Chapter 30 The Suit

The group made their way back to their room to complete Evernya’s tests. Upon reentering the room, Evernya spotted a few new contraptions set up. A chair and bed device being the main additions taking up half the room.

“Where did all of this come from? I doubt you could have carried all of this down here.” Evernya inquired.

“Storage rings are a wonderful device. It makes transportation of this delicate equipment easy.” Elizabeth replied while patting a gold emerald ring on her left thumb.

“I so want one of those,” Evernya commented, staring at the ring with envy.

“I plan to make you one before you start college. We will need a dimensional storage device to carry your supply of food and anything else you harvest while you are out hunting.” Meira revealed, eliciting an excited squeal from her kitten.

While her kitten vibrated in excitement, Meira joined the others in performing the final setup. Thomas used his telekinesis to levitate a tank to the bracket on the back of the chair, locking it into place with a click before stepping back to give Elizabeth and Sarah room to work. With practiced efficiency, the women connected several tubes from the box at the bottom of the chair to the tank before poking at the screen mounted on the tank’s back.

After a few more minutes, Elizabeth gave a thumb up to Meira, prompting her to return her attention to her kitten, watching them set up brimming with curiosity, ears perked, tail swaying.

Meira approached her kitten to give her a rundown on the next steps. “The first step is to set up and bind your training suit. Once we finish binding your training suit, only you can wear and control it. Please sit in this chair and give me your left wrist.”

Evernya sat in the strange chair, allowing Meira to use the computer screen mounted on the left forearm of her suit. She watched intently as Meira selected options as she worked her way through the setup process.

Wow, this suit has a lot of features, 90% of which I don’t understand what they do. Meira seems to know, though, at least I hope so. From what I can tell, she is installing most features, meaning I’ll have to spend a ton of time poking through the menus to figure shit out. The only features she disabled were ones that upload my data to the Internet or to the manufacturer’s system. I’m glad she did, since I like my privacy, especially with all the secrets my body may hold.

Fifteen minutes of menu flipping later, Meira finally finished with the setup process, greeting them with a download and installation progress bar.

“With the university’s fast Internet, it should take around five minutes for the download to complete,” Meira stated as she plopped onto a chair while they wait.

As if reading her kitten’s mind, Meira added, “Don’t worry about your information leaking. One of the primary reasons I chose this suit was its security. During the binding process, the suit will bind all data recordings to your biometrics and mana signature, preventing anyone from accessing without your permission.”

“Like encryption?” Evernya inquired while staring down at the slow-moving progress bar.

“I don’t know what encryption means. The binding prevents anyone from accessing or sending your data other than you. I didn’t want to take any chances with the sensitivity of your data. For dueling and identification purposes, the suit will send your basic information, but all of that will be on your IDs anyway, so it's public knowledge.” Meira replied while watching the progress bar.

As the progress bar neared the last and most critical part of the setup, Meira warned, “The next part may startle you. For the suit to scan you, it needs to adhere to your skin for a better connection. Hence why you have to be naked under the suit to allow a complete connection. During the adhering process, you will feel an uncomfortable sticking sensation, followed by nothing. The suit will become an additional layer of skin. The adhering will happen whenever you activate the suit from then on. After the suit fuses to your body, it is impossible to remove without deactivating it first. However, don’t worry, it isn’t permanent, and you can deactivate the suit any time with the computer on your forearm. Only at specific times requiring a sealing effect does the suit prevent you from deactivating it, such as a duel.”

“Thank you for letting me know this suit is a fascinating piece of technology.” Evernya marveled while staring down her body at the skintight black suit.

Meira nodded her head in agreement, stating, “Yes, it is. Most training suits aren’t as advanced as yours. I didn’t want to cut any corners on your training, so I splurged a bit. This suit should keep you company while training and dueling for years to come.”

A minute later, Evernya inquired, “I’ve been wondering about that since I saw a dual on TV in the hospital. I noticed they were wearing a similar suit. What does this suit have to do with dueling?”

