Tepi woke with a smile across his face, the sun that was just starting to poke its head over the city was glinting through the windows and he could tell he was up early enough to cook breakfast in advance again.

His brief morning routine was interrupted, however, when a knock at the door startled him into action. After throwing on a t-shirt he headed downstairs and opened the door to find Watson standing outside on the doorstep, one hand in her pocket and the other holding a notebook.

“Good morning, Tepi.”

“Good morning Ella, what’s going on?”

“Just a little something I’d like to show you, pop upstairs and get fully dressed, I’ll be waiting for you out here.”

“I have classes in 2 hours.”

“You will be back in time, don’t worry.”

Tepi nodded and ran upstairs. Not forgetting to stop by Ophelia's room to let her know he would not be able to help with breakfast today.

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Tepi questioned after shutting the gate of the orphanage behind them.

“It’s about the property agents shop we visited yesterday. We sent a policeman there to search the back room.” She paused.

“And…?”

“Well, you will see what happened when we get there but in summary, we found the manager and his copious amounts of illegal opium in the back room.”

“Right… So you think the jagged mana has something to do with that?”

“Well based purely on that, no. Of course not.”

“So there’s something else?”

“Yes, and like I said, it would be better for you to just see it.”

“Fine.”

Tepi approached the shop they had visited yesterday, blinded by curiosity he failed to notice the abundance of police and tape that barred his access. Luckily Watson was there to wave him through all the restrictions and he made his way into the first room. He found the 2 workers he had met yesterday on the floor, molten blood spilling from various holes in their body.

“These bodies are fresh?” Tepi exclaimed.

“Well, we only carried out the raid an hour ago. I came straight from here to get you.”

Tepi stepped over the bodies, grimacing only slightly at the smell or iron and faeces that graces the dead. He followed a trail of structural damage to the room that he had been stopped from accessing yesterday by the human dartboard of a man currently behind him.

“Chief Inspector, with all due respect, why do we have a 17-year-old boy snooping around our crime scene?”

“You don’t like it?”

“No one likes it.”

“He helped find it. I also have reason to believe he could help us find more.”

Tepi walked through the door and spotted another 2 dead bodies, these used to be policemen, he could tell because of the bits of uniform scattered around the room. The bodies themselves were unrecognisable as if they had been given to a blind butcher.

Even considering that, he could not think of a way to explain the sheer amount of blood surrounding the room. It had coated the walls and even the ceiling.

Deep into the back of the room was something even more confusing. A little ball of mana, this time it was black but still jagged, like a little ball of black electricity.

He thought for a second and realised he had not activated his mana eyes.

“Ella, can you see that too?”

“I can, it’s also the reason we brought you here.”

Tepi nodded. He activated his mana eyes. In and amongst the black mana was jagged purple mana, it was flowing in and around the ball and every now and then would join it, making it slightly larger.

Tepi’s initial dread he had experienced when he first came arrived again. Something about that dark ball of mana was making him uneasy and he was not sure why.

He extended a tendril of mana towards it and cut it loose. The loose mana drifted through the ball as if it did not exist.

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He approached the ball and tried to use his mana to absorb it like he had done before. The mana refused to be interacted with again.

Without any way to handle the situation with just mana manipulation he decided the next port of call would be to try to handle it physically.

“Tepi, what are you doing? Don’t touch it!”

It was too late, Tepi had his hand on the menacing ball of dark mana.

An almighty bang ripped through the air creating a shockwave and momentarily stunned nearby officers including Watson who had not managed to get a shield up in time.

She watched in horror and the ball grew several times larger and began to swallow Tepi.

For a moment there was blackness, then Tepi saw the ball explode out and begin to enter his body, first slowly through his mouth, then through his eyes and nostrils and who knows where else. The mana found any way possible to bond with Tepi, his fists began to darken, the black colour glowing behind his normal light brown skin tone.

He felt the dark mana enter and reside in his fists, although, it did not settle. It remained manic. Tepi quickly forced some of his own mana towards his fists, as the two kinds of mana collided they began to bond. It was painful at first as if they were battling for supremacy. But with Tepi’s almost unlimited supply of purple mana, the black mana soon lost its strength and integrated itself with the purple mana just like the jagged mana had done with it just a minute ago.

