Wishing I had more control over my mana, I sat cross-legged on the ground. 

Moving mana back and forth, from one place to another, wasn’t hard. The tricky part was getting it to go to several locations at once. Not much has changed in that regard since my fight with mossbear. Such fine control was still, let’s say, challenging for me and downright impossible during combat.

So right now, I was doing the best I could to heal my injuries while I could. There was the almost healed sword wound on my shoulder, the pierced thigh, and now the burned kidney and muscles in my lower back. By some miracle, Meneur’s magic missed pretty much anything that adjoins the wings.

My healing was fast, damn fast. But even with the mana boost, it simply took a while for my regen to do its job. Don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t a complaint. I’m just saying I wasn’t Esu.

Fortunately, treating the wounds this way didn’t require me to have any medical knowledge. All it took was to saturate the place with mana, and my regeneration did the rest. As I said, it wasn’t instant, still fast enough for me to go to bed at night untroubled. 

Not counting the blood in the piss, as the healer mentioned.

The issue wasn’t the healing, it was the concentration. Splitting my focus into three places was reaching my limit. Four if I counted the fire-resistant mane I wanted to test was the limit. Something I was able to achieve when fully focused, not in the middle of a fight.

It would be so easy to have a skill like [Tail of Poison Empress]. All it would take is to activate it. Unfortunately, there was no such skill among my General Skills. I checked. Either it didn’t exist, or I simply haven’t met the requirements to get it. 

From what I’ve learned in my year here, that meant, in most cases, mastering that particular ability. My guess? The sudden appearance of my mane didn’t count. So, what were my options? Send mana into the skin or directly into the roots of the hair itself. Honestly, if it required controlling each hair separately, there was no chance I would ever master it. 

Baby steps first.

I moved some of the mana into my head to test whether it will be enough to spur hair growth, only to gasp in bewilderment. The increased density of mana in my brain felt like I’d just had a strong coffee or energy drink. An exciting discovery that left me wondering why I didn’t find out sooner. 

Easy to find answer. I was too careful.

While practicing, I never moved the mana into my head for fear I might burn my wits or something. Thinking about it, it was a good question for Aspen. 

Anyway, the little bit I fed the moss was so minuscule that it hasn’t affected my brain in the slightest. On the other hand, healing the wound required a lot of mana. I must say, thanks to my rather brute approach to suture the injured area with it. 

That said, I didn’t suffer any significant head injuries so far. For some reason, the line from the description of [Never-Dying] stuck in my head: ‘As long as the brain is not damaged.’ So I did my best to protect my noggin in the struggles.

Wasn’t it common sense, an instinct to protect one’s head, though?

Well, the amount of mana I moved into my head did nothing but stimulate my musings. So in my brute style, I dumped more into my skull, pushing it all the way through to my skin, and this time, I felt dullness, even a little dizzy. 

That was more like what I expected from the mana in my brain. Was I burning my circuits right now, becoming dumber?

It felt that way because finding what concentration of mana my brain could take wasn’t why I was sitting here on the ground surrounded by waiting city guards. That reason was the stupid mane that resisted any attempt to comb it.

With a sigh, I took a new approach. Almost. Even more mana was needed, just less in my brain. Easier said than done. Though doable, requiring more precise control. Not something I could do while healing all my injuries.

So after a quick check, I concluded my thigh and shoulder wounds were good enough or at least combat-capable and concentrated on moving mana mainly just through the skin to the roots of my hair. It made the back of my neck tingle and the crown of my head warm. At times it even looked as if the mana itself formed a network of veins around my skull.

“Come on!“ I urged my mane while a low growl escaped my throat. There almost seemed to be something missing. Heat, maybe? I resisted the urge to look at Meneur. There was no way I was going to have to set my hair on fire every time I needed its fire-resistant properties.

Working through every possibility I could think of, even begging, I ended up ruffling my hair in frustration. Wouldn’t you know it? That did the trick. 

First, I felt a tug on the mana. Then my mane doubled in length. My heart skipped a beat when that happened and stopped a second later when that was all to it.

Giving the mane another ruffle and then some more, it reached the same length it had after the explosion. Sure, the speed with which I achieved this was pathetic. Yet, the joy I felt from the success easily overshadowed it. 

Plus, with enough practice, who knows? 

“Congrats, girl,” Deckard’s voice echoes in my mind. “You’ve gotten weirder.”

There was no malice in his words, only amusement and a hint of a genuine pride at my success. 

“Would you rather it was the other way around?” Initially, it was meant as a tease, a witty remark. Now I wondered if he regretted his decision after all if he wouldn’t rather choose a more... ordinary apprentice. Perhaps someone with only two legs and two arms.

“By Traiana, no!” he rejected such a notion outright. “You can get as weird as you want.”

