Chapter 56: Mana Reader
Felix Sythias’s POV (continued):
Before I immediately headed for the shopping district, I considered for a moment to see if I couldn’t find Tiki. It had been one of the ideas I’d had, to ask her to come with me when I went to pick up the mana-reader. We could spend some time together and she would have someone to go shopping with. From what I gathered, she enjoyed it, but didn’t like going alone.
After a moment of thinking, I decided there wasn’t a reason not to ask her. If I could find her, that was. I had no idea where she'd gone, or if she had even returned to the dorms at all. One thing was for sure, though—I wouldn’t find her by sitting at my door.
It took a little bit of asking around, but I eventually figured out where her room was. Sadly, she wasn’t there. When I asked someone, it turned out she was practicing her Alchemy, though they didn’t know where. Luckily, I did. Alex’s old room.
Alex had offered her the room to practice in after the incident with her brother. He didn’t need it anyway, since we were rooming together. She’d taken him up on it and had moved all her stuff there yesterday.
When I got there, I knocked on the door. There was some shuffling from inside, and a few moments later, the door cracked open. I could see Tiki peeking out from inside, glaring at me. Not a second later, she fully opened the door.
“Ah, it’s just you. I thought it was my brother again. He keeps asking for materials, despite me saying no. I can’t just give them to him; I need them for my own explosive traps. Sorry, I’m rambling. Let me do this again.” She took a deep, calming breath. “Hi Felix, what brings you here?”
I chuckled. “It’s fine if you want to rant, you know? I’m a good listener.”
“I might take you up on that later.”
“How about now? I’m going to the shopping district to pick something up and I figured you might want to join. You like shopping, right?”
“I do, and I do.”
I nodded. “Alright. Did you need to finish anything, or can we go right away?”
She glanced back inside, where a table and a large cupboard full of small boxes and vials stood. It was a little messy. She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I was just cleaning, sorting, and counting my supplies. I want to be able to know if my brother takes any. But it can be done when I get back, too.”
With that, she went back inside and put a few last things away before coming back out with her bag. She locked the door behind her.
“We’ll need to pick up my wallet before we go, is that alright?”
I nodded, and we were off. We quickly passed by her room and then went off to the shopping district. To save some time, I had her ride on my back while I trotted the way there—I would’ve ran, but she would've fallen off. Unlike Alex, she hadn’t trained for that. Maybe we should sometime, though. It might come in useful in a pinch.
While we made our way there, she continued telling me about her brother. Apparently, he had gone through all his supplies to make explosives. It was a little disturbing to know that making explosives was apparently a pretty basic thing alchemists learned. Like Tiki, Alfred used them for traps.
There were restrictions on what they could make, however, especially with the fact that we were going to a cave. No one wanted an explosive trap to accidentally cause a cave-in and bury everyone.
Alfred had come by ten times already, according to Tiki. Why he didn’t just buy new supplies neither of us understood. Though we guessed he just wanted to annoy Tiki.
Tiki was wrapping up a story about something rude Alfred had done back at their palace when we arrived at the shopping district. From here, Tiki wanted to walk by herself. And while she wanted to stop and look at every store, we agreed to pick up my commission first.
Searching for Gur’s shop was once again a pain, but we found it eventually. He probably wouldn’t have wanted me to do this with Tiki around, but I trusted her. Enough for this, anyway. It wasn’t like she had the list of store names, and I wasn’t going to give it to her either, so knowing how to find the shop was pointless.
When we walked inside, Tiki gasped at the unusual sensation of walking into a spatially enlarged room. They were rare, so it didn’t surprise me she hadn’t gone into one before. I gave her a quick explanation, then rang the bell on the counter.
A moment later, Gur stepped into the room.
“Ah, Felix. You’re here to pick up the mana-reader, I assume?”
“I am, yeah. Did it end up being difficult?”
