Chương 75: Something Personal

Enzo sat at his workbench, reading over the two separate lists again. Light Orb hovered over his shoulder, illuminating the room. He'd retrieved the notes from the safe before heading upstairs, only to find Murph curled up on the bed. She'd barely looked up at him when he entered the room. The first list was short. Known mana types. The ones that some mage or another had demonstrated. It wasn't long. Arcane. Body. Crystal. Earth. Fire. Flesh. Life. Light. Lightning. Metal. Mind. Sound. Water. Wind.

Fourteen confirmed mana types. So far, they were working under the assumption that mana came in two types: Elemental and Conceptual. Elemental mana could produce whatever it represented. Fire mana made fire. Water mana produced water. It didn't necessarily need to, especially when threaded into a spell form, but it almost automatically did. It took effort to restrain elemental mana from becoming what it was. Conceptual mana caused an effect, rather than becoming something. Enzo frowned.

The terminology they were developing was not robust. Especially because of types like arcane and crystal which were both elemental and conceptual. Even wind mana was, according to Sumi. But some, like life, body, mind, and flesh were entirely conceptual. That is, they did not produce what they were. Though, in the case of flesh mana, it was more hopeful than certain. He hadn't asked Mary. It would be highly disturbing if the mana just happily became blobs of flesh.

Of those on the list of confirmed mana types, he could rule out everything except flesh and lightning. He'd tried all the others. He could probably rule out lightning, too. As an elemental type, it would have produced something visible. That left flesh. Which, as much as he desired more mana types, he really didn't want. But he had to try anyway. Enzo leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

For the next few minutes, he transferred mana between heart and mind, then mind and heart, all while holding what he imagined was the concept of flesh. Muscle. Skin. Sinew. Cartilage. Bone marrow. It was the physical matter that living things were made of. For a moment, his hopes shifted. Flesh mana might be exactly what he needed after all, combined with crystal mana to reorder the structure of his own body. Specifically, the injury. The knee. The articular cartilage. Nothing happened.

The arcane mana flowing back and forth, decompressing and compressing within each reservoir, did not respond in the slightest. It was a familiar sense of failure, one that had been with him since the beginning. But now that he'd felt success, now that he understood the transmutative nature of arcane, and the moment it shifted into something else, something more, he knew this was not a failure of method. Flesh was simply not one of his high-to-perfect mana affinities.

He let out a sigh, but he wasn't sure if it was one of relief or disappointment. That eliminated all the known types. For a moment, he considered heading to the guild hall. It was possible the 101s had included their own list of known mana types with the rest of the information, but he decided against it. He was waiting for Signe. Instead, he turned to the other list. It was much, much longer. Ice. Shadow. Acid. Smoke. Poison. Bone. Wood. Magnetism. Gravity. Plasma. Sand. Heat. Steam. Void. Death. Decay. Dream.

Time. Space. Memory. Luck. Fear. Pain. Illusion. Hunger. Emotion. Truth. Chaos. Speed. Lava. Mud. Blood. Soul. Love. Fortune. Ash. Salt. Radiation. Will. Knowledge. Color. Distance. Freedom. Sleep. Rage. Fate. Creation. Destruction. Enzo stopped reading. Where the known types filled all of one-and-a-half lines on the page, the proposed types filled the rest of the page, written by dozens of different hands in several kinds of ink. One of them was even done in crayon. He sighed again.

The second list exposed yet another major problem with their understanding. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Overlap. Or perhaps it was a type of specialization. They'd known from almost day one that earth mana was a type. The guy from the hospital had used it to create Reinforce, a simple if inefficient protection technique. And the concept of earth had responded to his early attempts to type mana, even if it had failed constantly.

Once he'd come to understand what he was doing wrong, it still hadn't worked. But it had led him to discovering two of his own types. Crystal and metal. So far, none of the others had succeeded at converting crystal mana. And only Kenzo could use metal. His own experiences told him that crystal and metal came from earth somehow. They felt like subsets of something larger. Like a branch. Or perhaps a conceptual mutation that simply fit him better. Personally. He was almost certain ice would be something like that.

