Something was different about this skill, Tercius realized immediately. The message for the skill did not go away when he thought yes.

Instead, something else happened.

For a brief moment he felt as if he was running fast— faster than he ever did— yet he did not move from his spot. It felt like a deja vu. In that instant, he felt as if he was taking a jump to dive into the water. In those four, five meters of height while the body fell down the spirit stayed put and for a second they would separate--- only for the water to rejoin the split sides.

Blinking rapidly, Tercius quickly focused his gaze on the sleeping form of Amber. The little creature unfurled from her preferred sleeping position and lifted her head, her ears flicking to the sides rapidly. Abruptly, she stood up on all fours and turned in Tercius' direction.

Euria noticed the change and started petting the little creature. Amber did not seem to care for Euria's attempts as she jumped, first to the bench Euria sat on and then to the finely shaped stone pavement.

She got her footing instantly, the cat that she was, and ran towards him with as much speed as her small body could muster. Amber was surprisingly fast, for a creature so small, and as he made three steps she had already run over a quarter of the distance between them.

He crouched, placing his hands onto the paved pathway, and grabbed her when she ran near.

She meowed and pushed her head against his other palm, in a familiar effort to get him to scratch her. Abruptly, she stopped. Her amber eyes found him and for a few moments, they only experienced the world through the eyes of the other. For a moment he was breaking a shell, covered in slime. For a moment he walked on four legs and saw the ground from a very close perspective. He passed through thick plant growth that gave considerable resistance to his little form and swam in a river so cold he felt like freezing.

The flashes ended with what felt like a mutual agreement, as he shivered briefly.

"---cius? Tercius? Hey!" Penelope pushed him a bit. "We need to go."

"What? Where?" Tercius murmured, but his mind was not on Penelope's words. There was a strange---

"The first group is just about to go down, we need to hurry or they will come looking for us," Penelope said as she pushed him forward. She tried, at least. "Ooof. You should eat less…"

Tercius started moving forward as he called for his new, extremely peculiar skill. He noted that the pain in his chest had worsened, but it was still below any limit of what he could handle.

Familiar Bond

A link formed between agreeable parties.

Tercius blinked repeatedly. There was no level to the skill. No cost of use. No real description…

What kind of skills is this? Tercius thought as he joined the small group. Amber had nestled herself in the crook of his left arm, her weight almost negligible.

"Hey Penelope, Tercius. How was your weekend?" Euria asked. The other kids also gave their greetings.

Tercius gave a nod in reply, while Penelope went and gave the actual verbal reply Euria was after. They talked as they walked, exchanging tidbits of inconsequential info.

"What's with him?" J'ro asked Penelope as they neared the giant door.

"Apparently, he did not sleep last night so he's been in one of his moods the whole day…" Penelope said in a low voice.

"Which one?" Eunim inquired in a whisper.

"The sour pinched face one, where he only nods when asked," Penelope whispered in reply.

"Oh," all of the kids gave understanding nods. Even Lomera.

What is that supposed to mean? Tercius frowned. I’m not in a mood... "… what do you mean by 'sour pinched face'?"

The kids jumped.

"We should hurry," J'ro said as he took two steps for the price of one. J'ro's words gave the rest a way out and they rushed after him.

Tercius looked down at Amber. "I do not have a 'sour pinched face'."

Amber yawned and rested her head on his arm.

"That's what I thought. Kids these days…"

***

Tercius was extremely surprised by the way Familiar Bond turned out to be. The best part was that the surprises just kept coming.

While he was finishing eating his dinner in the Main Hall, thinking about when to report that the pain had started gnawing on his insides— he felt something. A hunger.

Tercius smacked his lips. He wanted… big… soft… juicy… leaves. Leaves? Big, soft, juicy leaves? The hunger felt distant, a request made by some part of him that he never knew existed.

As he ate his dinner, he completely forgot about it--- until it happened again. Tercius was just about to return his empty plates when a passing desire swept over him. He wanted to… drag his nails over a fabric?

A realization dawned on him. The only thing that came to his mind was the bond. He was getting glimpses of Amber's desires. Suddenly horrified, Tercius thought, What have I done?

