"So, how do you want to do this?" Daniela asked, hovering over one of the spoonbills she'd charbroiled.

"One at a time?" I answered, slightly unsure. The absorption wasn't the worst pain I'd endured since arriving at the surface, but there was something about willingly 'poisoning' yourself. It could be argued that overdrawing mana had a similar result, but that often just felt like nausea or a strained muscle, not like you were being ripped up from the outside.

"I was thinking all at once, but I suppose it's best to get the hang of the process rather than just passing out," Danny agreed.

The woman gave me a nod and I nudged the dead spoonbill with my boot. The response was immediate as it crystallized faster than I'd ever seen them. I wasn't sure if it was due to the disparity in Quotients or something else, but it was wholly covered in less than five seconds. With the tinkle of breaking glass, the corpse turned into the usual Pith cloud. The shimmering energy hovered in the air for a beat before splitting three ways. I tensed my whole body as I watched the finger thin cloud flow into my chest.

Instead of leaving behind the warmth of Pith, I saw the iridescent stream get filtered as it got within a foot of my body. Like a current splitting on a rock, the Pith parted around me and a hazy brown flowed into me. The sight reminded me of what Bec had said long ago about Attunement being related to the type of Dregs remaining in the body. That was all the time I had as my already tense muscles groaned against the energy being fed into them. It was less of a strain than when we fought the luminous panthers, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless.

The next moment, however, took form around me. Glyphs sprouted off my skin, drawing in the Dreg that had been flowing into my body like a magnet and the discomfort abated. I saw a similar response from Daniela as her fiery mana swam through the air. Sam stood mute between us, eyes reflecting the light from the two spell chains.

"That's pretty awesome," he whispered as the last bits of energy faded away with .

"I'd say it's an improvement over the last time," I said.

"Ditto," Daniela answered. "You think that there are other ways to handle those Dregs? Obviously we absorbed them more or less fine the last time, fever spike and seizure aside."

"I think you might be right," I said, nodding at her words. "Gec mentioned that it was a path built around us since our Pathways were imprinted with the glyph-based Skills, instead of the more organic Gifts that some of the surface survivors have. How that shakes out we'll have to see. There are too many unknowns up in the air and as far as our group is concerned, we are breaking new ground."

"Alan is going to have an aneurysm, isn't he?" Sam said, shaking his head while releasing a sigh.

"Alan is probably our best bet at getting some answers as to just what the heck is going on. We still have that weird segregated progress on our Traits," I replied.

"Oh! Yes, let me check what I thought about," Sam said, rushing over to me without delay. His nerve spindles flashed out, probing me through my torn shirt. The healer mumbled to himself for several seconds before nodding. He didn't say anything, instead he spun and pounced on Daniela's Trait. He went back and forth between the two of us for a few minutes as he mumbled to himself.

"Well? Care to share your thoughts with the class?" Daniela said, halting Sam in place before he could start probing her neck again. The blonde seemed to snap out of his strange trance, his eyes opening and blinking as if blinded by the shaded light in the lagoon.

"You two have assimilated those changes. Most of your gill filaments have extended and Ronan, your cell walls have evened out more. Check your progress on the Traits," Sam said, the edges of his mouth curling up.

I stared at the man skeptically, but opened up my Status regardless. Most of it was unchanged, but sure enough there were two small, significant changes.

Metier Quotient: 6 (19%)

Traits:

Limestone Skin (12 [2]%) > (13 [1]%)

Quake Osseum (24%)

Slurry Ichor (8%)

Harmonic Sinew (31%)

My Limestone Skin Trait had integrated one of the two percent that had been isolated. Along with that change, the 18.75% progress that my Quotient Level had been locked at since the fight with Galloway had finally changed. Considering the two events happened at the same time, it couldn't be a coincidence. Gec's words about our progress being tied to our body made a whole lot more sense. I wasn't clear on what advancing our Quotients without building that energy into our Traits would entail, or how we might go about it, but I was at least glad to see tangible progress from our efforts.

"Okay, that's somewhat good news, but care to enlighten us as to what happened?" I said, spinning my hand in a 'go on' gesture.

"I'm not sure of the specifics, but it looked like your bodies needed something to instigate the assimilation. Perhaps it's not enough to slap some of that evolutionary potential you described, but you need to give it a nudge," Sam said, shrugging. "Or it could be magic. That's always a reasonable answer I've found."

"All I did in that last fight was cast two Skills and get my ass thrown at a tree," I complained.

"You know, there did seem to be more of the assimilated cells on your back and chest than anywhere else. Even from the parts I helped you heal," Sam added, his finger wagging in consideration.

"That pebble could have given us a better lesson on how this damn Skill works," Daniela growled, her voice rising to meet her irritation. She flicked her middle finger in the general direction of the Entity's crystal before focusing back on our conversation. "Anyways, so I have to what? Torch myself every time I want the change to stick?"

"Perhaps? Your gill filaments do seem to be temperature sensitive."

