Nearing the top of one of the stairways, Dawn heard several voices and began to worry after the st simir occurrenbsp; She was, however, pleased to discover that it was merely a trio speaking with each other, not even looking her way. As she looked around, she saw why Morris said she couldn’t miss the floor, as it was pletely different thahers.

  Scattered throughout a wide open floor were shelves full of various sizes of mana stones, divided into ses for both charged and uncharged, marked out by signs on the ceiling as well as on the shelves themselves. Interspersed between these were rge pilrs supp the floor above, sihere were no walls to do so.

  As she looked around, she heard someone clearing their throat and turned, finding that the trio she had seen before were now focused on her. Seeitention on them, one of the men stepped forward and greeted her, “Hello, I have not seen you before. Are you the new girl that we’ve been hearing about that came in with Morris? We haven’t had anyone new in a few months.”

  The woman beside him scowled and elbowed him in the side, causing him to frown for a sed before tinuing, “Of course, I always fet… My name is Thomas, of the Hart , and my friends here—”

  “eak for ourselves, you know!” the other man and woman said in unison, cutting him off.

  With a quice at each other and a nod, the woman stepped forward and introduced herself, “I am Viera of Floatspire, I hope we get along well iure.”

  As she fihe final man stepped forward and bowed before speaking, “And I am Rob, I was an orphan before I was taken in here. Uhe others, I am in training to bee a mind mage, and it is preferred that we have n es to anyone or anypce.”

  Seeing the others were polite and introduced themselves, Daw much better about this enter, and replied as well, “Thank you for being polite, the st group were not. I am in fact the one Morris just brought in, my name is Dawn, and I am the daughter of the head of Blightfall vilge. I hope we be friends, as long as you don’t take issue with my other friend. I met what Morris thinks is the first wild awakened, a fox who goes by the name Niphru.”

  Unlike what she worried about, Thomas and Viera looked intrigued, while Rob appeared indifferent, a nice ge from people being upset or hostile.

  “A fox, eh? That is certainly surprising, I heard they were all monsters. I suppose it isn’t impossible, aainly wouldn’t be allowed here if they were one. Could we meet them?” inquired Thomas as Viera looked thoughtful.

  “Blightfall… That is where Amilya retired tht?” asked Viera, tilting her head to the side as she sidered something.

  “Yes, she is actually my mother,” Dawn replied, curious as to why she asked, “how do you know of her?”

  “Oh, I’m a light mage, and we all learn about her, she was the oo find out how to make burning beams of light, with the help of a mind mage. It is a popur story, someone managing to uand something about ic!” Viera excimed, a happy smile on her face.

  Rob also spoke up, “We learn about it as well, it is a case where one of us was able to help by removing memories for a productive purpose rather than protective.”

  “Anyways, we shouldn’t keep you, you seem to be pretty pleasant to speak with, so hopefully we see you around more,” Thomas said before wandering off into the shelves, presumably to get a mana stoo charge.

  Rob nodded with his words, bowed slightly to her, and headed dowairs she had just e up, while Viera stuck out her hand to shake.

  As Dawn shook her hand, she smiled again, tinuing, “Us vilge girls gotta stick together, right? Thomas used to be a lher, but he isn’t so bad now, even if he is city-born. You were here to get started with practig, right?”

  “Yes, Morris had reended some exercises to help improve my skill that involved charging mana stones,” responded Dawn, curious why she had asked.

  “That is great, I was just about to get started for today, myself. Follow me and I help you get started! What sort of experience do you have so far?” Viera excimed as she pulled Dawn towards the shelves.

  Dawn shook her head, surprised at how eic the woman was, then answered, “Well, I am most fortable with finger-sized ones, but have worked with a few fist-sized ones, as well as a few the size of my head when I visited Granitehill. I’ve been told to avoid those, however, even though I didn’t have any problems with them when I did work with them.”

  Stopping in shock, Viera almost fell over upon hearing that, turning to look incredulously at her. A moment ter, she practically exploded, “You did WHAT?! That is insanely dangerous, you have to carefully check those or they explode and kill you!”

  This fused Dawn, however, shouldn’t you always check what you were charging? Upon asking that, she was informed that it was actually pretty rare to check them, at least at their level.

  Shrugging, Dawn remarked, “I was taught to always check them, regardless of size. Maybe that is why I didn’t have any problems? But since I was told not to touch them, I’m not going to until Morris or someone simir says otherwise, like he advised.”

  Viera simply shook her head at her before tinuing further into the shelves, stating, “Well, if that is the case, robably skip right up to fist-sized, though I want to see you do at least one smaller oo chebsp; Here, bring these with you.”

