“Alright, alright, everyone. We pulled through our first trial, and we’ve already received quite the reward.”

I looked around at the crowd of adventurers, drinking in what Iris was saying. Gleaming eyes filled with desire for the spoils of war, the tribulations we had gone through so far already forgotten.

“We have, coincidentally enough, enough data crystals for each of you. You’re free to either use them now or hold onto them and sell them after this quest is over.”

Some of the less magically inclined adventurers made faces of satisfaction with the reward, given they would be able to get a pretty pench or two for such crystals from the murmurs I’d heard.

“Now, some of you are likely wondering who will receive the primary data crystal.”

Several whispers were shared and stolen glances toward the massive data crystal next to Iris, but nobody dared say anything.

Secretly, I hoped she would say me. The raw volume of pure mana making up such a large data crystal I was sure would be invaluable to furthering the progression of my third sage ring.

Though, I still wasn’t sure if it was a mana issue that had been the source of my dwindling progress.

“-for demonstrating fearlessness and being invaluable to the defeat of the Guardian-salamander, Scarlet, if you would.”

I snapped out of my thoughts, watching as Tez walked forward through the crowd, chin up and chest puffed out as she stood before Iris, who handed her the oversized data crystal.

Well, I guess that’s fair.

The rest of the data crystals were quickly handed out, and I watched as several adventurers took their crystals and sat off to the side, alone with the crystals in their laps as they closed their eyes in concentration.

“Are you not going to refine your core as well?”

I jumped in surprise; slightly behind me was Iris, watching me with closely guarded eyes.

“I- uh, of course,” I answered, trying not to stumble over my words.

Mana core refinement. Typically, it was a slow, tedious task. First, it required a mage to have their mana core full of, unsurprisingly, mana, after which any excess mana would slowly ‘refine’ their core further.

I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, not having a mana core myself after all.

What I did know was with such dense concentrations of pure mana, the data crystals would allow for months’ worth of refinement in a matter of minutes.

“What, what about you?” I suddenly turned the question around, trying to get Iris’s piercing gaze off me.

“No point.” Iris sighed, shaking her head. “My core is maxed out.”

“Is- what?”

“Maxed out.” She gave me a curious look as if surprised by my reaction. “I’ve hit the limits of my talents by natural means.”

“Oh. Oh, right.” I snapped my fingers like I had known what she was talking about the entire time. “Right.”

Once more, her mouth turned downward in a frown, and before I knew it, I felt something like a breeze sweeping over me, centering on where my mana core should have been.

Shit.

She was examining me, gauging my volume of mana. She wouldn’t be able to directly see within me, but it was enough to unnerve me.

She is getting way too nosy for my liking.

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Iris said after a moment, the gentle breeze-like sensation subsiding.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re maxed out as well.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeahhhh.” I rubbed at the back of my neck, thankful for the convenient excuse.

“Hmm.” Even though she had been the one to offer me the excuse, she didn’t seem sure about it; suspicion wrinkled her brow. “I knew you didn’t have large mana volumes, but I can understand why you never utilize outward magic.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” I nodded.

You know, lying.

“Though, if I may-”

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” I grumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” I amended, faking a smile.

“How exactly do you perform the magic you have done with such small reserves of mana?”

“Kin magic, duh.” I lied.

Again.

“Kin magic. Right.” Iris nodded, her gaze guarded, before abruptly turning around and walking away, raising her voice loud enough for those in the cavern to hear her.

“Once we have a word of our next move, we will set out from here. I would advise either finish refining your mana core or else pack your crystals away until our next opportunity to make camp.”

I heard a few grumbles, but I ignored them as I instead turned my attention down to my own data crystal, a shining clear crystal with geometric faces.

Now then, best be quick about this.

