Jiran’s steps were heavy as he left the Cave of Merging. He trudged through the sand, aura holding him atop the shifting grains while intent solidified the framework. The crunching of each footfall was a gentle scraping in his ears that did nothing to block the echo of Jedd’s dying gasps.

  He swallowed hard, finding his throat parched. A touch of Mana Confluence filled his mouth with cold water. He drank greedily, eyeing the three glaring orbs high overhead. Now that he wasn't rushing after an escaped captive, he had the time to appreciate how overbearing the midday heat was. The multiple layers of armor were doing a terrible job of cooling. Since leaving the pyramid temple, he had subconsciously burned mana to fend off the unnatural sunslight; there was no way he could stop either, lest he be cooked alive inside his suit.

  Gaze of Pediamus confirmed they don’t have any skills involving Telepathy, so it's worth my time to head back to the temple and question the others. That leaves running out of mana and this mysterious seeker as my biggest threats. I’ll question the other Meersvants about the seeker, and getting back into the shade would save me a good deal of mana. All I’m doing is standing out here, yet it's ridiculously draining.

  Jiran spent a minute altering his aura-obfuscating underlayer, turning it into a hardened rubber that would trap any moisture against his skin. Thinner, more flexible rubber plugged the gaps in the joints, further separating his underlayer from the hot air. He also assigned one of his minds to regulate his mana, ensuring none escaped through his pores or his breath. He considered repurposing one of his suit’s formations into a crude air conditioner. Unfortunately, his memories didn’t contain enough reliable knowledge to pull it off cheaply. He knew they used a chemical to absorb heat energy from the air, but he had no clue what kind of chemical worked for that sort of thing. Making it without a decent mental image would cost far more mana than it would save.

  Instead, he saturated his body with an ultra-thin layer of cooling aspect. The uncomfortable heat instantly abated. The method barely consumed any of his mana. It was still expensive enough to not be viable over a long period.

  Jiran didn't bother powering the inefficient Meersvant vehicle; instead, he lifted it to float beside him along with the remaining spears. He flew with aura alone. The relentless sunslight forced him to use significantly more mana to stay cool than he anticipated after the adjustments to his suit. The rays reflecting off the dunes burned his eyes until he used another trickle of mana to tint his visor.

  This is crazy. I'm spending a day's worth of what my skin would absorb in density every few minutes. What the heck happened to turn this place so deadly?

  Jiran didn't have an answer by the time he reached the temple. His brows furrowed as he spotted four sets of tracks exiting the hole blasted in the wall. Each led in a different direction, away from the only shade in sight.

  Crap! The heat melted my ice.

  He dropped the vehicle, and Mana Omnis led the way as he raced back into the wasteland toward the only one he could immediately spot. It turned out to be the Meersvant who had dislocated his shoulder. The man had clearly spent a considerable amount of mana healing himself. He then lacked the energy to make it further before digging a burrow beneath the baked ground. Jiran’s aura extracted the unconscious man and pulled him back to the temple.

  The man went from bad to worse during the short flight in the open air. He was half-dead when Jiran tossed him bonelessly onto the teleporter room floor. The air from the adjoining room was blissfully cool. The melted formation stones had apparently lost that ability, leaving the room he was standing in nearly as uncomfortable as outside.

  Jiran considered whether going after the others in the middle of the day was the most intelligent decision. He glanced down at his captive, finding the parasite in his depleted manapool unmoving like the rest of him. Only a tiny thread of mana was left connecting the beast to its host's spine.

  That little thread is all it takes to control his body? After absorbing his brain's functions, I suppose there isn’t much resistance left to offer. Fathers, but these bastards are creepy. Speaking of threads.

  Over the next several minutes, Jiran's aura guided his mana along the synapses of the framework. He painstakingly contained his mana within the confines of the synapses to expend the least mana while connecting with each mote of density he could find and drawing them into himself.

  Less than half of what I spent bringing this idiot back here. The others would have made it further but are probably hunkered down like he was. I’ll see what they have for supplies before deciding.

  He pulled sand from outside. Elemental Castigation pressed the material into the shape of a cage, and Mana Confluence formed the sand into graphene-laced metal bars. Confident the Meersvant wouldn’t be escaping again, Jiran repaired and sealed the door, then carefully made his way through each room in the pyramid, wary of additional traps.

  He didn’t find any, nor much of anything else. There were only a few large rooms in the entire structure. Each occupant had their own personal space. Additionally, there was an empty storeroom below ground, along with the two central chambers that housed the teleportation pad and destroyed guardroom.

  They cleared the place out before leaving. No sense waiting, then.

  He flew into the desert once more. Their tracks had already been wiped clean by the soft wind. He remembered the direction of each set but flew straight up anyway, hoping to spot which one was closest. His flight ended abruptly after a hundred meters when his graphene-laced suit emitted a worrying trail of smoke. Burnt chemicals and a hefty dose of blazing heat invaded his nostrils. He dropped fast, the temperature decreasing significantly when he returned to hovering a meter off the ground.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  As the more manageable heat invaded a fresh hole in his suit, the severity of his situation began settling in.

  He had planned to fly out of the desert after getting what he wanted from the Meersvants, but now he wasn’t sure that was even possible. Flying low to the ground required displacing significantly more air pressure, which in turn slowed him down and used more mana. Depending on the size of the desert, there was a real chance he would run out of energy before escaping. While hiding beneath the ground during the day would extend how far he could go, there was no guarantee it would be enough. Digging deep to find some beasts was a gamble, as Duke Reihnhardt had once told him how dangerous and foolish that was.