"Hold on, give me a second," I said, plopping on the ground. I'd meant to do that for the sake of resting, but the conversation had jumped topics and revelations much too fast. My thoughts drifted as I scoured the space in my mind where my Skills lurked.

Instead of the 'button' I'd always pictured in my head, the Skills were clustered as a series of knobs with a matching level for each of my Skills, miscellaneous or not. It was almost a subconscious change, but the fluctuating parameters I accessed during the Hemisphere were indelibly part of my mind. On top of that, the Skills were organized just as I'd seen them in 's whitespace. Smack dab in the middle of all of that, however, was the latest troublemaker.

Tensing slightly, I triggered . The perspective in my mind didn't actually change much, but the featureless void of my thoughts suddenly looked like someone had turned on the lights. The imagined console panel with levers and knobs was replaced by the living spell chains for my Skills as the gyroscopic Trait manipulating Skill started up.

Everything was the same; pulses echoing in from beyond my perspective, orbiting spell chains and even the path of mana leading off towards Limestone Skin's Trait Paradigm. Since that was what I was looking for, my perspective shifted as I started to move towards my Trait faster than the first time.

As I drifted, I could feel zinging particles of dust in the air. I wasn't sure what they were, but I had a good guess it was the smidge of Dreg I'd acquired from the spoonbill. That tangible change sent a trill of excitement through me again. It was like I was actually in control of everything going on in my body, instead of being set upon by the winds of change that came with the magic on the surface. I was perfectly aware it was an illusion of control in a sense, since it stemmed from Gec's given Skill, but I opted to think of it as a tool. True control would come along with my proficiency.

Ignoring the energy for now, I focused on the rippling effigy of myself hovering in the air.

Bingo. The nomenclature wasn't perfectly clear, but with Sam's observation it was easy to confirm. The was the requirement to assimilate the energy given to the Trait. Daniela had cooked herself in the tornado, hardly an inconvenience for her really, while I'd been slapped against a tree. The impact was easily managed; the injury to my shoulder was what had slowed me down during that fight.

With my question answered, I focused on pulling back the mental 'lever' for and my mind returned to the flitting soup of my thoughts. I opened my eyes and blinked them for a second in order to focus on my friends.

"--check out," Daniela complained.

"I'm sure he had a good reason, Danny," Samuel answered, putting on his patented calm-down-Daniela voice.

"He always has a good reason, Samuel. Did he even realize that we've been relying on his senses more and more? The only reason that I'm still the scout of this group is because he's a turtle in human clothing!"

"I'm right here, you know," I said, cracking my neck and standing up.

"What?" Daniela said, spinning around to face me. Her brown eyes burned, Fire Attunement notwithstanding, as she met my gaze. "You've been sitting there like a moron with a stupid grin on your face for over thirty minutes, Ron!"

"What?" I asked, my snide shot back dying in my throat. That same stupid grin on my face slipping into a concerned frown. "I felt like I was gone for maybe a minute..."

That seemed to finally give Daniela's ire some pause. She turned to Sam, asking a pointed question about how long we'd been unconscious after exciting Gec's whitespace.

"Something like an hour? I figured it was exhaustion or something because your vitals were normal. Of course, that was before you two started doing your magic twitches," the blonde answered.

"It was only a few minutes..." Daniela whispered, her anger replaced with concern. I didn't plan to ignore the words she'd said before, but right then wasn't the moment.

"All I did was activate and check on that statement for my Trait Paradigm," I said, drawing back the attention of both my friends. "I didn't know there was some time perception shenanigans going on, but can we really be surprised?"

"I suppose not considering you are basically blasting your cells with the equivalent of magical radiation hoping they change productively," Sam stated matter-of-factly.

"When you put it like that it makes me not want to do it again," I said, frown deepening.

"Then by all means ignore me. Please, do tell us what you confirmed."

Despite my worry about the lost time, I couldn't help but snort at Samuel's display of confidence. "I think you were exactly right, Sam. More specifically, the portion I think refers to the kind of stimulus required to assimilate the Dreg once it's been fed to a Trait."

"Wait, my gill’s was heat," Daniela said, slapping herself on the forehead. "Of course it's heat."

"I haven't checked my other Traits, but I would be surprised if it's not the same or something similar. The premise of each is all around mitigating damage to my body," I added.

"Same with overheating for me," Daniela said.

"Now I'm curious what mine are," Sam said with a nervous chuckle. "Mine are all about feeling and connecting to things."

"Breaking new ground," I repeated.

"I bet Clara is going to have to sniff some farts or something," Daniela wondered aloud.

"Danny!" Sam admonished.

"No, no. I think she's on to something," I agreed.

Samuel groaned loudly, eliciting a round of laughs from us. Blobby, who'd been quiet a little ways from our group, exited stealth long enough to jiggle its body as if it were laughing as well. This of course reignited our bout of laughter, and some of the tension of the day's fast paced developments drained away.

Things were getting more and more complicated while Daniela and I were on the cusp of butting heads like never before. But despite all of that, I knew that my friends were there for whatever came. I could only hope the situation didn't boil over at the worst time.