Chapter 10 - Starting a business of exclusive clientele

I heard the arguing Flynn mentioned as I headed to the door, they were quite loud. I definitely recognized the white haired girl's voice but the other one was a mystery, it sounded male. I paused to listen to their conversation before opening the door.

“Adrius, shut up and trust me we can see the magus”

“Courtney what the hell no, you can't just show up to their places, I I I know someone who did that once and lost and arm”

“Oh shut up, it's probably because he didn't knock” After which she proceeded to knock.

“No no what are you do-” at the moment I opened the door.

“Hello” I intentionally go for a confused tone

“Hi cato, remember me” She gave a smile, and dear god how are teeth that white.

“I'm so sorry my lord magus to be disturbing you, I was just trying to stop her” The male voice chimed in.

The male in question looked to be the same age and both Courtney and I. He had a mix of color in his hair it was red, golden and black, his eyes shared the same golden color as Courtney but with hints of red. He was also a fairly intimidating person with the numerous muscles that could be seen, however the shaking and timid vibe he had going on at the moment off set that vibe by a large margin. I was fairly certain that Magi were not considered terrifying here, I'm going to assume for now that he is probably from somewhere where magi are feared.

“Its fine, ive met her already, I was actually was going to try and find her soon anyways” I said with a bright smile trying to calm him down.

“Oh thats gr-” he let out a breath of relief a few seconds before the now overly suspicious courtney interjected.

“Find me? What for?” Her eyes were narrowed dangerously.

“Oh nothing big I just need someone to test a enchantment and in exc-” I managed to finish the first part before she was already nodding in acceptance, overly enthusiastic mind you.

After nodding she immediately ran past my side and into my villa, and promptly ran face first into Lester's shell. Lester had become interested in the event going on and became interested and had come to the door. Unfortunately this resulted in Courtney gaining a rather unseemly bump on her forehead, however contrary to my expectations she was only impatient to see the enchantment that I had made. After the male came in whose name I now know is Adrius, he also appeared to be interested as well. Sighing I took two tablets and brought them back outside to test them. Sighing while remembering how hard it was to create them I thought about how I had them, Charon had given me an enchanting chisel, which was a metal chisel made of a material that could channel spiritual energy. I handed one enchanted metal piece to each of them.

Courtney was the first to try, she nearly shot it towards her own face however adrius stopped her and redirected her shot. She channeled he qi into and all the runes and lines lit up. With a piercing crow call the fire bird soared for exactly ten seconds whilst raining fire that burnt the ground below and after its journey exploded in a huge ball of flame. I took this time to analyse the spell itself and see how the incantation had changed due to being activated by qi. Adrius decided to try one too and apparently liked what he saw as he asked if he could buy some, Courtney was hot on his tail asking for some to.

With their offers I decided to plan ahead, knowing I most likely needed allies and someone from one of the most powerful places in the continent is a good place to start, I also learned adrius was from the Baal family, well two is usually better than one. I decide to trade a few for some gold and future services to be provided in future spell experiments. Both agreed on the terms that there wouldn't be intentional injury, they were fine with accidental if it was...paid back.

After making some tea and talking about, well it was courtney who talked she wanted to know if I could make enchanted clothes. It was a good idea and I said I would think about it, working with enchantments I learned that for permanent or long lasting enchantments I would need stronger materials.

Eventually Courtney realized she was missing a training session with a drill sergeant like instructure and all but turned into a blur running away to try and not be any later than she already was. Adrius Stayed due to me wanting to try and condense the physicality core. We went to the last free spare room and where I now planned to create my spell lab where I would test my theories and ideas. Sitting across from each other I spread my spiritual sense and had him locked into my sights.

Adrisu was an interesting individual he emanated a few different sources of mana. By this point I hypothesized mana was a byproduct of qi, however further thought and study would be needed to fully understand it. Adrius had 3 different types of mana emanating from him, namely fire, shadow and what I assumed to be gold. Noticing two types of mana I did not have I was eager to form the cores of the respective elements. Noticing a distinct lack of this physicality mana I deducted some mana was harder to sense than others. Like how when I was in the forest back home I could feel earth and water mana and some third type that I could not fully grasp. Deciding to try and form the cores out of the two elements first then try to find the physicality element afterwards I proceeded.

The reason I did not previously gain the shadow core from Flynn was due to the fact Flynn was technically a part of me and yet not, I could make something new from myself after all. I had also not formed a shadow core out literal shadows due to the severe lack of mana regular shade created. I seemed that for some elements one had to find special sources that produced them.

Anyways back to condensing the core. Understanding shadow was naturally mystical as in my previous world shadow was merely the lack of light, however here it seemed to be so much more. It was a realm unto its own, almost a mirror of reality itself, letting one move through and also move through reality, to hide in it and become shadow yourself. It formed with these thoughts, in my mind it was a very nice core, little to no attack potential but had potential for versatile movement and reconnaissance.

The gold mana was weird, I expected it to be just a representation of metal but it also had something more to it. It was a metal but it was also the representation of enhancement, if you applied it to something, another action or spell that spell in turn would become stronger. It was an element of support, one that could strengthen what it came in contact with. Even though in my old world gold was a very malleable material in this one it turned out to be nearly the opposite. Forming the core it shined was a nice and golden luster, I later plan to add some of this mana to the fire crow spell, as the sun was a golden fire, it would be interesting to see the results. Planning to use this mana with the old incantations and a new one that specifically added gold mana to the spell.

Pleased with my two new cores and already making plans to play with them later I once again delved into Adrius body with my spiritual sense to discover what else I could find. After half an hour of me literally sitting still, figuratively, and waiting for any sense of anything I finally grasped onto two different sources. I immediately latche onto the one that I now saw permeated his entire body which I assumed to be physicality. It was deceptively simple regarding its concept, it was the strength of the different parts of a physical vessel. His speed and strength all factored into a whole and the whole split into his aspects of speed and strength. Forming the core I succeeded.

Moving on to the second source I became excited, by the looks of where it was located, which was the head, I assumed it to be mental energy or mental mana. This could be fun to use, however I didn't know how it would be limited or where it would excel at. The concept of the mental mana was essentially that of emotions and rudimentary thought, at the current moment I didn't dare try and delve further because as I tried I received a burning pain in my temple for my efforts. So I form the core on the concept of emotions and rudimentary thought patterns, extensive testing would be needed to discover this mana’s limits.

Exiting from the mana sensing state I told Adrius I was finished and when I had the time I would make him some fire crow enchantments, possibly with the gold added in.

He left and I was again left to my own devices, while I was tempted to make a few new spells I didn't due to the fact that it took a surprisingly long amount of time to create them and I was running out of bread, I needed to go shopping. I called Flynn and went to the tower of techniques to to find Charon and find where food was sold. I arrived and he told me to just go to the big dining hall and request a delivery and they would handle it from there.

After two hours I finally returned, due to the fact I was chased by some crazy dude who came out of nowhere demanding I make him a weapon. Thank the gods Flynn was there, the large cat was a great deterrent and escape tool. Due to the long escape my food had already arrived when I got back to the villa along with a note from the rest of the magus. Apparently they wanted me to start doing odd jobs around the campus, mostly repair work and or improvements. At this point they were all aware of my talent of understanding the deus-en script and had classified it as a top level secret. Sighing because I saw long amounts of work in front of me and also slightly excited about how I would need to create a few new spells for odd jobs in the coming days I went into a deep and peaceful sleep.