The abandoned cottage, cabin, farmstead—the abandoned whatever-it-was turned out to not actually be very close. Probably the equivalent of a city block or so away. “Hell yeah!”


    “Pardon me, but you do realize that there won’t be anyone living there?”


    “Lilith, you are an idiot.” Zoe grinned as they approached. “Of course I know that. If there was, you would probably just try to get me to drain them for blood or something.”


    In truth, Zoe didn’t know how to feel about the fact that the place was clearly long-abandoned. On the one hand, it lowered her chances of getting a steaming bath and a roaring fire—not to mention soup and a real bed.


    On the other hand—one with claws now, mind you—she had no idea how the average rural homesteader would react to a Demon. Much less a naked one covered in freshly-dried blood.


    Sure, she still had the disguise self skill from her demagogue class. And there was absolutely no doubt about whether she’d be using it to hide her new nature. That didn’t change the fact that it took a lot of mental and magical energy, though, and she didn’t know much about how it actually worked. Things like how to maintain it. Even if  she could spare the energy—could she keep a disguise up while sleeping, for instance?


    It was yet another thing that would ultimately be important to find out. Either way, Zoe was in no condition to try putting up a whole act. Nearly dying and dragging yourself through an inhospitable wilderness was already bad enough. Trying to maintain both a convincing backstory and a magical illusion would make the recovery far harder.


    But all of that worry was forgotten when Zoe finally stumbled up to the base of the chimney. Sinking to her knees, she released a pure cry of gratitude and joy. It wasn’t very loud, nor was it very pleasant for someone else to hear, but the emotion was there. Because—they still have wood!


    “They still have wood!” Zoe half expected to start to cry. Instead, she started laughing. “Ha! Yes! God-damned bloody fireplace!”


    Lilith didn’t seem all too impressed—judging by the skeptical look on the apparition’s face as she peered up the chimney. “You do realize we literally just walked out of a forest? You know, full of trees made out of wood? Also, wait—bloody? We aren’t British.”


    “I’m not British, but I’m pretty sure as an American I can just say whatever I want. That’s kind of our thing.” What else had Lilith said? It felt less important, but it had also been a complaint, right? Zoe couldn’t just let that go. “Oh, yeah. Do you want to go around trying to jump and snap off branches? Oh wait, you can’t. Bloody ghost.”


    Also, there was a box full of dry kindling. All the leaves and stuff in the actual forest had felt vaguely wet. Honestly, the kindling aspect was probably even more important than the main logs. Not that Zoe would know. She’d never built a fire before, despite the idea of setting fires being the main reason she agreed to join girl scouts.


    Did they even go camping like the boys? Zoe didn’t know, because she didn’t last longer than a week. Not that the whole thing was her fault—even if her mom had disagreed.


    Either way, it was unfortunate—because now she didn’t know what she was doing. Triangle of sticks with a ball of kindling in the middle, right? Zoe was pretty sure she knew at least that much. It was a bit hard to get the sliced logs to stand up at first, but before long she had a nice little cone structure. “I wonder why they cut them the long way like that.”


    Lilith crouched down beside her, taking a look as well. “I mean I think that’s what ‘chopping firewood’ is about? I don’t know what the point of it is though. Maybe it’s something to do with the surface area or whatever.”


    “Huh.” Chewing her lip, Zoe considered it as she continued gloating over her glorious campfire. “Yeah, I guess. I thought the chopping part was cutting the logs into shorter sections though. Like, so they can actually fit in the fire.”


    “Uh.” Lilith shook her head. “I’m starting to think we might not be the best-equipped person for wilderness survival shit.”


    The wind was starting to pick up, breaking the stillness that had permeated the woods. The good thing was that it was blowing in from the other side of the chimney. Zoe wouldn’t complain about having a ready-made wind break. It would certainly make actually getting the fire going easier. Wait.


    “Uh, speaking of that…”


    Lilith raised an eyebrow as Zoe frantically searched through the remainder of the kindling box, then the rest of the area around the chimney. She didn’t find anything other than an unidentifiable scrap of rusted metal and half a brick. Ugh—please—please don’t tell me…


    Zoe felt like she was going to cry again. She didn’t laugh this time. “Lilith. Please tell me you at least know how to start a fire.”


    ____


    Lilith did not know how to start a fire, at least not any better than Zoe did. I am you and you are me, yeah yeah I know. Zoe just wished that her snarky Demon buddy had some practical survival knowledge along with her random system-info. She’d already tried the rock and stick thing. Either she was doing it wrong, she just didn’t have enough patience, or it was just a Hollywood thing that didn’t actually work. Zoe was naturally inclined to believe the last of those.


    She was then going to try the more advanced version of it—the thing with twisting the string of a bow around the stick and sawing it back and forth. That didn’t work either, because Lilith quickly pointed out they didn’t have string. Knowing her luck so far, Zoe decided it would have just snapped immediately anyway.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    It took at least another five minutes of wallowing naked in the freezing snow for Zoe to reach an epiphany.


    I have magic!


    She’d already encountered blood magic, wind, light—hell, even Frostburn—so fire magic had to be pretty basic, right? It was literally just making things hot. To make matters even better, Zoe didn’t even need fancy advanced skills for it. Hell, she didn’t even need the beginner fireball—she would be more than willing to settle for a simple spark.


    “You look like you’re scheming something.”


    Rolling her eyes, Zoe kept most of her focus on the still-unlit kindling. “Yes, because I am.”


