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Leo

Leo contemplated what to experiment with next, trying to think of something that wouldn't seem too destructively overpowered. So he figured that he should attempt something defensive, or maybe just general utility.

“Hey Allis, how do you cast a mana shield?” Leo asked curiously as he molded around his mana.

“A simplified explanation would be that you direct your mana just outside of your body, and think of a dense material to form it.” Allis explained while giving a demonstration around her hand.

Leo arched a brow at the thick, mostly translucent, gold tinted shield that covered her hand. “Can I control the general shape of the shield, and does it have to be surrounding me?” He asked inquisitively, as he had a hopeful idea.

Allis gave Leo a knowing smile and explained. “Yes, and if you're thinking of making weapons and shields. You have to remember that you are using raw mana to do this, mana that you can't pull back into your body and have to supply it with more when the construct is damaged.”

Leo broke into a wide child like grin as the potential of what he could do was all but confirmed. ‘Oh, I'm about to have another moment if I can do what I think I can do, but I have to test something first.’

Leo flowed out mana to create a baseball and a bat. He threw the ball up and swung at it to gauge the bat's strength and the ball's distance, and the ball traveled for a bit before it blinked out of existence. He repeated the action, but tried pulling the ball back into his hand with his mana before it reached the limit, and it worked perfectly.

‘Hmm, I seem to be able to control my constructs up until about forty feet, and the bat didn't really suffer any damage. I also didn't feel like I used any mana to pull the ball back, so let's try something a little, bigger.’ Leo thought while a grin was still present on his face.

Leo focused on the image of a large pickup truck, pushing all his mana out into creating the construct, and he felt a large chunk of his mana get used as the truck came into existence.

Allis dropped into shock as her jaw dropped. “What in the hell is that, and how much mana did you just spend?!”

Leo beamed at his creation. “That is the ‘horseless’ carriage that I told you about, only in construct form. And I think I used a decent chunk of my mana, like taking a bite out of a plane sandwich.”

Allis looked between him and the construct. “You may have an insane amount of mana… and I thought you said it needed something to fuel it, how is it going to move?”

“Well, that little test I did with the balls told me two things. One, that my effective range for maintaining a construct is somewhere around forty feet. And two, all I have to do to move said construct, is push it with mana. I don't even have to use up the mana, just use it to apply motion.” Leo explained while he walked around the truck to better examine his handy work.

Allis cocked her head. "Huh, I would have never thought of using the shield for travel, in fact I don't think anyone would have.…." She remarked with an impressed tone.

Leo sighed pitifully. "Creativity and imagination Allis, it seems like most of the world is lacking in it." He said before opening the truck's hood.

Leo looked down at what he could only describe as a flat panel that looked like textured machinery. 'Pretty sure that is not what the internals are supposed to look like..Hmm.. I'm not a mechanic, so I think I made the equivalent of a life sized toy truck. Not that I need the internals, I just need the wheels to move.' He thought as he closed the hood and walked toward the driver's side.

Allis crossed her arms, apparently taking slight offence at him insulting their world. " Well Einstein, can you think of other uses for it?"

Leo was about to respond with a quip, but paused at what she called him. "Wait, did you just call me Einstein? How do you know Einstein?" He questioned with utter confusion.

Allis raised an eyebrow. "No, I called you Magnus, Magnus Ironhilt. He was a genius dwarven inventor that created and discovered many things. I'm guessing that the necklace referred to someone else you know."

Leo's confusion dropped as he nodded. "Yup, but could you repeat the sentence again, because I just want to personally confirm something."

Allis obliged without complaint, seemingly aware of what exactly he wanted to test. "Well Magnus, can you think of any other uses for it?"

Leo furrowed his brow as a few things began to click. 'Well that confirms the translation fuckery going on with the necklaces. It supplemented the word with a similar meaning, until I got the specific word. The intent for its use was there, but none of the specifics. I wonder if that's also a problem with ‘mana’ as well…' He thought as he entered the driver's seat.

Leo gripped the steering wheel and sighed. "I'll show you some other things after I'm done with this, so let's see if this thing can move "

He tried pushing the truck with his mana, and he felt it begin to drain as the truck slowly started to move. He attempted to make a turn, but the truck didn't respond to the steering wheel.

Leo stopped the truck after it traveled a few dozen yards, and thumped his head on the steering wheel when he remembered the one important detail. "No internals…" He groaned.

Allis quickly slithered up to Leo as he exited the construct. " That was incredible! With something like this you could transport quite a bit."

Leo let out a resigned breath. "Sure, If you want to go in a straight line. Not to mention that I started to feel my mana drain, but I think it's because I was riding in it. I assume any extra mass that's not mana gets counted as exerting force, so energy needs to be expended. I wouldn't try making something like this again, because I lack the knowledge of it's internals, and it's way too heavy with mana consumption compared to flying." He explained casually.

Allis stared blankly at Leo, as if he said something genuinely unbelievable. "What?!" He blurted out defensively.

"With what you just did and how you broke everything down so quickly, I still can't believe that you are a peasant on your world..." Allis remarked in disbelief.

Leo shrugged. "Just because the quality of life and education improves across the board, doesn't mean people suddenly stop struggling to survive. There are always new challenges, and difficult circumstances to overcome…" He remarked dejectedly.

