“What is going on here?” Balthazar had made his way into the room before Ajax had a chance to answer the headmaster’s question. “I felt some weird mana coming out of here, I thought you knew better than to experiment on the premises, Manashaper, let alone with students nearby.”

“That wasn’t me.” Manashaper waved the former headmaster of the academy off without taking his eyes off Ajax. “More importantly I have no idea what that was, I am hoping you are willing to share something regarding it and aren’t just here to show off.”

Despite the annoyed sounding words the headmaster's tone still gave away his excitement.

“You didn’t bring this to me?” Balthazar asked, a little taken aback by the development.

“It wasn’t a good fit for you.” Ajax said. “Not only that but what is needed for this is advanced magic theory.”

“And what do you think I can provide?” Balthazar sounded a little offended.

“You have a vast experience but for anything than isn’t based off of Vitality you simply don’t have the stats to match up to that experience.” Ajax said honestly. “You are who I would go to if I was ever starting the first few steps into a known field, like I did with curses. You have the experience and the skill to help a novice but this requires more advanced knowledge.”

At this Ajax lightly tossed the coin towards Balthazar before releasing two more light bursts of magnetic mana, the first stopped the forward momentum of the coin and the second drew it threw it back towards his palm. This time he made sure to keep a good hold on the candle stand so that it wouldn’t fall.

“If this is something that can be researched beyond just my ability to use I would have invited you as well.” Ajax reassured the old librarian.

“What do you mean beyond just your ability to use?” Lexi asked. “What even is that? I never felt that kind of mana before.”

“It’s called magnetic mana.” Ajax said, the odd looks he was given at that let him know he should add some context. “It’s what the affinity skill called it anyway.”

“A new mana type?” the headmaster muttered his eyes wide. “That great where did you find it? Was it from a monster inside the dungeon? Did he use chants, or maybe runes? Please tell me it was humanoid.”

Ajax was quickly overwhelmed by the barrage of questions but he did his best to answer them. “Yes, it’s a new mana type. No it wasn’t from the dungeon. It was a humanoid. And the chants and runes question is why I came to you.”

“Where did you find a humanoid monster that has this kind of magic outside the dungeon?” Both Balthazar and Manashaper dropped their curiosity in the new mana type and focused on the possible threat to the kingdom.

“I never said it was a monster.” Ajax shot back.

“What?” Manashaper looked confused. “Then how?”

Ajax let out a long sigh and conjured metal mana in his right hand and lightning mana in his left. When he put his hands together a pulse of magnetic mana stronger than any before was released and a number of metal pieces around the office fell off their shelves.

“This is another reason I didn’t bring this to you.” Ajax said as he looked towards Balthazar. “I remember you saying that you don’t have Lightning mana affinity.”

“A weird interaction.” the headmaster said as he looked at the objects that fell around his office. “Only metallic objects were affected yet not all of them equally, proximity seems to be a factor but it's not the only one.”

“As far as I can tell there are three factors that determine how reactive a metal is to this mana.” Ajax said. “Distance, the metal itself and how much mana it contains.”

“What is the best metal you found and which one is the worst?” the headmaster asked.

“Iron is the best and gold is the worst, the higher the mana infused in the metal the more powerful the attraction.” Ajax said. “I didn’t do all that many tests with highly concentrated mana.”

“That’s why you’re coming out with it.” Anna spoke for the first time since Ajax revealed the new mana type. “It's not just for the recognition and for their expertise, you need funding to really look into it.”

Ajax chose not to say anything to that. Sure he had a few other reasons but he couldn’t disclose those without also hinting at his void affinity that he was hoping to keep truly secret.

“Well you certainly made the right decision coming to me.” the headmaster said as he nodded at Anna’s reasoning. “With the absence of runes or chants others might not be so willing to sink too much money into it. But Duke Young is right, this is not the right place to look into this.”

At that the headmaster covered his mouth and all Ajax and everyone else could hear was the muffle whisper of what had to be a long cast. A short minute later Ajax saw a clone of the headmaster appear next to him and this time it was his turn to be shocked.

“There now we can go.” the headmaster started to herd everyone out of his office.

“How did you do that?” Ajax asked as they were all leaving.

“I”m sorry to say that it isn’t as impressive as it may look.” the headmaster said. “That is a combination of Illusion magic with a little Life magic to give it some sentience. The projection isn’t capable of exerting more force than a person with twenty in their physical stats, not only that but it is also bound to the room and unable to leave until the mana eventually runs out and it will disappear.”

“Without the affinity for life magic that clone won’t have the mental faculties to do anything more than tidy up the office and maybe grade some multiple choice tests or such boring activities.” Balthazar also jumped in.

That extra information flipped Ajax’s entire thought process when it came to Life mana. Previously he had thought the mana type was lifestyle focused one as it came with the ability to create and raise crops but with the idea of granting even basic and temporary sentience to a construct he realized that it truly did deserve its Legendary rating.

From there the odd group of five made their way to a secluded area where they could more thoroughly test the new mana type. Unfortunately despite testing the mana type until Ajax was almost out of mana they had made little progress in terms of anything besides some more concrete numbers on its effectiveness.

“You’re definitely right.” The headmaster said at the end. “This mana type will definitely prove to be a mage’s go to spell when dealing with a surprise assassin, since we usually wear so little to no metal at all. Unfortunately it will be useless until we can learn a few chants for it.”

“I think there is a way it could be useful now?” Ajax pressed.

“Sometimes I forget just how young you are.” the headmaster said with a laugh that the old librarian shared. “It's when your impatience like that shows up that reassures me of your age. Sure you can use the mana type by combining metal and lightning mana but unlike you other mages can’t cast two spells at the same time.”

“If there is only one mage, sure.” Ajax admitted. “But what if there are two mages? I remember Lexi and Anna combining their air and fire magic back during the mock war, since the two mana types react so well together wouldn’t it just take both of them being put together for it to appear. I thought that this would actually be easier since magnetic mana is much more stable than a combination of air and fire.”

The laughter of the two dukes died off at that, not only that but both Anna and Lexi perked up and came close from the edges of the room where they stood to watch the testing.

“We can try it.” Lexi said with excitement.

“I think some more testing would be best before we try something like that.” the duke's concern for his granddaughter showed up.

“Well there won’t be any more from Ajax, he’s run through his mana reserves.” Anna said. “Besides we know that magnetic mana isn’t harmful so as long as we start off with a small amount we should be fine.”

It took a few more minutes before Lexi and Anna were able to convince the headmaster that letting them try wouldn’t be dangerous. The girls did make a few mistakes when they first tried generating the mana, the main issue they had was that they generated too much lightning mana and not enough metal resulting in stray small bolts striking them after they generated the mana.