Learning to shape a pocket dimension went more smoothly than anything Bella had ever attempted alone. An established path existed, a complete system to reference, and a teacher guiding her every step—what to do at each stage, how to handle problems as they arose, how to avoid or neutralize dangers. A full methodology existed for every contingency.
She found herself genuinely happy. Having someone teach her was wonderful. A hundred times easier than the blind groping she'd been doing on her own.
Whether it was years of accumulated potential finally bursting forth or simply raw talent, the pocket dimension she carved out was unusually stable from the moment of its creation—and thereafter expanded by a small, steady increment each day.
The Soul Traveler's resistance to temporal magic remained untested, but by training her psionic energy through the Soul Traveler's unique method, Bella noticed her aging had slowed even further. Even without longevity spells, by the most conservative estimate, she figured she could live to three hundred.
Fast on her feet and long-lived—those were probably the hallmarks of a Soul Traveler's class.
Going forward she would receive the Ancient One's personal instruction every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The Ancient One was an experienced teacher. Each session, she posed questions tailored precisely to Bella's situation. Some were straightforward—master and student worked through them in back-and-forth discussion. Others were complex; for those, the Ancient One would send Bella to the library to find the answers, then have Bella think it through and verify it in practice.
Bella loved this style. After every lesson she bolted straight to the Kamar-Taj library and buried herself in books. Her enthusiasm was contagious—the other sorcerers' interest in the library surged tenfold—which left Wong, the portly keeper of the books, deeply exasperated. The man had visibly lost weight from the stress of it all.
"Wong! Books are back!"
Bella set a tall stack of volumes on his desk with a resonant thud.
"You read all of these in ten days?" Wong couldn't hide his admiration for her reading pace. Even just flipping through them wouldn't be that fast.
Bella had a generally favorable impression of him—conscientious, reliable, devoted. She nodded. "I did. The Kamar-Taj library is absolutely incredible. I'm very happy to be studying here."
She meant every word, and her smile was as bright as morning light breaking over the horizon.
The Ancient One had said she had an insatiable thirst for knowledge—but really, what sorcerer who walked this path wasn't hungry for knowledge?
Wong looked down at the stack. "You can read Sanskrit?"
"Of course," Bella replied, as if this went without saying. "Reading, speaking, writing—no problem."
Compared to those still practicing Taizu Long Fist forms in the courtyard, she was firmly in the star-student category. Broad knowledge and sharp recall were simply the baseline.
Kamar-Taj wasn't a closed institution. Kaecilius and the others slipped out all the time, and the Ancient One herself actually opposed asceticism—she traveled to other planes and the multiverse regularly, which meant her rules on discipline were essentially nonexistent.
Come and go as you pleased. No restrictions on movement.
Bella made frequent trips away. She hadn't forgotten what the Ancient One had told her early on: help Sadako recover every last tape that had gone missing. Just because someone that important hadn't brought it up again didn't mean it wasn't important.
She dispatched a number of Brotherhood assassins to track down the tapes, which were then handed to Sadako for destruction.
The Divine Dragon grew bored after half a month at Kamar-Taj. The place was too barren—no cartoons, and half the rooms didn't even have television sets. Bella sent her back to the States and asked Natasha to look after her for the time being.
With external matters squared away, Bella threw herself into full-time study at Kamar-Taj for three straight months.
The Ancient One opposed asceticism—but that depended on context and the individual. Genuine breakthroughs couldn't be harvested through "joyful learning" alone. Sometimes you had to grind.
The results showed. Through relentless study, Bella's progress advanced at a breathtaking pace, all that stored-up potential finally bursting through the dam. One day, working through a spell she had been wrestling with for weeks, she felt the final piece click into place. She had mastered her first Fifth-Circle spell: Planar Sense.
Planar Sense worked by mapping the laws of the material plane and simulating the operating principles of another plane, letting the caster briefly glimpse it. Was it useful in combat? Not in the slightest. But it was the first step a sorcerer took toward leaving the material plane—crossing into extraplanar space, and eventually venturing into the multiverse itself. If you didn't even know where another plane was, how could you explore it? Material-plane knowledge had its limits. When the true ceiling appeared and refused to shatter no matter how hard you pushed, traveling the planes and the multiverse to broaden your horizons, acquire entirely new knowledge, and perfect your path—that was the road every high-level sorcerer eventually had to walk.
The Ancient One noticed her breakthrough. After offering congratulations, she made a new demand.
"You're still far from ready to roam the multiverse freely—but some excursions into the Astral Plane and other planes are overdue. Frankly, your progress in that area has been inexcusably slow."
A Soul Traveler had an innate gift for dimensional travel. Under a teacher's supervision, a Soul Traveler at Third Circle could already begin to venture into planes; by Fourth Circle they should be doing exploratory trips; at Fifth Circle they could dominate many lower-tier planes outright—their advantage in this area vastly exceeded that of conventional mages. Yet Bella still hadn't taken that first step.
She made a pained face. "But my Divination keeps showing danger ahead. I think I should be a little more careful. Sixth Circle feels like a safer threshold—once I reach that, it'll be appropriate. I already talked to Wong about it, actually—he found a high-level extract of Conjurer secrets, and I was just about to—I should get going—"
She spoke with the conviction of someone who planned to hide in a library until she was the strongest thing in the universe. Turning to leave, she felt the Ancient One's hand close gently around her sleeve. She tugged. The sleeve held.
Not knowing what exactly Bella was afraid of, the Ancient One spoke calmly. "Eagles push their eaglets off cliff edges and let the terror of falling teach them to fly. I think you could use a similar push."
By now familiar enough with the Ancient One to drop all pretense, Bella's lip curled. "That's a myth. It doesn't actually happen. It's just something adults tell children."
The Ancient One didn't dignify that with a response. She opened a portal—and a gust of bone-deep arctic cold came pouring through the opening.
Bella wasn't afraid of a little wind and snow. She just didn't understand the intent.
"Go ahead, Miss Bella. Reading a thousand books doesn't compare to going there yourself once. This step has to come eventually."
The Ancient One's smile was warm as always—but all Bella could see in it was scheming.
"...But I haven't learned Teleportation yet! If you send me through now, how do I get back?!"
She'd been studying it for three months without it clicking.
The Sling Ring–based teleportation used by Kamar-Taj sorcerers was beyond her. Those sorcerers were nowhere near her level—but the rings were powerful tools that let the user bypass any real understanding of space entirely. In theory and in practice, the rings functioned like a key: insert, turn, open door. No comprehension required. Just use the tool to teleport between planes.