11:14 AM

“...’There are multiple ways to properly conduct Element Ice, including many variations dependent on an external and internal channel. One way, if possible, is to use the Element Water and apply a cooling effect though it is considered to be a workaround. Another—’

“Okay, why don’t you get to the freaking point?!”

This was the worst purchase in Althea’s life. It was nothing like video games; she thought by reading this book, she’ll instantly understand its contents and be able to [Channel - Ice] without any frustrations. No, from a single paragraph, she could point out multiple frustrations. For five hundred thousand standards, she brought a book that was better used as firewood. Amazing, she’ll never tell Alexander about this.

She bashed the back of her head into the tree she sat against, hoping that years of magical knowledge will rush in and give her the understanding she needed. Only a little, she knew a few of the jargon but it was a baseline knowledge, nothing more than what she had learned in Systemic Basics class in high school.

Channeling was one of the most common magical forms, with its other half being conjuration, and thus having been broken down to its nuts and bolts. There were dedicated classes in the Combative Program with decades worth of findings and innovations. And Althea was a seventeen-year-old girl whose only education amounted to a GED. Almost. She doubted she'd have a graduation ceremony.

Just as when she thought to concede this loss, she saw someone who’d absolutely knew magic like the back of his hand: Damien Fayer. From the funds rewarded by Archknell and the System, he brought himself a red and gold conjurer’s robe and a darkwood staff, topped off with an irregularly-shaped mana crystal that sort of looked like a d20.

She waved at him as she called out, “Damien! C’mere!”

Damien’s head perked up, hearing his name. Althea called again and he heard her that time, waving back and making his way over. He plodded his staff down on the grass, leaning against it like a wise wizard. “Is something wrong, Thea? Where’s Alex and Leo?”

“They went to do their own things, and I wanted to do my own thing too. So uh…” Althea flashed the skill manual, and immediately Damien frowned. “Don’t tell Alex. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“...How much did that cost?” he asked.

“A lot,” quickly she answered.

“Althea—”

“Anyway! About this skill manual!” she moved, hoping Damien would get the hint. “It has a ton of jargon that I can’t really understand. Well, I kinda do, kinda don’t. I skimmed through the first few chapters and I got nothing substantial. Hell, I can’t even read this!” Althea flipped to the first beginning pages, where it showcased the human anatomy with various colored dots, of various sizes, and veins and their names.

Damien sighed and took the book, looking at the diagram. “First of all, it’s the anatomy of your mana nervous system—”

“I know what the hell it is.” Althea pointed to some of the names, focusing on the big colored dots. “‘Channel of Hand’, ‘Lung’, I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be seeing here.”

Damien blinked a few times, stared at Althea like she was a freak. Maybe she was honestly, but she was also going insane. “Althea, you’re Chinese.”

She blinked too. “How is that relevant?”

“The anatomy of the mana nervous system was first cataloged by cultivators.” Damien took the skill manual from her, pointing at the big colored dots. “These are the mana conduits, which were named after the—what was it?—I forgot, but we generally use the names that they gave it. In other words, inspired by the meridian system.”

Some cultural knowledge spun their gears, though Alexander would know more about it. He was born in China after all, not her. He'd always tease her for it, joking that she wasn't "cultured"—asshole. “Thanks for making me feel ashamed. I never felt more Chinese in my life.”

“Goodness.” Damien looked like he wanted to slap himself. He skimmed through the pages of the skill manual, humming. “I don’t fault you for not understanding the material. It’s impossible to learn [Channel - Ice] within the day. Even at an incomplete, you’re too incompetent.”

“Why don’t you try complimenting me?” she bit. “Don’t be a creep ‘bout it. Be nice.”

“I swear, whenever I talk to you, it’s like I’m speaking to a more feisty version of your brother. I’m completely convinced you’re just a female version of him.”

“I dunno if I should take that as an insult or a compliment. It depends on the day and whether or not Venus is in retrograde.”

“Do you even know what that means?”

“Nope.” Althea patted the grass in front of her, using her feet. “Sit. I wanna learn more about magic since you’re the expert here. Talk to me like I’m at the dentist.”

“And I’m being bossed around too. Yes, Madam Shen…” Damien muttered before sitting down, resting his staff beside him, the skill manual in his hands still. “So just to reiterate: you’re incompetent. Also, you are the kindest person I know.”

