Waking up was not fun. The alarm going off in my head managed to jostle me awake but I still felt like my mind had been hit by a truck, sore and like my head was a number too small for my brain. I didn’t want to get up and would have preferred to simply stay cuddled up to Sigmir, resting on her chest but at times, needs must. This was one of those times, if I wanted to maintain the image I had tried to project towards the orcs. Looking unfazed by the battle of the night, ready to go again after just a few hours sleep, it would make me seem powerful.

Forcing my mind into a semblance of order, I pushed myself up, waking Sigmir in the process. She didn’t look too happy about being awoken before dawn but if I wanted to conserve the mist, while adding to my mystery by ending my magic on my own terms, instead of simply letting the sun and nature take its course, I had to act before that happened. After a quick stretch and a tiny bit of condensed, cool mist to cleanse my face, I Sigmir and I fished some of our rations out, sharing a simple, cold breakfast before I felt ready to actually face the day.

Considerably more awake and somewhat sated, we began walking deeper into the valley, leaving the few orcs on guard-duty behind. There was something on their faces, maybe fear, maybe respect, but definite interest that made me cautious, even if I didn’t think that they would attack.

As we walked, I looked over the various notifications I had glanced over before, enjoying the fact that we had gained a massive chunk of experience, enough to propel me to level 102. That alone made me wonder just how the experience-points for major battles were distributed. If looking at just the foes my party had fought and vanquished in the night, it would have been just a few wolves, maybe just enough to account for a percent of the experience-points we had gained. That meant we got partial credit for the kills made by the orcs as well, but how did the system weigh the different contributions? Was the experience just added up before being distributed evenly? I somehow doubted it, and I wasn’t sure if even that would be enough to account for what I had gained. Which meant there was some sort of measuring system, weighing what everyone had contributed. Or maybe it simply treated the orcs and us as two distinct but allied groups, adding up all experience-points before giving each group half?

More tests were required, especially if I wanted to find out if there were ways to game the system, using some clever trick or mechanic to get ahead. Nothing that would be considered a real cheat or exploit, merely something to get me a head-start, allowing me to become and remain a relevant content-creator, without running into trouble with the terms of service. Or, if I found something, I might just report it as a loophole to be closed and rely on the knowledge I was gathering now to get that head-start.

And as I was thinking of that knowledge I was gaining, I looked at the other messages, telling me that I also had gained a point each in Ice-, Darkness- and Blood-Magic in addition to a point in enchanting. I wasn’t sure what the last point was for, I was reasonably sure that carving magical formations into living beings to be powered by their blood had never counted as enchanting before so there had to be something else. But what was sadly lost in the haze that my memories of the night were under. Again, more experimentation required, but away from prying eyes.

Finally, the numerically largest gains were in Death- and Mind-Magic. The few experiments Death-Magic I had conducted with Lenore before meeting the orcs had pushed it to level two but now it had gained five more levels, bringing it to 7. It would take some time for a real, noticable change but I was well on my way. Similarly, Mind-Magic had jumped to 22, gaining four points but the bigger gain was that my skill in Death-Magic had been incorporated into Mind-Magic, adding another 20 points to its maximum, bringing it to a maximum skill of 80. I had still no real idea what the deal was with that, how I incorporated skills into the Composite Skill but a higher ceiling was always good.

Sigmir stayed behind me as I approached the still dense mist, curious what I would find. There was still power in the mist, that much I could feel from a distance, but by now the lingering connection I kept to my magical spells had faded, leaving me less informed than I would like. Caution made me gently prod Lenore, waking her from her slumbering in my Hallow. The sleep had helped a great deal when it came to my mental sensitivity but I still wasn’t back to top form, making the idea of using the Avatar-Form again an uncomfortable one. Maybe in a day or two, but even then, it wasn’t something I wanted to do casually.

Lenore needed a moment to fully wake and understand what I had in mind, ready to provide assistance if necessary. I doubted it, at the end of the day I had created the mist so I doubted that it would be able to resist me in a meaningful fashion but caution when it came to magic was something I was trying to condition myself into. That went doubly when dealing with magical mishaps or when something had produced a far greater result than anticipated.

Reaching out with a hand and my Ice-Magic, I made connection with the mist, feeling the power within directly and forcibly keeping myself from flinching back. Somehow, Lenore and I had managed to imbue the suffering of our centaur-test-subject into the mist, turning it into a part of its structure. The instant I had made contact was the worst, the change stark and obvious. Lingering in the mist would make the pain fade into the background, a constant, nagging ache, but it wouldn’t be strong enough to truly harm someone.

No, at least the pain wouldn’t be strong enough. But with the pain, almost imperceptible, subtle and subdued was something else. Death, the antithesis of everything living, slowly seeping into me from the mist, trying to sap my life. It wasn’t powerful, not even strong enough to drain more life from me than I was naturally regenerating, but for someone weaker? Maybe someone who had yet to cross even the first Divide? They would be in trouble, at least if they lingered for a day or two.

Applying my mind, I send out my magic fully, letting it gush out to take control of the mist. There was a moment of resistance, a lingering echo of intent, but it was just that, an echo, no more, quickly overpowered and swept aside. But it also meant that I was connected to a lot of Death-Magic, increasing the amount that was flowing into me, making me wince in renewed pain for a moment before I could put a stop to it.

With the mist under my control, I started to compress it, simply Ice-magic to turn the tiny particles into larger ones, going from tiny droplets and crystals to Diamond Dust, Snow and finally a chunk of Ice, slowly getting smaller in my hand as I compressed it more and more. I was curious just how far I would be able to push things, what my limit was and so I continued on, my eyes closing in concentration.

Finally, after maybe a minute of two of concentration, I felt like something was snapping into place, a subtle but distinct change. Curious I opened my eyes to look at what I had created only to blink a few times, slightly confused at what I was seeing.

When I had started, I had simply pictured something akin to a snowball, roughly round but not perfectly spherical, before compressing it down into a rough cube. What I had ended up with looked like a rounded tear-drop, similar to a half of the yin-and-yang symbol. In addition, something I had noticed when dropping it into my hand with magic, was that it felt incredibly light. I didn’t really know how much the mist had weighed when filling the valley but I was certain that it should have been more than the few grams of mass I had now in my hand.

But the most startling, even more than the weight and shape of the object in my hand was the fact that dense, white mist had been compressed into a dark object, mostly black mottled with dark-grey flecks and some bright streaks of crimson. While I was aware that grey smog could come from black particles in the air, the change was just too stark to make sense to me who had expected at least some of the white to remain. But apparently not.

Finally, I used my ability to inspect, learning that I was holding an item called “Tear of Anguish” but the ability didn’t give me any further information than that. Shaking my head, my eyes flickered upwards from the strange object in my hand, only to widen when I saw what the mist had previously hidden.