It took Vance an uncomfortably long time to sleep that night. Every few minutes, he'd be struck by an impulse to leave and help the McKinleys with whatever plight the night brought upon them, specifically Nathaniel.

Rationally, he knew full well that there'd be nothing he could do, especially in his current state. The man he was thinking of helping was many his years his senior, was likely an Arcanist of merit in his own right and, perhaps more importantly, was a fully grown adult. It was a strange notion that Nathaniel would even have a reason to want Vance's help, yet the compulsion remained.

Nevertheless, sleep did eventually take him.

A single, dreamless instant later, he felt the room around him had warmed up to a temperature slightly above comfortable for Vance's liking as the sun crept in through the eastern window.

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of his comfortable bed. The room really was wonderful. Had it not been for his own restless psyche, he'd have had a truly wonderful night's sleep. He took a moment to check himself over for wounds from the day before. Fortunately, he had no serious injuries, just a few bruises. He knew James had it much worse, this time.

It did dawn upon him that this was becoming much too frequent for his liking. Throughout Vance's life, a few scrapes here and there was never a big deal, though he'd seen more violence in recent months than he had in his life.

He thought briefly on the events of the day before. James had been willing to throw caution to the wind and try to rescue him from a scenario he had no need to poke his nose into. That sort of loyalty was something that Vance swore to himself that he wouldn't forget.

Vance carefully tested his will to see how it was faring. He flexed those familiar invisible muscles and found that all was in working order. The last time he'd stretched his will this thin he hadn't fared as well, marking another slight sign of progress.

Thinking on that subject, Vance decided to take note of his overall progress. He was pleased with his shifts, he'd achieved fire, metal, earth and water shifts. In addition, he was due to start working towards that mysterious wood shift he'd come across during his enlightenment. He intended to bring that information back to the college to see if Noelle could advise him.

He had enough shaping and transference experience now to work with basic enchantments like the firestone charm, he'd made several of those by this point. He still wasn't as fast as Thomas, but he was catching up.

Next, he'd gained what be believed to very good control over his existing fire core, which doubled as a constant secondary source of practice thanks to the feather construct. He'd grown to like that training.

All in all, he was pleased with his progress, but that left him with one thing that he desperately wanted to try as soon as possible. Namely, working with multiple types of shifted mana at the same time. Fortunately, he had a good amount of different aspects to try this with.

His strange enlightenment experience had provided him with an instinctual understanding of water and earth mana. He wasn't precisely sure why, but he wasn't about to complain. Instead, he chose to start his practice then and there. He wouldn't be able to rely on his fire core even accidentally this way. Also, practising with metal was always a nightmare due to how much willpower it takes to shape.

Vance sat in the middle of his room, placing a small towel from a pile on the floor underneath him.

In his left hand, he began the process of shifting ambient mana to earth mana. The process was familiar and easy. He'd practised it a fair amount by this point so it only took him a second or so to perform the shift.

He allowed the mana a moment to stabilize above his hand and then turned his attention to his right palm, where he began to perform a water mana shift, which also went spectacularly well.

Then, when he cast his attention back over to his left hand, the earth mana had already begun crumbling and falling to pieces.

Vance had used multiple types of mana at once before. He did so when working on the firestone charms, though when he performed that particular task, his fire core could massively assist him. As Noelle had mentioned, this time, he had to do it without the use of a core. Once he could manage two at once, he'd be ready to try for his second core.

By now, he was fully aware of what it meant to have multiple cores. The ability to effortlessly manage multiple types of mana at once was truly a tantalizing prospect. Therefore, he pressed on, trying over and over again.

After an hour, he'd had no real luck. Once or twice he'd been able to maintain both shifts for a few seconds, but his concentration would eventually falter on one of the two fronts. He decided that it was about time for him to go and greet the rest of the McKinley family, he didn't want to be rude and hide in their guest room all day.

