“My meditation skill has really saved my sanity,” Jen thought as she was assimilating not only her feelings about the assassination, but also her feelings about killing the bandits from when they first arrived. She hadn’t realized how she had just pushed those feelings down over the months.

As expected, the farmer’s guild was in the middle of a bloodbath among themselves while fighting each other for control. The guild had completely forgotten about Jen and Sam, for now anyways. “No one suspects our involvement in the assassination, except maybe Tamako,” Jen thought.

After Jen realized that Director Loshen could hide his mana channels and the mana pool in his center, Jen and Sam agreed to hold off on expanding their mana channels and experimenting with the structure of their mana pool. It became obvious that if they could see other people’s mana channels, then some people like Director Loshen could see their channels as well.

Jen had said to Sam later, “It’s not just about hiding our mana channels, because that act itself will give away our knowledge of them, and it will tell anyone around us that we feel the need to hide our channels and mana system. For someone powerful like Director Loshen, that would be normal, but why would nobody’s like us want to hide our channels?”

Sam then asked Jen, “Have you tried hiding or forging your channels like we do with our stats?”

Jen groaned, “Only a thousand times and a thousand different ways.”

“I know if anybody can figure it out, you can.”

Jen was frustrated. She knew Sam was relying on her to figure a way to not only hide their mana channels but also how to ‘forge’ or disguise them to look like those of people with a level of 7 or 8. She was getting so grumpy, Sam finally threatened her with a discussion of pocket space and dimensional space rings if she didn’t take a break and go hang out with Tamako or Cristi.

Tamako had been on duty non-stop for the past week. Jen wished she could go train with Tamako or check out some of the new weapons and armor the guilds might have recovered, but Cristi was also a lot of fun to hang out with. Cristi’s finances were still tight, so they were just window shopping, looking at clothing, jewels, and buying a few small food snacks.

While Cristi was across the street looking at some farming tools for sale, Jen purchased some bittersweet fruit that was very similar to an apple and the vendor placed the bittersweet in a sack for Jen to take with her. Later when she opened her bag to eat one of the bittersweets and offer one to Cristi, they noticed all the bittersweets were badly bruised.

Cristi was furious explaining, “Many of the guild farmers’ vendors will cast a cheap illusion spell on fruit and vegetables to make it look heathy.” Cristi then apologized, “I’m so sorry Jen, I should have warned you about them. I bet they won some euphoria for tricking you, too.”

Cristi was surprised because Jen was not upset at all, but actually appeared excited. Jen then asked Cristi, “That is pretty slimy of them, but do you know where I can learn or purchase that spell?’

“Yeah, Robert’s wife knows the spell and counter-spell, but it’s not very good, and it will not work on anything that you are not in touching distance. Plus, with the counter-spell you can cancel it out when shopping for produce.”

Jen laughed, “Don’t worry. I would like to learn it just for a joke to play on Sam. Do you think she would teach it to me?”

Cristi smiled, “I’m sure she would. Their crops have been doing much better since you helped them out.”

A few weeks later, Jen was sitting in the kitchen looking like the cat that ate the canary when Sam came in. When he noticed her look, he backed up slowly, but Jen yelled, “Wait! I’ve got something to show you.”

Sam was worried; this sounded like one of Jen’s tricks when they were training, when she would throw a hidden knife at him, and he replied, “That’s O.K. I’m good.”

Jen laughed seeing his fear. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Boomer. Use your mana inspection and take a look at my mana system.”

Sam focused on Jen and realized he could only see one channel open. “What did you do? Why can I only see one channel flowing?”

Jen cheered for herself and said, “I figured it out. I figured out a way to ‘forge’ our mana progression. It took me a while, but I learned a cheap illusion spell used on produce from Robert’s wife. Once I learned the illusion spell from her. I then broke down the code of the spell using my Words of Understanding skill, like you do with enchantments. For a while there, I thought I was going to need to get your help, but I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, I’m definitely impressed!” replied Sam.

Jen continued, “I finally decrypted the entire spell and studied the code to learn exactly how the it worked, and then I adjusted the spell with a lot, and I mean a lot, of trial and error with the code, and I was finally able to change the spell to cast an illusion on our mana system instead of produce. And….. I gained enough experience points from creating a unique and new spell, combined with all the points from the beast killing that Slim has been doing, that I am now level 19! I got to place an ability point in mana and mana regen.”

Sam ran over to Jen and put her in a friendly bear hug, and as he kissed her on the forehead said, “I told you that you could do anything you set your mind to. Don’t doubt me next time.” Sam released Jen from his hug and said, “Now, teach me!”

With Jen’s help he soon received a system message.

System Message – You have learned the mana system illusion spell – novice, level 1.