He shook his head. “Challenging? Yeah. Difficult? Not really.” He looked at Tiki. “Are you not going to introduce your friend?”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I gestured to Tiki. “This is Tiki. She’s a friend I met at the dorms. Tiki, this is Gur. He’s an enchanter and a family friend.”
Gur held out his hand for Tiki to shake, and she did. “Well, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, and turned back to me. “Now then, I’ll show you how the mana-reader works, then we can finish the payment.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
Gur disappeared into the backroom, then came out with a pretty armband. It was made of a shiny blue metal I didn’t know that matched the hue of my scales almost exactly, but not quite. Several small, dull white crystals were inlaid in the band, sitting in a row next to each other. In total, I counted eleven.
“It’s really simple. You put it on and inject your mana into this bit right here,” he said, pointing to a golden rune on the inside of the band. “Then these crystals on the top show how full your mana is. Ten crystals lit up means you’re full, zero means you’re empty. If the eleventh crystal lights up, you have more mana than it expects.”
He gestured for me to come closer, and when I did he grabbed my left arm. He put the armband around it, just above my ‘elbow’. When I turned my head, I could see the crystals with ease. Tiki watched us with interest.
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“Don’t activate it just yet,” he said. “Payment first. Before that, though, let me explain some more of the features. The first ten crystals will light up green, and each crystal represents about ten percent of your mana-pool. The last crystal will light up red when it detects an overflow. At the same time, it will cause the armband to vibrate to alert you. To reset it to your new total, just insert some mana into the gold rune again.”
“Sounds easy enough. How sturdy is it? Can I wear it during combat?”
He nodded. “Sure, that’s possible. I made it as tough as I could. It should hold up to an attack from a level 100 monster. Don’t go use it as a shield, though. It will break.”
“Alright then. How much do I owe you?” He named the sum and in the corner of my eye, I saw Tiki flinch. I just nodded and paid.
“Well, then, bond to it,” Gur encouraged me.
Doing as he told me, I guided a string of mana to the golden rune on the inside of the band. The moment I did, I felt the string of mana go taut and felt the band heating up slightly. Then a surge of nausea rushed through me and I almost collapsed to the floor, only barely catching myself in time with my wings. If it hadn’t been for my strange physique, I would’ve vomited both breakfast and lunch all over the polished counter. It was like the mana extracting enchantments they gave new students that forced some mana out of their pool, but a thousand times worse.
A few seconds later the feeling steadied out, then faded altogether.
“Ugh, that was awful. You could’ve warned me, you know,” I said, shooting a glare at Gur.
He shrugged. “And you could’ve come alone.” He looked at Tiki. “No offense meant, but I like my privacy.”
“No offense taken,” she said, also shrugging.
I climbed back to my talons and ignored both of them while I checked out the armband. The first ten crystals were lit up with a vibrant green. It was bright enough to see them during the daytime, but not bright enough that it would be annoying or too noticeable. Neat.
Sadly, there was no way to test out if the eleventh crystal lit up like it should. I trusted Gur, though.
“Well, this seems to be working. Thanks.”
He shot me a grin, then went back to his workshop in the back to continue whatever he’d been doing before we arrived.
Tiki and I made our way out of the shop and started heading down to the Marketplace—the area of the shopping district where anyone could get a small store for cheap. She really wanted to see what all the little shops had. And so did I, really. The last time I was there had been a huge success, after all. Alex loved the bookmark, and I saw him using it all the time.
While we walked, she asked me about the mana reader.
“Oh, I needed it because I noticed an unexpected increase in my mana pool a few weeks back and I wanted to know what caused it, so this will alert me when it happens again.”
She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Couldn’t you just check your status every hour or so and get the same result without paying such a ridiculous price?”
“The price was very reasonable. I basically paid the material costs, and that’s it.”
“That’s… those materials must be incredibly expensive, then. It doesn’t answer my question, though. Why not just check your status? I’m sure you could’ve put that money to better use.”
I looked at her, considering what lie I should tell. And if I should tell a lie at all. She was my friend, and despite our relationship having a rough start, I thought I could trust her now. And like with Alex, I didn’t want to have to lie. It wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be.