Meira checked the progress bar before answering her kitten’s question. “To take part in an official mage duel, all participants must wear a suit like this or a dueling only suit. Once the suit is in dueling mode and connected to a dual arena node, it downloads the rules of the dual and enforces them. On top of enforcing all rules, the participant’s suit determines the winner depending on the dual. For example, if the duel is to mana drain or incapacitation, the suit will end the duel the moment it senses its wearer reaching the set parameters.”

Meira paused for a moment before continuing, “The most common type of dual is a 1v1 equalized duel. In this duel, the participant’s suits will seal their mana grade equal to the lowest participant. So if one participant is grade six while the other is four, the grade six participant's suit will seal his or hers mana down to grade four. Also, in dueling mode, the suit has other features such as nullifying all enchanted items, even storage rings, while connected to an arena.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of having my mana sealed. What if someone attacks me when I am sealed?” Evernya commented, shivering at the prospect.

Meira smiled reassuringly as she added, “Only participants of the dual can enter the dueling arena while a duel is in progress. Plus, as added safety, they built in an auto release feature if the suit detects a life-threatening situation.”

“Are duels common?” asked Evernya, leaning forward, fascinated by the subject.

“Humans love their duels. They use them for many things, such as entertainment or even determining who receives a business deal. It isn’t out of the ordinary to have rounds of televised duels every night, sometimes even throughout the day, as it’s a viewer draw.” Answered Meira.

What is this place, Rome? Sure, duels would be awesome to watch, but every day? Don’t they know over saturating the market will kill demand? Evernya thought as she turned her attention to the progress screen nearing completion.

After five minutes on the dot, the progress bar completed. The next screen asked ‘do you want to bind suit now?’ With a yes or no option.

Meira stared into her kitten’s eyes with a worried expression, asking, “Are you ready?”

Evernya nodded her head in response, prompting Meira to explain the next phase. “This part will take five to ten minutes. After the suit adheres to your skin, it will run multiple scans for your biometrics and mana signature, permanently binding the suit. Then, it will cycle through some of its features, such as mana sealing and the body monitoring system. I know the mana sealing will feel uncomfortable but don’t fight it as it will only make it worse.”

Before she could back out, Evernya pressed the yes option, noticing a difference immediately. The suit squeezed against her body before a weird sticking sensation assaulted everywhere the suit came into contact with. This squeezing and sticking sensation lasted for a few seconds before she stopped feeling the entire suit altogether.

Evernya peered down at her body to make sure she wasn’t naked. “That’s funky. I don’t feel the suit at all. It feels like I am naked,” Evernya commented as she ran her hands down her body.

As her hands glided over her black-clad body, she found her sense of touch was almost identical to that of naked skin. The only real difference was the suit felt much smoother than skin.

Elizabeth pulled up a chair next to Meira, joining her for the next part after completing the setup of the other equipment. “The suit fuses to the top layers of your skin, so in a way, it is part of your body,” Elizabeth explained.

“This suit would be handy for swimming as I doubt it would cause much drag.” Evernya commented as she continued to feel herself up.

Meira smiled at her kitten while trying her best to keep her worries concealed as she responded, “Yes, it is. There are available attachments, such as a hood that covers the entire head, and an included breathing mask. However, I don’t think the mask attachment would work for you as I doubt you would want your ears compressed against your skull for long.”

Any further conversation paused as Evernya felt a tingle throughout her body as the suit scanned its new owner. After a minute of scans, a ding resonated from the computer on her forearm.

“Congratulations, the suit completed its binding. Now try to relax. The next part may be difficult.” Meira warned, while nervously fidgeting.

A moment later, Evernya felt something encapsulate her mana core. On instinct, she tried to access her mana, but the steadily thickening seal impeded her attempts, only allowing less than half of her mana potency through. As more of her mana core sealed off, her body weakened. She gritted her teeth in pain as the seal filtered her mana down to awakened grade two, causing her observers to exchange glances in worry.

