I enter my apartment, drop off the gunstaff, then revert to human and get some clothes for my lower body. Then I check on an experiment I started before going out after finishing the gunstaff.

The experiment consists of two wooden tablets, one with a natural mana crystal and one with a piece I broke of the basilisk’s mana crystal. On the tablets are spell diagrams for drawing in and absorbing etheric mana, and I placed each in their own corner of the balcony.

I hope that I can grow mana crystals that way, since they seem to have superior magical properties. If nothing else, it should steadily charge them with mana I can use. So far there was no changes beyond them absorbing a bit of mana, but the mana stone is almost full, so I’ll see what happens then.

I return outside to see that they have ignited the grill. There’s a couple more adults here, too. More parents and/or neighbours, I assume. I’m a little bit amazed they managed to get the kids out, but judging by the amount of smartphones and Pokémon related words, it might not have been very hard.

The angry woman seems to have cooled down a bit. “You’re the snake!”

Ahh, nevermind, she just didn’t recognize me at first. But this should at least settle the argument that I’m not a human. Though, with the potential for other sapient creatures, I’m not sure if ‘not human→animal’ is a very useful mindset, at least not unless we want the usual species supremacy cliché.

She does seem less angry now, but still don’t seem to believe me when I say I can return the boy to normal. I suppose it’s good I only transformed a small patch of skin…

“Well, if you’re trying, why can’t you undo what you did?”

I move my hand across the side of my face, one-hundred percent human right now. “Well, gee, I don’t know, it’s magic! Maybe the boy is stopping it somehow!”

“But he says he’s not stopping it! And if you made him that way, you should be able to make him normal, too!” She does raise a good point.

I turn to the boy, being held in place by his (presumed) mother, and get his attention from the Onyx that the other kids have found. “You unlocked the [System] just earlier, right?”

When he nods, I follow up: “Do you think the scales are cool?”

He looks to his mother, then into the ground, mumbling. “Yeah, but you were cooler…”

Thanks kid, but your mom disagree. “So when I first did the change he wanted to have scales. At that point he unlocked the [System], and it seems he actually wants to keep them.

Either of those two could be what’s stopping me, I haven’t exactly experimented on forcing magic on people.”

At this point the woman opens her mouth, but I quickly continue. “SO! The way I see it, there’s three options. One, leave it, it shouldn’t do any harm. Two, teach him the ability so that he can control it himself.” I ignore the pointed glare I get for the suggestions.

“And three: Have someone else help me in a small experiment that will tell us whether I just suck, or if it’s his fault.”

“I’m not volunteering! You shouldn’t experiment on humans!”

I sigh. You don’t happen to also be against animal testing? ‘Cus those are the two options to find out if things are safe, and usually you do both in controlled environments. I don’t voice this, since I suspect we’ll just end up in a long discussion where neither of us will change our opinion.

Instead, I turn to the two people from last time, since I sorta know them, and they have both unlocked the [System]. I show them two options for the test, fur and scales, and tell them that I first want them to try to stop the ability. The man agree to that, and a minute later, I have to give up. I share the result with everyone else: I get the same feeling of resistance.

At this point the woman seem somewhat open to the possibility that I might not be at fault(in removing the scales, at least), but also don’t think it’s the kid’s fault. So I ask if they would let me try without them stopping me, jokingly suggesting that I could give them wolf ears, an experiment which the not angry woman from last time jumps at.

I first repeat the resistance test, to the same result. Because I wouldn’t want to leave her with permanent wolf ears (even if she seems fine with that idea), I make her grow a bit of fur on her arm, and then remove it.

A little while later I’ve removed the scales from the no longer resisting boy, and the woman has a set of wolf ears on top of her head - in addition to the human ones. She’s not the only one, and eventually about half of the assembled adults and most of the kids have wolf ears.

The barbecue itself is pleasant, and I don’t even have to make dinner today. Four people had even watched my video, among which are the two from last time. Their names are Eirik and Katrine. The others also introduced themselves, but I’ve already forgotten their names. Except for the scale-lover kid, whose name is Marius.

I make it through the social smalltalk and much more interesting news and discussion about the [System] and my video. Apparently there has been quite a few monster incidents, and almost everyone were positive or neutral to the idea of a Monster Hunter/Adventurer organization. In fact, it seems the government are looking into something like that, one person mentions.

People are also a bit worried about magic and the [System] and the changes to the world in general. I offer to help them unlock it and teach them a bit about magic, jokingly asking for a bit of money.

