Early Afternoon - Mid Summer : Off the coast of Pal

  -----

  - Kazzaer Aldinn ~

  *Crackle* "Haah..." Puffing a metal cigar loaded with drugs to keep me awake, I scrolled through the system forums.

  It had almost been a week since 'she' appeared, and nothing had been the same since. Every waking mome like I was on crisis trol, and while after meeting her I felt like I could finally rest, the rest of the world wasn't so keen.

  At the time, I was on a flight tal, where the main headquarters of the ISO was, in order to meet with the Upper cil, a group of people that represented many of the few remaining tries in the world, with a handful of exceptions like a, Australia, and Leyfa Askr. For the most part, they were the oo make the decisions on matters that would affect things iionally, such as powerful mohat required the hands of many to face.

  But in my eyes, they were a bunch of old folk who had grown too used to the world's progress.

  "Retly the cil has made some questionable decisions... Is it the Euro group again?"

  Hearing the gentle voice, I looked over to see my wife, Kara, a short but stout demihuman woman with cute little white bear ears. "It is. This time they're discussing how to hahe issue with Evren."

  "It was bound to happen. She's caused quite a fuss."

  Nodding, I looked back at the neuffed my cigar. "I'm just not sure how much I'll be able to y my foot down to keep them from doing something stupid." -I'm only oe, after all...-

  Walking up behind my chair, Kara gently id her arms over my shoulders. "The Queen of the Elves already took her, she evehe eye of Odin. What is there to discuss?"

  My expression quickly darkened just thinking about it. "That's what I'm worried about." The cil had never been on good terms with her or her kingdom, and i years, after she acquired a rge swath of nd that used to be owned by northern Russia and long-since-falleern European Nations, they had been especially hostile.

  Their issue was that she could not be iated with under any circumstanless it involved a clear profit for her. -But it's done more than pay off for her...- After about eighty years, she had established one of the most powerful nations in the world, one eveans of Earth had to pay mind.

  But politis and adventurers were not the same. "With her being in the Queen's custody, I expect most of them to back off. She isn't a figure they be." -She even broke the Eye of Odin and didn't seem to care in the slightest...-

  Over the st few days, I had been in tact with the Sergeant Major, and after hearing what happe the Archive, I could only scoff. -People don't realize how much of a mohe Queen is...- Thinking back to the day we first ever met, a day I was meant to discuss her future cooperation with the ISO, I felt a chill pass down my spine.

  She was a beih was not meant to tain; a bei to travel the stars forever. "I just don't know who's scarier..." Speaking with a slightly pale face, I leaned ba my chair and looked up at Kara's beautiful face.

  "Was she really that oppressive?"

  Wing slightly, I closed my eyes and tried to get my hands to stop shaking. "She gave me a dwarveing, but when she gripped my hand back, even though I could tell she was trying to be as gentle as possible, it broke my hand..." Pausing, I looked down at the red line across the ter of my hand. "I think the curreimate of level ohousand is too servative..."

  Her level was one I couldn't put a number on. It was something simply outside the realm of what my mind could prehend.

  The moment our hands touched, I felt like I was standing on the surface of an endless o of mana, but instead of standing on a small isnd, it felt like I was standing on a mountain of corpses...

  Ohat reached far beyond the sky.

  *Rub* Quickly trying to ease my nerves, Kara pulled me into her. "If its not pleasant to think about, just don't. You've met her, so trust yut." Smiling warmly, she gently motioned my head up. "If she's that strong, it wouldn't hurt to make her an ally, right?"

  Snapping out of my thoughts, I closed my eyes before firming my gaze. "Haah... Right..." Looking up at the s dispying the news, I felt my chest tighten. -Regardless of how this meeting goes, I o ensure she is my ally...-

  Because as things were, the safest p the world was wherever she happeo be. -And right now, I 't risk Kara being put in danger...-

  Opening my system with a wave, I stared at a message panel with a cold gaze.

  It was a message from a fn administrator... A god not from this world...

  Fn System Message:My Child,

  Earth's Rank has risen rapidly. A disaster on a scale you ot fathom is ing, and you must begin preparing for it.

  If you wish to return home, do not Dally

  If this request is pleted, you will be granted:

  1 [Divine Wish] Or 1 [Transportation Ticket]

  -----Early Afternoon - Mid Summer : Terra (The City) | Leyfa Askr

  - Evreir ~

  *Tap-CRRRACK* Parrying a huge spike of ice hurtling toward my chest, I shattered it before looking through the cloud of snow to find an arrow made of fire zipping toward my face. -It definitely feels slower than st time...-

  Catg it with the bay hand, I used my aura to blow it apart before creating a thin vacuum to direct the bst into the ground. *BANG-FWOOSH* -But this one is going to be the challenge...-

  Heightening my sehe detail of the image painted by my aura grew by many magnitudes before a thin needle-like object closed in on the bay head faster than I'd be able to normally react to. -Got you!-

  *Crackle-VWOOM* Catg the thial dart with my aura, I directed the bzing psma following it around me, enpassing myself in the massive plume of light before whipping around and catg a fist as it pierced the e of light. *POP-CRRRRACK*

  *WOOSH* Dissipating the psma, I looked into Eve's thinned, focused pupils before using tless ns of aura to push up against the atmosphere, gluing my feet to the ground while trapping Eve mid-stride.

  "PHO-" The stop was so abrupt it knocked her breath out.

  But it was all a part of training.

  *Vwoom* Quickly letting her go after the fme in her eyes dissipated, she nearly colpsed to the ground. "Oh my lord... Hah... Your aura.. is ridiculous..." She could barely speak through her heavy breaths. "Is your head seriously.. not hurting from 'mana strain' anymore..? Just what kind of monster are you?"

