In every world people always wanted to show off their shiny new toys. Unice was no different. She had a skip in her step as she led me through the second floor. Our stop was at the very end, a solitary room with a door made out of iron.

I could feel metal mana emanating from it.

“I’m surprised you guys managed to make one so soon.” I inspected the door.

There was a metal symbol inscribed onto it. I could see faint connection symbols that suggested there was an array hidden within the material of the door.

“The door is new, but my parents have been hoping I would attune to metal ever since Ouros did.”

She stopped near the door and leaned against the wall beside it.

“Try it.” Unice motioned at the symbol. “It only opens for people that are metal attuned.”

I stepped forward and tried to keep my eyes on the array in front of me. Memorising as much of it as I could wasn’t a bad idea.

I placed my hand on top of the symbol, and there was a slight tug from within me as it reacted to my metal attunement.

With a slight push the iron door swung open. I looked at Unice and she nudged me inside with a smile. The door swung shut behind us and I saw Unice looking at the surroundings with pride.

“Well, how is it?” She spoke.

I took my time in answering and looked around the room with my mana sense. It wasn’t filled with as much mana as the earth cultivation room, but that was a difference caused by time.

I bent down and placed my palm on the floor.

I could feel the call of the metal below me, a familiar sense of companionship mingled with other messages.

“Is this silver? You’ve mixed it with something else.” The floor was cool to the touch.

“Exactly!” Unice’s eyes shone. “I haven’t given up on connecting to it. The other materials are a slight amount of adamant, and bronze.”

I ran my hand carefully over the floor. It looked to be mostly silver, but there was a pink sheen over it.

There were also plants in here, placed against the back wall. There were different plants, each of which I recognised.

The first was a money tree, made completely out of silver. The second was a tiny bonsai, made of what looked like adamant but with a less vibrant green colour, and the third was a dandelion made of bronze.

“They’re mostly for show.” Unice sat down beside me. “We wanted to have concentrations of the materials for me to focus on.”

I copied Unice’s movements and sat down. She looked at me and I could see she was biting her lip, a slight expression of worry crossing her face.

“I still haven’t been able to learn metal manipulation.” She spoke. “I know I’ll get there, and this cultivation room will help, I just need more time.”

“I don’t think I can help you in just one night.” I gestured at the room around me. “You’ve got plenty of practice material here. It’s a lot more than I had when I started.”

If I had this much silver to practice with from the beginning of my training, I would be miles ahead of my current abilities.

Even now I had limited silver to practice with. Thankfully the techniques that I was learning at the academy would help me in the long run by solidifying my foundations

Unice leaned towards me as I spoke.

“That's not why I asked you here. I wanted your opinion on the room itself. Does it feel like it’s turning into a cultivation room?”

I stared at her and then I looked at the mana in the room around me. It was obvious that the room was turning into a cultivation room. The concentration of metal mana inside this space was more than I’d felt anywhere else.

She had said the plants were ordinary, but the materials they were made out of were treated in the same way as the earth cultivation room materials. They were buzzing with more mana than they would normally have.

All of this was obvious to me, but as I looked at Unice’s curious expression, I realised why she was asking me.

Unice couldn’t see metal mana.

She could feel her connection to the element, but when it came to individual increases in the mana around her, she couldn’t spot it. That wasn’t too much of a surprise. I had only gotten the ability to see mana clearly after I had learned earth manipulation.

I’d had to connect with the element itself and communicate with mana as a whole, accepting our differences and similarities, and only then could I see it.

I could only see mana properly when activating my mana sense skill, so unless she had a comparable skill, she wouldn’t be able to spot the differences.

“How much mana can you feel?” I asked.

Unice’s eyes widened and her shoulders hunched.

“I know it’s there. I can feel it, but aside from that it’s all… far away. Not like earth mana at all.”

Earth mana and metal mana came from the same roots. I’d always been able to see both since gaining my mana sense skill, and even when not using mana sense I could feel when a room was filled with it.

