I sent plans in advance to Maeve and Cassandra about how the academy would be run in my absence, and I also had a eting with lany about events and exams.
Then, together with Ulka and Alex, we had a eting with a few important people who work for our company, so that I could get to know the spirit in which Alex decided to sign a contract.
"Hi, Must."
It was a female spirit with gray hair almost to her feet and pale blue eyes, looking quite different from the Sith.
She wore a long one-piece outfit, similar in color to her eyes. Her wings were slightly smaller than the Sith’s.
"H- Hi?"
And... she was a bit scared.
Under normal circumstances, she was not supposed to be visible to anyone, at least not unless she wanted to be.
But this ability of the spirits had no effect on .
The reason was simple.
The One Who is Close to Spirits.
And this skill not only allowed to see Must, it also caused her to feel a certain amount of closeness to .
And then, on top of that, when I introduced him to Sith... it made the mist spirit suddenly think of in a completely positive way, to be able to communicate freely. And as soon as that happened, I understood why she offered Alex a contract.
This spirit... is interested in Ulka and Alex’s work. She likes the things in the labs, she’s a curious and inquisitive spirit. And she’s a mist spirit, so she fits Alex’s style of stealth and assassination.
It’s a pretty good match.
Aside from the academy and the company work, as a count, I also had to attend a few kingdom etings, and all the while our dia manipulation project was going very well.
The news of the Laute Family’s demise was leaked to the entire planet, just as we wanted, and the dia was filled with the ’heroic’ story of Adrian and Alysia.
Eshaware was not happy. Their days of silence had made that clear enough, but they also realized that the silence could not last forever.
So, in a way that would not provoke a reaction from anyone in the dia, they simply announced that they were inviting Adrian and Alysia into their kingdom.
And this was the mont when I could not refuse this ’invitation’.
So, just two days before our journey to Eshaware, I decided to take a final look at what Clara was up to.
Everything was going according to what the Prince and I had agreed beforehand. Clara continued to go to school, living at ho without visiting the palace. When she could, she was studying remotely under Chazon’s tutelage.
Of course, I knew about the content of her lessons. Mana control, the proper use of the Clairvoyance, the classification and interpretation of the received prophecies... and a ton of other things.
But I hadn’t seen Clara for almost a week and a half and I was curious to see how my sister was progressing, so I decided to pay her an unannounced visit.
Only half an hour after sunset, I quietly entered her house with my spare key. If the house lights hadn’t been on, I might have thought that no one was inside, there was absolute silence in the corridor. But I ignored it and made my way to Clara’s room.
Before opening the door, I stopped, closed my eyes, and focused.
I could feel the mana gathering in the corner of the room, just to my left diagonal.
It was moving slowly, gathering and gathering, then entering a flow and being released back into the room.
It was one of the simplest mana control exercises. But it was also one of the most effective.
I opened the door as slowly as I could, without a single creaking sound, and stepped inside.
Clara was in the corner of the room. She was sitting cross-legged with her back against the wall, her eyes closed.
In front of her was a holographic image, a three-dinsional ’Chazon’.
With a small smile on his face, he was looking at Clara with his eyes closed, sotis taking notes on a device in his hand, sotis focusing his eyes on the flow of mana around Clara.
I didn’t interrupt the duo, I moved to the other corner of the room and sat down on a chair to wait.
The minutes ticked by, Clara continued to work blindly on her mana control. And... I continued to study her.
’She seems to have improved.’
And Sith was studying her too, apparently.
’Your mana perception is quite poor unless you use caora, so you might not be able to understand it... But she has improved considerably in a short ti.’
Her Mana Efficiency statistic is extrely high to begin with, so I guess it’s understandable that her control is above normal humans to a certain extent...
’But that’s not the important thing, it’s the reason for that quick improvent.’
Huh?
’The reason? Isn’t it sothing we can explain by the fact that she has high Mana Efficiency and a bit of talent?’
’Yes, it can be explained like that. But your sister... she’s not that talented, Aiden.’
Not... talented?
’If she was talented, she’d already have a general level of around D grade. She’s actually making slow progress because her talent can’t keep up with her body.’