“Thanks,” she deadpanned.

He ignored her and asked, “If I remember correctly, your lightning skill is at feeble? As in, you need to concentrate in order to maintain the effect?”

“Mhm. I actually don’t know why I have the skill in the first place. Genetics, you think? I mean, that can happen, right? Getting skills from genetics?” Althea returned a question.

“How else can I use [Duskfire]?” Damien answered, although he answered with a slight frown, as if disappointed by that fact. Though, Althea couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something from her. “My dad did attempt to train me with a centralized magick device. Regardless though, from the moment I turned sixteen, I had it.”

A centralized magick device was a magical tool with the capacity of magick built within; meaning, anyone, even non-Slayers, could use it. Though, these items were almost always costly.

“Guess I’m one lucky gal. And incompetent.” Althea stretched her arm out, envisioning the mana veins inside. She could almost feel lightning coursing through it. “I’m still getting used to the feeling.”

“If that was the case, why did you think you could learn a new channeling skill when you haven’t properly learned just one?”

“‘Jeez Thea, why did you spend half a million standards on something that’s basically worthless?’”

“You spent half a million—?!”

“I thought it’d be easy to pick up a new trick.”

“Good Lord…” Damien shook his head; he genuinely couldn’t handle the Shens. “As a preface, while I’m a conjurer, we’re closely related to channelers so I studied a little bit about their mana utilization. You know how conjurers utilize mana, correct?”

Althea shrugged. “Go and tell the class.”

“Never a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from you,” he muttered before moving on, “conjurations have a high mana cost. It’s required that we supplement that cost with mediums that contain mana, like my staff here with its crystal. We take the mana into our Kraits, concentrate, and manipulate the mana accordingly. It’s all about the concentration techniques: mental images essentially. Your concentration determines how the conjuration will be manifested.”

“But you have the Slayer System. It’s called ‘skills’.”

“Mhm. Of course, you can rely on the Slayer System, which takes care of the more nuanced parts, like concentration and manifestation. Really, you could let the System take care of most things and you'll be just alright. And do you know what my father refers to those people?” Damien paused for dramatic effect. “Weaklings. You cannot rely on the System to win. By performing the spells yourself, casting them independently of the System, you immediately outclass a majority of Slayers.

“All high-rankers are innovators in their fields after all. They learned the fundamentals and went their own way.”

It made sense. Althea actively used the System for [Feeble Channel - Lightning]. She didn’t concentrate much, just sort of allowed the lightning to go through her arm. “So for channeling, it’s kinda the same method?”

“Somewhat. My father said this once: conjuration is about concentration, channeling is about focus. Creating and maintaining. Like uhm, well, a sprint to a marathon. Let me use the former as an example. Watch.”

Damien lifted his left hand. In the center of his palm, a gentle fire bloomed, about twice the size of candle-flame. “This is [Conjure - Fire]. I used the mana inside my Krait to manifest this conjuration into the form of an adorable little fire. Every magick system has their own different manipulations; that is, alterations. For example with this skill…”

Suddenly, the flame shrunk, but suddenly it turned blue. Damien continued, “...I can increase the temperature.” Then it reverted to a calm red, split into two. “Multiply it.” The two candlelights turned into small orbs. “Alter its shape.” Damien brought the flames to the grass, but it did not burn. “And in high-levels of control, you can apply special properties. Naturally, the more complicated conjurations you perform, the harder it becomes to actually perform them.

"You can dive deeply into each skill and read its [Skill Breakdown], but that's going deep into the System's mechanics. You would actually need to take a class or two to fully understand it all."

“Yeah, I don't think I can tinker around with anything just yet,” she admitted with an awkward laugh. “I have trouble maintaining [Channel - Lightning] normally, let alone trying to do anything fancy with it. I can’t imagine there are that many manipulations for channeling? I mean, what can you do? Make it hotter? Or I dunno, make it talk.”

“You can try, but you might want to learn animation magic.” He laughed, then sighed. “You have two main avenues of manipulations: external, which is what you use for your chain, and internal, where you channel your lightning throughout your body.”

“…Won’t that be painful?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you test it out?”

