A gentle wave of warmth and the light of the sun woke me up. I raised my head and cracked my neck. I'd fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position, but the ache disappeared quickly. My younger body got rid of muscle pain so quickly it made me jealous of myself.

If only I’d had this energy back on Earth.

Something pressed against my thigh, and I looked down to see Amanda kicking me in her sleep. Both of us had fallen asleep on the sofa. I rubbed my eyes and looked around the room.

There was no sun. The warmth I felt came from Agni, and the flames of her body lit up the room around me.

She was purposefully blowing warm air in my face with her wings.

A spattering of purple and black feathers entered my vision beside her. Gold was awake and the two birds nudged their heads towards the door.

“You guys want to go outside?” I let out a soft chuckle.

Both of them had been trapped in here when Amanda and I had fallen asleep.

No wonder Agni was trying to wake me up.

The two birds hopped onto my shoulders, and I made my way past the shelves, glancing at the titles of the books as I walked by.

The moment I swung the door open the two birds shot into the air like rockets, flapping their wings up the stairs into the higher levels.

They were heading towards the open ceiling.

I looked from side to side and then made my way towards the guest room I'd stayed in during my first sleepover. I could see the transparent wall from the window, a beautiful view of the Koshima suburbs unveiling before my eyes.

The sun was peeking across the horizon. I'd slept only an hour or two. Maybe less.

I felt wide-awake. I tapped the side of my head in case it was a hallucination caused by drowsiness, but it really did feel like I’d gotten a full night's sleep.

I’d never felt like this before, but I didn’t stay awake until the sunrise often.

My texting regent appeared in my hand, and I sent a message to Gerial asking if it was a side effect of my Marks body enhancements.

He didn’t reply straight away, so I assumed he was asleep.

My footsteps echoed as I made my way to the nearby bed and pulled off a couple of the blankets. My footsteps felt warm under the spell of the mansion, and I could see fire mana gathering underneath me and waving good morning to me.

I waved back, the blankets shifting me into an awkward angle, and then made my way back into the study. I crossed over to the sofa and unfurled the blankets, placing them over Amanda.

With her powers I doubted she could catch a cold, but there was no harm in giving her a more comfortable sleep.

The mansion was empty, except for Gold and Agni who quickly came back and found me sitting at a small table by the kitchen.

I'd showered again and changed into my uniform.

“Hey guys.” I smiled. “Did you have fun hanging out without us?”

Gold squawked and raised his wing. A small rock rolled out of it and onto the table. He hopped down onto the top of the table and pushed the rock towards me with his beak.

“You made another regent?” I plucked it up. “Trying out some of those new arrays?”

I sent some mana into the rock, and it glowed in response. Around my hand a small round shield appeared, orange and opaque.

It also had a hole at the top.

Normally, Gold’s shields were transparent and barely visible.

“This is pretty go-”

The rock exploded in my hand and the shield disappeared. Pieces of shattered stone rained down onto the table and I stared at my palm in surprise.

I hadn’t been harmed, but the explosion was unexpected.

Gold looked at the pieces of his regent on the table and a wave of guilt crossed my heart.

“I'm sorry buddy, I must’ve put too much mana into it.”

He shook his head calmly and chirped.

I could vaguely interpret his intentions. The rock wasn’t expected to survive the test.

Agni had almost fallen off my shoulder in shock. I put a hand towards her head to calm her down, a treat in my fingers. She gobbled it up gratefully.

“So, you inscribed the symbols correctly.” I spoke.

If Gold had scratched the symbols incorrectly then the array wouldn’t have activated.

We both leaned in towards the remains of the rock and analysed them. Agni jumped from my shoulder onto the table and joined in for fun.

Going over the successes and failures when inscribing regent arrays was a key aspect to being a scriber.

“Whatever sub-array you connected was probably wrong.” I pressed a finger against my lip. “Or your materials.”

Without knowing the process, it was hard to narrow down the cause of the failure, but I was sure that it had to be one of these two issues. Gold could make amazing arrays, but if they were incompatible symbols then they may have unexpected side-effects.

If he used the wrong symbols to form a working array, they would have a different effect than intended. He could have crafted an array that was designed to explode, but would think it was going to make a shield because of a misinterpretation.

That was the danger of adding an incorrect sub-array to the main one. It would dictate the specific effect the regent had whether you liked the path it led to or not.

Only more tests would give conclusive evidence. If he kept inscribing the same array into different materials with the same results, then it was the array’s fault for the explosion.

On the other hand, if the material couldn’t handle the amount of power being run through it by the array, it could get destroyed by the attempt.

My mask had required adamant in order to strengthen it for that exact reason.

“Got any more?”

Gold looked up at me and squawked.

That was a no.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he had spent most of the week working on this one. His alone time was spent on creating regents.

I wasn’t sure what to do with them.

My drawer in my room was filled with various sticks and stones. I'd been studying them on the side as I worked on my own symbols and regents.

Selling them might turn out to be profitable. It might also raise questions and bring unwanted attention to Gold.

Amanda and Agni knowing Gold was strange was fine. I trusted them, although I hadn’t shown Amanda any of the regents. Gold trusted Agni enough to let her know.

William and Gerial knew about my Mark already.

Everybody else was the problem.

The church guards had refused to distribute the regents for sale through a private network. It fell outside of the knight’s scope of protection and into the area of using them for personal gain. The guards were still unsure how to react to Gold’s presence, although they would never harm him because of his connection to me.

Gold stepped back and pecked my clothes. I waved my hand, and the pieces flew into my inventory.

