Vivi had [Blinked] Saffra around a few times now, so the girl had developed resilience to spatially-induced nausea. Nevertheless, [Greater Warp] was an order of magnitude more powerful, so when the two of them popped into existence atop Prismarche’s wall, her tail dropped to the floor and she went pale in the face.

“That’s really unpleasant,” she groaned, a hand shooting to press against her stomach. After a few seconds of breathing deeply, she shook herself, and her color returned.

Her gaze drifted across the pine forest on the other side of the city’s perimeter, eyes widening at what she saw. “A warp spell. That’s how you got back so fast for the Convoy, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Saffra didn’t seem surprised. She knew the extent of Vivi’s abilities in a general sense by now. Even an approximation of her level—or at least that she was above 1900.

“It took me two months to get to Prismarche,” Saffra muttered. She sounded genuinely irritated, though not at Vivi. “Must be nice to snap your fingers and cross the continent.”

“It certainly is convenient.”

“Why didn’t you use one to get to Meridian?”

“It takes spatial anchors. The ones I’d placed in Meridian had expired.”

“Oh. How long do they last?”

“A while,” Vivi said, querying that vast mental repository of magical knowledge. “They degrade faster in areas of high atmospheric mana. In most of the human kingdoms, they’ll last several decades.”

“Can they be renewed? Did you forget?”

Saffra was only asking out of earnest interest, Vivi could tell. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by super-high-tier magic? She would have been disappointed if her apprentice hadn’t asked questions.

“More or less,” Vivi said vaguely. She hadn’t forgotten to renew her anchors; she’d arrived in this world a hundred years after they’d, presumably, expired naturally. If they’d existed at all.

At the answer, Saffra seemed to realize she was asking questions maybe she shouldn’t—though Vivi hadn’t minded. She reined herself in, and green eyes turned back out to the pine forests.

“We’re here for ice monsters,” she guessed. “Since those are weak to fire. You’re going to take me over the Granite Spines?”

“That’s the plan.” She supposed it wasn’t an impressive deduction, but she gave the girl credit for figuring it out so quickly. “I know a hunting ground dense with ice elementals. Ones that’ll be especially weak to [Scorchlance] because of the impact factor. Brittle, and weak to heat.”

“Sounds fun,” Saffra said cautiously. A shiver went through the girl, and she grabbed her arms and rubbed them. “Took me ages to get used to the cold, and apparently it goes away the moment you leave.”

Vivi pointed her staff. “[Aura of the Ember Giant].”

“I wasn’t asking for help,” Saffra mumbled, looking away. “I was fine.”

Vivi didn’t comment. “[Farsight].” After scanning the streets and picking her destination, she held a hand out, and Saffra reflexively put her own in it. “[Blink].”

They appeared in an alleyway. Vivi strode out, and Saffra hurried to follow.

“Order something,” Vivi told her, fishing out a silver coin. A fried food snack stall stood in front of them. She remembered it from the festival and had tracked it down. The festival was still ongoing, if surely muted as the week’s conclusion approached. “I have something I need to do. Shouldn’t be more than five minutes. Ten at the most.”

Unsurprisingly, Saffra refused Vivi’s meager offering, pulling out her own coin purse and plucking out payment. “Okay. Good luck.”

Vivi repressed a sigh at the implicit refusal. She put the silver coin away. “Be right back,” she told the girl.

She was avoiding putting tracking spells on people she didn’t have a strong reason to suspect of wrongdoing, so she had no easy way to find Archmage Aeris or Tatiana. Thankfully, Aeris was a wise man, and, knowing Vivi had promised to come find him today yet they hadn’t arranged a meeting point, he had erected a beacon of mana. She wondered what other mages thought of it…if they could even sense it. It was a rather subtle thing, though she had spotted it immediately, even from the city’s walls.

She found him inside an inn, hunched over a table, parchment sprawled out in a mess. Tatiana sat across from him, nose in a textbook. With the orientation the two were sitting, Tatiana saw her first, glancing up and doing a double-take when she recognized Vivi. She jumped to her feet.

