Henry stared vacantly at the reef ahead as all of his focus—and Octominds—worked on channeling enough mana into triggering the recalling Blink. While his Octominds focused on increasing their mana absorption and regeneration through meditation and Draining Touch, Henry tasked himself with guiding the required energy for Blink. The damn skill kept swallowing everything he channeled to it, and it didn’t even feel like it was ready after close to 30 minutes of non-stop channeling. He was even starting to feel spiritually sore from moving so much mana, especially after having spent so much hunting and fighting off the seahorse.

  “[Are you done yet?]”

  Henry ignored the question, but when the crab started tapping on his arm, he answered. “[It’s still charging. Stop asking.]”

  Mana continued to pour into the skill, building up, and sometime later–could have been seconds or minutes–the tapping picked back up. Henry swiveled his gaze toward the crab, who froze. “[Would you rather go into the Maw?]”

  “[…No?]”

  “[Then stop distracting me or I’m sending you in there.]”

  The crab was about to protest, but when the large yellow eye swiveled back to him, he stopped. “[Sorry,]” he said after a moment, and instantly Henry felt a pang of guilt.

  With a sigh, he let his Octominds carry on the work. Wth the tip of the same arm holding up Maurice, he patted him on the shell. “[No… I’m sorry. I know it’s all stressful, but we’ll be fine. Don’t worry too much about it.]”

  “[What if things become weird, though? What if they hate us?]”

  Ever since they finished up with the seahorse and made the decision to finally head back, the mood had shifted. With a serious duel looming ahead, the two couldn’t help but feel a bit of worry. Not from the duel itself, though. No, for that, Henry was pretty confident he’d win.

  Unfortunately, this time, the circumstances were different. All the duels and fights they had taken part in had been more of a sport. Even the fight with Sev hadn’t been that serious. To them, at least. But this time, it was to the death. Which led to a whole other problem altogether, which Henry hadn’t thought he’d have to deal with this soon.

  Potentially killing another person.

  Henry knew the lord would come after his life. But was he ready to step into that ring with the same intentions? He wouldn’t have even hesitated a week ago, when he’d been boiling with rage. But now that he’d had a chance to work through that anger and wrath, he didn’t feel as sure about taking the man’s life. Did he really need to go that far? He was happy with breaking his limbs and letting him crawl out of the ring like a damn slug, but he didn’t feel the impetus to just kill the man; even more considering it might reflect badly on them—and by extension, Stormsong.

  Henry looked down at the crab as he considered the many faces he had interacted with in Thalis. “[If they hate us because we defended ourselves, then they would have always looked for an excuse to hate us anyway,]” Henry said. Though he somewhat believed in what he was saying, the discomfort was still nagging at him.

  Maurice looked up at him. “[This is a duel, though. We’re not defending ourselves.]”

  Henry slightly shifted his attention back to the process of channeling mana. It was relaxing, oddly enough, and in any case, the skill was approaching its triggering point. “[You’re right. We’re not exactly defending ourselves. That’s fair. But we were attacked, and this would be our answer to such an attempt. It sucks that we had to get here. Really. But we can’t allow people to attack us without consequences. That would tell everyone in Thalis they can have a shot at us and nothing would happen. They’d lose respect for us just the same.]”

  The two were quiet while Henry concentrated on the skill. When it was all ready, he felt the water ripple around him as if he happened to be in some sort of bubble, and he instinctively knew that as soon as he activated the skill, he’d be pushed through the fabric of reality itself.

  He held off on that and looked at the apprehensive crab.

  “[I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll explain our side of things if anything happens, and we’ll play it by ear. If people get weird with us… then we’ll just leave. But it won’t get there, I’m pretty sure.]”

  Henry often forgot that Maurice was practically a kid, still. Especially when it came to social dynamics. Through the week, whenever the subject of Thalis was brought up, a wave of anxiety would spike from the crab. And no matter how much Henry tried to calm him down, he couldn’t. Maybe that was because he himself wasn’t that sure of how the duel would be received by the rest of the city, so he could see where the crab was coming from. Maurice was not used to the concept of unpopularity now that he’d made a couple of friends in the new city, and so his worrying made complete sense.