He headed to his room post-haste, leaving his roommates back in the Main Hall. Amber was in her cage, snacking on some of those big, soft, juicy leaves that he had harvested from a plant reminiscent of Aloe Vera. Even when she spotted him, she did not give her customary greeting 'Oh look! There you are! Let me greet you with a cute wiggle,'.

She always does that! Tercius thought. Any time we part and reunite, no matter how briefly!

"Amber, what's wrong?" Tercius took her out of her cage and placed her on his lap. She started using her front paws to drive nails into his pants, as one back leg scratched at the collar she wore.

His neck felt uncomfortable and he placed a hand there, finding bare skin. He looked back at the little creature. "You want the collar off?"

Once more his neck felt uncomfortable and this time he wanted to scratch it.

The collar was bought from Master Zver as a part of a pair of enchanted items--- Tercius got a bracelet for the wrist while Amber got the collar. The pair worked in such a way that any time he sent mana into the bracelet he got a sense of the direction of the collar and therefore Amber. When he left Amber with Euria for the weekend, he had also left the bracelet to her as Amber had a tendency to explore.

The bracelet was invaluable in finding the little creature quickly.

The collar that was present on Amber's neck had the added benefit that people were able to tell that Amber was not some kind of a wild animal, which let her get away with a lot of things. She usually allowed Tercius to solve any misunderstandings.

Now she wanted the collar off.

"Amber, I'm not sure that this is a good idea. You need the collar. It helps you more than you know," he said he looked her in the eyes.

His neck no longer felt uncomfortable, but rather it felt as if someone was downright squeezing him. He placed a hand to his throat and started massaging the phantom squeeze. "That bad? We will take it off then,"

He unbuckled the small collar and placed it in front of her. "There you go. We won't use something like that anymore. We still need something to make sure people don't think you are a stray or a wild animal…" She sniffed the collar a few times and then started nudging it towards his hand.

His neck suddenly felt free.

"How are you doing that?" Tercius asked, his previous apprehension melting away into curiosity. “Can you do it again?”

Amber ignored his query and jumped from his lap to the floor. Slowly, she sauntered towards the door. There she made a pause, sat on her hind, and looked at the closed door. Then she turned her head his way. Water glided over his skin, relaxing and warm— the sensation ended.

“How the hells are you doing that? I can feel it…” he asked, as he went and got a change of clothes from his closet. He picked up the small creature and brought her to eye level— Amber just lazily stared back. “I need you to repeat that a few times. Can you do that?”

Amber just meowed in a high pitch.

Tercius had almost expected an answer. “Oh hells, now I’m talking to a cat…”

***

He had felt the bond in the same instant it formed. He could feel it every moment since its presence a tiny weight somewhere inside of him. The problem proved when he tried using it the way Amber did. It did not seem to work at all.

During the long bath, he had tried anything that he came up with, but it was as he was missing some key. The door just remained locked. He dropped that route when it occurred to him that Amber was probably able to do such things much more instinctively.

Tercius instead tried something more suitable for humans. Words. Commands. He focused on that tiny weight that existed in him and tried the commands he taught her so far. Things like come here, sit, rollover.

She did every single one without a problem.

What had changed, improved considerably he would say, was her ability to understand what he was asking of her. For example, even though she knew each command individually, she was never able to do a string of them. He had to give her scratches occasionally, a few leaves and such, to keep her motivated and she would continue. At times he was able to feel the pure joy and contentment she derived from his head scratches. She could refuse everything he asked but she enjoyed the rewards she got for the completion of a task— so why would she? At least that was the impression he got.

The growing pain in his chest was almost completely forgotten as he explored his new mysterious ability.

It was too soon to tell, but he thought that no mana was used for Familiar Bond, or if any mana was used then it was so minuscule that it hardly mattered. Tercius remembered the only remaining crystal that was left before his departure that morning. Familiar Bond was one of the rare blue crystals that grew on the sphere. Just by a quick count, he did with Visualization he found only five crystals of that color in his visual memories.

What that meant escaped him completely, for a while. His mind made the connection after his bath was over and he returned to his room. J’ro was there with Eunim and the instant Tercius saw his roommate and fellow witness, he remembered the events of that unpleasant day in the court. The mana what woman, the mind mage, used to cast her memory cloaking spell was light blue of a very particular shade.

