"Who knew such a giant of a tree could go down...?"

Alice stared in wonder at the stump of the giant tree. It was almost big enough another village could be built on it. Kirim was starting to cut at the roots, while Kirii and Eugeo were training with magic. Alice was still baffled the tree which had been there since the founding of Rulid was actually chopped down. She thought it would never happen until Kirim arrived and proved that her world wasn't as set on its path as she thought.

It wasn't just the tree being cut down either. She was given a new sacred task. She was no longer bound to the church and sacred tasks anymore, with the task of sacred mage being given to her, she could do anything she wanted so long as she practised magic or sacred arts at least a few times a day, and didn't cross over into the dark lands. One other person had that role, but not among the four who had become incredibly fast friends.

"What was your new sacred task again Eugeo?"

Alice's question got Eugeo's attention, but he continued with his practice unimpeded by the distraction. It was impressive how much they were progressing with their ability to harness magic. One of Kirim's biggest lessons with magic was on how to avoid breaking your magic from being distracted or needing to move. Often, sacred arts and magic users were bound to the rule of needing their feet firmly on the ground, but blood elves had kept hidden the truth that magic could be cast while moving.

There was a belief that a caster's feet needed to be firmly planted on the ground for casting magic because they needed to be rooted to the ground beneath them in a sense. This belief was strengthened by the fact that most casters had weak capacities for magic and sacred arts. The reality was that while humans and blood elves and magic users of all ability levels would start off with weak capacities for magic, none were used to using the energy around them. Only those with high rank in the Axiom church were capable of large scale magic, aside from the exception of the leaders of the human mages of the dark lands. They however used their own as sacrifices for casting large scale magic for lack of ambient energy in the dark lands. The dark lands weren't devoid of energy, however it was difficult for large scale magic to be done there because the ambient energy was incredibly thin. The light lands had the sacred arts as their only excuse for falling short with the average person on capabilities.

"My new sacred task is sacred swordsman. It just means that I use sacred arts and swordplay. Apparently I'm not bound to anything knightly or sacred in nature like serving the church directly. I'm apparently sharing this sacred task with a few integrity knights, so I really want to get strong enough to live up to the others who have the task."

Eugeo was being earnest about his desire to grow stronger. He genuinely wanted to be able to become able to protect the people around him. He wanted to grow strong enough to protect Alice, Kirii, Kirim, his family, everyone important to him.

"That sounds just like you, Eugeo. You've been wearing that large sword on your back since we got it from the cave."

Alice's point was toward the blue rose sword on his back. He wasn't using it, but keeping it on his back gave him extra weight he was carrying, and thus it was more work for his legs. It was something Kirim had suggested before. Eugeo was a little slower than Kirii in terms of running speed, so Kirim wanted him to train his legs so they were at least even for the time being.

"Speaking of just like him, he's been diligent in everything I've been teaching him. Without a complaint. Is that really just like him?"

Alice nodded.

"He's always practising after he's been taught something. He's very restless too."

Eugeo shrugged.

"I just don't want the teachings to go to waste on me."

Kirim nodded with a smile on her face.

"Maybe you're distantly related to blood elves. That or you're just well raised. I think you were just raised well to appreciate everything you've been given. I've noticed that some here aren't using everything when they hunt animals, and they're tossing away some things that could very easily be used. For example the bones of hunted animals. You've seen what I do with animal bones."

Eugeo smiled nodding.

"It was difficult seeing you butcher the deer, but seeing what you made of it, and you thanked it for providing its body to your continued life, it made me feel like we've been doing things wrong for sure here. There wasn't a part of it you didn't make use of."

Eugeo was excited over it, when it was nothing special to Kirim.

"Some of the materials I put together from that hunt can be made into equipment we'll use every day. Things like carrying pouches, fastening clamps, clothes, bow string, arrow heads and more. If you powder some of it, grind it until it's a powder consistency, you could turn it into glue which will help us secure things together. Like my boots here as an example. These wouldn't be possible without animal based glue to bind the leather in just the right way. The glue isn't the only thing making it work, but the boots are made of mostly animal."