“Lady V—m-my lady,” she hastily corrected herself. Vivi had asked to keep her presence a secret.

“Vivi is fine,” she told the girl as she closed the distance. Aeris had turned in his seat and made to rise, but she insisted they both sit. “Thanks for the signal,” she told the archmage. “I didn’t think to set up a meeting point.”

“I’m pleased this old man’s foresight aided you,” Aeris said with a smile. “I imagine you are a busy woman, so I assign no blame for the expedited departure.” He cleared his throat. “I fear our mutual oversight inconvenienced my apprentice, though. She’s been missing classes.”

Vivi paused. That hadn’t so much as crossed her mind. Her eyes drifted to Tatiana, who was already waving her hands in a panicked negation.

“My apologies,” Vivi told her.

“I-it’s no problem! Of course it isn’t!” She glared at Aeris for putting her in this situation, then hastily returned to effusing, “Really, I don’t know why he brought it up!”

Aeris chuckled. “No man or woman, of any status, is above admitting an honest mistake.” He nodded at Vivi. “It’s time to return, then?”

“If you want.”

He hummed. “I’m not pleased with the progress I’ve made.” He patted Vivi’s closed notebook. “If it’s no trouble, I think it’s best I continue my studies. I’ve grasped so little. Tatiana, however, does need to return to her classes, if you could be so kind. I’ve given her instructions to deal with my absence as well. I doubt anyone’s noticed, but better to be safe.”

“Of course. I’ll check back each morning until you’re ready? Or if you need to visit for any other reason, please just ask.” She looked at Tatiana. “You have everything you need?”

“Um.” Tatiana’s eyes flitted around the table, and she hurried to scoop up her textbook and other miscellaneous supplies strewn about. “Yes. Yes, I’m ready.”

“Follow me, then.”

She took shelter in the nearest alleyway for privacy’s sake, then warped Tatiana back to Archmage Aeris’s office. The young woman handled the experience better the second time, but like Saffra, couldn’t help but look queasy afterward.

“Sorry again,” Vivi said to her. “That you would have classes slipped my mind. That was inconsiderate.”

Tatiana seemed horrified that Vivi had apologized not just once, but twice. “Please, it’s not a problem in the slightest, Lady Vivisari. I had my textbooks with me. I caught up on some of my coursework. I mean it: it was no problem.”

Vivi doubted that; she was fairly certain the effusive assurances were because the one apologizing was a legendary figure of history. This was why she didn’t want to tell Saffra yet. It would undoubtedly change their dynamic, and Saffra already treated her with too much caution.

“I’m glad. Do you need anything else?”

When Tatiana gave a negative, Vivi warped back to Prismarche and returned to Aeris. She checked that he didn’t need anything, and after that, went and found Saffra.

The girl was finishing a ball of fried batter when Vivi arrived, and upon seeing her, she scarfed it down as quickly as she could, as if embarrassed to have been caught eating. Vivi had left her by the food stall on purpose; she’d suspected the girl hadn’t had a proper breakfast, having been out in the inn’s training courtyard so early in the morning.

As for why she’d slept poorly and rushed out to distract herself? Vivi could invent plenty of ideas. And for all the world-altering powers she’d been granted, she couldn’t help Saffra with her past. Issues like those required people skills. Meaning that in some ways, Vivi was the worst possible guardian for this girl. A depressing thought.

Hurriedly wiping her mouth with her sleeve, Saffra thrust out a second skewer of the treats. “I got you one, if you want it.”

Leave it to Saffra to refuse Vivi’s offer to pay, only to turn around and buy some for her. She suppressed a sigh, accepting the offered snack. “Thank you. I’ll eat them later, once we’re there.”

“Where’s there?” Saffra asked, following Vivi as she led them down the street and turned into an alleyway. “Somewhere to the north, I know, but a named zone?”

“The Icevein Craters.”