“Ha-ha.” Althea knew internal channeling was possible but she was afraid. She knew the magick will enhance the body in different ways but that came after the conditioning. “I’m beginning to understand now. And the reason why I can’t learn [Channel - Ice] is because…?”

“It’s a different dance for one. While they’re both channeling skills, they require different focus techniques. I’m not going to concentrate on the image of a stone when I want a bonfire. Once you learn lightning and its manipulations, you can do the same with ice and have an easier time. Once you do, you could follow the manual and use [Channel - Ice] to decrease your body temperature to dangerous levels."

More and more, she regarded the skill manual as literal garbage. “Why would I ever wanna do that?”

Damien shrugged, probably thinking it was a swell idea. “Who knows? Maybe you’d want to turn yourself into an ice cube? Like for example, after you accidentally fell into a vat of lava?”

“I’d have a hundred other problems to worry about if I managed to fall into a vat of lava.” Althea rolled her eyes. “No wonder my brother bullies you so much. You’re easy to make fun of.”

“Your brother bullies everyone,” Damien countered, which was true. “I’d call him a bully, but he’s a comedian more than anything. And a hero if you consider what happened in High Home.”

Althea winced. Damien knew about what had happened in High Home. Everyone in their party did, Leona and Vernon. Though neither Althea or Alexander looked on the time positively. “He wouldn’t call himself that. Really, he’d say it was all thanks to the others, especially Miss Alvillar.”

“I’m guessing the memories you two made there wasn’t the greatest? Come on, it’s high school. Did Alexander get one of those, what was it…?“

“Superlatives?”

“That’s it, yeah. Did he?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. If he did, it’d be: ‘Most likely to go to prison’ or ‘most likely to die alone in an alleyway or something’, yeah.”

Damien chuckled, setting the manual on his lap. “He was that much of a troublemaker, huh?”

“Yeah." He didn't know how to cope. Hell, he pushed everyone away until he almost died from his recklessness. "Somehow, he managed to land himself a girlfriend.” Never worked out anyway. Alex and Juna had a thing going on but they were incompatible.

“Really?” Damien raised an eyebrow. “Our Alex? The same one?“

“Actually, that was why he warded off all dating. It didn’t end well. He told me that he'll start looking once he 'figured himself out first', whatever the hell that meant. I mean look, it's good advice but...” Alex doesn’t like talking about his feelings. "Yeah, too bad someone else ruined those plans."

Damien hummed, thinking of the same person.

“Makes me not wanna think about my own love life," she said, laughing at herself. She wished she had Alexander's maturity sometimes, knowing when to take a step back and try to put together your own puzzle. Here she was, having no clue where to get started or how many pieces she had. "What about you?" she asked Damien.

“Me?” He laughed, scratching his arm. “No, no, romance isn’t for me. I have too many problems, and I won’t add another.”

“C’mon, you’re the son of Duskfire. What problems do you have?”

“More than you’d expect. It’s the same sort of uh…” Damien snapped his fingers, experiencing an eureka. “It’s the same sort of memories that you and Alex have of High Home.”

Meaning, he didn’t want to talk about it. “Let’s make new ones then: how the hell do I master [Channel - Lightning]?”

“You can’t do it in one day, but you can get a headstart.” Damien took out a coin and tossed it to Althea. “Condition yourself. Use [Channel - Lightning] on that coin and keep it active constantly. Because it’s small, you won’t have to worry about exhaustion, but drink lots of water just in case.”

Althea held the coin up. It was an American quarter. “Where did you get this from? I haven’t seen a quarter in at least a year.”

“Hush. Do you understand your lesson?” he asked.

“I think. This will teach me how to make my channeling an unconscious effort?”

“Mhm. And you can work your way up using bigger and bigger objects.” Damien stood up, giving Althea her skill manual back. “I’ll check on your progress after lunch. For now, I need to ask an alchemist to make a potion for me.”

“A potion?” She stood up after him. “What’re you trying to do now?”

“Make someone fall in love with me. I heard love potions are all the rage these days,” he cheekily said, having the annoying smile that Alexander hated. “If I catch you wavering, I’ll tell Alexander that you wasted half a million standards.”

“What?!” Althea hovered a hand over the hilt of her dagger. “Repeat that, you jackass!”

“Nope."