The pain spiked as it dipped below grade two, causing her to panic. In desperation, Evernya grasped ahold of as much mana as she can, bashing it against the seal only for it to glance off. Refusing to give in, Evernya continued to lash out against the seal, despite the futility of it.

Against her will, her eyes drifted closed as the mana available couldn’t sustain her senses, cutting her off from the outside world. Her silky black hair dulled, falling limply over Evernya’s face as her body slumped. Evernya continued to fight against the seal, even though her thoughts became murkier by the second. By grade 1.5, Evernya could barely sustain conscious thought. On the outside, her body became emaciated, appearing to lose 10 kg in less than a minute. At grade 1.25, Evernya fell unconscious as her body finally gave in to the unbreakable hold of the mana seal.

Her vital readings continued to dive until an alarm sounded from the computer on her forearm as her vitals reached life-threatening levels. The safety on the suit kicked in, unsealing her mana core. Within minutes, Evernya regained her healthy appearance, and her vital signs stabilized at their usual low levels.

Ten minutes later, Evernya awakened with a pained groan. She rubbed her temples, trying to ease her splitting headache, but it did nothing. On instinct, she flooded her head with mana, immediately removing her headache, replacing it with a high instead. Evernya giggled uncontrollably for no reason, confusing her already worried observers. A few minutes of giggling later, she returned to earth.

She scanned her surroundings for the first time since she woke up. Why is everyone staring at me? Did I grow another tail? Evernya took stock of her body but found everything normal, still sitting on the weird chair with her new training suit.

Meira leaned in to study her kitten’s reaction with Elizabeth while Sarah and Thomas watched a few meters away. “How do you feel?” Meira asked.

While fidgeting from the attention, Evernya replied, “I’m fine. What happened? The last thing I remember was feeling weak.”

With a grim expression, Meira reported, “You passed out before the test completed. The safety engaged unsealing your mana core around grade 1.1. If the test had continued any further, you would have died. I think we got a glimpse of your body’s condition. When I first brought you home, I investigated your slave band, finding it set at grade 1 before you blew it up. Obviously, you could function with your mana sealed to grade one back then. However, now you started showing troubling signs by Grade 3, and at Grade 2.5, I doubt you could even walk without help. After that, your body began to break down. From what we observed, your mana is barely keeping your body from falling apart, and it appears to be losing ground. At the current rate, I don’t think you will last more than a year. I hope the full evaluation will give a clearer picture of what is wrong.”

To take her kitten’s mind off the grim news, Meira inquired a moment later, “By the way, what was with the giggle fit?”

Still a little loopy from her mana-induced high, Evernya’s mind was slow to grasp Meira’s report but responded to Meira’s question, “Apparently, I can make myself high if I flood my head with mana. Though I don’t know why I was giggling. I just felt the urge to giggle.”

Her two mother hens stared down like she was a misbehaving child, with Elizabeth chiding. “Do not do that again! You could have given yourself brain damage!”

Evernya shook off the last of her mana-induced high, allowing her to focus. “I will try not to. It was an impulsive decision. All I wanted to do was get rid of my horrible headache.”

Meira, wanting to find out what was ailing her kitten as soon as possible, prodded everyone to continue. “Let’s move on to the next test. Even though you didn’t complete the full mana sealing test, it was enough to activate your suit. The next test will be uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t hurt you. The mana system analyzer you are sitting on will give us readings on all aspects of your mana system, such as your mana grade, magic classes, mana capacity, and the overall state of your mana system with 99% accuracy.”

While Meira gave her kitten a basic overview, Elizabeth and Sarah pulled out some cuffs with tubes connected to them from a storage compartment at the back of the chair under the tank.

As soon as the cuffs entered Evernya’s line of sight, she trembled, flashing back to her several run-ins with restraints.