    “Oh?”


    Ignoring her imaginary friend for a moment, Zoe focused on creating a list of what seemed like the most relevant skills.


    Mana Channeling 1 (Rank F)


    …


    Well, shit. That wasn’t much of a list now was it? Even though Zoe had gained quite a few skills so far, it was exceedingly obvious that most of them were in no way at all suited to fire. Scratch saying ‘suited.’ If that were the criterion, her list would have a length of zero, not one. What would be the right word? Tangentially applicable? Borderline relevant?


    Regardless, it left her with nothing except for mana channeling. It was one of the skills that Zoe got from her brief time as a puppet for the cult leader, Basil. One of the ones that the system ‘downgraded’—she couldn’t remember what the original, higher tier was called, but it was probably something cooler and edgier.


    “And how, exactly, is mana channeling going to help you start a fire? I mean assuming you’re not just going to try making yourself explode. You know, that was a joke, but I think it could actually work.”


    “Shut up Lilith.” Zoe might actually appreciate the apparition’s wit, if the situation were a bit different. As it were, Zoe had never been one of those people who appreciated comedy as a form or ‘relieving the tension.’


    Truthfully, Zoe didn’t think mana channeling was suited for starting fires. Which was fine, because that was never her plan. Her actual plan was both reasonable and simple—which means it has a high likelihood of working.


    Zoe wanted fire magic, but she didn’t have any skills for it. She was going to make one.


    “Alright, time to use a new skill to create another new skill that I can use to create a third new skill.” Zoe smirked at Lilith, who remained obstinately skeptical. “Tap my shoulder or something if I look like I’m going to explode.”


    “I don’t think—“


    Mana Channeling!


    Zoe didn’t hear the rest of what Lilith said, because she was busy dealing with a sudden surge of energy erupting from her core—and also because she was ignoring her. Okay this feels pretty weird.


    Zoe had expected something similar to what happened the last time she leveled up. This turned out not to be the case. The only similarity was that it came from her core, and there might have been a bit of the crackling, sparking sensation as well.


    What it was a whole lot closer to was a part of Zoe’s murky memories from her original transformation into a Demon. Rather than a billowing cloud of simmering power, the magic coursing through her zigzagged outwards in branching arcs. Again and again they split—only to finally slow, loop back around, and re-converge as they plummeted back down into her core.


    And so the cycle went.


    It’s like my core is a planet, and the mana is like missiles launching off, except they move like forks of lightning—but the lightning’s made out of blood, and then it returns back like veins do, falling down again to my planet which is also I guess a heart…


    Zoe shook her head as she cracked open her eyes. That was, perhaps, the worst analogy she had ever made for anything. Okay but! I still think I’m on to something. Just need to uh, make it more elegant-sounding—yeah.


    Zoe had closed her eyes and pretended to meditate when she first activated it. Not that she knew how to actually meditate. She’d only ever pretended, but it still felt right. Mainly she just wanted to focus better by minimizing distractions.


    As it turned out, there was no need to worry. Keeping the energy—mana?—rampaging through the chaotic looping pattern was not very hard at all. Hell, Zoe felt like she could keep it going nearly endlessly. Soul strain? What soul strain.


    No—if anything, her fear of distraction had been the wrong way around. Put simply—the thundering dance of the mana loops all throughout her body and soul was really fucking distracting.


    It didn’t hurt—not that this meant it felt good either—it was just impossible to ignore.


    Not enough to ignore how god-damned cold it was though, and this was still only the first step to making a fire. Sparing a glance to Lilith, Zoe furrowed her brows. “Right. Okay. It worked.”


    “Uh, congrats on managing to activate a Rank F skill or whatever, but I don’t see any fires.”


    Fuck you too Lilith. “Whatever. That was just step one. Now comes the part where we see if I explode.”


    “Ah,” Lilith nodded sagely. “Well I’d rather you not. I very much prefer us being unexploded, you know. Especially since you seem to be working directly with our core.”


    My core, Zoe wanted to say. She bit her tongue. Now wasn’t the time to get hung up on interpersonal boundaries. Or would it be intra-personal? Only got one body.


    Doesn’t matter. Her core was still thundering away with undiminished enthusiasm, and Zoe still didn’t feel even the slightest amount of additional strain. Was there something to that? Mana channeling did sound exactly like the kind of skill to help with mana regeneration, soul injuries, so on. Something meditation-adjacent, one might say.


    Definitely something to look into—but not what Zoe was after right now. The real prize would be something more akin to what should be another standard general mage skill—mana manipulation.


    It was a natural progression in Zoe’s mind—and one that would inevitably lead to all kinds of benefits down the line. The first of those would just be concentrating enough mana in one spot to make it heat up. But before she could do that, there was one more barrier in the way. Specifically, her skin.


    If Zoe could take her mana from flowing inside her body to flowing outside, surely she would gain a skill like mana manipulation as a reward. Fire magic, here I come!


    Zoe reached out to one of the larger loops. An electric tingle shot back and forth between her core as her mind touched against the flowing magic. The buzzing of the mana against her touch almost made her flinch back. It still didn’t hurt, exactly, but it rattled her whole spirit surprisingly hard.


    Alright, here we go.


    At the same time as she solidified her grasp, Zoe imagined clutching her hand to her chest—her physical one. It was hard to tell if her real body moved as well, but it wasn’t like she wouldn’t be able to try again if not.


    Zoe breathed in, breathed out, tightened both her grips—and yanked.