“A gift?” I said, interest more than peaked at Fren’s words. “It’s not another dead bug or something, is it?”

“No,” Fren grinned widely. “I have captured a monster core.”

“Another? From what?”

“A small fae creature. A twisted pixie of the shadows. It was aligned with the Unseelie —so I ended it.”

I sighed. I figured Fren was part of the fae himself, but a neutral party as I understood it. The Fae was another world entirely but connected to ours in various ways and locations. It wasn’t a planet so much as another… realm attached to ours or ours to it. Creatures who escaped the fae into the mortal world generally hunted. Some fed off emotions and energy like Fren. Others, literally fed on people. I had to consider that the creature or person in the woods was a fae. It would explain how it had traveled such distances between the murders, and why the police had thought the attacks were only missing persons at first, or an animal attack.

“Thank you,” I said, truly meaning it. Monster cores were hard to come by. I wasn’t skilled enough to get into the Fae in one of the more reliable ways myself. Clair had gone at times but never brought me with her. She’d provided me a few weak cores to ensure I knew how to use them to jumpstart my abilities. It was the fastest way for beings like me to grow and develop.

“Well, I do have work to do… but… maybe I should use that first?”

Fren grinned, his bark-like skin twisting in ways a tree never could. He’d adopted white shale-like stone for teeth. He probably did it to look more human. Honestly, they made him look more terrifying than if he hadn’t had any. Fren held out his hand delicately, his hand and fingers nearly double in size from mine. As if he was a magician, he twisted his palm upward and the wood of his hand twisted, revealing a small orb the size of a marble. It glowed softly and looked like an opalite palm stones I sold above in the store, but this was so much more.

I touched the core and felt its magical energy—akin to a static shock—which coursed through my finger, up my arm, and towards my chest. It was a small treasure trove of power, but every little bit helped.

I could absorb the power directly. That was hard for most wizards to do, and from what I’d been able to learn, it was a rarity for anyone as young as I was. Artificer’s had to have a knack for drawing in and moving energies and this talent of mine was likely tied to my others in artifice.

If I chose to quickly will the energy into myself I’d only absorb about eighty percent of the power present, drawing it into myself for my use. Others would have been lucky to claim fifty, Clair had said it was usually painful and difficult for people to do.

For me it had never been hard.

Once Clair had seen and assured I could use both methods for consuming cores, she no longer trained me in core advancements beyond theory.

The true way was better. If I sat, stilled my mind, and used a capturing spell for the energy contained in the sphere I would get closer to a hundred percent of the available power compared to the faster option of direct absorption. Doing it right could take the better part of an hour out in the field, but in my basement with ritual circles inscribed on the floor, it would only take a quarter of that time. Unfortunately, I didn’t have even that kind of time today, not for a core that was so weak.

I looked over the monster core and envisioned what else I might use such a small vessel of power for. Many magics required cores to enact. I could imbue an item with it or use it to increase the safeguards of my home. The options were many, but the long-term best option would be to advance myself personally. That would increase the power I could muster for everything I created or in every future fight.

I slid on my glasses now that I had another target I could experiment upon.

Identification Activated:

Mana core: Identified: Monster Core

Quality: 1st tier

Power value: Weak

Inherent power affinity: ???

Special Use: ???

This was a weak core and given that Fren had killed it out of hand it likely didn’t contain much raw power. I was a little miffed my glasses couldn’t identify all the aspects of it, even with it distilled into a solid state outside of a physical body. I’d been working on this prototype for six months. If I could get it right, they would help me identify anything with a mana core, whether concealed or not. I’d chased monsters who looked and acted like humans…having a working pair of these glasses would have been a godsend. But it was clear they still needed work.

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Settled in my decision to simply absorb the power to conserve time, I went to Fren’s private garden and kicked off my shoes so my feet could rest on the earth. Fren grinned as well and returned to his glen, the massive floor beams giving slightly under his girth. Trees were not light.

“Why do you always stand so close when I absorb a core directly?” I asked, eyes locked on the softly glowing core in my palm.

“The way you use a core resonates with the earth. I am still trying to puzzle out how you do it so efficiently and quickly.”

“How I do it? Haven’t you been around others who did the same?”

“Yes.”

“And it's different?”

“I followed a druid once, years ago. His direct assimilation of power was the closest to yours, but you truly have a gift for eating the powers of the fallen. Every wizard is different with traits, talents, and affinities.”