The others knew this already from seeing her make a pair of spare boots for herself from materials since her current pair were worn out. They just didn't know how the trimmings came to be. The fastening clamps, the toe protectors and heel protectors as well as the shin guards. Her boots went up to just below the knees, so the amount of materials for her boots were rather large.

"Will you be teaching us how to make our own clothes like that?"

Alice's question made Eugeo and Kirii almost reluctant to hear the response. They associated making clothes with being a woman's job because it was mostly women working at the weaver workshop. Eugeo and Kirii weren't against learning, and Alice hadn't yet learned anything about weaving because she had been working at the church her whole life. She had learned how to cook and clean fairly well, and she learned how to mend her clothes, but any more than that was out of reach at the moment for her.

"Of course. I'll teach step by step how to make different kinds of clothes. Underwear, boots, shirts, trousers and short trousers, coats, and I've had an idea for something new since coming to the light lands. The sky is so bright up there during the day that I need something to protect my vision. I could be something that tints our vision dark, or it could be something worn for blocking out the brightness."

The others were curious by what she meant with something new. They had sunhats for the farmers, but the other thing to tint vision was completely unknown. Kirii was especially curious since he was missing half of his vision. It would have been all of his vision if not for Kirim sharing half of hers with him.

"What's the first thing you'll teach us to make?"

Kirim had a disappointed expression in response.

"Don't you remember me showing you step by step how to make boots before? That was the first. I'll have to coach you directly through making your first set of clothes, but I've already shown you how to make boots. The next step is to guide you step by step through actually making the. I just need to deal with the roots and stump of this tree or it could develop into an issue again. I also want to turn these roots into something very useful."

She snickered when they stared in confusion.

"You'll find out when it's done. It's the one secret I'm firm on keeping for the time being."

She continued hacking away at the trunk of the tree, dividing it into easily manageable pieces. She had to kill it the rest of the way so she could make direct contact with it and it wouldn't drain energy from her. They were confused by her way of continuing interacting with the tree trunk. Knowing that she was going to be turning it into something, they became curious. What could the blocks of tree stump be turned into?

"Get back to your practising, you stopped."

Kirim said that as she continued cutting at the stump. They scrambled and got back to practising their magic, casting while moving, maintaining form of a water orb. Kirii was struggling with the concentration, his orb wavering a lot while moving. Eugeo's orb wavered a fair amount as well, but not as much as Kirii's. Alice's orb as she practised with them, was constant. It was almost as if she had conjured an orb of solid consistency which just looked like water instead of it actually being made of water. Walking circles around their water orbs while walking small steps was enough to drain them of a significant amount of energy, expending both physical energy and spiritual energy. Exhausting their spiritual energy would lead to increasing their capacity. It was a way for them to indefinitely grow stronger for the time being. Exhaust themselves in their younger years to increase their capacity for magic.

"Eeek!"

Selka's shriek caught everyone's attention and even broke Alice's orb, shattering the illusion that it might have been a solidly conjured object. The water orbs all splashed down to the ground.

"Wh- are you okay Selka?!"

Alice ran over to her after seeing who it was that shrieked. The rest followed up close after. It was rather obvious what happened when they saw Selka wet from head to toe and all around her. She had been spying on their magic lessons. She also definitely tried to use magic while learning from watching in on their lessons. The assumption right away was that she tried moving after conjuring some water and it exploded all over her. Her church robe was soaked and she was shivering from the water and the breeze blowing through her.

"That was an impressive amount of water to soak you that much~ Alice, how about you practice your heat magic to dry her off? If you can't do it in two minutes I'll dry her off."

Alice nodded and got to work.

"Just remember to hold back from generating too much heat. I'll stop you as soon as it seems you're generating too much heat. Also, you'll want to combine another element with your heat this time. Selka, would you mind standing up so your sister can reach more of you?"

Selka shivered more intensely as she nodded in response. She stood up and sneezed.

"I'll put off your heat magic practice for now, actually. If she doesn't warm up quickly she could get very sick. If she's sneezing already that means the wind is too cold right now to let her stay cold for long."