I was wary of how much attention Iris was beginning to pay me, but it couldn’t be helped. If it was to be the case, I would simply have to make sure any work I made on progressing my sage ring was done on the down low; the fact that she had been able to gauge my mana volume meant she had a better sense for it then most, if not any, adventurer I’d met to date. All I would need would be for her to notice mana traveling not to my core but to my arm for questions to begin to be raised that I didn’t know how to answer.

Well then, while she is busy.

My first ring, my foundation ring, was created through crystallizing the primal aspects of wild magic, taking what was already there and building upon it.

My second ring had been through the fission of trace composite mana, then building a ring from the resulting mana.

The third ring of a Sage, from what little I’d learned on it during my time with an aggressively flying book, was somehow revolving around building it upon the heavier and more advanced forms of mana out there.

Which happened to be the issue. There simply weren’t enough higher forms of mana lying inert within the environment to feasibly form a ring with it alone. It was one thing to merely build a foundation with mana already around or split heavier mana variants into their more abundant and primary forms. Fusing mana together was an entirely different beast. Taking basic mana elements and weaving them together so intricately that they became a new form of mana required an understanding of mana, not to mention the brute force of magical capability, that was beyond anything I could currently do.

While the data crystal in my hand was dense with mana, the issue was that being made of pure mana. Sure, pure mana could be used to fuel any form of magic, but I wasn’t trying to cast spells; I was trying to form a mana construct.

So, the data crystal, as invaluable as it was, was useless.

Or it usually would be.

Thank you, Tez, for the idea.

For most, Tez consuming foreign magic and using it for her own purposes would have been watching someone repurpose mana for themselves.

For me, who understood that Tez operated with a different type of mana entirely, it had been a question of how?

The answer had been simple in hindsight. Dragon mana was capable of domineering lesser forms of thermal mana.

Which finally led me to my current theory. If dragon mana could domineer thermal mana, converting it into usable dragon mana, what was to say it couldn’t do the say with pure mana?

I sure hope this works.

Closing my eyes, I imagined myself as a conduit between the data crystal in my hand and my foundational sage ring. There at the very base of that ring, a foundation had been partially formed in concert with the excess dragon mana I had pulled out of Tez long ago. It was dormant, but it wasn’t gone. Pulling the mana, not from the data crystal, but the base of my sage ring, I imagined a single droplet of red plopping into an ocean of crystal-clear water.

And, done.

I opened my eyes, examining the data crystal. To the naked eye, it seemed the same, and even as I swept my mana perception over the crystal, it seemed unchanged.

Good. Don’t need people noticing it.

Pure mana was useless for the purposes I needed, but dragon mana may have been a different story. Unlike Tez, I didn’t have the ability to actively generate more of it, but if my theory was correct, then overtime even a single instance of dragon mana within a body of pure mana would over time remake it in its own image.

How long that will be, or if it will even actually work, is anyone’s question.

Satisfied, I pocketed the data crystal, making sure no one was watching me. If anyone had asked, I would just tell them what Iris had told me, my mana core was already maxed out, so I was planning on instead selling the data crystal, when, if¸ we made it out of this alive.

Out of things to do, I looked around, many of the adventurers still deep in concentration as they used the data crystals to refine their core. I wasn’t exactly looking to start up a conversation with adventurers I didn’t know, so I continued looking about, until I saw two people I did recognize.

I just didn’t expect them to be in what appeared to be a rather animated conversation with one another. Making my way toward them, they turned toward me, cutting short their conversations.

“Rook.” Tez smiled at me, pulling a strand of hair out of her face.

“Zero.” The captain of Shangsattva greeted me, giving me a quick nod of his massive head.

“Am I… interrupting something?” I questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“No.” Tez said with what was an obvious hint of steel to her voice. “Nothing.”

“I was simply congratulating Scarlet here on her job well done.” The man folded his bear-like arms over his chest, before turning away. “I need to check in with some of my members, if you will excuse me.”

I watched as he walked away, standing next to the wiry thin vice-captain of their squad. Waiting several seconds, I finally turned to face Tez face to face.