I scrunched up my brow over that and the phrase eating but I was glad I could still provide some mystery to the ancient being. I’d only met a few other apprentices and even fewer fully-fledged wizards and didn’t know much about the norms myself. I tended to rub the latter group the wrong way. I mean, if someone could live for literal centuries and they weren’t open to new things, saw themselves as superior to everyone around them, and didn’t try to help the world—I didn’t have time for them or their games.

I more firmly planted my bare feet on the cool earthen ground. It should have been simple dirt, hard compacted after decades of being below the shop and the subfloor. Instead, it was a soft soil with spongy grass, like the ideal golf green. Roots formed asymmetries and contours in the soil of the garden or Fren’s glen as I liked to call it. It gave the surface rich tiers and divisions in mesmerizing patterns. Flowers dotted the floor in near constant bloom from the plants Fren liked the company of. Granted, if he had had his way the entire basement level would have been deep foliage, if not the entire city.

Fren stepped past me to rest in the direct sunlight, his feet somehow not damaging anything. Mine always did, but he could heal and restore the blades of grass soon after. The branches and folds of wood that composed his body folded and blended into the garden again until he grew difficult to discern other than being the largest tree.

Feeling somewhat self-conscious, I took a few deep breaths, my mind going into the meditative trance-like state I used for difficult spells. After about a minute, I felt ready for the quick and dirty version of using the core. I drew on the energy in my palm, pulling it from the core down my arm and deep into my chest. I felt the power of it, it was miniscule, like a drop in a bucket but it was an increase, a power change that would be with me until the day I died. I felt that little drip of power which was separate from myself but attracted to my own energies, and I willed it to join itself to me.

Part of the control each apprentice learned was how to apply newly acquired power. Given that, I knew I had three options or attributes for advancement, namely: Power, Fortitude, and Body.

Power would make my spells stronger, would allow me to push my spells to the limits of what I was cable of. Fortitude would fine tune my use of power, allowing me more reserves, better efficiency so I could cast more spells and draw more energy in from the world around me to refill my mana pool. Body was something different entirely. It would increase my speed, my thoughts, my strength, my very vitality. I would heal faster and develop innate defenses from physical and magical attacks.

Enemies were literal resources to wizards. By defeating them, we gained strength. Growing from glass canons to bastions of power if enough time passed while energy was added.

My powers could also increase by my own efforts. Meditation and cultivation practices could help with Fortitude and to a smaller extent the power attribute. Physical exertion could raise my body attribute. But each was a much slower process and the stronger I became the more time each would take. Wizards who were centuries old had both factors working for them.

For myself, I had a very long way to go to be as strong as I wanted. Most wizards didn’t seek danger the way I did, until much later in their lives if at all. That made my predicament even worse. The few who did were part of the Tribunals militant force called the Strikers. They were one of the main policing agencies of the magical world, with the full backing, support, and guidance of the lead members of the Tribunal.

Other wizards simply waited and bid their time for centuries until their power culminated through cultivation and the occasionally added core before becoming more involved in the world around them. With Clair as my model for gauging others in the wizarding world, I assumed most were reclusive and worried about their own affairs. The time spent adjacent to humanity removed their drive to directly help. As those they knew died or passed away, they became aloof.

I was pretty sure Clair wasn’t the only recluse who simply hid and worked on their own power, ignoring the world around them. I could have done the same, especially as a wizard with a gift for artifice. There was nothing I loved more than crafting and designing items, even though I’d only made a few things around my home and shop.

The Tribunal did some good for humanity but primarily focused on being the governing body for the magical forces on the earth. They reserved their strength for war or direct conflict, rather than fighting the never-ending plague of individual creatures and monsters who fed on mankind. I didn’t have the patience or time to simply wait.

On the day I passed my assessment and became a full fledge wizard of the Tribunal, they had tried to recruit me to the Strikers. Suffice it to stay, I hadn’t gotten along with those leaders and was forced to make my own way in the world.. It was better, I wouldn’t want to take the jobs they would have sent me on anyway, policing wizards and diplomatic missions with forces literally killing people.

I clenched my teeth at those memories and focused again on the minuscule amount of free-floating power deep within my chest as I chose the Body attribute for it to enhance.

The power readily disappeared. It wasn’t much. My body didn’t feel significantly more rested or stronger, but this had been a weak creature core. It felt more like I’d suddenly had a full night’s sleep, despite the events of the past evening.

I could have used a spell that would show me exactly how much I’d progressed, but it was a bit of a chore, and I had other things I needed to do right now.