With Davis gone. Veles enjoyed his morning with Zunna, discussing various magical subjects. Mostly the basic ones that Veles already knew.

“You are preparing yourself to become a Sage?” asked Veles. “And that little book is your Grimoire?”

Veles finally discovered how this class system worked, which was overly interesting.

Apparently, when the person reached the end of the Third Stage— when they have all their Mana Pathways fully opened and functioning. They would experience a small moment of enlightenment where their previous experiences would be accounted for, resulting in a small mutation of their Mana Core. Where, with a stroke of luck, they would be granted the class they wished for.

It also seemed like this type of ‘enlightenment’ was granted to everyone by the grace of Heaven. The same one that threatened to smite him recently—not that he didn’t provoke it in the first place. However, this just raised numerous questions about those Osvalenians living west of the forest. He’d never heard about them receiving any help from so-called Heaven…

But what Veles was sure about was that he, Davis, and even Olivia would receive this type of enlightenment. One way or another…

Zunna shook her head at Veles’s questions. “It's not Grimoire yet. I’m still at the Third Stage,” she paused momentarily, a thoughtful look on her face. “This travel was for me to gain experience and earn myself the best possible book to use as my Grimoire—because once it assimilates with my Mana Core, there is no way back. And, it’s part of a tradition for a Sages to experience the world before finally writing the first page in their Grimoire.”

This was also another topic they previously discussed. And it made Veles even more enthusiastic to explore this new concept of classes.

What he learned so far was that every single class had a different way of how their mana and Mana Cores worked. For example, when and if Zunna reaches the Fourth Stage and becomes a full-fledged classed person. A book she herself considered her Grimoire would integrate inside her Mana Core and serve as her partner, growing beside and allowing her to perform the duty of a Sage. Which is to gather and use information for its own purpose.

What she said so far about spellcaster classes was that the Sage was purely a support one. Her previous introduction as an ‘Apprentice Enchantress’ was just a sub-profession to ensure Sages would be helpful in combat. Their main goal was always to be advisers and strategists because their Grimoires were supposed to be carriers of valuable information that the Sage always had on their hands—somehow Veles found it hard to imagine a shy girl like Zunna to be a great adviser, not that she lacked the intelligence, just that she didn’t give an air of a very social person.

“Now that I think about it,” Veles said. “Does the quality of the book matter when Sages assimilate them with Mana Cores?”

Zunna bitterly nodded. “It does. Not in a way where a rich person can just get their hands on a good empty book and be the best Sage out there. In fact, becoming a Sage in the first place is very hard. Only one in ten can get the class, while the rest turned out to be normal Mages or some other common class. But if one does succeed, the quality of the Grimoire could be crucial as to how much information it holds and even directly affect the wielder’s affinities.”

“Interesting,” Veles rubbed his chin. “What about the melee classes? Do they have a chance to get like a sword inside their Mana Core?”

Zunna looked confusingly at Veles’s question. Probably wondering why he’d asked about something that was considered a piece of common knowledge.

Noticing this, Veles decided to make up a story. “You see, my clan is in a secluded place with no more than a hundred members. Everyone has a very unique Shadow affinity. Making us a clan full of assassins. But my case is special. I was born with special gifts, which ultimately forced me to travel the world and seek knowledge as to how to improve myself. That’s the reason I’m plenty ignorant of the outside world.”

Seeing the sudden sparkle in Zunna’s eye, Veles felt bad. The girl probably expected him to tell a tragic tale or something. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t going to do that. “Anyway, I don’t like talking about this topic…”

Nodding understandingly, Zunna adjusted her round glasses. “About the melees. Only extremely rare ones get a chance to have a personal weapon that follows their growth. Usually, only people born with special constitutions or bloodlines have a chance to achieve something like that. For the rest, the common path is to learn runic spells and assimilate them inside their Mana Core. Or well, out of various classes and their variations, most do it this way.”

“You can literally write spells inside your Mana Core?” asked Veles, then followed with another question. “Does it have a limit?”

“Most people can write them, yes.” Zunna then flipped her book. “See this one. This is a runic combination for Lesser Fireball.”

