Derivan hummed in consideration.

There was an oddity of magic here.

He'd spoken with Vex on their suspicion that the magic performed by the system was artificial, after a fashion — there was something in the way he'd cast that one Barrier spell without the assistance of the system. Vex had tried, on a few occasions, to copy what he'd done — to guide the magic into the spell, instead of forcing it — and had never quite succeeded; the closest he'd gotten was that their time together that first night, when Vex had painted an imitation of his Starry Night spell and they'd guided the mana into it together.

He had a suspicion, now, as to why his first attempt at the Barrier spell had failed. With the rules of in place, the mana had likely never encountered [Mana Manipulation] or any of its variants before. It had still followed what he'd asked it to do, but it had done so almost grudgingly; when there had turned out to be no substance behind his request, it had shattered almost indignantly.

Proper magic, then, needed a base. An anchor.

He'd seen that before, even, in Vex's version of Starry Night — when the spell had something to anchor on, it had been far stronger than his system-assisted version of the spell.

So... Mana manipulation was a bridge. It helped, in a world where the mana didn't trust anything related to the system; maybe it was willing to help him as long as it wasn't forced the way the system did it, or maybe he was missing a particular connection in his own ability with magic, as explained by Anyati-the-shopkeeper.

Or it was the Magic stat. He felt his connection with that stat even more keenly than before, now, and he felt he was close to some kind of revelation on it; every time he turned it over in his mind, though, his thoughts simply went to Vex and the lizardkin's love for magic.

Regardless, in this place, where the mana presumably didn't know what the system was, it wasn't as useful. It wasn't that mana manipulation didn't work; the mana still did as he asked, dancing around his fingertips with a certain exhilaration he'd never seen before the moment he prodded it into doing so — but if he gripped any more strongly with the skill, he suspected, he'd face the same backlash Vex had suffered when he tried to cast a spell.

Mana here was more powerful than the system was. And Derivan wasn't quite sure how that thought made him feel.

"You are a curiosity," he murmured, watching as the light-green display of magic played across his senses. The mana wriggled between his fingers, as if in response to his words, though he knew it couldn't possibly have heard him. "What makes you different from the mana in our world?"

It didn't answer him, of course. Very gently, Derivan fed his [Intermediate Mana Manipulation] skill with a thread of willpower, and guided the mana into forming the basic Barrier spell once again; he'd done it enough times now that it was instinct, even though the spell that formed was never large or fast enough that it would be useful in combat.

A perfect, polished barrier formed in front of him, tinted a faint green, and Derivan felt the mana reacting the same way it had before — that same moment of realization, followed by the barrier beginning to flex and break in response. This time, he didn't fight it, and when the spell broke the mana spun free; it scattered in the air like it was confused, but Derivan was more concerned with the odd twinge he'd felt from within the moment the spell broke.

That odd feeling, as he understood it, was the influence of his Magic stat.

He remembered the first moment he'd gained that stat. It had happened in connection with Vex, when the lizardkin had begun feeding mana into him in order to test the growth of his Slime stat. He hadn't felt anything particularly special about it then, but as the stat grew he'd become more and more in tune with a nebulous something that he'd never quite been able to quantify.

Anyati-the-shopkeeper had mentioned that magic was always a little personalized to the caster; the broad strokes were the same, but the details would change. Derivan wasn't sure that he could do the same thing the casters in Teque did, nor did he think he could approach the same heights of magic that he was sure Vex would someday reach.

But he did have something that was uniquely his.

Derivan hummed once again, and this time he guided the mana into his gauntlet.

He was operating on an instinct that wasn't quite his own — and he recognized that now, because he'd gotten more in tune with the feeling that working with the stat gave him.

It was the same warmth he felt whenever he looked at Vex, though he didn't quite understand the feeling. It was the way he found his gaze always drifting to the lizardkin no matter what he was doing, ever-interested in whatever puzzle the lizardkin had decided to solve that day.

It was the part of him that enjoyed listening to whatever the lizardkin had to say, even if he didn't quite understand what it was Vex was saying all the time.

He did the same thing now with the mana, watching in quiet wonder as the mana soaked into the metal of his body and began to trace out the faint, almost invisible engravings. They didn't mean anything, as far as he knew. He hadn't exactly been created with a purpose in mind — the decorative elements of his armor were just that — but it still made him shine, and when the magic was sufficiently suffused into his armor, he reached out and allowed the stat to guide him.

