Bonnie and Hera were by the docks, waiting for Mark's arrival. The two would chaperone him to the Carpon Caverns. Alex and Blue had returned almost at sunrise, and by the smell of booze on their clothing, they would sleep for a long time.

"… it behaved like mercury, but its heat conductivity was much better than it. So I used it as a base to try to come up with a formula. I tried to add some of caesium's properties too to try to balance out the heat, but.."

"Bonnie," Hera cut her off, "I want to know what you were doing. I really do, but you gotta help me out here. I have no idea what caesium is, and when you say mercury, I think about a planet. Dumb it down a bit for me, please."

"Oh, sorry, I just got excited. How can I put this…" Bonnie looked away for a moment, "You know how that liquid light hit the ground? It didn't splatter, almost like it was attracted to itself."

"Now that you mention, yeah. What about it?"

"So liquid metals are like that. They have a harder time breaking apart. It's not like water that one drop spills everywhere. It still is not like the liquid light, but I thought it was a good starting point."

"Oh, so that's what all those formulas were?" Hera asked.

"Exactly, they were the formulas for all the known metals that behave more or less like that. My idea is to add them to a spell and try to make elements that don't have a physical shape turn into liquid."

"Wait, what? That's your idea?" Hera frowned.

"Yeah, why?" Bonnie was taken aback by the reaction. It seemed like such a great idea. She could make bottles filled with an element and use them as a weapon.

"Why are you adding metal to it?"

"I'm not adding metal. I'm just using the same structure to give the magic a vessel."

"Yeah, but in the end, it will be metal with magic in it. If you want to change the way the element behaves, you need to change it, not put something else around it. Like my grease fire spell."

Bonnie scoffed, "The name itself is already a giveaway. Grease fire. You are not turning fire into a liquid but using something else to fuel it."

"How is that any different from making liquid metal mixed with some element?"

Bonnie stared at Hera, the excitement in her eyes vanishing little by little, "It's not. Crap, you are right. I'm doing the same thing."

"Hey, don't feel bad. It was a good idea, and it can still lead to something. Maybe you can make mines or something with some weird chemical reactions like a papier-mâché volcano," Hera tried to cheer her up.

"I guess," Bonnie started to think, "caesium can make an explosion when in contact with cold water, so there could be something there…" she mumbled to herself.

"Make a note to look it up later. The ship is here," Hera nodded towards the harbor.

It was the same ship they all used every time they went back to Brinefront, and Mark was one of the first ones to disembark. He gave a big hug to the two girls, and they headed towards the doorway to the Caverns. It was the first time Mark went deeper into the MAZE, and it showed in his actions. He was pacing around in line and kept asking how long they had to wait. It was very similar to how Blue acted the first time they went to the next layer.

"Hey, Mark. Now that we have some time. What happened? Why are you so desperate to find a new place to work?" Hera asked.

"Oh, it because of the whole turtle egg thing. I hate that Ryan just vanished with little more than a slap on the wrist. To make things worse, Bill kept complaining, saying I shouldn't have given all the eggs back. He said that since he was already fucked he might as well get something out of it. I was trying to save his ass, and he comes out with that attitude. It pissed me off. He even kicked me out as his apprentice. It was such a dick move."

"So you got fired. That's why you are so desperate," Bonnie said.

"Not from the workshop. They have a mentorship program, and he gave me up for saving his life. Go figure."

"People have messed up priorities, and he's probably just angry at something else and taking it out on you," Hera tried to comfort him.

"It still sucks," Mark said.

"Let's just find you a new place. Worst case scenario, you can work as a miner," Bonnie said.

"Miner?"

Hera explained to Mark how the Carpon Caverns worked. The mines, the city with its many workshops, and the creatures that lived in the outskirts. After hearing everything, he relaxed a bit. The main concern on his mind was about the monsters he could face. Mark was, by no means, a good fighter. Shooting arrows was the best he had to offer, and after encountering Tu'nia, the idea of dealing with stronger monsters was enough to scare him.

After crossing the doorway, the trio headed towards the city. Hera wanted to go straight to the store where she got her weapon enchanted, but Bonnie insisted that a bigger shop could give Mark more opportunities to grow. That led them to spend most of the morning waiting in line to get information or meet with one of the crafters. In the end, every single workshop was either full or had requirements that Mark wasn't able to meet in order to be hired.

They stopped by a restaurant to have lunch since it was well after 2 PM. After eating, they headed to the store called Weller's Smithy, where Hera ordered her chakram to be enchanted.

"Excuse me," Hera said as she entered the store. Clayton, the older man missing one arm, was handling the register today as well.

"Hello, miss Hera. What can I do for you today?" Clayton said with a smile.

"This is the crafter?" Mark whispered.

"Yes, it might seem small, but they are good. I promise," Hera turned to Clayton, "Actually, this is Mark. He is a crafter friend of mine, and he's looking for a place to work."

"Hi," Mark waved.