Vance got himself dressed and made his way out of the room, using his mana sense to find his way through the halls towards the staircase down. He didn't want to push it too hard today just in case he'd done more damage than he thought. He felt alright but better safe than sorry.

"That you, Vance?" James' voice rang out from somewhere downstairs.

"Yeah. Where are you?" Vance made his way down the stairs as he spoke, holding onto the finely made wooden rails.

"Living room. Take a right if you're by the stairs."

"Is anyone else here? I don't want to be rude."

"Just me, you and Malcolm at the moment."

"Oh, Good morning Malcolm," Vance said out into the open air. He had no idea if there were people around him at the moment without pushing his mana sense, so he opted for his old ways, questions and care.

"Good morning, Master Kalliea. Are you well this morning?" An older man's voice rang out from somewhere behind him, further into the house.

"Yeah, I'm alright thanks."

Vance made his way towards James' voice and eventually found himself sitting opposite his friend in the living room.

"How're you doing, James? You took the real brunt of it yesterday."

"You can say that again. I'll be right as rain soon enough, though." James patted his leg gently as he spoke, affecting a small laugh.

"Can I help with that at all?"

"What, you a healer now, too?"

"I was more thinking like get you some water or something, I'm no doctor."

"Shame. If you were a healer that'd help a bunch."

"Wait, you're not talking about a doctor, are you?" Vance asked, flatly.

"No, I'm talking about someone who can use life mana, obviously."

"...There's life mana? You're telling me there's actual healing magic?"

"Yes, obviously. It's just exceptionally rare."

"How rare, exactly?" This certainly had Vance's attention. Magical healing. His expectations were tempered by Elijah's warning that magic to heal his eyes didn't exist, but this was a promising starting point.

James took a large, very enthusiastic bite out of an apple as he spoke. "Not sure. I think there's a couple in the empire. None in Vereece, as far as I know." He paused for a second, then changed gears, "Hey, Malcolm, would you get Vance some breakfast? He's too polite to ask."

"Certainly, Sir." The wisened voice sounded distinct in the large home.

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"By the way, Vance, did you happen to speak to my father last night? Mother went to go meet him earlier this morning in a hurry, I think something is going on."

"Yeah. I told him everything that happened. Then he said he had something urgent to do and left in the evening. He didn't say where, sorry."

"It's fine. I bet he's gone to give the Sellanions a piece of his mind. Go, Dad!" James threw a little fist pump into the air. Vance only noticed thanks to the sound of James' shoulder clicking when he moved it too fast.

The two carried on talking for a while, Vance mostly trying to sneak in questions about life mana. Unfortunately, James didn't have many answers on that front. They ate together and created an overall pleasant atmosphere. They'd done well to dispel the dangers of the day before.

Shortly thereafter, Maddison and Nathaniel McKinley returned home. Vance could smell Nathaniel's recently waterlogged clothing before he was even in the room. Malcolm disappeared to fetch a change of clothes for the master of the house and Nathaniel made his way straight into the living room to meet with the two boys.

"You alright, James?"

"Not too bad, father."

"Good. You're a strong kid, you'll make an excellent battlemage one day. How about you, Vance?"

"I'm fine, largely thanks to your son."

"Good. I need you both to do something for me."

Nathaniel extended his hands out towards the two boys.

"Take my hands, please. I'm going to run some mana through your systems. There's something I'd like to check for. Then, we need to have a long conversation."

The two boys did as they were asked and grabbed hold. Nathaniel shot light mana into both of them and began running it through their systems. He found no signs of dark mana and was relieved, pulling his hands away.

When he pulled his hands back, he noticed that Vance still had his hand outstretched and hadn't moved an inch. He looked startled.

"Vance? Are you alright?" James asked first.

"...What was that?" Vance asked, slowly.

"Light mana, perfectly harmless, It-" Nathaniel realised immediately, then went silent, looking over at James, who had caught on and was looking at his father, worried.

