“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” After Ethan’s Organic mana made its way into her brain, Samantha jerked awake with a scream. Alice took a step backwards as Samantha wildly thrashed around, and for a moment Alice was afraid that Samantha would fling herself off of the cot Ethan had placed her on and hurt herself. As Alice tried to figure out how to calm Samantha down, Samantha leapt off the cot and charged towards the door at top speed.

Ethan’s body lit up with rainbow mana, before a Perk enveloped the room. Suddenly, Alice felt an extraordinary sense of calm settle inside of her thoughts. It didn’t make her feel sleepy, or dull any of her mental faculties – however, it removed most of her emotions from her thoughts, allowing her to think calmly and clearly. Alice felt very strange after Ethan’s Perk was used – she could see how useful it was, but she also wasn’t sure if she liked having her emotions suddenly cut out of her thoughts like this. Even if she loved being able to think clearly, this felt oddly detached from the experience of being human. After a few moments of thought, Alice used {The Science of Mana Deprivation} to cut off Ethan’s Perk, isolating herself from the strange emotionless state.

Samantha’s reaction was far more noticeable than Alice’s mild discomfort. Her incredible panic disappeared completely, replaced with near total calmness in the span of a second. Her frantic flight quickly wound down, as she took another good look at Ethan and Alice. Then, she stopped moving, instead opting to eye both of them warily.

Influenced by Ethan’s calming Perk, Samantha’s eyes contained a trace of clarity and sanity again. However, Alice realized that Ethan’s Perk didn’t cut off emotions quite as cleanly as she had assumed. Samantha was clearly at least somewhat lucid again, but she still incredibly jittery, even after seeing Alice and realizing that her circumstances had changed. Her eyes were still wide and filled with panic, and although she had calmed down a bit, she still looked like she might spring into motion and flee again at any moment. However, as she looked at Alice, she finally managed to croak out a word.

“Alice?” She asked. Her voice had taken on a soft, pleading tone now, in stark contrast to the terror from earlier. Samantha sounded as if she didn’t quite believe in Alice’s existence.

Alice did her best to give Samantha a reassuring smile. “You’re safe now. We rescued you from the Society – you’re back in Metsel, in a property owned by my new mentor.”

Samantha’s eyes widened, as she seemed to realize she wasn’t dreaming. She reached out with one of her arms, before patting herself on the back. She shivered, before she started frantically clawing at her back, pressing her fingers against a certain spot near her spine over and over again. Then, with a manic fervor akin to someone drowning, she clawed at her heart.

“Is it… is it really over?” Samantha finally asked.

“It’s really over. You’re safe now, and we’ll make sure the Society can’t hurt you again,” said Ethan, giving Samantha a gentle smile. Unlike Alice, his words were reinforced by a Perk, but Samantha seemed to find Alice’s words and presence more reassuring than Ethan’s. She turned back to Alice.

“Am I really back in Metsel?”

Alice nodded. “You’re really back.”

Samantha shivered a bit more, but her fear was still heavily reduced by Ethan’s Perk, preventing her from falling into another full-blown panic attack. “Did you – how did you… I mean, what happened?”

“A lot happened in the past few days,” said Alice. “For one, the Immortal of Spells and Seeds has taken an interest in your wellbeing, which is a big part of the reason you were successfully rescued. A small army was put together to rescue you, as well as to deliver a heavy blow to the Society and inflict heavy damage on them. We succeeded in storming the Society base, where we rescued all of the prisoners in the base, including you, and dealt with all of the Society members we could find. It has been a few hours since then, and Honored Immortal and I just woke you up,” said Alice.

“Is… is that so,” said Samantha, still faintly trembling and jerking around from time to time, but finally starting to relax. She closed her eyes for a moment, before she suddenly snapped to attention. “Honored Immortal?” Samantha’s eyes widened as she gave Ethan another look.

Alice nodded again. “I would like to introduce you to my new mentor, the Immortal of Spells and Seeds. He helped me rescue you from the Society base, and was largely responsible for putting together the small army that made the rescue possible.”

Samantha finally stopped rubbing her spine and checking it for injuries, and then tried her best to perform a very clumsy, half-baked curtsy.

“Thank you for saving my life, honored Immortal,” she said. “I apologize for not recognizing you earlier – I’ve heard a lot of stories, but I don’t know what Immortals look like.” She paused for a moment, before glancing at Alice. “And… congratulations to you.”

