That night Jack had a goal. He went over the day's events with his master and learned a lot. Integrating the knowledge from his Master's and what he had learned in school had given him a direction. Most importantly he learned just where he went wrong with his last spell. Apparently, one must first set their foundation before undergoing that level of Tempering. When he had forcibly altered Ignazio, the energy had to go somewhere.

Shame filled him when he realized that his blind experimentation had almost killed someone, and he resolved himself to run any variant spell past his Master or Felix before using them on another person. Not all was wasted, however, for this gave him an idea. It would require more research but he believed that if everything went right, then he would soon have another signature spell.

…

Jack woke up the next morning earlier before the daylight had gone beyond his windowsill. With a stretch to get all the kinks out, he hopped out enthusiastically. Mentally going through his morning checklist, he cast about for his clothes. His room was just as nice as before. Several things were different, his uniform was neatly folded on the table, the amulet lay atop it, and there was a new leather bag next to it. The bag was foreign, so it came first.

He picked up the bag much more easily than his recent increases warranted. It looked full but was light. His first guess was that this was a spatial bag and he was proven right as he opened it and saw a dark void in it's depths. It would be nice if one could see what was in one of these things. He debated the wisdom of simply reaching into the bag and rustling about. On the other hand, whoever brought him back had to have left it, if this was meant to harm him, then they could have just attacked his sleeping form as he laid helpless.

He tipped the bag over and shook it. Several metals, geometric prisms, and a folded piece of paper came out. Each had a different number of sides, ranging from a triangular pyramid to an icosahedron. He recognized these, as they were the same bits and bobs inside the phoenix cloak. I need to ask Virtus about these.

Jack was able to get dressed with little difficulty today since he had so much free time to do it systematically. He did note that it was tighter in several places. Take that infomercial, I’m buff, and I didn’t need thirty days. By his estimations, his strength was at bodybuilder level, a wannabe bodybuilder anyways.

After that came the amulet. Tenuously, he placed his pointer digit onto the gem and… Inhaled? The sensation was both natural and completely alien. Which was gross, because that was how one woman described childbirth to him. The energy sickened him as it travelled directly into his core to be refined. The process lasted about a minute before feeling bloated and queasy.

He looked at the clock on the wall and realized that it wasn’t set in twelve-hour increments. Instead, thirteen notches were engraved onto the wooden timepiece. Hours we're fifty minutes long, thus the day seemed to be a similar length to earth.

The door shook as Virtus knocked fervently. “Jack, it's time to wake up. Breakfast is in thirty minutes.”

Jack rolled his eyes. He slept in one day and suddenly they thought he needed his hand held. That gave him an idea. He took several of the metal shapes from the bag and went to open the door. The door swung open to reveal Virtus mid-knock with Lillian standing behind him. Her hand flashed silver as she tucked a key into her sleeve. Her coy smile let him know that she let him catch that on purpose.

He handed a cube to Virtus. “What is this?” he asked. The guardsman was just staring at him, stunned. He waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Hello, are you there.”

This got a reaction as he cleared his throat and started to compose himself. Then he turned back to Lillian. “You said your technique would keep him under till we came to wake him. That is the only reason I agreed to let you in his room without permission.”

She looked just as confused by Jack’s wakefulness. Then she pouted. “And here, I was going to give prince charming a wake-up kiss.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. There had to be something else going on if she went to all this trouble just to get in. It probably would have been easier for her to just knock him out than use a technique that sounded so complicated.

Virus noticed his hand was full and peered down. “Oh, this is a sextal.” He explained, before giving Jack a perplexed look.

“I found a bag of these on my table this morning.” He pointed back. “What exactly do these ‘sextals’ do? Just knowing the name doesn’t help me, Virtus.”

“Oh, I keep forgetting how little you know. This is money. A Magi can charge it with their mana to power various magical items.”

This explanation sounded like complete gibberish to him. Since when do people use money to power things? Money was for spending. Lillian apparently agreed, as she rolled her almond eyes and stomped on Virtus’ foot.

“Here in the empire, most people use the barter system since coins are so easy to counterfeit. These are collectively known as polyhedral credits, most just call them credits. They range from four to twenty sides, with twenty being the most valuable. They are quadren with four sides, sexten with six sides, often with eight sides, Dodecan with twelve sides, and icosans with twenty sides. The exchange rate is ten quadren to a sextan and so on all the up to icosen.”

She had laid out all of the various credits in ascending order and gestured at them during her explanation. That was the only reason that made any sense to him. “How much money is this in buying power.” He asked, because who doesn’t want to know how much their money can get them.

Lillian scrunched her face in thought before giving up and passing the buck. “How much is this Virtus? I don’t know your currency very well.”

The guardsman started counting under his breath for a second before his eyes turned into dollar signs. “It can buy a small estate in the capital or a barony elsewhere. Where did you get this kind of wealth? The money that princess Laura had brought over was only a fraction of this.”

His brain worked furiously for a second before he remembered the paper. He grabbed it off the table and read it.

“Master told me to give this to you. They made it during your transfer to Terra Cognita prime but it never seemed to come up. All of the non monetary items are still in your robes. Spend it wisely.

P.S. there was already a bag of money on the table when I dropped you off so I mixed them and added some more for good measure.

Your brother, Felix”

“It seems to be a mixed bag, literally.” He told them about the note.

Virtus checked the time before replying. “Since we have extra time, do you want to visit the student store?”

Memories of eating top ramen using wplastic cutlery on a rickety table filled his thoughts. A broad grim fit into place at the thought of shopping without a budget. He led the way, running.