"Shouldn't it?" Sophia tilted her head a little to the side as she frowned. "If it's giving you the Anchor at the same time as the Sphere?"

"You'd think so," Xin'ri agreed, "But the Guide isn't that helpful. No one really knows how it works, but the best guess anyone has is that the Anchor is assigned based on you while you get to pick the Sphere. At least one of the offered Spheres always seems to fit the Anchor, but it's not always the one you picked. I was lucky, my Anchor is well suited to the Sphere I picked. Implement is a good Anchor for anyone who expresses their Abilities through items."

"How many Anchors are there?" Sophia had asked both Amy and Los'en on the trip from Izel, but she was pretty sure Any only vaguely understood the concept and Los'en's explanation was terrible. He didn't seem to know much more than the fact that the Guide said they were necessary for the first upgrade.

"A lot," Xin'ri answered vaguely. "Anchors are how you express your Abilities. Oh, that's a bad way to say it. Uh, an example. Implement is one of the most generic item-type Anchors. It's pretty common for Professionals, but some Called have an Implement Anchor as well. Some Called have the Weapon Anchor instead; it's similar but means they can only ever manifest Abilities that have something to do with a weapon; even armor won't work for them. Their weapon-based Abilities are stronger and they get more of them, but that's all they can have."

Sophia frowned at that idea. She didn't like the idea of being restricted in the Abilities she could learn.

"If they become Professionals, when they're older, they have to either break their Anchor, which is a terrible idea if they're in the second upgrade, or make it work for them in their Profession. That can mean a lot of different things; a butcher, for example, can get very good use out of a Weapon Anchor. The Implement Anchor is a lot easier to transition, because almost every Profession uses implements of some sort. If I went into butchering, though, I probably wouldn't be able to cut up meat as easily or save as much of the innate power as a Weapon Anchor butcher would." Xin'ri wrinkled her nose, then added, "Not that butcher is a likely Profession for me. I'd pick something that suits me better and leave the knife work for people that use knives."

That explained Xin'ri's wand, then. She needed something in order to use her Abilities. Sophia frowned as she noticed that it was missing again; where did the woman put it?

"Then an Entity Anchor…" Dav trailed off, clearly not sure how to finish asking about his own Anchor.

Xin'ri blinked in surprise. "That's one I haven't heard of in a long time. Uh, let's see, what do I remember. It's a spirit-type Anchor. Spirit-type Anchors are usually good for magic and attacks that bypass Shield, but they all have at least one thing that's distinctive. I can't remember what it is for Entity."

Xin'ri held out her hand like she was holding a book. This time, Sophia saw it when the book faded into existence. It was probably similar to Sophia's backpack, but Sophia envied her the ability to pull things out without having to dig for them. Sophia was always losing stuff in her backpack, when she didn't just forget she had them.

Xin'ri flipped a few pages, then muttered to herself, "Ah hah, there it is." She glanced up at Dav. "You sure you want me to read this out loud?"

Dav shrugged. "If it's something where you have to ask that question, I probably don't have whatever Ability it refers to. I don't think I have anything all that problematic."

Xin'ri flashed him a grin. "Then you're not able to possess people, or even monsters?"

Dav shook his head. "The opposite, if anything. I summon power to enhance myself."

"Ohhh. That explains a lot." Xin'ri nodded, then closed the book, dismissing it back to wherever it stayed when she wasn't holding it.

"What does it explain?" Sophia couldn't resist the question.

"The other side of the Entity anchor is when it behaves like a Body Anchor," Xin'ri answered with a bright smile. "But since it's spirit-based, that isn't possible. Using spirits to enhance the body with an Entity Anchor is a lot more likely."

Sophia wasn't sure how that was different, really; wasn't it just a different Concept that led to the same effect? The Guide seemed to not recognize Concepts at all, which was irritating. It meant a lot of things she'd learned back home didn't apply, and even when things were similar she was sometimes wrong.

"It wouldn't suit me at all, but I can see it working well for someone who fights with their fists," Xin'ri added.

Dav shook his head. "I use a sword. I have an Ability that lets me, ah, attune the weapon; then I can use my Abilities with it directly. I can also create a weapon, or even ammunition like arrows; if I do that, I can store an Ability in it. It dissipates if I stop maintaining it, but until then the weapon can even be used by someone else."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Huh." Xin'ri didn't seem sure what to think of that. "I want to ask you a dozen questions now. Do you know the difference between an ether construct and empyrean manifestation?"

Dav shook his head.

"Too bad. Later, then; we should keep going. I don't think we'll find anything useful soon, but each new room has a chance and we're most of the way to the area we haven't explored yet. Do you want to handle the next ruin apparition? If we can split into two groups, we can move faster." Xin'ri's eyes lit up. "If you find anything that glows or stings you or, well, really anything at all, please call for me. I'm really tired of empty rooms and bathrooms."