Ethan simply nodded at her, maintaining his relaxed and reassuring smile. Now that Samantha had more time to process the situation, and had realized she was in the presence of an Immortal, she seemed to have calmed down much more. The traces of panic in her eyes started to completely fade away, and she no longer looked ready to bolt for the door the moment she saw an opportunity. After a few more moments, she calmed down enough to walk back towards the cot Ethan had originally placed her own. She sat down on the cot, and then took several deep breaths, slowly working to calm herself down more and more. Neither Alice nor Ethan interrupted her while Samantha slowly worked through what she had seen and experienced in the past few days, as well as the fact that she was suddenly free again. Then, finally, she opened her eyes and looked at Ethan again.

“Thank you for your assistance, Honored Immortal. I think I am able to react calmly, even without the calming Perk now. Would you be willing to remove it from me?”

Ethan thought about Samantha’s request for a moment, before he nodded. Alice noticed the rainbow mana in the room quickly disperse. She stopped using {The Science of Mana Deprivation}, and then carefully observed Samantha to see if anything went wrong.

Samantha’s hand started trembling after Ethan’s Perk disappeared. Alice began readying herself to stop Samantha if she made another charge for the door, but after a few moments of trembling and shivering, Samantha started to calm down again. After a few minutes, Samantha finally had her actions back under control. Then, she started to speak again.

“Why isn’t – ah. I don’t mean to be ungrateful, and I really, really want to thank you for saving me. But why is my Mage core still gone? Do you not have a way to regrow it, or is it a matter of medical expenses, or… I can definitely borrow some money if you want payment or something, but I just don’t understand…” Samantha trailed off, her expression and phrasing increasingly awkward as she tried to figure out how to phrase her question in a way that didn’t sound like she was questioning an Immortal. Ethan didn’t seem to particularly care, possibly because he was treating her as a patient right now, but Samantha certainly seemed unsure how to handle the situation.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Alice, turning to Ethan. If she wanted to permanently treat Samantha, she would need to use her ability to destroy magic seeds, but this ability would definitely hint to the Society that something was wrong with Alice’s Perks. Even though the Perk was completely useless in combat, Alice was incredibly afraid to expose it, since it hinted at Alice getting some rather unusual Achievements behind the scenes. But she also needed permission for it to work, meaning Samantha would at least need to understand what was about to happen and then consciously consent to it. Ethan, seeing Alice hesitate, took over the conversation, following the general ideas the two had discussed while walking back to Metsel.

“One of the reasons the Society targeted you is because there are a few rather interesting abnormalities in your Mage Core. We haven’t gone over their research documents fully yet, but we have a pretty good guess why they targeted you in the first place,” said Ethan, completely neglecting to mention the fact that they hadn’t read the Society research documents at all yet. As long as he implied that the reason they knew about Samantha’s abnormalities was because of the Society’s research documents, Samantha would have far fewer questions, and Ethan’s statements would still pass a lie detection Perk as long as he didn’t explicitly lie. “Now, I have the ability to access a rather interesting and unique mixture of Perks and Achievements. Combined, these can remove the abnormality in your mage core permanently. This should prevent the Society from becoming interested in you after this. But we also need patient consent, or the Achievement just flat out won’t work,” said Ethan. “Adding on to this, were you getting increasingly sick for the week or so before the Society kidnapped you?”

Samantha nodded, before Ethan continued. “The abnormality in your mage core is the cause of that illness, and if the abnormality isn’t removed, it will continue to grow worse until you eventually die. For this reason, I think removing it would be the most beneficial course of action for you, both for the sake of your safety now and in the future. Of course, you can also simply refuse to have your mage core regenerated, or you could also try another solution if you feel that you would rather try something else. While I strongly advise you to consent to having your kinetic magic seed removed, it’s still ultimately your choice. What would you like to do?”

Samantha fell deep into thought for a few moments, before she frowned. “The reason I was getting sick was because of my Mage Core?”

“Well, not directly…” Ethan frowned, and Alice took over. She was the one who had been studying Mana, the System, and abnormalities in the most detail, so she had a much better understanding of the issues at hand than Ethan right now. Even if it was a little bit awkward for Alice to interject here as Ethan’s apprentice, Alice felt that it was important to give Samantha a clear understanding of the benefits and costs she would be paying by accepting Alice’s Perk usage.

