The glare sent his way would have made most people uncomfortable. Marshall, by this point, had almost no care about such things. In the past few weeks he had done terrible things just to see the next day. He still remembered the look on that old lady's face when he took her spoon just a few minutes ago, and then again when she boxed his ears with said spoon until he fled. It was just all the chaos that Pyra had brought into his life, and the knowledge that the System seemed to strangle him if he thought about leaving.
The younger man walked up to Marshall, and just looked him over a few times. Making him feel like his privacy was being invaded somehow, and he slowly placed his hands over his face. Both of the siblings gave him a confused look.
"I am protecting my head. Its precious alright?" He muttered defensively, internally he was screaming about how there were two of them now. And, Pyra had just started to not be weird and socially inept. Well, she was still weird but at least she was passible. This sibling of hers looked at the world like it owed him money and he was about to collect.
"You might actually be useful in a few days." The man replied, seemingly to himself, "Mother was planning her own experiments back home, but...I wonder if..." Marshall felt himself break out into a sweat.
"None of that, its day time and there are people around." While both of those things were true, most of the crowd was returning to work and not paying attention to them. Though the kids were all laughing for some reason.
"So, its best if we do it in the dark and out of sight. Well there are some shadows between the larger huts I suppose." It was said so casually that Marshall hoped he was making a joke. Then the man grabbed his arm and started walking towards the nearest spot. Pyra just grinned at him, and started making some more fire displays for the lingering children. He felt betrayed, he felt abandoned, at least for a moment before his rational mind popped back in for a chat. These two wouldn't have the same understanding, though Pyra's grin told him she got more than her brother did.
Stopping in the shadows between buildings the man turned back to Marshall, and pulled an odd staff from his back. Marshall hadn't seen it on his back and looked at it in confusion. A red wood with silver engravings of ants and dragons spiraled up until it reached a golden claw that held a pulsing orb that seemed to drink the air.
ERROR...DANGEROUS AREA DETECTED
He stepped back in alarm after hearing that odd voice and seeing those words in a screen. The System never talked to people, and for it to have an issue now. What manner of nightmares did this guy bring with him. The man in question was just muttering and moving his fingers above the orb on the staff. It looked incredibly wrong for some reason, his eyes hurt to look at it. Then, came the roots from the earth and Marshall realized that he wasn't going anywhere. He didn't even have to look to know that some crazy barrier or shield was going to prevent anyone from coming in or seeing anything.
In fact he just relaxed and leaned into the roots holding him up. He couldn't escape what they did in the shadows, these siblings were definitely family.
---
Yana looked at Marshall, clearly understanding that this was happening and to not struggle. Which was better than the few others he had practiced on during his trip. He couldn't use the orb for anything really, but it offered a way to breakdown the System's influence and make some of his own changes in return. The first couple had been pretty to watch, but the results of fire mana infusing the flesh was only appetizing not useful. Each of the individual mana types seemed to need a balancing force, and could only be used in certain parts of the body. Otherwise they had....reactions. Like that wandering singer and the air mana in his lungs. Quite the popping sounds.
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Returning to the task at hand Yana watched the, almost, clear energy of the System be pulled into the orb from Marshall's body. As well as much of the raw mana that infused his various part to create skills and improved his stats. After reading a book on the structure of the body in the Hold, and by talking with Mother on a few occasions. The how of mana improving things made more sense. Then, after his few, on the road, experiments it became clear. Of the six main types of mana; Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Light, and Dark. Each related to one of the Stats that the system affected; Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Wisdom respectively.
It would only do this IF it was placed in the right place in certain amounts. The System had clearly found the optimized formula for it's own uses, but Yana wondered about all the wasted space taken by "Abilities". These seemed way too large and loose to be anything more than space wasters. Though perhaps it allowed for a form of growth by compressing them at milestones.
Glancing over the body of this Beastkin, it was clear he had a lot of wasted space, and a lot of mana that the System was stealing. Well, was stealing, it was hard to do so in the presence of the orb. With so much cleared up space Yana started to weave the internal mana using a script. First, he pulled a thread of the mana being taken by the orb and looped it back into the body with a script attached. Then the internal mana started to make changes based on the commands. It was a slow process considering the orb was still affecting the surrounding area, but it seemed to have a hard time affecting normal internal mana. System affected mana seemed to be an odd exception, but that was probably due to it's nature of being separate from the body.
His musings were cut short by the expected screams of pain and sounds of parts of a body doing things they weren't meant to do. So, Yana focused on the barrier so that it wouldn't upset people. Humans had this bad habit of both being self-serving and wanting to help others. Cut a man's hand off for trying to steal from you, and suddenly everyone saw you as the bad guy. A fresh wave of screams brought him back from that memory to look at the subject.
"I know you probably can't hear me through your yelling... or unconscious state now. But, I am trying to help you be more useful in the future." He had been told it was a bad habit to talk to people who couldn't hear you, but he felt there was some part of the mind picking it up all the same.
"Yana, how long with this take to finish?" Pyra asked, coming through the bubble like it was just a convenient bush. Yana, raised an eyebrow at his sister before he broke into a big smile.
"Oh, a couple more minutes and it should be done. I thought he would have a better pain tolerance however." To which Pyra nodded.
"He can deal with a lot of things fairly easily and without complaint, but there was this one time he got a piece of wood stuck in his skin. He screamed for hours about it, even after I burned it out for him." Yana bobbed his head, liking the gesture.
"Well, after this he should be able to help us get into Masire." He continued, his eyes watching the script working, sometimes they would make mistakes after all. Pyra tilted her head at his words.
"Is that where Mother wants us to go?" She asked, her brows tightening. Yana noticed her reaction and smiled back at her.
"Yes, but it is because two things are there that should be useful to us," Pyra nodded for him to continue, "First, is the Door and the oldest dungeon in the Realm. Second, is the fact that the greatest scholars of the System are there." Upon hearing the second thing Pyra understood the reasoning. Mother was giving her a clue to her mission, and it would be rude not to accept it.
Another scream of pain and the snapping of several bones came from Marshall, and the two siblings rolled their eyes.