I spent a few minutes molding the manasteel before Athena stood up. I quickly pulled the manasteel into a rod shape and stood up too. "We have something to show you too. Tesla, why don't you start by showing her your size changes."

Okay!

Tesla grew to about hip height to avoid overcrowding the room. "As is apparent, Tesla can change her size. She can become even larger too." Athena had an impressed look on her face. "Why don't you try the Dervish form too."

Seconds later, a dervish was standing in the room, and Athena took a cautionary step back. "That's crazy." Athena reigned in her surprise and moved closer. "You two are some of the craziest people I have ever heard of. Are those claws sharp?"

Yes!

Tesla flexed her claws, and I answered. "She says yes. And I watched her shear a branch off a tree without any sort of wind up. Next up, let's show her the stuff!"

Tesla shifted back to the oversized Pictis form and started pulling out our traveling gear. She set it neatly in a pile.

"This... how is this happening?!" Athena's eyes looked wild, and she dropped onto her bed.

I smiled at her surprise and explained. "Tesla has a skill called Storage. She can carry anything that fits in her pouch. But since she can change her size, it doesn't really matter how big it is."

Athena's eyes teared up. "How... Why..." She didn't start sobbing, but the tears started flowing. "I thought I was going to have to carry our stuff. We don't have Sooli or something else to transport it all. And you can cook too, exceptionally well. I was absolutely dreading those tasks. If we got attacked, I might not have been able to protect you." Athena sniffled. "This is probably the best-case scenario, and I never would have guessed it in a hundred years."

I was still as a statue. Talking to people was a stretch, but someone crying? Someone crying that was a pretty woman? I had no idea what to do. Thankfully Tesla saved me by shrinking down and climbing onto her lap. Athena rubbed Tesla's head, and Tesla started purring in response. "Thank you, Jak. And you too, Tesla. You two are probably the best thing that has happened to me." She wiped the last of the tears from her face.

"There is one more thing. Tesla, you swapped out your Felisian form, right?"

I did! Want me to turn into a Kitsune?

"Let me leave the room first in case you have the same problem as last time."

It won't be a problem this time. I figured out how to turn into a Kitsune with clothes on.

"Oh, then go ahead." Athena's head tilted in confusion at the one-sided conversation.

"I knew she could understand us, but I didn't know she could talk to you." Athena mused.

"Yeah, since the evening you took me to see your mother actually."

Tesla used our short conversation to climb onto the bed behind Athena before transforming into the golden Kitsune girl. "Athena!!" Tesla squealed as she started rubbing her face into Athena's back.

--

The next hour ended up being an exhausting whirl. Athena took it upon herself to train Tesla on how to act. I kept getting dragged into mock settings. She caught on quickly, her intellect was more than adequate to pick it up.

When Athena deemed her mannerisms barely passable, we left the room and introduced Tesla to Lena and Arterian. All of our work quickly disappeared to Tesla's excitable bearing before wearing herself out. Arterian seemed to handle the news easier than Lena. Lena kept going on about having so many people in the house.

When Tesla had enough excitement, she changed back to her small Pictis form and laid on my shoulders before falling asleep. Shortly after, Lena and Arterian said their goodbyes and left me there with the three Kitsune and a sleeping Pictis. Antragus left to go to bed as he had an early day tomorrow.

"She will have to work at staying calm if she is going to travel with us in that form," Athena remarked as she sat down with some of the fruit salad I made earlier.

"She will, but she will also be able to travel with us in other shapes. To be fair, she has really only interacted with me before today. I think she also uses up a lot more energy trying to function in her Kitsune form. This is twice now she has crashed after the change." Norrin and Athena both nodded along with my train of thought.

"Do you think she would be able to take some of my stuff back with her? It would save us a trip or two, and we could even avoid having to rent a wagon." Athena asked between bites.

"We could probably wake her up long enough if we bribed her with food." I snickered silently to myself. "Tesla can get around town pretty well. She could make a trip or two pretty quickly, I'd expect. She would totally do it for your cookies, Norrin."

Cookies? Where?

Tesla stretched and yawned on my shoulder before slinking down to my lap for some scratches. "Would you mind taking some of Athena's stuff home with us? And tomorrow could you make a couple of trips over to pick up more?"

