I had plans for Manifestation that I could explain, but I wasn’t going to lie that learning about the Blight Swarm felt like the bigger priority just then. Still, Master Kostis had helped me a ton, and it was only fair I told him what he wanted to know.

“I’m going to get Manifestation soon,” I said. “But not under Spirit.”

It was nice to experience a moment where I legitimately surprised Kostis. He blinked, his nictitating membrane preceding his actual eyelid. “You… want a different Attribute?”

“Yes. I got a boost to gaining a new Attribute when I performed the Ritual of Remembrance for Elder Escinca. I want to make use of that to learn a new magical Attribute, which I think I can push to Silver faster than I can push Spirit to Gold, considering how much effort it took me to get Spirit to Silver.”

“That’s… hmm, that’s a bit of a gamble.”

“Well, regardless of whichever I rank up to the next tier faster, Manifestation isn’t the only Augmentation I want to learn. I want Permanence as well. So having two Attributes ready to receive Augmentations is ultimately what I need.”

“Ah, Permanence. I see you’re thinking economically rather than adventurously.”

I nodded, remembering the offer that slimy Rakshasa mage had made me. “I’m not opposed to doing what I need to do. I just want to explore all possibilities.”

“Right.” Kostis considered that with a thin finger trailing along his snout’s scales, lost in absent thought. “And you want to know what sort of Attributes you can learn, yes?”

“Yes. I’ve been curious about your Attributes for a while, master.”

Kostis laughed. “You flatter me, dear boy. But hmm, Attributes that I have… At the moment, I possess Spirit, Arcane, and Thauma. All of them, as you might suspect, are related to mana.”

I blinked. “Thauma? Is that even a real word?”

That was a silly question because it might very well be a word in New Zair that my Universal Language Approximator had done it’s best to translate.

“It certainly is,” Kostis said. “You may not be familiar with it due to your lack of formal education—”

“I’ll have you know I have a bachelor’s in accounting.”

Kostis raised a scaly eyebrow. “Quite the change in career paths then, isn’t it?”

I snorted. “I suppose so. Sorry, you were saying, master?”

Kostis cleared his throat. “Thauma would be particularly helpful in your case. All three of the Attributes I mentioned might relate to mana, but they do so in different ways.”

“Spirit raises the body’s capacity to channel mana,” I said, counting off my fingers. “Arcane increases one’s ability to interact with mana in the world. And Thauma…”

“Increases the potency of performing miracles with mana. Do you understand what that last one translates to practically?”

I thought about it for a second. Thauma no doubt came from thaumaturgy, which had a certain religious connotation. The art of performing miracles or something like that. Kostis himself had said something similar.

“It’s related to breakthroughs, isn’t it?” I asked.

Master Kostis smiled broadly. “Excellent deduction. Thauma increases the effectiveness and ease of achieving breakthroughs. It’s very helpful for maintaining growth at higher ranks.”

I nodded. That was a decent explanation of things, of the potential Attributes I could get.

“The question is,” I said. “How do I get one of these Attributes?”

“That is why I am here,” Kostis said with a smile.

He went on to explain that gaining a new Attribute needed fine mana control and focusing on an aspect of mana that other Attributes didn’t already cover. This was good because Spirit had little to do with breakthroughs during ranking up, so I could concentrate on that side of Thauma pretty easily.

“The key thing is undertaking a Trial,” Kostis said. “It’s sort of like its own breakthrough to finally earn the Attribute in the Weave. But that comes later, after you’ve spent some time concentrating on how you need the new Attribute.”

It sounded a little too mystical for me, but then again, the Weave had a penchant for esoterism. Still, even if it didn’t explain anything in a straightforward way, at least the cause and effect was logical.

I could get hit to rank up Vitality or practice my evasion to improve Agility. Same went for my Aspects. Practice channelling them, learn Affixes, and they’d start ranking up fast.

But for an entirely new Attribute, I would need to meditate and concentrate.

“Don’t let it consume you though,” Kostis said with a warning. “What you really should be focusing on is completing Threaded Reinforcement.”

I agreed with a nod. My mana implosion was my main priority, and to tackle that, I’d need to make use of the Augmentation I already possessed, not some brand new one.

It was a little funny that I had ended up learning more about stuff from Kostis despite him being the one to ask me about Manifestation. Still, he didn’t mind. Master Kostis was a great teacher.

We had walked back to the second-floor gallery. More people were milling about now as the day grew older, more mages here for all sorts of business.

Someone was running after a flock of ducklings with puffy cloud-feathers. Another mage was putting out his friend’s head, which was currently on fire. Kliezeg was berating them about dangerous Aspects in the middle of the guildhall.

“Now can I learn about the Blight Swarm?” I asked.

He smiled, though it dipped soon. “Certainly. I’ve been hearing rumours about it as well. Though I haven’t paid attention to the details.”

“But you know what it is,” I said.

Kostis raised a scaly eyebrow. “Have you no idea yet?”

