Chương 11: A Naughty Idea

Ch 11: A Naughty Idea

"Are you sure about doing this?" I asked, reluctance building inside me.

"As sure as I'm about the blue moon shining in the sky." She confidently reached for the large handle of the atrium door, the very same place where Principal Dickhead had announced my arrest after that little public cultural faux pas with Sahirah. She eased the door open, careful not to make enough noise to attract unwanted attention. I didn't help her.

I was too busy checking left and right, wary of both the Mimics and, to a lesser extent, the possibility that some Grey might catch us wandering the halls after curfew. My hand hovered near the three remaining illusion spells in my pocket when Sahirah suddenly grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me into the atrium. As she locked the enormous door behind us, she said, "You don't seem like yourself today. Why are you being such a scared baby?" Once the door was secure, I let out a breath.

"You'd be scared too if you'd seen the thing that tried to kill me in the library." Yeah, I was fairly certain the Mimics wanted me dead now because of my system. The only reason I'd agreed to come here was because this wasn't part of my routine. A random place at a random time might actually be safer than my own room, assuming those worms are capable of speech and intelligent enough to make assassination plans.

Crossing my arms, I added teasingly, "The whole school is locked inside their dorms with their cliques, and if I'd had even a little more common sense, I would've said no when you suggested using the meditation garden for our first attempt at dual cultivation." Sahirah merely smirked and walked to the center of the garden. She pulled the Fire Moon book from her bag and opened it to Chapter Eight, stopping at the illustration of the Grey couple holding hands beneath the blue moon. I swallowed my reluctance.

I couldn't tell whether she'd noticed something in that illustration that I'd missed, or whether she simply liked the picture enough to want us to recreate it exactly. Either way, I was willing to indulge her, and that was why we'd come to the atrium. It was the only place where we could sit under the moonlight without exposing ourselves to the open sky, thanks to the glass dome arching over the meditation garden.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"A girl shouldn't have to wait this long." I finally stopped staring at her silhouette beneath the moonlight and walked over, sitting cross-legged opposite her. As usual, I struggled to find a comfortable position, the book lying open on the grass between us as if mocking how terrible I was at this.

"Satisfied?" I asked after finally managing to settle in. She didn't answer. Instead, she reached into her bag and handed me a vial of ink and a quill.

"Do your thing," she said.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Well," I joked, "protection always comes first when doing taboo activities." I had no idea whether she understood the joke, but I didn't care. I immediately began drawing the magic circles on my wrists. Without them, there was a very real chance her overwhelming mana flow would injure me badly.

Working under the dim moonlight made the process painfully slow, and Sahirah simply watched in silence, occasionally making expressions that fueled my suspicion she couldn't make heads or tails of how I was arranging the runes.

"Done," I said at last.

"So... what's the plan?"

"If we reach the first stage tonight, we can call it a success," she replied.

"Did you bring a copy of your system so we can check our status afterward?" I nodded and reached into my pocket, pulling out a freshly assembled sphere. I'd finished it that afternoon and had already used it to check both our statuses before Sahirah decided our rooms weren't good enough for our nighttime activities.

"We're all set," I said, taking her hands.

"Please be gentle with your mana." I only said it to tease her, but she ignored me completely. She had already closed her eyes with that annoying ease of hers, somehow looking perfectly comfortable sitting cross-legged. Unlike her, I took my time. I shifted my weight little by little, adjusted my center of gravity, lowered my head, and even used the back of her hand to scratch an itchy nose. Eventually, a sudden awareness of my own mana drew my consciousness inward.

The memories of our reading of Chapter Eight came rushing back quite clearly. The goal of the first stage of dual cultivation was simple: establish a gentle flow of mana between two bodies and learn to sustain it, a steady current passing from one person to the other without ever dispersing. In theory, it sounded easy. In practice, speaking was forbidden. We had to learn to read each other's intentions through mana alone.

The book was almost religious about this point, treating it as more important than success or failure itself. As always, I didn't take that part too seriously. I decided to begin by pushing my mana through my right hand, hoping Sahirah would guide it through her body before returning it to me through her left. Apparently, she had the exact same idea. A sharp wave of pain shot through my hand as our mana currents slammed into each other instead of flowing together. I flinched.

Judging by the slight twitch of her fingers, it had hurt her too, but she didn't utter a sound.

