(James)

As soon as Dana had accepted her Class, a sphere of lights formed around her, as if from thin air.

The sphere cut straight through the chair and table, destroying the ledger that was on there. Not that it mattered, they had already found out everything of value from it.

The sphere lifted off the ground but moved so slowly James didn't panic. It stayed in mid-air for a few seconds, then the ball closed in on itself, and seemed to shrink until it formed a skin over Dana.

James couldn't see details, but he could tell that her clothing had changed. It reminded him of something he had seen when he was much younger. Something about the moon and stars.

The light faded off Dana, leaving her suspended in the air for just a second. She fell to her feet and started reading through messages only she could see. It was obvious because of how unfocused her eyes were and how she didn't notice what had happened to her.

James just sat back with his mouth open. He was right, her clothes had changed drastically. What was most of a school uniform and his handmade armour before, was now... Something way, way weirder.

Dana appeared to be wearing a short strappy dress of a dark smoky grey, with bright red highlights. The dress complimented her figure greatly, and hugged her curves, despite how short it was. The seemingly inflated skirt moved like smoke around her thighs, with the red highlights on it flickering like fire when she moved.

His attention was drawn to her hair, and the red ribbons in it. Her long blonde hair had been loose before, but was now braided over one shoulder and had ribbons woven into it.

She also now had makeup on her face. After the shift, whatever she had on before was removed, but soft red highlights and black shadows highlighted her face. Her eyes positively glowed.

James dragged his eyes down and was glad she was distracted as he had been staring at her face for a while.

Looking at her body in more detail was no less captivating though. The dress was more than one piece. It looked like a strapless dress, which was frilled at the top, and ran around her shoulders instead of over them. It showed no cleavage, but clung to her skin, emphasizing the shape of her bust rather than the size.

There was red waistcoat that only ran around her waist and was buttoned together under the overhang of her boobs.

James was confused for a second. There seemed to be no support in the dress at all, but it also looked like Dana was wearing a sports bra.

He instantly dismissed it as magic and kept looking further down.

The skirt as he had immediately noticed, was pleated, but the inserts were all melded shades of red and orange.

She wore long black socks that ran up to her thighs and had a few red rings at the top. The socks as well were not secured by anything like a garter belt, but he was sure they would also stay in place through magic.

On her feet was a pair of red slip on shoes. They weren't the sexy high heels James had been expecting, but rather looked comfortable.

The entire ensemble was really brought together by the gloves she wore. They stretched halfway up her arms, ending just before her elbows. They were charcoal black at her hands, but faded into red near the end, and had some long frilly cuffs hanging loosely at the ends.

While the outfit suited Dana, as he suspected most clothes would, the outfit might have appeared more normal on someone of smaller... stature.

James wasn't close to understanding what a magical girl was, but he suspected it was supposed to be someone just a little younger-looking than Dana.

No matter, as long as it was part of her class. And helped her in some way. Besides, it would be one hell of a sight watching her fight giant spiders.

Speaking of sight, Dana had just started looking around with a satisfied smile. James smiled too, but a mix of pride and entertainment instead. This quickly became a grin, and Dana noticed only too quickly.

She looked confused and put a hand on her chest, then looked more confused. James held back laughter as it finally dawned on her what was happening.

"No. No. No... What the hell. JAMES!"

James jumped at her sudden shout.

"Ah! What?"

"I'm a goddamn magical girl!"

James sat for a moment, tense.

"Isn't that good?"

Dana's face was turning red, starting to match her makeup.

"Well... The class, yeah. But I didn't think it would have an actual magical girl costume, and all that transformation shit."

"It was like something out of a cartoon."

"Exactly! I can't fight like This."

As an example, she bobbed up and down a little, but surprisingly to both of them, her chest showed no signs of insecurity.

"Damn. That's some useful magic."

"Does it even feel like you're wearing a bra?"

"No. It's like I'm weightless all over actually."

"That's so cool. But is this a permanent thing?"

Dana opened up her status again and after a few moments of scanning text, she replied.

"No. Not really. It's like armour I can wear when I'm going into combat. It doesn't use any mana or whatever, but it will disappear if I run out of either."

"What do you mean by disappear?."

"Oh. I won't be naked, I'll just be wearing my old clothes."

"Tch."

James looked to the side in an attempt to hide his dissatisfaction, but he couldn't blame her. It would hardly be good if she were suddenly defenceless if she ran out of mana and passed out.

"Enough about the damn outfit. I have some spells I want to practice, and I'm sure you want to spend more time messing with your gun."

James nodded. He couldn't deny that.

"Its... almost 3 o clock now. We spend the next hour practising, then head back to the gym and tear that shit up. Sound good?"

James nodded again. He was already lost in plans about what to do with his gun.

"Yes, ma'am."

Dana smiled sweetly and leant down to kiss James lightly before sauntering to a far end of the cafeteria.

James immediately picked up his pistol and removed the clip. He looked closely down each of the cylinders. Every crystal was the same. He tried using the shell release on It, but it was stuck. It was likely made to not be tampered with this much.

James analysed It. He was curious to see what it was called now that the entire gun was in two pieces.

Universal revolver clip (legendary piece):

Rarity: (XXXXX)

Capacity: 6

Ammo type: Mana (customisable)

Value: 570 golden ivory

James had no idea what a golden ivory was, or how much it was worth, but he guessed it was a hell of a lot.

He analysed the rest of the gun too.

Revolver frame (legendary piece):

Rarity: (XXXXX)

Elemental affinity: (Divine 10)

Damage multiplier: (50.00)

Value: 974 jade crystals

Another unknown currency.

But James wasn't concerned about that. Much.

"Hey. Before you get into It..."

