During the afternoons that week, Pax focused on the base, unlocking minor elements and the littles, working hard to make significant progress in all three areas. Progress on the base mostly required him to check in with the managers, along with Tyrodon and the crafters, who now worked willingly under his guidance.

  Apparently, they were a pragmatic bunch, and once they found the managers would obey Tyrodon’s requests to make changes using the base controls, they were almost giddy with excitement. They’d been running tests and experiments, making fast progress on connecting all the critical base functions to stable power supplies.

  They’d even delved into uncovering how the ancient systems powered the base. An eagerness grew among the crafters as they worked to understand exactly how the timeworn mana collection and storage systems worked. Tyrodon assured Pax that as soon as they had a break from the war preparations, their research could lead to significant innovations so the empire wouldn’t have to rely on beast cores to power everything.

  The mages were a much more skittish group than the warriors and seemed to take the approval of the committee more seriously. That attitude resulted in far fewer mages showing up at their workshop to unlock their minor elements than the number of warriors wanting to Tame. Pax could understand. He’d be a little wary of an unknown kid messing with the source of his magical power, too.

  He didn’t mind, as it gave him more time to spend with the littles. Next to his advancements with his secondary elements, that was where he’d made the most progress. At first, they’d tried to scan as many littles as possible, but found it hard to document any patterns. They’d quickly moved on to the next step, forcing it all into a semblance of order with their mana.

  Fenix’s information had made that step go much faster, knowing what they were working toward. By that point, they decided to only work with Jules and her four friends from the Viper littles. Knowing he would need four mages to give him the best chance of success, Pax added an air and earth mage to Rin and Amil who were already helping him. He recruited Mage Eldan to join in when she could as well as Dahni, when he wasn’t out with the Taming team. A couple of the mages on team Tribal had also shown an interest and joined in when needed.

  The first day, they tried time and time again to flood Jules' inner landscape with enough light mana to calm all the chaos in her entire body. At first, Pax had started the process, only drawing on the mana of the other four when he got close to running out.

  He’d based that on Fenix’s account of light mages being able to do the entire process themselves. After a frustrating first day of taking too many mana potions and making little progress, he changed to work with the other four right from the start.

  The amazing ability of light mana to work with other mana types made itself clear right away. He could keep his mana flowing a lot longer by relying more on the other mages’ mana. He used his light magic to coordinate and direct instead of brute forcing the process. Pax could also feel the difference in the much deeper pool of power Mage Eldan added to the mix.

  It made him wonder how well the process might work with full mages instead of students helping him. Perhaps Pax could convince Incedis to join him for the actual attempt. He’d just need to talk to Amil about it before replacing him as the flame mage.

  Pax quickly learned that the size of their mana stores had a big impact on their success. Thankfully, his Ascendant Mana skill allowed him to do more with less. He was pretty sure his goal to awaken one of the Viper littles in a reasonable amount of time would be impossible without it.

  By the end of the week, Pax had his first success with completely infusing Jules’ body with their combined mana. He and the mages helping him had stared in awe at the result when they finally accomplished it. Every bit of her internal landscape floated in a peaceful organization. Five spheres of sorted particles floated around their awareness with a calm that was such a contrast to the storm of chaos from the beginning.

  Two were obviously larger than the others, with one being the biggest by a small margin. Holding everything stable with the last bit of his mana, Pax had quickly focused his awareness on the two bigger spheres, doing his best to examine and remember everything he could about them.

  He instructed the other mages to do the same before he relaxed his control. Watching it all descend back into chaos wasn’t as bad that time, now that he knew what they could do.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  That had been Friday afternoon and, while exhausted, they’d been tempted to push forward in an actual awakening attempt. Even Jules, who seemed to have felt something different that time, had asked. But Pax could feel how exhausted they all were, especially with the number of mana potions they’d already used that day.

  He and Rin had convinced the others that they’d do much better starting the next day, Saturday. The night would also reset any potion build-up they’d accrued. It also allowed Pax to regain enough of his mana for his and Titus’ nightly session with Jane.