“So, the most specific reason you were getting sick is actually because of your magic seed,” said Alice. “You made some sort of mistake while forming your kinetic magic seed, and as a result, it has caused you to become more and more ill over time. The Society seems to have targeted you because of this. Recently, they’ve been attracted to all sorts of abnormalities that are appearing, and since you had a problematic and easily noticed abnormality in your body, the Society explicitly targeted you in order to learn more. The idea of the Perk in question is to remove the problematic magic seed from your mage core, allowing you to either form your kinetic magic seed again, or form a different seed entirely, if that’s what you would prefer. Either way, without the messed up kinetic seed inside of your body, you should not only be free from the illness that has plagued you for the past week and a half, but also be free from further interference from the Society… hopefully,” Said Alice. She wasn’t entirely sure how the Society would react to Samantha suddenly losing all of her previous signs of being ill, but after they confirmed that Samantha no longer had a broken kinetic seed, they would hopefully leave her alone and redirect their attention towards Ethan, the apparent cause of Samantha’s recovery.

Samantha frowned.

“Why would I have a broken Kinetic Seed, though? I just made my kinetic seed the same way I’ve been told to form magic seeds. For that matter, I made it basically the same way I made my original organic seed. What caused my kinetic seed to come out broken?”

Alice frowned, trying to figure out whether there was any way she could broach the topic without discussing System mana and the mechanics behind the ‘god’ of one of the two major religions on this planet. After a moment, she sighed, and shook her head. She had no good way to explain why Samantha’s ‘normal’ process of forming a magic seed had gone so horribly wrong, at least not without putting herself in danger.

“Perhaps the Society knows. We haven’t finished looking through their documents yet, so it will be interesting to see their thoughts on the matter,” said Alice, avoiding directly answering the question.

Samantha, however, was falling even more deeply into thought. “I really can’t think of a single thing I did while forming my kinetic seed that would have led to a weird outcome. I mean, I did have a few Perks invested into my Organic seed, and I definitely wasn’t planning on working with a kinetic seed until I started running into walls while messing with my organic seed, but I still don’t really understand why I would have a malformed kinetic seed. It’s really weird…” Now that Samantha’s fear had started to disappear, her tendency to ramble was reasserting itself.

Alice tuned the girl out, trying to figure out a good way to convince the girl to accept the usage of the {Broken Seed} Perk, before turning to Ethan for help.

Ethan, catching her glance, turned to Samantha, and cleared his throat. Even Samantha’s chatterbox tendencies disappeared when faced with an Immortal, leaving her awkwardly sitting on the cot and realizing she had started going off on a tangent.

“While we may not know the exact reason you formed a strange Kinetic Seed, Lady Samantha, it is still a fact that you seem to have one such broken seed. Would you be willing to consent to a Perk breaking down the flawed seed? It would be best if you were unconscious during the process, but since we need consent for the Perk to work, we woke you up first. Are you willing to lose your kinetic seed?”

Samantha only hesitated for a moment, before she furiously nodded.

“If it can erase the Society from my life, and doing this will make me no longer sick, I can lose my kinetic seed. Will it be dangerous if I reform it afterwards?”

“It shouldn’t be, but we aren’t entirely sure yet, so it’s up to you if you want to risk forming another kinetic seed,” said Alice.

Ethan smiled at Samantha, redirecting her attention to him. “Good. Now that we’ve obtained your consent, I’m going to put you back to sleep. Just stay calm. When you wake up, you’ll be safe, and all of this will hopefully be behind you…” Samantha laid down on the cot, taking a moment to get comfortable, before Ethan placed his finger on her forehead. A burst of Organic Mana made its way to her brain, and five seconds later Samantha was asleep. Then, Ethan quickly used a combination of Perks and organic mana to regrow Samantha’s mage core. With her mage core regrown, and her broken kinetic seed back inside of her body, Samantha’s complexion began to rapidly get worse and worse, as signs of her previous illness flooded back into her body.

“It’s your turn, Lady Alice,” said Ethan.

Alice quickly stepped up to Samantha and activated {Broken Seed}. Since Samantha had given Ethan and Alice permission to break down her Kinetic Seed, {Broken Seed} didn’t encounter any problems. Rainbow mana surged out of Alice’s body, before it wormed its way into Samantha’s mana core and shattered her kinetic seed. The signs of Samantha’s illness, which had been spreading throughout her body, rapidly disappeared again.

