"Are we there yet?" Mymbi mumbled unamusedly as she wafted from side to side in the water, already fed up with swimming only after a few seconds of doing so. The kaiser beast shot out her tail and wrapped it around Zalroth's waist, catching his attention and bringing him to a halt from Mymbi tugging him towards her. With her tail secured and anchored to the guy, Mymbi allowed herself to float off the sea floor and hover behind Zalroth.
Zalroth raised an amused eyebrow at the girl, finding her swift actions mildly endearing, especially with the indent of where she landed mere paces behind her. But, given her effort to minimize the impact she had on his pace, Zalroth decided to leave her be and continued on his way through the coral forest while pulling Mymbi behind him like a balloon.
"You lot are so impatient," Zalroth remarked smugly as he trotted around the coral reef, gliding through the water like it were air thanks to the veil covering him. Mymbi let out an irritated huff to show her rising annoyance, conjuring a column of bubbles from her two mouths.
"Less provoking, more running," Mymbi mouthed off. Zalroth silently rolled his eyes at the girl's instructions which only served to prove his statement.
"I swear, you lot only picked up that kaiser woman's 'demanding' habits," Zalroth commented, shaking his head with conflicted glee. The kaiser beast responded to Zalroth's comment with an even more irritated huff, her expression contorted into a firey rage as she floated behind Zalroth.
"..."
Mymbi murmured a muffled complaint under her breath, her irritation barely covered by the shimmering water. Although ticked off with Zalroth, Mymbi reluctantly held her tongue, refusing to vocalise her retort any louder, hoping Zalroth would be appeased by her silence and pick up the pace.
However, her mumbles didn't fall on deaf ears, Zalroth had heard the comment with clear clarity and it got a grin out of him. Catching the guy's smirk, Mymbi gritted her teeth, almost failing to hold back her temper while her urchin needles shuddered with rage.
"Alright-alright, I'll get to it," Zalroth said, adding a cheerful bounce to his tone as he raised a hand. Snapping his fingers, Zalroth directed Mymbi's attention away from her pouting, allowing her to catch sight of the nine mini mana magic circles swirling over her head. The sight of the mana circles ushered a wave of dread through Mymbi, her two mouths agape at her sudden loss of breath as small bubbles seeped from them and her gill.
"Right when you decide what method I'll be using," Zalroth added teasingly, expediting Mymbi's deflating until she was thinner than paper. Only now did Mymbi fully realise her own impatience had betrayed her, and Zalroth had capitalised on it.
"Do I have to...?" Mymbi murmured meekly.
"You want a serious answer?" Zalroth asked calmly. Despite the guy's use of tone, a shiver ran through Mymbi, surging from the base of her many teeth and making its way to the very tip of her coiled tail.
"No..." Mymbi replied quietly as she waved a hand and ushered the mini mana circles to reposition themselves before her. Despite being underwater, a sweat drop managed to form on Mymbi's forehead, not from worry, mind you, but from the sheer mental exertion of trying to recall Zalroth's comprehensively confusing lesson on basic magic combinations.
[Mana circles]
[Fire: a red mana(wavey energy) circle with a flame inside it]
[Ice: a light blue mana circle with a snowflake inside it]
[Electric/Lightning: a yellow/cyan mana circle with multiple lightning bolts inside it]
[Wind: a light green mana circle with a swirl of wind inside it]
[Light: a white mana circle containing a square with slightly inward curved edges inside it]
[Shadow: a black mana circle containing a hollow triangle with slightly outward curved edges inside it]
[Elementalless: a light grey mana circle with a collection of eight small hollow squares inside it that are all arranged into a ring]
"I prefer kaiser energy...," Mymbi whimpered, wishing she had kept her two mouths shut. As she itched the side of her head, using one of her head tentacles to do so, Mymbi cautiously stared at the mana circles in silence. She methodically went over every combination her brain could muster, delving deep into the depths of her mind while mindlessly tapping on the mana circle with the lightning bolts and flipping it between its two modes.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Want a hint?" Zalroth asked smugly as he hopped over a coral cluster and continued on the sandy path.
"No! I don't need any," Mymbi stated, barely speaking above a whisper.
"If you say so, Smartypants."
"No... electricity and iron wouldn't work... I mean it would but I don't recall the value exponent for iron magic when mixing fire and earth," Mymbi muttered aloud. Whilst increasing the ferocity of her tapping against the electric/lightning mana circle, Mymbi racked her brain even harder but her efforts only managed to rip the first digit from her memory.
