After the fiasco with an invisible watcher, I've made it a habit to send out a pulse of fire mana every ten or so minutes, just to be safe. I tried doing it with pure mana at first, just to see, and what happened was interesting, to say the least.

My mana shot out in all directions like a slow, viscous liquid, colored a deep shade of red. Needless to say, it's fucking exhausting to do and a huge waste of mana and time. Interestingly enough, it almost seemed as if I could feel the stuff my mana touched, but that's hardly worth pursuing.

A spell that mana hungry, slow, and obvious is pretty useless as an anti-invisibility spell, let alone something as dumb as a sensory spell. I'd be able to see whatever my mana touched long before the mana would reach it.

Sitting down in the middle of my room, right after my most recent flash of fire, it's time to meditate.

Taking inspiration from Nezu, I close my eyes and begin to turn my focus inward, attempting to follow the small channels and alleyways of mana back to their source. In this last month, a total of two now since my parents vanished, I've been able to roughly outline where my mana comes from, and a good amount of the pathways it seems to flow through.

Using this knowledge in my endless fight against boredom, I've been able to enter a pseudo-meditative, in which I can hear a little better, see a little better, and even react a little faster all just due to forcing my mana to cycle through my system a little faster. If I could ya know, move much, whilst focusing this hard on my mana flow, it could actually be pretty useful as a technique.

According to Nezu and Rolia, Jin and Mary are slated to warp back home tonight, something about needing to plan and prepare a funeral is what kept them away for so long.

Poor... Tristan? Couldn't tell ya the name, but rip in peace to that guy.

As the hours passed by, and the sun by now had fully set, my parents still have yet to return. At this point I've taken to meditating, to help me expand my mana pool by constantly dispersing it through my whole body. Might as well, since I don't wanna be asleep when they finally get home. Besides, my apparent rate of mana generation can keep up with a bit of an increase in mana cycling.

Kinda hurts my chest after a while though, so I hope they get back soon.

After countless hours, I'd guess in our time it would be around 3:15 A.M, whilst Nezu and Rolia are staunchly asleep, I hear a commotion outside the door. A familiar yet cringe-inducing sound, the sound of a lock being unlocked by an amateur artist.

Instantly I sit up and erase my presence, a habit I've still never dropped over the years, and sleuth out of my door and into the living room. Jin and Mary obviously wouldn't be making this commotion, and I'm really curious how strong my barriers have gotten, so a random burglar is pretty much perfect practice.

Sure, I can think of about eight ways this plan could fail, but it's better than being helpless. Worst case scenario, I cover myself in a dome barrier or fling myself to safety.

Throwing the door open was a man in full black garb. Yep, suspicious.

As soon as he sees me, he takes off his mask and tries to say something, but it was already too late. I cast my barrier, adding the condition that nothing is able to get out, as my mana pool drains to nearly half. Fuck, I forgot I had no idea how much adding a condition would cost. Whatever, not taking any chances.

Surrounding him in a thick cyan bubble. It looks as if he's trying to say something, interesting, my barrier seems to block sound from getting out. Cool, so everything means everything.

Suddenly, I feel a harsh impact on my very being, as a loud sound similar to loud banging from the far side of my barrier rings out.

"NEZU! ROLIA! HELP!" I scream at the top of my lungs, casting Catapult to fling myself backward toward perceived safety. He's not alone.

Mid-flight I glance out my front window, and to the outside of my barrier, I saw a woman with fiery hair viciously swinging her flaming sword at my barrier. My mother.

Before I could even dispel my barrier, she put what looked to be a bit of purple energy into her swing, and my barrier shattered. A deep pain spread throughout my entire body as if my soul itself was being rattled. That shit hurt.

The man surrounded by the barrier looks to have been passed out on the ground, wait, did my barriers also block oxygen? I wasn't trying to kill him! Just contain him! I have to fix that before I have to use that again.

Flying into my house, and by flying I mean literally quickly floating into my house, was none other than my father. Looking around, we immediately locked eyes, before a look of sheer pride and confusion spread across his face.

"Did you do that? How did you do that type of barrier? Is that a custom barrier spell you made all on your own?" He said in a fake stern voice. Gently floating next to my now frozen-stiff body, he ruffles my hair. "That's my little genius, but you didn't have to do that to old Gary, he was just traveling with us and wanted to introduce himself! Said he was a friend of Nezu's from back in his Rogue Rat days."

He said as he gestured towards the now conscious man in black. "But first, you have to show me a demonstration of what you can do! If I'm impressed enough, I may get you something from the market to help you train more~" He says enthusiastically, with a teasing tone towards the end.

Why brain? Why must you be foolish at the worst times? Now I'm gonna have to show him something impressive enough to get him off my back, but lame enough that I'll still be left alone long enough to read.