“You really mean it?” I asked more seriously, still with some doubt. “What if I turn into a beast?”

He wasn’t standing in front of me, but I still saw his questioning look. “Will you?”

Yeah, that was the question. Will I? “The [Beast] is at the bottleneck. I...I feel like I can go deeper with the change.” I came forward with the truth. Someone needed to know, just in case.

He gave me his don’t worry smile. “If that happens, I’ll have to beat some sense back into you.”

Being beaten up didn’t sound good, but I was still glad. “Thanks.”

“Don’t sweat it, girl. Now go and show them who they’re dealing with.”

Well, I could only hope I wouldn’t let him down.

Getting up even though my back injury could use more healing time I turned to Squad Four, not surprisingly, discussing my mid-thigh length hair. Even Freyde was among them already. Seeing him made me consider using the services of a healer.

I grinned instead. “Are you ready?” In my experience, healers preferred the natural regeneration I had, so I lied. “Because I am.”

“You seriously want to fight with hair that long?” the bookkeeper turned swordsman wondered. His bewilderment was justified. Long, especially loose, hair in a fight was just a hindrance. Honestly, I hadn’t quite figured that part out yet, but I saw it as essential in my defense against Meneur’s magic.

Taking a chilly strand in my hand, I nodded. “I do.” I wanted to use it. Whether it was a good idea was another question.

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

“For fuck’s sake! Just let her do what she wants,” Harper grunted and brandished her crossbow. She was eager to fight. 

Drawing a deep breath and not really knowing how to approach this fight, who to target, I crouched down and dug my toes into the sand of the training ground.

A grin flashed across the baker’s face. “That’ s more like it.”

“I was just saying...” Freyde shrugged and followed suit by taking a fighting stance. Meneur made no remarks like the two, but his hands, glowing with magic, spoke for themselves. He was ready, too.

Actually, he was still the biggest unknown to me, the biggest threat of the three. And so my first target. Drawing my claws, I licked my lengthened fangs, and with a flap of my wings, took off.

The bookkeeper moved a split second earlier, and Harper reacted no later. I managed to take only two steps before my ears twitched at the twang of the string, and I had to form a shield. Of course, knowing that she had fired at me made it easier to dodge the shot. 

I was good at dodging, Freyde knew best. 

However, what Deckard taught me in the Esulmor Woods was that the easy way gets me nowhere. At first, I saw training with a mossbear as torture. It took me a while to understand what an opportunity it was, just like this. So instead of dodging to the side, I chose to form the shield at such an angle that the bolt bounced off the barrier and hone my skill control.

“Tss,” I heard Harper hissed as the bolt bounced off. It wasn’t a perfect rebound as the barrier cracked, still a success for me. Alas, achievement, I didn’t get a chance to celebrate. The taurus’s ember magic hit me just as I turned my mane-covered back to it. Not a really great move. A stupid one, actually. I was aware of that, but had no way to control mane’s movement.

On the bright side, it did the job I was hoping for. While sucking up so much mana that sent shivers down my spine as it moved through my temple, it resisted the embers protecting me from their heat. 

Yeah, now that the flour dust didn’t block my perception, it wasn’t so hard for me to see that the magic was made up of a bunch of white-hot embers, and it wasn’t actually lightning like I first thought.

“Shit!” The curse crossed my thoughts as I had to leap aside to avoid Freyde’s sword. Meneur managed to stop my advance on him, which allowed the wanna-be-elf to catch up with me.

“Oh, come on!” Harper sputtered as her bolt bounced off my barrier yet again. She was fast, damn fast, and incredibly accurate, aiming for my legs this time too.

With no choice but to get rid of the sword-swinging bookkeeper first, I flicked a glance at him. That calculating bastard knew my style and didn’t give me much room to strike at him. Luckily, him closing in on me gave the mage a more challenging time. He wasn’t as accurate with his spells as the baker.

Freyde, perhaps encouraged by my level-up and what I had told them about it, didn’t want to stay on the defensive like before and led another attack. Whether it was deliberate on his part to slash at me just as Harper fired or if she saw the chance, I couldn’t tell. Either way, their coordination worked.

They made me give up thoughts of an attack and forced me to go into a back roll, where I opened myself up to Meneur’s spells. Of course, he took the opportunity, and if it weren’t for my mane, I’d have a burned shoulder to crisps.

They were pushing me hard for the amateurs they were. And while I was no more of an expert than those three, it wasn’t hard to see I was getting into a situation I didn’t want to be in.

So in a bit of a desperate effort, while deflecting another bolt and against my better judgment, I got within arm’s reach of Freyde with two quick steps boosted by extra speed. It was a wild guess, a chance I took when I formed a shield against his slash. 

