The sun decorated the sky like a hazy golden disc of light, it slowly began to hide behind the horizon, forcing the trio to make camp. They had been travelling most of the day, Waya kept her distance from the crazy man while Otus grilled Dante about some of the artefacts he had collected. Much to his disappointment, many of the treasured items that he had been collecting over some time were just household items. Dante explained their basic functions to Otus, it was like someone was explaining a magic trick, once you know, the mystery behind them suddenly disappears. The once fascinating items that he pictured convoluted uses for, became mundane and uninteresting.

They created a small circle of stones then started a fire to ward off predators and keep themselves warm from the chill of the night. Settling down for the evening, Dante added another log to the fire while Otus unpacked some items from his bag. Waya was curling into a ball on a blanket laid out beside Dante.

With the fire crackling, Otus offered some of his food to the pair, he held out what appeared to be seeded oatcakes. Dante accepted, he sniffed and was happy to find that it didn’t smell offensive. When Otus offered it to Waya, she turned her head away not daring to show any interest. Placing the biscuit in his mouth he bit down, the biscuit resisted for a second before a small part snapped off with a loud crunch, pain ran through his mouth. After almost breaking his teeth on the biscuit, it was Otus’s turn to laugh at him.

“You’re supposed to soften it in some warm water or tea. Here, I’ll boil some water and make us some tea.” He had a discrete smirk, laughing at the prank that he pulled on Dante.

Dante gave a sidelong glance at Otus ‘He set me up for a fall. I’ll show him.’ Not being a person to turn down a challenge, Dante didn’t wait for the tea, he took another bite from the biscuit until it cracked and shattered in his mouth. He casually crunched away as if it was a mild inconvenience, nodding to Otus and raising his brows to acknowledge it was a tasty and… interesting experience. His attributes powered through the hardened Oaty treat, allowing him to easily consume it once he got past the initial resistance. Despite its toughness, once it was softened by his chewing it actually tasted quite nice. Otus looked at him, his smile faded from his face, he grumbled while he continued to make the tea. He had lost that round.

Brushing the crumbs off himself and taking a sip of the tea prepared by Otus, it turned out to be quite pleasant, especially when combined with another Oat biscuit. It reminded him of green tea, a smooth grassy and mildly nutty flavour.

Dante wanted to get back to the conversation that Otus had promised to discuss once they settled down, “You said that you were going to teach me some of the basics on mana manipulation?”

“Right you are,” Otus replied. Putting down his tea, he moved closer to Dante and prepared himself to demonstrate the basics.

“These are techniques that were originally taught to us by the Angels, they are now passed down by select Evolved who excel in mana manipulation. I was raised to be a teacher by my tribe but…well that's a story for another time. So, Mana manipulation might seem unusual at first but please bear with it,” Otus positioned himself into a comfortable seated position, closing his eyes yet continuing to talk.

“It starts with a kind of meditation, the main intention is to try and concentrate on your centre of power. Once you identify the source, you’ll notice there’s a flow that circulates around your body.” While describing the initial step, Otus demonstrated with the palm of his hand the general area where his power centred, his hand circled his chest close to where his heart was.

“Please close your eyes and copy me, focus on finding your centre of power. Let me know when you feel it.”

Closing his eyes and following the instructions, Dante already had a very basic grasp for the feeling of mana within his body. He had been practising with it while in the abandoned town, but he hadn’t noticed a source, he had just been fumbling at trying to project and manipulate mana.

Dante mentally focussed and searched his body for his centre of power, he felt the thrumming of his heart. His stomach gurgled, distracting him from his meditative state. ‘Am I really doing this? Is Otus playing another Joke? This is some cultivation shenanigans, I’ll go along with it for now… but I swear if Otus is messing with me…’

Allowing himself to sink into his meditative state, his mind roamed around his body. Searching for something different, a focusing point in his body that represented power, magic or an alien sensation. Dante’s mind drifted, his consciousness was floating around and seeking out the elusive power that allowed him to perform magical feats, he recalled the things he experienced when creating magical crystal claws and shooting bolts of mana from his hands.

Dante’s face began to crease as an unusual but not entirely unfamiliar sensation began to reveal itself within his body. He was expecting to find a singular source of power, but to his confusion, surprise and excitement, there were two sources of power. These two centres of power seemed to attract and repel each other, they orbited in close proximity, one source shone as bright as a star while the other absorbed its surroundings. ‘This has to be it, why is it two?’

“I believe I’ve found my centre, what now?”

“Good, now that you found your centre of power, you feel for the flow, search out the energy as it circulates in your body. To me, It feels like standing in the middle of a river, the flowing water rushing past my body, constant pressure or force that wants to carry me away with the flow. Once you find it, allow yourself to get carried along with the gentle force, get accustomed to the way it circulates your body.”