Kirim walked up to Selka and imagined a gentle, very warm heat emanating from her, blowing off as a warm breeze through Selka's clothes and drying all the moisture clinging to her clothes and body swiftly. It took her only a few seconds to get Selka dry with magic.

"...whoa."

Selka stared at her clothes, stunned at their being dry already too. Kirii, Alice and Eugeo stared in surprise.

"So fast..."

Alice was a little disappointed.

"Since that happened, I'll get out some cloth from my bag. This time, you'll practice three layers of magic since this inspired me. We'll want to exhaust you fast now so that lunch will replenish a lot of energy for you. Plus tackling as much layering of magic at once as possible enhances growth massively."

Kirim pulled a bundle of cloths from her travel bag and handed one to each of them. Selka included. She held onto the last one and demonstrated what she was expecting of them. She levitated the cloth over her hands, stretched it out, soaked it with water, dried it, soaked it and dried it again in quick succession.

"That's your goal. Do this in parts. Levitating the cloth, soaking it without splashing water out from it, drying it, soaking it and repeating this over and over. Do all of this while levitating the cloth since aside from Selka, I know you can all levitate your water orbs. I'll tell you when you can start walking while casting this level of magic."

She paid attention to them as they got to work on levitating the cloths. She was especially attentive of Selka because of the knowledge that Selka had been as curious as she was when she was younger. Selka had learned quite well for not being taught directly. She struggled with levitating her cloth, but once it was up, she was able to stand with it and it didn't waver at all. It wasn't giving the impression it would drop in the slightest.

Selka was concentrating as hard as she could on keeping the cloth firmly folded out and in place. After a while, she tried getting it wet with the water magic, but the water exploded immediately. Layering magic was too much for her currently. It was impressive that she was able to layer water on top of the levitation magic, but she needed a lot more practice.

"That was good for the first time you've practised in front of me. Here, let's get everyone dried off."

Selka's water explosion had gotten everyone wet, so Kirim dried them all off in an instant.

"Now, for you Selka I'll give direct lessons. Kirii, Eugeo and Alice, please practice while I teach Selka directly."

They nodded and got back to work. Kirim watched as Selka got to work on levitating the cloth.

"How are you imagining the cloth lifting?"

Selka was confused, and dropped the cloth right away. She pouted and tried to lift it again while responding to Kirim but the cloth kept dropping so she stayed crouched down and responded, staring at the cloth.

"I was just imagining your cloth. How it looked when you lifted it."

Kirim smiled.

"It's going to take a little more than that. That's very impressive though. Imagine picking it up with your own hands and stretching it out."

Selka looked up, the pout retreating from her expression and she looked back to the cloth, levitating it again with the method Kirim mentioned. It was much smoother than before.

"Now, try walking around the cloth while holding onto it with your mind."

She followed the instructions and successfully managed through that.

"Very good, now stop the cloth from spinning with you while you walk around it."

Selka managed that cleanly as well.

"Excellent, now bring the cloth to your actual hands and we'll start with your water orb."

She nodded and the intensity of her expression sharpened immediately. Her water didn't even form an orb before exploding. Kirim had a barrier of an invisible orb around it so it wouldn't get everyone wet again.

"Wh-how did that happen?"

Kirim shrugged.

"I wanted to make sure I don't need to dry everyone off so many times, so I've put an orb barrier around where you're aiming your magic."

Selka pouted.

"It's okay to feel frustrated, but it takes a long time to even get to where you are with magic at the moment. You should feel proud of that."

Selka smiled for a second but quickly returned to pouting. She knew that Kirim was expecting her not to have the water magic under control.

"Again."

Selka tried again with the water orb, but it splashed inside the barrier once again.

"How are you imagining creating your orb of water?"

She sighed and sat on the ground in place.

"I'm imagining...water replacing a ball."

Kirim smiled.

"You're on the right track, but you don't want to replace the ball. You want to imitate the ball. Imagine water swirling in from the moisture in the air, and forming into the ball. Like this."