"Hello, young man. You are looking for work? Are you sure this is a place you would want to work at? Unlike the big workshops, we don't have many customers, and we can't pay you an actual salary. It would be more like a shared store," Clayton was sizing up the applicant the entire time he spoke.

Mark looked around the store. It had mainly weapons and armors but close to no accessories. The shelves were more or less full, but there was very little dust around the items. Either someone was very diligent with cleaning the place, or the sales were not as bad as Clayton said.

"How would that work? I would sell my things here and pay a monthly fee, or you guys get a cut from each sale?"

"A little of both, I believe. We need to pay for the expenses we have here, not to count the materials, but we can work something out. Maybe set an amount that if you make with the sales, we can consider the rent paid," Clayton explained.

"Pops!" Ronan came out of the backroom, "Can you not hire random people without talking to me?"

"You were busy. I was just asking a few questions."

Ronan scoffed and turned to Mark, "What's your specialty and how much experience you got?"

"I'm not sure yet. It's been… two months and a little since I've passed the test to be an explorer, and I spent two weeks hunting with these guys. But I'm good with making small items. I even made Hera's ear guards," Mark gestured Hera to come closer.

Hera walked towards the two and showed the earrings, making sure to hide her ears with her hair as she placed them into Ronan's hands. He looked at the items and moved them around his hands, placing them under a lamp to see them better.

"This is really well made. The weapon pattern on the outside is very impressive, but why is only one hollow?" Ronan turned back to Mark.

"Customer request. I don't know why and didn't ask," he replied quickly, glancing at Hera.

"Very well. You do have some good skills. Come with me. Let's have a proper interview," Ronan said as he walked to the back room.

"Sure," Mark turned back to Hera and Bonnie, "You guys can head out and do… whatever. I'll text you when I'm done."

"Ok, have fun in the interview," Bonnie said as Mark followed Ronan to the back room.

"I hope he'll be ok," Hera said.

"He will be fine. You know how he's like. One bad joke and everyone starts liking him," Bonnie waved Hera off.

The two thanked Clayton and headed out. They didn't want to head back to Hazelpond since it would take too long. A café was also an unappealing idea since they had eaten less than held an hour ago. In the end, the guild was the best option. In there, the two found a more or less quiet spot in the library and discussed Bonnie's spell some more. At the same time, Hera shared what she knew about her new skill, [Mana Sense]. According to Helena, people coveted that skill more to improve their spells than to notice their surroundings. There were several ways to improve a spell. Most required a complete overhaul of the entire process, but by using [Mana Sense], the problematic parts would be much more evident. By following the mana, she could notice leaks and areas where the flow would bottleneck or even stop. Helena had a lot of trouble getting the skill since her perception of mana was never particularly strong.

Bonnie wasn't able to help with that, but talking with someone helped organize Hera's thoughts. On the other hand, she helped a lot with Bonnie's new spell. They discussed the formulas that could create a liquid, arriving at the phase change formula. The idea was to add it to the spell in order to recreate the conditions required to change something from gas to liquid. Yet, that wasn't enough. Bonnie wasn't able to make the math work.

"Could it be because of the state mana is in?" Hera asked.

"What do you mean?"

"It's not a gas. If you blow on it, nothing happens. It's not liquid, much less solid. Maybe mana is not in one of the three phases."

"You mean four," Bonnie corrected.

"Four?"

"Yeah, everyone forgets plasma," seeing Hera's expression Bonnie added an explanation, "It's a state where gas becomes more solid. Like lightning or neon. They are not liquids or solids, but they still have a shape."

"Oh, ok. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Maybe mana is in a fifth state."

"Maybe, but then what is the formula for it?" Bonnie scratched her head.

"I can't help you with that. Try looking it up online. Speaking of which, let me check my thread," Hera opened the Order forum and headed to her post. There were a couple of replies already. One of them just said how lucky she was for getting a treasure map skill and asking for more details about how she unlocked it. The next reply reminded the previous one that information on skills was sold and not given away and told Hera that she might have missed something to unlock on the map. According to [email protected], the completion rate was about how much of the area she had seen, but since he didn't have the treasure map skill, it could be the reason why she had something missing. The landmarks might be part of the completion rate.

Hera considered replying with a thanks, but it had been only a day since she posted, and people tended to ignore a thread if it looked like the question already had an answer. Closing the browser, she went back to her training with the mana sense until they got a text from Mark. Not only he got the job, but Clayton would even teach him some of the basics of enchanting. Apparently, they really needed someone to do more delicate work, and Ronan was far from being good at it.

Mark wanted to buy them dinner to celebrate, but first, he had to look for a place to live. Hera talked with the girls about letting him move in with them first, but with five people sharing two bathrooms, the house was already getting crowded. The better option would be for him to look for apartments he could rent or stay long term in a hotel. After meeting up with him, they left the guild and did a different type of hunt than what they were used to.

Apartment hunting.