Long story short, I’m slightly richer and my neighbourhood has a bunch of people who have unlocked the system and can do basic magic. Quite a few were understandably worried when they found out how easy it is to unlock skills.

I pointed out it’s rather hard to use at first, and that with some knowledge of physics and some safety guidelines it shouldn’t be all that dangerous, and offered to teach the kids and/or parents both some safety rules, physics knowledge, and a few simple, safe spells. {Orb of Light} anyone?

I went through a few possible rules with the adults, mostly things like ‘Don’t try new magic without an adult’s approval.’, ‘Don’t teach others magic without their parent’s approval.’ and ‘Tell parent what you find out and if you want to use magic.’ I’m not sure if the kids would actually follow the rules, but it’s something.

In addition, most of them, that’s everyone who had wolf ears, also unlocked [Aspect Magic], as one of them called it. I like that name better than [Aspectian], and now it shows up as such for me. It seems like I can call my abilities and classes whatever I want, but it’s obviously much easier to communicate with names that makes sense.

Not being part of that social group and thus having no real obligations to them, I leave not long after eating my fill. Back in the apartment, I check the mana gatherers. Good, the mana stone seems full, and I think it’s growing, becoming more round, from the somewhat jagged form those things tend to have.

The crystal also seems to be filling up, slowly. Since it seems a bit too slow, I decide to assist it. But, in case the methods have negative consequences, I first detach the mana stone. I then make a web of sorts, from tendrils of mana, and start drawing in ether, leading it into the stone, now levitating over my hand.

The result is visible to the naked eye, as a material not very different from what I get when I conjure starts filling up and making the stone smoother. For a moment, I stop sending the mana to the stone, conjuring a small sphere instead.

Indeed, they are quite similar, so I wonder what makes one a constant mana drain while the other a good mana storage? I make a mental note to find out later as I move the mana from the conjured object into the stone.

A few minutes later, the previously peanut sized stone is now a sphere the size of a large marble. While it’s now completely covered in the crystal-like material, it seems different from the actual crystal. Will the crystal turn out like this as well, or will the existing parts of it work as a catalyst to make more of itself?

The answer turns out to be the latter. As long as I have a ‘seed’ crystal, I can make more of the mana crystal. I suppose the mana stone have turned quite crystalline as well, but it has a spherical shape as opposed to the geometric shape the crystal has taken. I attribute the differences between the two to variance in the purity of the material.

So far it seems to be like this: A stone can be turned into a low-purity mana stone. On the other hand, a mana stone can be used to grow low-purity mana crystal. If I use neither and still gather mana, I get a crystalline conjured mass.

Since the ‘natural’ mana stones and crystal so far have come from (previously) living beings, I wonder if I have something like a mana core myself. Making full use of the knowledge I’ve gained and [Meditation], I turn my attention inwards, looking to gain an understanding of how mana in the body flows and works.

The first thing I notice is the mana in my skin, muscles and bones. When I tone down the now sub-conscious [Body Enhancement], the overt mana in my body fades. There seems to be little to no mana loss as long as I do not physically exert myself, but for now the ability would just be distracting.

With that no longer distracting me, I soon notice the mana coursing through my blood vessels. It seems to concentrate in the lungs and especially heart, and to a lesser degree in other organs I can’t confidently name. Does this mean a body with mana is naturally stronger than one without? Even discarding things like [Body Enhancement]? Or is this the remains from that?

I cast the {Orb of Light} spell and watch how the mana moves. Perhaps because the spell is fairly simple, it just draws on some of the mana at the surface of my body, especially my hand. What if I instead try conjuring a small sphere? That drew a whole lot more mana, this time from most of my body, but still just from the surface. More mana quickly surged to replace what was lost afterwards, though.

As I absorb the conjured object, I learn a few things that stop the body from absorbing a lot of mana. For one, internal mana seems unwilling to go towards the core of the body, but I find that I can guide it inwards if I try. Another problem is that some of the reabsorbed mana seems to be dissipated and/or rejected by the body, perhaps something like a magical autoimmune system?

With a better understanding of how the internal mana of the body works, I decide to take one from xianxia tropes and see if I can form something like a mana core and/or make proper pathways for mana to easily flow through my body.

Before I actually try, though, I look up a bunch of Xianxia for inspiration. When I’ve found a few and read relevant chapters while taking notes, my phone rings. It’s the military.

This time, the caller is Gabriel, the researcher I met last time. They want me to come over in two days. On the agenda is potential contracts, selling the research I’ve done so far, and they will explain a bit about the government hearing.