Saffra’s brow furrowed as she presumably tried to place the name. She’d spent a few months in Prismarche and had taken her adventuring career seriously, so it wasn’t a surprise recognition dawned. “That’s a mithril rank zone, I thought?”

“Naturally.”

“Naturally? I’m—well, close to gold by levels, but I don’t have a team! I know we’re just going there to practice [Scorchlance], but…mithril rank? Really?”

“You’ll be fine,” Vivi said dismissively. “There are lower-level monsters there too. Those are our real targets. And I’ll be there to help if you need it.”

“That’s…true, I guess. I just doubt I’ll be able to kill anything that high.” She shrugged. “You know better than me, though.” The dubious quality of her tone made it clear she wasn’t giving Vivi the full benefit of the doubt.

“Fighting half a rank higher isn’t difficult,” Vivi assured her. “And the experience will be much better. You’ll see.” That would be doubly true after she gave Saffra her new armor.

She held a hand out, and Saffra accepted.

Several [Blinks] later—and an application of various flight and speed spells—the ground was blurring beneath them. Green froze to white and the already-brisk air turned biting as they hurtled to the north. Flying over the snowy caps of the Granite Spines, Vivi surveyed the sprawling tundra of the northernmost reaches of the continent.

Her memory hadn’t failed her; the Icevein Craters were where she expected. Most of the hunting grounds this far north were mithril-rank at the lowest, but the Icevein Craters had upper-gold spawns scattered around. The real threats were the [Star-Ice Sentinels] at level 800, but those territorial monsters would only attack if she or Saffra got close enough to the meteors they were growing from.

Setting down on a cliff overlooking the Craters, she swept her eyes across the terrain. The hand of time hadn’t so much as grazed the environment in a hundred years, as she supposed it shouldn’t a remote landscape. Pockmarked craters dotted the icy plains, the smallest ten meters across and the largest nearing a thousand.

At the center of each impact zone lay celestial bodies: dense gray meteors veined with spiderwebs of blue metal. Living crystalline growths sprouted from each of the rocks—[Star-Ice Sentinels]—and giant crystal blades spun lazily in sleeping orbits. Those Sentinels, and the meteors they guarded, dense with Star-Ice, were what adventurers typically sought when coming to this difficult-to-reach zone.

Of course, Vivi had a different goal in mind. She had no need for high-mithril crafting components. Her real targets, or, rather, Saffra’s, were the weaker minions prowling the expanses of flat ground around the craters. [Rime Crawlers] and [Icevein Shardlings] and [Glacial Geists]. Like the Sentinels, the monsters were natural constructs spawned from the ice-mana the meteors were radiating.

“Wow,” Saffra murmured to her side. “I’ve only heard of this place. What are those things?”

“[Star-Ice Sentinels]. The biggest one—” She gestured at the widest and deepest impact crater a full two miles from their overhang, where a gargantuan crystalline growth similar to its little brothers sprouted from a massive meteor. Ice-blades the size of buildings spun in orbit around it. “—is the [Star-Core Bloom].” The zone boss, to put it in the game’s terms. “It’s been left alone for too long,” she commented idly. “It’s grown much larger than I remember. It’s reached level eleven hundred, it seems.”

“Titled?” Saffra asked, alarmed.

“It’ll only wake if we enter its crater. Same as any of the other Sentinels. We’re here for the weaker elementals.” She pointed with her staff at the nearest, a [Rime Crawler]. “Before that, though, I have items to give you.”

Saffra tore her fascinated gaze from the Craters. “You do?”

“Gear. And some other things.”

Saffra’s eyes widened, and she shook her head rapidly. “What? Why? I don’t need new gear.”

Vivi wished she could say she was surprised by Saffra’s reaction, but she’d more or less expected it. She understood that the incident where she’d tried to hand over a portion of the Morningstars’ bounty had been a mistake, but the girl’s refusal to accept help went beyond that. It had repeated itself in miniature not fifteen minutes earlier, when she had turned down the offer of a single silver coin.

So of course a full set of gear induced an emotion approaching panic. She probably wanted to minimize how much Vivi perceived her as a burden.