Vance had felt the light mana move into his body and how it moved around, darting from place to place quicker than he could think to track it. The only trace of the mana he ever managed to sense was when he was lucky and it crossed his path. When he did, his mind was thrown into a state of immediate confusion.

So far, whenever he'd encountered a new form of mana, he'd found some sort of familiar feeling present itself in his body to help him identify it. For fire, he'd heat up, for ice or water he'd feel cold and wet, Metal would cause him to taste copper or iron and so on.

His mind had no frame of reference for whatever this foreign mana was and had, essentially, failed to react. He was struck still and dumbfounded while this alien force was pressing itself through him and his body. It made him feel nauseous and dizzy. He felt the immediate discomfort begin to fade quite quickly, replaced instead by an unfamiliar yet painless sensation, but the mana was long gone before he'd had a chance to try and study it. Luckily, Nathaniel had finished his task in record time, otherwise, Vance might've hurled.

Now, his mind was recovering but he felt a little out of phase with himself and it took a moment for his equilibrium to come back. He had to swallow a few times in succession before he spoke.

"Right. Light mana." Vance nodded as he was pulling himself back together. "Weird sensation, that. Didn't much like it."

"Sorry, Vance. I didn't think about it. Come to think of it, I have absolutely no idea how you interact with mana without your eyes. However it's done, it's impressive."

"He does it based on feeling, Dad. Essentially, when there's fire mana, he feels hot. Get it? You've just thrown a type of mana at him that he's never experienced before, not to mention has no frame of reference for."

"Nail on the head," Vance added, slumping back into the chair and letting his stomach continue to settle.

"Well I realise that now, and I feel a fool. I'm sorry, Vance." Nathaniel added, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck.

"No problem. Even I didn't know that'd happen. I'd have just said yes if you'd explained it anyway, better now than later. Just threw me off a little is all. What was it for?"

Vance, of course, was being courteous. That had been one of the single worst experiences with mana he'd ever had. He had to admit, it was a little interesting, though. It was a type of mana that he knew existed but he'd never experienced in its mundane form. It was like tasting a flavour you'd never known was possible for the first time and you had to decide whether you liked it or not. This time, he'd been flooded with it so he'd experienced something of a sensory overload.

He briefly wondered if perhaps exposing himself to a smaller amount of light mana would help his mind get used to it. He'd ask Nathaniel to help him try another time.

"I was checking for traces of dark mana. I've been doing it to more or less everyone I come across since last night, Just in case."

Nathaniel continued to explain the events of the previous night to the boys in detail, focusing especially on the events at the Sellanion household.

The boys reacted how you might expect young men to react to finding out their classmate might've been possessed by a demon who was manipulating their family into acts of cruelty and violence for some form of perverse entertainment whilst it worked towards its ineffably nefarious goals. Goals in which it has been remarkably successful.

That is, to say, loudly.

"What? You're kidding!" James yelled at his father the moment he'd finished the last of his story.

"Do I look like I'm kidding, James?"

"...He doesn't," James said, patting Vance on the shoulder.

"Yeah, I know. It's in the voice."

After learning all of this, the boys evidently had a thousand questions and didn't know where to start. Vance was the one to break the silence, but he asked an unexpected question.

Vance noticed that Nathaniel sounded far too tired to deal with all of their questions, so he just went for the one that seemed prudent with a demon on the loose. The rest could wait.

"So, how do we protect ourselves from demons? If Duncan and Kaine aren't threats to our safety anymore then that's wonderful, but now there's a demon loose around here somewhere?"

"I don't think the demon is still here. I think it'll be moving to another city and I'll be trying to track it in the coming weeks. Good question, though. The best method is light mana, though that's a very, very advanced shift. Not something for youngsters like you to be working on. Other than that, Fire mana works pretty well for hurting them, so keep that close at hand. There's also good old fashioned steel, though that's a bit trickier than it sounds, we'll get to that another time."