A water specialization. Did that mean smoke, assuming it might exist, would be a branch of fire? Could heat even be a type, given that fire's conceptual function was to heat things? They were still far too ignorant of just about everything to do with mana and magic. Enzo closed his eyes and started working through the list. He'd managed to cross off ice and shadow when footsteps padded down the hallway, followed by his door opening, then closing. He opened his eyes to find Signe still in her towels.

One wrapped around her body, the other wrapped around her head with her long red hair all tucked in. Signe shot him a smug look, then immediately headed for his wardrobe, swaying her hips as she went. She pulled open the doors, then paused, a finger on her chin. He watched her quietly for a moment.

"What are you doing?"

"Teasing you." Enzo chuckled.

"I'm very aware. I mean what are you doing in my closet?" She glanced at him.

"Looking for something suitable to sleep in. I'm tired, and it's far too dark outside to walk home." Enzo looked at the window. The moon was high and full in the sky, and all down the street, the neighbors' houses would still be lit up. It wasn't that late. Maybe around nine. He really needed a mechanical clock. Enzo turned back just in time to watch Signe pull a white button-down from the closet, before letting the towel slip to the floor. His breath paused.

It had been quite a few years since they were last together like this, even if he could almost perfectly picture the moment, just days before they both left for separate universities. Signe watched him over one shoulder, while slipping her hands into the sleeves one at a time. The shirt reached halfway down her thighs.

"You don't mind, right?" she whispered, slowly buttoning the shirt. Then she nodded at the bed where Murph lay, ignoring them both.

"Assuming there's room for me, of course."

"Murph," Enzo said, his voice sounding a little lower than usual.

"Do you mind sleeping with Val tonight?" Murph raised her head, glanced back and forth between him and Signe, then let out a huff. She hopped down from the bed and made her way to the door, opening it with her teeth, then closed it behind herself. Signe stared after her.

"That is still so surreal." Enzo climbed to his feet, then flicked a finger at the door.

"Lock." The bolt clicked and the door took on a faint purple hue. Signe turned to him.

"Magic really is incredible. Have you considered creating any spells for…" She waggled her eyebrows and grinned. He crossed the room toward her.

"I am now."

Enzo woke the next morning to find himself alone. He yawned. The sun shone through the window, curtains opened again after they'd found a moment to close them last night. Whatever awkwardness he'd been anticipating between them had faded without effort. Signe had a directness to her. He'd been planning to ask a few more questions about her time with the 101s, check in with her about her spell development, and spend some time catching up again like the night on the rooftop. She'd decided otherwise.

Their relationship had always been odd, though there was nothing unique about why. Just the unspoken worry about friendships being broken, which had kept them at arm's length for longer than it should have. The others, Val, Kenzo, and Matt in particular, had always acted like the two of them were either oblivious of the other's feelings, or in his case, just stupid. Maybe he was. He'd never been one to let emotions run uncontrolled, but the blood rain had caused him more fear than he'd ever admit.

Matt showing up that day only to tell him Signe had been captured by the Riders had made it worse. But that was all entirely reasonable. They were normal fears. The stupid part was deeper than that. It was the leg. He could admit it now. Subconsciously, the injury had left him feeling like he was less than he was. More accurately, less than who he had been. Enzo slid out from under the covers and pulled his pants on. Climbing carefully to his feet, he made his way to the workbench, where he spotted a note.

He picked it up.

'Sorry to sneak out, but I need to go home and let my parents know I'm back before we head out again later today. I'll let the others know not to wake you too early. You need your beauty sleep.' Signe had signed it with a winky-face inside a heart. Enzo sighed. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what he had to look forward to with the others later today. He reached out his arms and twisted slowly, enjoying the sensations as joints popped and muscles and tendons stretched.

The list of mana types lay where he'd left it last night on the workbench. It would take hours to work through them all, assuming he didn't stumble on the answer to his mysterious new mana type partway through. And it was important. He could feel a fresh abundance of it in his heart reservoir, mixed in with the metal and crystal and light manas. Instead, he headed for the door. A shower, some breakfast, and maybe some light exercise. He'd been neglecting himself, and it showed.

After that, he needed to speak to a few people and gather some information before they set out to meet with the 101s.