As Chara put ao her musings and made her way back towards reality, the sight that weled her back was the now long-fotten diamonds.

  Eager to put her theories to the test, she immediately began an intation!

  Ah… Umm…

  Despite all her ption, the ohing she hadn’t sidered was what to say. After a brief moment to ponder over her statement, she began.

  Ahem, little diamonds! Dig your way out of the earth and e to me!

  Using her uanding of physics, she did her best to envision the desired result through her perception. She didn’t know if this was necessary, but it didn’t hurt to try.

  In response, she could feel ahereal weight ma over her mind. It was the weight of her decision and a potential future. It wasn’t quite real and would not affect her. But she could tell it would be, but only once she took hold of it.

  Almost intuitively, Chara took hold of this weight.

  In cert, the presumed earth element mana around the diamond vein started to waver slightly. Taking this as a sign of initial success, she instinctively kept hold of the weight and started to push onto it.

  In accordahe earth element mana’s uain wavering started to beore anized. Very slowly, the precious stoarted to push their way out of the hardeone, just the way she envisioned.

  currently, she started to accumute fatigue. If this went on for much longer, she might end up passing out for the sed time. heless, Chara was unwilling to let her first experieh true magid with failure.

  After spending ay in silence, she could perceive as the shifting of the earth rippled the surrounding air and wind mana, causing the sounds of grinding stoo reverberate against her body. As the numerous diamonds grew closer and closer, the noises of grinding grew louder and louder, only intensifying her anticipation. Ohe first diamond finally breached the earth’s surface, a dim light radiated from the gem’s surface, trying it’s best to illuminate her surroundings.

  With o push, the precious stone fully separated from the stone wall’s surface, leaving Gaia’s embrace… only to be fiscated by the Devil as it fell upwards and vanished into the darkness.

  Eh?

  Following the first diamond’s lead, the rest of the gems also began finishing their journeys as they too fell one by one, o be seen again.

  No no no no no! Stop! Stoop! Uwaaaaaaa!!

  When she decred her io stop, the burden over her mind vanished, and the remaining gems stopped. Unfortunately, it was too little and too te. The majority of the diamonds had already left her zone of trol, and even if they hadn’t, as their positions were no longer being fixed by the earth, they would have fallen regardless of her iions.

  What the hell! Why! Chara cursed the mysterious cavern for looking the same in both orientations. It was not that long ago that she approached ahen n and followed its length to reach the bottom of the cavern. Who could have predicted that she had actually goo the ceiling instead?

  Before she knew what she was doing, she had already rocketed after the fallen treasure. Astoundingly, she could vaguely sense many of the diamonds even after they’d left her purview. Once she reached the base of the stagmite and the cavern floor, she used this new radar like intuition to quickly locate the excavated gems.

  It was only after reag the first diamond did a perti question finally cross her mind. Err… How am I going to carry these?

  A sane person probably would have retorted why little miss cloud hem in the first pce, but Chara was far too tired from her excavation to realize the absurdity of her current goal. That aside, her thought process was very simple, “I found them. Therefore, they are mine,” and now she was simply going to collect what was hers.

  Chara would make an excellent ist.

  If I dig them out of stone pilrs, then I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be able to pull them towards me…

  Using her new intuition, she tried best to lo to diamonds. She wasn’t sure what was causing this, but assumed it had to do with her earlier operation.

  My precious diamonds, e to me~!

  Using her imagination, she tried her best to envision the diamonds being pulled towards herself. In respoo her procmation, she could feel ahereal weight ma over her soul. With her budding intuition, she could tell at a ghat this use of magic wouldn’t be as burdensome as her previous.

  But before she could a this future, she was struck with a terrible sense of ay. Her instincts were screaming at her. Warnihat if she chose to proceed, she would be crushed us weight.

  If Chara was still a human, right now she would be drenched in cold sweat.

  The st time she felt this muxiety without a clear reason, was right before trying to scry the entire cavern. As she ter found out, there was a good reason. She still doesn’t know what the reason is, however, receiving a soul searing headache and passing out was more than enough lesson to teach her not to ignore her instincts.

  What… What did I d this time?

  It was only after hearing so many loud police sirens and seeing all the yelloe that she decided that maybe it would be a good idea to take a look at her dition first.

  Upon witnessing her pitiful state, it was like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over her head. Chara instantly realized that she had been too enamored with the allure of magid diamonds. So much so that she hadn’t even sidered what it would cost her.

  Of course, the answer was something that she should have already been able to guess. In almost every single fantasy story, spells and magic are fueled by mana, and mana is precisely what she’s made of.

  Although she couldn’t be described as a dle about to go out, Chara did guesstimate that she was less than a third of her initial density.

  She was w what she was going to do when she felt a gentle disturbance ripple across the surrounding mana. Had she not been fog on her perception; she would not have evehe disturbance.

  Chara instantly raised her guard to the max a on full alert. However, even after expanding her awareo its maximum extent, she still couldn’t locate the cause of the disturbance. For something to supersede her range and be felt regardless of the dista could only be something big.

  Ideally, in a situatiohe other party sense you, but you ’t sehe other party, the correct response is to immediately stop everything you’re doing and run away. Unfortunately, she had yet to bee aware of this vital piece of wisdom as she was fortunate enough to have not entered any of the terrors that call this pe.

  As she wearily waited in pce, filled with both wariness and anticipation, the disturbance quickly closed the distance, zeroing and on her location.

  When the assaint finally entered her area of perception, Chara could feel as all her weariness and fear were washed away. What was left was only curiosity and i. When she finally snapped out of her trance, floating in front of her was a massive, dense, formless cloud of iridest mana with illusory trails of mist weaving in and out of its ethereal form.

  Although this mana taihe same iridest quality as Chara’s, unlike her colorless mana, this mana clearly tained a bias towards a particur color. It evoked a gentle and refreshing feeling, like sitting below an umbrel near a spring while listening to the sound of running water uhe light drizzle of rain.

  It was the element of water!

  Overe with temptation, Chara did something that she normally would have never sidered doing in such a situation. Her mind abuzz with information, she tried her best to quickly decipher the result.

  [Curiosity Essence Spirit]

  Eh?

  Notig her probe, the curiosity spirit did a little spin before releasing a magnifit shower of illusory water droplets that shimmered and sparkled before disappearing.

  maury