(Jason, 16)

"Good morning, Jason," Papa Jared greets me as he steps out of the gate, then dips his head to Niko. "Good morning, Niko."

"Good morning," Niko greets him, uncertain as to who he is.

"This is my Papa Jared," I tell Niko, whose face lights up with recognition. "What are you doing here, Papa Jared? And don't say 'hunting hippos', because there aren't any here."

Niko gives me a bewildered look as Papa Jared laughs.

"I wanted to tell you," he explains. "That I sorted out the issues with the pistons and the long-distance communication tablets."

"Really?" I ask, and he pulls a communication tablet out of his storage space and hands it to me. There are a series of runes on it, and I appraise the magic, then activate the one used most recently. The person on the other end answers almost immediately with a group of runes beginning to glow, and I respond before they have a chance to speak. "Hello?"

"Hello, Jason," Papa Samuel chuckles. "I was going to give one to you yesterday, but you and Niko were not at your training space."

"We went on a trip," I tell him. "Exploring the world, and all that. How far are you?"

"I am in Mar," he answers.

"Are you near my family?" Niko looks nervous.

"I am," Papa Samuel answers. "Your father is standing beside me, actually. I brought him home last night. How are you, Prince Niko?"

"I am well," Niko responds stiffly. "How are you?"

"I am well as well," Papa Samuel answers. "And busy at the moment. Your father and I are managing some slight unrest dealing with your family's acceptance of magic. It seems the church up here is quite displeased. It is nothing that cannot be handled, though."

"Okay," Niko responds.

"Have a good day, Niko, Jason," Papa Samuel says, then the communication ends, the runes on the comm plate fading back to normal.

"We both suspected you would do that," Papa Jared chuckles, pulling a small booklet out of his spatial storage and handing it to me. "These are the directions on how to create the comm plates. The patent goes to you in this case, and I already have it filed."

"Alright," I send the booklet and the comm plate into my spatial storage. "You said you sorted out the train issue?"

"I did," he nods. "As long as it works in the full version, the only thing we will need to worry about is powering it. I am still working on finding a way for it to quickly draw in ambient mana, faster than what our engines can do."

"I will think on it more," I tell him. "As it is right now, we would need to have multiple mana engines connected to it, each one replaced after every trip with ones that are stored up. By the way, I used up all of the venting ones outside of Varil City, and will check on them once Niko and I return later."

"Your Papa Samuel already told me," he nods. "That was an interesting use for them, and he gave me the explanation that Jacob gave to Zachary."

Jacob probably explained about the increased ambient mana in the air, and how all we needed to do was drain it out to solve the situation. Thinking back on it, I probably should have checked to make sure he knew everything dealing with such a situation before we parted ways on Sorday.

"I need to head back," Papa Jared tells us. "Your Mama Alyssa and I were working on something, but I knew you would likely be waking around now."

"Alright," I give him a quick hug. "Have a good day, Papa Jared, and tell the others that for me, too."

"Will do," he ruffles my hair. "You two enjoy your training."

He opens up a gate again and steps back through it, and I look at Niko.

"Ready to do what we meant to do yesterday?"

"Yes," he looks uncertain. "Are you sure it will work?"

"I am positive," I nod as I open up a gate to the place, then we step through it.

We're in another area of this region, and the space needs prepwork before it can be used for what I intend.

Walking forward, I approach the guidelines I laid out previously. They are really just four posts I set into the ground as flags, with magical lines trailing between them. I have a lot of magical power, but doing this on my own would take a lot of time. Even with Niko helping, it will probably take a few hours.

And this will act as a form of training for Niko, and one that suits his magical abilities, as it involves using earth magic in a precise manner.

"Remember," I tell Niko as I lift up my hands, shaping my mana into the spell. "You want to compress the earth down as much as you can. Remember what we practiced the other day."

He nods, then lets me 'border' the place. To do that, I compress three feet of land starting from the magical line, creating a hole one hundred feet deep. I do this in five-foot stretches, for fifteen square feet pushed down.

Starting, I walk all around the marked space, which is one hundred yards by three hundred yards in dimension. This creates the border, so that Niko and I can visually see where to stop working.

"You start on this end," I tell Niko. "I'll start on the other."

He nods, and I teleport to the other side of the field, then jump across the gap onto the island I created. In sections just as big as the ones I used to create the border, I compress the earth down into the ground.

Niko and I work until lunch, with him doing smaller sections at a time, and once we've finished, we've compressed roughly nine million cubic feet of earth. We sit where we finish, and I pull sandwiches out of my spatial storage, having prepared them and some fruit before Papa Jared showed up.