Sith tore his green eyes away from Clara and turned them toward .
He looked serious.
’Aiden... your sister has a mana heart.’
I just... looked blankly at him after the thing he said.
...
What?
’And it’s not a normal mana heart, it’s a much more advanced heart than the one the system replicates into the bodies of humans when they reach B grade, or even the near-perfect heart that elves are born with.’
At this point, I didn’t care much about interrupting Clara’s training. I reached out to caora, healed -or, more correctly, patched- my body as much as I could and let my mana flow, and my perception, recover.
I narrowed my eyes and focused completely on Clara’s body. More precisely, the flow of mana through her body.
Under normal circumstances, mana has a random flow and distribution in people’s bodies.
At B grade and beyond, the system copies the mana circulation system that is naturally present in the elves’ body and pastes it in a more simplified form.
In this way, mana, which is generally randomized in the body, becos organized. It can be stored more, used more quickly and in a controlled manner... In short, it takes humans to a whole other level.
The flow of mana in Clara’s body was... exactly like that. It was not random, and it was also much more than it should have been.
She had a mana heart in her body, just like Sith said.
But...
’What... the hell is this, Sith?’
It wasn’t a normal mana heart.
Mana hearts, or the vessels that carry mana, in short, this ’mana circulatory system’, is not physical. But it would also be wrong to say that it is not completely physical.
It is physical because it is a system that can be observed and even interfered with by physical thods of observation. And it is non-physical because it is a system independent of other organs, not composed of anything other than mana, and does not disturb the physical structure of the body. Find adventures at .Côm
But in Clara’s body...
’The mana circulatory system in her body is not separate or independent, it is completely... integrated with her blood circulatory system.’
Her own heart and the mana heart are not two separate hearts, they are one. The mana vessels and the blood vessels are not separate, they are the sa.
And as soon as I realized this, I rembered a conversation I had with Clara a long ti ago, the day she told about the differences in her ’system’.
What did she say, was it sothing like Xaevirea’s Lineage?
Was it because of that?
I pulled the caora back and couldn’t help frowning.
Is this because of the experints...?
What exactly had they... done to Clara?
"Ah, Brother?"
I straightened my eyebrows, slowly focusing my eyes in front of ... and I t two gray eyes staring back at .
"When did you co?"
She looked a little... uncomfortable.
She probably sensed the uneasiness of caora.
"It’s only been a few minutes."
Before saying anything other than that to , her eyes shifted to the hologram right in front of her. Chazon, who had been silent until now, just smiled and nodded his head up and down. Imdiately afterward, the hologram disappeared.
Clara let out a deep sigh, leaned back, and glared at .
"You don’t usually co unannounced. Did sothing happen?"
"Ah, no."
I paused, thinking about why I decided to co here.
"Actually... you could say that. I’m going to Eshaware in two days, so I thought I’d see how you were doing."
"Eshaware?"
She paused for a mont, then her eyes widened slightly.
"Wait, about that Laute Family thing?"
I nodded my head up and down slightly, and Clara... only looked even more surprised.
The information that I was connected to the Laute Family case was not in the dia, after all. And the fact that I would be personally dealing with it also had not been leaked in any way, it had been kept secret.
"What do you have to do with that? Wasn’t it the two in the dia who were invited?"
"I’m the one who brought down the Laute Family, Clara."
"Huh?"
She gave such a look that I could see her stiffen with horror.
"The only reason it was portrayed that way in the dia was to make the two of them the main characters so they wouldn’t be executed the mont they set foot in Eshaware."
"Executed...?"
She looked extrely confused. And, well, also scared. The word ’execution’ was not that sweet of a thing to hear, after all. But, after a brief mont, she shook her head quickly from side to side, regained her composure, and sighed again.
"Every ti I see you, you look more and more like one of those bad guys in the movies who secretly control the world."
"That’s kind of my goal, you know."
She just stared at in silence for a few seconds and then rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, do whatever you want..."
She was curious, actually. It was clear from her eyes that she wanted to hear more. But she also didn’t want to continue this strange conversation.
So, she decided to change the subject. She smiled, then jumped up and headed for the door.
"Do you want sothing to snack on?"
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