A snort burst out of Dante, “Yes Master, I will feel the force”

“What?”

“Nothing…”

Returning to his relaxed state, his mind settled back to focusing upon his two chaotic centres of power. Feeling for the flowing power within himself, there was nothing at first. Just the ambient crackling of the fire, a slight chill on his back, the gentle breeze of the night air blew past him, causing a small roar in the fire as it blew past.

He was expecting the gentle flow that had been described to him, what he suddenly experienced wasn’t remotely close to that, it was more like a raging river. He initially tried to wrestle with the power and force it to his will, instead, he was dragged with it, losing complete control of himself. Dante shot off the ground onto his feet panting, it was as if he was falling asleep and then felt an abrupt falling sensation that shook him out of his relaxed state.

“What the hell was that?!”

Otus had been observing him the whole time, he leaned forward to ask “Are you ok? What happened?”

Wiping sweat from his forehead, Dante settled back down, “Sorry it was nothing, I think I felt the flow, it was just so unexpected.”

Finding it relatively easy to return to the same mental state, this time he allowed himself to get consumed by the raging rapids, submitting to the flow of mana. He spent time becoming accustomed to the sensation, it felt like a rollercoaster that was hurtling around his body.

After more time went by he started getting used to the uncomfortable feeling, once he had allowed himself to be immersed in the sensation of being carried by the flow of mana, an image of a basic circuit that his power flowed along began to emerge in his mind. When he pictured it, it was something not too dissimilar to veins and arteries but much simpler with fewer branches and pathways.

“I have an understanding of my circulation and flow, so what now?”

Otus was sipping on tea, staring at Waya and making her uncomfortable. “Huh, what…already?!”

“I believe so.”

“Ok, interesting. So this is where it gets a little tricky. You have to follow the circulation from the source, then each time it returns to the source you have to propel it forth again. It’s like a beating heart that is pushing blood around the body. You have to only do it once a full circuit has been completed, you can’t just keep trying to propel it without a rhythm otherwise you can hurt yourself.”

Listening intently, Dante began to get a little flustered by Otus’s explanation. So far everything he had explained had been true… sort of, so he kept adhering to the instructions and moved onto the next step of trying to take control of his circulating mana.

He had been following the circulation around his body for at least an hour, but it just felt like an incessant flow, there didn’t quite seem to be a rhythm he could follow. Dante had attempted to push the flow along upon reaching a full circulation, which appeared to work briefly, then he would feel pain in his head moments later. Every time he tried to match the cadence of the rushing flow he would just be propelled away or experience mild headaches.

Frustration burdened his mind, he was having difficulty and allowing himself to get stressed because of it. He exhaled loudly trying to calm himself down. Dante stood up and stretched, releasing all his built-up frustration and anxieties. Taking his mind away from mana for the moment, just embracing the moment, camping in the wild, enjoying nature in pleasant company.

Walking circles around the firepit that had Waya and Otus on either side, he felt their stares following him on each lap of the fire. Their heads followed his simple route around, he would catch their stares in the periphery of his vision. He was struck by a sudden epiphany.

Dante immediately sat down with no concern for where he placed himself, then sinking back to his subconscious, he felt the rushing energy that coursed through his body. He followed the circuit that it travelled, paying attention to how it moved around, upon reaching the full circuit he felt a brief connection with his centre of power. At the moment he propelled himself faster through the mana circuit, feeling the slightly increased rate at which it travelled around. Concentrating on the passage through the circuit, right up until he reached the halfway point, ‘This is it, the feeling again!’ he felt the now familiar feeling of connecting with his centre of power again, then pushed.

He felt a second burst of energy propel his mana through the circuit accelerating it a second time, ‘I got it! Two centres of power, I need to maintain two beats.’

Feeling the stares of Otus and Waya made him think about how he kept getting a headache when he reached the halfway point after pushing the mana through his circuit. He reflected upon how unusual it was that he had two orbiting centres of power, then a lightbulb lit up in his head. His idea worked and he was now matching a rhythm of two beats that sped up his circulating mana at least twice as fast. He felt energy bursting in his veins as he moved the mysterious source of magic through his body, feeling in absolute control of it for the first time.

Mentally he found himself falling into the cadenced rhythm that flowed through his circuit. Gently helping it along at each checkpoint, he was beginning to get the grasp of it. His mana cycling was more like a speeding race circuit than a relaxed rhythm to follow.

