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This time, I tried to be a little more subtle. Rather than just stabbing my will into it to create a connection, I looped a strand of my mana around the crystal, then chipped a piece of it away.

That wasn’t a great description. It didn’t come close to what I actually did. Then again, how could I describe a whole new layer of reality, senses and sensations included, with completely unique rules of interaction bundled in for extra complexity?

I couldn’t. The best I could do is to reach for familiar terms grounded in the reality I already knew.

So, I chipped a piece of the mana crystal away.

In truth, it was more akin to slipping my presence between the stable layers of mana that made up the crystal, then gently and slowly claiming that portion for myself.

To my great relief, this worked. I ended up with a small surge of mana in my hand, one that I could handle and direct as I pleased.

Here’s another image. With the first mana crystal, I had punctured a water balloon carelessly and then struggled to gulp down the contents before it all spilled out. This time, I approached a barrel of water and plunged a cup into it. I could drink at my leisure.

I didn’t direct the mana towards my core at first. In fact, I was careful to keep the mystical substance from making any contact with that semi-corporeal organ, or the actual organ occupying the same space. My heart was still spasming. I needed to let it recover if I wanted my body to continue basic functioning.

I started by guiding the mana through the area of my body most heavily damaged by the previous surge. The damage wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was the natural first step of toughening myself up.

The problem was, my body couldn’t absorb the vast amount of mana quickly enough to heal. Instead of a virtuous cycle of damage and healing, I ended up with just progressively more damaged flesh. But now that I was feeding it mana in a trickle, the flesh soaked it all up like a desert would do to rain. Bit by bit, it rejuvenated, tougher and more receptive to mana than ever before.

By the time I worked the mana-drip around to my heart, I was dead tired and starving to boot. Still, I couldn’t exactly stop what I was doing and go find myself an inn. Not in this condition. I paused just long enough to scarf down some stale rations, but then it was right back to the healing for me.

My heart was the most difficult to heal. The healing process produced constant pain in whatever part of my body I was targeting, along with an odd sense of itchiness that made me want to either tear my hair out or scratch wildly at the affected area. It shouldn’t have been possible to feel itchiness in some of the places I was healing, but that logic did nothing to stop the torment.

My heart sent me waves of both sensations, far more strongly than any other area. When I was finally done, I realized I had been squeezing my fist so tightly that I could barely unclench them. My nails had also dug deep into my palm, drawing plenty of blood. I hadn’t gotten a chance to clip them since my awakening as Hayden.

Funnily enough, the pain of those wounds didn’t even bother me. They stung, sure, but after soul surgery and, to a lesser extent, the mess I just endured, I found it difficult to care.

I stretched happily, relieved to do so without wincing, then paused when my ribs failed to protest. Cautiously, I poked the spots that had been sore, then grinned.

Well, what do you know! Nearly frying myself through mana-burn is good for something!

Of course, the only reason the mana healed me so quickly was that it was pure mana, rather than a mana-attack by an enemy mage. Pure mana naturally melted into the core or body of a mage easily. If the damage sustained was from an enemy spell or direct mana invasion, the enemy mana would linger and refuse to break down. At that point, my body would turn into a battlefield. I would have to first put out the metaphorical fires before I could even attempt to heal.

I certainly wasn’t going to try and replicate the feat anytime soon, but I definitely filed the experience away for future use. If I ever had any life-threatening injuries, healing myself with mana was a solid last resort option. The chances that it would save me rather than kill me when I was already heavily wounded were about sixty-forty in favor of my survival, but that was better than the alternative of ’do nothing.’

Now that my body was all better, I briefly contemplated trying to grow my mana core again. I hadn’t been able to feel it when I was in such horrible condition, but without agony clouding my mind, it felt like I was… more.

My thoughts felt more nimble. My mana senses were just a bit sharper. Even the speed at which mana answered my call was improved. It was a holistic, if small, step forward.

I had the resources to keep going. It would probably take more than one mana crystal to add another layer to my core, but instinctively, I knew the difference wouldn’t be that big. I would need to progress through another three layers before I hit the next big jump.

That would also be the point when I would officially graduate from the status of a ’mere’ mage apprentice, and gain the ability to wield true spells. Beginner true spells, but true spells, nonetheless!

Unfortunately, I didn’t think I could afford to make that push just yet. It wasn’t anything physical, but a part of me felt… strained. My soul was like a muscle I had never bothered to exercise before, suddenly put through a wringer. If I kept going, there was a real chance that I could damage said muscle, and then I would have to waste a ton of time and resources on my recovery.

So, reluctant as I was, I pulled out the souls Glaustro had gifted to me.

They were, well, disappointing. I knew he wouldn’t hand off any particularly impressive souls so easily, even to a mortal who had hunted down an important enemy mage. Still, the fact that I only managed to find a single soul out of fifty that I wanted to keep was atrociously bad.

