It’s been a few minutes with nothing but apprehension and a distant soft cough now and then as a company. My elf roommate has been doing nothing but staring at me. I can practically hear the music of a western shootout at this point.

Finally breaking the silence, he says. “How?”

“How, what?” I answer back.

“You’re a mage.” He states. It wasn’t a claim nor an accusation. It was a fact.

“Yup.” I reply.

“So? How come.” He asks again, irritated.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why couldn’t I sense you before? And why aren’t you wearing one of these.” With a growl, he removes his head from his knees and lowers his shirt around his neck.

I can barely make out a glint in the darkness. A collar?

Noticing my look of bewilderment, he says. “It’s an enchanted collar moron; if I use any mana, my head goes flying.”

Man, I know elves are supposed to be prideful, but he’s just a dick.

“Okay?” I reply, confused.

“So you’re a mage that neither they nor I noticed? How is that possible, and why are you still sitting here fiddling your thumbs.” He snaps back.

Uuuh, god damn it, I’m too ignorant to lie here. A half-truth it is.

“I just awakened.” I answer.

He stares at me for a few seconds and bursts into a maniacal laugh. A few minutes pass by, and I notice a few heads turning our way.

Irritated at his laughter and my ignorance, I snarl at him. “Are you done yet?”

He takes a few deeps breaths to calm down, letting out a chuckle in between, and says. “Sorry, but that was just too good.”

I wait a few seconds for him to continue, but seeing as he doesn’t, I call out. “And?”

“You’re so unlucky it’s hilarious.” Lapsing back into a laughing fit, albeit a bit quieter this time.

Completely infuriated, I bark at him. ”Dude, are all elves assholes, or is it just you”

Brushing off my racist retort, he sighs and says. “It has been too long since I’ve laughed this hard.”

He continues. “Well, you see we’re going to be branded as slaves, and one of the ways to ways to fight the seal’s compulsion is being a somewhat proficient mage.”

Taking my silence as a sign, he follows, “they can keep you on a leash with this,” he tugs his collar “but through meditation and the connection to your manapool you can negate the seal’s compulsion.”

“But since you just have awakened, you have neither, don’t you?” finishing up he lets out a chuckle and a relaxed sigh.

Yup, he’s an asshole, but at least this wasn’t a complete waste of time. I know for sure now that the mind resistance skill I picked up is gonna be useful. Also, a mage that you can control should be a valuable asset, so hopefully, I’m not that expendable.

Breaking the silence, he asks “How did you get caught anyway? Why would a human be in the Lamassu forest anyway?”

“I don’t know; the last thing I remember was going to bed last night.” I answer somewhat truthful.

“Yeah, the temporary memory loss is natural, happens to all the children after they awaken.” He snickers.

Ignoring his jab at me I ask. “How did you end up here anyway?”

With a snort, he says. ”We were hunting and the demis caught us”

I don’t get the haughty attitude, wasn’t he bellowing in despair not long ago. Oh well, this is a shot in the dark, but it can’t hurt to try.

“Aren’t elves supposed to be the forest’s protectors?”

With another snort, he replies. “We are the protectors of OUR forest, you ignorant human.”

“So it’s fine as long as it's not your forest?” I ask back.

He gives me a sharp “Hmph” and stays silent.

A prideful arrogant asshole of an elf, going by fictional knowledge so far everything checks out. I can be more confident with my assumptions.

Seeing as he stays silent and I’m satisfied by what I learned so far, I stay silent as well. Reviewing our conversation again in my head I can confirm that we are indeed in their territory, after I pat myself on the back for not choosing the slave trader supposed profession, I start quietly experimenting with my magic.

Creating a connection has been easier than I thought; it only took a few tries until I managed to do it. Now keeping that connection open was a completely different thing. Imagine yourself lifting something that’s extraordinarily heavy off the ground, you can keep trying, and eventually, you’ll succeed, albeit for a very pitiful distance. Nonetheless, you're done with the connection and lift it off the ground, now your manapool comes in; you have to keep that same heavy object suspended in the air, ergo keep the connection open. So summarizing what I learned so far, I can say that:

Proficiency can be trained like a muscle.

Manapool cannot.

And believe me, I have tried. My manapool training ended with me half dead, heaving for breath, and a very amused elf.

One day I’m strangling the pointy-eared fuck.

The shop was my last resort to fix my manapool problem, searching for anything that can remotely increase it; I found short of a thousand items, meaning they are utterly expensive. Deciding to ignore the problem for now and the asshole, and wholly immersing myself in creating some template spells that require the lowest amount of mana possible, I felt the sensation of wrongness gone, meaning that my manapool is full again. I was about to open up the shop to look for something that can affect mana regeneration when I heard the door opening.

Squinting my eyes, I glanced at the door to find a woman, by the irritated motion of the tail behind her, was someone you would call a catgirl. She was lean, somewhat on the short side, and standing with her hands on her hips while the door was opening unmanned.

Waiting a few seconds for my eyes to get used to the light, and with the door completely open, I could now look at her more closely; her face was completely human, excluding the pair of feline ears adorning her head.

Tapping her foot on the ground, she said in a soft yet authoritative voice. “Get the fuck out, you sacks of knife-eared shit.”