Slow

"What is happening"? she asked.

"See for yourself," I said.

I resend my mana core and Isla gets hers in.

Her mana core is hazy but has a milky white teardrop in the center, she always trapped and condensed the energy as I showed her.

The pump was not bringing in enough energy to make a visible difference for me.

But her mana core expanded and contracted like crazy absorbing the energy released from the array.

"How is this possible"? she said her mind racing at the implications of this.

"I'll explain over some food, it's complicated but essentially gold acts as a natural converter for electricity" I sit down and eat but she sits and meditates.

"I noticed it when we were in the forest where I found different minerals at the watering hole and along our journey but as soon as I went to the blacksmiths I was sure".

I chugged the rest of our water supply before continuing.

"My mana is always extended out ever so lightly and when it spread into his workshop I instantly knew it was gold because of the repulsion".

"I did some experiments with the things we found on those who attacked us and gold released mana when heated under my energy".

I turned to find her ignoring me completely while she was sitting in the center of the pentagram.

We quickly figured that the effects were better when we were physically in the center of the array.

I leave her be and begin to hunt as I scarfed down the majority of the food.

I pick a lot of vegetables, grapes, and herbs. I even find some honey from some bee-like creatures the size of my fist with stingers as big as my finger reinforced with mana.

They were the stuff of nightmares but the honey they produced was divine, I had scouted it out long before taking action tonight, it was a special night.

I made short work of them by sending a slow-moving fire in their area.

I got all the honey carrying it back to the lair in my pack.

I skin the hog I hunted after bleeding it like usual.

When cooking this time I crush the seasonings and mix them with the honey.

I infuse my seasoning deep into the meat and begin to cook it rotating it like a rotisserie.

Dinner that night was delicious making Isla's eyes water she kept coming back for more.

I then squeeze the berries I brought and mix them with honey and water making juice.

"It's much slower than a mana crystal but I still don't understand how mana gets converted, I mean how does it go from electricity to mana"?

"I don't know… I do know not all of the electricity coming into the gold is converted".

"You can say all energy turns into mana and all mana turns into energy all things are relative to each other but only under specific circumstances, my question is what in gold makes it react in such a way"?

"It also helps that it's cold in the bottom of this lake, it helps to regulate the temperature of the coils and the gold so it doesn't overheat".

"Luckily we have a lot of gold," Isla said giggling and rubbing the thin golden sheet.

We use the generator in shifts.

I use it at night because my mana sense extends out to an outrageous range and Isla takes the days.

When I wasn't training in the electrical field, I was either hunting, experimenting with different ores, or tanning leather which unlike before I had plenty of time to do.

Taking me up to ten days for each pelt I worked on but the results were great.

I made for myself a deep brown armor with leg and arm guards. Using the excess steel, I made thin metal armor that went underneath all our leather counterparts.

I even go so far as to attach them together making them one armor.

My mana manipulation has stagnated heavily, I found myself leaking mana in my sleep like an overfull container.

Two weeks into our journey I am compressing a ball of air trying to get it to compress and combust under the pressure.

This was probably the most difficult thing I could do it felt like I was using my fist to create fire, I just couldn't close it any further.

I spent two days straight meditating and not letting go of the condensed energy.

I heard a flick like a lighter before a loud bang, creating a blue spark.

I stopped and focused recreating that moment again in my head.

Once again, I continue to compress air, repeatedly for the rest of the night.

I halt our training after a day of rest in favor of heading back to the Village to sell our pelts.

Filling up the cart with leather duffels full of pelts.

We first pull into the hunter's association early in the morning before the sun is up.

Isla goes inside to get Amla and I pull the cart into the back.

Instead of Amla, Bund is seen walking out of the tavern with Isla.

"I suspect I am in for another surprise since you have been gone so long. Is it a dragon's head? Or better yet a king's head"!

I wordlessly pull the leather blanket off the cart showing the rows of duffels.

"Ah… the next best thing which is everything else," he said chuckling at his own joke.

"This will take a while to process even for me, do you mind coming back in a week"? I shrug and head out with Isla leaving the cart.

We spend the next few days studying and resting, I take Isla shopping for regular clothing not liking the feel of our leather undergarments.

It was to no avail as we both didn't like what was being sold.

So instead, I buy the material needed and plan on making the clothing in the inn.

Within that week I feel we had an appropriate amount of knowledge, so we left the Prayer House and decided to never return.

I am in the room with Bund yet again after another week.

His eyes which had the usual humor in them were drooped low with a shadow underneath, he looked tired.

I didn't ask, I wasn't interested, what I wanted were my mana stones.

I experimented with them by heating them up as hot as I could, but they didn't melt at all only getting smaller.

No matter what I did I got no reaction, it wasn't until I began to grind two stones together did I see some scratch markings on them.