The soul had belonged to a mage apprentice, and I was seriously thrilled at the thought of acquiring its secrets. Apprentice Enchantment Theory (Basic) would provide a skill I could benefit from well into the future of my murder-y career.

As such, it might come as a shock that I didn’t absorb the soul the second I found it.

The reason was the same as my reluctance to advance as a mage immediately. If the weird exhaustion I was feeling did come directly from my soul, what would happen if I plunged into a stressful process like soul surgery that very moment? Would it make the side effects of absorption worse? Or would some fundamental part of my being start to crack under the pressure, in a way I couldn’t easily fix?

I didn’t want to find out. Instead, I departed the Absorption Station in a decidedly foul mood despite all the progress.

In spite of the time-shenanigans the stations operated under, the sky outside was already covered in stars when I ended my seclusion. I enjoyed the way they blinked at me, and their presence was comfortingly familiar. Sure, I didn’t recognize any of the constellations, and I had no idea what galaxy we were in, but somewhere out there was my home. My real home, not just the world Hayden was stolen from as a child.

Was he even stolen away? There was every chance that the training camp was located on Hayden’s home world, but I didn’t have any memories to confirm or deny any speculation.

In a way, I hoped he was stolen. Maybe that meant his home world wasn’t occupied by demons. It was just a flash of hope, but it resonated with the pieces I had inherited from Hayden.

He was ready to set out and conquer the universe on the orders of his demonic masters, but that didn’t mean the boy hadn’t entertained some small delusions about what his life could have been with parents and a wider family that loved him. Those delusions weren’t rooted in memories of another life. They were sourced entirely from older children the demons took in. Those children always broke quickly, but before they did, they shared stories about their homes and complained and cried like regular kids.

Hayden wouldn’t admit that he enjoyed those moments, even to himself. He never dared to speak about his dreams of a ’normal’ life. But I had all those memories of inner conflict. I recognized the baggage he was carrying around. If he had completed his initiation smoothly and was still in charge of his body, would he have been able to do what was necessary?

I found it a little funny, in a very depressing way, that I was doing better on the murder front than Hayden ever could. After all, I knew exactly what came after life. It was a hell of a motivator to stay alive, pun fully intended.

I shouldn’t have let myself get so lost in thought as I walked through a city full of demons and bloodthirsty mortals, but I did. I only focused on my surroundings long enough to pick up some suspicious meat skewers from a street vendor. The transaction was mostly an excuse to ask for directions to the local Apple Infernal branch. Still, I did eat the skewers as I walked. No matter what they were made of, it couldn’t be worse than whatever went into our dried-out ration bars.

The combination of food and my musings about Hayden was so distracting that I got careless. I was only a few streets away from my destination when I realized something was wrong.

I wish I could say I heard some scuff on the ground behind me, or that I was smart enough to keep an eye on the window reflections I passed to spot pursuers without giving myself away. It would be cool to claim I was alerted by a mysterious sixth sense of lurking danger.

None of that was true.

Instead, it was pure luck. A demoness three times my size happened to blow me aside as she bulldozed her way through the milling throngs of civilian demons. This spun me around, affording me a brief view of the street I had just walked down. That was when I spotted a pair of cat ears poking out of the crowd.

Even then, I turned back towards the inn and continued my journey. I didn’t give the ears much thought until I cut a sharp left two streets later, and caught sight of the same ears from the corner of my eyes. Finally, a jolt of recognition surged through me.

The cat-like woman who competed with me in speed was stalking the streets of the city.

And unless the sudden bad feeling in the pit of my stomach was just a delusion, she was following me.

I slowed down at that point, turning a brisk walk into a stroll. I stopped at a few stalls and pretended to peruse the wares. Suspicion and a hint of worry bloomed inside of me, but I did a good job of keeping them off my face. I kept telling myself that I might be mistaken. Maybe she was just exploring the city.

I told myself this until I stopped for the fifth time, and she still failed to pass me. I couldn’t deny it anymore: she stopped every time I stopped. Still, I had to give her some credit. She mirrored my movements perfectly, stopping just long enough to approach a nearby vendor, then disengaging quickly as soon as I moved on.

What could she possibly want? Does she know about the souls, somehow? Or the mana crystals?

When I first claimed the superior soul, I was deathly afraid that demons would come after me. After all, the army was tracking us and monitoring our soul count. I didn’t think it would be difficult for a demon to learn about another soldier’s success, especially a mortal recruit.

But I never suspected that claiming a superior soul might lead to trouble with other mortals. How could she know what I had, or how I’d gotten it?

Then again, she might be acting on someone else’s orders. If a demon wanted to be subtle about things for whatever reason, they could hire one of my mortal rivals to kill me.

It’s just fifty greater souls! Demons get way more than that every month! I groused angrily, still trying to act calm. This was getting harder to do the closer we got to the inn.

Chances were high that something bad would happen if I let her catch up. Of course, this left me with one rather urgent problem.

How in the world am I going to take care of this quietly in the middle of a city?