The implications this thing had… man. Just thinking about it gave me a headache so strong I thought it was the presence again acting up and showing me some memories.

But he didn’t even have a clue about that! It was obvious. If he had an idea about what the hell he was dealing with, the price would definitely be VERY different, that was clear to me.

Now the main question: where the fuck was he getting those? It’s not like they are just laying about, ready to be found. He had to have found one of the places where an Origin Crystal was…

I knew about a couple of those.

First of all, of course MIRE.

I almost immediately dismissed that thought. As far as I knew, the entirety of the crystal was safe within me, and the rest I essentially wasted while experimenting with the flight spell and overall on my journey. It was possible that some got out via the river that was flowing though there, or was still somewhere in “the bowl”, but for one of those to get to Bert… not impossible but very unlikely.

Second, the place below Kalkano, where the entity was.

By now it was obvious that the presence had to be some variation of the Origin Crystal, hence its compatibility with me and overall changes in the area. But Bert had absolutely no idea that it was there. Even if we assume that he was getting the pieces from Axelrod or Odar, none of them knew about the place either, so it was not it.

So where… or from who?

Contemplating this, I was slowly playing with the small crystal, rolling it on the table. When I was busy, lost in thought, Jack suddenly understood the implications of what he just witnessed.

-Are those… pieces of you…? - he stammered out finally.

The question dragged me back to reality, and I nodded in response, confirming his worries.

-I… we… were using… a…

He was slack-jawed. I can’t blame him. But that also made me worry. Just a minute ago he said that he ran out of those crystals and cannot maintain the barrier for long. And now he just realized that a new supply of this, obviously, very rare commodity, is sitting right in front of his face. And is wounded.

I think he understood that as well because he immediately backed away a step.

-Nononono… I am not… calm down…!

I was perfectly calm. Although I now realized that I had to be constantly on guard. Who knows what stupid idea could come to their heads?

But even then… was there even anything that they would be able to do to me?

The problem was that the answer was actually yes. The damned light magic. For some reason, even though I was able to absorb it, it still was somehow damaging to me. The only question was, did Vendi even realize that it was the case? I did not exactly react to his attacks when I emerged from the ice and I hoped that he never noticed anything, but I was wrong before.

Or… could I prevent the situation completely?

I could try and rewrite the spell… so they would never really need to look for more materials… or for it to be some different thing, not just my literal flesh.

One problem at a time - I thought to myself. I still have not finished dealing with the Origin Crystal. I already had some ideas about how I would go about using it, but first things first - I had one certain worry.

All the time I have been dealing with those shards, I made sure to not touch them with my bare skin, since I had no idea what would exactly happen. I had some theories though.

I had two scenarios in mind.

First, the most likely one. After touching the infused crystal, I’d just absorb the mana from it, like I’ve done to every single other thing that contained mana. It wouldn’t be exactly helpful, but not everything can be. It would also make sense, since both it and me were the exact same and it would come to just the sheer volume of substance - the larger one winning over the small piece.

The second one - the one I have been silently hoping for. Although unlikely, I had an inkling that maybe, maybe, it would work the opposite way - instead of me absorbing it, the mana would flow to it. It was possible - in that case it would not be just the size that mattered, instead it was more like the difference of air pressure worked. If the loose piece would be devoid of mana, and I would be obviously a lot more charged, the mana flow would go the other way, trying to even out the mana between the two. If that would’ve worked, it would solve all my problems with the overcharge I had recently, although then I would have to worry about the amount of mana it was able to hold and all other crap…

But there was no point in thinking about it before actually confirming either, so I unwrapped my left hand and grabbed a piece that I have not tampered with.

Guess what? Absolutely nothing happened.

I was sort of disappointed. If either of the scenarios I thought of before would play out, the crystal would be helpful at least to some degree, but with this?

Actually… that could work too… although it probably would be a lot more annoying than just having a passive way to collect excess mana…

While the piece was not able to suck the mana directly from me, the experiment before already confirmed that it could collect it if it was just in the raw, loose form. So what if I was to try and do that on purpose every time I had to?

I mean, that would definitely work, but would be slightly dangerous. If I was to just gather a loose mana for the shard to absorb, I would be risking for someone to turn it against me - just like Axelrod did below Kalkano. I essentially would be gathering a cloud of flammable gas right next to me while anyone, be it on purpose or not, could just light up and detonate it.