After 2 painful minutes of the police not being able to approach, even with Watson’s full shield in effect, the black mana finally dissipated revealing a very exhausted but otherwise unharmed Tepi from within.

Before anyone could even move, Tepi slumped to the floor.

“Get him on a stretcher and bring him to a hospital.”

“Yes Ma’am”

Watson approached the area and found the dark ball of mana gone, the horrible feeling she got from the room along with it. Now there were just the bodies to clean up. Her own questions would need to wait for Tepi to wake up.

“For the last time, I told him not to touch it.”

“How are we supposed to say we are the responsible adults after this.

Tepi smirked. “I never considered you responsible adults.”

Beau and Watson looked to the side and smiled. “You’re up!”

“Are you feeling alright?” Watson was the first to inquire, likely feeling terrible about the whole situation.”

“Just a little dizzy.”

“Oh my dear, I am so sorry.”

“Bugger that… Oh sorry. I mean, don’t worry. That mana that I absorbed was incredible. It felt exactly the same as the stuff from inside Pandora’s box.”

Beau raised his eyebrow. “So it was the box?”

“Almost definitely. But Ella, how did it get there?”

“Well, when we began the raid we found none of them to be magicians. We had the first two in handcuffs and our men were in the process of cuffing the manager when suddenly he exploded, then and there.

From outside we only saw beams of black penetrate the roof and some walls. Luckily our magicians shielded up and contained it otherwise it may have done more damage.

Then when we went in after we found the room exactly like you saw it.”

“Blimey,” Beau muttered. “Can you find more?”

“If there are more, I can find them.”

Beau nodded to Watson.

Tepi spoke again. “By the way, how long have I been here?”

“You’ve been asleep for around 4 hours, it’s now 10 AM.”

“I missed my class.”

“You don’t have another one?”

“No, I only have one today.”

“I’m sorry Beau.”

Beau spent the rest of the day training at Beau’s house. His mana manipulation had improved by leaps and bounds within the last few days and Tepi felt more control than ever over his external mana manipulation. However, what was even more incredible was that now not only was he capable of pushing mana to his eyes but his fists as well. They swelled with the dark mana he had just absorbed when he activated them. Beau set up a shield and challenged Tepi to punch it. As Tepi activated his fist, Beau added another layer to the shield sneakily, now very confident in being able to withstand anything Tepi could throw at it.

As Beau was mid thought Tepi blasted the shield apart. The mana instantly smashed and dissolved into loose mana tendrils which Tepi quickly absorbed, gaining back the mana he had just expended.

Beau caught himself with his mouth open, completely caught off guard by the power Tepi had just demonstrated.

His punch had just shattered something only Beau’s custom-made guns would get through.

“You’re becoming quite a dangerous individual Tepi.”

“Isn’t it great that I’m on your side then.” He smirked.

Tepi arrived home at 7 PM just in time to help Fila with dinner. Something he had made sure not to miss. Luckily she had not been made aware of the little incident that had happened.

“Hello, Tepi. Long day?”

“Long day…”

“How was University?”

“I didn’t end up going. Watson’s thing took a little longer than expected to sort out.”

“Of all the people to encourage you to miss lectures, I did not expect it to be Ms Watson.”

Tepi laughed. “Neither did I. Although it was Beau that kept me so late.”

“That’s fine.”

“How was your day.”

“Same as usual, unfortunately, with the added virtue of tests next week. Oh, and I got the cane today?”

“The cane? You? For what?”

“Telling the rude boy next to me to shut his mouth. Luckily he got twice the lashes I got so I’m not all that angry.”

“Do you want me to have a look at them? I’m good with wounds.”

“You need not, none of them broke the skin.”

“She went easy?”

“I believe so. The poor boy was bleeding by the time he got out.”

They happily chatted whilst preparing dinner and chatted some more during dinner, with the whole gang. By the time the dishes had been cleaned, Daisy was asleep in her chair and Rind was dozing by the fire. Jackson had gone to bed half an hour ago, mumbling about his back. Tepi brought Rind to his room, being careful not to wake him. He patted his head and tucked him in, Ophelia doing the same with Daisy.

The two teenagers then said goodnight and headed to their separate rooms, both of them excited for the next day. Tepi calmed down the mana in his body and fell asleep, unaware of the turbulent night ahead of him.