  Taking the two crystals she had been handed, Dawn followed as Viera grabbed awo and headed towards the outer wall of the floor, leadio a baly that looked out over the city with a table built into the barrier. After they set down what they were carrying, Viera requested, “Please wait here for a moment, and don’t mess with these, I’ll be back with what you should start with.”

  Dawn nodded, and the woman quickly walked away towards a differeion of the floor. About a mier, she returned with a handful of small finger-sized crystals, as well as another fist-sized one, setting them down upoable as well.

  Since she had not pnned on being away long, she had thought leaving Niphru behind was fine, but now that it looked like she would be here a while, Dawn began to worry a little. Due to this, she asked Viera, “Do you mind if I run bay room and bring Niphru here? I don’t want to leave him alone for long.”

  Seeing her nod, Dawn quickly headed back to her residence, finding Niphru still resting, though he was awake. After expining what was going on, she then brought him up to the baly she and Viera had been at.

  Fortunately, Viera did have a positive rea to Niphru, beied over how cute she found him. Eveer, in Dawn’s mind, was that she immediately treated him like a person, asking if it was okay to pet him directly, and only doing so when he nodded. Most likely, she had been around other Awakened before, Dawn thought.

  Ohe two had introduced themselves to each other, Dawn sat down at the table before pulling Niphru into her p. As she stroked his fur with one hand, she reached out to the pile of mana stones and grabbed one of the smaller ones. Following Viera’s prompting, she then focused on drawing mana from the atmosphere and funneling it into the stone, payira attention as she did so. Now that she knew what to look for, she did see that her attempt did produce quite a bit of leakage, the mana going right bato the air around her instead of into the crystal.

  Without waiting, Dawn spread out her own mana into a shell around the stone before trying to push mana into a gap she held open. While it still spilled, this did stop most of the leakage, which she sidered a good start. Removing her focus from the stone, she looked up at Viera, getting a nod of approval at her work. As she did however, something seemed to snap withiarget, and she immediately stopped funneling mana into it, even as Viera opened her mouth to stop her.

  Seeing that Dawn had already stopped, Viera instead switched to expining, “It appears you have a stohat is degrading due to having been reused so often. I’m gd you noticed as quickly as I did, when they craternally, it be tough for many new mages to notice, and they easily overload and explode, one of the reasons you want to start small.”

  Nodding, Dawn remarked, “Morris mentioned simir as well, so I was already aware it could be a problem. But I’ve also been taught by my mother to alay attention and stop if anything seems off.”

  “That is a good pn, Dawn, now you try charging two of them at once?” queried Viera as she shifted several of the small crystals across the table.

  This ended up being much more difficult, causio lose foumerous times. Instead of directly charging the sed, it ended up being far easier to fuhe leakage from the first into the sed. While this resulted in one charging far faster thaher, it was something she could sustain, unlike directly trying to charge both.

  Upon finishing charging the first crystal, Dawn decided to try some of what Morris had reended, and pushed it aside, then folded her hands in her p. Rather than holding the mana stones, she instead used tendrils of energy to ect to them remotely. While this did end up being more difficult, it was still far easier than trying to directly charge two at once.

  In addition to this, she decided to try drawing energy directly from the ambient mana into the stone, where before she had only been using her own power. After several attempts, she focused on a single crystal again before she was able to mah remotely charging as well as using ambient mana, but in the end she did ma.

  Dawn jumped in surprise as Viera gratuted her, “Good job on bining those steps, that retty tricky for me. With more practice, it should bee easier.”

  Having fotten that she resent, Daw her face burning in embarrassment at having gotten lost in her own world again. Viera ughed in response before tinuing, “Don’t worry about it, Dawn, we all get distracted or over-focused on a while. It bees less on as you gain more experience.”

  Following this, the two discussed several ideas they had regarding the process as Dawn rexed. She had not sidered trying to weave a shell instead of making it a single solid formation, and iurn was able to share her knowledge of how to verify mana stones as they were being charged.

  Viera quickly began trying out the verification process with Dawn assisting her for a while before returning to her own practibsp; Weaving a shell ended up being much more time-ing and difficult up-front than making a solid one, but once she finally fi, she found it far more stable, requiring very little effort to maintain. Due to this, she was able to manage siphoning ambient mana into two crystals at oh a fair bit of difficulty, admittedly.

  After around an hour of practice, Dawn began to feel tired despite mostly using ambient energy, and excused herself to get some rest, promising to meet with Viera again iure.