“And here I thought you guys would never notice.” Nero leaned back on his bed and swirled a bottle around. “But what does it matter to us?”

Risti looked at him. “If the Dark does something here—”

“It won’t affect us. We’re in the territory of the Moons. Even if Daybreak County burns, that’ll be the extent of things. The Moons will act swiftly and prevent whatever they’re doing from spreading beyond the county,” Nero replied. “Don’t underestimate either side. The Moons will not permit any shenanigans in their territory, and the same goes for the Dark.”

He paused. “Most importantly, neither side are against us humans yet. If we act against either side out of fear, it can be interpreted in many, many ways. It’s best if we stay out of this war. Of course, if the Moons show up and ask us to help, we can’t really decline it, but that would mean many things are at stake.”

“Really?” Dia asked. “You sound very confident.”

“Probably, anyway.” Nero took a swig from his bottle and let out a nice huge sigh. “And the only reason why I sound and look very confident is due to this little baby in my hands. I’ve mixed your purchases with Schwarz’s brews, and the effect is extraordinary.”

“Well, as long as you don’t touch my apple juice,” Dia replied, “anything goes.”

“As well as my fizzy drinks,” Risti chipped in.

“Yeah, yeah.” Nero cricked his neck. “Anyway, I’ve scared an entire mine into rioting. Just gazed at them from up high, and all of them simply freaked out. They tossed aside their baskets of lifestones and fled really quickly.”

“It’s a shame we can’t be there to pick up the spoils, though,” Dia muttered. “And while we’re on this topic, would the Moons interfere with what we’re doing?”

“Probably not,” Nero replied. “It’s a conflict between mortals. It’s beneath them to care about people picking up clumps of weak lifeforce. You should see what my church uses to feed me and other outstanding folders.”

“Uh-huh, go on,” Dia replied. “What do they stuff into your mouth?”

She glanced at Risti, who might have some knowledge regarding the issue, and wasn’t disappointed by that lackadaisical look on her face at all.

“Oh, you think Risti knows?” Nero asked, curious, before turning to Risti. “I’m told that your father is the leader of the Folders’ Association…do you know what we Blessed and Holy Children eat to increase our lifeforce?”

“Just keep showing off, won’t you?” Risti muttered, before yawning. “Let me guess. Prana jades, right? The primordial form of life force, impervious to all forms of impurity and contamination from the dust of the mortal world.”

Nero pouted. “Oh, so you do know. Why didn’t you tell the others then?”

“Prana mines aren’t harmless places,” Risti replied. “Look at Dia’s shining face; she’s close to shaking the location of the closest prana mines out of me. You…never mind. I was intending on revealing the existence of prana jades and prana mines after pure-ranked lifestones started to run out.”

Nero shivered at the razor-sharp gazes Risti was sending his way, but Dia wasn’t going to care about that. From what the two said, it was clear that eating prana jades was another method used by tetra-folders to increase their lifeforce. That, and pure-ranked lifestones.

“Does that mean prana jades are more common than pure-ranked lifestones?” Dia finally asked.

“Tch. She figured it out.” Risti sighed. “You deal with it. If she decides to go hunt for a prana mine, I’ll cut your head off and use it as a seat from now on.”

Nero twitched. “Fine…”

Dia found Nero’s compliance to be somewhat interesting, but she could tell that prana mines, whatever they were, probably ranked quite high on the danger scale. Claud, her basic unit to measure danger, would probably scream bloody murder if he learned about the existence of prana mines, as well as the presupposed fact that she was intending on making her way there.

“I won’t do that,” said Dia, before folding her arms. “It’ll take us quite some time before we’re done with our third mana circuits, and there’s a Holy Son of the Black God that would let us freeload off his resources once the barriers fall and sea travel resumes.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m still the Holy Son after all this,” Nero replied. “Well, since you aren’t going to poke your head into the issue of prana mines, telling you should be fine…probably. Prana mines are located in areas of great providence. The churches of the Coloured Gods all have one each. I’m not sure about Grandis, but there’s a prana mine in the Nihal Senate’s resource capital. They’re all heavily guarded, so there’s no way thieves can sneak in or something.”