Nathaniel took his opportunity to avoid too many questions quickly thereafter by shifting to a different topic he'd wanted to broach with Vance.

"Vance, on a separate subject, If you're willing to hear me out, I'd like to make you an offer." He gave Vance a moment to refuse outright. When he didn't, Nathaniel continued.

"In short, I'd like to invite you to stay as a guest of our family for the duration of your stint at the college. You'd be afforded a place to stay in our home, the support of our family and the protections that come with it."

Vance went to open his mouth but Nathaniel interrupted again.

"Before you decide, let me explain why I'm making this offer. First of all, you're friends with my son, that should be good enough. Secondly, from what I hear, you're a promising young Arcanist. I could always use more gifted individuals in my service, so it's not entirely out of goodwill. I won't pretend that I'm not also very interested in this strange mana sense of yours. I'd be lying if I said that didn't have the potential to be very valuable to us. If you enjoy your stay here, perhaps I'll be able to convince you to work for me once you've finished your training."

Nathaniel was oozing sincerity. He'd clearly outlined his end goal and honestly, Vance didn't see much reason to distrust his friend's father. If Nathaniel wanted to harm Vance, he certainly wouldn't have to try this hard.

"You should say yes, Vance," James added. "You'll have a much nicer room here than at the college. It'll be fun, we can train together."

James sounded very hopeful.

"You really should, Young Vance." Maddison's feminine voice sounded from around the corner, not too far down the hallway next to the living room.

Vance shuffled awkwardly in place for a second, putting his hands together in his lap.

"...How can I possibly say no to all of that?" Vance felt a little flushed in the cheeks.

Nathaniel smiled. His reaction was mostly based on the reaction of his son, who seemed elated. Nathaniel was, largely, using this as an opportunity. This unique individual could prove to be very useful to keep around his son, especially if this extrasensory talent of his were to bear fruit.

"Good. Malcolm will make preparations to have your things moved here from the college and anywhere else you direct him. Also, I think it's about time somebody takes your education seriously. Master Noelle has filled me in and has admitted that in your time there has been a constant stream of interruptions, distractions and troubles. Firstly, we will put a stop to this. I will ensure that you have all of the resources you need to continue your training within the next few days both here and at the college campus."

Nathaniel winked at James, giving him a little nudge.

"Thank you, I don't really know what to say...I certainly can't repay..."

"Vance, we're a noble house. You think we can't afford to keep someone around for a while if we want to?" James asked, folding his arms and chuckling.

"Fair point...Still, if there's anything I can do to help, or..."

"A fine suggestion, Vance." Nathaniel interrupted, the smile clear in his voice. "As a matter of fact, there is one thing I'd like you to help me with while you stay here. Noelle tells me that your control, in particular, is spectacular for your age. Would you be so kind as to show me a sample shaping?"

"Certainly." Vance seemed genuinely eager.

Vance demonstrated a few different shaping exercises and shifts for Nathaniel, who seemed pleased. When Vance moved on to shaping fire mana into the lattice required for an enhancement construct, he was downright impressed. That was second-year material.

"Good. Your shaping skills are far beyond your short stint in the world of the Arcane. Vance, I'd like you to use your mana sensing gifts to try and help James improve his control. Compared to yours, his is poor."

"Hey!" James exclaimed in indignation.

"Take a close look, Son. Tell me I'm wrong. He's better than I was at his age." Nathaniel gestured towards Vance's orb of fire mana that was constantly shifting between dozens of different shapes.

"Alright, yes, fine. He's pretty good." James admitted.

Nathaniel chuckled and stood up, heading out of the room. "See you later, boys. I have work to do."

When Nathaniel got into the hallway, Maddison was waiting for him with a smile on her face. He pulled her close and gave her a little kiss, then whispered to her.

"Pretty good my ass. Noelle wasn't kidding, I think that kid might be a prodigy."

She chuckled and the two walked up to the first floor together, where they started putting together a plan for the coming weeks.