“So what does this one do?”

Jett rolled his eyes and looked at the rune Claire was pointing at.

“The rune simply means compress. It helps to focus the mana in one place.”

“I see,” she said while nodding excitedly.

The woman had been pestering him with questions the past half hour or so, shamelessly abusing his current inability to run away.

He took another sip from the waterskin and massaged his temples. Since he wasn’t as acutely dehydrated anymore, his strength was slowly returning. He was looking forward to finally escaping this annoying situation and being on his way.

“Soo… are you gonna teach me this skill of yours already?” Claire turned to him with a bright smile on her face.

Jett sighed. This wasn’t the first time she had asked this question.

“I told you, you can’t do it like I did. No one can.”

She pursed her lips to a pout. “You just don’t want to share.”

He opened his arms in exasperation. “I wish you could learn it, really I do. But it’s impossible.”

“How could you possibly know?” Now it was her turn at being exasperated. “What makes you think you are so special? I mean, okay, clearly you are special….,” Claire coughed awkwardly, “but surely you don’t expect that you are the only one in the world capable of doing what you did. You can’t be that special.”

Jett let out another sigh, this time one of resignation.

“Fine, fine. I’ll tell you.”

Her face lit up again, almost making Jett regret his decision.

“You need…,” he drew out the words, Claire’s eyes hanging onto his lips, eager to hear what would come next, “ …a treasure.”

Claire stared at him, her face a stoic mask.

He cleared his throat.

“I mean a mana treasure. You need one of those to get started.”

Claire’s eyes wandered towards the remains of his crafting session, specifically a few metal petals which were still lying around.

“An intact and somewhat volatile mana treasure,” he clarified, “metal mana won’t work, it’s too stiff for my method.”

She turned around to the man who, until now, had been absolutely quiet.

“Bobby, can you hand me that plant we found earlier?”

He sat there motionlessly, only after several moments of silence realizing that he was being talked to.

“Huh? Oh, ah, yeah sure.”

Opening a saddle bag he had strapped to his side, he pulled out a surprisingly long vine.

It looked… like any ordinary vine.

After getting handed the plant, Claire stretched out her hand, presenting the vine to Jett.

“Okay, what now?” she said cheerily.

“That… what’s that supposed to be?” he questioned, raising his eyebrows at her.

“A mana treasure!” She beamed at him.

Jett was speechless.

“...why do you think it’s a mana treasure?”

Claire, without hesitation, laid the vine down on the ground, took out her axe and split it in two.

Before Jett could ask her what that was all about, the two pieces of vine suddenly started wriggling. Small wooden tendrils appeared on the edges of the pieces, seeking out the respective other half. When they touched, they started pulling the two pieces together again, the strands growing thicker and fusing with each other.

Only a few moments later, the vine looked as good as new, nothing indicating that it had just been split in half.

“I see,” mumbled Jett, “it’s filled with life mana. But it seems surprisingly weak. It can’t be the full treasure.” He looked up at Claire. “What did you cut it off from?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It was growing out from a crack in a large rock. I just took what I could get.”

He frowned. “And how did you know it was special in the first place?”

She looked behind her again and pointed towards ‘Bobby’.

“He has a skill that-”

“Hmm, Hunter’s Awareness, is it?” Jett mumbled.

Although the man had been quiet all this time unless prompted, the mention of the skill instantly grabbed his attention. His head snapped up, his eyes narrowing.

“How do you know?” He questioned with an icy voice.

Claire also looked at Jett confused, though her eyes were not as filled with hostility as his.

“I know a lot of stuff.” He waved his hand dismissively. “There is a reason I know so much about runes as well. But it’s not something that should concern you.”

“That doesn’t answer anything. How do you know-”

“I’m sure he has his reasons, Bobby.” Claire was quick to shuffle back towards the agitated man, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Claire,” he protested, “he-”

But she interrupted him again.

“I think it’s alright. Let’s not antagonize anyone just because they know a surprising amount of information. Especially if we can profit from it. Alright?”

Jett couldn’t help but snort at that shameless statement.

Bobby looked at her, his mouth opening and closing a few times without making a sound, before he sighed in resignation.

“Whatever. I’ll follow your lead, as I’ve promised. But I still find him suspicious.”

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Claire smiled at him and nodded. “That’s okay. One of us has to be the paranoid one, I guess.”

He scoffed but didn’t rebut her, instead standing up, his bow in hand.

“I’m gonna walk around a bit, checking out the area. I’ll let you two have fun.”

“Enjoy your walk, Robert.” Jett yawned, not caring about the little drama at all.

The man froze at the mention of the name, his eyes glaring daggers at Jett. But in the end he still continued walking, not bothering to argue anymore.

Claire looked at the leaving man, her forehead scrunched up slightly in worry.

“How did you know his actual name was Robert?” she said, turning back to him.

Jett shrugged. “Just a guess from his nickname.”

He took one last sip from the waterskin and then handed it back to Claire.

“Alright, I think I’m good to go now. Thanks for the water and the talk, but I’ll be off n-”

“What?” she interrupted him. “No, no, you said you would show me how it works! You promised!”

“I didn’t promi-”

“You promised!”

“I…”

Claire looked at him with such huge disappointment in her eyes that even he couldn’t just walk away.

“Ugh, fine. I guess I can spare a few more moments. Not like it’s gonna work, but if you want to suffer needlessly, be my guest.”

He took the vine in his hand, examining it for a bit before handing it back to Claire.

“Okay, it’s actually quite simple. You gotta eat it, then manipulate the mana invading your body. Once you get a system notification, spit it out again. That’s it.”

You’ll probably die doing it, but oh well…

She looked at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

He shrugged and started to stand up again. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll gladly leave.”