After lunch, Niko and I walk through the entire space, and I judge the compressed land beneath it using an earth-scanning spell. Where needed, I smooth out inconsistencies so that we have an evenly-compressed field beneath us. Each one-hundred cubic-foot pillar becomes compressed into the twenty feet beneath it, making it around six cubic feet of soil compressed into every one.

This creates a hard, durable floor for this space, and as soon as I finish checking and fixing this, I transmute it all. The appearance doesn't change, but the durability and resistance to water increases massively. I do the same to the walls of this space, then open a gate to the changing rooms at the hot springs at my house. Niko and I are sweaty and exhausted from doing this work, and we could use a relaxing soak before we return to Varil City.

(Jacob, 16)

"So we do not have to worry about this happening again?" I ask after Jason finishes explaining.

"Not quite," he shakes his head as he finishes breaking down the fence and sending it into his dimensional space. "Ambient mana continues to build up over time. The generators took in as much as they possibly could, and that returned the ambient mana back to a stable, normal level for this region. There is always the risk this will happen again, but that risk exists everywhere. One of the training places I have actually deals with this all the time. It's not too intense, but it results in a tide bison forming every three or four weeks. Those are fun to kill."

Of course you would likely have fun killing a beast that can manipulate water to an absurd level. Those are in the upper ranks of monster types, Jason, and now I wonder how many times I have seen you wearing something made from the hide of one.

"Okay," I respond as he sends the generator into his dimensional space, then moves on to the next one to break down and put away. "So the current situation with the flame boars should be over?"

"Correct," he answers. "Ambient mana is back into a safe level, and the elemental charge to it has returned to the stable amount, balanced with everything else here. I could probably create a flaming tornado and sustain it for a few hours, and the fire charge would return to normal within an hour."

"Please do not ever do that."

"I didn't say I was going to," he snorts as begins breaking down the fence. "Just that I could, Jacob. How did your date go?"

Tasha and I had a lunch date today, where we traveled to a lake around an hour outside of town. Naturally, we had a company of guards on us, but they kept their distance during lunch itself. I found out Jason had returned and was out here upon our return.

"It went wonderfully," I answer. "The sky was clear, and the lake looked beautiful today. I had the palace chefs prepare a light meal for us, and it consisted of some spiced bread, a savory spread for the bread, a salad, some pears and grapes, and a nice bottle of white Golbaia wine. Despite autumn being upon us, the weather was nice as well, with barely a breeze to add extra chill to the air. Were I to not know better, I would expect that the gods arranged the weather perfectly for us."

Even if the Magi did not destroy the passages to the heavens three thousand years ago, I doubt the gods would have given any of us, even our reincarnations, assistance for anything. In fact, they probably would have acted the opposite and created a storm to ruin the date.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Jason tells me. "By the way, I know you figured out who I used to be."

"Really?" What made you realize that?

"Your question Sorday made it obvious you were trying to find out."

"Oh," I grin at him. "Your explanation about the corrupted is what caused me to suspect. I had to check to see if you were one."

"Have you figured out which one?" He asks.

"That one is obvious," I answer. "You were born on the Day of the Dragon, and your sacred beast is the dragon. You are the dragon of the Magi, the High Magus himself: Nolan."

"Correct," he answers. "And I have verified the presence of five Magi in the area, myself excluded."

Five? If we conclude that Niko is one, then Tasha, Lina, Niko, and I are only four. Who is the fifth?

"Don't ask who they are," Jason tells me. "As I'm not telling their identities, even if you already know. In addition to those five, I suspect two others in the city."

That would make eight of us here in Varil City.

"You think something big is going to happen?" I ask.

"Maybe," he answers. "Or maybe not. It could be mere coincidence, after all. That's the last of the generators, Jacob. Do you have plans for the rest of the day?"

"I do," I groan. "I have to sit in on some meetings. Papa will probably be mildly displeased with me for coming out here to do this when the meetings are coming up."

"Then I will see you in classes tomorrow," he tells me. "Would you like me to open a gate to the palace?"

"If you would be so kind," I nod.

Jason opens a gate, and I wish him a good rest of the day before stepping through it.

(Alex, 16)

When I return to the house, Cecilia informs me that Jason has returned and is in his workshop. I thank her, then take a bath to clean off the sweat of today's work. Barry, Sara, and I went out hunting and busted our rears off all day, but it was worth it. We earned two hundred varru each today.

After my bath, I dry and dress, then head to Jason's workshop and knock on the door. He doesn't respond, but I'm pretty sure he's awake, so I open it and enter, and when I do, I quickly close the door behind me.

