Congratulations. You have reached level 18

Congratulations. You have reached level 19

Congratulations. You have reached level 20

Congratulations. You have reached level 21

Congratulations. You have reached level 22

Congratulations. You have reached level 13

Congratulations. You have reached level 14

Congratulations. You have reached level 15

All of the leveling woke us up immediately after we fell asleep. Kalli squirmed in my arms, trying to separate herself from me. Joe and Wendy sat across from us giving us a startled look.

Joe asked, “What just happened to you two? That sounded very…”

Wendy clamped a hand over his mouth and said, “You two fell asleep then you made some weird sounds.”

The blush on her face gave me a pretty good idea of what kind of sounds we must have made. Kalli explained in a quiet voice. “We leveled up. Several times.”

The other couple stared at each other and Wendy giggled. “I’ve never leveled up in the arms of a boy before.”

Kalli turned an even deeper shade of red. “I don’t do that all the time. We just fell asleep. That’s all.”

Joe suddenly yawned and stood up, stretching, “I guess I should go see how many levels I gained. Shall I walk you back to your dorm, Wendy?”

She smiled and accepted his offered hand. “Yes, please. I’d like that.”

When they left, I offered Kalli my hand to rejoin me on the couch. She shook her head. You’re a mess. I need to clean you up first.

“Pvruzth”

She incinerated the sweat, grime, and other impurities from me before excusing herself to go freshen up privately in my dorm room. When she came back, the phoenix dress was an oversized t-shirt. She nestled in next to me and smiled. Now we can sleep.

Young Kalliphae was adorable in my opinion. We dreamed about her again that night. In the little girl’s eyes, the Hellquists were just a scary family of nobles that lived in the big house on a hill near the orphanage.

I strained my eyes to see what was written on the contract when Kalli put her impression on it. It stood out to me that young Kalliphae could neither read nor write.

Then I met her teacher for the first time. A mysterious man, masked beneath a blue hooded cloak, patiently taught the girl words of magic. He read her stories about a boy named Twig while teaching her to read and write in the process.

He touched her core for the first time, sparking a fire within the girl that would never go out. The tiny redhead squealed with delight every time she mastered a new spell. She slept with her little wisp of fire the first night when she summoned it, treating it like a night light.

I was watching Kalli use her signature spell for the first time when we woke, still snuggled together on the couch.

Kalli leaned her head back to kiss me. Even though I smiled, she could tell what I was thinking. You think I have bad breath, don’t you?

No way!

I lied. While she did have morning breath, I would still want to kiss her even if she ate a pound of garlic. She winked at me and informed me, I can fix it. Watch this.

She whispered the spell in my ear.

“Pvruzth”

Then, with flames coming out of her mouth, she kissed me again. I felt the warmth passing into my mouth. It danced around, tickling my tonsils and even flossing my teeth. Every forgotten morsel of food was incinerated.

An unintended side effect of Kalli’s flame was that it dried out my mouth. When our lips parted, both of us were desperate for a drink.

Getting a burst of inspiration, I summoned mana and infused it with water. I beckoned Kalli back over for another kiss. She gave me a skeptical look and raised her lips to mine once more.

Kalli’s eyes widened when I passed the liquid mana into her mouth. I felt her gag before she pulled back and spit the water in my face. She fell to the floor coughing.

I’m sorry.

Once she collected herself, Kalli looked up at my wet face and started laughing. I joined her and soon we were both laughing hysterically.

In astronomy class, I made it a priority to get Mr. McDuckenstein to give us some more details about the warp spell. He relented and shared a book with us that he kept under his desk, saying, “I keep it around because I occasionally dream about going home. I also came to this world by accident you see.”

Kalli flipped the book over in her hands and asked, “Why haven’t you tried it?”

The duck-man shrugged his wings and said, “Too scared I guess. Gating between worlds is theoretical magic. The only people who know what happens refuse to talk about it.”

Thinking back to my experience teleporting, I asked, “Why not just step into the world you want from the interdimensional rift.”

“The what?”, he asked incredulously, feathers flying everywhere as he flapped his wings.

Trying to recall the galaxies I saw in the void, I asked, “Don’t you see the glowing lines when you teleport?”

He shook his head, making a strange sound through his beak while he did so. “Teleport? Me? That’s a rare skill. Not many people can do it. At least outside of the most powerful mages.”

I still hadn’t attempted to teleport, though I had a feeling I could. The gate and warp spells detailed several ways of accomplishing the feat. There was no word of magic associated with teleporting to make it simple.

The spell sounded more like something from Peter Pan than any magic we had been taught so far. The mage was instructed to think of home while feeding the magic as much mana as possible.

I looked up at Mr. McDuckenstein and asked, “It doesn’t explain how to use the magic.”

The teacher rubbed his bill before he replied. “Good point. This is magic that should only be learned under the watchful eye of an instructor. That way they can maintain physical contact with you and bring you back should you go anywhere by accident.”

Kalli and I exchanged a meaningful glance as we debated who to go to for help. She offered, I think you can talk that dark magic teacher into helping you. Or Mr. Ramsey.