Unice wasn’t at that level yet.

“There’s a lot more mana here than usual.” I pointed towards the plants. “You guys clearly shelled out for the expensive stuff.”

“You have that right.” Unice grinned. “I’m hoping I can learn something from you, even if I’m just observing. I have a good feeling about it.”

I tilted my head and placed my hands in my lap.

“I wouldn’t mind giving meditation a try in this place.” I admitted.

I had never been in a metal cultivation room before. I wasn’t even sure if Zodiac and Koshima academy had them.

Tago of metal hadn’t mentioned it.

“That would be great.” Unice crossed her legs and copied my arm placement. “We have time.”

I did want to return to my friends, but they would be okay without me for a few minutes.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

A familiar sensation took over my body. There was a detachment of emotion, and thought, as my world shifted from the physical to the magical. My surroundings transformed into a sea of mana.

I reached out to it, offering connection and friendship, and it accepted. Emotions of joy and familiarity swept over me, and I smiled. Then they were swept aside as I fell deeper into our connection.

There was more metal mana around me than I had ever encountered in one space. It jumped through the air, and buzzed in the walls, but when I breathed in it breathed in with me, and I felt the sea disappear as our senses combined. We were no longer separate.

We were existing as one.

The room and I breathed in unison. The tides of mana washed towards me and away from me like the waves on the shore.

I wasn’t commanding them or controlling them. We were basking in each other’s company, two friends meditating side by side.

I could see waves of power emanating from the objects in the room. It rose from the floor and mingled with my body. There was a resonance within my mind, where my metal symbol from my attunement was resting.

In that moment I was one with the world around me, and it accepted me as part of itself. I could feel the silver in the air around me resonating with my call and shifting back and forth alongside my breathing.

“Woah, what is that!” Unice’s voice crashed through me.

I opened my eyes, blinking. I looked around me but saw nothing, and then I saw that Unice was staring at me.

“What is what?” I asked.

The connection I’d made had calmed my heart, and I could still feel the safety promised by the element surrounding me.

“You disappeared for a moment.” Unice waved her hand. “You were here in front of my eyes, but I also couldn’t feel you here.”

She tapped the side of her head in confusion.

I knew what she was talking about. Even magicians that couldn’t see mana could still sense it.

There was always an innate sense magicians had of the people around them. People either had mana, or didn’t have mana, and it stuck out to our senses when their bodies clashed with the mana of the world around them.

The connection I’d made had removed that clash.

"That’s proof that your cultivation room works.” I smiled. “I connected with the elements around me, so I guess for you it must have felt like I was metal.”

“I need some of that.” Her nose crinkled.

She scrutinised the room and moved her fingers in front of her body, trying to pluck mana out of the air.

A flush crept up her face as she saw me staring.

“I didn’t feel anything, but I think it helped.” She pushed her hand off the ground and stood up. “Okay! I think I can do this.”

She pumped her fist and I smiled, standing up to match her. Then she wobbled as she moved.

I gave her a helping hand and she batted her eyelashes at me.

“Thanks. The pressure of today must be getting to me.”

“You’re more than welcome.” I fidgeted as I became conscious of the time I’d spent here. “I’m going to head back to the party.”

I didn’t want William to get overwhelmed.

“You should come back during the week.” Unice clapped her hands together, overcoming her momentary weakness. “This cultivation room is wide open for further testing.”

“I’d like that.”

There was a faint glimmer of light in front of my eyes.

[Metal Manipulation has reached level 5.]

The corner of my mouth lifted as I saw the message.

During the meditation the silver around me hadn’t moved much, but the effect had been profound.

“I might stay here for a moment and try to absorb the atmosphere.” Unice threaded her fingers through her hair.

“Sure. Thanks for the tour, I love the room.” I pressed my hand against the door.

The metal symbol lit up and I swung the iron door open. It wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be. I stepped outside and closed it, stopping as I met resistance.