The room is saturated with magic. He must have put up some potent wards to keep it from leaking out. The air is saturated with enough magical power that I need to sheathe myself with my own magic to resist negative effects.

Jason himself is standing in the middle of the room, barefoot and shirtless with one of his stuffed tigers sitting on his head, its legs resting on the sides of his head as if holding onto him for dear life. I don't blame it, with the feel of this magical power in the air.

In front of Jason hovers a crystal five feet in height. There's a magical circle on the floor that is probably being used to keep the crystal floating. As I examine the crystal, I determine that it's at its widest a few inches from the top, where it's almost fifteen inches wide, while the top of it is around ten. From the widest ring, it tapers down nearly to a point, and the entire thing rotates slowly. It's crimson in color, though I can see through it, so it's not opaque, despite its thickness. The crystal itself isn't full of facets and edges, but is more like just some sort of crystal that was pulled out of the ground.

"What is that?" I ask.

"Crystallized magic," Jason answers, and I realize he has his arms up, hands in front of him and moving, his fingers twitching about. His gaze is fixed on the crystals, even as he answers. "Welcome back. I need to concentrate, so could you just watch, or go find something to do? Sorry if it seems rude, but if I mess this up, the crystal will explode."

No exploding crystals of pure magic, please, and please don't be making a bomb, Jason.

I sit at his desk and watch as he continues doing whatever it is, and after a few minutes, I let my gaze wander around his workshop, before noticing a grey version of that crystal hovering by one corner, the shelves moved for it to have space there. Another magic circle is on the ground beneath it, with some sort of stone pedestal resting beside it, runes glowing atop it.

As I examine the pair of magical circles, I notice that they match their crystal's color, and both are three feet in diameter. What they're for isn't clear just by looking at them, as I don't have enough magical knowledge to discern that, but I'm still sure they're how the crystals are floating.

My gaze returns to Jason, who's wearing two new pieces of jewelry. There's a twelve-bead bracelet on his left wrist, having joined his original bracelet, and he's also wearing a hemp necklace now, with what looks like bits of coral and some sort of crystal beads strung into parts of it, a shark tooth necklace hanging from it.

He went on a trip, didn't he?

Almost an hour passes before Jason finishes whatever it is, then he puts a hand on the crystal, and it stops rotating. For several minutes, he examines whatever enchantment he worked into the crystal, then releases it, and it begins slowly rotating once more.

"What is that?" I ask.

"Another project of mine," he answers.

"And it makes the air in here fill with magic?"

"Pretty much, yeah," he answers. "How were your hunts this weekend?"

"They were nice," I answer. "How was your trip?"

"Niko and I worked on our project," he tells me. "As planned. Papa Jared figured out how to make the comm plates work properly for how we intended, and he also solved the issue with the pistons. I don't actually know what he did, though. Now, all we have to do is sort out the issue with fueling the mana generators, and we can start building the first proper train."

I've thought about their issue with the mana generators a bit. As it is right now, they would need to have it designed to draw in mana at what is currently an impossible rate in order to fuel during the journey.

So I thought about how things were on Earth. The trains we had were beyond the stage of constantly needing someone to add coal and such. They ran differently, and after sorting through my memories and looking at what I had of them, I realized something.

"I know," I say. "That drawing in mana can be difficult to do at a high speed. How fast does mana transfer between objects, though? How fast can they transfer between objects?"

Jason walks over to one of his shelves and pulls down two mana generators, then sets them on his worktable. He pulls out a thin, short board and quickly etches runes onto it with magic, then sets the two generators onto it and turns the one on our right on. Once it fills up with the ambient mana in the air in here, which doesn't take long because of whatever Jason was just doing, he quickly makes a magic circle around them.

"This circle," he says. "Will push away any ambient mana in the air. As long as it's glowing, it's working."

He pushes a small amount of mana into it, and it begins to glow, the glow initially bright at first, then weak.

"And now this space," he gestures over the circle. "Is clear of ambient mana. So when I turn this on…"

He turns on the second generator, whose status indicator remains orange, the color for 'empty'. Blue is partially full, and green is full, while red is 'below acceptable levels'.

"Nothing changes," I say.

"Exactly," he touches the board, and a moment later, its runes light up, and within seconds, the first generator goes from green to blue to red to orange, while the other acts in reverse. "We can transfer mana between two objects quickly with the right enchantments, the runes fading away. That took about ten seconds. With the right metals, we could do it even faster, but the board was closer."

"Why do you have what is essentially a tongue depressor in your dimensional space?"

"You never know when you'll need emergency medical supplies," he responds.

So it is supposed to be one of those.