“What was that all about?”

“A recruitment pitch.” Tez grunted, picking at her teeth with her thumb. “Happens from time to time.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised when you show off like that.” I half-smiled at her, her rather…. Robust usage of fire was hard to ignore.

“What about you? After I pitched over, I saw what you did. You fended off that fire by yourself, then the way you cut into that… thing. I’m surprised you aren’t getting recruitment pitches yourself, especially since your flying solo right now.”

“Don’t kid yourself.” I laughed, opening my mouth to reminder her how I was just a swordman, when I closed it a moment later.

Actually… That is strange.

In times like this, it was best to remind myself to not lest modesty get in the way of reality. Sure, my mana reserves weren’t exactly great, but knowing what they had seen from me, it was surprising no one had seemed to bother seeing if I was interested in joining them.

Strange. But, eh, what do I know. Probably don’t want to because I’m officially still a silver.

I pushed the thoughts aside, turning my attention back to Tez, or rather, the lack of something with Tez.

“So, uh, where’s that big data crystal?” I questioned, she didn’t have any bag with her large enough to store it in.

“Oh, that?” She continued thumbing at her teeth before giving me a shark like grin. “I ate it.”

“You, what?” I sputtered in surprise, sure a crystal as hard as the data crystal would shatter my teeth if I even thought of biting into it.

I don’t think that’s the main issue here.

“You ate it?” I calmed myself, wondering if perhaps she was messing with me.

“Data crystal is pure mana, so why not?”

“I don’t think you get what I’m more caught up on.” I said with a slight sigh.

“Oh, wondering how I did it?” She winked at me, before flicking her teeth. “I could chew through rocks with these bad boys.”

“I….” The words died away, unable to find the right thing to say as I stared at the girl.

So, guess a dragon heart has done more for her than I realized.

Well, at the very least she wouldn’t ever have dental issues.

Before our conversation could go any further, I sensed rather than heard, a disturbance, before moment later I saw the cause, a familiar face returning to the cavern.

Fey had returned, and while she wasn’t exactly smiling, it was obvious she was returning with news. I looked back at Tez, who shared a nod with me as we jogged our way toward her, several others reaching her at the same time, Iris amongst them.

“What did you find?” Iris questioned, fixing her with a heavy stare.

Straight to the point.

“One of these tunnels branches off to a lower passage, and well, you’ll want to see it for yourself.”

Iris nodded, before walking center to the cavern, raising her voice so that it would echo throughout the large space.

“Finish whatever you were doing, we depart in three minutes!”

I watched as Iris walked back toward Fey, hands on her hips as she nodded.

“Lead the way.”

-----------------------------------------

“Well,” I whistled, staring toward the center of the small cavern. “Don’t see something like this every day.”

We had been marching through a small tunnel branching off from the main underground cavern, and after only a few minutes of navigating it we found ourselves in another cavern, considerably smaller than the underground cave where the giant salamander had been, but still large enough for us all to comfortably spread out. Inside, the floor was covered in soft looking moss of gentle green and blue hues, but direct center of the room, a massive obelisk dominated the space. It was made of what appeared to be marble, with silver and gold runes carved on it.

“What is it?” I heard another voice whisper out as we stared in awe.

“A Gate Stone if I had to guess.” Iris walked toward it, extending her hand for a moment before pausing.

“Fey?”

“Yes?”

“Have you swept for any magical traps?”

“Yeah. There were none that I could detect.”

Iris nodded, before a moment later pressing her hand against the obelisk as we held our breath in anxious silence.

And… nothing happened.

Well, that’s anticlimactic.

I could see Iris frown before turning back to face us.

“Well, it appears we have an interesting problem.”

The Gate Stone, the means of traversing deeper into the dungeon, was inactive at best.

Broken at worst.

“Does anyone recognize this script?” Iris asked after another moment, to the general murmurs of ‘no’ or shaken heads.

“Actually.” I raised a hand, drawing attention to myself.

