Looting the tea store was even more worthwhile than I had ever imagined.

As soon as we reached our lair after the successful looting, I decided to brew myself a cup of tea. I wanted to see just how good a tea needed to be to command such a, at least in my eyes, ridiculous price. Maybe it was one of those rich-people things, where they didn’t buy the tea for the taste but for the price-tag, to show their rich compatriots just how much money they could waste on expensive tea. Or maybe some sort of money laundering scheme, allowing them to funnel money elsewhere while justifying it with the excuse that the tea was just that expensive.

That might even have been the case before the change but now, after the Astral River had infused our world, the tea I had taken from the store was truly something special. Just brewing it had unleashed a faint dual fragrance, the scent of tea blending with the scent of magic, making it obvious that the change hadn’t passed the leaves by. They had been changed, just as much as I had, and the scent was mouthwateringly good.

My first sip was a cautious one, even if the scent alone made me want to gulp the tea down as quickly as possible. There was no telling just what the inclusion of magic into the blend might have done to the tea, just because the scent, and thus likely taste, was delicious didn’t mean that it was healthy to drink. After thoroughly scanning it with my magic sight, I was confident that a single sip wouldn’t kill me but I wasn’t about to be careless. It would be the height of irony if I managed to kill myself because I was baited by a delicious tea. Amusing enough to make me laugh all the way to the afterlife but not something I was about to risk. And so, I remained vigilant and limited myself to a single small sip.

And what a sip it was. I let it linger on my tongue for a bit, thoroughly tasting it as shivers of delight ran across my body and I only just managed to suppress a moan of pleasure at the taste. It was, without a doubt, the best tea I had ever tasted, maybe the best thing, period. Light, yet flavourful, akin to a cool breeze during a hot summer day, the first petals of spring in the air. It made me want to wax poetically or try to sing, despite an utter lack of talent for either. In regards to negative effects, no matter how I focused my senses inwards, no matter how I scanned and tried to find any, I failed. Maybe the tea really was safe, the only effect I could detect was an increase in the amount of Astral Power I was regaining. Not a tremendous increase, but it was enough to be noticeable.

Letting my breath out slowly, it almost turned into a content sigh. The tea was incredible and I had to keep myself from immediately taking another sip. Instead, I closed my eyes and kept an eye on the processes within myself, mostly using my Blood Magic but also my ordinary magical perception. I could feel how traces of something were absorbed into my body and I was reasonably certain that they didn’t harm me, but what they actually did, I had no idea.

For some five minutes, I kept a very close eye on my internal processes, until my vigilance was satisfied. Sure, after that point I continued my watch for another five minutes, to satisfy my paranoia as well but once that, too, was satisfied I took another sip. And kept drinking it, until the entire pot was empty.

As I slept the morning away, I had once more strange dreams, with faint sensations, almost as if something was calling me. There were some strange images, nothing but outlines, but I thought they might be a ritual circle, maybe runes or maybe I was just imagining things. I wasn’t sure and I couldn’t be sure, not unless I got a better view of what I had seen. Or maybe imagined, when I tried drawing the images I had seen in the morning, it might have been a Rorschach test for all I could glean from it.

Putting those aside, I made myself another pot of tea and kept working on my magic, closing my eyes to delve into the Astral River to find myself a new Ice Rune. There were a few I really wanted to regain, Shatter, Hard Ice and Icicle, all were interesting and somewhat important. Letting myself drift in the Astral I began to consider, my mind going over the different concepts as I considered what would be best. There were other runes I remembered but I doubted I would be able to learn them just yet. Stillness had always been a rather transcendental concept, while things like Liquid Moonlight were based on experimentation, lesser runes and understanding. I could remember the feeling of it, but I lacked the power to produce the feeling, I would have to regain more of my power before I could reach for those stronger runes. Even reaching for Hard Ice would be a stretch and not necessarily a beneficial one.

Shatter would give me incredible damage against any fleshy targets that could be penetrated with my Ice, the explosive force of an Icicle shattering within a target was one of the deadliest weapons within my arsenal. Even just shattering Icicles in the air, turning them into razor-sharp shrapnel to rip into my foes was quite dangerous, though far less deadly.

Hard Ice was the straight upgrade to my Ice, giving me a higher density, both magical and mundane, while opening a few interesting things up, like better weapons for myself.

Icicle was an outlier, as it was a concept I had never finalised as a rune on Mundus. There, I had merely used Hard Ice as material for my attacks, turning the Hard Ice into frozen spears with my Ice Magic. Gaining the Rune would increase my magical efficiency by quite a bit, but would also limit my options somewhat. In addition, I would have to consider which of the Ice Runes I had learned on Mundus would be discarded, though the Torpor rune was a good contender. If I wanted to send an opponent to sleep, Mind Magic was simply the better option.

Letting my magic flow freely, I weighed the different runes, feeling the ebb and flow within me, within the Astral and trying to let both rational thought and instinct guide me. Ultimately, I settled on the Icicle Rune.

Within the Astral, I could feel how an Icicle slowly grew, drawn into its sharp, almost fang-like shape as time passed. Sharpened by time itself, until heaven send them plummeting to the ground, akin to a javelin piercing any target that was unlucky enough to be in the way. The rune wasn’t gentle, nor complicated it was a simple concept that would serve a single purpose.

It might not be the rune with the greatest impact or potential for direct growth but I had a good feeling about the combination of Icicle and Blizzard. It wouldn’t be the Frozen Javelin I had commonly used on Mundus, it would be something bigger, something stronger. If I managed to push myself in regards to the Hard Ice Rune, maybe even managing to learn it without delving into the Astral River for it, I would likely have the strongest single-target piercing spell I would get for a while. A workhorse, something that I could take and use for a long, long time as my go-to weapon. Just what I wanted and hopefully, something that would allow me to fight to my full potential.

Opening my eyes, I took another sip of tea, letting the pleasant taste flood through me, before I moved into the area we had designated as our training and experimentation room. Lia was hard at work, once again pushing herself physically, but when I entered she took a break, watching what I did.

Drawing the runes with practised movements, I quickly formed a simple three-rune formation, using the freshly acquired Icicle Rune, a Blizzard Rune to give things direction before adding an Ice Rune to round things out. The three runes flashed with my power the moment they were completed and an Icicle about the size of my arm shot out, leaving a faintly glittering trace in the air before crashing into the wall with a brutal crunch. I hadn’t put enough oomph into the spell to damage the wall, but just from the noise, could tell that the spell had quite the impact.

“A new creation, Mistress?” Lia quietly asked, looking a little awestruck.

“Something new, yes,” I nodded, briefly studying her body, “But it is nothing I need to experiment with at the moment, would you like me to observe your forms, give you a few hints? We have more than enough time, and I believe if I give you a bit of blood later, you should be ready to go during the night.”

The only answer I got to my suggestion was a gleeful squeal, before Lia threw herself back into her training, with me sitting nearby, watching my student move. There was a strange feeling within my chest, warm, almost glowing, as I observed her growth. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I liked it.