"Okay," I say. "Can mana be stored in metal? I know currently, you're using mana crystals within the batteries and generators, and those still need replacing after so long. But what about directly in metal?"

"For up to a few days," he nods, touching the magic circle and disabling it. "Then it fades away like active mana. It does depend on the metal, though. Why?"

"Back on Earth," I say. "Trains were supplied with electricity actively. They were done either through a wire above them or a third rail. Would it be possible to have the tracks draw in the ambient mana, store it, and then transfer it to the trains, which then send it to the mana engines?"

Jason thinks over it for a minute, then nods, and the tiger shifts forward a little with the movement. He pushes it back into place.

"I can let Papa Jared know," he tells me. "It's definitely possible, we'll just need to sort out how to do it properly. I could probably manage it in a month or two, while Papa Jared might figure out in a week or two."

"You think you might take two months to do it?"

"Being generous," he nods. "I have the training sessions, the practical lessons for S-Class students, university, my time with you, various projects I'm working on, and the thing I'm working on with Niko. Papa Jared would only take a week or two if he decided to take breaks from it and do other things. He might actually manage it in a few days if Mama Alyssa helped him."

"What if you didn't have to do all of that?" I ask.

"Three, maybe four weeks," he scratches the back of his neck. "I would have to figure out how to cause the metal to draw the mana in while simultaneously storing it and looking for the train to transfer it into, then transferring all stored mana in the moments the train is touching it. A train moves fast, after all."

"Right," I say.

"As it is right now," he tells me. "I lack experience in some things, and so it will take me longer for stuff than it would my mamas and papas. As I said before, Papa Jared does most of the actual work in development."

"Yeah," I nod. "So is that crystal thing you're working on a big secret?"

"Maybe?" He scratches the back of his neck again. "What it is will be public soon, probably. I need to talk with Uncle Zack about it first. I came up with it on a spur-of-the-moment thing."

"Ah," I stand. "I'm starting to feel woozy, I ran out of mana awhile ago, and while the magical power in the air is fading a little, it's not quickly enough for me to be able to tolerate this."

"That's fine," he gives me a short kiss. "I need to make more of those crystals, and the method to it is going to be kept a secret. I'll come out when I finish and we can relax before bed."

"Alright," I leave his workshop and quickly close the door, then sigh in relief.

Being under magical pressure like that is exhausting, especially when it's far too much above one's own natural magical power. Just what are those crystals, and why do they take so much magical power to create?

And why in the world did Jason have a stuffed tiger on his head?

Let geniuses be geniuses, I suppose.

When I exit the workshop, I head back downstairs, where Cecilia has tea prepared. I sit on the couch and enjoy it, relaxing.

(Jason, 16)

When I finally finish making what crystals I can, which took me longer than I expected but less time than within necessity, I head downstairs to see about playing a game with Alex. Once I grow used to making those crystals and imbuing them with the enchantments, I will be able to forge them faster. The last one I made, I enhanced my body for. Since that also enhances my mind, I was able to focus on it just as well as without doing so.

Doing that, I need to be careful, though. One wrong part of the enchantment during the creation, and the entire thing becomes useless. That, or it explodes into countless tiny fragments.

Sadly, I worked on the crystals into the night in my excitement. I haven't even tested them yet.

When I make it downstairs, I find Alex sleeping on the couch. He must have fallen asleep while waiting for me, and it's pretty cute. Instead of waking him, I cloak myself with a soundless spell and walk over to him, carefully picking him up. With my body's greater strength due to my training and magical power, it's easy.

I carry Alex upstairs and use magic to open his door, then enter his room and lie him on his bed, pulling off his boots and sword and setting them to the side. I make sure to get his knife and belt, too, then cover him up with his blanket, before kissing him on the cheek.

"Good night," I whisper, then slip out of his room in silence and close the door.

Since the staff is already asleep as well, I turn off all of the lights, then open a gate to my house in the training area. It's a few hours to when I need to wake up, and I probably should try to sleep before them, but I want to test these out and can make it through a day without sleeping the night before.

"Am I coming with you?" Tiger Alpha asks.

"Sh!" I whisper. "You almost gave it away while Alex was in the workshop earlier, when you went to adjust yourself back into position."

"But he's asleep," Tiger Alpha points out. "Why can't I talk now?"

"Because if someone wakes up and hears you, it ruins it," I say.

"Oh," he says, then drops his voice. "Is this acceptable?"

"Just don't talk," I tell him. "Unless we're absolutely sure we're alone."

He doesn't respond, and I step through the gate, then close it.

"Now you can talk," I tell him.

"Okay," he whispers.

"That does include at a normal volume."

"Okay," he says normally.

