Ray

Ray decided not to continue testing in public, but thankfully he did not have to wait long. Ma came by five minutes later and handed him the keys, telling him to go home. Ray happily followed her instructions. The wait also gave his mana time to recover.

An advantage of having high mana affinity and low mana pool was that mana recovered fast for him. Ray sat down on his new bed as he contemplated what color neutral mana would be. At least he knew how to identify neutral mana, a mixture of water and neutral mana would start sparkling, showing that it was ready to serve as an alchemic reagent.

Ray had placed a bowl of water in front of him, eager to test it out. Now, what color should he try first? White? Well, it seemed probable. Ray conjured white glitter, letting it fall on the bowl.

The energy flowed out, but did nothing. The water was as it was before. A fail. But he did not give up. Ray emptied the water bowl and added some more water from the tap, oiling it to make it as pure as he could. An alchemic potion required distillation, but Ray would make do with this for now.

Ray decided to try black next, the color represented the absence of any light in the visible spectrum, and could be the answer. But once again, there was no reaction from the water. The shadows were perhaps a bit darker, but certainly no shimmer.

Ray once again prepared the bowl, pondering over what it could be. What color represented the lack of any element? Well, if colors represented elements, then neutral mana would have no color at all. Grinning at his discovery, he conjured transparent glitter this time, the nearly invisible pellets sinking into the water and making it shimmer. A success!

[Alchemy] skill increased to level 1 : 15 mana gained +1 to Aura force

[Learning] skill increased to level 1 : 9 mana gained +1 to Intelligence

Ray’s grin widened, his mana had increased by over twofold from just this discovery, he was sure that if he actually managed to synthesize a potion, it would increase much more. Ray jumped up, eager to tell Ma, but then remembered that she wasn’t home.

Sighing, he went back to doing nothing, wondering if there was something he could do to relieve himself of this boredom.

But there wasn’t. Ray was stuck with it for the next half an hour before Ma came home, with guests.

Ray crouched on top of the stairs as they came in, listening in.

“So, you want to build an L shaped kitchen, eh? And demolish three bedrooms to do it? Well, I don’t see any problem with that. But your plans for the ground floor, that is not how a bakery is supposed to be.” a man said.

“I know, but I am making my own. I think my customers will benefit from being able to roam and see all the treats, and I will benefit from the extra showing space. A win-win, I say.” Ma countered.

“I don’t know why you think people would sit around and eat in a bakery, but whatever, it’s your money. But no returns if you don’t like it after.” the man replied.

“Yes, I am quite sure.” ma replied.

“Well, we can do the work in a week or so if we start today. I have seen what I need to do.” The man said.

“And what will this express construction cost me? Not more than a hundred mana coins, I hope.” Ma said.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Now come on, do you think any other builder will give you such good service? Five hundred man coins, that's how low I’ll go.” the builder said. The two of them negotiated for the next five minutes, finally settling on two hundred and ten mana coins. The builder left the house grumbling something about stingy mothers, allowing Ray to come down.

“Was that the builder?” Ray asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, the other ones canceled the appointment,, so I hired this one. And how did your experimentation go? I saw that you used water, but not what you did before that.” Ma asked as she removed things from some bag she was carrying. Ray moved over to help.

“I found out how to do wood, water and neutral mana. The glitter is practically a substitute, like a container of some kind. The mana inside transforms into some kind of energy that turns into the element.” Ray excitedly said.

“Did you just say neutral? Ma said, pausing as she turned to him. “The same neutral you need for alchemic reagents?”

Ray grinned as he replied, “Yes, I am going to try a potion tomorrow. I got some mana from discovering neutral Qi, it's 39 points now.”

Ma smiled, saying “Ah, some good news at last, I have to go out now, but I promise we will celebrate tomorrow. A little cake, perhaps? I think I can get the downstairs kitchen up and running for long enough to do it.”

Ray’s brows furrowed. “But didn’t you just have that appointment? What other thing is there? The business isn’t open, and Aunty Ariana would just meet us at home.”

“Oh, nothing for you to worry about, just visiting an old friend.” Ma said, moving to leave. “Could you please just put those things on my bed? I will sort them out later.”

But Ray wasn’t convinced. “I thought you hated all your old friends.”

Ma stiffened, saying “Well, I don’t hate this one. Now I must be going.”

Ray looked at Ma suspiciously as she left, and had the sudden urge to follow her. But she had also told him to put things on her bed, and he wouldn’t be able to catch up to her if he did that. Though he could also do it later, after he returned. And there was the fact that he still didn’t have anything to do.

Ray went to his luggage and put on a coat and a cap to hide his face. Ma would recognize his red hair from miles away if he let her see it.

And then he left the building, looking for Ma using his mana perception. Ma was easy enough to find, Ray was very familiar with her mana signature, and it made following her easier.

Ray kept some distance away, looking away to make it seem like he wasn’t following her but looking at the shops. The road deteriorated as they walked, eventually reaching the point where no cart could pass through it. Ray carefully walked through, trying not to give himself away as he moved. Ma, surprisingly, had no trouble with the roads.

Had she come here before? Ray could not figure out how she was avoiding the potholes so well, especially now that it was getting dark. Ray could barely make them out with his mana perception, let alone his normal sight. In the end, Ma turned a corner and emerged in what could only be described as a shady alleyway with an even shadier door.

A dozen guards stood around the door, making Ray hesitate. Ma on the other hand went ahead and talked to them, and gained entrance. Ray considered trying, but he knew he would fail easily. So he instead decided to wait around and see what happened. Perhaps he could find another entrance into the place.

Looking around, all Ray could see was a sewer entrance, the building did not seem to have another entrance at all. What a weird thing, why would a building only have an entrance in an alleyway? Ray could only think of nefarious reasons to do so.

But the sewer opening just begged to be checked. Ray headed towards it, crouching down to check it out, making sure he was out of sight. The sewer entrance was, as he had suspected, sealed shut. The people guarding here were too shady to not seal the sewers, Ray wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they had used the sewers to sneak into places before.

But it raised the question, what should Ray do? Just head back? But it seemed very anticlimactic to do that. But he also didn’t see what choice he had, he could stay back to see Ma come out, but that came with a high risk of discovery.

The guards would no doubt become suspicious of anyone loitering, and might decide to question him. Or worse, harm him in some way.

Ray headed back, keeping his perception out from anything out of the ordinary. Not only was this area dangerous, but he might see something that would solve the mystery.

Ray had nearly traveled back to normal lands when he ran across something weird. A shimmer in the shadows. Reacting as fast as he could, Ray shot out yellow glitter towards it, running away as fast as he could.

But it was too fast. A few seconds later, a girl dressed in what could only be an assassin’s gear was staring at him, her deep black eyes looking at him with clear hostility.