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The mana flow ended at a spiderwebbed dark hole that vanished deeper into the earth—one of the centipede holes from the previous round of the trial. The mana grew even thicker beyond the hole, but Ike sat outside the hole. He had no interest in pressing his luck by stepping past the defensive spider webbing and exposing himself to the centipedes again. Just because he'd escaped that phase of the trial, didn't mean the centipedes were gone. They were still down there, still waiting. If not for Wisp's webs, they'd run the danger of a centipede invasion at any moment.

"Obviously, if we could get out of here and get down into the heart of the mana vein, where the big mother centipede was resting, we'd be even better off, but…" Shawn trailed off, coming to the same conclusion Ike just had. He waved his hand. "This is good enough."

"So what am I looking for, when it comes to sensing mana flows?"

"It's not what you're looking for, it's that you need to look more. You need to pay more attention. Focus more on the energy around you, rather than on your energy," Shawn told him.

Ike frowned. "But I sense energy around me by extending my energy."

"And you don't see the inherent issue with that? You're washing out all the details by blasting the energy around you with your own energy. It's like shouting so you can hear a conversation. Totally counterintuitive."

"Right, but…I'm deaf if I'm not shouting," Ike explained, extending the metaphor.

Shawn shook his head. "You're not deaf. You're just really hard of hearing. And stupid."

"That last part was unnecessary."

"But refreshing."

Ike sighed. He settled down and folded his legs. "I'll give it a try. It can't hurt."

"The mana's so thick here, it should be pretty obvious. Once you get a grasp on how to listen to it, you can try moving away from the center flow and listening again… though I wouldn't recommend it in this situation, where you need to recover mana quickly. Still, that's how you'd do it. Later."

"Got it." Ike closed his eyes. He extended his senses around him, then paused. Wait. That's what Shawn told me not to do. But how do I sense things with aether, without using my aether? He frowned, thinking deeply. He listened without having to make noise, saw without having to extend light. Shawn was right. Most of his senses worked without him projecting the thing that sensed. Why was aether-sensing different?

It's not a sense I was born with, for one. But even so… if Shawn said it could work without him projecting aether, then there had to be a way. He immersed himself deeper in meditation, plunging himself into investigating the truths about sensing aether. Everything he knew about sensing with mana and aether flowed through his mind, and for the first time, he examined all his knowledge and reconsidered it, from an external, objective standpoint. What did he misunderstand? What did he assume, that wasn't true? Deeper and deeper he descended, and all the while, he kept absorbing aether.

Shawn sat up on Ike's shoulder. A few minutes passed. Ike descended into a meditative state, lost to the world. Shawn tilted his head. He lightly patted Ike's cheek, checking how deeply immersed he was. When Ike didn't respond, he hopped off and wandered around. Down here, there was plenty of mana. It was almost like he was rooted in the mana vein. As a result, he had full mobility, with no need to conserve his strength. He stretched, leaning left and right, then walked toward the hole in the wall, lifting a pudgy hand to peek through the spider threads.

A pale shade reached a hand to mimic his, her fingers long and thin, her face almost skeletal. Ike wouldn't have been able to see her, nor Wisp, nor anyone else. Only Shawn, more sensitive to the mana flows, could sense her presence.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

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"You're all that's left, then," he murmured.

She lowered her eyelids halfway, a quiet acknowledgement.

"Tell me. Is there a way through? Does this trial have an end?"

The shade thought for a moment. Her whole body wavered, vanishing from Shawn's perception. The mana flow shifted, and she appeared again. Once more, her eyelids dipped.

Shawn pressed his palm to the silk. On the other side, she did the same. "If I have the chance, I'll put you to rest."

Once more, she shut her eyes. This time, she faded away before they opened. The last remnant of what had been, clinging to the last of her vitality. Bound to this realm, unable to break free or pass on.

"Pitiful," he murmured, shaking his head. He lowered his hand and walked back to Ike's side, sitting down to collect his own mana. The mana flowed around him, with no strangeness or interruption any longer. There was no sign of the girl who'd appeared, not even to Shawn's senses. And yet, the mana flowed ever so slightly stronger toward Ike and Shawn, as if the girl silently wished for their success.

Lost in meditation, Ike was aware of none of it. He focused deeper on sensing aether, giving himself to the flow of energies all around him. Slowly, something began to build up in his senses. A flow, a shape. Even when he didn't extend his aether, he could still sense the way the energy flowed around him and through him. For now, that was all he could sense—the energy flowing through and immediately around him. But he could sense it, without putting out any energy of his own. There was something more to it—he could sense that. He was on the brink of something more, the brink of a greater breakthrough. More than just tracing energy and understanding mana flows, there was something beyond it. Some fundamental understanding of energy and the world.

That same sensation flowed up within him. The one he'd felt before, on the day of the battle with Llewyn. Something… something important. He could almost grasp it, but it filtered through his fingers like sand. The tighter he tried to grasp it, the faster it flowed away.

He butted up against a wall. An unseen force blocked him from progressing any further toward this truth. He frowned, looking up at the wall.

Ike's eyes widened. He stumbled back. "No way…"

"Ike! We need you!"

Ike startled awake. His eyes shot open. That thing he'd been on the verge of comprehending flowed away for the second time.

Dammit!

The castle shook. Stone ground on stone, and dust rained down. There was no time for regrets. He snatched up Shawn and charged toward the battlements, his heart in his throat. What had gone wrong now?