It didn’t take long for me to prepare tea, as I quickly found some suitable herbs and condensed water in the nearby forest and then brought them back to the sea, where Zerith was waiting.

“That was fast,” he said, looking at the meter-tall sphere of water that followed me with a vaguely impressed expression.

“Well,” I said, “I know my plants.”

“I think you’re underselling how your speed rivaled Hyper Fly with ease.”

“Oh, that’s what you meant. Well, just how fast is that spell, then? You can seriously fly at the speed of sound by speaking a phrase?”

He looked straight at me, bewildered. “You...don’t even speak to fly.”

I raised my finger to counter his point but set it down. “How many people can use this ‘Hyper Fly’ spell, do you think?”

He shrugged. “Not including monsters, perhaps a few hundred?” [Like hell I know!]

“Huh. Anyway, can you heat up this water?”

[Doesn’t cost enough mana for me to worry about, so why not.] He floated over to the sphere of water, then said, “Boil.” The sphere gradually began to heat up, bubbles forming inside of it and falling upward.

“Not gonna lie,” I said, disappointed. “I halfway expected you to shoot a fireball at it.”

“Why would I do that to heat up water, again?”

I shook my head. “I dunno, man. It would be cool!”

“And I don’t have much mana to spend.” He chuckled grimly. “We use Fireball to melt metal, not heat our tea.” [and sometimes to incinerate monsters.]

I left the conversation off there to ask him if the plants I’d gathered were safe, and he gave a shrug to most of them, telling me to throw out just one because it was known to irritate people’s stomachs. His medical knowledge was surprising, but I didn’t ask about it.

After I prepared everything and let the herbs sit, he asked, “So...how are we going to drink this?”

“A good question...” I guessed he wouldn’t want to be spoonfed by my telekinesis, so I produced a mug of ice from the ocean water beneath us and threw it at him. “Boom. Easy.”

He caught the mug, then looked back at me. “I don’t like cold tea.” [Or salty tea for that matter.]

“Drink it quickly then, I dunno!” I said, shaking my head in exasperation.

I ended up pouring the tea into his ice mug, and we began sipping on our plant water with pacified, underwhelmed expressions. I wasn’t too thrilled to drink via a floating sphere of water, and he wasn’t too thrilled drinking from a cup of salty ice.

“Well, as little as I’ll enjoy this tea once this mug inevitably thaws, you’ve shown you’re actually useful for things other than bashing things dead,” which I wasn’t expecting.

“Jeez!” I said, tensing my neck in disgust. “What, did you think I was some nasty killer? I can make tea too, you know!”

He shook his head. “After the last of your kind I fought...I thought you might not be of the peaceful sort.”

“Faire enough,” I admitted. “But he isn’t the best representation of the average psychic. We’re just normal people.”

“I hope so. Otherwise, your world wouldn’t be all too nice.” [And that wouldn’t make sense.]

...

He took another sip. “Ahh...I can taste the salt already.”

I glanced at the cup to freeze it again, causing Zerith to nearly drop it when the temperature suddenly dropped. “Did you just do something?” he asked.

“Yeah, I made it colder.”

“Can you make it hotter too?”

I shrugged. “Sorta? Only through fire, though. Ice, electricity, metal, stone and dirt, water, wind, and a few other elements have their own dedicated psychic fields. I can control all of them to a degree.”

“Hmm...Anyway,” he threw my cup behind him haphazardly once he’d finished chugging his tea. “At this rate, my Hyper Fly won’t last until we get back. It’s time we speed this up.”

I nodded. “If you think so. I won’t waste any more of your time than I need to.”

“Good. Now, how fast can you fly?”

“Umm...Mind if I just show you? I can put it into numbers but...it’s a bit more difficult to really understand how fast I am.”

He shrugged. “Be my guest.”

I nodded, then closed my eyes. I took in a deep breath, then psyched myself up, rolling my shoulders. Once I was ready, I flew horizontally, squeezing my barrier as thin on the horizontal axis as I could to minimize air resistance, then, in a similar manner to a torpedo, bolted through the sky.

I flew as fast as I could, fighting against the wind with all my mind, closing my eyes to stay as focused as I could.

The mental toll was deafening, giving me a headache that made my brain feel about to burst. All I could hear was the ringing sound of the wind billowing past my barrier, wearing on my ears. I quickly grew lax, my mind temporarily shorting out. Half a dozen kilometers away, I stopped and kept flying forward for a kilometer or two before bouncing off the water like a skipping stone, my subconsciously maintained barrier keeping me safe.

I shook off my mental fatigue after I skid to a stop. What I’d done was entirely impractical in a fight, or any situation, really. I could go fast, but going that fast, so fast that I easily crossed the horizon two times over in just a few seconds, seemed impossible to maintain or quickly use.

Eventually, I stood up on the water, which I solidified through telekinesis.

Zerith slowly flew towards me from the horizon and, after a half minute, managed to catch up.

As he approached, I heard his thoughts. [But if much of our culture is based off hers, why would it be any different?]

“So, what do you think?” I asked through heaving breaths.

He had a confused, almost disturbed expression and briefly ignored my question. [Maybe it’s a psychic thing? They just don’t wear it to...I dunno.]

My eyebrows narrowed. Wear what? What was he thinking about?

[I just can’t see any reason not to just wear underwear, like, what’s the point of not doing it?]

Shit.

[You know what? I don’t care. I only need to focus on what matters, not dumb-]

Shit.

