A shaman’s magic is often called the manipulation of the Tao. This is because all spells are made using an object’s Tao name.

  Different from Sorcery, which uses and advances an individual’s aspect into multiple abilities and cultivates the soul, shamanism is about developing one’s connection to the Tao. This is why they use the bondshrooms.

  Because humans cannot naturally perceive the Tao, the first shaman, Kai Olm, created bondshrooms - a symbiotic fungi that could be used by humanity's aspect ability to grant them access to aether, and by extension, the Tao.

  ***

  Baal and Vaal had been inseparable since a young age.

  During the bonding ceremony in Kindom City when they were fourteen, they chose their bondshrooms to both support and enhance each other.

  Vaal, the oldest of the twins, chose to bond with a hardshroom - a bondshroom that grants its partner the ability to harden or weaken earth.

  Knowing this, Baal chose to the rockshroom - a bondshroom that grants the ability to move and manipulate the earth.

  Despite their youth, the twins knew that, together, their abilities would allow them to reshape and rebuild the world around them. For the next decade, whenever the two used their abilities in tandem, that was exactly what they did.

  Standing in front of the severed tail, Vaal and Baal placed their hand on the beast's flesh, having already descaled all but the end of the tail’s skin.

  As the two activated their bondshrooms, the fusion markings across their skin started to shrink. Baal’s face paled as the common pain returned as the amount of markings began to run low, and the rockshroom started to consume the flesh and muscles around his heart to produce more.

  They both willed their bondshrooms to grow and germinate toward the tail. As they continued, Baal’s face became paler and paler until he couldn’t keep quiet anymore, and a small grunt escaped his lips.

  His brother looked at him, noticing his condition. He placed his free hand on his shoulder.

  Normally, exchanging aether between different bondshroom hosts would cause a clash in the receiver’s body. This is due to the minute differences in the aspects of the bondshrooms that would linger in the transferred aether.

  However, due to the twins' similar biology and years of adaptive training, both could transfer aether to the other without causing problems.

  Baal’s face slowly began to regain colour as the additional aether lessened the burden on his rockshroom.

  After a few minutes, the pair stopped what they were doing and looked at the tail.

  Surrounding the area where Vaal’s hand had been was a region of crystal-shaped mushrooms.

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  They were a dark earthy brown colour and no more than a thumbs length tall, however, each main fungi would have anywhere between one and four branch fungi growing out the side of the crystal stem.

  This was a camouflage technique the hardshroom had developed due to its earth-hardening ability.

  Fortunately, as he had only wanted a large volume of hardshrooms, the surface under and around the mycelial zone hadn’t been hardened by its ability.

  Not far away, where Baal had placed his hand, was a smaller region filled with rich, vibrant earth coloured moss.

  As he ran his hand through it, he found some areas would be smooth, some would feel dry and crusty, and some would feel as though hard stones were hidden underneath.

  The two began to take a bag from their hips and fill them with their respective shrooms. They could consume these to allow their bondshroom markings to grow, granting them a larger aether pool.

  At Vaal’s maximum capacity, his markings would completely cover his torso and go from the base of his neck to his elbows and knees.

  Unlike his brother, due to his low affinity with rockshroom, Baal’s markings would only cover the top half of his torso and his left arm to the wrist, with a single extension running down the spine to his coccyx.

  Each brother's markings would reflect a black and white version of their bondshroom’s natural appearance.

  Once each of them had filled their bag, they began to eat everything that was left of their respective shroom patch.

  It would take a few hours for their bodies to digest the shrooms and the bondshrooms to use them as high quality fuel to expand their markings. Until then, they would cook and preserve what they had put in their bags.

  While the two were doing this, Myst was sat down examining a pile of metal scales that had been plucked from the lizard and organising them into separate groups.

  “Looks like you’re having fun,” Kai said as he approached her.

  “Somewhat.” She replied.

  “I haven’t managed to figure out the principles behind any of them yet, but I have managed to find which ones are reactive to my aspect and which aren’t.”

  “Seriously? Let me have a look.”

  Surprised, Kai bent down and channeled his aether into his eyes to observe the different groups.

  “This group is reactive. This group is a little reactive, but not much. Then this group, has no reaction.” Myst explained as she pointed to each group and told him how she had divided the groups.

  In Kai’s vision, the reactive group had a closer ratio between the rock and earth aspects. While the group with no reaction had a large ratio between the two aspects.

  What he didn’t understand was why the group in the middle all seemed to be different, with some having a close ratio and some having a large one.

  “It seems to be related to how close the balance is between earth and rock in their affinities. While having an equal amount of each doesn’t guarantee a strong reaction to lightning, having a large difference seems to guarantee that it will be weak at best.”

  “Really? Thanks.” Myst looked back over the different groups for a few seconds before speaking again.

  “I really wish I could see things like you did.”

  A mischievous smirk crossed Kai’s face.

  “It’s very easy. You just need to eat a Taoshroom. I sold a whole bundle of them when I was fourteen, they’re not hard to find.” As Kai spoke, the mirth in his voice was practically rolling off his tongue

  She rolled her eyes at him before smirking and jabbing back.

  “Yeah, and sold that bundle to a merchant for a ride to the nearest city when you could have sold just one to buy said city and its surrounding lands. Ahhh, if only all merchants were as generous as you...”

  Kai’s smug expression dropped at her retort. If he ever found another, he swore he was going to sell it for its proper price... Though he doubted she would stop teasing him about his worst deal even if he ever did.

  “Anyway, what are you planning to do with them?” He asked, quickly changing the subject.