Long moments passed as Glade’s adrenaline induced anger calmed enough for him to break down the problems he was facing. The most pressing matter was that he couldn’t do anything with his mana manipulation to aid Kedryn. Everything else was pointless if he couldn't resolve that issue.

  An oddly worded phrase caught Glade’s attention as read through the warning yet again.

  “Without express permission,” Glade muttered aloud, the distractions of the wind and rain shoved carefully to the back of his mind. According to Bragden, opening mana channels was a tried and true practice that had been perfected over the centuries. Magic users, so long as they had access to the correct attunement and requisite skills, would do the bulk of the heavy lifting.

  Logically, that meant said mages regularly gained the necessary access to other people’s mana pools. The question was, did it require a certain skill or was it something more direct? If it was a skill, then he was out of luck. But if all he needed was permission, then he needed to find a way to communicate with Kedryn during a raging storm.

  Fortunately for him, he had such a method.

  “Kedryn, are you there?” Glade projected, activating his telepathy skill.

  A long moment passed before the Corporal responded.

  “I’m here sir,” Kedryn replied slowly, his mind radiating extreme strain.

  “I’m sorry to have put you into this situation, Kid,” Glade explained in as heartfelt a manner as he could. He was about to move onto the reason why he had linked minds when Kedryn interrupted.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kedryn snorted, which was honestly quite the feat seeing as they were still using telepathy. Glade was kind of impressed. “I’m the one that drank the potion without reading the warning label first. But if it’s all the same to you, can we table this conversation for later? Managing the influx of mana isn’t as easy as I make it look.”

  Glade shook his head at the casual gesture of good will, however misplaced it might be. Kedryn’s intent may be genuine as far as he could tell, but the reality of the situation was that he had been the one to push the Kid into drinking that potion. Had even gone so far as to hand it to him.

  No, this was his fault and he would find a way to make it right.

  “That’s not why I reached out to you,” Glade projected, organizing his thoughts. “I’ve located your air channel blockage using my astral magic. If I can get access to your mana pool, I should be able help you…”

  Before he had even finished the statement, a prompt appeared.

  Glade slammed his fist into the deck, his teeth grinding in frustration. Why did this have to be so hard?

  Though, it hadn’t escaped his notice how quickly Kedryn had responded to his request. Not even a moment’s hesitation before the Kid had tried granting him access. That was a level of trust he wasn't sure he deserved.

  Brushing the surge of emotions such thoughts brought up aside, Glade focused on how best to overcome this most recent obstacle.

  “Sorry that didn’t work,” Kedryn sent, his thoughts strained.

  “Not your fault Kid. Apparently, I need a skill called Arcane Knowledge. But don’t worry. I’ll figure something out.”

  Maybe he could use his Will ability to either force the connection or bypass it?

  “Have you already used your reward from increasing our bond to the second degree?” Kedryn interrupted, his mental voice wavering.

  Glade’s confusion must have been evident because Kedryn shared a notification with him a moment later.

  Glade face palmed. Less than two days ago he had promised himself he would do better at remembering the many quests and rewards he had received, just like this one. How could he have forgotten already ?

  Growling out his frustration, Glade flicked through Kedryn’s status page to his listed skills. Sure enough, Arcane Knowledge was there. And it was already leveled to 8.

  Of course, Kedryn had already leveled it as high as he could on his own.

  Pushing down another growl of frustration, Glade made his choice.

  Glade ignored the insult and focused solely on the influx of information that cascaded into his mind. Learning like this had always been a bit off for him. Sure, the easy buttons in this world were helpful, but it didn’t change the fact that this method of learning was just… weird. Previously unknown insights on mana flows, mana efficiency, and other topics he had never studied before flooded into his mind without context or true understanding. Sure, he now knew that mana convergence was a thing and could happen whenever two or more mages began casting indiscriminately around each other, but that didn’t explain to him what an inadvertent convergence would actually do. Would it explode? Cancel each other’s spells out?

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  Something to ask Bragden about later.

  “Got it,” Glade projected before another prompt appeared.

  Not ideal, but better than he had expected.

  Without further delay, Glade cast his mana manipulation spell and shared what he could via their telepathic link. With any hope, the Kid’s hyperactive brain would take the information provided and come up with a solution.

  A muffled cry of pain reached Glade’s ears as Kedryn doubled over.

  “I can’t hold onto the image… and work my mana… at the same time,” Kedryn mentally cried out.

