Chapter 180: Simulated Explosions (2/2)
”It is common among Pact Mage's. Our abilities are limited by the contracts we form. More flexibility requires more sacrifice. However, is only real constricting factor.” Came the reply.
Mike frowned, lost in thought. If Tal's contracted spirits were the limiting factor, there wasn't much he could do to fix it. Finding powerful spirits or creatures to contract would be the most direct route, and he suspected that her baseline abilities this would improve with time and experience, but they needed something faster.
Suddenly, and idea came to him, and removed the Flawed Bracer of the Master Mage, and passed it to her. All three disks were glowing dimly, a sign of the mana he'd been slowly pouring into it since he got the item. At the moment, it was nearly full, containing the equivalent of roughly half of his own reserves.
”You said before, that your issue stems from a natural lack of mana, right? Try putting it on.”
Tal nodded, looking slightly confused as she complied with his demand.
”Now, use the item like you would one of your spirits. Try to create some water with Lifestyle Magic while letting this bracer provide the power.”
Mouth formed into a line with concentration, Tal started down at her had. After a little while, a small pool of water formed in her hand. She gasped, and quickly waved her arm, summoning a small burst of wind in the process. With another wave a spike of earth erupted from the ground, before slowly bending into a circle. He noticed that her arm was trembling slightly.
[Looks like she'll need to practice with it a bit.]
”I thought so. It seems like there is nothing stopping you from doing magic, you merely lack the mana to do it on your own. You'll probably still need the spirits to provide a channel of sorts, since you lack the magic skills themselves, but this should give you much more flexibility in what you can do.” Mike commented, pleased that his experiment had borne fruit.
Tal threw her arms around him in a tight embrace, catching him completely by surprise. He opened his mouth to give a smart reply, when he noticed that she had his face buried in his chest, and he could feel the growing wetness of tears soaking into his shirt.
[I probably should have seen this coming, considering her background. Oh well, at least she seems happy.]
He gently patted her back, giving her time to regain her composure.
”Are…you…seriously…having…a…moment…right…now?!” Sera panted while in mid-sprint. She had finally built up a bit of a lead on the golems, and her sudden burst of anger seemed to be the motivation she needed to solve the situation.
Growling, she spun, drew and arrow and loosed in one smooth motion, driving it into the forehead of the golem that was pursuing her most closely. It collapsed into a pile of dirt almost instantaneously, so with quick efficient motions, Sera performed a similar style of execution on the remaining four. Danger averted, she turned a crazed look on the pair.
Huffing, she marched up to Mike, grabbed his collar, and started shaking him. ”What in the hells is your problem?! You sick murderous dirt puppets on me, ignore my pleas for help, and then you have the audacity to have an intimate moment with Tal right in front of me?!”
”Congratulations!” Mike replied enthusiastically.
”Huh?”
”You managed to beat the golems and successfully complete this training exercise. I knew you could do it.” He made sure to give her a wide grin.
Looking momentarily confused, Sera glanced back at the formless piles of dirt that was all that remained of her enemies. It seemed she hadn't quite realized what she'd been doing at the time. ”I really did that?”
Mike patted her head. ”I'm proud of you, Sera. You've taken the next step forward.”
A stunned look crossed her face before it was replaced with a flush of embarrassment. ”Argh! Don't surprise me with something like that!” She said while throwing his hand off and stalking away angrily. ”And don't think this means I've forgiven you!”
Mike chuckled, it looked like she was still in that delicate age. Tal pulled on his sleeve and showed him a written message of ”Don't tease.”
”I'm being honest, she did well. Now, if I can just get her to do that when she's calm, I'll count it a victory.” Mike glanced at the sky, noting that it was already quite dark. ”Anyway, let's call it here tonight. We can start again tomorrow, depending on our schedules.”
Tall nodded, and the pair of them followed the still grumbling Sera back to the dorms in a companionable silence. Once they'd arrived, the women left to get ready for bed, while he moved to the study to start his new nightly routine.
With a several dozen mana cores at his disposal, along with some decent materials, he felt like he could make some decent progress in his crafting skills. Pulling out the crafting guide, he started looking into how to create mana storage devices, since he wanted to get Tal a full set when he could.
It seemed simple in principle, since you merely had to provide a battery of sorts that could serve as the basis. However, there was a lot of nuance in the methods used to craft them, which gave him a number of options, and lines of research to pursue.
[Maybe there's a way of making them self-replenishing, somehow. That would be ideal…Why do I feel like I am forgetting something? Hm, maybe it will come back to me later.]
Putting the thought aside, he went back to his research.