He couldn’t articulate exactly why, but he suspected that this would explain his increased mana recovery rate. Dante had a body that didn’t just absorb mana in one centre of power, he had two! The was also the way that his centres of power had a juxtaposed relationship. They were contradictory and yet they worked with each other to be more powerful than the sum of their parts. Stars that orbit each other, destined to never collide by maintaining a delicate balance. A volatile relationship where they fed upon each other’s strengths and weaknesses, empowering each other yet never able to unify to a singular entity.

While maintaining this state of being, he spoke out “I have it, I’m in control of the flow of mana within my body. What now?”

“What? Already?!...” sputtering his tea this time, he couldn't believe the man had already gotten through the hardest part. It took people weeks, sometimes even months to get to grips with the mana flow within themselves.

“Umm, right, ok. So mana is very receptive to your state of consciousness, you have to imagine siphoning off from the flow, redirecting it elsewhere, this part can be a little tricky and dangerous,” Otus moved closer to Dante to begin the last step.

When he spoke again he almost startled Dante out of his meditative state, speaking directly into his ear. “Focus on siphoning the mana into the centre of your hand. Picture the mana as if it was manifesting in a static state, you have to imagine it not being receptive to any external energy, not reactive to anything” Otus had taken his notepad out, Dante could hear scratching noises as Otus observed him.

Otus had placed his glasses on, he had supplied them with his mana and observed the raging flow of mana that Dante was controlling. The mana was still a storm of exchanging elements that devoured each other. But he could see the flow rushing around his body, it was condensed down, the blazing aura was now under control. The mana no longer appeared as colourful flames licking up his body, instead, they were more like an oven or furnace, where the heat and energy were focussed inside.

Inside Dante’s consciousness, he was picturing a branching stream that flowed towards his hand, while following his rapid cadenced flow of mana. He brought his hand forward in front of himself. Picturing an inert condensed crystal-forming from the stream of mana.

Otus had a ringed O shaped mouth as he watched, the level of control that was being demonstrated couldn’t come from a person who had claimed to have only have arrived weeks ago. He was controlling the mana towards his palm. Initially, a small clear crystal was growing inside his hand, starting as a spec of sand, then growing slightly bigger as every second ticked by.

Dante still felt in control, he felt a small weight and warmth growing in his hand, he started to get excited. The small amount of mana that he was siphoning off and moving towards his hands was interrupted by his excitement, a sudden raging river escaped his control and accelerated towards his palm. He quickly began to lose control over the circulation around his body. Dante opened his eyes, alert and worried as he watched the small penny-sized crystal rapidly expand. The crystal started losing its uniform appearance, erratic spikes of different colours grew out of it. The crystallized credit now looked like a colourful sea urchin.

“Throw it!” Otus screamed.

Dante launched the spiky crystalised formation away from everyone, when it struck the ground it detonated in a colourful explosion. Different elemental energies were released; A gust of wind, Crunching ice, a burst of fire, electricity crackling out. Where it had landed a mound of earth grew upwards in a small pillar then a burst of green life erupted from it, vines crawled down the pillar before sprouting leaves. Once all the energies had been expended the crystal dispersed.

“I’m guessing that wasn’t supposed to happen?” Dante looked towards Otus who was furiously scribbling down notes.

****

Otus had been standing before Dante, watching with wide eyes as the crystal began forming in the palm of his hands. Then it erupted with colourful spikes, the stability of the crystal had failed and he watched in horror as it continued rapidly expanding.

“Throw it!”

Watching on as the destabilised crystal was thrown away from them, erupting in an explosion of colour and various elemental side effects. The discharged energies from the crystal were expended in a beautiful display of violence and creation.

‘He appears to have access to all elements, but they are too unstable. He probably just lost control at the last moment but this is too much!’ He was rapidly scribbling down his observations, not wanting to forget a moment of what he had just seen.

“Otus?” Dante asked, prompting him after he didn’t respond to his question.

“No, no. That wasn’t supposed to happen, well yes..uhh no..uhh.” His scrambled thoughts made him trip over himself as he spoke.

Regaining control of his thoughts he explained to Dante “What you experienced was a destabilized mana crystal, it’s fairly common when practising the creation of currency. It loses its inert state and expends the elementally aligned energy.”

“Wait, but I saw several elemental effects. What does that say about my elemental alignment?” Dante asked.

“Well, you see. I don’t know...Everyone is aligned to a single element, there’s the occasional exception where two or more elements combine. Like Fire and Wind is lightning. Waya’s alignment to Nature and Wind is a rare exception, it does happen sometimes. But your crystal just expressed multiple elements, you don’t seem to have a single elemental alignment. I’ve never seen it before” a nervous excitement tinged his voice as he explained the implications to Dante.

Dante seemed intrigued about his predicament “No alignment? or do I have an affinity to all elements?”