“No, no, no, I believe you!” she said, paling a little and pulling him back down.

She stared at the vine in her hand, clearly hesitant.

Jett observed her quietly for a bit, also starting to think.

Hmm, should we seriously attempt it? There is no way she can figure it out without ever having done Mana Shaping before… right?

He started tapping his chin.

But then again, if I want others to learn how to craft without choosing an alignment first, I kind of need them to somehow learn Mana Shaping anyways.

The only way to get the Mana Shaping skill without choosing an alignment would be to condense it oneself. For which you had to do some actual Mana Shaping yourself. Jett was only able to do it because he already knew how it worked, but for anyone else they would probably need to upgrade their grade first. In the higher grades it would finally be possible for people to sense mana, and then it would be much easier to teach them how to do Mana Shaping.

However, carrying a bunch of unaligned people towards their next grade would be stupidly difficult. How was he supposed to convince them at the start to not choose a weapon but trust him and go through arduous trials to condense the 5 Copper I skills necessary for the first grade upgrade themselves?

He could be plenty convincing, since he knew how pretty much everyone noteworthy in his trial ticked, but he had like 10 or 15 minutes at the start of a new regression to convince multiple people of his plan.

And even if he convinced them, he would then have to ensure they didn’t die for about a week, maybe longer, until he would have trained them enough to be able to condense all the skills. But them surviving for that long without the easy alignment combat skills and then also getting enough essence for acquiring the new skills… it really didn’t feel feasible.

Yeah, I feel like the upgrade route is just not very realistic… even for me. But rushing the crafting alignment the way I did… also feels impossible. But perhaps it’s still easier?

Or maybe… could I rush crafting myself and make something that supports them in acquiring Mana Shaping?

There were a few things that could help. Maybe an array that pushed more mana into their bodies, making it easier to get a hold on it and manipulate it. Or perhaps an array that visualizes their body’s internal mana flow for them. But that would require a lot of resources to craft, and he wasn’t sure how quickly he could get to them.

He looked up at Claire, who had apparently been waiting patiently for him to finish pondering.

She smiled at him, a cut off, slightly writhing piece of vine in hand.

“So, how should I do this Mana Manipulation?” she said, waving the vine piece around.

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try some things. Especially if there is someone so willing to attempt them.

He stood up, strapping his dagger and sword to his side.

Claire also quickly stood up. “Hey! Come on, just tell me how-”

“We are gonna get a different mana treasure,” he cut her off. “This one won’t do. Best case you’ll just get a stomach ache because the life mana wants to cling to the plant, endlessly regenerating it.”

She furrowed her brows. “And worst case?”

“Worst case the life mana leaks out and spurs all organic growth in your body, in a very uncontrolled way. Essentially speedrunning death by massive amounts of tumor growth.”

Claire gulped audibly, already having put down the piece of vine again.

“But you’ll still teach me regardless?” she asked with surprise in her voice. “You really didn’t seem motivated to explain anything just now.”

Jett sighed.

“Yeah, I changed my mind. Now I wanna see if it’s actually possible for you to acquire the skill. So we might as well do it properly.“

Her eyes sparkled at his answer, clear fascination for the magical shining through.

“Alright! I’ll fetch Bobby! Don’t run off without me!” She spun around and sprinted towards where Robert had walked off to.

He shook his head at her juvenile excitement, watching as she disappeared into the forest.

Always so curious and fascinated by everything… and talent to back up her impulsive curiosity.

Picking up the remnants of the metal flower to not waste anything of the treasure, he couldn’t help but have memories of his encounter with Claire resurface.

He had been fighting in the forest against wolves when Claire and Robert had chanced upon them, joining them in the fight.

Jett had used a bow back then, and when he had shot at the last remaining wolf, his arrow and Claire’s axe had hit it almost at the same time.

Claire had stood there frozen for some time when their combined attacks killed the wolf. After some time she had spun around and charged towards him, a manic glint in her eyes.

“Did you get the essence for the kill?” she had yelled at him.

Of course he had instantly assumed that she was mad at him for stealing her kill, what with her stomping furiously towards him.

“N-no?” he had stammered.

When she had arrived at his position, she had slammed her hands onto his shoulders and yelled at his face. “Then let’s try it again!”

That had been the beginning of a series of experiments to figure out if it was possible to get double the essence if two people killed a beast at the exact same time.

Which, by the way, wasn’t possible.

But in any case, this was when he had first fallen in love with someone.

That’s right, Claire had been his first ever crush in this world. Her inquisitive and cheerful nature had simply entranced him back then. And she had also been entranced by his knowledge and skill, all of which were the result of the few regressions he had lived through before really getting to know her. Many many regressions he had sought her out, getting together with her over and over again, fighting through countless battles side by side.

But that was when he was still young. When he had still been at the beginning of his many regressions.

In the end, after witnessing so much pain and suffering, after seeing his loved ones die over and over, after changing so much as a person while everyone else’s memories always reset, he had stopped forging meaningful relationships. He had simply become too different, too scarred by the world.

Since then, he had pushed aside any emotion that could hurt him. Any relationships he had established since then had only been for the purpose of bringing together powerful people. Purely political relationships, at least from his perspective.

A sound of breaking wood came from the forest, ripping Jett out of his memory trip.

No point in bringing up all that stuff again. It’s been thousands of years since then.

He shook his head, getting rid of all distracting thoughts and looked up towards the direction of the sound. It was just in time to see Claire come crashing out of the forest, all sweaty, an annoyed looking Robert in tow behind her. A wide smile appeared on her face when she spotted him and saw that he indeed hadn’t run away in the meantime.

“We are here! Let’s go!” She ran up to him excitedly, Robert trotting up as well, glaring at Jett.

“Yeah,” Jett said, nodding. “Let’s go.”