A bet I won. The barrier shattered, but the sword didn’t go through all the way. 

Attack with the blade was not as piercing as a shot bolt, plus the bookkeeper just didn’t have that much strength in him. His widened eyes told me this was not in his calculations, and he knew what was coming.

The standard leather armor of the city guards he was wearing certainly seemed to be of good quality, protecting him well while allowing him to move freely. I wasn’t a stupid beast to attack him there. My claws dug into his arm right under his pauldrons.

The pained groan he let out was followed quickly by mine, when in an attempt to get behind his back right after that, the bastard grabbed me by my long mane and pulled back. I could see him reaching for it yet could do shit about it besides letting it disperse. A viable option, but it was too soon to do that. 

So defeat it was.

“Your win.” I blurted out quickly as he was about to stab me in the heat of battle. Making it even more obvious, I raised my hands in defense. 

Freyde hesitated, considering whether this was some kind of bluff, before he lowered his sword, a smile of relief appearing on his face. Since neither Harper nor Meneur continued with their attacks, relief fell on me too.

Scrambling to my feet, I pointed to his hand holding my mane. “You can let go now. You’ve proved your point.”

“Sorry, that wasn’t the intention.” he laughed and looked down at the lock of hair in his leather glove. “Is it just me, or...I feel a chill.”

I gave him a shrug. “How else do you think it counters Meneur’s magic?”

“Won’t that freeze your brain?” Harper asked, the crossbow slung over her shoulder. 

A chuckle escaped my throat. “More like melts it if I’m not careful.”

She gave me a questioning eyebrow just as Meneur reached us. “There doesn’t seem to be much I can use against you.”

“You?” Harper snorted. “She deflected every shot I took. At least you have spells. What can I do with only bolts?”

The taurus scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “In the clan, I was merely keeping the fire going. That one spell is pretty much all I know.”

“...” Harper took a breath to answer, only to pause and remain speechless. Freyde and I were no different, staring open-mouthed, not knowing what to say. Though she didn’t stay silent for long. “Darn, and here I thought I was the useless one...Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that. He can’t hit you. I can’t hit you, plus my flour exploding balls are out of the question...”

“Your what?” asked Freyde, raising an eyebrow in a mocking smile. 

“Don’t even start,” she warned him. “I haven’t had time to give it a proper name yet.”

“Okay,” he said, raising his arms and taking a step back. “I won’t talk about your balls.”

Harper gritted her teeth. “You! Maybe I should shoot your marbles instead of trying to hit her.”

“Accurate shooting, by the way,” I said in an attempt to calm the two down, then looked at Meneur as well. “Good timing with the spells, too. There was nothing I could do.”

Freyde snorted and pointed to his bleeding arm. “What do you call this? Actually, I should get it fixed.”

“Mistake?” I said, unsure myself. “It cost me the fight.”

He considered it. “True. I hope you’re not pissed about the hair.”

“Not at all,” I shook my head. “Better if I figure out it sucks in a fight right here and now, than later, when some slaver decides I’m worth a coin.” Or whoever the bounty on my head tempts. 

“Hey, enough talk!” someone in the ranks of the watching city guards roared. They wanted to see the action and fight was why we were here, so.... 

Freyde gave us a look and trotted off to the healers. 

“I’ll give this girl some tweaking,” Harper said at the expense of her crossbow. “See if I can get more power out of her.”

Meneur could do no such thing. Magic wasn’t that simple, and there were no shortcuts. At least not without risk. That’s what Aspen told me. His situation was...sad. It made me understand why Rayden wanted him to open his mind too.

But I had enough of my own worry. Namely, the mane, my stupidly long hair. What to do with it? Even though now-bleeding-not-elf didn’t intend it, he showed me why I shouldn’t just fight with loose hair. Braid came to mind. However, it was hard to imagine an opponent waiting for me to fix my hair. I wouldn’t.

Wasted effort too.

It wasn’t hair I’d keep after a fight. Still, they merited another chance. At first, I saw the wings as useless too. Now they’ve been a pretty big help in my struggles.

In the end, my little brain, even foolishly boosted by a small amount of mana, didn’t come up with a reasonable solution. All I could think of was just to grab the hair in my left hand and use it as a rope to swing it around. Of course, I had to let it grow to an even more ridiculous length and limit myself to only one arm in the fight.

On the other hand, if everything goes the way I imagined, I should have more options to counter Meneur’s magic. Avoiding his spells was holding me back and was giving Harper the opportunity to shoot me. Turning my back to the hot embers outright stopped me in my tracks.

Anyway, if my rope idea fails, there was still the [Master’s Shield].

Thinking about it, I haven’t actually used it against his magic yet and didn’t even know if it could withstand it. It was worth a shot, too.