Arran worked through the night, then into the next day, foregoing breaks and sleep as he absorbed Essence Crystals one after the other. With each new Essence Crystal, he could feel his affinity to Essence growing stronger — more and more, it felt like his Essence was part of him, rather than some alien substance he could only barely manipulate.

After just a day, Arran had finished absorbing the Purified Essence of close to a hundred Essence Crystals, and the effect left him marveling at how much his control of Essence had improved.

Previously, it had been like writing a letter while holding the pen with only his elbows, and looking back now, he was almost amazed that he had managed to succeed in casting spells at all.

But now, things were completely different. He could feel that the Essence was truly his to control, to be used however he wanted, and the awkward clumsiness he had always felt while wielding magic was rapidly melting away.

He finally began to understand the real difference between the Shadowflame mages and Academy mages he had met. If other Shadowflame mages had this kind of control, then Academy mages would be like cripples compared to them.

He felt that even more progress lay at his fingertips, and excited with the prospect, he continued to work his way through the Essence Crystals. He continued until he could go no more, stopping the work only because his weariness finally began to interfere with his concentration.

Then, he paused to sleep, though not for more than a few hours. And within minutes after he awoke, he set to work again.

He spent the second day much like the first, continuously absorbing Purified Essence and slowly transforming his body into something more suitable for wielding magic.

Yet where the first day had seen him advance by leaps and bounds, the second day's gains came far slower. By now, each new Essence Crystal only barely brought him any noticeable gains, and it seemed that it took him half a dozen crystals just to get the progress he gained from a single one on the first day.

Still, he did not let up. He continued to advance, albeit more slowly, and by the end of the second day he had burned through another hundred Essence Crystals.

Again, he slept only when he became too tired to continue, and he began his work anew the moment he woke up.

The third day saw his progress slow even further. Now, he needed a full dozen Essence Crystals just to make any discernible progress, but he persevered nonetheless — even at this slower pace, he was still achieving in hours what would have taken years otherwise.

Only after he had rested again, on the fourth day, did he finally stop.

So far, he had worked his way through more than three hundred Essence Crystals, and he knew that any further progress would take both time and numerous crystals — although that did not stop him from wanting to continue.

But first, he wanted to see the results of his work.

He started off by trying out his Shadowsight, and soon found that his Sense seemed to have improved along with his control, if nowhere near as much. Yet although he could now spread the mist of Shadow Essence a good thirty paces around him before it became too thin to Sense, the improvement was somewhat of a disappointment.

With a thought, he tried to move the mist, and immediately, he felt excitement at the result. It seemed that while he could still not expand the mist much further, his control had increased to the point where he could manipulate it without much effort.

Curious to see how far this control would go, he opened the door of his room and sent an invisible cloud of Shadow Essence into the hallway. Soon, a smile appeared on his face as he discovered that he could both control and Sense the cloud even at nearly two hundred paces away.

Even if this wouldn't let him instantly know everything that happened around him, it would allow him to search a sizable area without having to move, and far faster than he would be able to otherwise.

Encouraged by the result, he quickly moved on to trying a spell, but here, his options were limited. Of the spells he knew, only Force Shield could be used at full power without doing serious damage to the keep. But that was good enough — if his control of that spell had improved, then the same would doubtless hold true for the others.

Eager to see the results of his labor, he quickly created a Force Shield, and at once, he was astounded at the change in his abilities.

If the improvement in his Shadowsight had left him smiling, the improvement in his Force Shield brought a wide grin to his face, and he was only barely able to keep himself from shouting in excitement.

It had previously taken him a moment to form a Force Shield, but now, he could do so almost instantly. And not just that, he could tell that the Shield was denser than before, which meant that it would be stronger as well.

That alone would have been enough to be worth the Essence Crystals he had used up, but with his newfound control, he discovered that he was also able to move and maneuver the Shield with ease.

Previously, using the spell was like creating an immobile barrier, but now, he found that he could use much it like an actual shield. In a real fight, that meant he would be able to move it to meet different attacks.

It almost seemed too good to be true. In a few days, his power had leaped ahead, progressing far more than he could have foreseen. If his other spells had improved just as much — and he was almost certain they had — then defeating his past self from just days ago would now be a trivial matter.

His progress left him stunned for some moments, but then, he decided to set to work again. He knew there was more progress to be had, and even if it wouldn't be as fast as it had been before, each step brought him closer to his goal.

He took another Essence Crystal from the void bag, but he had only barely begun to absorb its contents when several loud knocks sounded on his door.

"Enter!" he called out, unwilling to interrupt his work.

The door opened a moment later, and Arran was unsurprised to see that it was Snowcloud. He had known the work of sorting through the ingredients would only take her a few days, and it seemed she had finally finished it.

From the weary look of her face, he doubted that she had slept more than a few hours since arriving in Goldhaven, yet there was something eager in her expression, as if she was on the verge of completing a difficult task.

It seemed Lord Sevaril had not lied when he said he found all but a handful of the ingredients she needed to cure the Sixth Valley's Patriarch.

"You got your hands on some Essence Crystals?" she asked, recognizing what Arran was doing.

"I did," he replied. Right now, he saw no need to inform Snowcloud of the full extent of his newly acquired treasures.

"Good," she said. "You'll need every bit of power you can get where we're going."