But right then, I had an idea. What if I was to bypass the “loose” phase and just straight up pour it into the rock?

I mean, sure, it sounds easy, but I never actually have done it. My crystal always worked the other way. I already knew that was possible - the entity and the whole cavern was the proof of that.

I shook my head like a wet dog.

What? How was that the proof? I only knew that the cave was infused, which does not mean anything. After all, the crystal could just emit the excess mana like hot water steam and the effect would be the same.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was possible. Was that a nudge from the entity? Or just me going insane?

Either or, I was not just going to give up. I picked up the largest piece of the crystal and again grasped it with my hand, focusing on it.

Even without my magic sense, I could tell that it was mostly empty, like others. I also could feel that it indeed used to belong to me… it still had some traces of my own mana.

I honestly was surprised. I never expected to be able to tell… I mean I already found those lying randomly on the floor, so I had to somehow know… It was confusing. I was confusing myself. At the same time, I knew that it was me and I knew it was not.

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I hold the urge to slap myself in the face to stop this train of thought, instead focusing on what I intended to do - to attempt and pour a bit of my mana into it.

It was actually easier than I thought it would be. I succeeded without even trying much. The flow was so easy to establish that I almost dropped the crystal.

But, alas, the success was short-lived. As soon as I managed to pour even a little bit of the mana and the rock started glowing, the flow suddenly stopped, just for it to change direction and the energy to get absorbed again back by me.

Slightly confused, I tried again, just for the process to repeat, exactly the same way.

I attempted this about ten more times, each time pouring more mana than before, each time mana ending back inside me. It was sort of like I was playing some awkward version of tug-of-war with myself. Hilarious, really.

While it seemed pointless, it actually was not. I, of course, was not even a slightest bit closer to being able to force mana to stay in the crystal, but I still was learning things. By pouring more and more, I was able to tell how much the piece was able to handle without anything strange happening.

I say anything strange, but something did happen. Nothing that much unexpected or serious, but still.

The more mana I poured, the brighter the crystal got. That was pretty much given from the get go, since, after all, was the same thing as was always happening with my body.

What was more interesting though, was the capacity. I was able to pour so much mana that I almost felt light-headed. True, I was pretty weakened after all the bullshit I went through today and on top of that I was recovering my throat, meaning most of my mana was gone, but for that small piece to be able to hold that much… without, I don’t know, exploding or something… It was encouraging somehow.

As a last experiment, I again tried pouring mana into it, but instead of holding the piece all the time in my hand, in the middle of the transfer, instead of stopping it, I just dropped the shard on the table.

It… actually worked, sort of that is. When I lost contact with the gem, I still was, “leaking mana” so to speak. But, the problem solved itself instantly - even though I was not touching the crystal, it was still absorbing magic around it and promptly sucking up the remaining residue. Slightly dangerous, but that could actually work. Definitely would be better than just walking about, overcharged to shit.

Happy with myself, I wrapped my hand again and picked up the pieces, gathering them together.

As soon as they started touching each other though, I felt the mana flow pick up again, but this time it was not between me and the crystal - it was between each of the pieces themselves. Just like in my case, the mana started flowing back and forth between the shards.

From my point of view it was a mesmerizing view. I could clearly see the mana flow, small sparks of flame in each of them light up and dim, randomly pulsing.

And apparently I was not the only one seeing that. Even without the enhanced sight, Vendi and Jack were now also looking at the pieces with stunned silence. Vendi stopped even pretending that he was working on the ice. Which meant that the pieces were glowing as well. I could not really tell at the first glance, so I was thankful for that reaction.

As I started thinking that it could be slightly problematic, since having those shine completely contradicted the purpose I had for them in mind.

But alas, that quickly resolved itself - those shards were not exactly randomly pulsing with mana. It was just that they were trying to spread the energy equally. It just took them a hot second, and soon I had in my palm a handful of slightly charged crystals.

That could work. That actually could work. I just had to keep those on me at all times.

I quickly conjured a small vine, just like the one I tied Vendi a while ago, wanting to somehow tie those together, maybe make a bracelet or something, just for it to be promptly disintegrated.

Right, fair enough, I should've seen that coming.

The disintegration snapped Vendi and Jack back to reality.

-I do not know what to say… I have been using… this… as a fuel for the barrier…

-That’s horrible… - Vendi agreed, apparently eavesdropping, or however you want to call reading the notes I’ve been communicating with.

