That didn’t silence Marko’s protests. “We can’t all four take the final together. Shadowcroft and stupid Rock-face would never agree to that.”
Logan raised his thick yellow hands. “But we’ve already set the precedent, Marko. Rockheart tried to shoot this down when Inga and I tried it, but we got a pass. This is exactly the same, just more. If it was just Rockheart, you’re probably right. But with Shadowcroft? They’ll let us. They’ll have to.”
Inga removed the glowing red vial that contained the Red Lotus Juice. “First things first. We have to make sure this will work with Logan’s core. It should. But we can’t go to Rock-face...er, the rector prime without knowing for sure.”
Logan took the vial and shuddered.
If it hurt as much as the ghoul’s teeth, he’d be looking at days of agony. He’d do it for his friend, though. It was either that or Marko would die. Not on Logan’s watch. He popped the bone cork with his thumb, and the sludgy red liquid let out a hiss and a curl of steam. Very encouraging.
“Here’s to you, Marko. Here’s mud in your eye.” Logan downed the vial. It tasted like pink cotton candy.
“What’s mud in my what?” the satyr asked.
Logan wanted to explain, but suddenly couldn’t talk. He could barely breathe. The Red Lotus Juice might be sweet, but it hit his core like an atomic bomb. He probably should’ve waited, but the sooner he started working on processing the energy and tying another knot, the better. Who knew how long it would take?
He could feel the pulse of the juice vibrate through the gem in his belly. The magic flamed red and angry around his core like an infection in an open wound.
Inga saw how hurt he was. “Quickly. Let’s get him back to his room. I’ll reshelve these books.”
Marko’s voice came out urgent. “But Inga, that will take hours!”
“Not for me, Laskarelis. Not for me.” She said those words like the Grand Archivist she was.
Logan felt Treacle pick him up—Logan’s spongey yellow body weighed next to nothing, especially compared to the minotaur. In short order, he was in his bed in his attic room. Marko stooped to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling and opened a window to let the cool night air in.
For Logan, the minutes felt like hours, while the hours stretched into days.
He was in a fever dream, the world spinning around him, his body shivering and burning in turns. He never left his room—it was surreal, seeing the daylight in the window melt into darkness only for the sun to rise again. A single candle flickered, more for his friends than for him, since he had his special sight. Mostly he laid on his bed, though occasionally he mustered the strength of will to sit on the floor in a meditative pose.
The Terrible Twelfth checked on him constantly.
It felt like Logan had dipped his dungeon core in hydrochloric acid then fried it up in a Taco Bell fryer—heavy on the hepatitis A. One day turned into two turned into five. He didn’t really sleep. He didn’t eat—couldn’t even bring himself to Digest. The energy in his system was its own meal, and he needed complete focus to consume it. If he hadn’t gotten so good at Boundless Wheel, the extra energy would’ve burned out his core—like a bag of popcorn in a microwave once the pops stop. Then add five minutes.
Boundless Wheel helped, but he also had his Digestion ability.
With Digestion he could immediately convert 60% of all Apothos with an Elemental Affinity into pure Apothos. It was an amazing trick to have up his sleeve, though the sheer amount of energy was still overwhelming.
Night after night, the heady hallucinations of the familiar Silverbark forests grew more intense. At first, there were only flickers of Silverbark spires, towering mushrooms, and the green foliage covering the ground. The days passed in fits and starts, and he found the real world vanishing for hours at a time. In his mind, he walked the glimmering white path he’d painstakingly forged while processing the cultivation bloom. But as he processed the Red Lotus potion, absorbing more and more of its potent energy, the path began to change. With every pass, the color slowly shifted, becoming a little pinker. Then a washed-out red.
Each pass also became progressively harder. By the time the path was a solid crimson, it felt like pulling a monster truck through the Silverbark forest. It was both exhausting and frustrating. Most frustrating of all, though, was that once the color had finally stabilized, the path itself changed—twisting in a place it had never twisted before. Still, part of him figured he’d just walk the new pattern like he had last time. Maybe it would be an uncomfortable day or two, but he could do that, no sweat!
Yes to the sweat.
After five days, he’d managed to complete about half of the new arc. Before, it was like pulling a monster truck through Silverbark, but following those new twists was like pulling an M1 Abrams tank through quicksand. Barefoot, blindfolded, and with only the aid of dental floss. Frustration quickly turned to low-grade madness.
The saving grace was the forest itself.
It was so beautiful—those tall spires of fungal growths reaching into a sky milky with stars. Smaller crystalline mushrooms caught the light and glowed like captured rainbows on emerald grass. The dirt of the trail was soft and fragrant, like potter’s soil, a rich earthy scent. Above was the infinity of the multiverse, all possible worlds, surrounding every type of star, all connected to the shadowy branches of the eternal Tree of Souls.
That connection, that beauty, kept him walking, even when he was only moving an inch at a time.
At one point, Logan had dug down into the soil, and uncovered bark. The Silverbark fungal forest was growing on the Tree itself. The power was rich, and he felt so in tune with reality. The visions offered him some needed respite. In many ways, it was better than sleep, and far better than the torture of waking.
Especially Marko.
Logan kept the Boundless Wheel spinning. That kept the energy flowing, but to forge the rest of the path and tie off that final knot? It was torture. And time was running out. They had to let Shadowcroft and Rockheart know they were going to take the Final Exam together as a cohort.
Why was dealing with the Red Lotus Juice so difficult?
Because it’s out of your league, Logan reminded himself.
It was just like Inga had said: He was dealing with energy that was meant for people at higher levels—dungeon cores that would’ve already used magic items to tie a knot in their core. No Iron Trunk cultivator, in the history of Shadowcroft, would’ve scored so high on the Placement Exam if they hadn’t been working with a partner. The Red Lotus Juice was meant for high-ranked Azure Branch cultivators, like Chadrigoth. Inga insisted that even she would’ve had the same reaction. That would’ve been fine, if they weren’t on a time crunch before their Final Exam.
Marko felt terrible, of course.
Treacle, though, took it in stride. Just more of how life was miserable and failure was inevitable.
That didn’t help the satyr any.
Friday night, Logan’s three friends stood over his bed in his attic room while he passed in and out of consciousness. Treacle kept scratching up the wood of Logan’s ceiling. Inga crouched over the foot of his bed. Marko sat on the floor near his fungi-covered headboard.
Marko moaned. “I’m so sorry, guys. Logan never should’ve drunk that dumb potion.”