The second my feet touched the ground, I felt tingles of excitement shoot through me. I was so relieved to finally be out of that underwater nightmare. Even in this world full of evil trees and giant death wolves, I still found the ocean to be the scariest place and somewhere I really hoped that I wouldn’t have to visit too often. The breathing was something I had thought would be awful at first, but once we were there, it turned out to be perfectly fine. Most of the creatures were pretty alright to deal with as well, barring the Current Reaper. I was going to be having nightmares about that thing for weeks.

The biggest problem that I had with the whole thing was the fact that I was constantly surrounded, even in buildings, by water. Despite the layer of air I had placed around myself, I still felt an ever-present pressure almost like I was being swallowed whole. I hated the feeling more than anything I had ever experienced before and I was pretty sure that if I never had to experience it again, I would lose zero sleep.

That didn’t even begin to touch on the topic of my eyes and how they couldn’t even work properly underwater. I frowned. “Jester. How did you get your eyes to work while we were underwater?”

I waited for a moment before a voice rang in my head, a more masculine voice than her or... his voice had been before. “I kinda cheated a bit, actually.”

“What do you mean, you cheated?” I inquired.

“Well, you see, I had the combined experience of both you and the purple kitten. Though you both had limited knowledge with a good bit of overlap, I was able to figure out a way to force it to work for around three seconds. That was really more than enough to do what I wanted, so it all turned out perfectly fine.”

I nodded. “So you didn’t actually figure out how to properly control them underwater?”

He laughed inside my head, his voice fading away. “Of course not. I’ll have to figure that one out on my own, same as you...”

I laughed on the inside, not knowing if I really wanted to focus on controlling it underwater. I did want to master this power and that kind of thing would be part of it, but I wouldn’t be doing that first.

After a bit of waiting, the rest of the group finally emerged from the hole in the ground. I smiled as I walked over to them. Viktor laughed as he looked at me. “Someone must have been pretty excited to get out of there, eh?”

I chuckled and smacked him on the back. “Look, I’m a cat. I don’t like water by pure instinct. It’s not at all a pleasant place for me to be.”

He nodded and turned to Lilith, seemingly to make a comment about her own genetic instinct, but she unfurled her wings and shot in to the sky. She let out a deep, monstrous roar like a real dragon before releasing a blast of fire from her mouth. She stopped in place at the same instant and snapped her fingers, causing the jet of flame to explode in to a massive ring of burning hot energy.

I marveled at the sight before looking down in shame. I hadn’t even thought about how the whole underwater situation had been affecting her. She’d had it the worst out of all of us. At least I’d been able to somewhat use my magic down there. She had basically had a bullet in her leg the whole time.

After a few more angry roars and a bit more exploding flames, she touched back down, a ring of fire singeing the grass around her. She walked back over, shaking her wings out a bit more as her scarf began to calm back down to its usual orange blaze.

I gave her a concerned look as she approached. “Are you okay?”

She waved her hand in the air casually, brushing off the thought. “Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

I looked to Julian and Viktor who both just shook their heads, but I frowned and turned back to her. “I dunno, that is a pretty solid indicator,” I said, pointing to the smoke-filled sky above us.

She glared at me, her scarf growing a bit wilder. “That was just a way to blow off some steam.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, and that means you were angry at something.”

I saw her nostrils literally fume, smoke puffing out. “Angry at something! Wow! What a crazy idea you have there!” she shouted. I backed up, very wary of her scarf as she continued. “Do you have any idea how humiliating it was to be done there?! I couldn’t fight! I couldn’t use my magic! And you know whose fault that is? Mine! I didn’t prepare. I didn’t even think to train for that situation! So, yeah, you could say I’m a bit pissed off about something!”

I frowned. I did know how it felt to be completely helpless in such a dire situation. It was something I saw every time I closed my eyes and I could never unsee it. I also knew how talking to Lilith right now would only bring more pain because I simply didn’t know what to say to her.

She huffed angrily before noticing our expressions. A look of dread seemed to dawn on her as she collapsed to the ground sobbing. I slowly walked towards her and placed my hand on her shoulder. Her scarf had died down and now seemed to droop towards the ground almost like it too was crying. I removed my hand from her shoulder and she looked up at me. I extended my hand to her and she took it, lifting to her feet as I brought her in to an embrace, wrapping my arms around her back.

“You don’t have to worry. We’re here for you.”

She nodded and released the hug. I smiled and she smiled back, wiping away the tears under her eyes. With that over, we headed out in to the forest in the direction of Gaias.

Everything was pretty peaceful and quiet for some time, but that was broken in an instant. All at once, the trees around us collapsed in. My vision slowed and I spotted the culprits. Behind each of the trees was a floating, ethereal figure of light green essence. The essence had bit of grey burning inside of it. These spirits were corrupted.