She showed him the two rows of runic language he had no idea about. The first row had seven letters, while the second had five. Each rune looked like a regular letter written on a piece of paper, but the more Veles stared at it, the more he felt something was amiss.

“Even if a person knew what the spell looks like, it’s hard for them to comprehend the full meaning of it. It takes patience and dedication to cast your first spell. After that, a lot of training is required until one is able to engrave it in their Mana Core. But even if they do just that, a simple spell like this can take months of additional practice before a person can truly master it.”

“Is it that hard?”

“For me. It takes around six seconds to cast this spell. But an Archmage with years of experience can easily break my spell during the cast with a casual hand wave. And cast the same one without even showing the runes. So even if there is a limit to how many spells one can write inside their Mana Core, reaching that limit is almost impossible.”

“That’s good to know,” replied Veles with a smile. “You seem very knowledgeable about this stuff. The perk of training to become a Sage, I guess?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She closed her book and coughed in embarrassment. “Something like that. My master forced me to read a lot—not that I minded. I’ve always liked knowing stuff.”

“Then it’s time for me to repay this with another piece of information,” said Veles. “How about I fulfill my promise and explain to you the about the mana undulations?”

Zunna instantly opened her little book and flipped on the empty page. Her other hand skillfully took a pen from the inner pocket of her robe. Then she expectantly looked at Veles and said, “I’m ready!”

“Good,” Veles smiled at her behavior. “Tell me, what happens when you absorb the mana inside your body?”

“It gets refined and takes my personal mana signature becoming a part of me, and that’s the reason why rarely a person could get damaged by their own spells,” replied Zunna.

Veles had expected to get the full explanation about the whole purpose of mana, but it seems that Zunna deemed that unnecessary.

“Right,” confirmed Veles. “Now, what do you know of mana undulations?”

“Topic about mana undulations is still highly argued,” Zunna added. “It’s believed that the undulations are released due to the difference between the personal and atmospheric mana.”

Veles was caught by surprise by this answer. He was sure this would be one of those common topics that everyone knew. After all, he’d learned about this long ago when he was imprisoned. His little helper—Kristos—served as a ‘willing’ participant in discovering the basics of mana...

However, still, this was a pretty common and easy knowledge, did someone purposely not teach it to Zunna, or were people really ignorant of it?

“Well, you are partially right,” said Veles. “Do you have a spell that can create a chunk of ice? Size doesn’t matter, only that it’s freezing cold.”

Zunna frowned as she flipped her book yet again. Making a sudden stop on a specific page, she mumbled something under her breath, then proceeded to draw a set of runes with her hand.

Observing every single one of her movements, Veles watched as she took a good fifteen seconds of drawing and then poured a considerable amount of mana inside the floating runes.

The icicle with the size of his forearm appeared. Veles then saw that it was about to be fired into the inn’s wall, but Zunna skillfully controlled her mana and grabbed it before it managed to fly away.

“Good mana control,” commented Veles as he took an icicle from her hands.

“Thanks,”

“Look closely,” Veles gently waved the icicle. “Do you see the vapor coming from the ice?”

“I do,” she confusingly replied.

“Any idea why this vapor appears?”

Zunna shook her head. “No…”

“Sometimes the most overlooked things can answer the most sought question,” Veles smiled. “What happens here is simple. The moisture in the air freezes due to the cold coming from ice and it forms small water droplets that further form this temporary vapor.”

“Almost the same principle applies to mana,” Veles continued. “When mana takes on your signature and becomes part of you, it becomes more denser, and its wavelength changes, it then affects the atmospheric mana so that even a tiny layer of mana outside your body takes on your signature. For this reason, you can tell a person’s Stage. The stronger they are, the denser their personal mana is, which affects their surroundings even more—making their strength more apparent.”

Veles paused, waiting for Zunna to understand what he’d just said. And by seeing her eyes wide open, he continued, “For this reason, the stronger a person is, the more atmospheric mana takes on their signature. This allows them to replenish their mana reserves faster.”