"We'd be happy to," Dav answered after a quick glance at Sophia. "If nothing else, you can step in if what we have doesn't work."

Sophia considered asking about her own Anchor, but she figured she could wait. Her domain was pretty easy to figure out, after all; it was the area inside her aura. There might be something she could learn about her future options by learning about it, but it was unlikely to change anything for now.

They didn't take out only the next ruins apparition. As they made their way farther into the area that had been cleared previously, they split up the ruins apparitions they encountered, with Lan'ti's team acting as backup each time. It wasn't necessary, but it was a good idea to have someone experienced watching for mistakes.

The first one was Dav's. He went in cautiously and wrapped it up with the petals of Flowering Firewater, then struck it once with his sword while using Spirit Shatter. He didn't need a second hit; it simply fell apart. Sophia wasn't sure who was the most surprised by that; Lan'ti was openly shocked by how fast it was, but Xin'ri pulled her book out and started scribbling in it as they examined the room.

That gave Sophia the confidence to try her True Death bolts on the second ruins apparition they found. One wasn't enough, but a second True Death bolt led to the same result as Dav's Spirit Shatter. Now that she knew what she was looking at, she was certain she could handle several of them quickly with Spread Plumes active.

The third ruins apparition was Amy's. She used Spirit Shriek from the Cloud Clan's Spirits of the Woods Stable Challenge, quickly slotted after she learned how well Dav's Spirit Shatter worked. It wasn't as effective as Spirit Shatter or Sophia's True Death, and it made most of the people in Lan'ti's group shy away. Lan'ti and Xin'ri were the only two who weren't affected. The others retreated and Amy finished it off, but once she managed to yell it to death, they all agreed that that wasn't an Ability they'd use around others who weren't protected. It wasn't as effective, anyway.

Taika claimed not to have anything he thought would work, which made the fourth ruins apparition the test dummy. Sophia found out that both Stun Spirit and Soothe Spirit worked well on it, and Prismatic Magic did something, but not enough to be worth using on them. Dav could make arrows for Amy that would sort of work, but they weren't the near-instant death Sophia and Dav could manage with their best Abilities. Sophia's Surruption Bolt was similar; it worked, but not as well. Any even had time to try out her Night Owl Abilities on the apparition, and the answer was similar: she could lock it down and kill it slowly, but she couldn't manage quickly.

Dav didn't test his Spirit Voice. After the experience with Amy's Spirit Shriek, they were already pretty sure that it would harm some of the people they were working with, and that wasn't worth it.

It finally died when Sophia tried a Force Bolt from a Disruptive Plume. She knew the Force Bolt on its own wasn't particularly harmful to the ruins apparition, so she wasn't sure if they'd just finally done enough to break it apart or if Disruptive made a big difference. What she did know was that it was a lot more expensive than using a True Death bolt, so it would only be worth using if a Disruptive True Death bolt was enough to take out an apparition in a single strike.

She tried it on the fifth ruins apparition they encountered. It still took her two strikes, so even if it was better than a normal True Death bolt, it wasn't better enough to make it worth using.

The fifth ruins apparition they encountered was inside the second new room they found. While the first one was just another bathroom, this room was larger than any they'd seen before. It also had an odd wooden object attached to one of the walls. To Sophia's eyes, it looked like a place for a plaque or something, but there was nothing attached to it.

Maybe it was closer to a wooden bulletin board?

If it was a bulletin board, it was in an odd place. The room was twice the size of the other ones they'd seen, yes, but the wooden panel was mounted on a side wall. Wouldn't you want something you wanted people to see to be more obvious?

Or maybe it did make sense. The room was empty now, but that didn't mean it had always been empty. In fact, it probably wasn't always empty. For all Sophia knew, the wooden board might have been right on a walkway or something. Or maybe this was a break room?

On the other hand, maybe it was some kind of display piece that was once there, the way some people mounted their diplomas on the wall? It did have a lip around the edges, so it was entirely possible there was once something on it that had fallen off and been taken away.

It was definitely too bad that whatever had once been on the board was long gone. Sophia's guess was that it had probably said something, and that might have given a big clue to why this place was here.

There weren't any other major ruins nearby, at least not that they'd found yet, so there weren't any clues there. Admittedly, the fact that they hadn't found it didn't mean there weren't other ruins; it just meant they hadn't searched well enough yet. They hadn't found another way up, either, but there was probably a lot more to search.

The pattern of divots in the floor didn't tell her anything.

"It's not magical," Xin'ri declared with clear annoyance.

Sophia could have told Xin'ri that. Although, now that she thought about it … "How is it in such good shape? I know wood can last a while, but that looks only a few years old, maybe a few decades?

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