As Pax hurried through the halls to visit Langley before dinner, he was riding on a high. Earlier, he’d left Rin to practice her new ice spell and promised to work on the rest of the elements as soon as the crafters got the rest of the rooms powered.

  He’d laughed when his friends had immediately turned their attention to bug Tyrodon for updates on the power situation. Hopefully, at least another room would be up and running by tomorrow. And even better if it wasn’t lightning. It made Pax grin to imagine making Amil wait to be last.

  Then he’d had another mood boost during his afternoon trip to their workroom. He’d found four rebel water mages waiting, who’d asked if he would unlock their minor elements. They’d given him hopeful looks, and he’d agreed.

  Pax had grabbed Rin and Amil so they could continue learning about the process and got to work. To his delight, Pax found that his Ascendant Mana skill had improved the ease of the unlocking work, too. It wasn’t as if it had been too difficult with all the practice he’d been getting. But now it was almost effortless.

  There had been one puzzle, though. He’d found the process drained variable amounts of his mana, sometimes a lot, and with a different mage, almost none. Once he noticed the difference, he’d quizzed the candidate mages to discover what made the difference.

  Initially, he’d thought it would be whether the mages were classified as power or support. But that didn’t hold true when they answered his questions. Only when he’d thought to ask about their mana manipulation skills did he find a direct correlation.

  He’d verified that, just as in Taming, mana skills played a direct role in how easy or difficult his work was. He found that the less skilled a subject was with mana, the more work Pax had to do himself. Seeing how much the mana cost increased, he resolved to continue pushing for every rebel to gain a rudimentary mana skill before coming to him and his friends for Taming or an extra element.

  When Pax finished, each of them had been ecstatic and promised to spread the word. Pax was more than happy for any boost to the pressure on the rebel leaders. He didn’t mind the bit of progress it gave him on his skills and quest either.

  ***

  Skill Boost: +8 to Ascendant Mana Integration Level 1 (Legendary-evolved) - 46/100

  Improvement to your Path of Understanding Water: +19. Level 4 - 98/400

  Crew Quest: Part 1: Unlock minor mana types in rebel mages - 15/100 (+4)

  Reward: +1 level to all mana skills for each member of the crew who aids in this process.

  ***

  He’d also finally had time to check in with Bryn about how she and her new team had done with their second early morning Taming expedition. He’d enjoyed hearing about all the various techniques they’d come up with and tested toward the goal of helping Tame adult beasts like Pax could.

  She’d taken Tasar, Dahni plus a few more of the Team Tribal members with the Taming skill. The major challenge was still with the Taming itself. None of them had their Taming skills leveled high enough to tame an adult beast on their own, like Pax.

  But news had spread, and they’d found plenty of volunteers eager for a companion and hoping to join them for their practice run. They’d all been warriors, showing that the pragmatic class didn’t care about their leaders’ policies when a boost in power was up for grabs.

  Bryn had made it clear it was a trial run with a variable chance of success without Pax joining them that day. The volunteers had been more than happy to join in and help test out the various procedures to capture beasts if it got them a chance at a beast companion.

  As Pax listened to their report, his excitement grew at how his magical innovations could spread right alongside the rebellion. He only hoped it wasn’t too little, too late. The growing beast hordes still threatened the empire, and they all needed stronger ways to defeat them.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Bryn’s group had spent the morning experimenting and been very proud to report their efforts had led to their first successes. Two warriors were now the proud owners of new companions, but it had taken a lot of trial and error to get there. They’d killed the first few beasts they attempted to Tame. And they’d needed Dahni and Neptid’s healing buffs more than once during the arduous process of capturing beasts without killing them.

  In the end, Bryn’s group first succeeded with the warrior candidate who had a Mana Sight skill, which made sense. They’d also had to use more mages with Taming as well as their companions. When they’d made sure to match their elements with the beast being Tamed, they’d finally succeeded.