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  “[It’ll be fine. Okay? Ready? We’ll make a quick stop near Rocky, and we’ll go on from there.]”

  That seemed to cheer him up. “[Okay! I like Rocky. He’s funny.]”

  Funny?

  That made Henry pause for a moment before he shook his head and chuckled inwardly. Without further delays, he triggered the skill.

  There was a ripple around him. A mighty swirl of purple energy gushed out of his body and instantly began swirling around them, slowly constricting and cutting off the waters. A moment later, Henry felt a shift and drag, deep in his soul. It didn’t last long. Barely a couple of seconds, and before he could really acclimate to the feeling, the purple bubble released, dissolving into motes.

  Henry found himself in a familiar cave, half buried into the soil under which he’d hidden the recalling anchor.

  “[That was fun! Do you think you can make more anchors? We should travel like this more often. It’s so fast!]”

  Henry could only agree. “[The skill is limited to just one, but hopefully I get more in the future.]”

  Less than an hour later, they located Rocky, who’d been disguised as a boulder near his usual haunt. He was happy to see them, and after slinking away for a few minutes, he came back and presented two small tunas to them before tapping them both on the head.

  “[It’s good to see you too, Rocky,]” Henry said as he presented the kraken with a Ironshell crab. “[You two catch up, I got a couple of things to get through.]”

  Leaving the chatty crab and the kraken at the foot of a cliff, Henry landed on the sand and pulled up his ever-accumulating notifications.

  1x [Stinglance Seahorse (B) - Level 63] core was collected

  Stinglance Seahorse core (B) contained significant Spirit and Dexterity stats. 2x Spirit and 3x Dexterity Stat points awarded.

  Venom Production: Stinglance venom synthetized

  Good. That bastard’s venom was nasty.

  Watchful Guardian (C) - Level 53 achieved!

  ...

  Watchful Guardian (C) - Level 91 achieved!

  7x Stat points awarded.

  4x Strength Stat points awarded.

  4x Spirit Stat points awarded.

  4x Constitution Stat points awarded.

  Taking a look at his Aspects, he saw that Swiftness and Fury were both at level 7 and 8 respectively, while everything else was at 10, ready to be upgraded. All at C-rank. The only reason he was holding off on the upgrades was that he wanted to learn more about Aspects and their fusions. He didn’t want to mess up anything or miss out on any opportunity that would save him Evolutionary points.

  It’s not as if I need them to be upgraded to win anyway. Though I need them to recover a bit. Quite a few are still low from the last fight.

  With that done, Henry decided to rest up. The teleporting saved him at least a day, so he hung out with Maurice and Rocky while the two chatted, one speaking non-stop while the second gestured and communicated with impressions. Henry let them have their fun while he meditated and had his Octominds scout and work some mana exercises. He found that meditation accelerated the recovery of Aspect essence.

  Half a day or so later, Henry felt ready to head up. A few hours were not enough to recover much of his Aspect essence, but it was plenty for what he was facing. And while his time-keeping was decent, he didn’t want to push it and be late. If he was early, he’d have a meal and continue recovering in his guest house. If it was still available to him.

  Looking at the kraken, Henry offered to take him along with them. Rocky opted once more to stay in his territory, but he wasn’t against visiting after the whole duel matter was resolved.

  Henry didn’t mind that. It would give him the opportunity to bring back a telepathy potion if he actually found one. Otherwise, it’d be his next priority with Arisia’s lessons. That way he could make the telepathy skill himself, and he could finally create the skill-copying construct for Stormsong.

  But for now, it was time to head back up. As they flitted between the branches, dodging the annoying purple crabs, he realized he was nervous. In fact, both of them were anxious.

  We’ll see what happens, he thought as they finally surfaced. Up above, the lights of Thalis shone against the darkened sky, and Henry realized it was night.

  “[We should have taken some bananas with us.]”

  Henry looked down at the crab, and quietly, he began fashioning a body to walk around with. Maurice didn’t need to know he had two barrels’ worth in his Maw.

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