I made my way back towards the parlor. I think that’s where Alice and Christina should be.
On the way I noticed that my body didn’t move like it should. It feels similar to when I shared mana with Alice’s teacher.
(Laura, am I low on mana?) I asked.
(You did use a little over half of your mana.) Laura told me. (You also have some of the dark mana still in your body, so that is making your mana movement more sluggish.)
(Is that bad?) I asked. (The having foreign mana in my body part.)
(Your mana is neutral so it’s not a major deal.) Laura said. (The dark mana will leave your body with time. And the amount of dark mana present in your body is small to begin with. You’ll feel better when your mana has fully recovered.)
(How long will it take?) I asked.
(Your mana regeneration should take a few hours and the dark mana will leave your body fully by tomorrow.) Laura told me.
So I’ll be sluggish for a few hours. It took less time to recover after sharing mana with Trystan, so I guess the foreign mana part is a small problem. At least I have no other plans for the day and it is raining outside. I think the rain has actually picked up since we came inside. I can hear it a lot louder now. I didn’t notice it picking up as I was working with Dark Sage on the magic stones. I thought I wasn’t focused on it, but apparently I was.
Before making it, I ran into Jenna. Not literally, you weirdo.
“Jenna.” I called her.
“Lord Brian.” She looked at me and hung her head down. “Is there something you need?”
“Yeah, I wanted to apologize for shouting at you.” I told her. “I’m sorry.”
“I… I’m sorry as well. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” Jenna said back.
“No, you were doing your job. I shouldn’t get angry at you for something like that.” I told her.
“Thank you. But you should get going. The madam and miss are waiting for you.” She reminded me.
“Brian.” Alice called to me as she noticed me.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” I said to the duo enjoying tea.
“It’s fine. I heard you were in the middle of something.” Christina said. “Please, take a seat.”
I did as instructed and took a seat. A bit later there was a cup of tea in front of me.
“What were you doing?” Alice asked.
“I was converting the monster cores into magic stones.” I answered.
“You must have some skill to be able to do that.” Christina commented.
“Well I didn’t do it alone.” I said. “I had help from one of my summons.”
“The red one?” Alice asked.
“Red one?” What red one? Oh, the red robed Dark Magician. “No, not him.”
“How many different summons do you have?” Christina asked.
… that’s a good question. I have a lot. Like hundreds of cards at this point. But not all of them are monsters, so… I guess I could just say how many sleeve and toploader monsters I have. How many would that be?
(Eleven, Master.) Laura answered. (And two more, but they are held by Alice and Lucia. As well as the two that you used as fusion material for St. Joan.)
More than I thought there were. The one held by Alice is Dark Magician Girl and Lucia has Vampire Lady.
“Brian?” Christina called out to me.
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about what you asked.” I told her. “I would say I have eleven summons. But then again, my summoning is not normal, as you should know.”
“I see. So eleven. That’s not as many as I thought you would have.” Christina said.
“Do you know about summoning magic?” I asked her.
“It was a subject at the royal academy. You had to take it if you were taking the magic oriented courses.” She told me. “They want to find all potential summoners.”
“And the easiest way to do that is to put you on a crash course into summoning.” I joked.
So a royal academy. Should I visit it? I could definitely learn something.
… actually, why is Alice not a student at the royal academy? Especially if they have a magic course.
“Why doesn’t Alice attend the royal academy?” I asked.
“... I … “ Alice wanted to answer, but it seems like the words got caught in her throat.
“My husband didn’t allow her to leave the territory.” Christina said. “That’s why he paid good money to get Trystan to teach her magic.”
“I really wanted to go.” Alice finally said. “Even my brother got to go.”
Oh yeah, she has a brother. I think Christina mentioned it, like once.
And of course he would go to school, while Alice is home schooled. In magic only. Or perhaps one of the maids or even Christina teaches her other things.
“May I ask more about the magic stones?” Christina changed the subject.
“Sure, but I’m not an expert.” I told her.