  The downside was it had taken three mages and two companions to manage what Pax could do on his own. The upside was Bryn’s group would improve the more they worked. Even better, with the mages in Pax’s crew and the rest of Team Tribal, they had plenty of people to ramp up the Taming enterprise. Pax was thrilled to see others moving in to help shoulder some of his load.

  Hurrying through the halls, Pax couldn’t help visualizing the rebel army doubling in size when every fighter had a companion. It would boost their power and versatility by an incredible amount. Then he paused, realizing they’d have another bottleneck once everyone’s Taming skills leveled to streamline the process.

  Beasts. They’d run out of beasts in the area pretty quickly unless they found a way to toggle the repellent aspects of the base’s defense systems. If they could do that every few nights, Pax was sure they’d accumulated enough people here to attract beast waves when needed.

  Pax chuckled as he made it to stairs leading down toward the warrior’s large training hall. He had to be one of the first people to wish for more beasts to attack his home.

  Thinking of plans for the future, Pax figured the Taming could always expand to the rebel-held cities. The nightly beast attacks there would provide plenty of fodder for new companions.

  When Pax reached the warriors’ training area he focused on the task at hand, showing them the official missive from the committee’s secretary Incedis had obtained for him. In the large training space around him, heads turned at the sight of Talpa next to him with even more whispers than usual. Pax didn’t see any companions among the warriors, but it was obvious the rumors had piqued their interest.

  Everyone is staring at you, Talpa. Pax’s smile widened as his friend stretched himself up, almost prancing as he waved his tentacles in a display that was both cute and scary.

  What about me? Whisk asked. Should I show off, too?

  Go for it. Pax kept walking, curious to see what Whisk would consider showing off. Hopefully, it wasn’t anything as intimidating as what he’d done to scare Merchant Nightblade. On the other hand, these were warriors. A strong and intimidating companion was exactly who they’d want by their side in battle.

  Whisk oozed out from under Pax’s armor in a sudden rush of gelatinous goo that quickly shifted from a pliable slime to a hardened shield that popped out around Pax like a bubble a moment later.

  Pax almost stumbled at the sight, but thankfully, Whisk had left the area beneath his feet free, with plenty of room for his stride to continue. Pax wasn’t sure it was the most effective display, though an extra shield was always handy during a battle, especially one that guarded his back.

  Then he heard a few gasps from those sneaking looks his way. Pax’s brows raised, and he glanced over his shoulder to see vicious looking, transparent spikes protruding out of his back. Those are amazing, Whisk.

  An embarrassed but pleased feeling reverberated back along his connection to Whisk as Pax made his way to the hallway leading to the prison area. It was tempting to offer to join in the battle training with his companions. Not only could it be a fun chance to vent some of his frustrations, but Whisk and Talpa would probably have a blast, too.

  He shook the thought away, leaving the task of bringing the warriors around to Bryn and Tasar. For that matter, Titus and his friends would likely be pretty convincing, too, especially when Titus brought Astra to training.

  His note got him into the prison area, though the guard at the desk turned her chair around to monitor him. A furtive glance toward the back ensured Lieutenant Lancaster wasn’t lurking around this time. Pax let out a relieved breath.

  “I don’t have permission to open any cell doors for you,” the guard called out from her post at the door. “But you’re welcome to talk to whoever you want in there. They’re not going anywhere.”

  Pax nodded as he walked down the familiar center aisle, ignoring the mocking tone in her last words.

  “It’s about time you showed up.” Mage Lyndara’s droll voice wasn’t any friendlier than the last time she’d spoken to Pax. “We’ve only been stuck in here for days waiting to hear anything.”

  Pax glanced over to see her standing at her cage door, glaring daggers at him.

  “It’s only been four days, Lyndara.” Captain Langley stood from his bench in the shadows and strode toward the front of the cell as if he were in complete control of the situation instead of a prisoner with no choices. “And you know more than anyone how slow bureaucracy works. I’m sure Pax here has been working to help our situation, right?”

  Pax shrugged as he pulled out a chair from his inventory and sat down to face Langley through his bars, looking up at him. He ignored Lyndara completely. “Well, no one has tortured you yet, have they?”

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