“Lilith, let’s get them!” I shouted over to her. She smiled and quickly unsheathed her sword as we both sprinted forward. I flew right in to the first spirit, planting my foot right in to its head sending it flying backwards right in to a tree. I rushed forward to it and coated my hand in essence before slamming my fist right in to its midsection. It dissolved and I rushed back to dispatch the rest, but found Lilith had already taken care of them.

“Ha! Jeez! Don’t even leave any for me, eh?”

She stuck out her tongue playfully. “You snooze, you lose. I killed them first. You were just too slow.”

I shrugged. “I suppose that’s certainly fair enough.”

I wasn’t really that upset about it, she had suffered worse than any of when it came to usefulness in the City of Waves. Allowing her to be able to fight some and get her groove back was probably best for her at this point. I’d been pretty happy to be able to finally fight at my fullest again too. It meant that I could be useful again. That was always hard to do in a group full of such skilled people.

It was also a little tiring. I had exerted myself a good bit just to take out a single enemy. I needed to control myself a little better or I’d probably exhaust my essence supply and end up passing out when it was not at all a good time.

“It’s getting a bit late. Do you guys want to stop and eat?”

After some silent exchanges, they all nodded and we found a clearing where we could sit down and have some quiet time for lunch. I pulled a nice salmon sandwich from my bag. Thanks to the spell I’d placed over it, the whole bag was still all fine. I noted the small green book inside specifically. I wanted to keep that in as good condition as possible.

“You know, I could make you something to sit on too. You don’t have to sit on the ground,” Viktor said, having made himself a little seat out of branches and leaves.

I shrugged. “I don’t really mind sitting on the ground. The grass feels perfectly fine. Plus, I could always make my own seat out of some condensed clouds. No need to trouble you with it.”

He chuckled. “Don’t be getting a big head there, thinking you’re so much better than me now, Ventilius.”

I put my hands up defensively. “Hey hey! Don’t think I’m coming after you. I’m sure you could totally kick my ass.”

“That may be true, but I think we both know either of them could easily kick both of our asses,” he said, pointing to Julian and Lilith.

Lilith nodded. “Definitely. You two are like little baby birds. Look at those arms.” She pointed to my arms.

“Hey! I didn’t need to be attacked here! Maybe I don’t have the strongest arms in the world, but have you seen these legs?” I pulled up my pants to display my well-toned calves.

Lilith and Viktor’s eyes widened. “Damn, dude. Those are some nice legs!”

I smiled, triumphantly. “Thank you. Running across rooftops will do that for you.”

Julian laughed from the corner causing us all to look over at him. “While we’re comparing, I’ve definitely got Viktor beat for calluses. Look at those hands. I think I see a few blisters.”

We all got up close and examined his very worn hands. “Geez dude! You’re taking the tough skin thing to a whole new level. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had steel under there, not rock.”

That comment caused me to raise an eyebrow. “Under his skin? What are you talking about?”

“Ah yes, I forget sometimes. You don’t know a lot about this stuff.”

I cocked my head sideways. “What stuff?”

Julian took a small knife out of his bag and made an incision in his arm. “Well, much like you have your whole time-slowing vision thing, us other apprentices have special traits as well. For us earth apprentices, it’s tough skin that’s literally as strong as rock.”

I looked at the cut he’d made and I noticed there was something hard underneath it. “What in Ser...?”

He smiled. “Well, earth apprentices have skin that’s literally made of a flexible stone that’s just as tough as normal stone. We have one layer of normal skin on top of it, but everything else is rock.”

My eyes widened. “That’s so cool! Doesn’t it hurt though?”

He shrugged. “A little bit, but we grow up with it, so you get used to it. I can’t feel it at all anymore. I doubt Viktor can either. You get very used to it.”

Viktor nodded in agreement. “Lilith’s got special skin too.”

I looked over to her and she nodded. “I’m not going to cut it like that weirdo,” she said pointing to Julian, “but I can show you.”

She walked over and displayed her arm. I looked closely at it and, at first, I didn’t notice anything very special. Then I saw it. “You have scales?!”

She laughed. “Yes, I do, but it’s actually not because of my being a Drac. It’s simply a natural trait that all fire apprentices have. I’m not really sure where it came from though.”

I sat back on the ground, my mind racing like crazy thinking about the abilities that the other types of apprentices could have. I continued to think as we packed up and made our way back out on the way to Gaias.

We continued on for an hour or two before we noticed something in the distance. It looked like the lights of a city and once we got closer, we found that there was a town. It was a pretty small town, all things considered. There were about two dozen buildings, all in somewhat worn condition. It was nothing like Arachni though. There were tons of people everywhere.

We entered and all of the eyes drew to us. I waved awkwardly, hoping not to draw any attention. Unfortunately, that plan failed when a woman came running up to us, falling to the ground and bowing to us. “Thank, Sengario! We have awaited your arrival for so long!”