I explained what I had heard, learned, and surmised so far. An army of giant bugs, maybe smaller bugs too, all heading towards Zairgon, or perhaps the general southern area of the Falsient continent.

“Oh, and they’re apparently the last remains of an Ascendant,” I said. “Or one of their powers.”

Kostis’s pinkish eyes sparkled with greater interest. “Yes, correct. You have the gist of it already. And what an intriguing gist that is, isn’t it? But I assume you’re here for other details.”

I nodded. “Knowing the exact specifics would help us prepare better.”

“Lucky for you, then, that I was in Claderov during the last Blight Swarm invasion.”

I learned a good deal from Master Kostis, which was to be expected. There would be various gigantic bug monsters attacking us, which was something I had already expected. Then there was going to be smaller insect plagues accompanying that. The most dangerous thing, however, was how coordinated it was supposed to be. How alive the Swarm as a whole was.

Like a bit of the Ascendant, wherever they were in truth, was with the Swarm as well.

Apparently, their army was built around besieging large, fortified settlements. There were creatures built to take down walls or bypass them entirely, monsters who specialized in bombing over a wide area, beings with powers that shattered defences via various means.

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I did my best to note all of it down. Just trying to remember wasn’t going to work, so I borrowed a page from Silhatsa and jotted everything Kostis said.

“I’m guessing the Councillors know a lot of this too,” I said. With this much information to go off of, we could very handily prepare the exact defences that would wipe out these overgrown creepy crawlies.

“They do.” Kostis, however, didn’t seem to share my positivity. “However, another aspect of the Swarm is their ability to mutate and evolve. It has been decades, so it’s likely there are new additions to their arsenal none of us are aware of.”

He went on to allay my fears that everything he had said was useless by mentioning that most of the old things should still be there. We could still take out a massive chunk of the danger the Blight Swarm would present by using what we already knew.

Nevertheless, it would be in our best interests to remain adaptable and highly aware. Complacency was a death knell.

“Could I…” I felt kind of foolish for asking, but I went ahead anyway. “Is it logistically possible to use my mana implosion to destroy the Blight Swarm?”

Master Kostis didn’t look surprised by my question in the slightest. “Unfortunately, you wouldn’t make a tremendous difference.”

I blinked. “You sound you’ve already thought about it, master. Isn’t the mana implosion supposed to go out for a huge area around me? Shouldn’t that be enough to stop an army of monsters?”

“You underestimate the Blight Swarm, but I don’t blame you. You haven’t experienced it firsthand. This is a Monumental Opus. The Work of an Ascendant, beings who ripped down the gods from their divine thrones. To suggest one man, one person who isn’t even Gold-ranked, could end it himself is outrageously ridiculous, and I don’t say this to ridicule you, Ross.”

“They’re that powerful, then?”

“Inconceivably so. The might of the Councillors combined is unlikely to stop it for good either. How do you think the Swarm has survived across the centuries, against everything the world was able to throw against it? Your mana implosion may shatter one wave, but in the scheme of things, it would be a bright flash in the pan. Nothing more.”

“But it has been centuries, right? Surely, their power has diminished a lot.”

“Diminished enough for perhaps a powerful Paragon to take it out. Anyone below that? Not a chance. The Swarm is known to rip through and shatter dungeons, eradicate multiple cities at once, stand toe to toe against Jades and even coordinate successfully against Sovereigns. The sheer numbers, the strength of each member of the Blight Swarm, the layers upon layers of assaults you must suffer…”

Master Kostis shook his head. I hadn’t seen him this grave ever before.

I crossed my arms, my thoughts distracted. If the magical equivalent of dropping a small nuke wasn’t going to work on the Blight Swarm, then did we even stand a chance? Or was I thinking too conceitedly? “There has to be a way to end it for good, though. Something even we can achieve.”

For the first time, Master Kostis hesitated. But he changed tack quickly. “Focus on yourself first, Ross. The Blight Swarm is months out yet. We can have your core awakened much earlier, and you will be far stronger for it. You’ll be in a much better position to help fend off the Blight Swarm.”

I took a deep breath. He was most likely right. It wasn’t like Kostis had been wrong about anything yet. I had no reason to disbelieve him. Yet, there had been that hesitation he wasn’t elaborating on…

“One last thing, master,” I said. “Do you have any recommendations for my Aspect of Illumination?”

Kostis raised an eyebrow. His normal affability started to return. “You’re satisfied with Flare so far?”

“I am.”

He smiled, though he didn’t ask anything further. “Well, light-based Aspects can grow very strong but are often used as support rather than combat. It’s rather difficult to make it into something that actually damages anything at low ranks. Plus, it’s an important ingredient for some Compound Aspects—essentially, Aspects made up of several constituent Aspects.”

Interesting. Yet another thing I was learning about. “Which I assume are more difficult to rank up.”

“They don’t technically have ranks. Anyway, Aspects like Light or Illumination can grow powerful, but without other Aspects to help build them up, they’re not initially that useful.”