Eck. Hate when they all look at me like that.

“I think I might recognize some of them.”

The runes carving the obelisk were ancient, dating back to the creation of the dungeon, derived from whatever the written language was at the time.

I approached the obelisk, catching Tez’s eyes as I did, raising her eyebrows at me which I ignored.

Don’t make a big deal out of it, and hopefully no one asks to many questions.

I came shoulder to shoulder to Iris, one hand cupping my chin as I took in what I could.

“So-” Iris looked at me, her eyes searching. “Care to explain?”

“The runes, or how I know them?”

“The runes, but I’d prefer both.”

“The first party I was part of when I first became an adventurer, the leader used to be an academic, she taught me a few after I had shown some interest.”

A lie, but only a white lie.

It was true that Veronika was an academic, and it was true she was interested in all things history, but it wasn’t true that I’d learn some of the runes from her.

Rather, it just so happened that a certain flying tome from years ago had clearly had some of those same runes inscribed within it, of which a few I managed to decipher their meanings from simple context clues.

Now then…

Staring at the obelisk, I recognized perhaps one out of every ten, no, one out of every twenty runes, but it was enough that I formed a picture in my mind of what the obelisk was saying.

I hope.

“Each face stands for an of the primal affinities of wild magic.”

“But there are five affinities.” Iris questioned me.

“Yes, I’m aware. I think-”

“You think?”

I ignored her.

“I ­think what it is trying to depict is that the activation of the obelisk requires the application of each element to a face. Earth, Fire, Frost, and Water.”

“What about Force?” The question came out from the crowd, the downturned face of the large leader of Shangsattva with his arms folded one over another.

“That comes last. The first four elements act like keys to a locked door, and force is, well, the force that opens the door.”

“And you managed to get that all from those runes?”

I bit my lip before answering with a shrug. “Mostly.”

You know, like a liar.

In truth, all I’d managed to take away from it was that a single element was labeled per face of the obelisk. From there, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it meant.

Or so I hope.

“Well, not like anyone else has an answer, do they?” This time the response came from someone I recognized as a member of Tez’s party.

Ess I think? No wait, Sherry, that’s right.

I silently thanked her for the words of support, and as no one offered any better suggestions, the group finally relented.

“So, what face is what element?” Iris drew the attention back to her, the question hanging in the air.

Huh.

That’s a good question.

I stared at her for several seconds in dumbstruck silence, considering it.

It didn’t say specifically.

I found myself chewing on my lip again, realizing time was against me. The longer I took to answer, the less likely they were to trust me.

When in doubt, fake out.

Once again the obelisk hadn’t provided the answer, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have any idea.

“Fire at the front ace, frost to the face at our left, water at the back, and earth at the remaining face.”

Scorz starts, Frezess follows, Aulous allows, Rentar rears, and Kinzar concludes.

It was a simple mnemonic that my old master had once told me, but if a being as old as he had told me it, there had to have been some reason for it, some foundation.

Maybe, just maybe its rooted in the same reason as this obelisk.

“Scarlet, you take the front face.”

“Err, maybe it’s better someone else does, I’m not sure how my Kin magic will actually react.”

My lips turned down as I wondered why Tez seemed suddenly hesitant at using her magic before it came to me a second later.

Oh, right. Her mana isn’t fire affinity, it’s dragon.

Iris frowned at Tez as well, but she shrugged after a moment, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth questioning.

“All right, I’ll take Scorz. Elsmere, can you handle frost?”

I saw the woman nod from the crowd before stepping forward, hand hovering just above the face of the obelisk.

“Now, for Aulous-”

“I can take it.” I interrupted, Iris shooting me a questioning look.

“Didn’t expect you to volunteer with your mana volume.”

“I don’t think this obelisk cares about mana volume, just that the affinity requirements are met.”

Iris shrugged, and taking it as the go-ahead, I made my way to the back side of the obelisk, my hand hovering a finger’s width from it.