"We would pay you in cookies." Norrin supplied helpfully.

Tesla nodded her head. Deal!

"It's getting late Tesla, we should head back. How much more can you carry?" I asked.

Lots! Storage went up a lot after our testing and filling up the space.

A cursory glance showed her Storage skill at level 15. If it kept to the previous rate, it should mean we had almost double the space to store things.

I stood up, and so did Athena and Norrin. We headed to Athena's room, and the two Kitsune got to work packing things up as efficiently as possible. Once we got close to the maximum I thought Tesla could hold, we stopped and moved out of the way so Tesla could fit into the room in her larger form. She scooped up the four small bags of clothes and the books Wisham left for me before letting us know she was full.

Since Athena didn't have to work at The End tomorrow, Tesla agreed to come back in the morning to help facilitate the move. At midday bell, I was supposed to meet Martin and Athena at The End to transfer Athena's slave contract.

I carried the sleepy Pictis back home on my shoulders and enjoyed the calm night air.

--

The next morning I woke up to the alarm. Blearily I looked around, but it seemed Tesla was already off. Probably excited about the cookies that were going to be waiting. I got dressed and ready for the day and noticed all of our traveling equipment in the corner. I left my room and found Arterian drinking some tea with his back to the door to my room.

"Good morning, Jak." Arterian said without ever looking up at me.

"Morning, Arterian." I smiled softly at the ever aware Faun. "I'm going to make some eggs and toast. Would you like some?"

"I've already eaten. I'm taking the day off to help you go pick up Athena's stuff."

Curious, I walked over to the spare room, the door was slightly ajar, so I peeked inside and saw the bags from last night along with a 10 more like it.

"It looks like Tesla is already taking care of it." My words finally made Arterian turn my way.

"Really?" He got up and walked into the room. "Well... I didn't expect that. Is Tesla getting more right now then?"

"I think so, Norrin was going to pay her in cookies." Arterian and I laughed lightly.

"You have a wonderful friend and companion, Jak. I was afraid for you at first. You are quite resilient and quick to pick things up. With Athena and Tesla to help you, I think you will make an excellent adventurer."

Arterian gestured to the kitchen, where he sat down as I started cooking. "Has Athena told you much of the Jobs adventurers take on?"

"No, she said we would talk about it soon." I responded as I cracked eggs into a skillet. I set two large chunks of bread into another pan and let them crisp up.

"Jobs come in three varieties: collection, hunts, and general requests. Collections and Hunts are simple enough, usually straightforward with information on the location that the person offering the Job needs you to visit. General Requests can get murky. I would suggest you avoid these as they can be almost literally anything."

Arterian shook his head before continuing. "I have heard stories of people being sent to clean out a basement of rats, which turned out to be a trap. Or the request will lead to an ambush. That isn't to say the others aren't dangerous. But the collection and hunt requests are vetted by the Adventurer's Guild and are assessed and given a rank so they can only be completed by an appropriately ranked member of the Guild."

"That sounds kind of like what I was expecting to be honest. People everywhere will take advantage of systems that are put in place." Arterian nodded along with my statement. I finished my eggs and put them and the toasted bread on my plate. Arterian sipped at his tea while I ate.

"Have you decided when you will apply at the Guild for your team? And will you all leave for a Job immediately?"

I thought about it for a moment, "I think we may register at The End after the Contract is transferred to me today. We may pick a Job too, I'm not sure. But we agreed to spend at least a day preparing for the Job."

"That's smart of you. I'm assuming most of this is coming from Athena?" Arterian prodded.

"Yeah, I'm not familiar with the system, and her father is, so she will help us navigate the Guild with what her father has passed along."

Our conversation moved to less important topics until Tesla jumped in through the window.

Jak! This is the last trip. She didn't have a lot of stuff. She is leaving the weapons on the walls.

"Okay," I relayed the information to Arterian while Tesla ran into the room. Less than a minute later and Tesla ran out of the room and jumped onto my lap. She started munching on a cookie as soon as she settled down.

