“Alright, we will set up here later and for today, we’ll stick to the same pairs with the same areas.”. Brell said as he came to a halt.

We then all broke off into our pairs that we were in yesterday. Suta rode up to me since I was at the back. “Are you ready to patrol tonight? We can talk all you want during this time.” He said with a subtle smile. I nodded to him in agreement since I had some questions I thought about all day. “Just wait until we are farther out, okay?” He said while quieting his voice.

Once we traveled a good amount of distance from the rest, Suta then broke the silence “So, is there anything you want to ask or know about me?”.

I looked at him for a moment, wondering what I should ask. After a bit of thought, I spoke up “You said you study magic, what kind of magic do you use yourself then?”. While I asked, I looked at his weapon that looked like it could be a staff even with the blade on it.

“Ah, going there right away.” Suta responded before going silent for a few seconds. “To put it frankly, I’m not attuned to any magic.” As he brought it up, he turned his face away from me. “Magic piqued my curiosity as a child, probably around the age of two or three, I can’t remember now.” His voice had a hint of sadness as he spoke. “Anyways, by the time I could read, I I stumbled upon some books about magic. There weren't too many books as my father only had an interest.” While he talked, a small smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Luckily though, whenever I asked them to buy me more books about magic, they always obliged. The years before I turned six were a lot of fun, I learned so much about magic.”. Suta’s face lost his smile as he paused for a moment “But then my sixth birthday ultimately came.”.

Suta’s head turned to look at his weapon “You’ve seen my weapon, right?”. His eyes look towards me and I nod. “Well if you’re curious, this is actually a staff with a catalyst and everything.” He said as his eyes made their way back to the staff. “On my sixth birthday before I got checked to see if I was attuned to any magic, my parents gave me this as a gift but at the time it didn’t have the blade.”. Suta’s eyes then fall forwards, towards the horse and fixes his glasses “Then after I learned the unfortunate truth waiting later that day. When I found that out, it felt like a crushing feeling. Even after learning that I’m not attuned to any magic, I sadly still found joy reading about magic and so continued learning about it afterwards even though I can’t use any.” After he spoke, he went silent for a few seconds.

Suta then turned to me while awkwardly scratching the back of his head “Sorry I kind of just rambled on there but hopefully me telling you this will give a bit more trust in me.”.

I shook my head to him, “It’s fine.” I said as I got more questions about him now that he told me this. I then started with the first part that I was curious about “So why does your staff now have a blade at the end?”. Before he could speak up, I added on “Also what's that beast that's on it?”.

Suta looked back at his staff for a moment “Oh, it makes sense why your curious about that but I’m surprised that you don’t know about Morugasa’s.”.

As he spoke the words of the beast's name, I began studying the beast on it. “No I haven’t.” I told him. Of what was shown on the staff which was only the head, it had a ferocious look in it’s eyes and had a snout coming of it’s face that had sharp teeth and two long fangs protruding from the top of its mouth. The skin of the beast looked to be scales.

“Well for Morugasa’s, they are quite a fearsome beast that wander around all over Briona, luckily there are only a few since the easiest way to find where one uses as its territory is all the destruction and the smell of death.” Suta began explaining. “How dangerous they are as well would probably be marked as a high rank A quest.” He said as his eyes went towards me. “Even if you make it to that point, I would say it would be a hard struggle for you by yourself, even if you could use speed magic.”. His eyes then go back to his staff, more importantly at the fangs of the beast “The catalyst for the staff is actually the fangs, any part of a Morugasa are very high in magical potency.”.

After he told me that, I realized that the rest of the monster is a different material than the fangs which would make sense since they are real. My eyes then went to the blade. “So why is there a blade coming off of it?” I asked, curiously.

“Well that, I had it modified to put it on so I could use this as a weapon when I grew a bit older from when I first got it. When I studied magic, I also aspired to be an adventurer. Even when I learned the sad truth, I knew I could still pursue being an adventurer because not all of them can use magic anyways.” Suta told me. Once he was done speaking, we rode for a bit in silence.

It wasn’t until we decided to turn around and patrol the other side that the silence was broken by Suta “I’m sorry again since that was a lot about me earlier but enough about that, do you have any questions about magic?”. While I began thinking about what exactly I could ask him about magic, he then brought up “Like for example, when you fought against Lin, did you see her close her eyes at all before she used magic?”.