I nodded. Now I wondered what sort of Compound Aspects I could get. I could ask, but also, I didn’t want to give Kostis even more of an impression that I wasn’t focusing enough on my core awakening.

“Bless the alchemists and natural philosophers for discovering such things,” Kostis said fondly. “Anyway, I’ll leave the specific Affixes up to you, Ross, but I’d suggest thinking about it in terms how it can support what you’re already capable of.”

“Thank you. I’ll think about it in that sense. I’ve already been using it to light up some of the gloomier areas in the temple.”

Kostis laughed shortly. “One recommendation I’ll make—for the future since it might be too hard to acquire now—is Manipulation. It’s an Affix for Compound Aspects that allow you to control the constituent elements in such a way as to change the nature of the Compound Aspect, which you can imagine is rather powerful.”

I’d need to think about that. Right now, I didn’t even have a Compound Aspect.

Although… I did get ideas. With the right Aspect, could I use Illumination to disguise myself or otherwise trick people by making them see the wrong thing? If I could grow strong enough, could I make them perceive an entirely different reality?

That sounded almost broken, but wondering about the possibilities was the half the fun of advancing in ranks.

That was all I was getting from Master Kostis that day. Before he left, he mentioned that he would send word to the academy for me to take my Trial there, the one that was supposedly necessary for attaining a new Attribute. I thanked him for it, and for everything else, and then we finally parted.

I didn’t leave the Mage Guild just yet, though. Kostis had said to hold off on settling on a date for my core awakening via the mana implosion. He was going to make some plans and preparations for it.

Which meant I needed to keep Sacrificing things to stave off the mana implosion for longer.

I checked my status just to confirm how many days I still had left.

[ Ross Moreland

Profile

Race: Human

Weave Access: Full

Universal Language Approximator [Sovereign I]

Paths

Path of Burning Starlight: Silver IV

Path of the Archon Apostle: Silver III

Core

Mana Implosion: [Unawakened]

General Attributes

Vitality: Silver V

* Mana Heal

Power: Silver IV

* Mana Injection

Agility: Silver II

*

Path Attributes

Spirit: Silver III

* Threaded Reinforcement

Fervour: Silver III

* Enshrined Growth

Aspects

Gravity: Silver V

* Infusion

* Siphon

* Field Manipulation

*

Sacrifice: Silver IV

* Windfall

* Emulation

* Experientiality

*

Flare: Iron VII

* Concentration

*

Illumination: Iron V

* Imbuement

*

Ritual: Iron IV

* Structure

* Windfall

*

Time until Mana Implosion: 4 days ]

Yeesh. The more I kept growing, the more the status seemed to grow longer and unwieldier to look at. Why wasn’t there a scrolling option? It was fine now, but at this rate, I would need to jerk my head up and down to read the whole thing.

More importantly, the timer had reduced to four days. Of course, it had been a lot longer than just four days since I had last checked my status after the fight against Glonek. But I had continued using Sacrifice for various things, even my daily casts, so I wasn’t surprised that it was hanging in there. I had never felt the fractures in my chest grow, after all.

Well, aside from when I was using Threaded Reinforcement, but that was different.

Reassured I still had time, but wanting to get even more of a leeway, I headed back to the trade workshop.

It was a little inefficient to not have done it already, but better late than never. I was looking around for resources that could have beneficial effects on things like Threaded Reinforcement or just plain interesting items or treasures that I could Sacrifice to aid in pushing back the countdown.

What caught my eye wasn’t any particular thing, but rather, a person.

“What is that stone thing?” I asked, pointing at the weird blocky pebble.

The Rakshasa mage’s eyes widened. This wasn’t the same one I had met with Kostis moments earlier. Rather, she was someone I had encountered—and bickered with—a while back.

“Mage Moreland,” Aninta said with no small amount of surprise, and unsurprisingly, contrition. Looked like she still remembered the time she had tried to accuse me of stealing her job. “Um, welcome to my little stall.”

I nodded. “Nice to see you, Mage Aninta. I see you’ve moved from well, moving jobs to uh, merchanting.”

“I came by some things that I thought would procure some nice profit here at the guild. And instead of letting someone else get a cut to sell it through them, I thought I’d try my hand at it myself. I wasn’t expecting you to be one of my customers although… I’m not surprised.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Not surprised?”

“Considering the things I’ve seen and heard about you since the last time we met…” She shook her head with a little smile. “No, not surprised. Killing Scarseekers and Greater Brillwyrms and bringing an entire Great House to its knees…”

Her voice wasn’t quiet and it definitely drew some attention.

I cleared my throat. “So, the stone?”

“Right.” She picked up the pebble. “It’s a Browrust bezoar. Capable of purifying all sorts of poisons and other afflictions. Rather expensive, or that’s what I would have said if you hadn’t been the customer.”

Ah, right. The idea of bezoars curing poisons clicked somewhere in the back of my mind.

“What do you need it for?” Aninta asked.

I purchased some obviously poisonous plants next. Belladona. Even I recognized that name. “I’m going to test what happens when I poison myself and then Sacrifice it.”