"This is–""Shhh." The firm squeeze of both my hands made it abundantly clear she intended to follow the book to the letter. Fine. This wasn't something I could accomplish alone, so I waited a bit. This time, I gently stroked the back of Sahirah's left hand, a silent warning that I was about to send my mana toward her. She seemed to understand. At last, our journey into dual cultivation truly began. At first, all I felt was time passing as my mana flowed into her body, while nothing came back through her other hand.

It made me wonder how difficult it could possibly be to maintain a stable current all the way across another person's body. Gradually, I began to feel faint attempts from her to send mana back. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. I just couldn't catch it. Every time I reached for the current, it seemed to lose its shape beneath my control. The more I failed, the more determined I became.

If Sahirah could receive my mana, circulate it through her body, and send it back through her other hand, I refused to be the weak link in this exercise. It took every ounce of concentration I had and several long minutes of trial and error before I finally understood what I was doing wrong. The mana she was sending wasn't stationary. It already possessed momentum, and my task was more complex than simply redirecting it. I had to preserve that momentum while redirecting it at the same time.

The realization changed my strategy. My first success was guiding the current all the way up my left arm before losing control as I tried to turn it toward the center of my body. Several attempts later, I reached that point again. This time, the turn succeeded. Mana flowed across my chest, passing somewhere above my heart and through what had to be my lungs, only for the current to unravel as I struggled to bend it once more and complete the loop through my right arm.

I had no idea how much time had passed or how many more failed attempts followed. But at some point that night, Sahirah sent me a perfectly stable current. And this time my mind and my mana moved with it instead of against it. The mana climbed my left arm, crossed my body, and entered my right arm without losing its shape. The circuit closed. A single stream of mana now flowed through both our bodies. The sensation was unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

It was as though time and space had lost all meaning, and the only purpose of my existence was to keep that perfect current alive and flowing. As if letting it break, after everything we'd done to create it, would be the gravest of sins. There was nothing left in my mind except that single ring of mana, a perfect circle flowing unhindered through two bodies. I noticed that with every complete revolution, the current became just a little faster, a little denser with mana, and a little harder to control.

Yet somehow, it also became more beautiful. To my senses, it looked like a flawless construction woven from both our mana. Hers shone as a brilliant white, while mine glowed a pale blue. Where the two met, they blended into countless beautiful shades that grew richer and more intricate with every circuit around our bodies. The rational part of my mind knew it couldn't last forever. Eventually, either Sahirah or I would lose control as the current accelerated faster and faster.

But I was determined it wouldn't be me. And the curious thing about the rule against speaking was that, from the care she took in guiding the current alone, I could tell she felt exactly the same way. She didn't want to be the weak link that ended this either. So we kept pushing. Enduring. Controlling. Competing. Time slipped away as the current grew wilder. At some point, it felt as though our arms would be torn apart if we tried to stop. Even then, neither of us gave up.

We struggled to control something that had become impossible to control, like two people who had spent an entire night accelerating a massive metal wheel until it held more energy than either of them could ever hope to restrain.

"Eric, we have to–" Stop. That was the word she never got to say. We lost control before she could finish. The current exploded apart, and our hands were ripped free as we were thrown in opposite directions. A loud ringing filled my ears. When I finally opened my eyes, the atrium looked different. The blue moon was gone. The night was gone. And gentle rays of the rising sun streamed through the glass dome, bathing the upper reaches of the atrium in golden light. And down on the ground... things had changed as well.

The grass where we'd been sitting had burned away, leaving behind two blackened circles connected by the paths our arms had traced. Sahirah and I noticed it at the exact same moment.

"So that's what you look like in the morning," I joked, trying to dispel the awkwardness. Sahirah was drenched in sweat, her black hair plastered against her skin, and her cheeks were as red as ripe apples.

"I can't possibly look worse than you," she shot back. I didn't have a mirror, but judging by the state of my clothes, I was just as soaked. My face probably wasn't any less red either, so I wisely decided to keep my mouth shut. That was when an all-encompassing sensation spread through my body. I looked at my right hand, then my left, unable to understand why one felt refreshingly cool while the other burned, all while a pleasant shiver coursed through every inch of me.

Sahirah seemed to be experiencing the same thing. She dropped to her knees, grabbed the Fire Moon guide with trembling hands, and hurriedly flipped through its pages. She found the passage she was looking for and read aloud:"And when control becomes a burden for the twin souls, order shall yield to chaos, and the two halves of the whole shall each strengthen the body that has drunk from a single source."