“That’s… I’m not sure, I guess it could be all of them, this is new territory for me. Do you feel like you can try to create credit again and not lose control this time?” Otus asked excitedly.

Replying to Otus’s excitement “Uh yeah sure, I need a moment, that took quite a bit out of me.”

After Dante had rested, Otus observed as Dante manifested a crystal that bore an appearance similar to black opal. He had successfully created a credit worth at least 2 units of mana. Dante held it before himself to inspect it, it seemed to have a pretty pearlescent sheen of different colours that sparkled as he rotated it in the light of the fire.

“May I?” Otus asked, holding his hand out desperately. He wanted to see a mana crystal that he suspected was manifested from a Chaotic elemental alignment.

“Sure, one second,” Dante replied. Otus watched in astonishment as Dante created another 2 unit crystal of mana then handed it to Otus. “Payment for the lesson?” he smiled, handing it over.

‘How much mana does he have? The one that exploded had to be at least 5 units, then he created 2 crystals worth 2 units each.’ Bewildered that this human had come out of nowhere and was now breaking his understanding of mana.

As Dante handed him the crystal he held it carefully in both his hands, as if he was receiving something precious. Muttering to himself as he turned it between his fingers and observed it from different angles.

****

Dante was mentally exhausted, he received 2 notifications.

[ Maximum Mana increased to 12]

[ Mana mastery increased to 8]

‘My mana went up!’ he was elated, it was the first time he had received a notification for mana increasing. It had previously increased without him realising. Also, his mana mastery increased, the attribute remaining one of the highest and he had earned the increases by himself. He had previously attempted to increase it using the system as an experiment, he never succeeded, which probably stemmed from his lack of understanding when it came to mana.

‘So I can possibly work on improving myself by working on my mana circulation. The possibility that I have access to all or multiple elements is awesome, it would explain the spectrum of colours I saw when I looked at myself with the glasses. What does that mean for my abilities?’

Dante felt pain developing between his eyebrows, he thought it must have been induced by the mana exercises. He looked at Otus, watching him hold the mana crystal like it was the most precious thing in the world.

****

Waya had been watching Dante the whole time he was practising. She looked at Otus, the strange man who was cooing over the crystal that Dante had handed him, she wished the weird man would just leave her alone. His eyes creeped her out and he stank like prey.

She turned toward Dante, noticing that he was moving towards her. Dante then sat down beside her, turning his head to face her and started speaking his unusual language that she didn’t properly understand. His tone seemed to be more sombre than usual like he was trying to convey something important to her.

“Waya, I don’t know how to communicate this to you, but I think I owe you an apology.” Dante reached his hand out to scratch Waya’s head then retracted it, he thumped a fist against his leg which briefly startled her. “I’m such an idiot! I’m Sorry Waya…”

Dante palmed at his face before turning back to face her, “You must be going through a tough time and I didn’t even realise why.”

He reached forward and grabbed a blackened burnt stick that had fallen from the fire, testing it on the back of his hand. He then started to make weird scratching motions, it was similar to when he was made images of her and the hideless.

The picture he was drawing began to reveal itself, what Waya saw shocked her and made her emotions stir. ‘He knows…how does he know?’

It was a picture of two wolves, one had a black face, the other a face split with black and white. He spoke again while pointing to the image of her brother, Maikoh.

“I don’t know who this wolf is to you, but I guess they are important. It’s why you’ve been worried right?”

Seeing that the man had an earnest look on his face, she made a low howl back. “I miss my brother, I don’t know where he is.”

“After we reach the village, once I get the answers and information I need. I’ll help you look for them” He pointed at himself, then the direction they were travelling, then at the picture of Maikoh and towards the direction they had left.

Waya thought she understood his intention, she barked then lightly licked his hand.

Dante’s shoulders sank, he kept speaking the words she didn’t understand, yet somehow they still comforted her. “I know, I’ve been so selfish and fixated on my own goals, I never stopped to consider you had your own things going on.”

He continued his apology but Waya was starting to get too upset thinking about how she couldn’t do much. She nuzzled into Dante with a quiet whine of concern. He returned her affections by scratching behind her ears and gently smoothing her until they both fell asleep.

****

Otus was still looking at the crystal, seeing the spectrum of colours reflecting off of it. “Fascinating, fascinating. I can’t leave these two alone, I need to follow them.”

He looked at the pair, Dante had fallen asleep next to Waya. Taking out his sketching pad, he started to draw them, there was chaos emanating from the man and the feral nature and wind element from Waya.

“What a pair I've encountered…” he whispered into the darkness.

Scribbling sounds could be heard as he made notes and drew sketches long into the night.