Vualla paused outside of Randidly’s new, more ornate tent and admired the heavy black leather accents that were present at the corners and at the sides of the entrance. Even though it was simply a tent, the location oozed authority. Certainly, once Randidly got his body back, he hasn’t wasted any time in getting promotions.

Maybe some part of Vualla felt a tingle of jealousy, but as she examined her feelings, she was honestly rather pleased to find how… happy she was for his success. Even as an image, Randidly had possessed a determined potency that had caught Vualla’s eye. He was genuine and direct before he even had the power to back it up. He had been kind to her without expecting anything in return. It was somewhat gratifying to see that others shared the same positive opinion of him.

Of course, Vualla remained wary of Lady Iellaya even as she showed Randidly her favor. Despite having a few interactions with some of Lady Iellaya’s subordinates that were obviously very loyal, Vualla didn’t trust a woman who would climb on top of so many in order to seize power. The methodology of her Heresy made it difficult for Vualla to be comfortable with Randidly working for her.

Or are you just bitter how much you wanted to take the same Path toward strength…? Vualla asked herself.

Shaking her head, Vualla ignored the outward trappings of the tent and focused her senses to feel the energy fluctuations within Randidly’s temporary home. The whole reason that she had come today, besides her rather constant itch to seek out Randidly Ghosthound, was that Lady Iellaya had reported some… strange energies around Randidly’s tent. Specifically, Lady Iellaya had noticed a significant tang of Nether floating in the air.

It was a subtle thing and one that oddly hadn’t corroded the tent or the surrounding area. Which was why Lady Iellaya had been able to suppress the alarm of her subordinates who discovered it. Despite the fact that it felt like Nether, it didn’t seem to behave like Nether. So Lady Iellaya could explain it away just as Randidly reaching the five-star level. But Lady Iellaya did need it to stop before anyone from headquarters discovered it, and sent for Vualla to discover the cause.

Vualla knocked lightly on the front of the tent, aiming for the central pole so the noise of her knock carried. “Randidly?”

There was no answer. And also not a hint of movement within. Just as Vualla was about to push her way in to check if he was asleep, the flap slid open and revealed the stretched face of Salazar. “O-our l-l-leader has left again. W-when he c-c-c-came back and smelled l-like N-n-n-nether, I j-just-”

“Back out to the supply track? Well, thanks for the info.” Vualla nodded and favored Salazar with the warmest smile she could manage. It wasn’t that Randidly treated his subordinates badly, but there was certainly a…. Carelessness with which he approached the subject of leadership. As though the management should take a backseat to proficiency in related Skills. And this specimen was a particularly egregious example of nerves. Within significant reassurance, his stutter rapidly escalated.

But Salazar was having none of her warm reassurance. After delivering the message, he allowed the tent flap to swing back closed in Vualla’s face.

After suppressing an unrealistic impulse to crush the man’s stupid snake face into the ground, Vualla turned on her heel and rapidly hurried over to the supply track. She moved so quickly that when she breezed past some of the soldiers, they were put on alert by her quick movements. But she quickly paused and used her hand to give the all-clear sign before hurrying forward while flushing.

Jeez, look at me, rushing to see a boy… ugh, in some ways I’m sorta glad that father isn’t around to see me like this…

As soon as she made even the slight joke, Vualla’s chest tightened in the horrible grip of depression. So much so that she stumbled to a halt and had to bring a heavy iron gauntlet up to press her forehead against the cool metal. Slowly, the urge to vomit receded. ...probably too soon to make a joke like that. Take it easy Vualla. You are… fine.

It took a minute for her breathing to stabilize and then she continued out of the camp.

Vualla found Randidly crouched only a short way past the supply track, but hiding behind a rather big rock outcropping so that no one could directly see what he was up to. From the track, he was completely hidden. Pale emerald flames flickered into and out of existence around Randidly and Vualla could see that he was gently moving his hands over a small object that was steadily growing in front of him.

Seeing him now still hit Vualla with physical mass. She could only see the side of his face, but his gaze was so incredibly concentrated that she slowed to a walk as she approached. Her chest felt tight in an entirely different way than she had earlier, as all the things that she wanted to say to him were clamoring for the first opportunity to walk up her throat and across her tongue.

Unsurprisingly, he quickly noticed her despite her modest attempts to approach quietly. He looked up and flashed a private smile toward Vualla; it was all the invitation that she needed to move to his side.

But as she approached, Vualla’s mouth twisted. As she grew closer, it became increasingly clear that his aura had… changed. It was powerful in a way that Vualla had never seen before, but that was only because it appeared that Randidly had somehow managed to cleanly integrate Aether and Nether through himself.

Because that scent of Nether was still swirling through his aura. There were layers to Randidly’s aura, the same several images that Vualla had seen before, but to have the two energies entwined like this… Despite the fact it was Randidly, it put her somewhat on guard.

While Vualla was approaching, his attention remained intently fixed on the object in front of him. Gradually, Vualla’s attention was dragged back from Randidly’s aura to that object as the tree he was carefully tending to grew upward at a visible pace. The bright green of its budding leaves reminded Vualla of his eyes.