“Gramm?”

The large leader of Shangsattva gave a nod, taking his place much as we had.

“Now, who here has force affinity?”

This was the tricky part I was sure. Force affinity, Kinzar, was the rarest affinity of the primal aspects of wild magic. Even in a group as large as ours, if we had even two or three I’d be surprised, especially after the losses we had already suffered.

Thankfully for us though, I saw one hand raise, from a face I didn’t instantly recognize, many of the names of the adventurers gathered here I was still learning or unfamiliar with.

“This is how we are doing this people.” Iris looked not just at us, but the rest of the group who were standing idle. “On my count, I will inject some of my mana into this obelisk. We will wait either a full ten count, or until something obvious happens, whatever occurs first. After that, Elsmere will proceed, then Zero, and finally Gramm. After that, we will wait a full twenty count, or until something happens, again, whatever is first, where we will at last apply force mana. As for the rest of you, be on guard. If we are transported like when we entered the dungeon, there is a good chance we will immediately be entering unfriendly territory that is likely even more dangerous than here was. Is that all clear?”

In response I heard several affirmative grunts and nods, but otherwise the group resigned themselves to looks of steely determination.

“Alright then.” Iris looked at us before nodding. “On three. Two. One.”

Sweeping my mana perception out I saw as a gentle flow of warm mana began to flow from her, into the obelisk, going uninterrupted for ten seconds before it cut off.

“Elsmere.”

“Got it.”

The flow of warm mana cut off from Iris, it was replaced with a flow of frosty feeling mana from Elsmere, like a glacial river emptying into an endless basin.

Something’s not right.

I had nothing to base it off of, but something about it didn’t feel right, as if I were still missing something.

A little late now to say something.

The seconds ticked by, until Elsmere nodded once toward me.

Here I go.

Drawing on my own meager flow of mana from within me, I began to slowly pour in out from me and into the obelisk, my own affinity for fluid mana reminding me of a gentle rain shower.

But.

But something still didn’t feel right.

I grimaced to myself, one because of how it felt as if I were missing something.

And two, I had overestimated my mana volume.

I knew I told Iris it wasn’t about how much mana you had but.. damn.

Even a few seconds of draining my own personal mana reserves I was all but empty. Unsure if I’d be able to sustain the full ten seconds solely off the drops of mana within myself, I tapped into another source.

My rings.

The instant I did my mana stream flowing from me grew steady, but more importantly, something within the room changed, the runes of the obelisk suddenly flaring to life with light.

“It looks like it’s working!” Iris huffed in what sounded like excitement, but I could never be sure with her.

Just maybe not for the reasons you think.

My ten seconds up, I cut my flow of mana off, nodding at the Shangsattva leader, Gramm. Mana that felt as steady as the earth itself began to trickle into the obelisk, which only grew brighter.

Good.

I was afraid that without my sage mana the obelisk would stop doing… whatever it was doing, but it appeared my fears were unfounded.

Seconds passing, Gramm pulled his hand away, and as he did, the man whose name I didn’t know stepped forward, one hand wrapped around the outstretched wrist of his other hand, before a moment later a pulse of, well, pure force burst free, slamming into the obelisk were it dissipated instantly.

The good news was my theory proved correct. As if in response to the final hit of primal mana, light began to spill from the moss beneath our feet, growing more intense by the second.

“Eyes up people!” Iris shouted, recognizing the light as the same light that had transported us originally.

With one final blinding flash the world went white, forcing me to cover my eyes else be temporarily blinded. I waited several seconds like that, until the light felt as if it had dissipated. Lowering my hand and opening my eyes, I looked around.

“Gods damn it.” I half grumbled half sighed as I took in the sight.

I was in what could only be described as a decrepit lab of sorts, light emitting only from a single tube of what looked to be green liquid surrounding… something.

The bad news, was once again, I was alone.

“Never catch a break, can I?”