The thought of asking the headmaster for a lesson felt off somehow and I hardly knew Mr. White. That left one more choice.

I think I’ll ask the man in red to teach me after I help him with his mana.

Kalli shivered and stuck out her tongue. Doesn’t he give you the creeps?

A fresh wave of anger at the fact that he had kidnapped Kalli burned in my gut but I was forced to remind myself that he did help save us from the dragon. And Kiki.

Well, I do have a reason to see him soon and his wife will be there. It seems more natural to ask him than the other two.

She shrugged. I suppose. I still don’t like him.

We all gathered together in the makeout room after school to summon the man in red. Raverly snickered when I took out the business card. Are you really going to summon him again?

I nodded and tore the card in two. The man in red appeared with a woman in a wheelchair. The two of them looked around in surprise before he saw me and asked, “Where on Earth did you summon me to this time?”

Waving to the room around us, I announced, “Welcome to the makeout room.”

He frowned and his eyes scanned the beat-up blanket in the corner. Then he sighed, saying, “At least there are no dragons this time.”

While I was tempted to summon Quetzalcoatl to see how he would react, we had far too many things to discuss to waste the time on it. I introduced myself to his wife. “Hello, Mrs. Man in red. My name is Melvin Murphy. I’m going to help you with your mana today.”

She laughed politely, elbowing the man in red in the thigh. “Look honey, you have a new nickname. Mr. Man in Red. I told you those red suits make you stick out like a sore thumb.”

He stuck his chest out and announced, “But they make me look so dapper.”

She waved him off and turned back to me. “You can call me Mrs. Bellview. I don’t know what he’s told you but I’m not awakened. He thought you might be able to do something about my condition.”

Looking down at her legs, I wondered just how useful I could be for whatever condition she had. Since I had awakened, I hadn’t thought about trying to cure natural ailments or bodily defects.

I inspected her to see what I was going to be working with.

Name

Aralisa Bellview

Class

Writer

Level

1

Affection Level

Indifferent

Summing myself a chair to sit across from Mrs. Bellview, I took her hands in mine. Closing my eyes, I sent strands of mana to probe her, looking for an opening.

To my surprise, my mana felt no resistance and found its way to her mana channel easily. The unused channel felt like a kite string that threaded up her arms. My mana didn’t exactly travel inside of the minuscule channel so much as it traveled along the outside.

Deep inside, her core was a jumble of words that swirled around in a tiny ball that was about the size of a marble. When my mana touched the words, they started to glow. Unlike the other people I awakened, there was no feedback. It took some work to coax her mana out of her newly awakened core but once I did it wiggled its way into her mana channel causing it to throb as her mana pulsed through it.

I withdrew from her and opened my eyes to look at her, asking, “How do you feel?”

Mrs. Bellview smiled at me and said, “I feel strange. I could feel something working its way through my body. Then I had an idea for my next book.”

Looking down at her legs, I asked, “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s wrong with your legs?”

Wendy placed a hand on my shoulder and started, “Melvin…”

Mrs. Bellveiw waved her off. “It’s fine. They don’t know what I have. I’ve been tested by all sorts of doctors and a few guild medics and nobody can find anything wrong with me. I was healthy until I turned twenty. At first, it felt like my legs were asleep. Pins and needles, you know? Slowly, I lost all feeling down there.”

“Do you mind if I take a look at you?”, I asked cautiously, wanting to see if my magic could help.

She raised an eyebrow and asked, “What did you want to do? I’m not very comfortable doing a full examination in here.”

I shook my head. “It will be exactly like what I just did. It just might feel a little different because I’ll have to check your legs.”

Mrs. Bellview nodded her approval and sat up stiffly. “Okay. Good luck.”

For my next foray into her body, I placed my hand on her knees. I could immediately feel that something was off. While I only had Kalli’s legs to compare them to, Mrs. Bellview’s legs felt dead somehow.

The problem appeared to be somewhere further upstream so I worked my way up her body, past her thighs, and around her groin. The thing that wasn’t responding weaved up her leg and through her pelvis.

Halfway up her spine, I found the place where her body came to life again. I probed the spot with my mana which caused her to cry out in pain. Someone placed a hand on me to pull me away but I managed to say, “Wait. Stop. I see the problem. Give me some space.”

I realized what I was feeling was a nerve. It was the main nerve through which all of the other nerves connected. It was being cut off by something. A growth had appeared between her vertebrae and was compressing the nerve. It obviously wasn’t supposed to be there.

I focused my mana on the growth. It didn’t take long to realize that I didn’t want to feed it. That would only make it grow, exacerbating the problem. Looking closely at the growth, I realized that I could target it.

Item:

Tumor

Components

Flesh, Blood

That makes things easy.

Kalli replied but I ignored her. I was too focused.

DELETE

Mrs. Bellview began to convulse as the tumor vanished and blood flooded the area, pouring out of arteries that had been feeding it. I immediately took control of the blood, willing it back into its vessel and resealing the artery.

After watching the area for longer than was necessary, I withdrew from the woman once again. When I opened my eyes, I found her crying.

Through tear-filled eyes, Mrs. Bellview sobbed, “I can feel them. I can feel my legs.”