The same shade as the crystal for Familiar Bond was.

Tercius knew that each individual who used visual mana detection skill had a different color palette for such things, for example, he saw mana as a dark red, while his fellow student Sonia saw mana as light yellow. If he was to find a third mage who used a visual skill for mana detection, probably a third color would spring.

It was a very individual thing how people saw mana, and that was probably why mages used the small crystals to test for affinity— Crystals! The mages used crystals to check for affinities!

A scene from the moment he first saw the Pyramid flashed before his eyes. Atop the giant complex of mostly yellow and some white stone was where the Repository rested. An enormous four-sided Pyramid that rested on three steps, ninety-nine meters of height, each. The top of that Pyramid was a crystal of giant proportions.

Well, relatively giant proportions. The Repository itself is many times its size, but… this confirmes my initial suspicions. Mages do know about Energy, or at least they knew at some point. Is there a class about it in upper years? Or is this some secret information? Or is it forgotten? How does Energy turn into a crystal? Something like Energy Metamorphosis?

As more and more questions kept coming to Tercius, he realized that he made a huge mistake. I shouldn't have done this… I should have waited for the end of the year and went to Lissea as I planned. I'm playing with fire… that's also invisible.

The offer Mistress Helfira and Master Lazarus gave to Tercius about testing his crystal affinity now seemed like something best left buried. He had wanted to use the offer to take a glimpse into the world of magical research, the equipment, the methods, and such, but now? Best go under the radar. The pain in his chest certainly was not helping.

“Tercius, is there something wrong?” Eunim asked.

Is there something right? Tercius sighed. “Ever heard of a Well?”

“My Mother explained it to me,” Eunim said darkly. “Years ago,”

“You know how it starts then?”

"With pain," Eunim said darkly. "Both of my parents told me that it can hurt as all hells. Even my Nana confirmed it…"

Tercius nodded. "That is how it was explained to me as well. I should inform you that we won't see each other for a while."

Eunim and J'ro looked at each other, confused.

"I will be going to open my Well. The pain has started this evening," Tercius said. "Don't know how long it will last, but a few weeks are the norm from what I was told,"

"What?! But you don't have Mana Metamorphosis! How can you open a Well?" Eunim asked, his expression horrified.

"You don't need it, apparently," Tercius said. "Mana Manipulation is quite enough. I inferred that it can happen naturally as well, without any skill at all. Mana Manipulation only makes the process faster. Who would want to suffer pain for months or gods forbid years on end, when you can solve it in a few weeks of concentrated effort?"

"I--- I," Eunim swallowed hard, his face pale. "S---so I could get a Well even without---"

Tercius looked at his roommate and suddenly understood something. The boy had struggled for years to gain Mana Metamorphosis, never able to get it. He wanted to be an enchanter, so the skill was a requirement. If Tercius's theory about desire and the need for skills held any water then it meant that at some level the boy did not want the skill. Yet now another possibility occurred to him. It was not that Eunim did not want the skill, it was that he feared obtaining it--- all at the same time. He feared what was to come after he gained it. He feared opening the Well.

Eunim was averse to pain.

Eunim had placed a break in the whole process, unconsciously. The Energy meant for the skill had probably gone to other skill crystals, or maybe pooled itself at some other place… His Mother did him a disservice when she told him about the Well, and yet how was she to know that it would lead to Eunim's current predicament? To know or not to know… a blessing or a curse?

I should help Eunim out. He's a good kid… and maybe I use the opportunity to test my theory at the same time… a win-win… Tercius smiled widely, while Eunim and J'ro suddenly flinched. Some 'Lux-lite' therapy should be just what the doctor prescribes, in Eunim's case.

How did uncle put it? 'Pain is the best teacher there is. It's able to free you of any weaknesses.' The same speech often included the lines, 'You can only forge strong bonds in fire and blood.', 'A good old fistfight will do in a pinch if a proper bloodletting is not possible.' … Oh hells, I could probably recite the whole speech by memory, Tercius shook his head wryly. Yea… let's not go that far… if possible… I wonder if Seliana is open to making a large batch of potions… she mentioned that her table and equipment should arrive by late spring…

“You know, Eunim... and J’ro, I think that we need to bond properly once I finish this whole Well business…”