Even though it’s just a day after the mugging, I’m out with my pal Lucillus.

Apparently, my Mana exhaustion went away pretty fast. I was given a Mana potion that helped quite a bit.

Clodia and Camilla agreed to have a contract drafted for me. Apparently, the sum was still to be decided. They were going to think about how much money I was worth together.

I couldn’t really imagine the two of them putting up with each other, but I guess that’s my special power. I bring together even the worst enemies!

Man, my mom would love this joke, wouldn’t she?

A fit of sadness washes over me, but I repel it quickly.

I’m a man on a mission.

I can’t be distracted by this.

“Are you really sure about this, Joey?” Lucillus switched to my first name after I got mugged. He feels a bit guilty about it, but he still thinks it’s mostly my fault.

Am I sure?

I mean, it’s worked before. And I even prepared myself a little before going. I made Lucillus rehearse the scene with me. There is a very little chance things will play out like I want them to, but I do like to be prepared for anything.

“Sure it will work,” I lie through my teeth. “Always worked, why should it stop now?”

“Whatever you want, Caesars’s cane and his bones. If you tell anyone, especially Antoninus, about what we did, I’m skinning you alive, understood?”

Hehe.

“Sure thing, buddy,” I give him my signature wink.

“Lucinda’s not interested in romance, Joey. It’s a universally known fact. She stated so multiple times.”

“Pff, Lucillus, sweet summer’s child. You know nothing about courting a woman. I turned friendzones into romance just like that,” I snap my fingers before his face. “People say stuff all the time. You just have to stop listening. Listening doesn’t work. It’s a scam! And you know what? When the whole world thinks she doesn’t want romance, romance becomes the forbidden fruit. And she didn’t mean that. We don’t mean our words. Like, ever.”

“If she blasts you to pieces, I’m not going to stop her, Luciani,” and here we go back to my last name.

“You are going to eat your chainmail, pal. Hoho, you are so eating it.”

I rub my hands while biting my lower lip.

I have this down.

I can’t—

Let’s not say that.

Just so, you know, we don’t trigger the universe. Providence doesn’t like me and loves to mess with me.

“Where is Antoninus, anyway?” I say with a tinge of disappointment in my voice. “The big guy loves my antics.”

“He’s got some family issues,” Lucillus cringes.

“Oh,” I nod along.

I’m curious but let’s not get distracted.

So, I got two hundred gold coins from Clodia and Camilla as a down payment. It’s like a huge sum of money, from what I gather. I mean, maybe not huge, but still pretty large.

Lucillus was meant to escort me to a few places I could rent. He has my documentation and stuff like that. But I want to get my lawyer before that.

She didn’t really appreciate me telling her boss that we swapped a bit of saliva, did she?

Well, gotta work the magic.

We soon get in front of her door, and I take a look at my props. It was pretty cheap for such a beautiful thing. It’s the other one that really cost me a pretty penny. Three silvers? Meh.

“Is that her door?” I ask Lucillus. The man nods guiltily. He wasn’t supposed to tell me, but I can be really obnoxious.

“Get ready for it,” I fumble a bit with my newly acquired belt and a little bag of holding attached to it. “These things are so damn trippy.”

Oof.

Let’s go.

I’m nervous, but hopeful.

I like my shenanigans—no, who am I kidding? I love them!

I can still feel the migraine from the preparation. What’s a little suffering to get to the woman of your dreams?

“I want to see this,” Lucillus snorts, but there is a hint of doubt in his voice. He fears it might actually work.

Should I explain my plan to you?

Nah, let’s not spoil it.

Let’s keep the lid on it.

The final effect will be legendary.

I knock on the door and don my most beautiful smile.

The door swings open, and I can immediately feel the cold eyes boring a hole through me.

“Hey, there, how you doin’?”

Lucinda looks at me like an [Ice Queen] would stare at the most worthless peasant.

Oh, man, I love her so much.

“Joey,” she says with spite.

Love and hate, thin line, am I right?

“Hello, beautiful, these are for you,” I offer some roses. Goddamn Elves, they do have roses. Wild, but convenient.

“Are you here to humiliate me again?” she downright ignores the flowers.

“No intentions of doing that. I came to apologize. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken about us kissing,” I give her a bashful smile, “but these are indeed for you.”

She sees my regret, but she also isn’t moved by an inch.

“That’s all?” Lucinda curls her lips almost disgusted.

She is not saying the magic words yet, damn.

She’s not feeling good about letting go for a second and kissing me, right?

I messed up. Sure.

And now she’s hating herself for kissing such an idiot.

I’ll explain why I think that some books are superior to others.

See, it’s about the magic factor. There can be an idiot, a lowlife, a worthless bastard like me. Let’s call it the… mh, special factor? Nah, that sounds lame.

Ok, imagine seeing a painting. It’s a normal painting, nothing special. No one looks at it. No one. But you, for some reason, are spending your time in front of it. Simple, right? Wasting your time on a worthless painting in a museum. But there is something, isn’t there? It’s like ‘are we sure that this painting is not special?’ kind of feeling. We all long to find a special little corner of the world all for ourselves; it’s just in our nature. Sure, it’s hard in my past hyper-connected world.

Sure.

But books, some books, have that. You slowly start seeing things and pieces that you think someone might not have seen. Now, obviously, almost everyone sees it. Or maybe some see more than others. When you read Dostoevskij, you can get that feeling. My dear Fiodor is good at it. You slowly warm up to a character, see the world from his point of view. You invest hours and hours in reading, getting more and more bored by his prosaic style. But then, it happens. You see something. You have immersed yourself so much that what looked banal before is now suddenly special.

Look at that!

Special!

And that’s what we want, isn’t it? To uncover a great secret, to find the most hidden treasure, to get to the corner of a place everyone is overlooking and finding the most special thing in the world.

“Last question, really. Are you sure you don’t want these flowers?”

“Shove them in your mouth,” she spits out.

Well, it’s not really the hook I was looking for, but I’ll make it work.

I toss the flowers backward like a newlywed bride, hoping to hit Lucillus in the face.

Then, I put my hands together and, this goddamn part almost brough me to Mana exhaustion yesterday. I shouldn’t have practiced, but apparently, my [Mana Well] makes my reserves much larger now.

So, my hands slowly part and that’s where it gets tricky. Getting this matrix to work didn’t allow me to sleep.

This is multi-casting, [Light Shaping] on another level, [Deep Focus] paired with [Advanced Mana Sense] and lots of swearing in the middle of the night. Chugging potions too.

Man, I feel woozy as I go on. It’s a bit slower than I would like, but it’s much more difficult than it looks.

Now, though, slowly but surely, a rose gradually emerges from the freed space between my hands. It’s translucent, azure, and gleaming. It’s bright, really bright. It looks like solid light caught inside the most perfect diamonds in the world.

It’s pure light.

“And what about this flower?”

I give her my signature wink.