"It's just its melting point," Zalroth mentioned off-handedly. Without hesitation, Mymbi snapped her gaze to the back of Zalroth's skull, drilling into it with the intensity of her bubbling annoyance as she gritted the teeth of her stomach mouth.
"How are you so stupidly smart, enthesis on the dumb," Mymbi spouted, flapping her fin-like ears about as she pointed out she already knew that part. The girl's pouting brought yet another smirk to Zalroth, refuelling his sense of teasing as he brought a hand to his chin.
"Oh, I must've been mistaken; clearly, you must have been miming it when the others were singing that little song Maaumine thought up," Zalroth retorted. The mention of Maaumine's song lit up a light bulb in Mymbi's mind. But as she recited the song's lyrics mentally, the girl paused, realising Zalroth had circumvented her defences and basically handed her the answer.
"Stupid," Mymbi mouthed off, with her embarrassment potent to the point her ear-flapping became fast enough to push her head upwards.
"Whom might you be referring to?" Zalroth asked, feigning a hint of offence as he flicked his hair dramatically. Despite the believability of his tone, Mymbi unamusedly frowned at Zalroth, not buying his stunt for a second.
"For your info-mato, I was referring to the quest you took," Mymbi declared, pointing and wagging a finger at Zalroth through the sleeve of her jacket. In her frustration, she swiped at the fire and earth mana circles, plucking duplicates out of them before smushing the copied circles together and into a blurry mess.
Mymbi focused, channelling all of her mental processing power and cyan magical-energy(spikey energy) bestowed to her into the tip of her extended finger. The unified energies combined into cyan mana that phased through the fabric of Mymbi's sleeve, waving through the water like a radio wave and merging with the mana circle.
After what could only be described as a gruelling academic exam, in both duration and needless complexity, Mymbi at long last managed to merge the two magic circles, fully converting them into her desired outcome. Even with the few hiccups along the way, most of which stemmed from her abysmal timing, the girl held within her two hands was a perfectly crafted iron magic circle.
[Iron Mana Circle: an iron-coloured mana circle with a 3D-looking rube inside of it]
"Hah ha!" Mymbi announced, proclaiming her success for all the coral to hear, not that the colourful creatures cared. As her ears now wiggled from the glee of her completed construction, Mymbi's focus finally departed from her mana ring combining, allowing her to finally register the blatant horror that Zalroth had, in fact, stopped walking. Using her free hand, Mymbi grabbed ahold of Zalroth's shoulder, gripping it with unyielding force as she hoisted herself over Zalroth's shoulder to look the guy in the face.
"Oi, what's the hold- huh?". Catching sight of something in the corner of her eye, Mymbi softened her glare as she struggled to keep her focus trained on Zalroth. Try as she might, her curiosity got the better of her, and she whipped her head to the side before being greeted by the ominously massive slope covered by a cover of atmosphere-magic.
"That sure is deep," Zalroth remarked, pointing out how far the slop descended and even how the bottom of it was visible despite its depth. Mymbi gave Zalroth the meanest side-eye she could muster at hearing his remark, leaving her to wonder how Chronia puts up with it.
"It's easy when she likes the things she needs to 'put up' with," Zalroth declared, his voice snarky as he placed a finger on the girl's nose and booped it. Mymbi staggered back from the sudden nose boop, turning bright red and getting so embarrassed her tail unravelled from Zalroth, which allowed her to bobble a few paces away.
"So, she likes you acting dumb?" Mymbi mumbled meekly whilst she fruitlessly tried covering her blushing ears and head appendages with her hands. The girl peered at Zalroth, her blush still prevalent on her face as she burned with embarrassment. With the prolonged stare from the kaiser beast, Zalroth gave a half-hearted chuckle, leaning towards Mymbi and patting her forehead with his index finger.
"It's better than her villain phase," Zalroth mentioned awkwardly, visibly cringing as the memories of that era in his life erupted from the depths of his soul and made him shiver. Given what she's witnessed from him, the sight of Zalroth cringing snapped Mymbi out of her current train of thought, unable to believe the guy was even cognitively capable of such an emotion.
"I'm starting to think, neither of you are sane," Mymbi said, her tone carrying a hint of remorse but mostly pity. As she passed the iron mana circle to Zalroth, a beaming grin formed on his face when an idea that only could be described using the word radical passed through his mind.