He played with the bottle in his left hand for a moment, and then smiled. “Fortunately for you plebians — and perhaps me — there are also prana mines outside in the wild. Small ones form when folders who have passed their second tribulation die, while larger ones can be found in ancient ruins and battlefields.”

“I kinda get the first one,” said Dia, “but why would ruins and battlefields hold prana mines?”

“Prana, the primordial force of life, is produced through the catharsis of mortal moira,” Nero explained, sounding a bit like an actual Holy Son at the same time. To the side, Dia also noticed that Risti’s ears had pricked up; this was something new to her too. “In other words, death. Death is the source of prana. Ruins are usually cities and towns destroyed by some immense force; in that moment of collective death, the released lifeforce melds together and expels impurities.”

Nero flipped his palm up, and a full bottle of booze sitting on his bed hissed as the liquid inside turned into vapour. Blue light surged out — Nero was handling mana beyond his Mana Control Proficiency — and the vapourised alcohol recondensed into liquid, but the volume had been cut into two.

“Purified alcohol,” Nero explained. “The concept remains similar.”

“And it seems to use a lot of mana too,” Risti observed. “Is it as pure as Schwarz’s brews?”

“I don’t know how that man makes all these miracles, but his brews are purer than even this one,” Nero replied. “It’s a good approximant of his shoddy works, but the masterpieces I’m used to are far, far purer.”

“His brewing method is that miraculous?” Risti asked.

“It’s that miraculous.” Nero nodded with all due seriousness. “In fact, if there should come a time that truly pure alcohol is needed for some economic reason, the first one to strike it rich would be him. His method is far better than me, even when I’m going all out with my mana. The purity is higher, the yield is higher…”

He cleared his throat. “Ahem. We’ve digressed somewhat, I see. Anyway, prana mines are formed through death. The stronger the individual, the more drawn-out the process, or the greater the number, the higher the quality of prana produced. Of course, deaths on the scale needed to produce prana hasn’t happened for a very long time, which is why ruins are the places to head to if you need prana.”

“Okay, but why are you so adamant on not approaching these places?”

“…These places are always fraught with danger. The catharsis of death brings about not just pure life, but also frees the involved people from the negative emotions of their final moments. These emotions coalesce and gather. Will given form.” Nero paused. “They turn into monsters that are hard to kill and even harder to escape. Tetra-folders…a good number of would-be tetra-folders die during the Second Tutorial.”

He took a gulp from the bottle. “And even more die for that little bit of prana.”

His words carried some desolation in them, and Dia shook her head. She didn’t know what to say to that, but she could tell that he was sympathising with those dead people. She could understand where he was coming from too; every dead tetra-folder was a huge waste of resources, and they probably had families too…

The three of them sat around and talked about other things, but nothing seemed to stick after that disquieting discussion over prana and how it was formed. To Dia, this world simply seemed to grow more and more complicated for every passing hour and every single snippet of information that came from Nero and Risti.

To be fair, both of them were vast repositories of information, but…

I should only be learning these things when I’m three hundred years older, right? That’s the median age for tetra-folders!

Unfortunately, the oddness of this era had sank its nasty fangs into established traditions, since Dia and the other Moon L— er, Seekers of Life — were already close to becoming tri-folders, what with all that resources channelled to them. This oddness had clearly carried over to the age in which one learned about certain pieces of information, and—

Dia got up from the bed, and the sudden rush of blood made her head throb. Raising a hand to pre-empt any concerned queries, she said, “I’m feeling a bit tired and overwhelmed, so I’m just going back to sleep. You two have fun or something.”

“S-sure,” said Nero.

“Do you need me to support you back?” Risti asked.

“I’m fine,” Dia replied. “Just tired.”

Shutting down any further queries, she returned to the adjacent bedroom and went to sleep.