Vualla purposefully injected some amusement into her tone as she critically scanned Randidly’s indirect method of injecting energy into the tree. “Can’t you control plants? Why do this in such a roundabout way? Or why not just make an absorption array so that you lose less energy into the air?”

Chuckling, Randidly sat back on his haunches and cracked his neck. “Unfortunately… my ability to control plants comes with a cost; any plant I touch directly will quickly turn to ash once I let go of it. Which is why I need to be careful with the Skill… and honestly...”

Randidly seemed embarrassed and scratched his cheek. “...I don’t know how to make an absorption array powerful enough to be helpful.”

“Ha! You are kinda a bad Heretic, aren’t you? Modified absorption arrays are generally the way most people start down the Path of the Heretic. But then again, you never were one to take the easy Path…” Vualla walked to Randidly’s side and began to use one of the long metal fingers of her gauntlet to rapidly draw a series of runic sigils in the dirt beside them.

Halfway through, Vualla paused. That cannot be right, right? You would waste so much overflow this way. Better to add an intermediary array too so that the tree doesn’t get overwhelmed by the pressure… Mirrored stabilization around the core… how much energy can plants absorb, anyway…?

For several minutes, Vualla got lost in the minutia of crafting the array. Not only had she studied the subject extensively as a child, but Vualla had gathered quite a lot of practical experience in energy utilization since arriving at the frontlines. It was only due to those tricks that she had survived. And she brought all of her experience to bear as she studiously crafted the array.

There obviously had to be a wider containment area with all the changes to the interior of the array, and then a mechanism that gathered all the energy in the containment area and provided it to the tree. The delivery could be more wholistic, just based on the principles of energy singularities, yet that would mean that it would rely primarily on Randidly maintaining the proper energy density to control its output.

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Vualla continually revised her exact plans for that mechanism. If I make to antagonistic flows of energy and run them against each other, the pressure should refine the energy into a more consumable form. The only problem is how volatile the energy will then become… maybe a core array that is also powered directly by Randidly or I? After all, we both have the energy to spare- this isn’t supposed to be a broken Heretical array-

Vualla froze as she realized that Randidly had been silent for some time. She hurriedly cast her mind back and realized that she had been working furiously for several minutes. Coughing, she finished off a few details and took a step back from the fully three meters of array runes that she had hastily sketched out. “Yes… well. Something like this would probably suit your needs…”

Vualla coughed again into her hand when Randidly regarded her intently for several seconds. Then he looked down at the arrays with gleaming eyes. “Vualla, you… you truly are a genius. I’ve done a little with energy transformations, but compared to that… man, my work was rough.”

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, Vualla shrugged. “I haven’t had much of a chance to work with runes since coming to the frontlines… but most of what I studied when I was home was Engraving and Aether Mechanisms. Although they are put into practice differently when it is internal, the same sort of principles apply to how you utilize energy. So it ended up being pretty relevant to how to fight, especially once my images became strong enough to matter.”

Grinning at Vualla, Randidly rapidly began to sketch out the array that Vualla had outlined around his tree. There were a few times that Vualla forced her mouth to open and correct the shapes that Randidly was drawing, but she was inwardly very impressed by how even his Mana distribution was.

In Vualla’s experience, Mana was much harder to manage than Aether when making these sort of Engravings, so to see his smooth movements was an eye opening experience. And utilizing Mana as the base for the array would draw a lot less suspicion from the System.

After working together for a few minutes, the array was completed and hummed to life. Then Vualla received her second shock as she watched Randidly absolutely dump energy into the array in order to fuel the growth of the tree. Which resulted in her third shock, as Vualla could see that while the tree was now growing quite a bit faster, it wasn’t that much faster.

“What the hell is this tree that it requires so much energy to grow?” Vualla asked in wonder.

Randidly looked at her, and then, of all things, he blushed. “It’s… a gift. But I had to do a few work arounds to get near to the flavor I wanted, so… it’s a bit complicated.”

Still, Vualla could quickly realize why Randidly was so embarrassed. As the three grew, she immediately recognized the stubby trunks and the spade-like leaves. After another minute, the first small fruits began to grow out of the branches. And to Vualla’s shock, the speed of growth slowed to an absolute crawl as soon as the fruits appeared.

Randidly shook his head rather helplessly. “Yea, this is the hard part. I didn’t really how much energy making the fruit into trees and then trying to harvest more fruit would take…”

Vualla just watched silently. Because she knew what this was; Randidly was growing oranges to pay her back for the entire flask that he had devoured. Which made Vualla’s eyelid twitch to remember, but her heart softened as she saw how earnestly he poured his energy into the creation of these fruits.

It’s not like it would be a problem for Eliot to get me another, but for him to make me some himself… Vualla’s heart fluttered.

Then it started to beat rapidly as she began to pay more attention to the amount of energy that Randidly was casually pumping out into array. And from the relaxed expression on his face, he wasn’t nearing his limit.

“Uh, Randidly,” Vualla finally said. “Are you… sure you aren’t a Heretic? That’s… a lot of energy. Like a ridiculous amount of very pure energy.”

Randidly, the smug bastard, actually had the gall to chuckle.