I had a while before midday bell, so once I finished eating, I headed outside to work on forming the 'Skyblades' into something more suited for myself. I had left the Manasteel in a rod shape, but it wasn't very smooth, so it was the first thing I fixed. It was interesting to keep it in that shape for a sword. I could use one of the blades with one or two hands, but that didn't seem to fit still.

I took a moment to relax and think about what I needed. Mostly it would be defense, mixed with some offensive ability. This ruled out swords, daggers, and many other melee weapons. I decided to try making a shield, so I made a ring with a handle attached to hold and project a disc of wind mana from the center of the ring. This seemed to work well, but I couldn't hold onto it well when Tesla pushed on it.

Next, I tried to make a shield at the end of a straightened rod. This didn't feel functionally different than the ring I had made before. I could still project the same strength shield as long as I used the connection to the gem embedded in the Manasteel as the focus.

More testing proved I could have any part of the manasteel produce the shield or shift it into a blade if I wanted. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I would like to always have my weapons on hand.

The end product was a pair of wrist cuffs that held the gems outward that would work alongside the bracers I had commissioned for myself. I could form a shield from one hand or both, and it couldn't be moved off my arm without my own input of mana. The other benefit was I could make a blade appear out of it in the blink of an eye and from any angle.

I was pleased with the look and felt good about keeping an unassuming weapon on hand. I could tell that the shield was more challenging to create than the blade, and I figured that was because it wasn't a Mana Blade like the skill I had. I'd work on it more later. But I had to get going to make it to the meeting with Martin and Athena.

--

The contract signing wasn't that exciting—just a bit of paperwork and a drop of blood to finalize the Contract. The more interesting part came afterward when Martin had some news for us.

"Wisham paid enough to keep your adventuring team stocked for a long long time. I have it in the ledger that you have a credit for 1000 gold coins."

Athena's face went pale. "Uncle Wisham has that kind of money?!"

"He does. He has more than that too. You have been sponsored by him to enter the ranks of Adventurers without needing to be tested, but he insisted you could not join higher than the entry Copper Rank. I think this is the right choice for you two, as you'll have to learn many of the ropes on your own."

"I think so too, thank you." I said to Athena's surprise.

We took the paperwork needed for the Adventurer's guild that was mostly completed and sat down at a booth in the bar area of The End.

"I haven't been able to come up with a good name for our team." Athena said.

"What about Mana Guardians?" I provided.

"Just like that? You can just come up with a name?" Athena gave me an odd look.

I shrugged in response, "I've been experimenting with things that led me to the name."

"Well, I have nothing against it. It's better than a team I've seen at the shop that calls themselves, Flames of Wrath. As far as I can tell, none of them are even fire mages."

I snorted softly, "I'd rather not be front and center anyway."

I filled in the team listing with Athena and me, but I left off Tesla since she is my companion. I showed Athena the sheet, and she raised her eyebrows. I scratched Tesla's head as it rested on my shoulder. "I figure we could add Tesla later if she can stay in her form long enough." I was intentionally vague because there were enough people in the room to make me uncomfortable.

I wanna join!

Athena got up and refilled our waters and brought them back to the table. She finished looking over the information and shook her head slowly. "I can't believe Uncle Wisham did this for us. I assumed we'd have to show off to earn a sponsor. They set the price of entry to the Adventurer's Guild high to deter people that aren't sure they want to do this."

I nodded my head in understanding. "Who do we drop this off with?"

"Martin would have worked if he was available, but he had that meeting we got kicked out for. So let's take them to May at the desk through that door." Athena pointed

May was quick and to the point. She took the filled out form and directed us to the Job Tags. We grabbed two for clearing out some farms of Skulds, and a magical creature called a Diomorph. Diomorphs are basically twinned elementals. Diomorphs pair wind and fire to cause utter mayhem. We scanned some of the other Bronze rank tags and saw some that were for scouting Goblin movements, but Athena moved on from those.

We turned in the tags and got information written down along with a map showing where the farms were located. "I guess we can head back now. Unless there is something else you need?"

Athena answered with a quick shake of her head. "We can go, I guess."

I tried to get a good look at her face to see if something was wrong, but she hid her face behind her hair, so I shrugged and opened the door for us.