After he said that, I started to get curious about that since I never saw her do it once. “Yeah, that would help me a lot.” I said and thought that it would be easier to mask the fact that I could magic from others.

Suta had a smile on his face before he began speaking “Okay, we’ll start here. I want you to close your eyes.”. As Suta spoke, I began following his instructions by closing my eyes. “Now, I want you to pull mana from your pool and bring it towards your legs like you would when using speed magic.”. He gave me several seconds to do so before continuing “Okay now I want you to engrave that feeling into your body.”. “Now open your eyes and when you’ve got a good feel on that control, it’s as simple as you doing the same with your eyes open. Once you’ve gotten that engraved into your body, you can control the flow of your mana without closing your eyes and while also moving around.”.

After he told me, I attempted it with my eyes open. I began with imagining my mana pool and began drawing mana from it towards my legs. It was a lot slower compared to when my eyes were closed but I understood the feeling. After finishing I also realized, even with my eyes open, I was so focused on doing it that I basically had my eyes closed. After learning this though, I really wanted to keep practicing it because if I was able to do it while moving around, that would help tremendously in fights.

I then looked to Suta who was watching over me. “Well from the looks of it, you’ve got the grasp of it.” He said with a smile. “Now, is there any other question you have about magic?”.

When he said that, I started to think of things that I could ask. It took a bit of thought but I finally thought of one “How do I know my meditation is working to increase my mana and also how do I know what rank it’s at.”.

“Hm, that's a good question.” Suta said as he thought for a moment. “Well for meditation, it’s simply the feeling of the mana in the surrounding area that does feel like it is in fact feeling like it’s entering your body. The places that are not beneficial for meditating would be in towns usually since the mana is a lot thinner there.” He explained. Suta took a moment before answering the second question “As for checking your mana rank, there's a separate artifact from the crystal ball that instead displays the potency of your mana which lets people gauge the mana rank.”. He then looked towards me “If you want to find a place that can do that, other than the guild building’s usually having it, some places in the capitol that aren’t a part of the guild that I know of which have it.”. Upon hearing that, I put to the side of finding my rank until I had a reason to go to the capitol.

Once Suta finished speaking, I tried to think of other questions I could ask him but couldn’t think of any off the top of my head. “Well as of now, I don’t really have anything else to ask right now but if we get to speak again, I’ll think of some by then.” I told him.

“That's fine by me. Anyone who’s interested in magic is a friend of mine. You never know what you could learn from the way others think of magic.” Suta said while looking at me with a warm smile.

After he spoke, I did remember about the mana essence I got and was wondering why it felt like I was barely absorbing any mana from it. “Actually, I do have one more question.” I said as I opened the string pouch on my left side and brought out the mana essence. “When I try absorbing the mana from this, it feels like I absorb little to nothing.” I explained to him.

As Suta laid eyes on the essence, his eyes had a pique of curiosity. “Could I see it?” He asked and I handed it over to him. While he grabbed it he began commenting on it “Wow, what a beautiful light blue color it has and the density is quite thick.”. Suta then fixes his glasses while he squinted at it “And the rings there's five rings on it.” Suta then fell silent as he studied it more. “Hmm, I don’t really know why it’s barely working for you, my only current thought is that the mana is too dense for you?”. “Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to study high grade mana essence much so I can’t give you a better answer than that.” He told me as he handed it back over.

I wasn’t too upset that he couldn’t give a good answer and just put it away. “That’s fine, maybe I’ll just sell it.” I voiced out.

“Yeah, if you were to do so, you’d make a pretty coin off that in the capitol.”. Suta then raised a hand to his chin “Actually I think you could make more if you decided to take part and sell it at the auction in Nishilon.”. When he told me that, I was surprised that there would be one during the festival but it would make sense since there’s a lot of merchants going there. “Also I should mention if you’re stuck on what to say about what I talked to you about, if Brell does ask, just tell him we were talking about the festival.” He added on.

When he told me that, we spent the rest of the ride back in silence. After arriving back at the site, we were the second last ones there, followed by Brell and Lin a bit after we arrived. The rest of the night was spent as normal with us eating our rations and all of them went to bed after with not much said.