I looked at them amused. I get it, it’s not something that was normal or expected, but it was just a piece of rock, what’s so horrible about it?

-Kon can not know this - he suddenly exclaimed, adamant. - I will never let him know that we sacrificed people.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, where did this come from? That is a big leap in the process of thinking. I get that I am made out of the same thing, but that’s just Origin Crystal. While important and definitely powerful, it’s not like every piece of it was the same as me. Even then, if we assume the weirdest, it was possible that it was just an insignificant piece of someone. Like in my case. Ear, finger, whatever, doesn’t mean that it’s a whole person.

I wanted to somehow tell him that he’s just overreacting, but with no paper I was not about to burn the message into the table or something.

-Holy shit… I always wondered what those crystals were… Is he insane? - muttered Vendi.

-Let’s not be hasty - finally came back to senses Jack. - It’s not confirmed that those were… human parts, for the lack of a better term. Also, did he even know what he was selling? I feel it was a bit too cheap for him to know that.

-Or he just wanted to get rid of evidence and that’s why they were cheap.

He’s got a point.

-Come on, would he be that insane to try and get a profit from the evidence against him? Besides, evidence against what exactly? We are just spitballing here, we don’t know shit.

-Right… He’s not that money hungry… but there is one person that is quite close to him that would be both that desperate for money and stupid enough to either try selling evidence or just not knowing what they were dealing with.

Goldie.

-Caleb Moi.

Hell, why is that every time his name is brought up it’s something problematic.

-Exactly - said Vendi, sitting next to me. - And I might have an idea on where he got this in the first place.

-You mean that “dragon hoard” bullshit? Don’t tell me you believed that crap?

I see Jack shared my view on things. While I had limited knowledge about this world, I was ready to accept a lot of weird creatures and stuff, but a dragon hoard…

I mean, sure, it was possible that a creature like that existed. But for it to be exactly the same as in popular myths, and if that was the case, for him to be able to defeat it? Ha, no way in hell.

-But you may be onto something - added Jack after a while. - I am not going to believe that he hunted a fucking wolf, not to even mention a dragon, without him showing me its head. But there is no denying that he DID have a bunch of weird shit that he was giving away. Including some magic items and gold. It’s not a big stretch that, if we assume that it’s him that Bert had those crystals from, it’s most likely that they came from the same place as the rest of that crap.

While that was a sound theory, I seriously doubted that.

From what I knew, whoever he got those crystals from, Bert never wanted to let anyone know that he was selling them. And why in the hell would Goldie care if he sold them or not? It was just not adding up. Maybe he borrowed them from him? Nah, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to sell them then. Or maybe it was not that he did not want to hide him selling those… Maybe he was hiding something else?

The answer was right on the tip of my tongue. I had a feeling like the real solution was just in front of me, staring right into my face, yet I was not able to grasp it.

Irritated, I stood up from the seat and, grabbing the shards, I wandered off to my room.

As I was leaving the underground and passing through the kitchen I got stopped by Jack.

-Right, sorry, I got sort of distracted, but I wanted to tell you that the list that you requested is almost complete.

For a second I was not realizing what he was talking about, but soon understood that he was talking about the “census” I requested.

I nodded at him in confirmation and turned away from him, wanting to get back to my room as soon as possible.

Even though it was a short time that I was not able to speak, it was enough for me. I was not going to put up with that garbage any more. One way or another, I’d heal myself.

From my room I grabbed the remaining mana fruit that I was given before and quickly wandered back down.

As I was leaving, I passed Jack, who curiously was observing me. He was talking to some kids that scattered as soon as I came into view, darting towards the room nearby.

This time I moved a bit more away from the house, so I wouldn’t be right above the bunker or any other basement that this place was full of, or at least I was hoping so. Just to be sure, I went to the other side of the building and away from the clearing, hiding in between some trees.

If I was correct, to try and regenerate a piece of my body, I’d have to try and absorb as much mana as I could. Previously I was hesitating with that, since I didn’t really know what to expect. Would I get overcharged like usual? Or the overflow would just go towards the rebuilding of my body, hastening it?

When I lost my ear, I didn’t really try to absorb a lot, since I was trying to lay low on the road, nor did I really care much. Now, I didn’t have to be that careful. I already made enough problems for Jack, what’s one more?

With that in mind, I grabbed the first fruit and bit into it without hesitation.