"Are you sure that all this junk is going to help you?" asked Blake. He came into view and showed Max a box full of crafting supplies that he'd just brought back to the compound. Blake, Ethan, and Larry, one of Max's students, had gone on another acquisition run to one of the local hobby shops.

Max glanced in the box but didn't have the heart to tell his friends he'd already gotten all the supplies he could handle at this point. Instead, he said, "Yeah, it'll be a huge help. Just put it on the passenger seat and I'll get to it."

"Are you almost done?" asked Blake.

"Yes," said Max, "Maybe another half hour. Is everybody else ready to go?"

"I think so," his friend said, "Let me go check with Chad." Then Blake set the box on the passenger seat of the car Max was in and left.

The car had been Max’s private workshop to get away from distractions.

A plastic bead rested on his palm and he stared at it for a few more seconds before giving up. Now that he understood bead sorcery, he was intrigued, but a little confused as well. It was unlike any other magical discipline he'd ever heard about before. As a Bead Sorcerer, he was able to create talismans and tools using beads…or any object that looked like a bead. Max had even idly wondered if he could enchant a donut, but that was definitely an experiment for later.

The limitations of his own lack of skill was clear. He had ideas and techniques in his mind now from the Bead Sorcerer master memories he'd gotten from the Morrigan. But he could only make the simplest applications work so far. Bead Sorcery was much different from the blade sorcery he was used to. He was used to channeling mana through his body, weapon, even the air. It was a process of bending the external world to his will using internal power. Bead Sorcery used both internal and external power. It was tricky, almost like tying knots with mana. If it wasn't for the fine control he developed over the course of his first life, there was no way he could have made even this much progress in such a short amount of time.

After making a face and examining the fruits of his labor, he decided that he was being too hard on himself…and maybe a little greedy. After all, Earth was full of mana for Max to work with and he had just created a decent amount of new weapons, basically from scratch. Sitting in a little bowl were about twenty beads that he'd shoved energy into and placed a simple trigger within. Now they would basically function as de facto hand grenades.

Max had only done a little bit of programming in high school, and the way Bead Sorcery worked definitely reminded him of those old classes. He'd included an extra trigger in these explosive beads so he hopefully would not accidentally blow himself up. More complex usage of Bead Sorcery was definitely possible but would have to wait till later. Right now, he was running out of time to stay on Earth and he had to do one last thing before being yoinked back to the dungeon he came from.

Since Max still had a few more minutes of solitude in the car he'd claimed as his office, he decided to stop crafting beaded weapons. He took out the Mana Vault that he'd gotten from the Morrigan and studied the thing as it sat in his palm. As before, he could feel it drawing in power. He tried to feel the mana as it traveled towards it. With his eyes closed, he lifted an eyebrow when he could see the metaphysical pores on the orb with his mind's eye.

If he had to come up with a metaphor for what he was sensing, it was almost like water falling through the holes of a sieve, but in reverse. The mana was gathering inside the artifact, drawn into it.

He got a gut feeling and decided to act on it. Max spread his hands wide and with an effort of will created a thin membrane of hardened mana from his own body, extended from his palms. To his senses, it looked almost like bat wings. Then he tried to gather mana from the surrounding space and push it towards the Mana Vault.

Nothing happened.

Some part of him instinctively felt like it should work, though, like pushing water into a drain.

For several minutes Max kept moving the ambient mana around himself and the Mana Vault until he finally managed to cup a decent amount around it, holding it there. Then he used a tiny bit of his power to push it down even further. Compress it. Suddenly, all the mana vanished. And on top of that, it began a chain reaction for several seconds that made the ambient mana around Max practically disappear into the Mana Vault.

"Now we're talking!" he said. He did actually understood what he'd just done, at least he thought he did. Max knew that mana did not behave the same as air or water. In some ways, it could act very unpredictably, at least seeming unpredictable to those who are not familiar with it. Mana could almost have a mind of its own.

By encouraging the Mana vault to suck in more mana, after forcing it in, this had in turn enticed the mana to move in that direction more strongly for a time. Max wasn't sure how much more the artifact had been filled by this action but he was sure it was a significant amount.

Suddenly, out the corner of his vision he saw a small, glowing image of an eye. He recognized it. The same symbol was prominent on the necklace he'd gotten from the Morrigan. Next, a symbol of the Mana Vault flashed.

Acting on an educated guess, he observed his mana orb through his third eye, then smiled. When observing the artifact, now he saw a change in its information. It read:

[Mana Vault of WD Arand]

Once charged, the mana vault can be triggered to release its stored mana. Release can be adjusted for flow.

Capable of functioning while magically hidden or even in most storage arrays. Once its owner is chosen, it will find its way back to its owner as long as they are alive.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Current owner: Max Cunningham, Champion of The Morrigan

Extra effect 1: Faster mana charging speed with owner effort

Extra effect 2: Hidden

Extra effect 3: Hidden

One hidden effect had been revealed.

"Well, that's going to come in handy," murmured Max out loud. He continued to fill the orb as much as he could before it was time to leave his impromptu office. When he got out of the car, he stuffed a backpack with handfuls of beads that his friends had gotten for him from the hobby stores in the area. Even though what they'd done was technically stealing, they'd assured him that they would pay for the beads and any damages they'd caused after Max was gone, plus interest.

"Okay, let's do this thing," said Max. He shut the door behind him and walked to the dojo where his friends were all kitted up, armed and armored as best they could manage.

"Okay, everything's ready?" asked Max.

"Yup," said Chad, "The reporters know we're going to do it."