“What do you need magic stones for?” She asked.
“I bought some bracelets that have slots for them. I was making some dark magic stones for them.” I told her.
“Dark magic? I thought you couldn’t use magic.” She commented.
“I can’t.” I responded. “They are not for me. I was planning on giving them to Alice.”
“So you made them for Alice. I see.” Christina muttered, before asking. “But how can you make dark magic stones if you can’t use dark magic?”
“... I told you already. I summoned Dark Sage to help me.” I told her.
“Sage? You can summon a sage?” Christina asked.
“How is that possible?” She kept on the pressure.
“I just can. I don’t know how my skill works.” I lied. I know somewhat how it works, but then again, I don’t know if a sage in a card is the same as a sage in the world. For original chapters go to novelFirｅ.net
“... then what happened to the magic stones?” Christina asked.
“We finished them and my summon applied them to bracelets.” I told her.
“So you finished magic stones that quickly? It normally takes days to do.” Christina said in surprise.
Days? Really? It took us under two hours. Is the technique used by Dark Sage just so much faster?
“Does it really take that long?” I asked. “Or does it only take that long if you use higher ranking cores?”
“The way we were taught to do it took four days.” Christina told me. “And that was with d-rank cores. Higher ranking cores take more time.”
… And I just converted C-rank cores in 2 hours … How do I tell her that?
“Perhaps the technique my summon used is something with a higher level of difficulty. He is called a sage, so he might know something like that.” I offered.
“I suppose that could be it.” Christina admitted. “The sage’s tower doesn’t share the highest level secrets with people who don’t have the appropriate title from them.”
I guess they don’t want people other than sages learning about techniques they consider sage level. I might need to get in contact with them before I spread around high level techniques like that. I wonder what rank they’d give me if I just showed up and was all like ‘Hi. I’m a summoner. Make me a sage.’ I guess that probably wouldn’t be enough. But I might try if I ever wander over to that area. I did promise the guild I would visit the guild headquarters and if I understood it correctly, the sage’s tower is in that area as well.
“Brian.” Alice saw a moment and took part in our conversation. “Show me the bracelets.”
“Sure.” I was going to get them out of my fanny pack, but I left it in my room. “Actually, I left them in my room. Sorry.”
“Jenna, go get them.” Alice ordered the maid.
“Sure. Lord Brian, where are they?” Jenna asked.
“They are in my bag.” I told her. “Just bring the bag over.”
“Yes. Please wait a moment.” Jenna said as she left.
“Is this it?” Jenna came back holding my fanny pack.
“Yes it is.” I told her. “Thank you.”
She handed the bag over to me, gave a small bow and returned to stand-by mode. Or whatever it is called when a maid is just close by ready to serve.
I opened the bag and took out the two bracelets. I placed them on the table.
Christina grabbed one of them and was inspecting it.
“The stone is small, but it has a nice color.” She told me. “I’ve never seen a magic stone with a color this deep. They are usually slightly see-through. But this one isn’t. What rank were the cores you used?”
“I think they were C-rank.” I told her. That’s what Bakula said when he brought them over.
“C-rank? These seem too small to be C-rank. Are you sure they weren’t D-rank?” Christina asked.
“I’m pretty sure he said C-rank.” I told Christina.
“He did.” Alice added. “But they were larger when we bought them.”
“Yeah they shrunk a bit at the final step of the conversion process. I think my summon called it compression or something.” I told them.
“Compression? That wasn’t a step we were taught.” Christina said.
“I guess that just confirms that the technique used by Dark Sage is different.” I concluded and took a sip of my tea. It was already quite cold. But it still tastes good.
“Brian, did you really make these for me?” Alice asked. Her eyes had stars in them, like the stars on the magic stones.
“Yeah, I did. I hope you like them.” I told her.
“Thank you.” Alice got up from her seat and hugged me.
Please don’t tackle me like that.
I received the flying Alice into my embrace. Or would it be into her embracing me?
“Congratulations Alice.” Christina said. “You did it.”