Andrew activated Mana Sense as he entered the room and was quickly overwhelmed by the incredible swirling mass of dense mana within. A dense tornado of different mana types was swirling around the man and the spear. Andrew had to rest a hand on a nearby crate to catch his balance as his senses worked overtime to try and comprehend the mass of mana in front of him. It seemed to be steaming out of the spear uncontrollably and getting pulled up into the vortex around. When he looked closer he could see the eddies of gaseous mana swirling around the man's limp right hand for a moment before being sucked up into the raging vortex around them again. He approached closer, trying to focus in on the mana around the man's left arm which touched the spear. He couldn't sense the mana inside the man's body at all, which was normal, but he could see a dense liquid stream of it still pouring into the spear from where his palm rested against it.

Andrew deactivated the Mana Sense skill and used the long stick still held in one hand to push the spear out from under the man's palm. It stuck for a moment and he put more force into it, prying it out from under the man's hand with a little crack. The face of the metal was warped in a strange way, as though it had partially grown up into the man's hand. Andrew knocked it further away, across the room, and used the stick to flip the man's hand over. The face of his palm was fused together with a little silvery sheen which was steadily flecking off in little crumbs. His body spasmed for a moment and George rushed over to grab him by the shoulders and keep him from twitching out of the chair.

"What's happening to him?" George said, looking over at Andrew.

I don't know why he's fucking asking me.

"I’m not sure, but this room is fucking packed with ambient mana. I think he was trying to do something to the spear?" Andrew said. Even with his mana sense down he could see faint little eddies of color swirling around the room. This was more mana in one place than he had ever seen. He activated Mana Sense again, bracing himself for the riot of colors around him.

He saw George nod, then press a palm decisively against the man's back. Something pitch black flashed in Andrew's vision for a moment, pure mana. Then the man sucked in a deep breath and sat straight up, the swirling mana around released to explode out into a chaotic dispersing cloud and Andrew instinctively shut off his Mana Sense skill again. The room seemed to brighten up a little as the man sat up, taking deep breaths and staring at the table in front of him. Little drips of blood continued to drip from his chin as blood continued to stream from one nostril. He let out a huge sigh and reached a hand back to caress George's forearm in a decidedly familiar way before turning his head and jumping as he saw Andrew standing there. He snatched his hand away as though he was burned and looked around the rest of the room in a slight daze.

"Ah. Sorry about that George. It uh, ended up using a whole lot more mana than I was expecting." Jack said.

"It's fine, it's fine, so long as you're okay." George said.

"Hey, what the fuck was that?" Andrew said.

The two of them shared a look, and George turned fully to face Andrew. He extended his arms out to either side with a bit of a shrug and said, "Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I think Jack's skill backfired somehow while trying to copy your spear. "

"Copy my spear? You have a skill for that? How does that work?" Andrew said.

Jack sighed. "It's fine George, it'd have to come out sometime. I'm still not exactly sure what I did to get it, but in our first week here I had the option of trading in my pioneer title for a unique catalyst. Replicator. I can create copies of things with mana. It helps if I have something else to work with as the base, "He nodded to a pile of black ashes on the table that Andrew hadn't seen before, "and it takes an insane amount of mana. But that's how I've been keeping our camp supplied with arms and ammo." He took another deep breath. "Fuck. I'm still not sure why that happened. I had a full mana pool, and trying to copy this thing drained it instantly, after that, I don’t really remember what happened after that."

Why would that happen? Is it the runes? That book produced similar effects when I tried to read ahead of my skill level, but no one else I've taught has had any issue replicating the runes I showed them. Empowering an item multiple times exponentially increases the mana cost, maybe there's some kind of relationship between the two skills that causes a similar effect. Or maybe I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about.

George was looking at him expectantly, still standing with one hand protectively on the back of Jack's chair. Jack was staring at the palm of his hand, scratching off the little flakes of Silver.

"I think it was an interaction between the skill I used to make that spear, and your replicating skill. I have a skill that allows me to flood an item with mana, and alter it's form. Does that sound familiar?"

"Uh, yeah, that's basically how my skill starts, kinda."

"I think that must be it then. The skill I have can be used multiple times on the same object, each time the mana requirement increases significantly." Andrew let out a sigh of relief. "Whew. Glad we got that figured out then. Uh…" They were all just standing there in the room for a moment, staring at each other. "Ah, you know? I bet Tyler and Rowan are done with those circles by now. I think I'll just go grab them and head back. Lots to do today after all." He turned and started heading for the slightly cracked door.

"Hey, Andrew!' George called out from behind him. He stopped. George approached and clasped Andrew's hand with both of his. "Thank you, and I'm sorry about earlier. That's all." George released his hands and Andrew walked out of the room, passing sport-sunglasses and snowflake as he crossed to where Rowan, Tyler and Carter were gathered by the stage.

"Alright all finished up? Lets go then." Andrew said, waving for them to follow and walking off into the forest towards their own camp.

What a weird fucking day.

[Mana Sense lvl 4 -> 5]