"Okay, good."

There were three vehicles out in the parking lot. But, Max was only going with Ethan, Chad, Blake, and Sarah, one of his only female students. The other four looked nervous, but not as bad as Max thought they could be.

After all, what they were going to attempt would be risky.

There was one pickup truck, one car, and a jeep in their convoy. Max got into the car with Ethan. "Max, I need to talk to you about something else before you do this thing.”

“What's that?" said Max.

"That rule you gave us about not teaching Albion Western Wind Style martial arts to others. I don't think…it’s a good idea. The rule."

"Oh," said Max. He hadn't expected the former martial arts instructor to say anything like this.

"Yeah," said Ethan. He bit his lip as he thought about what to say. Then he continued, "What we're doing right now, this mission, is basically for the reputation of our future guild, right?"

"That's right," said Max.

"Not many people have actually closed the portals yet, the stable portals. Or stabilized them."

“That’s also right.”

When Max had been talking to his friends, planning for the future, it had definitely helped that they hadn't needed to explain all the changes on Earth to him. After all, because of his relationships in the Quartet and the reading he'd done, Max was very aware of how monster incursions worked.

There were three general types of portals. All of them could have ranks from F to S, with S being the most difficult. The first kind of portal, Type A, would open up and would disgorge monsters until they closed. Right now, people probably didn't have many ways to tell when they would appear, but in the future, if everybody survived long enough, humanity would learn where they would spawn and also even be able to predict when.

Stable, Type B portals were often called dungeons. They were stable and would open to a different world or small area that could be repeatedly challenged as long as the core was never found or taken. These types of dungeons could be farmed and they were regularly cleared. Type B dungeons could have bosses. The boss would reappear in a set time after it was killed.

Then the third type of portal, a Type C, was much more aggressive. Similar to the second type of dungeon, if it got too many monsters or grew in power too much without being purged, there would be a dungeon break and monsters would flood the world, looking for blood.

However, Type C dungeons were generally more dangerous and always had a difficult boss inside. There was also usually a guardian outside that needed to be defeated as well before even entering the portal. If a Type C dungeon was cleared, it would sometimes change to a Type B, with a weaker copy of the original boss monster at the end.

The dungeon that Max and his friends were heading to was a Type C. Greg had called the local news agencies and told them about the group's plan to challenge the portal for the safety of the city.

Max’s plan was quite simple. His group of friends, soon to be an official guild once the concept of guilds was actually created on Earth, was going to publicly conquer a dungeon.

He had two advantages.

His first advantage was that he knew how most civilized worlds behaved after being beset by monsters. With that knowledge he could help his friends organize early. This would also help establish a power base ready for him when he Returned. His Second advantage was that many early Type B and Type C portals followed certain patterns across the greater universe. Max had read a lot about them in the library at the Summoner academy. He was fairly sure this Type C dungeon was one he was familiar with.

Hours earlier, after deciding that his students would be forming a guild in his absence, they’d brainstormed opportunities. This had included the others filling Max in on what was going on in the city, as well as Max reading news reports.

The external guardian for this Type C dungeon had killed several adventurers and been featured on the news. As a result, Max knew with high certainty what kind of dungeon it would be. It was worth the risk. And it was definitely worth the publicity.

Ethan’s words brought him back to the conversation. He said, “So this dungeon we’re going to beat, after that it’ll become a stable portal, we’ll have our names on it. Cool. But we will need to grow. And one reason people will come to us is because…we have power. And because we can introduce people to a Path.”

Max frowned but didn’t say anything, continuing the listen.

“I’m just thinking about the future. If the core of our guild are, uh, Mana Swordsmen, it’s going to cause problems if we don’t have any new blood. Now, we could just do as you said before, only scout Returners and Ground Challengers, like us. Groun Challengers, people like us–people that developed their own powers on Earth. But we have a huge advantage, right? We can teach some regular people to have a Path.”

“Only if they have talent,” said Max.

“Sure, but it’s possible. You said eventually there will probably be mage guilds that can do the same thing and it will be a huge deal for them. Well…why not for us?”

Ethan began to say more, but Max held up a hand. He frowned and thought about it, realizing that his friend had a point. Max had already broken numerous taboos by teaching Western Wind Style. But he also didn’t want it to spread willy-nilly. Without proper instruction, it could even actually kill practitioners, hurting instead of helping. There were better ways for the masses to find power of their own.

He also didn’t want any enemies to be using his own art against him.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what you can do. If someone joins the guild, they seem talented, they prove themselves trustworthy, and they sign a long-term contract, you can teach them, but only if you also get some sort of magically binding contract that ensures secrecy, and compliance.”

“Compliance with what?”

“They may never teach Western Wind Style to anyone else. All instruction comes from you and you only. And the contract must say that if they break this rule, their life is forfeit.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious,” said Max, voice flat.

Ethan thought about it before nodding. “I think we can live with that. When do you think the magical contracts will be a thing? You read about that too?”

“Probably a few more months, max.”

“Okay, I hope you’re right. Because if you’re right, and we do this thing, our group’s name is going to get out there for sure.” He paused. “And you’re sure about the name?”

“Sure am.” Max grinned. “Trifecta.”

“Trifecta,” Ethan repeated. “I guess it sounds kinda cool, but I still don’t get it. Nobody else does, either.”

“Well, nobody else had any better ideas, so…”

“Yeah, yeah. Trifecta it is.” Ethan glanced around. “We’re almost there.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” said Max. He’d just caught sight of a news van. “Showtime.”