I did have to teach him what a normal volume was, he initially spoke loudly. I suppose I should have made the core better before putting it into him earlier, but I wanted to test it as soon as I finished crafting it.

Something to work on when I get around to turning the rest of my stuffies into golems.

"Are you ready to test these out with me?" I ask Tiger Alpha as I pull the first of the crystals out of my storage space.

(Jacob, 16)

A slight disturbance wakes me, and I do my best to pretend I'm still asleep instead of sighing. I really want to sigh, though. Trying to assassinate me in my sleep? Seriously? One would think assassins would learn that doing so results in failure every time.

Should I just kill him this time? Or leave him alive for interrogation? Papa did get mad at me for killing the last assassin, so I should probably leave him alive.

As subtly as I can, I enhance my speed and strength, then wait for the assassin to draw close. They're using a scanning spell to ensure no one disturbs him by surprise. While I do not have one active, I do have a spell that allows me to detect scanning spells.

At least, most scanning spells. Jason's scanning spell seems to be immune to this.

The moment the assassin stands beside my bed is when I act. I sleep in the center of the large bed, which makes for an awkward attempt at my life without climbing onto the bed unless one uses a ranged attack.

So I generate a shield at the same time I roll backwards, and when I hear the plink of something impacting it, I know they were using a crossbow. Enchanted for silence, since I did not hear it fire. The force of impact against my barrier was strong, so no doubt the crossbow and the bolt were enchanted for extra power.

This assassin must be a moron.

As I roll backwards, I throw my blanket off of me, letting it obscure his vision for a moment as I pull a pair of knives out of my dimensional space. Or rather, my spatial storage. I use the same style as Jason, after his hint on how he uses it differently.

Activating my own scanning spell to create a buzzing for both of us, I move to the side and throw both knives as the assassin tries to track me. During the flight of my knives, I lunge forward, pulling a sword from my spatial storage. The assassin blocks the knives, but the sword slams into his arms. A wooden training sword, so it's heavy and sturdy, but not sharp.

And it hurts like demon's kiss, because I had a magician enchant it specifically to do so and am channeling my mana into it at the moment.

The assassin cries out from the force of the attack and the unexpected pain that filled his arm as it broke. I strike out with the sword again, this time slashing it to his left side, breaking several of his ribs.

As he drops to the ground, I jump off my bed and flick my wrist at him, stunning him as I push the training sword back into my spatial storage, then walk over to the chair at my vanity and pull my pants off the back of it. I pull those on before turning to face the assassin again.

"The stun spell I used," I tell him. "Will wear off in an hour. By that time, you will be strapped safely into the interrogation prisons. If you wanted your master to remain a secret, you should have attacked me elsewhere. Do you know why that is?"

His eyes follow me as I walk over to my door and tap it.

"Because I know you did not come through here," I look at him. "You came through the window, which you shut after you entered. But even had you come through the window, it would not have been easy. See, my room is enchanted. Heavily. There are very, very few magicians capable of creating a tool that would allow someone to enter this room without my explicit permission. Not even my servants' keys can be replicated, and they are locked to the specific servants they are owned by, which means they cannot be used by another."

He continues to watch me as I walk over to my wardrobe and open it, pulling out a tunic and pulling that on.

"Whoever hired you," I continue. "Was either stupid enough to hire someone who only acted at night, or hired someone stupid enough not to do their research. I feel pity for whoever was hired to kill my sister, unless it was you. She isn't as restrained as me when dealing with assassins during our sleep.

"The guards will be here shortly," I tell him as I send my knives back into my spatial storage. "There are usually about three minutes before they arrive after someone manages to break in here. My own guards are awaiting any signal that things went south, or for me to signal them to enter. They were able to witness the entire fight."

I should look into if Jason can rewrite the enchantments on my room. I know that since they would be put up after creation of the room, they would probably need a mana source to supply them with power, but that will be fine considering the mana engines running the palace's defenses.

Actually, now that I think about it, Jason somehow overwrote the enchantments on his uniform without needing to imbue it with mana for them to be active. Normally, the uniforms' enchantments are active at all times, but with S-Class students at the Royal Magic University, they are allowed to have those enchantments purged and then put in ones of their own making. That always results in the same issue – needing to supply it with mana to keep the enchantments active.

Does Jason have a way around them? Something to ask after the training session this afternoon. I will do that while asking him about a locking spell on my room stronger than the current one. It would further decrease how many magicians would be capable of creating something that could breach it.

I am not looking forward to university today after being woken up a few hours early by this. There is a good chance that once the guards finish talking to me and Papa stops fretting over the fact that another assassin made it into my room, I will not be able to fall back asleep.

Wonderful.