A faint trail of magic followed his fingers when he moved. Without thinking, he began to draw, a vague mimickry of the style of the light glyphs he'd seen before — but while he drew in flowing lines and swoops, his mind settled back on his connection with the Magic stat. It hummed through him, feeling like it was stronger than before, somehow, and when he was done...

Derivan glanced at the glyph he'd drawn. It looked like a shield, almost, except it was really more of the suggestion of a shield; the lines intersected with one another in a way that looked more like a dance, and the colors were all various shades of green. He wondered if there was significance to that, and he felt his gaze slide to where Vex was in some deep conversation with Sev —

The spell formed, and Derivan's attention snapped once more to the spell he was casting.

It was... like a barrier, but he could feel that this one was different from the one before. It didn't threaten to snap and break, like the barrier he'd cast without a proper foundation. This one held steady, a translucent barricade against anything that might cause him harm.

It was also shaped like a book, oddly enough. He wondered if that had something to do with how he'd been thinking about Vex when the spell formed.

He liked it, though. It was like a small reminder of his connection with Vex, and the bond he had with the lizardkin.

The spell itself was... not unlike Misa's ability to block. Derivan felt almost instinctively that this spell, whatever it was, was stronger than any [Barrier] he would be able to conjure up with the system. He'd have to test it to be sure, of course, but even now there was a link he had with this book-shield that he simply didn't have with barriers; he could move it at will, open and close it, and there was almost certainly more he would be able to do with it in time, so long as he iterated on that opening glyph.

Part of Derivan was excited about this development, yet...

For whatever reason, Derivan found that he was looking forward to sharing this new discovery with Vex more.

And the rest of his team members, of course.

"You figured out a spell?" Vex was looking at him with wide eyes, and Derivan nodded.

"I believe I understand the Magic statistic a little better as well," he said. "It has increased to 21."

"Does anything feel... different?" Vex asked, curious, and Derivan shook his head.

"Only in my understanding," Derivan said. "I believe, more than anything else, it is a guide — though I am uncertain where that guidance comes from. It feels very much like you, Vex."

"Does it?" Vex seemed to stiffen a little bit, a darker color flushing across his scales. "Um. I hope that's a good thing."

"I enjoy listening to you," Derivan said. Physical Empathy told him Vex was embarrassed, but what he had to be embarrassed about, Derivan really wasn't sure.

"You'll have to show me the spell later," Vex said. "I was gonna experiment a bit with glyphs, but I was a little tired last night. And I had other things on my mind."

"Gladly," Derivan said.

The four of them were hiding just outside where otter-Noram said the city kept its main store of mana slivers. Vex had tried to ask after a little more information on the slivers — in fact, he'd tried to ask for clarification on a whole host of things, and had in fact prepared a list of questions — but Noram had waved him off tiredly, and the poor otter seemed like he was on the verge of outright falling asleep. There was the question of what had kept him so busy, but the poor otter didn't seem awake enough to answer even that question properly.

Something about the Roads, he'd said. Something about odd screens showing up, and haywire magic. That had been enough for Sev and Misa to exchange worried glances, and for Derivan and Vex to start to ask questions — but the otter was already gone, apparently getting himself ready to keep fighting off the crisis.

They'd discussed cancelling their stakeout plans to go pursue this new problem instead, but eventually they talked themselves down from it. They understood the system the most, certainly, and could provide guidance — but from what it sounded like, the system notifications that popped up were random and sporadic, never tied to any specific person. More importantly, no one here had access to mana crystals to bind themselves to the system with.

They'd need to get a copy of what one of those notifications looked like as soon as they were done with this. But since the disappearances of the slivers seemed like it was likely to be linked to the mana crystal raids in Fendal, this seemed like their best lead.

The warehouse was nothing like they expected. It was a plain building that didn't look any different from the others - security through obscurity, or something like that. Inside of it was a plain expanse of gray rock, and a few crates of slivers. Not a lot of them, either; if this was their main supply, then they either didn't have a lot to begin with, or they'd lost quite a number of the slivers over the course of the raids.

And for better or for worse, it wasn't long before Derivan noticed something off. Shift was indeed picking up on something happening that wasn't visible on the usual wavelengths of light or mana.

"Something's here," he said, and promptly pulled on that thread of reality, Shifting the intruders into visible space.