Thankfully, Vivi was starting to understand her apprentice—or was putting her best effort into doing so—and thus she had come prepared.

“It’s not suitable for an apprentice of mine to walk around with inferior equipment,” she said. “And I want to maximize your leveling pace. As such, I’ve prepared gear appropriate to your new status.”

Saffra stayed stiff for a moment, then—to Vivi’s relief, and honestly, resigned disappointment—she relaxed. Vivi helping her apprentice was fine. Expected. Of course a powerful mage didn’t want her apprentice making her look bad by wearing shoddy equipment and leveling slower. Saffra could accept that. She just didn’t want gifts, or to be helped purely for her own sake.

Vivi would’ve summoned her staff and delivered a justified bop on the head if that wouldn’t have ruined the trap she’d set.

“I guess that makes sense.” Saffra sounded only somewhat uncomfortable. “But you really don’t have to.”

“Take,” Vivi ordered, summoning the first piece out of her inventory.

She could have given Saffra the gear earlier—and that probably would've been better timing since she could have donned it in a more comfortable environment—but Vivi had wanted to show her the Icevein Craters, and the monsters below, to hammer home the fact she would need the bonus stats if she wanted to be strong enough to kill the mid-gold monsters.

Saffra’s eyes flicked to the cuirass in Vivi’s hands, [Inspecting] the item.

Her face went blank.

That was the second problem. The gear wasn’t that good, all things considered, but it was probably exceptional by Saffra’s standards.

Vivi waited several seconds for her to react, but she stayed frozen. Vivi frowned. She pushed the cuirass into the girl’s hands, and Saffra took the offered item. Vivi pulled the vambraces out next, then the greaves and boots, and finally her staff, a bracelet, and two rings—the total haul from yesterday’s crafting experiments. She stacked them in a pile in the unmoving Saffra’s arms.

“What is it?” Vivi asked when the silence stretched too long.

The words spurred her into responding. “T-transcendent?” she stammered. “A-all of them? Four enchantments each? Isn’t that a lot?!”

“It’s about average, I think.” Which was true for having been a crafting project she’d attended to personally. But even she knew it wasn’t average in the universal sense. “Put them in your inventory. I’ll summon up a room for you to get changed inside, but there’s more I want to give first.”

“Isn’t Sorcerous Might five the highest you can get on silver rank gear?” she asked hysterically, apparently stuck on that. “Why does it say nine? That’s…not possible? It can’t be Sorcerous Might nine.”

“Perhaps it’s a misprint,” Vivi said. “Inventory. There’s more.”

“What are these items? I know you… I know that you’re…” She paused and, mentally completing that statement in her head, seemed to come to terms with the situation. ‘A dragon’. Saffra’s disbelief cleared, because it made some sort of sense for a dragon to be able to secure items like these.

Once more, Vivi resisted smacking her atop the head with her staff. Seriously, a dragon? That was the wild conclusion she’d come to? What about Vivi was even remotely dragonlike? She blamed Jasper for this, and intended to exact her revenge.

“How much did these cost?” Saffra asked.

“A few hours gathering materials and crafting. Otherwise very little. I handled much of the process myself. As I said, I won’t have my apprentice working with substandard equipment. Now, inventory. There’s more.”

Saffra finally obeyed, dropping the items into that invisible spatial storage, the gear disappearing with a slight pop of displaced air. She seemed highly embarrassed. “You made it yourself? You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Market quality wouldn’t have been acceptable. It took me less than an afternoon. It was far less of an ordeal than whatever you’re imagining.”

Besides, compared to what she was about to give Saffra, the armor paled in significance. She hoped Saffra wouldn’t know that, but she doubted it. Titled-rank summons probably weren’t common in this world.

She withdrew a brilliant gold and orange feather shedding motes of fire in a constant cascade. The snow for fifty feet in every direction began to melt, and Vivi had to suppress the effect personally.

“Here.” She held the feather out. “This is for your protection.”