  At the time, I was in the middle of sparring with Eve in an effort to get better with my aura. "After pushing through the pain, it seemed to go away. Is that not normal?" Helping her keep her bance, I felt a bit of guilt loom over my head.

  "No, Auntie... It's not..." Nearly falling to the ground, she grabbed my shoulder with her bruised wrist before looking up at the bright full moon overhead aing out a heavy breath. "Haah, I've never even heard of someone pushing past mana strain before... I have to wonder if it's because of that insane healing of yours..."

  "Yeah.. I'm not sure..." -Whatever it is.. I'm thankful for it...- It had been about four days since we left the mao do some hands-on training at that point, and while I was hoping the sparring would push me hard enough for the pain Eve called 'mana strain' to ki, after the first few hours, the pain seemed to go away. "I also expected to be dragged to another world by now, so I kept pushing to try and reach a point where I could learn that reinfort magic you were talking about." -But it looks like she's reag her limit...-

  "I told you already..." Slowly l her gaze to me as she pushed me away, she seemed both taken abad annoyed. "Given how iive to mana you are, it will take time before you reach that point... Unless you have the trol for it, you won't be able to evehe affects of the teique even if you do it right. Right now you have a literal o of mana in your reserve, but you only pull mana out a coffee cup at a time."

  "Okay, so how do I go about fixing that?"

  Pausing, she pulled herself away from me before fixing her hair. "Typically it's doh mana chambers, it's why I brought you to the mana well..." Pausing to think, she started slowly pag around, filling the air with the sound of g ash. "But I'm thinking that, because you have so much mana, we should focus oing you to feel your own mana." Looking back at me, I could see the tless thoughts ripping through her mind.

  But I found myself getting lost in thought before she could speak.

  The thing was, she was exactly right. While I could certainly feel my mana, if I tried to actually pull any out to use, using my old upgrades and skills as a guide, I couldn't even tell if it worked. It was like trying to track a grain of sand in an o current.

  But after some time to think, Eve spoke up again. "Evren, e sit here, I want to try a different approach to this." *Fwip-THWACK* Cutting a massive tree trunk at its base, she quickly kicked the top off to reveal a wide, tree stump before motionio sit.

  -What's she up to now..?- Curiously walking up, I hopped up onto the stump and sat down, following her instrus to sit criss-cross, straighten my back, and y eyes.

  "Okay, I want you to limit all of your senses now, especially your aura. I want you to pletely ignore everything but my voice."

  "Alr-"

  "Don't speak either. Just focus."

  "Hooh..." -Okay then...- Letting out a trolled breath, I did what I could to hide the image my aura painted in my mind, and silence most of my ihoughts.

  "Now, your reserve, I want you to feel it, and rey an image of it to your mind. As if you were reading the mana in it like your aura."

  -A..Alright...- ly sure how to do that, I moved my focus down into my abdomen where I could feel a rge, tight spherical area, and did what I could to ighe powerful energy rushing from it like water flowing out of a spring.

  But no matter how much I tried to visualize it, I couldn't.

  I didn't know how.

  But Eve's softly spoken voice found its way into my mind anyway. "Your reserve is a star. A mass of energy stantly radiating a small amount of itself while abs more energy from its surroundings."

  Almost immediately, the view of a bright e star appeared in my mind.

  "The energy this star radiates is the same it tains, however, the energy i is chaotic."

  Watg the surface of the star in my mind lose it's uniformity, I found myself slowly gettiranced.

  "The energy has no uniformity, and is still with the exception of the currents that flow beh its surface... But now, I want you to spin it."

  *VWOOM* The air instantly turned heavy as my aura thied and the chaotic surface of the star in my mind smeared and swirled.

  "What dire is it spinning?"

  -Left...-

  "Now.. imagine cupping your hand, and stig it into the fastest moving part of the star's surface."

  *Crackle* Almost immediately, energy scraped off the surface of the star funneled up my hand and flowed into the air.

  Speaking through a smile, Eve tinued so softly I almost couldn't hear her over my own thoughts. "Now increase the size of that hand, and stick it deeper into the star."

  *Vwoom* The plume of energy being pulled out of the star instantly grew by tless magnitudes before eventually, a chill passed down my spine, and a cold but also warm area appeared in my abdomen. -Is that.. my mana..?-

  Grabbing hold of it like I would my aura, I opened my eyes and brought it out in front of me. *Vwoom*

  It was beautiful, a cloud of blue and green so dehat almost seemed to glimmer in the moonlight as I swirled it around my hand like a snake coiling around a tree.

  But pared to the mana in my reserve it was like I had just taken a bucketful out of an o. -It's still an improvement though...-

  It was simply the first step of many I would o take in order to properly utilize my mana.

  However, while it would certainly take a while for me to learn to run, before long, I felt like I could walk...

  Albeit like a baby who just learned.

  *Tap* Pressing the tip of my fingers against a tree, I drew out a thick cloud of mana, funneling it into my arm before pulling back a finger, visualizing the mana I drew out ging to the muscle fibers in my hand and causing a teo spread through my arm.

  Then... *Flick-CRRRRACKKK* Flig the tree trunk, it was almost instantaneously eviscerated, sending a shower of wooden shards through the forest, ripping the bark of other trees before the opy above me came crashing down. *WooOOSH-THUMP*

  -Woah...- As the upper half of the tree finally fell to the ground, I couldn't help but look on with a smile.

  "Hooh..." With a quick breath to ease my he tenseness in my arm disappeared, and a tingling feeling repced it. "That felt.. really good actually..."

  Even if I still had a long way to go, I felt a sense of passion and pride I thought I had lost.

  And with it, the fme of curiosity grew.

  -----

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