Kirim made an example for Selka to mimic. She generated water in a gentle swirling effect, and molded it into a small orb. She then generated a barrier around it and held up a water skin to hold it from her bag. The water went in smoothly, not a drop missing the spout.

"Whoa..."

Selka nodded after seeing it happen and stood up, trying again. She imagined as clearly as possible, seeing the swirl of the water in the air in front of her mimicking Kirim's generation of the water, and then she swirled it tighter and tighter until it folded into a nice orb shape. It held.

"Excellent! Now, just hold the image of that orb in your mind and walk around it."

Selka was nervous as she picked up one of her feet, but she managed a single step without breaking the orb. It did waver a little, but she was able to solidify it once again fairly quick. She took another step, and she got used to it fairly quickly. She had already caught up to a day of practice Kirim, Eugeo and Alice had been through.

"Perfect, now soak your cloth with your orb."

Selka stopped walking, held out the cloth and levitated it to meet the orb. The cloth was instantly soaked and submerged in the orb.

"Perfect! Now, imagine some of your body heat turning into a wave of heat blowing off of you into a breeze. Surround the cloth and orb of water in it and the water turning into steam, floating into the air."

Selka continued to follow instructions and perfectly performed as instructed. Having it clearly explained to her made it all the more easy to imagine and act. Her magic made leaps in clarity just by being taught directly, hearing every word Kirim was saying.

"Now, you've caught up with Alice, Kirii and Eugeo. Keep up with them, making the cloth wet, then dry repeatedly until you're comfortable enough to start walking around it without breaking your concentration."

Kirim got back to work on cutting up the trunk of the tree, piling up the blocks she had been hacking the trunk into to the side before and tackling another layer of trunk. She used levitating magic so she didn't have to make direct contact with the tree, just in case. She did a lot of the cutting by hand, but it was actually a significant portion done by blades of magic she was guiding with her slashes.

She continued until the trunk was no longer protruding above the ground. She firmly continued into the ground, digging up the roots of the tree. It didn't take very long for her to finish. She had some expectation that there would be just as much tree underground as there was above ground, but her expectation was betrayed. There were roots which stretched out, but she was able to pull them out.

With the tree and its roots dug up, and made safe to make contact with, she wondered about if she should start transplanting some grass and trees, but for the time being filling the ground with clean dirt would help them most.

"Let's see how they're doing with their practice..."

She watched over them for a minute, and she was a little disappointed. They were still struggling, at least Eugeo and Kirii, with keeping the magic stable. Between the cloth dipping and shaking, and the water dripping from the cloth, they were struggling immensely.

"Hmm, seems you're having some difficulty. Eugeo, Kirii, can you come over here?"

They struggled with cancelling their magic, it took a while. When they cancelled it, they dropped the cloths and flopped back on their butts. They were breathing hard, sweating like they were going to pass out as soon as they hit the ground.

"...worn...out..."

Kirii's response was baffling to her. Kirim sighed and walked over to them. She was surprised they were worn out so quickly from a little practising with layering magic. It was one of the earliest things she learned and she never had any trouble. It was likely that their struggle was attributed to being male. She wondered where the expectation on male and females with magic came from, but it seemed it was innate. They were struggling with something that she never had trouble with and it seemed Selka and Alice were doing fine. It just took a bit of starting up advice.

"I guess there was a thing behind people claiming that men and women have different affinity with magic. Not being able to layer magic is something extremely important. In advanced levels of magic, you won't get very far if you can't successfully layer it."

Kirii and Eugeo shrugged. Eugeo passed out. It was much too draining on him.

"Makes me...consider that suggestion of yours..."

He panted between words. Kirim tilted her head in confusion.

"...the suggestion that I change my body..."

Alice and Selka looked from Kirii to Kirim in confusion, stopping their practice without any effort at all. It was more and more evident how the difference effected Kirii and Eugeo.

"If you're going to bring that up, I certainly hope you gave it a lot of thought. While we're young, it's extremely difficult to go back. You need to grow up significantly with magic to be able to freely go back and forth."

Selka and Alice were extremely curious.

