CH.87 Made something strange
<span style="font-weight:400">I made my way back towards the parlor. I think that’s where Alice and Christina should be.
<span style="font-weight:400">On the way I noticed that my body didn’t move like it should. It feels simr to when I shared mana with Alice’s teacher.
<span style="font-weight:400">(Laura, am I low on mana?) I asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">(You did use a little over half of your mana.) Laura told me. (You also have some of the dark mana still in your body, so that is making your mana movement more sluggish.)
<span style="font-weight:400">(Is that bad?) I asked. (The having foreign mana in my body part.)
<span style="font-weight:400">(Your mana is neutral so it’s not a major deal.) Laura said. (The dark mana will leave your body with time. And the amount of dark mana present in your body is small to begin with. You’ll feel better when your mana has fully recovered.)
<span style="font-weight:400">(How long will it take?) I asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">(Your mana regeneration should take a few hours and the dark mana will leave your body fully by tomorrow.) Laura told me.
<span style="font-weight:400">So I’ll be sluggish for a few hours. It took less time to recover after sharing mana with Trystan, so I guess the foreign mana part is a small problem. At least I have no other ns for the day and it is raining outside. I think the rain has actually picked up since we came inside. I can hear it a lot louder now. I didn’t notice it picking up as I was working with Dark Sage on the magic stones. I thought I wasn’t focused on it, but apparently I was.
<hr>
<span style="font-weight:400">Before making it, I ran into Jenna. Not literally, you weirdo.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Jenna.” I called her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Lord Brian.” She looked at me and hung her head down. “Is there something you need?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, I wanted to apologize for shouting at you.” I told her. “I’m sorry.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I… I’m sorry as well. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” Jenna said back.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No, you were doing your job. I shouldn’t get angry at you for something like that.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Thank you. But you should get going. The madam and miss are waiting for you.” She reminded me.
<hr>
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian.” Alice called to me as she noticed me.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sorry to keep you waiting.” I said to the duo enjoying tea.
<span style="font-weight:400">“It’s fine. I heard you were in the middle of something.” Christina said. “Please, take a seat.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I did as instructed and took a seat. A bitter there was a cup of tea in front of me.
<span style="font-weight:400">“What were you doing?” Alice asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I was converting the monster cores into magic stones.” I answered.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You must have some skill to be able to do that.” Christinamented.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well I didn’t do it alone.” I said. “I had help from one of my summons.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“The red one?” Alice asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Red one?” What red one? Oh, the red robed Dark Magician. “No, not him.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“How many different summons do you have?” Christina asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">… that’s a good question. I have a lot. Like hundreds of cards at this point. But not all of them are monsters, so… I guess I could just say how many sleeve and toploader monsters I have. How many would that be?
<span style="font-weight:400">(Eleven, Master.) Laura answered. (And two more, but they are held by Alice and Lucia. As well as the two that you used as fusion material for St. Joan.)
<span style="font-weight:400">More than I thought there were. The one held by Alice is Dark Magician Girl and Lucia has Vampire Lady.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian?” Christina called out to me.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about what you asked.” I told her. “I would say I have eleven summons. But then again, my summoning is not normal, as you should know.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I see. So eleven. That’s not as many as I thought you would have.” Christina said.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Do you know about summoning magic?” I asked her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“It was a subject at the royal academy. You had to take it if you were taking the magic oriented courses.” She told me. “They want to find all potential summoners.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“And the easiest way to do that is to put you on a crash course into summoning.” I joked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.” She answered.
<span style="font-weight:400">So a royal academy. Should I visit it? I could definitely learn something.
<span style="font-weight:400">… actually, why is Alice not a student at the royal academy? Especially if they have a magic course.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why doesn’t Alice attend the royal academy?” I asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... I … “ Alice wanted to answer, but it seems like the words got caught in her throat.
<span style="font-weight:400">“My husband didn’t allow her to leave the territory.” Christina said. “That’s why he paid good money to get Trystan to teach her magic.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I really wanted to go.” Alice finally said. “Even my brother got to go.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Oh yeah, she has a brother. I think Christina mentioned it, like once.
<span style="font-weight:400">And of course he would go to school, while Alice is home schooled. In magic only. Or perhaps one of the maids or even Christina teaches her other things.