Unice had interrupted me.

Her fingers clasped the side of the door, keeping it open.

“Actually, I think I’ll join you.” She swung the door open. “It’s rude to disappear into training at my own party.”

Her feet darted across the floor of the corridor as we made our way towards the stairs.

A small bark stopped me in my tracks.

My eyes flickered towards the ground and at my feet a small furry head looked up at me with excitement in its eyes.

The puppy from earlier was wagging its tail and pressing its paws against my legs.

“Hey there little buddy.” I bent down to pat the dog.

It snuggled against my fingers and its stone fur bent at my touch. If it wasn’t for its appearance, I wouldn’t even know that it was a golem.

“How do you work?”

It didn’t reply.

I looked up and Unice had already gone down the stairs. I hadn’t seen the dog when we were coming in. I picked up the puppy and it wriggled in my arms.

I walked towards its room and as I approached, I saw that it wasn’t fully closed, and there was a single crack of space where it had been left open.

I reached for the doorknob and opened the door.

“Am I meant to be feeling it?” A low voice jutted out from within the room. “I feel the same as I always do.”

“I don’t know, it came naturally to me when I was training with my dad like he said it would. What do you think, big momma?” Another voice responded.

“I told you to stop talking to the dog. It’s weird.”

“Screw you, it’s adorable.”

The door opened wide, and I came face-to-face with an unexpected scene.

There were two boys and a big dog inside the room. The large dog had a smile on its face as one of the boys was scratching its belly and the other was sitting in a meditation position, his eyes closed shut.

Fu barked, and the two boy’s heads shot up to look at me.

“Hutton, and Cresp?” I stopped with Fu in my arms. “What’s up?”

It was Alexis’ two friends. Cresp was the boy playing with Fu’s mother, and also the one that had been talking to her.

Hutton was the boy that was on the ground meditating.

“Oh, hey Andross.” Cresp tucked his hand away from the dog with a sheepish grin. “What’s up?”

“Big momma lost her baby.” I put the puppy on the ground.

Cresp’s eyes lit up. “There’s a puppy!”

Hutton was less impressed. “You’re an earth elemental magician, right?”

“That’s right.” I leaned against the wall.

I hadn’t gotten the chance to know Alexis’s two friends at school. Cresp had already made a great impression with his pro-dog attitude.

“I’m trying to figure out golem magic.” Hutton uncrossed his legs and stretched. “I thought I could grab a little insight from big momma here. No luck.”

He hooked his hand behind his back as he stretched and I saw that he was built similar to William, with well-defined muscles along his arms.

I was about to respond when I heard the sound of footsteps tapping the corridor floor. A wave of heat clasped around my neck and rippled across the room as a figure entered beside me.

It was Alexis.

I tilted my head towards him, and his brow knotted.

“I looked in every other room and Andross somehow got to you first.” He waved his hand and the heat retracted. “Sorry, I still haven’t got the hang of that.”

A wave of cool air brushed by me, and I saw Cresp washing the dogs with blue mana. He was protecting them from Alexis’ heat.

Fu turned to Alexis and barked.

It came out as a yip.

Big momma turned towards Alexis and also let out a low growl.

“I am definitely not an animal person.” Alexis frowned. “That's a pity, I really like dogs.”

Cresp patted them with cooling waves.

“Let’s leave these two alone for now. They need rest.” He stood up. “I heard they have a cultivation room we can see.”

“I’m going to head back.” I gestured with my thumb towards the corridor. “I don’t want to be a fourth wheel.”

“Wait, don’t go yet. This is awesome timing.” The corners of Alexis’ eyes crinkled. “I've been wanting to get to know you better. Especially after our chat downstairs.”

He leaned against the open door with a thoughtful expression and stroked his chin. His locks of fiery hair wrapped around his shoulders, wisps of flames twisting in the air.

“I’m having a party at my place next week, it’s a private gathering for my friends.”

He placed his hand on my shoulder.

“You should join us.”