"What's all this about?"

Alice's question was directed at Kirim.

"It's a blood elf thing. Our bodies are easily influenced by magic. At a young age, we are able to swap between being male or female, but it's a one time thing until we're well developed adults. If Kirii is set on it, he can become a girl. Our bodies do the work themselves."

Alice stared at Kirim with an utterly baffled expression.

"Were you...?"

Kirim shook her head.

"I'm comfy as a girl. I haven't changed and won't anytime soon, if at all. But there are many among our tribe who do change. It's rather common to be confused and uncomfortable with our bodies. Especially since our bodies are very neutral. They're both male and female at birth, but around the age of ten it's set as whatever the comfort level is. Kirii has some time to develop in comfort level, to become one or the other. Right now he's male but he has time to be something else. He can continue to be male, or become female, or both, or neither. Those are the options. My tribe calls neither choosers [Fipe] and both choosers [Lepe]. They don't really translate to anything, it's just a word to make it easier to understand whether a person is one or the other. As for pronouns, both fipe and lepe use [et] to replace [her], and [es] to replace she, as example."

Alice and Selka blinked slowly, their realization that Kirim and Kirii being a different species than them altogether clicked, but it took time to register. They just stared in disbelief.

"It's not that complicated. I'm sorry if it is a bit much as far as information to take in, but just take it as this for the time being – Kirii might change a bit but will still be the same person you know. I'm not changing. If Kirii doesn't mind you using the same pronouns and such you're used to, then it's like nothing is changing at all. Especially since even if Kirii chooses to be female, developing characteristics of females will not likely happen. Like breast growth. Remember aunty Kirito? She wasn't very developed at all. Even though she was over four hundred years old, definitely an adult. We don't develop much in terms of femininity, and so it would be easy enough for Kirii to go back even as an adult to being male if so chosen."

They continued with being baffled, but they eventually snapped out of it, Selka first.

"I guess Kirii was always a little different. It just means he was that different. It's not that big of a deal if we don't need to change how we refer to him. Right big sis?"

Alice snapped out of her stupor and nodded.

"As long as things don't change too much. Besides, if Kirii can become stronger through changing, it would be good for him in many ways."

All agreed, Kirim poked Kirii and Eugeo's cheeks lightly, passing them a little energy to have them observe the next thing she was teaching them. Kirii had fallen asleep during the explanation, and Eugeo was still unconscious. They both woke with the pokes and energy infusion.

"It's not quite time for bed you two. Get on your feet. You don't need to use any more magic today, just observe what the next magic you will be learning is, and we'll get you home before you pass out again."

Kirii pushed himself to his feet and Eugeo pushed himself into a sitting position. They were both poised to watch. Kirim noticed their awareness being enough to observe her use of the magic. She let out a sigh of relief and began.

She lifted spires of hardened, sharpened ground into a spiral spear and spread out the top. It was like a flower made of stone. The overall reaction to the mineral magic was expected. They stared and clapped.

"So pretty~"

"Very impressive."

"I wonder how tough it is."

Kirim began to explain.

"This is mineral magic. It's entirely reliant on ambient energy to be cast and to generate. It takes the actual environment to form. Something like generating spears of stone in the air is impossible unless you levitate sections of the ground, form them into spears and propel them forward. I'll show you an example of this as well. I'll be filling in the hole from the tree roots using this magic. Filling in a hole with this type of magic does mean that I'm disregarding what I just told you a bit. But only a bit. I'm breaking down harder mineral into softer mineral so that it can in essence expand. Also, high level magic users can ignore the rules in basics a fair amount and enter a region of creation magic. I'm a specialist in mineral creation magic."

It was something baffling to them, but after she easily demonstrated filling in the hole with dirt they understood. The dirt appeared in the air above the ground like how they created water, and poured more than the appeared amount of dirt into the hole, the dirt continuously being created and dumped in. When the dirt started to mount, the source changed into a large and solid mass which pressed down on the hole where the demon tree had been, and a firm upper layer of dirt was generated above as well, ready to grow grass or whatever else might be put there.