<hr>
<span style="font-weight:400">“May I ask more about the magic stones?” Christina changed the subject.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sure, but I’m not an expert.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“What do you need magic stones for?” She asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I bought some bracelets that have slots for them. I was making some dark magic stones for them.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Dark magic? I thought you couldn’t use magic.” Shemented.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I can’t.” I responded. “They are not for me. I was nning on giving them to Alice.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“So you made them for Alice. I see.” Christina muttered, before asking. “But how can you make dark magic stones if you can’t use dark magic?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“... I told you already. I summoned Dark Sage to help me.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sage? You can summon a sage?” Christina asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... yes.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“How is that possible?” She kept on the pressure.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I just can. I don’t know how my skill works.” I lied. I know somewhat how it works, but then again, I don’t know if a sage in a card is the same as a sage in the world.
<span style="font-weight:400">“... then what happened to the magic stones?” Christina asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“We finished them and my summon applied them to bracelets.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“So you finished magic stones that quickly? It normally takes days to do.” Christina said in surprise.
<span style="font-weight:400">Days? Really? It took us under two hours. Is the technique used by Dark Sage just so much faster?
<span style="font-weight:400">“Does it really take that long?” I asked. “Or does it only take that long if you use higher ranking cores?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“The way we were taught to do it took four days.” Christina told me. “And that was with d-rank cores. Higher ranking cores take more time.”
<span style="font-weight:400">… And I just converted C-rank cores in 2 hours … How do I tell her that?
<span style="font-weight:400">“Perhaps the technique my summon used is something with a higher level of difficulty. He is called a sage, so he might know something like that.” I offered.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I suppose that could be it.” Christina admitted. “The sage’s tower doesn’t share the highest level secrets with people who don’t have the appropriate title from them.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I guess they don’t want people other than sages learning about techniques they consider sage level. I might need to get in contact with them before I spread around high level techniques like that. I wonder what rank they’d give me if I just showed up and was all like ‘Hi. I’m a summoner. Make me a sage.’ I guess that probably wouldn’t be enough. But I might try if I ever wander over to that area. I did promise the guild I would visit the guild headquarters and if I understood it correctly, the sage’s tower is in that area as well.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian.” Alice saw a moment and took part in our conversation. “Show me the bracelets.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sure.” I was going to get them out of my fanny pack, but I left it in my room. “Actually, I left them in my room. Sorry.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Jenna, go get them.” Alice ordered the maid.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Sure. Lord Brian, where are they?” Jenna asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“They are in my bag.” I told her. “Just bring the bag over.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes. Please wait a moment.” Jenna said as she left.
<hr>
<span style="font-weight:400">“Is this it?” Jenna came back holding my fanny pack.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes it is.” I told her. “Thank you.”
<span style="font-weight:400">She handed the bag over to me, gave a small bow and returned to stand-by mode. Or whatever it is called when a maid is just close by ready to serve.
<span style="font-weight:400">I opened the bag and took out the two bracelets. I ced them on the table.
<span style="font-weight:400">Christina grabbed one of them and was inspecting it.
<span style="font-weight:400">“The stone is small, but it has a nice color.” She told me. “I’ve never seen a magic stone with a color this deep. They are usually slightly see-through. But this one isn’t. What rank were the cores you used?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I think they were C-rank.” I told her. That’s what Bak said when he brought them over.
<span style="font-weight:400">“C-rank? These seem too small to be C-rank. Are you sure they weren’t D-rank?” Christina asked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’m pretty sure he said C-rank.” I told Christina.
<span style="font-weight:400">“He did.” Alice added. “But they wererger when we bought them.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah they shrunk a bit at the final step of the conversion process. I think my summon called itpression or something.” I told them.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Compression? That wasn’t a step we were taught.” Christina said.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I guess that just confirms that the technique used by Dark Sage is different.” I concluded and took a sip of my tea. It was already quite cold. But it still tastes good.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Brian, did you really make these for me?” Alice asked. Her eyes had stars in them, like the stars on the magic stones.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, I did. I hope you like them.” I told her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Thank you.” Alice got up from her seat and hugged me.
<span style="font-weight:400">Please don’t tackle me like that.
<span style="font-weight:400">I received the flying Alice into my embrace. Or would it be into her embracing me?
<span style="font-weight:400">“Congrattions Alice.” Christina said. “You did it.”