It was Xiaomei who reasoned that Guan Po Daiyu and Po Kahn were likely heading towards the vault themselves, which explained why they were nearly directly in the way. Dan couldn’t help feeling the door had found them, now that they were “ready”. The soul stone in his pocket buzzed happily, clearly feeling the proximity to the important room.

Guan Shi Ai had been unclear on why Guan Fa Lian was there, or what the labyrinth was, why they needed to go there or really anything of importance. The only thing she really stressed was that getting Fa Lian and themselves away for a time would be sensible and lead to less damage in the end. With that hope in mind, Dan had followed her words and the soul stone bequeathed to him.

The stone itself was still in his pocket, but Dan could feel intention coming from the thing, like it had a mind of its own. For a moment, as his hand reached to open the nondescript door, Dan worried that simply holding the stone wasn’t enough. The mana seeping from it was dense, seeming to warp the other mana around it. To Dan’s eyes it was a black stone, but in his mana sense it was a void.

It reminded him of Guan Fa Lian, and Dan thought he might have more of an idea about the girl’s strange mana now. Was she carrying one of these, too? Did it expel intent into her very core, or did it feel different when it was carried within?

Dan’s list of questions never ceased to grow, it seemed.

There were still battles raging, crashes of power and energy throughout the halls of the Jiaoduo, they needed to hurry. Dan reached out to open the door and it slid open for him without restriction. Glad that he hadn’t needed to absorb the soul stone like Guan Shi Ai had, Dan moved inside. Without delay, Xiaomei and Hyun Soon followed inside and the door closed itself firmly.

“We made it.” Hyun Soon looked at Dan and Xiaomei, searching for some celebration, some way to lift a dour mood. Even if Dan wasn’t still reeling from the beating he had taken, he couldn’t have heard Hyun’s question. Only adrenaline and a constant cycling of his mana were keeping Dan standing at this point. That intense mana cycling was dulling the pain in Dan’s ribs, and quieting the screaming from his shoulder. It also meant his mana raced out of him to fill the space.

Dan was lost.

Even after being blinded, Dan had never felt so small as he did when he first entered the vault of the Guan family. The scope of the room was immeasurable, even the farthest flung of his mana did not reach a wall or roof that it could sense. His eyes could see a facade, an illusion of a room that was not quite there.

The effect made him violently nauseous.

For a few awful moments Dan was lost in a dark, empty space. For the first time in years, Dan had to close off his awareness of the world intentionally and use only his physical senses to perceive around him.

“-kay, Dan? What do we do?” Hyun sounded very worried, which Dan thought was sweet. It was Dan’s own reliance on his ability that made him feel shaky and slightly cold without it. He would be fine.

“I’m back.” With his vision returned, Dan could see his friends. The worry on their faces faded away as he forced a smile. “This room is… overwhelming.”

“You can say that again,” Xiaomei helped Dan return calm by reacting to his forced cheer with forced cheer of her own, “how can there be so much room in this room?”

“It’s all magic,” Dan answered, still blinking his eyes to regain focus, “powerful magic. I can’t see through it at all.” Traversing this impossible place might end up being a challenge all of its own, something Dan hadn’t expected. His mind began to race, to figure out the room and find their destination with haste. There was a war going on, after all.

However, it was Hyun Soon who reminded Dan of something important. “This place is amazing!” The boy’s jubilation had come on quickly as the anxiety had faded. It was no real surprise. Each and every item in here would be worth more than all the money Park Man-Shik had ever earned, and he was a well paid blacksmith. “What do you think they are?”

All three of them gathered around the glass display case. Even the storage unit itself was a work of intensely masterful art, the wood that comprised most of its form was a light colour, nearly white but with the lightest touch of green tint. As the carvings on the case deepened, the green colour became more pronounced. An artisan of incredible skill must have used the finest of tools, over painstaking days and months, to whittle and carve this single display case. A filigree filled some of the blank spaces, a strangely blue coloured metal that Dan had never seen before. It was here that Dan was most impressed. The metal was as thin as a leaf, but the detail it created was so real that it truly looked like the sky. All together, the case told a story of a powerful fighter who pulled mountains from the ground, raising them to new heights.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Within the case were two pieces of mundane looking metal. It seemed almost a joke, but Dan knew that would have to be more importance to these pairs of conjoined rings. Two sets of four rings, the black metal melded together with a small bar, a handgrip wrapped in a deep brown leather, below them.

“They’re knuckle dusters.” Xiaomei’s voice had enough hurt in it that Dan turned to face her, but she had already looked away. If she wanted privacy, it wasn’t his place to push, even if he did notice the hushed sniffles as she pretended to look at something else.

“I’ve never seen knuckle dusters before, Dan, have you?”