  Pax hadn’t made as much progress that week with Jane, despite him and Titus spending every evening with her. He had, however, gained a new appreciation for the quiet and hard-working woman. She seemed happy to just go along with life, not getting upset about anything that happened around her. Pax envied her a little, wondering what it would be like to only have simple kitchen tasks on his list while also finding pleasure in doing a good job at them.

  Pax had achieved some success healing her old injuries, but he’d focused on her body first, not wanting to mess with her mind until he learned how best to approach old injuries that had years to scar. The first technique that worked for him was to cut out the old scars with care. This created fresh injury edges that responded a lot better to his Heal Others skill.

  He wasn’t sure how that would work with the brain, as he was pretty sure just cutting sections out was a big no-no. Pax’s latest experiment involved making small slices into the heavily scarred areas to introduce fresh circulation before doing his best to encourage fully functioning tissue to grow. Both Harkness and Jane were happy with his work as his mother found old aches and pains easing after every session.

  Pax had also improved in his ability to tease out important memories from the flood that seemed to play constantly in the mental background Jane’s mind kept suppressed. After talking it over with Harkness and Titus, they’d decided Pax should choose a few happy ones involving their family and Thanhil. After bringing them forward to her surface thoughts over multiple days, he planned to bring them up in the small talk they’d been making before each session.

  If she recognized the details from the memory, they’d know the process could successfully restore memories. A success would be huge and allow Pax to take the first steps to bring their mother back.

  His heart still ached at the glimpses he kept seeing of the torture she’d endured years ago. He didn’t plan on restoring any of those memories until his mother knew who she was and regularly recognized her sons. He knew she might never want to restore them, but at least then, she could have a say.

  Obviously, Pax wanted to help ease the psychological trauma that still plagued her. But there was a reason Jane’s mind had suppressed almost all of it. The last thing Pax wanted to do was traumatize her again by bringing it all back to her.

  Which all meant Pax could tell this wouldn’t be a fast process. Pax didn’t mind. Spending any time with a mother they thought they’d lost was amazing enough.

  Later that Friday night, after checking in with the managers and altar, Pax reviewed the gains he’d made to his new legendary mana skill. Everything he’d done that week had added more and more points to it. Leveling the rest of his secondary elements in the training room, unlocking a handful of minor elements and all the work with Jane and the littles had pushed him very close to his next mage level already.

  And they were making slow but steady progress on the first two parts of their crew quest. Anticipating a race between Pax reaching Beast Tamer Level 5 before the crew completed part 2 of the quest, his crew had backed off from actually Taming, instead advising and coaching the other Tamers they were training up. They’d been fine letting him do as much hands-on work as he could fit in.

  ***

  Skill Boost: +48 to Ascendant Mana Integration Level 1 (Legendary-evolved) - 94/100

  Skill Boost: +52 to Universal Beast Tamer Level 4 (Rare) - 148/400

  Crew Quest: Part 1: Unlock minor mana types in rebel mages - 20/100 (+5)

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

  Crew Quest: Part 2: Help rebel mages and warriors Tame adult beast companions - 19/100 (+12)

  Reward: +1 level for each crew companion and +1 to the Taming level for each crew member who aids in this process, along with a bonus choice from all possible system evolutions for the skill.

  ***

  Pax grinned as he sagged back into his bed after a week of pushing himself and his friends as hard as he could. Tomorrow, he planned to help Dahni and Amil unlock nature and lightning. That should give him the six points he needed to level his mana skill. He hoped that the new level would give him the boost of power he needed to successfully awaken Jules.

  That just left the coming confrontation with the committee on Sunday. He planned to force them to act, regardless of what that entailed. While he’d enjoyed the week to focus on making progress, Pax could feel the ax hanging over all of them. Even now, the empire would be gathering its considerable strength for a powerful counter strike. They couldn’t waste any more time.

  You have awesome ideas! I’m always developing the storyline for the next books, so share any ideas you have.

  And click over to if you’d like to read a bunch of chapters ahead.

  Links to me out on the web:

  M Zaugg Amazon Page!

  My webpage

  My Facebook Page