"What?"

Dana didn't have to speak loudly to be heard from the other side of the large room. The area was silent aside from them.

"You remember the loot we got from the slime?"

"Yeah. It was the two xp orbs and the green gems and some other stuff, right? We gave the silver orb to Annie. What about It?"

"Did anyone analyse one of the gems? Do we know what they are?"

"Dom said they were jade crystals I think. Why?"

"They're like, super valuable. I'm not sure how this new money works after the coins, but the jade crystals are pretty high up there."

"Cool. Well. We can all buy some nice stuff from all the people still out there then."

James didn't reply to that. It wasn't worth it. But he did think about what he would buy if he could. Maybe some old knights armour with some new tech in it. Maybe something that would let him fly.

He smiled to himself, imagining flying over a battlefield and just shooting monsters as he flew. That would be so cool.

But they had to save the others from the spiders sooner rather than later.

Daydreaming aside, and realising he couldn't do anything with his weapon yet, James turned back to his magic. He had struggled with getting mana sight in the first place, but he wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe Dana just had a way more active imagination than him.

He still didn't quite get how spells were structured. With mana sight active, he could see the mana in various materials with the amount of white light that seemed to be stored in them.

He could move around the mana in the air with some difficulty by imagining giant hands of blue mana wafting it around. But it wasn't strong enough to make a spell out of. James didn't even know how to make a spell, or what he would try to make.

The most success he had achieved with mana was rotating the clip of his gun with his mind by forcing the mana in the crystals to move, pulling the crystal and by extension the cylinder with it.

While it was separate from the rest of the gun, James held the clip in his hand and looked closely at it with mana sight active. He was almost immediately affected by a headache, but it was easily bearable if he didn't overuse it.

While the metallic clip held a high concentration of mana in it, the crystals inside each cylinder were more so. To James, they looked like they were made completely of mana, just a solid construct. Aside from the cracks running through them. He could see the absence of mana through the cloudy white, suspecting this was where the injected mana was stored before being fired.

His only method of recharging the mana in the gun was to imagine the crystals leeching mana from him and. There was another way, which was how he had fired it the first time without charging. He could bleed on It. By having an open channel of blood connecting him to the gun, each shot was taken straight from his mana.

But keeping an open wound unhealed for a suspended fight was impossible. It took less than 20 seconds for a pinprick to heal. Any wound deeper than that, despite the advantages, seemed dangerous to James. The gun didn't absorb the blood, so he would just be bleeding heavily on his gun for roughly a minute.

He already had a problem with dropping his gun if he was hit too hard, so covering it with slippery blood would not help.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to envision the mana leaving his body and entering the crystal without actually seeing the crystal itself, so he had to stop and concentrate. By looking at each crystal individually.

He tried to do that now by touching the crystal through the small hole at the back of the clip and imagining his bright blue mana entering the crystal.

As he saw his own opaque white mana flow into the cracks of the mana construct, he felt he knew how to step up his understanding.

He activated a skill he didn't think he would need to use here, if ever.

Jewelers Eye

James scrunched up his eyes as his mild headache turned into a full blown burning behind his eyes.

Instead of crying out, he gritted his teeth and opened his eyes. He only needed a second.

In the second he could see clearly beyond the tears, he saw a strange add-on to the blue and white world of mana. The jewellers eye skill was only affecting the left side of his vision, where his dominant eye was.

Instead of a blue tint, he suspected jewellers eye used red as it's indicative colour because much of what he saw was purple. The crystal he was looking at in particular was fascinating.

In a split second, he could see every detail, every property the crystal held.

He saw the crystal as it was being filled with mana, so he could see at an atomic level what the crystal was, and how it was formed and being filled.

Understanding of Mana Constructs and Mana Construct Charging had unlocked a unique skill: Remote Charging (U)

In a brief moment of victory, James smiled and applauded himself for finding what he was sure was a useful skill.

Before his eye exploded.

This time he did yell out, as a rather disappointing -8hp blurred in front of him. Seriously, how did that much pain only cause 8 health?

Status effect: half blind (40:00)

James didn't even have time to consider the full implications of this question, as he was currently lying on the floor in pain, hands covering the ruined wreck where his eye used to be.

"AAAAAAAAAUUUGGGHHHHHH!!!" *gasp*

"SHIT!!!"

James managed to deactivate his skills through the fog of pain. And it immediately lessened. Not that it was any more bearable.

Skill learnt: Pain Resistance (B)

Pain Resistance has levelled up. Pain Resistance is now level 2.

The pain lessened again, and James managed to sit up. Dana was running towards him but recoiled when she noticed the mess of blood and goo splattered over the table and down his face.

Pain Resistance has levelled up. Pain Resistance is now level 3.

James took a deep breath. The pain was bearable now, even if the knowledge that he only had one eye was not.

James instantly felt nauseous as he could only see his right hand, even though he knew he was holding both up.

Status effect: shock (14:08)

The vision in James' remaining eye dragged, and his vision blurred. He looked towards Dana who had put her hands on his shoulders, or at least one of them.

James pushed himself backwards and rolled over onto his stomach. He was halfway to his feet when the world tilted again, and he managed to catch himself on one hand before emptying his stomach onto the floor.

He felt weak, and his elbow buckled. Before his face fell into the pile of vomit and bile, he was caught, and Dana pulled him back until he was lying on her lap.

He couldn't hear her, or at least his hearing was muted. He vaguely saw her mouth moving, but the only thing he could think of was warning her.

"Nuh... nuhver do." He paused to catch his breath. "Two eyes."

She merely smiled and nodded, and James lay, satisfied and let his scared mind calm down in her embrace.

At least he didn't pass out again.