“How are my channels?”

Little Blue shrugged and gave a ring like a bell.

She didn’t know, and neither did he. His channels were sore and stretched from over-use every day, and accepting a new rush of power from the priest had strained him further. On the other hand, they had also been strengthened by that power and by repeated treatment by Little Blue.

Sudden growth was hard to control, he used techniques constantly all day, and his wounds—all healed by his Bloodforged Iron body—had still taken strength from him. Integrating new blood essence burdened him now as eating high-quality sacred beast meat always had, and though his Iron body could handle it, the burden was adding up.

But he blinked the fatigue away and turned back to the armor. There were points to earn.

“Northstrider advances like this,” Lindon said. “So can we.”

[Yeah, where is he anyway? Didn’t he say he could find us wherever we went? Do you think he’ll be mad if he thinks we ran away?]

“He told us we could,” Lindon said, but truthfully he was afraid of the same thing.

A construct blared a warning, and he looked up to see who had tripped the perimeter alarm. Akura Grace strode up, holding a ward key that let her push through the security measures. They didn’t let her pass the alarm, though. Lindon wanted to know when anyone approached, even friends.

He tapped his pen dry and put it down, stretching as Dross shifted back into him. He didn’t hide Dross’ existence from his team, but he did want to keep the spirit’s full capabilities a secret.

Lindon tried not to resent the interruption, but he wanted to keep working on the armor. Still, Grace wouldn’t visit without a good reason.

She poked her head in, glanced around, then entered entirely. “We’re about to eat, if you’d like to join us.”

So much for a good reason.

Lindon forced a smile. “Apologies. I don’t have enough time to work on my armor during the day, and I’d like to examine these pieces while they’re still fresh.”

Instead of bowing out, she brightened and stepped closer to the table. “Oh, I had a project like this when I was a Jade! I tried to put together a version of the family’s bloodline armor using Lowgold materials. It didn’t work very well, but I won a Soulsmithing contest.”

“Really? How did you compress the plates?”

“Scripts. Way too many scripts.”

Lindon had known that the Akura clan had done very little research into construct armor, since all the members of their main family could generate their own, so he was interested to hear the perspective of someone who had tried to pursue that avenue anyway.

But after only a few more questions, he realized he was wasting time and stopped himself. “…apologies, but let’s talk more about that some other time. I need to go find some Remnants, if they haven’t all been eaten by dreadbeasts. We can’t afford to spend points on dead matter.”

Grace crossed her arms and leaned against the table. “What are you looking to buy?”

“All of it,” he said immediately. “But we’re so close to earning the Diamond Veins, and I’d love to end up with those for myself. It’s always my channels holding me back.”

The talk about the prizes only reminded him that his time to earn points was slipping away—he would have to return to the Uncrowned tournament in only a few days.

But still, it would have been impolite not to ask her the same question. “How about you?”

“The Thousand Swords of Binding Light,” she admitted, glancing away. “The same as everyone else. They’re too expensive. I know it’s just a dream, but I might be able to commission an Akura Soulsmith to make me something similar someday.”

Lindon looked over his armor. “If we can pick up our pace, it’s not a dream. We could separate and go after different teams, or we could bait out a high priest…”

He trailed off, going over plans in his mind for the thousandth time before Grace spoke up again.

She pulled her long, curved steel sword from her soulspace. “I don’t know how I’ll do in a fight against a high priest. My sacred instrument is getting weaker, and sometimes it takes a blink or two before it activates.”

“You haven’t been taking care of it,” Lindon said immediately, before wincing. “Pardon, that was rude. I know you’ve been busy.”

“I’ve been using it all day every day,” she said with a sigh. “No time to rest.”

Lindon was the one who decided that they should be spending every second of every day on missions, so he heard that as an accusation. “Apologies,” he said. “I’ll keep our equipment in mind. It’s important not to abuse the components.”

She laid her fingers on his arm until he looked up, surprised.

Then she pointed out of the wide doors, which she’d never closed.

Pride stood just outside the outer layer of his script, standing over a campfire. The Maten sisters and Naru Saeya were behind him, stripping logs with Ruler techniques to make a table.

They were setting up to eat. Right outside his makeshift foundry.

“Why don’t we go do some maintenance?” Grace suggested gently.

[Ouch,] Dross said.

Little Blue peeped eagerly and ran for the edge of the table. She agreed.

And, really, so did Lindon.

“Apologies,” he said.

“What for?”

Lindon packed away his armor and tools and joined his team. The wasted time weighed on him…but it wasn’t wasted time, he reminded himself. It was maintenance.

With that in mind, he was finally able to relax.

Two days before the next round of the Uncrowned King tournament, Lindon held a shimmering blue-white crystal in his hands. Its energy felt pure and cleansing, almost like a mix of Little Blue’s madra and the impression that Suriel’s glass marble gave him.

He finally had the Diamond Veins.

It was beautiful. He had been looking at it all day.

Pride cleared his throat. “You can’t take it.”

“Yes, of course. Of course. But if I did, can you imagine how many points we could score in a day? It’s an investment, if you think about it.”

It had taken more than two weeks to earn enough points for the Diamond Veins, which was far longer than Lindon had expected. He just couldn’t get the expenses down far enough, when he had to subsidize an entire group of eight.

If he could have hunted Remnants, it would have been far cheaper, but dreadbeasts fed on Remnants and left none behind themselves. So both Remnants and natural spirits were rare whenever a Dreadgod was nearby.

The entire team agreed that they should clear an expensive item out of the store before one of their competitors could buy it, but no honorable leader would spend all his team’s points on something for himself.

But Lindon couldn’t help but imagine. And he would be far more likely to get the other expensive items if he wasn’t slowed down by his madra channels.

“We can’t give exclusive prizes to anyone until we earn as many as we can,” Pride said firmly. “You said that. This was your idea. We could have cashed them all in for scales.”

“I know,” Lindon muttered. But he couldn’t stop staring into the faceted surface of the Diamond Veins.