Oh. When I took off I...I wasn’t wearing- He saw beneath- I-

[And what matters right now is...] “Is something wrong?” he asked worriedly. “Did you strain yourself flying that quickly? You don’t look so good.”

I simply shook my head, my expression turning inscrutable. I devoutly wanted to pretend this never, ever happened, so I quickly changed the subject. “S-so what do you think about it? I was pretty fast, right?”

[I must be overthinking things.] “Anyway...if he’s as strong as you, I’m surprised I’ve survived so many encounters with the king.”

I rubbed my head. “I doubt he was giving it his all.”

“Excluding that last time?”

“I’m...doubtful,” I said, unsure what I really meant, just trying to keep the conversation moving. Moving far, far away. I then shook my head, trying to come up with a better response. “He definitely wasn’t trying...” I said, averting my eyes. “He could’ve killed me if he really wanted to...”

In theory, at least. I had heard a lot about Azad, and everyone seemed to say he was unspeakably deadly. Five super-psychics died fighting him. Not only that, the fight had lasted days. In that time, he had caused the deaths of millions of people and individually fought about half the super-psychics alive. That he even needed to sleep was in doubt, to be honest.

Zerith rolled his head, his relaxed but stern expression unmoving as his neck cracked. “Even if that is the case, his lack of motivation should be considered a weakness. Remember, hope is a rare thing these days...” He scowled at me in a determined way, then spoke simply: “Don’t discard it, ever. ”

“You could not be more passive-aggressive about keeping hope.”

He absently fiddled with the sword at his belt, then looked up at me with a brief, smug smirk. [Is that so?] he thought humoredly. Maybe that smug expression was how he expressed his laughter, but...seriously, I couldn’t get over it; why did he even need that sword? He’s a wizard, so why..Is ‘The Hero’ just obligated to have a stereotypical fantasy weapon or something? “Moving on, what about your telekenisis?” he said.

“Telekinesis,” I corrected him, my mind hurting when I heard his slight but aggravating mispronunciation.

“Telekinesus?”

“Tele-ken-esis.”

“Telekineses?”

I grimaced. “Close enough. It’s a little weaker than my flight, and I’ve got a carrying limit.”

“So, you move things slower than you can fly?”

“Yes and no. As far as my carrying capacity is concerned, I can pretty easily make a pebble move thrice the speed of sound...” I did so with a bubble of water. “But it takes a toll on me to move too much.” I quaked as I tried to lift a few dozen houses’ worth of water out of the ocean but could barely lift it higher than ten meters before I stalled, then eventually let it crash down, my brain briefly rebooting.

I shook my head after a few seconds, then looked back to Zerith, holding my left eye in a splitting headache. “That’s everything I can possibly hold. I can’t physically hold more mass than that.”

He was looking at where the water had floated with a grimace of surprise. [So that’s what I’m dealing with...and up against.] “Hmm...but it’s a hard limit, rather than your personal limitation?” he asked.

I nodded, unable to take the headache. “I...I can’t do any more...” I fell down to the water, slow-falling, then bouncing myself on the water below, like a trampoline.

“A-are you alright!?” he asked, placing a hand on my back. [Did she drain her mana?]

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, my words smushed against my comforter of water. “But I need a few more hours of rest now. I guess...” I yawned. Well, the headache wasn’t that bad. I just liked to talk a little dramatically. “I still haven’t recovered.”

“Right...you aren’t hungry, are you?” [She doesn’t look decrepit...]

“I guess I am? Why?” I asked.

“Well, you haven’t eaten much since I found you, and people faint all the time from malnutrition...” he sounded genuinely worried like it would be an emergency. “Do you need me to get you something?”

“Nah, I’ll be alright,” I said. “but I’ll need a bit more rest before I push myself more.” I can sleep while floating, but that puts an absent pressure on my mind, enough to partially stop my brain from healing from injury. It was why I hadn’t done so since my fight with Jana...

I wondered how she was doing.

Our conversation had gotten to a point that Zerith seemed satisfied with, and we flew back to the Bastion just before his flight spell ended.

Before I went to my room, Zerith made sure he was caught up on the bulk of my abilities. Despite his worrying about my health, was more than happy to keep me talking for a good hour about my abilities in his office. Actually, he seemed to multitask complicated paperwork while still participating in the conversation. Apparently, The Hero was quite high-functioning. As I’d kept talking, his thoughts and questions became more and more obviously investigative, like he was interviewing me for a job.

Zerith eventually told me that he had to be left alone for a bit and dismissed me. He kept avoiding the reason why I needed to leave. Not that he could hide a thing -apparently, he wanted to be alone to talk with ‘Blue’.

So, he sent me to my room to take a nap, telling me to meet back up with him in three hours. Strangely, I slept like an absolute rock, and I couldn’t remember a single thing after I fell on my comforter. It was nice, though, since I was used to having pretty bad insomnia.

I probably slept for a bit more than two hours before waking up on my own. My room was as dark as it could be, so as I slipped off my bed after the nap, I quickly bopped the rock that usually illuminated the room, hanging from the ceiling, causing it to slowly glow brighter. I had figured it out on my own, but apparently, the rocks were so mundane that nobody had bothered telling me how they worked. They turned off or on when they were pushed against.

I dressed up, this time putting in a bit more effort in my appearance(I was still annoyed at that girl...Marissa, for insulting my style) and also ensuring I never, ever failed to...equip the...bare essentials.

Then, I continued the day.