“How interesting,” said Ethan, watching as Samantha’s body regained its former vitality and shrugged off its sickly complexion. “I can’t see magic seeds at all, but I can still see the effects of adding or removing a broken magic seed so easily. And yet, I can’t figure out what’s happening behind the scenes at all.”

He turned towards Alice, before giving her a nod. “Well done. Even if I don’t have the ability to see what’s happening, this is still quite fascinating. I can see her getting better, even if I don’t have the ability to observe the cause.” he trailed off, before giving Samantha another glance. “Do you want to be around when I wake her up again?”

Alice frowned, thinking for a moment, before she shrugged. “I think it’s best if I’m not in the room when she wakes up. The fact that I’ve managed to apprentice myself to an Immortal should be surprising for her, but not a cause for her or anyone else to raise eyebrows. People who are familiar with me already know that I have a couple high rarity Achievements, and that I’ve done a few interesting things with research. I even published a research paper through my magic academy’s library, so people might think I caught your attention with that, and although it does slightly clash with my current image of a battle specialist, my display during the fight at the Society base should make people think I’m at least reasonably battle-oriented. However, if I’m seen as being too actively involved in the healing process, the Society might catch on to the fact that something is wrong with me, since there are already a few points of oddity they could pick up on. Even if that might still happen eventually, it’s best that it happens as late as possible, so I have as much time to grow as possible.”

Ethan nodded. “Well reasoned! I was worried you might want to stick around and show off, and I was prepared to give you a lecture if you asked to stick around. At least you’ve got your head screwed on properly. Since Samantha knows you’ve become an apprentice of mine, go shuffle some papers around in one of the other rooms – I’ll crack the door open so that Samantha can catch a glimpse of you doing all of the boring and mundane work I’m ‘too busy and important to deal with.’ It’ll make it look like you’ve been dealing with paperwork since shortly after I healed her, and it should also cause Samantha to dismiss your presence in this incident. If all goes well, Samantha won’t suspect a thing. I’ll wake her up in a few minutes and get one of the [Maids] to escort her out of the building, and I’ll make sure she catches a glimpse of you working hard on her way out.”

“Thank you for your assistance, Honored Immortal,” said Alice, taking a stack of documents they had taken from the Society Base. Ethan pointed out a room for Alice to occupy, before he ‘set the scene’ by cracking the door open with a mana tendril. Alice quickly pulled over a chair from the corner of the room, before she started shuffling through the Society documents they had taken from the base.

Alice began seriously reading through the documents. Even though a large part of the reason she was going through the documents was to fool Samantha, Alice was genuinely curious to know what the Society had been learning about and researching. With the help of {Super Speed Reading}, Alice was able to process the documents at an incredible speed, allowing her to read and analyze information far more quickly than before.

However, as Alice read through the documents, she began to frown.

The documents she was reading through were a great deal more concerning than she had thought they would be. After reading through the notes she had procured from the Society group she had fought during the hunting expedition, Alice had been prepared for a wide variety of things. Horrifying human experiments, for example, or records of all sorts of other atrocities. Perhaps records of modifying and selling slaves to the Sigmusi Empire. However, what she found inside of the documents was rather different.

It was a record of various phenomena the Society of Starry Eyes was concerned about. It detailed three separate types of occurrence, and requested that any operatives take whatever measures they could to find out more about them.

First, the phenomenon of children below the age of six acquiring classes for unknown reasons well before the time they should have access to the System.

Second, the increasingly frequent occurrence of people forming broken magic seeds, leading to illness and eventual death, along with all sorts of other bizarre medical and magical health problems.

And third, the thirteen recent cases of random outbursts of dimensional broken mana. Most of them had occurred away from human civilization, making them relatively unknown so far, but Alice quickly noticed that the Society was extremely meticulous about cataloguing each and every instance of broken dimensional mana suddenly flooding an area. And the outbursts of dimensional mana were getting increasingly frequent. The Society’s first records indicated that the dimensional mana outbreaks had mostly occurred in areas with higher mana density, but as time passed, they were starting to become both more frequent, and appear in lower and lower mana densities.

Alice felt a prickling suspicion when she looked over the Society’s records of dimensional mana outbreaks. A flood of strange dimensional mana sounded a lot like what she had experienced when she had been dragged into this world. And even though she didn’t know exactly what these occurrences meant, by looking at the Society’s documents, and then combining it with her own experiences and investigations, Alice was becoming increasingly aware of one fact.

Something was going very, very wrong in this world behind the scenes. And it was getting worse by the month.