  The surge of panic that came over their shared link crushed Glade’s barely restrained hold on intervening. Knowing his decision was fraught with risk, he grabbed a fistful of mana from inside Kedryn’s pool and pulled.

  Far more mana than he could have handled previously was torn from Kedryn’s body, followed quickly by a sharp cry of pain loud enough for both Glade and Bragden to hear over the storm.

  “Kedryn!” Glade cried out in panic, holding the lump of yellow mana in front of him as he quickly scanned the Kid for any internal damage he may have caused.

  “What’s happening boy?” Bragden yelled over the storm, moving closer so he could help hold Kedryn up.

  “Oh, thank God!” Kedryn sagged in relief, the strain in his thoughts vanishing outright. “I’d say let’s not do that again because it hurt like hell, but I can actually breathe now!”

  “Glad you’re feeling a bit better,” Glade did his best to keep the fear from being projected with his thoughts as he took in Kedryn’s internal mana system. Nothing looked out of place, but that didn’t mean much seeing as he had no idea what to even look for.

  He waived Bragden off as the Adjudicator’s warning about irreparable harm again flashed through his mind.

  “Can you try sending that image to me before my mana pool fills back up?” Kedryn asked.

  Glade did as he was asked. The spell would last as long as he continued to hold the mana he had just extracted from Kedryn’s body.

  “This is incredible!” Kedryn sent back, looking over his mana pool with intense focus. “There is no way I could have found the mana block without it. Now , let’s see if I can work a miracle.”

  “I only have a few minutes left before I have to drop the spell,” Glade warned. There was a brief acknowledgment before Kedryn’s presence faded.

  Rolling his neck, Glade began working their next problem – expanding the duration of his spell. He had 80% of his mana left but knew that wouldn’t last long.

  Again, his thoughts turned to Will. He could temporarily boost his mana pool by increasing his intelligence, but that was more of a last resort. The boost only lasted for a few seconds at a time. Great for a fight where he needed an edge in battle, but useless if he needed to enhance his ability over the course of days.

  He still had some unallocated attribute points, but all that would do is buy him a few more minutes. He needed hours.

  Knowing there wasn’t much time left, Glade dove into his long list of rewards and notifications. Minutes passed as he rapidly perused outstanding quests and notifications, wracking his brain for anything that could possibly help. Nothing he found seemed to fit what he was looking for.

  “I need to drop the spell,” Glade warned as he dismissed another useless notification from his archive.

  “No worries, sir. I think I have what I need for now,” Kedryn sent back, then went silent.

  Glade leaned heavily against the ship’s railing as he released both his telepathy and manipulation spell, the ball of air mana he had extracted from Kedryn fading back into the cyclone of magic.

  A sense of defeat washed over him as he helplessly watched Kedryn shift into that ridiculously complex lotus position he was so fond of. He had done everything he knew how. Now, it was up to Kedryn. If only there was a manual he could reference.

  Glade’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, his stomach fluttering as a half-forgotten memory of reading through a large tome came to mind. There had been something about specializations that had caused Bragden to nearly have an aneurism…

  In moments, he pulled up the cascade of notifications outlining the specializations he had qualified for. Specialist of Mind, Spirit, Enchantment, Summoning, and Divination were reviewed and summarily discarded, which left one more.

  The moment he read through the prompt something within his mind clicked into place. Whichever Adjudicator had provided the earlier warning had been leading him here, to this specialization.

  The metaphor of the blind squirrel came back to him. He was almost positive that had come from Acumen himself. The petty jab was his calling card after all. But who had sent the other message, and more importantly, why? A part of him wanted to dismiss the prompt altogether and let the scenario play out as is. It grated on him that he was being used in such a way, and in turn, how it affected those around him. Did one of the Adjudicators set the conditions that led to their current situation?

  He wouldn’t put it past them. From his limited interactions with the eight powerful beings, they most definitely had an agenda. The question was if he wanted to dance to their tune?

  Glade pondered the question as he watched Kedryn sit in that ridiculous pose of his, the spray of water washing over the deck as the Dragonling speared through yet another cresting wave. The whole situation was absurd, right down to the storm that was quickly turning into what he assumed would be a low-grade hurricane.

  The obvious answer was absolutely not. Knowingly dancing to an enemy’s tune was nothing short of idiocy.

  A flash of pain crossed the Kid’s face. It lasted for only a moment, but the fact that Kedryn was already in pain indicated they were quickly running out of time.

  “I guess I’m an idiot then,” Glade growled. He may not trust the Adjudicators, but he would be damned to pass up an opportunity to save one of his people.