  I don’t even know what supplies they ran off with and if it's worth tracking them down. Why did Madra send me to this inferno-blasted wasteland? Did she want me trapped here?

  Ugh. What’s wrong with me? Since when did I ever back down from a challenge? I think these slithery bugs are getting to me. I’ve been through three challenger arenas; there’s no way I’m going to let some crappy desert beat me!

  Jiran jumped, utilizing roughly half his strength to send himself nearly a kilometer from the temple. He released his hold on the framework, and his weight crashed him into the ground. He punched before landing, sending a massive fountain of sand into the air. He sat and let the grains bury him as his aura and mana collected the nearby density.

  That was too far. Gathering density every few hundred meters will mostly offset the cost of tracking them down. I’m finally getting a taste of what being emperor is like. Do they feel trapped in a desert as well? Idling away the centuries as people slowly bring them enough food to recharge their manapools.

  Jiran shuddered and cleared his minds, though the thought of sending others out to gather food made him realize he was underutilizing a potentially vital tool in tracking down his quarries. With intent to see the nearest one, a dose of mana directed toward his eyes activated Gaze of Pediamus. His vision shifted to reveal hastily running feet traveling in a random direction. With nothing but smooth sand for reference, locating the man with only the sight from his own eyes was impossible.

  Jiran lifted himself free and used half the density absorbed from the area, first converting it to mana before forming two Elemental Castigations. A tiny ball of condensed gravity in each hand sucked in as much gas as he could create with so little mana. He threw them high into the air in opposite directions. The desert’s ridiculous heat had no issue igniting them, creating explosions that rocked the ground and released shockwaves that swept aside the sand.

  The Meersvant stumbled, looking over his shoulder at both explosions. Jiran grinned, “Gotcha!”

  He stepped into the air and rotated himself parallel to the ground. Bracing against the framework, he jumped with all his might. Space shattered behind him as the framework was shredded. He rocketed forward inside a cone of aura. Despite redirecting the air pressure, he blasted a trench in a perfectly straight line across the desert. From the eyes of his victim, he watched his own approach. The Meersvant fell on his ass, then scrambled to run, only to find Jiran standing in front of him.

  The split vision came to an end when a hammer of aura smacked the back of the man’s head, and he crumpled. Jiran absorbed the nearby density, and having no desire to antagonize the parasite into wasting its precious remaining mana, he physically lifted the man and his backpack before jumping back in the direction of the temple. Upon arriving, his newest captive joined the other Meersvant in the cage. The bag of precious supplies found its way to the temple’s basement via Jiran’s aura.

  Jiran stood before the prisoners, Mana Omnis allowing him to gaze longingly at the new arrival’s half-full manapool, “Hmm, I can’t leave you here with all that, or you’ll find some way to escape. That’s fine. I’ve been itching to test this out for a while. Show me what you can do, Mana Venom.”

  Jiran pulled a tiny glob of mana from his body and infused it with his intent. The mana shifted into a purplish substance that hissed and popped in the air. Instantly, a frown settled on his features when his skill refused to move as he willed it. Instead of shooting into the Meersvant, it hung before him, barely moving a few centimeters. Like acquiring a third arm and having no idea how to control the muscles, he tried repeatedly to get it to cooperate. His aura failed to push it, and the framework refused to allow the tainted energy inside.

  Unaspected mana had the most success, physically pushing the angry ball toward its target, though it was an arduous process. Usually, he could freely control unaspected mana within four meters of his body. Mana Venom stopped moving at less than half that range, leaving him wondering how he was supposed to attack with it. Annoyed and staring at the Meersvant just out of range, an idea sprouted.

  Jiran took out the crystal he had pried from one of their spears. He directed mana through it at the correct frequency to release a distortion that then slammed into his ball of venom. As though it were shot from a cannon, his Mana Venom blasted into the Meersvant who slid across the floor, crashing into the sturdy cage.

  Jiran tracked the energy as it zipped through the man, toward the parasite. The moment it connected with the tiny string of mana the beast had wrapped around its host’s spine, the little creature thrashed and bucked wildly. The man woke up with a scream, his eyes consumed with terror. He clutched his chest and kicked his legs to get away from Jiran, but his back was already against the edge of the cage.

  “Good morning,” Jiran quipped, his gaze never leaving the parasite.

  “W-who are you?! What did you do to us?” The Meersvant keened, his voice high and sharp.

  Jiran ignored his questions, “How do you feel? Seems you can still move fine, and you’re not in any pain; that’s good. Try using the mana I gave you.”

  “What? No, we—” The parasite, sensing that something was terribly wrong, attempted to use the same skill Jedd had used, only to quickly discover how bad of an idea that was.

  The venom Jiran fed it had already spread through its entire manapool, and the moment the beast attempted to activate the skill, the infected mana turned against it. The little monster was gripped by the energies around it. They twisted its form like a wrung-out dishrag. The Meersvant convulsed into a full-on seizure as the Creeping Pilferer was literally put through the wringer by the very energies that were supposed to be under its control.

  Thanks to his experiments with resisting Jedd’s skill, Jiran had several ideas to test the nature of Mana Venom. This first attempt was powered with the intent to debilitate and confuse, leaving his foe vulnerable to what came next. With a satisfied nod, Jiran tossed a formation box into the cage. The Enthralling Touch it was infused with latched on to most of the mana inside the Meersvant’s manapool, ripping it out in one swift tug. Save for Jiran’s Mana Venom, the energy was clean and clear of poison.

  “I left you enough mana to keep control of your host... for now. I’ll be back in a bit, don’t go anywhere,” Jiran left the temple, finally feeling like he was getting somewhere in this Fathers forsaken land.

  Mana Venom: + 4