“Maybe one of my classmates can use them one day.” I scratched Gold’s neck. “It’s not like intelligent animals are uncommon. I’m sure that water cat is smart. Good thing his owner won’t let him eat you.”

Gold squawked in agreement.

“Is Amanda going to wake up on her own for school?” I asked Agni.

She tittered and flapped her wings.

“Late riser, got it.” I chuckled. “We have time, I’m going to meditate.”

I rose from my seat and made my way into one of the rooms that had been decorated with some plants. They were otherwise empty, following the minimalist theme that Amanda’s dad had set up across the mansion.

It was the perfect meditation room, something I was sure was intentional.

I took a deep breath and as I continued the world disappeared around me. My emotions and my thoughts were pushed aside, and a blank space formed around me.

I was once again in my adult body.

I stared at the blank space, but this time I didn’t recreate my old city from Earth. I gazed up into the sky and made my way towards the three objects above me.

The metal symbol, the earth symbol, and my mask.

The two symbols emanated waves of power, and the mask floated towards me as I held out my hand. I couldn’t bring it out in public or people would ask how I got it.

My family wasn’t allowed to handle high grade materials for regents, and it was clear that my mask had them.

I put it on and enjoyed the comprehension crisis that came from fitting a physical object residing within me onto a head that didn’t exist except in my mind.

The ability of the mask wasn’t restricted to hiding me from the watcher.

A black smoke covered my body when the mask was placed firmly on my face, and waves of different coloured mana shrouded my head.

The effect wasn’t just physical, even my mana sense couldn’t pierce the veil that my mask created.

I'd tested it a bit at home and looked in the mirror.

From the outside it looked like I was staring into the eyes of a pitch-black abyss. The two holes where my eyes would be were non-existent, and my head couldn’t be seen clearly.

The mask itself was a mix of onze and magic regent, with the onze part constantly absorbing slight amounts of power from the world around me and my manapool.

The magic regent part took a thousand mana to activate for a single hour and I could keep it going for slightly more than sixteen hours with my 16550 mana. Even when I activated this effect in my mind, it still absorbed the mana from my body.

I'd asked Gold and my dad but activating the mask in my mind didn’t impact my physical body at all.

I turned my attention towards the metal symbol.

There was a shift in the power it was emitting.

My session in the cultivation room yesterday had changed something. I could feel a subtle fluctuation underneath the metal symbols' usual waves of power. It was a feeling of connection that bound me to my silver proficiency.

The reason I could feel it now was because my bond had strengthened after meditating yesterday. It was my first time truly connecting with the silver around me in large amounts.

I placed my hand against the symbol and felt my attunement coursing through my body.

My measurement had told me I had affinity for more elements, and maybe one day their symbols would join the ones already here.

I shifted my gaze towards the blank space, but before I could begin my mental skill training, I heard a chirp.

It wasn’t enough to break my concentration, but I rose from my meditative state and opened my eyes to reveal the mansion room around me.

“Is it time for school already?” I looked at Agni chirping in front of me.

She clapped her wings in response and I nodded.

It was easy to lose track of time when meditating.

“Alright. Goals for the day.” I spoke out loud to motivate myself. “Get through class. Try and talk to at least one new classmate or learn something new about an existing one.”

One of my main goals had always been trying to find genuine friends while I could. Once my Mark was revealed to the world, I’d never be able to look at new people approaching me without suspicion.

Amanda had reacted well when she found out about Gerial, but she had also been hearing it from me after we’d become friends. She would never approach Gerial on her own.

Gerial himself had told me that the ones that tried only wanted to use him

“Who do you think I should try to talk to?” I asked Gold. “I could ask those two life-attuned kids if they know anything about golems. Or the owner of the cat. She works with Zodiac, so we have something in common.”

I walked into the entryway and looked through the kitchen window. The sun was still low in the sky, but I wasn’t heading straight to school.

Amanda still had to get ready.

I walked up the stairs to the first floor and into the study, Gold and Agni on my shoulders.

“Can you go get Amanda?” I asked the phoenix. “I think she’d be more comfortable if a household member woke her up.”

Agni shook her head and suspicion rose in my heart.

Her talons tightened around me.

“No, seriously. You do it. Quick and easy.” I shifted my shoulder to kick Agni off me.

She clung to me like a tick and shook her head. Then hid under her wing.

According to my memory Amanda’s father hadn’t tried to wake her up either. She probably had an alarm in her room but hadn’t set one up in the study.

“Agni,” I spoke softly. “What happens if you wake her up?”

Agni’s head didn’t surface, but her body let out a bright puff of flames.

“So, you’re saying that if I wake her up, she could burn me alive. You’re made of fire. She literally can’t burn you.”

She ignored me.

“Okay buddy,” I looked at Gold. “You like testing your shields-ow!”

He smacked his beak on my ear.

“Fine.” I sighed.

If Agni wasn’t stopping me then it couldn’t be that bad.

“I’ll wake her u- hey, where are you two going?”

The two birds immediately jumped off my shoulder and flew out the door. I didn’t even catch the end of their tail feathers before they disappeared from my sight.

They were retreating.

I turned around and tiptoed towards Amanda. I stood beside the sofa and thought of how to do this.

I settled on the simple method of talking.

“Hey, it’s time to wake up. We’ve got school later.”

A moment passed in silence, and then a change came over the sleeping girl.

Her lips tightened in annoyance and the blankets began to smoulder as crimson flames rushed down her hair.

A single eye opened to look at me.

It was blazing red.

****

I’d made a terrible mistake.