" I wouldn't recommend hunting next month," he said with his usual tone and not-so-usual expression.

"Why"? I asked.

"A beast tide is bound to happen, this area has been cleansed of beasts for over four hundred years, the beasts get pushed to the west but they cannot survive in the harsh environment and so they start to migrate east every twenty years or so".

"Some of the beasts have been spotted over six hundred miles away our scouts recently came back so they could be closer".

"What happened to the protection of the Mage Association"?

"Do you know why this place is called 'The Village'? he asked me with dead eyes.

"No".

"It's because the Mage Association won't allow us to have one, does that sound like people interested in protection"?

"Thank you for the warning" I stuff the many pouches of mana crystals into my duffle before leaving.

In denying them a name they deny them any unity, they feed them lies and stoke fear to better maintain control… genius.

As I come down the stairs, I hear yelling from outside.

I step out to see Isla getting yelled at by a short Terra man with black hair and dark eyes.

He was dressed in the clothing we saw when we went shopping, silk grey pants, and a white shirt.

He looked exceedingly handsome for being in this area, usually the southern area was for Olim, and the northern predominantly for Terra.

Isla was looking past that man at a girl younger than her standing behind him, she looked like a younger Isla only with a longer face and darker skin.

"And if you talk to my women again, I swear I will rip off your limbs and sell you at a price lower than aged meat"!

He spit on her face and instead of walking away glared at her waiting for meekness that never came.

I do nothing waiting to see how Isla will react.

She wipes off the spit on her face with her sleeve and starts walking towards me.

The ignorant man wouldn't allow it to reach out to grab her, he clutched her by the neck.

This was a public street and everyone including the guards could see what was happening they chose to ignore It until a voice came from behind me, and already knowing who it was I didn't turn around.

"Unhand her or gods help me I will destroy the Livet house before night falls" Bund's deep voice was heard behind me.

The man looked over Isla who he had gripped in his hands "Who dares to threaten my family house"!

Before the man could even get the words out a guard finally stepped up and whispered in his ear followed by a quick removal of the man's soft hands from her neck.

"My apologies Bund I did not know she belonged to you" before quickly turning away and taking the girl with him.

As they disappear into the crowd the girl takes one last look back making eye contact with Isla.

"I thought slavery was prohibited in this Village," I said without turning around.

"It is… but this Livet house has two mages in their family and has been in this Village for over a hundred years. They take in Olims through the gate and call them paid servants".

I chuckle at this, thinking of the limitations of a slave economy and the idiots who benefit from this slave-free economy just to turn back and poison it.

"You don't seem too surprised about this" Bund said.

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him," I said more to myself than to him remembering Booker T. Washington and my old college friend Leeland who harped on about social inequality.

"Chu ain't neva smoke befo'" Leeland said as he passed me my first joint, I had bought it from a dispensary when I turned eighteen, the legal age.

It was my college days and being so young I bought it without even thinking about rolling the darn joint.

Luckily for me, Leeland was my roommate, I was the youngest graduate on the campus and he was the only African-American, we hit it off well.

"No never but I'm always so hyperactive my brain won't calm down you know"?

He laughed at that while squatting in a rock formation on campus, "Back in da sip they give people like me a cell time for smellin' it" he chuckled.

"Ya, I heard" taking a drag and passing it.

"Nah baby boy I'm good, momma made me roll her papers but I don't smoke none I got the same issue with the nerves though but I play me some keys to get rid of it" he twiddled his thumbs in front of me.

He was a great friend and an even better piano player, he got me into music and had me stop smoking pot.

At the time I was so focused on my work I didn't give it much thought.

Now I find myself reminiscing about those moments.

"Are you sure you're just a kid"? Bund said as I had a thousand-yard stare.

I smiled "Are you sure you're just a drunk"?

He laughs at this turning away I hear his laughter dying through the door.

"Let's go," I said to Isla and headed to our horse and cart.

We collect everything from the inn and inform Algom that we might not come back.

"But what about the rest of the meat that hasn't been sold," he asked me as I walked away.

"Find some Olim children and teach them how to read and consider us even".

Isla looked at me curiously as we depart but did not say anything neither did I as I head back to the lake.

At the lake, Isla comes to me when switching shifts "I want to hunt".

"Even if you were to go out of my mana zone then you would still need your mana sense to locate prey and you can't mask it as I can".

"Then teach me to mask it" she replied almost immediately.

I look at her for a while, it seemed as if that girl had really gotten to her.

"Meditate… don't worry about mana… just meditate," I said to her.

She didn't seem to want to but didn't disobey me, she never does.

When I viewed my mana core it looked as if the shimmer was dimming down further and further becoming milky white even in mana vision, but the process was aggravatingly slow.