“Because I can’t,” I told her in a low voice. I was willing to tell her, but that didn’t mean I wanted everyone else to overhear. “I’ll tell you the full story later when we’re alone, but the core of it is that I don’t have a System.”
Her eyes widened, but she kept her walking pace and expression calm. Clearly she had experience dealing with unusual news.
“Is that why I can’t see your level? I just thought you had some kind of privacy Skill.”
“Like I said, I’ll tell you more later. Let’s focus on shopping for now.”
She glared at me. “You really expect me to be able to focus on shopping now?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, kind of.”
“...ok, maybe I can.”
We continued walking, and we soon arrived at the Marketplace. Together, we visited most of the shops, though I didn’t really see anything I needed, let alone wanted. And neither did Tiki. After the twentieth shop, she was asking if we could leave. She was impatient to hear the rest of the story. I couldn’t blame her.
After visiting a few more little shops, we left the shopping district, and I decided to take us through a forest so I could tell her the rest. Once the only other creatures around us were squirrels, I asked her to get off my back so we could walk side by side and told her the story.
From my hatchingday party, to that night’s event, to my panic attack, to dad leaving for her empire to dig around in the archives. Once I finished telling the story, we walked in silence for a time while Tiki took the time to process what I told her.
The last time I told anyone this story was down in the cave with Alex. The emotions had still been raw, and I’d cried while he’d consoled me. I didn’t feel like crying this time, to my surprise. I still felt sad. How could I not? But it was clearer that there was a path forward now. I’d continue to explore my magic, like the lightning magic that I was sure I was on the verge of figuring out. But I’d also find out what caused my mana pool to expand like it did and abuse the ever living fuck out of it.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Tiki said finally, breaking the silence. “I hope your dad will be able to find a solution.”
“So do I, but I don’t have much faith in it.”
“I can’t believe mom and dad extorted him so much, though. It doesn’t sound like them. Well, it doesn’t sound like mom. I could see dad doing it. I am surprised your father didn’t just go over and force them to hand him what he wanted. From what you’ve told me, he’s a lot stronger than either mom or dad.”
I shrugged. “It would ruin the Academy’s relationship between them and your country, as well as any other country, if he went around taking what he wanted. It’s kind of opposite to the goal of the Academy.”
“I guess that’s true,” she said. “But if you don’t think your father will bring back a solution, what do you plan on doing, then?”
“Explore my innate magic, figure out how to expand my mana pool, hang out with friends, ask Alex out on a date. It doesn’t really matter, honestly. It might not be the life I wanted, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be happy. I mean, I feel pretty damned happy now with you three in my life. And with dad being the Headmaster, I’ll have a good life, regardless.”
They weren’t words I’d spoken out loud before, but it’s what I’d slowly been realizing over the last few weeks. I didn’t need the System to be happy.
She smiled. “That’s sweet. And it’s awesome you’re finally asking Alex out. You guys have been insufferable these last few weeks, with all the cuddling and all that sappy goodness. Like, just kiss already.”
I chuckled. “Is it really that obvious?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
I chuckled again. “I will soon. I’m just waiting for the right moment.”
“Don’t,” she said, suddenly serious. “Don’t wait. Don’t let that chance slip you by. I mean, do wait for an appropriate time, so don’t go asking him while he’s on the toilet or something, but don’t wait for a perfect moment that’ll never come. I know from experience you’ll regret it.”
I sighed. “You’re the third person to tell me that. It’s not that easy.”
She gave a sympathetic look. “I know. But I bet your first time flying wasn’t either, and you still did that.”
I drooped my head. She was right, of course. They all were. I couldn’t keep procrastinating on this. With each passing day, it got harder. Would I eventually reach a point where I was so afraid of the time I wasted that I wouldn’t dare ask him out at all? I didn’t want that.
But I’d also made a promise to Viggi.
“You’re right. I’ll ask him this weekend.”