But Veles wasn’t done yet, “So, in short. The mana undulation is just atmospheric mana that has a personal signature on it. It allows you to gather mana faster and more efficiently and also provides a passive mana regeneration—the weak individuals, can barely notice this part. However, there are also individuals that have a great mana control which allows them to control their inner mana not to affect the surroundings, thus they have no undulations at all.”

“Like you do?” Asked Zunna.

“Exactly,” said Veles confidently. “Did you get what I was talking about?”

She nodded. “Mana undulation is just atmospheric mana that took our signature,” Zunna then had a thoughtful look. “But for example, what happens if a person doesn’t absorb the undulations? Does it just disappear?”

Waving the icicle again, Veles answered, “The same as the cold. When you move the icicle out of the way, the moisture gets affected by the room temperature and returns to the previous state.”

Without asking anything, Zunna furiously wrote something in her small book.

Deciding not to interrupt her, Veles ordered another cold orange juice from the beautiful barmaid currently serving the inn’s guests. He’d also ignored the strange gazes from the rest of the people currently enjoying their mornings inside the inn. This might be his seventh juice, and he sure wasn’t going to care about the silent judgment he received—he might be a grown man, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy a refreshing beverage. The time he spent unable to taste anything wasn’t healed yet. He might as well enjoy himself to the fullest until it does.

Just as he was about to take a sip of his newly served juice, a door to the inn opened. Davis emerged, his hands holding a couple of paper bags—Veles had noticed that this place had an abundance of paper, probably a product of magic.

Davis reached their table and handed him one of the bags. “Cookies just like you asked.”

Veles frowned. Earlier, they’d made a rule that if Davis caught someone following him, he would buy a bag of cookies.

“Are they warm?” Asked Veles with hidden meaning.

“Not really. They turned cold barely five minutes ago,” replied Davis as he sat at their table.

This was good. It meant nobody had recently been stalking him. So, Veles took the bag and looked inside. Indeed, they were cookies, not the chocolate ones on the first look. Taking one and tasting it, Veles nodded in satisfaction. They were filled with something akin to walnuts. Nonetheless, they were delicious.

“What’s that?” Veles asked between the bites and pointed to the other bags Davis carried.

“More sweet pastries,” Davis said like he’d expected this question. “I knew you would want more.”

Veles was honestly impressed. How nice of him. “Spit it out. What’s the deal?” Of course, he knew something was going on.

“When I was buying an amulet for your familiar, I saw an interesting protect-”

But the Veles cut him off. He knew what Davis wanted. “Not a chance. You aren’t going to use anything that isn’t made by my hand.”

Davis rolled his eyes. “Come one. What’s wrong with getting some extra protection?”

Not even bothering to explain, Veles ignored him. Those one-time-use artifacts were always unreliable. They mess with a person’s sense of security and can malfunction during crucial moments. He wouldn’t stake his safety to something like that.

And more importantly, anything he hadn’t made by his own hand and tested numerous times, Veles wasn’t going to rely on.

“So, for how long did you get followed?” Veles asked quietly. Although, he noticed that Zunna was so engrossed in their writing that she didn’t even notice Davis’s approach. Thus his quietness proved pointless.

Davis leaned near him. “It was periodically. Every five to ten minutes, a person will appear behind me and keep following for barely half a minute. Then suddenly vanish…”

“How troublesome,” Veles clicked his tongue. “Should we take action?”

“What do you mean by that?” Davis worriedly asked.

“Nothing much. We make sure to cause overall chaos. Acquire everything we need while it lasts, and get the hell out of this place.”

“Doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Davis trailed off. Clearly, he wasn’t feeling very confident with Veles’s suggestion.

“Trust me. You will like it.” Then Veles addressed Zunna. “Hey, girl. Where is Fagor? I need to talk with him.”

“Mhm?” She finally lifted her head from the book, looked at Davis, and then switched to Veles. “I don’t know, he’s probably still sleeping…”

“Good, I will go and get him.” Despite saying this, Veles spent some time eating cookies. No way was he going to deny himself this delicious threat. Causing chaos could wait.