Nothing much happened on our way back to the gym, there were a few Shattered but none that were actually worth killing. The speed at which they gained level had slowed down a little, most of them were still between six and nine, meaning there was little to be gained if I killed them. Not unless I got really creative, or used one of my under-used skills. Skills like Unarmed Combat, my Dual Blades or even the recently acquired Death Magic, if I were to purely fight with those, they would rise. Against some Shattered, I did just that, pushing myself to get those ranks, even if I wasn’t certain they would ever be useful. I doubted that I’d ever manage to push them to the same level as my primarily used magic skills.

It wasn’t a lot of fun, especially as I had a niggling suspicion that my skill-gains were lowered due to the low risk I was under, simply due to my ability to destroy them at a moment’s notice with the combination of Darkness and Mind-Magic I had been starting on or with my Ice Magic. Others were left to Silva, though I had no idea if her skills actually went up or if she merely enjoyed playing with them as if Shattered were her version of a doggy-chew toy.

Either way, by the time we were back at the gym, I gained two points in Unarmed Combat, one in Dual Blade Mastery, and another one in Death Magic. All in all, good gains but compared to the rest of my skills, they were lagging behind at level five for Unarmed Combat, three with the Blades, and two with Death Magic.

On the way back, we had also decided on our new shelter. It wasn’t anything special, simply a house that had escaped the fire and while some of the windows had been shattered at some point, it was still intact enough to serve us. Getting in had been trivial, without anyone to call the police, or the police in general, nothing stopped me from climbing through a broken window, after my frozen Shuttle removed the remaining glass. Once inside, I just had to kill the pair of Shattered in residence, something I managed without spilling any blood thanks to my Darkness and Mind-Magic, and open the door with the key still in the lock. Trivial.

Less trivial was the removal of the slightly decayed corpses, ripped to shreds by the Shattered and dealing with the weird feelings I got from it. Maybe my discomfort stemmed from the story the bodies, and Shattered, told, of the husband who got killed by his wife turned Shattered and their younger child, who likely was done in by their older brother. Even knowing that I had given peace to the wife and brother didn’t really help, nothing really did. Not even a brief cuddle with Silva, after rolling the bodies into their bloody sheets and dragging them out, helped. I simply felt… weird.

Regardless of my weird feelings, I still managed to get back to the gym before the sun rose, thankfully the nights were still quite long and the dense cloud cover only made things easier for me. Near the gym, Silva and I were welcomed without undue scrutiny and could get inside and under cover. I even managed to secure some food, this time taking from the supplies in the gym. Granted, I also placed some of the supplies I had foraged during the night into their storage, so I didn’t feel bad about it, especially as what I had taken would perish before the stuff I had replaced it with.

While I was stuffing my face, a few people came over to ask about magic and magic training. I managed to keep things civil, even if a part of me just wanted to growl at them until they went away. Luckily, I noticed Mr Wong, the person who had reported to Mrs Wu the day before and waved him over. WIth him there, fewer people would bother me and I had actually something important to tell him.

Namely, the location of multiple other groups of survivors, I hadn’t really mentioned them to Mrs Wu the day before. Only after noticing the light during the night had I remembered that more people might be something they were interested in, either to recruit or to ally with in some fashion. It was a dangerous world out there and additional hands could be useful.

He had an obvious interest in the group at the YMCA, even if a part of me bristled at telling him about it due to the divine influence there. The group in the field, on the other hand, required additional investigation in the form of an old, paper map. It was spread across the table and we had to estimate distances and angles until we had a relatively good idea of where the light had been. There were a few, old farmsteads out there, families that had farmed the land for decades, in some cases centuries, but which one had been illuminated was difficult to guess. But that there were other people out there was of obvious interest to him and everyone within earshot. That the news distracted the people around me from asking questions about magic was a pleasant side benefit, allowing me to escape with relative ease.

After eating, I wanted to test the Water-Rune I had gained from helping Kevin learn Rune Magic. I had no idea if I could use it, or how it would function and I wanted to know. I had pushed the experiment back, simply because I wanted to use the night to work on my actual combat skills and I doubted that water would ever become part of those. So, shortly after my return to the gym, I was standing in the defunct showers, the incoming waterpipes emptied to prevent trouble and slowly drew the strange rune.

Even with my extensive experience in drawing runes, I needed a few tries. The difference in, for lack of a better word, alphabet was just too much for my fingers to adapt, making me wonder where the difference stemmed from. Unless it was a rather strange coincidence that Blood, Darkness and Ice used the same alphabet, while Water and possibly other elements used another, it had to come from me. Possibly some connection to those runes through my Race, that I instinctively used an Elven, maybe Firn-Elven style, while Kevin, the human, used a different one. I wasn’t sure and by the end of it, I didn’t really care. My fingers were starting to cramp but at least, I had managed to draw the rune.

No formation just yet, simply the individual rune and a slow, careful amount of Astral Power channelled into it. That resulted in an equally slow dribble of water pouring from it, somewhat like a faucet at a quarter-strength. Closing my eyes, I tried to estimate how much power I needed to keep it at this level, trying to calculate how much water I could create, when the rune fizzled out, sending a jolt of backlashing pain through my skull. Apparently, I couldn’t channel power into Water-runes as easily as I could into Darkness, Blood or Ice-Runes, but I should have expected that. Nevertheless, I was now able to conjure water, in a volume that could easily sustain Silva and me, unless I was in some state that permanently drained my Astral Power. Like, constant exposure to the sun.

And not only could I provide all the water to sustain us, but I might also be able to create an actual shower, if I managed to increase the amount of Astral Power I could channel through the Water-Rune, or incorporate it into a runic formation. A cold shower, sure, but I didn’t mind that part too much.

Sadly, my headache precluded any further experimentation and with a sigh, I headed to bed, avoiding as many people as possible. Luckily, it was early enough and only a few people were up and about, most of whom were in the dining room, keeping the number of people I had to ignore as low as possible. Thanks to Mrs Wu, I kept my own room and from the next day, I would retreat into the building I had cleared earlier, making people who wanted lessons come to me during the day, instead of having to hang around the gym. The building was just a block from the guarded area, so the trek should be mostly safe, the small amount of risk acting as a small hurdle. Those who wanted to learn magic should have the courage to overcome such a small obstacle, or they could just beg, scrape and humiliate themselves before the Divine. A bit of Pride was needed, to start out on the Arcane Path.

Or maybe I was just evil, the jury was still deliberating on that one.

Sleeping still felt awkward, the constant, low din preventing me from a true, restful slumber but cuddled up to Silva, I mostly managed. She had somehow managed to put on even more muscle, likely thanks to her levels and increased strength and I was pretty sure she was outmassing me now by over fifty percent, weighing in at something around ninety kilograms, without any real fat on her body. Just a lot of fur-covered muscle, making her a wonderful companion in a fight and a perfect warm blanket when it was time to sleep. In combination with her canine loyalty, her presence helped to calm me tremendously, allowing me to get any sleep.