"That's depressing….. Also, why are your constructs green? "

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Fel

Fel decided to check up on Leo after ferrying more selarins to the camp via a teleport trip. She was still feeling drained from her insane attempt to get everything ready in a single day, so she restricted herself to one teleport trip a day. While she was eavesdropping, her heightened sense making the task trivial, she learned that he befriended the town healer and made a deal with the innkeeper. Fel was astonished at how quickly he was progressing, and he seemed to have more than enough coin to leave town if he wanted. The idea of him leaving town so early nearly made her run back to camp to attempt more teleports, but she knew that being drained of mana for long periods could cause permanent and unpleasant side effects, so she resigned to just spy on Leo for the day.

Following the trio out of the inn, she felt a tinge of jealousy when she glimpsed Elaria kissing Leo, as well as over hearing their whispers. “I’m the one who summoned him…” She grumbled irritably, knowing that she was more annoyed by the fact that she was ordered to follow the plan and keep her distance.

At least she was more or less assured that Elaria wouldn't out him for any reason, instead that concern was momentarily directed toward the healer, Allis. Judging by a few off hand comments in the inn, it seemed like she knows that he's a summon. Even though she hasn't turned him in yet, and they seemed friendly, the fact that she's a mage from an academy still gave her an uneasy feeling. But later in the day, as she overheard their conversation while they were leaving the market district, that feeling of mistrust subsided when Allis comforted Leo, and he offered to do the same.

‘I’m going to have to pull the kill order on her then, because they seem way too invested in each other. Well that's one problem that's sort of peacefully dealt with, but damn it, it's only been a few days and he's already altered so much of the plan. Hopefully that won't be a running theme once he's brought into the fold.’ She thought to herself.

When they exited the town, Fel snuck over the wall further down and quickly sped to the forest to watch from an optimal hiding spot. She was glad that this was only his second time openly practicing magic, and that this time she got to watch it from the start, unlike last time. Allis seemed to be helping him with his magic, or at least as much as she could try to help someone with such insane natural talent. And the lesson was as short as she expected, as he started to experiment with his magic. She also finally noticed that he didn't need words to cast, something that she would have normally missed if she wasn't paying more attention.

‘Huh, he's just messing around with shielding magic. Why is it green though? At least he's not doing anything too-’ The thought paused as Leo created a massive construct.

‘Insane….’

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Leo

Leo spent the rest of the afternoon testing the potential uses for the magic he personally named 'lantern wizardry'. He created tools, a small shelter, and tried to make a variety of small machines. Allis was shocked at the number of constructs that he was able to create, saying that his title of dragon might extend to his mana pool as well.

After Leo began to feel like his body was tiring, he decided to call it a day and head back to the inn. He still needed to set up Kesl’s stove top and oven, as well as take a peek at his shower system before heading to bed. Elaria seemed to notice his fatigue, and drooped her shoulders.

Leo mentally sighed as he was also a little disappointed. 'Unfortunately she's going to have to wait another day to properly celebrate her new found freedom.'

After having some dinner, Leo went to the kitchen to finish his end of the deal with Kesl. Leo fixed four rune enchanted iron plates to the stove top, and one in the large oven. On the stove and oven themselves he started creating the controls. Leo wanted to go all out for his first real contracted bit of work, so he added two settings to the plates. One summoned fire like a gas stove, the other acted like an electric stove, and each plate had five levels of heat to set them at. He also created a safety feature, making it so that if no one was in the vicinity for the past hour, then the plates would automatically shut off.

'I'd hate to have my favorite inn burn down, even though most of it is made of stone.' Leo mentally mused to himself as he finished his work.

Leo showed Kesl how to operate the controls, gave him written instructions, and carved in labels next to all the runes, just to make sure it was as easy as possible to use. Kesl was speechless, since he thought all Leo would do was make his stove produce fire for free, so Kesl forced Leo to take two more gold coins for his work.

Leo was deep in thought as he headed back to his room for the night. ‘Fuck me... It felt like he was going to rip my head off if I didn't take the extra gold… I mean more money is always a good thing, but I'm pretty sure I could buy myself a small house now. I should go to the merchants guild tomorrow to sell my ‘pleasure-chiefs’, no that's kind of a shit name, gonna need to workshop that…’

When Leo got to his room he saw only Elaria passed out on the bed, since Allis went home for the night. He decided that he wanted to take a shower before going to bed, as well as going over the runes that made it work. So before he hopped in, he pulled out a small book that Kesl lent him. The book had instructions and designs for the whole shower system, it was given to Kesl by the mage who made it for him.

Leo turned to the first page of the book. ‘Ok, the dial just contains the control runes, so there should be a compartment next to the base, Ah!’ He thought as he found the medium sized compartment.

Leo opened the compartment that contained the main runes for the shower, and was horrified at the scene before him. Somewhere around two hundred runes were scattered all over the inside, with a complete mess of glowing lines interconnecting them. His jaw dropped as he took in the utter chaos before him. He began flipping to the translations for the runes and was met with the mad scribblings of random sketches and unorganized diagrams.

Leo’s expression altered to show the growing migraine that was starting to form as he continued to skim over the book. ‘Christ, no wonder Kesl needs this fixed every so often! I was curious as to why his shower needed any magical maintenance, since runes don't get damaged by the environment and last as long as the material it's on. Plus as long as the system is relatively simple, then the magic should always produce the same outcome…. But this….’

Leo placed his hands on one of the runes to feel out the interconnected lines of mana, and he reeled back from how many different connections there were.

‘It's like the worst cable management system found a way to fuck spaghetti code, just to produced this abomination!’ He mentally shrieked.

In just a cursory attempt to decipher the madness that was in the book, he could already tell that over ninety percent of the runes were either useless, unnecessary, or over complicated the entire system for no reason. Closing the book, Leo slammed the compartment shut and proceeded to begin taking a shower.

“That.... That is a problem for future me....”

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