“Never, no. I thought they were mostly used by thugs, but if they’re in here they must be very special.” Dan thought they looked fairly pathetic, his own eyes consistently drawn to the display case instead. “See anything interesting, Xiaomei?”

While she tended towards quietude on average, Dan could feel a frigid energy from the girl, even without his mana giving him the heads up. His first attempt to get her attention was tepid, and it did nothing to thaw the angry look frozen upon her face. That was never really Dan’s strong suit, but he knew who shined brightest when he was down.

“Hyun,” Dan whispered. He waited a moment before realising that Hyun was not next to him, but still wandering around behind. It was bizarre not having his normal mana sense. “Hey,” Dan got the other boy’s attention, causing him to jump, “Xiaomei’s distracted. We need to move, do you think you can cheer her up?”

First, Hyun Soon looked offended that Dan would even ask. Then he looked like he had been caught in a lie and his eyes widened. That quickly shifted into an attempt at suspicious nonchalance, his tongue pushing on the inside of his cheek. “Why would I cheer her up more than you?”

“Well, I just mean… I already tried.” Dan shrugged in a much better example of deception, a mask of innocence covering his machinations. It was obvious to him, at least, that the pair were getting closer together in a way they weren’t with Dan. He wanted to encourage it, the two smiled more when they looked at each other.

It didn’t take much more encouragement from Dan to push Hyun Soon over to Xiaomei. Dan stayed a few paces back, looking at a particularly interesting piece of floor for an inordinate amount of time. He couldn’t help himself, and though it was this event that truly removed any sense of nosiness from Dan, he sprayed some mana outwards in an attempt to regain his normal bearings.

A few seconds of intense motion sickness, the world around Dan didn’t exist and it was only his perception of it that allowed him to walk forward without being violently ill.

Oh right, Dan thought as he took some calming breaths, that’s why we’re not using the mana right now.

In the time it took Dan to tell himself off and regain his bearings, Hyun had successfully completed his mission. Xiaomei was excitedly bouncing around a case, and Dan staggered forward carefully. The floor didn’t really exist, it was a construct of the magic holding the room together. His body didn’t know that, but his mind did, and it made walking around like normal very strange.

Still, the items within the room were all very real. This particular oddity was a spool of rope, connected at both ends to a small, clear crystal. The holding case was that same white and green wood, with the same dark metal filigree, but the scene upon it was different. A woman standing in a field, beset by enemies. The enemies could not reach the woman due to her control of fire and lightning, or at least that’s what it seemed to Dan.

Hyun opened the case, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

Dan slammed it, looking around. Surely, from the shadows would descend a hundred guards. Without his mana, Dan had no way to know where they were hiding, but he braced himself for the impending destruction. “What are you doing?” He hissed. Hyun looked shocked, Xiaomei had actually jumped back a few paces. Dan realised instantly that he had overreacted, but not having his mana to give him a blanket of safety was definitely causing him to fray at the edges a little.

“It’s just…” Hyun started, looking at Xiaomei for support and clearly finding it in her eyes, “Elder Yaya sent us here, but she didn’t say not to touch anything did she? If anything here is helpful… shouldn’t we take it?”

Dan didn’t have an easy answer to that, but Xiaomei apparently did. She walked right past Dan from where she had jumped and opened the case again, glancing at him to make sure he didn’t stop her. She pulled the spool of rope from the case and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“The Guan family take and take and expect only that you’ll be grateful they left you something.” Xiaomei’s fury had burned through now, and angry tears fell alongside her words. “We should take whatever we can from them, too.”

Dan shivered, thinking back to a decision he had made but not really stuck to. He had thought the same as Xiaomei before. Take what you can because others will take from you first. Had he been too quick to forgive the Guan family or too quick to come to that conclusion.

Whatever Dan felt, and he didn’t have time to articulate such complex thoughts, nor the compunction to argue with his friends. Hyun for his part looked equal parts uncomfortable and relieved to have the situation dealt with, even if it didn’t have much closure. He followed after Xiaomei, a trepidatious trot to keep up with her nearly feline stalking of the displays.

For a few, hollow moments, Dan felt alone. The distance between himself and his friends felt like it stretched further than just their steps. Before he could be swallowed by thoughts of doubt and worry, Dan made to follow them.

“What are you doing here?” A shrill voice from nearby made Dan yelp, something he was not used to. As a result, he fell to a knee, his mana flaring and hand raised to protect himself. The overall effect was apparently quite pitiful, when coupled with his own high pitched shriek.

A sharp face was glaring at Dan, a straight path between Guan Fa Lian and himself. Her long, normally straight, black hair was tied into a single ponytail, looking only slightly unkempt. Her robes, royal purple of the guan family, and the jacket of the same colour which covered it, were creased. Under her glaring eyes were bags, the wear of stress and days without sleep.

Not knowing what else to say, Dan simply announced “we’re here to help.”