She raised her eyes to meet mine, and I just smiled, realizing she was reading exactly the kind of esoteric passages I always skipped to get to the runes section faster. Seriously, who wrote something so abstract and expected people to understand it? Just plain old bad documentation, if you asked me.

"So..." I said.

"How about we check whether this was more than just a pleasant experience?" She was still shivering. Slowly, she closed the book and carefully set it aside, almost as if she wanted to savor the feeling a little longer before finally turning her attention to the paper sphere, the newest copy of my system.

"How do I activate this?" she asked, still kneeling on the grass. I didn't answer. Instead, I knelt beside her, took her hand, and guided her finger to the correct spot on the sphere, silently praying that my system was Sahirah-proof enough to survive an activation by Mana Bomb Girl herself. The moment I pressed her finger against the sphere, I instinctively closed my eyes, only smiling when no explosion followed.

She noticed my defensive reaction and pouted, but her annoyance vanished the instant the status window appeared. [SYSTEM STATUS] Name: Sahirah ATTRIBUTES ‣ Strength: 4 ‣ Agility: 6 ‣ Constitution: 24 (+5) ‣ Mana: 246 (+43) Her eyes went wide.

"No," she said immediately, horror creeping into her voice. I was slightly disappointed she hadn't even noticed the plus signs highlighting exactly how much each attribute had increased since the last measurement. The data crystal inside the sphere had cost me thirty credits, and she hadn't even appreciated the feature.

"Why so negative?" I asked.

"Were you expecting even more?" She turned to me, staring as if I were completely insane.

"I gained forty-three points of mana. That's insane!" she nearly stumbled over her own words.

"That's more mana than those proud leaf-lickers have, Eric. How am I supposed to learn to control all of that?" Scratching my head, I shrugged.

"Well, your control got noticeably better during our training. I don't think the sheer amount of mana is the only factor behind your control problems."

"But–" She tried to argue, but I cut her off by pulling the sphere toward myself. My own status window immediately stole her attention. [SYSTEM STATUS] Name: Eric Nevermore ATTRIBUTES ‣ Strength: 5 ‣ Agility: 7 ‣ Constitution: 8 (+3) ‣ Mana: 22 (+11)"What the fuck?" The curse escaped before I could stop it. Why had I gained so little while she'd gained forty-three freaking points of mana? Did my own system hate me? Was it a bug in the spell? It had better be a bug.

"What are you complaining about?" Sahirah asked when she noticed my expression.

"Your mana literally doubled."

"That's exactly the kind of thing rich people say to poor people after building their third vacation home." That earned a genuine laugh from her, her pointed teeth peeking out as she smiled. As the laughter faded, another thought occurred to me. If my mana doubled today, would it double again if we did the whole thing again tomorrow? Because if it did, dual cultivation was completely broken, and before long I'd have an absurd amount of mana. Freaking exponential growth! The best kind of growth.

Somehow, though, I doubted it would work that way. Unless we advanced to the second stage, we'd probably start seeing diminishing returns. Well, that was a problem for tomorrow. As the first rays of sunlight touched her still sweat-soaked face, I remembered something.

"Oh," I said.

"We should probably head back to our dorms. We didn't bring a change of clothes, and if we wait much longer, everyone will see us like this." No further discussion was needed. A flicker of panic crossed her face as she hurriedly gathered everything, the mana ink, the quill, and the glowing sphere, stuffing it all into her bag. We exchanged one last glance at the patch of scorched grass. Since there was nothing we could do about it, we simply left the atrium.

She unlocked the door, and I cautiously poked my head through the doorway, checking both directions of the empty corridor before stepping outside. Once we locked the door behind us, we thought we were safe. We were wrong. At the first intersection, we froze. A group of senior Zufi walked past us, their laughter and lingering glances telling us everything we needed to know about what they thought. One corridor later, we crossed paths with a group of Granar.

Then came two Grey professors, both staring just a little too long. At some point, Sahirah looked at me with pleading eyes. Without a word, I slipped my still-soaked arm around her shoulders. I didn't know what exactly we were to each other anymore, but whatever it was, I would own it instead of feeling ashamed. Seeing my determination and Sahirah's acceptance of the gesture, a Grey staff member carrying a towering stack of books stared at us for so long that he walked face-first into a pillar.

The books scattered across the floor as he landed flat on his butt, muttering curses about the "rare-species freaks" while gathering them back up.

"I hope we're not going to hear about this from Principal Zorik," she said.

"I sure hope not," I replied, pulling her even closer.