voices coming through the walls, I knocked at the door.

  They didn’t hear me, so I knocked more loudly. Which they still didn’t hear, so I turned to knocking at the window.

  After giggling lightly at their startled faces, I gave a little wave, and Ingrid rushed up to grab the door for me. “Fio!” she greeted me happily, wrapping me into a warm hug. “Oh, come in, come in, child. It’s freezing out!”

  It was, in fact, a rather warm evening. Not that I protested. Instead, I happily let the old dy pull me inside. “Please, put your shoes anywhere. It’s good to see you! We were wondering when you’d come!”

  “Haha, sorry Mrs. Mu- Ingrid,” I corrected myself. She smiled at that.

  “It’s no trouble, none at all. Come, make yourself at home at the kitchen table. I baked a couple cookies I’d like you to try out!” she chattered excitedly.

  As the weeks had gone on, and I stayed on Neamhan longer, I’d made a habit of visiting the old couple frequently. Ingrid had taken to me like their own grandchild, even more than she had until now.

  I walked through the house, admiring the ever changing framed calligraphy drawings of my master. Recently, he had gotten a gift of some coloured ink grinding stones from a friend, and he seemed to be putting them to good work.

  In fact… yeah, that grin on his face was suspicious. I gave him a hug nonetheless, watching as he struggled to maintain a stern mask as the little joys of life pulled at his face. His hair was more salt than pepper now, age wearing itself into his features. But he took it with diligence, still being in rather great shape.

  “A joy to see you, Fio. My star pupil,” he said with a small wink.

  Nowadays, he said the words with more gravitas than he used to. Rae cked his memories of Eden, still. He had retired, after all. But by now… seeing the magic come to Neamhan? He wasn’t stupid.

  People with amnesia were reported more often after the eclipse, and Rae had read the news. That, followed by gates here? The change of the world? He wasn’t blind. Never had been. But he hadn’t asked, not even once.

  I bowed slightly as he greeted me. “Gramps,” I teased him. “Sorry for being te.”

  He waved me off. “No trouble, Fio. No trouble at all,” he said. “In fact…” he moved quickly, while Ingrid was still rummaging through the kitchen. “I have a small gift for you. For being so patient with someone like me.”

  Ah, so that was what the grin had been for. I nodded happily. “What is it?”

  He smiled, and reached for something on the bench next to him. It was rectangur, wrapped in newspaper. “Open it, please.”

  Smiling, I did just that. The paper ripped and tore easily at my touch, revealing a thin yer of gss. My fingers didn’t stain it - they hadn’t stained gss in a long while, not when I had this much of an affinity with it.

  But what made my eyes widen was behind it.

  Calligraphy. Of course it was, that part wasn’t that surprising. But what did get me…

  “That’s incredible,” I said.

  “A desecration of the art, my colleagues said,” he told me with a chuckle. “Barbarians.”

  It was the character for ‘spear’. But he had drawn it in rainbow ink. Six distinct colours, blending a little at the edges.

  “I tried making it in the red and pink you like, ah, the lesbian colours, yeah?” he expined, as I still wordlessly held onto the piece of art. “But white ink is difficult to find. And it didn’t look as good on the bck background, no matter how often i tried. So I got some brighter colours and-”

  He stopped as I hugged him. “Thank you,” I said. “I love it.”

  With a small smirk, he hugged me back. “I’m gd you like it,” he said.

  Then, after a few more seconds, Ingrid brought us cookies. We ate, and we talked, and the evening drifted on into the te hours. I tried some more calligraphy with Rae, and these days, my hands were more steady. He had also become a somewhat more patient instructor.

  After some time, he asked that fateful question. The one he asked every time I visited. “Will you show me again?”

  His blue eyes held that glint, of memories, of a long lost dream. It almost broke my heart, and I’d never said no. Not even once. “Of course I will,” I told him. And then, we took a short walk to a more open, abandoned space.

  There, reaching into the dimensional void of my inventory, I grabbed hold of Astraeus.

  Withdrawing the spear, I saw my master sit there and trace its design. The way the material was shaped, the profile of the bde, the way my fingers held onto the weapon. Casually, but not loosely.

  I twirled Astraeus once, holding the point forward at the end of the motion. My bound weapon resonated with me, our bond close and unbroken. Slowly, flowing more like honey, I made my way through the stances. Once, then again, then another time.

  His ice blue eyes followed me, every motion, every step. Every twirl, stab, ssh. And I sped up, moving faster, moving at the very limit of what his mortal eyes could see, then faster still.

  And he followed. Didn’t need to see each motion, as long forgotten muscle memory filled in the gaps. His face lit up in concentration and joy. And we went through the forms, over and over.

  An hour ticked by, and a second one did the same. Only then, when night hung high, did I call it off. Rae snapped back to his usual, casual self. “Ah! Where’d the time go!” he chuckled.

  Like every time I visited, I held out the spear to him, and asked that fateful question. “Do you want to hold it, for a moment?”

  And like every time I’d done so before, he grew a little downcast. “No,” he shook his head. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. Maybe soon.”

  I smiled, putting the spear over my shoulder. “Alright, no trouble,” I told him, bringing his smile back. “Let’s walk home, right?”

  “Yes. My wife must be waiting for us.”