"So... you work here?"

  Ryan nodded, "Yeah, my uncle owns the place and I work here part-time. It's sort of my go-to place to invite people if I need to talk about something," he explained, though he obviously didn't ignore the fact that Michael had just completely ignored the question he was just asked, "Seriously, what did you think I called you here for? You're a bit young for me to ask you out on a date, if that's what you were nervous about."

  "No, no, it's not that... I just..." Michael shook his head, "I heard that you're kind of... you know... aggressive sometimes... my brother told me to be careful around you and that you would bully me if I wasn't..."

  "Hah?" Ryan hesitated for a moment, not sure how to react, "I've never bullied anyone in my fucking life, so tell your brother that. Plus, how does he even know me?"

  "Oh, uh... he goes to NRU, and..."

  "That explains it," Ryan rolled his eyes. Michael must have told his brother about Ryan, who then found out the rumours that were moving around university. Some of them had apparently gotten quite... exaggerated. And one made its way to Michael, "If you're not comfortable with this, then I can have someone drive you back home in a bit, but I would really appreciate your help."

  "No, no! It's not like I really believed it! You're really nice, so I know you would never be a bully!"

  Ryan looked back at Michael. It seemed like he was misunderstanding some things. Though Ryan wasn't a bully, he still had pretty violent tendencies, though he was able to push them down through the pressure of his status as an 'Awakened'. Not to mention, literally the first time him and Michael met, Ryan was so close to punching him in the face.

  But well... there was no need to clarify things right now, "Anyway, as I just said, I'd love some tips on increasing my mana volume."

  "Uhm..." Michael thought about it for a moment, but then slowly shook his head, "Really, I don't know, I was just born with an extremely high amount of mana. I do everything I can to suppress the growth of my mana, actually..."

  "I know, I know, don't worry. But if you want to suppress your mana, you have to know a good bit about how it works, and what makes it grow, right?"

  "Oh... I mean, I guess so, yeah," thinking for a moment, Michael tried to think about what he could say to help Ryan out, "Well, what I do is to just engage with as little of my mana as possible. Like, for my 'Spirituality' training, I just use spells with low mana costs or spells that only need an initial trigger for mana and then need to be continuously held onto with your control."

  Ryan thought for a moment, "Hm... so is that really the only way to increase mana? To just use as much of it as you can?"

  "Well, there's other ways, I guess? Uhm..." Michael was thinking intensely, fiddling with his fingernails as he was trying to come up with something that could help Ryan out, "I was specifically told to push out as much mana as I can at any time."

  "Hm? Why so?"

  "So... Mana wants to stay inside of your body, right? Like it sticks to you. But since we're constantly producing mana, some of it is passively pushed out."

  Ryan nodded. He knew about it; that was exactly what Penny used to figure out what Ryan was talking about when they were chatting, and what he pulled back when trying not to let her hear what he was saying. Michael continued.

  "Basically... uhm, if I'm understanding it right, what you're doing by overloading your spells is telling your body that you aren't producing enough for what you need, so your body will start to produce more. So what I'm doing is the opposite. By forcefully pushing my mana out, I'm trying to trick my body into thinking that it's producing too much mana, way more than my body can hold, so that it could slow down... basically atrophy. Keeping a large part of my mana vessel empty all of the time should help with that as well."

  Curiously, Ryan raised a brow, "So... do you think I could expand my mana by just forcefully keeping it all inside of my body?"

  "Maybe, but I don't really know if that would work... But it could, right? It's like... blowing up a balloon. The balloon being your mana vessel," Michael suggested, and Ryan grinned lightly.

  "That so?" he looked at the young man sitting across from him, just as Runar came to bring the two their drinks. He looked at his uncle, "You heard all that, right?"

  "Huh?" Runar let out, looking down at his nephew. Ryan knew that Runar had to have an incredibly high 'perception' stat by now, so he couldn't lie about it anymore, "Yeah, I guess so. Why?"

  "My mana is colourless, right? So it doesn't fight back against other mana inside of me too much, right?"

  Runar raised a brow, "What are you talking about, that's not-" he started, but quickly stopped himself, "... actually, it might be why the massive amount of dungeon mana wasn't hurting you at all. Usually, your mana should have reacted to the foreign substance and tried to fight it off, but with your mana being how it is... So what's your point?"

  "Do you think I could take in other people's mana?"

  With a scoff, Runar was about to just laugh the idea off, but then he looked over at Michael. He was producing more mana than everyone here in the room combined, with the exception of Runar himself, of course. Plus, it was mana drenched in 'water', which Ryan was pretty compatible with right now anyway after meeting Goria recently, so... "Give it a shot, I guess? You'll probably be able to tell when it feels off, anyway."

  "Fuck yeah," Ryan grinned, looking at Michael who was starting to sip on his tea nervously, "Michael. Do you want to give me some of your mana?"

  "H-Huh?"

  "And you're sure this is a good idea?" Michael looked at the exposed back of Ryan, who was sitting cross-legged on the rooftop.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "Nope, but let's try it anyway," Ryan said with an excited grin on his face, "Worst-case, it's just going to be a bit uncomfortable for me. But best-case, I can forcefully keep more mana inside of my vessel than it's supposed to be able to hold."

  "Ryan, I don't know about this... What if I fail to control my magic and something happens to you?"

  "Well, what could happen?"

  Michael seemed like he was a bit nervous to talk about it, but in the end just let out a slight sigh, "So... one time, during practice, I tried really strongly to push out a lot of mana into one of the batteries that I'm supposed to but all of it in, and then I got distracted, and all of a sudden my mana just turned into water and kept clinging to the battery. Because there was already some of my mana inside of it, it basically tried draining all the mana from it to stay as water, and..."

  Ryan raised a brow, "You're worried that could happen with me? That I might drown or something?"

  "A little?"

  "Nah, don't worry about that," Ryan pointed at his earrings, "These are magic items that let me breathe underwater. You've got nothing to worry about, even if this does happen."

  "Wait, seriously?" Michael leaned forward and took a closer look at Ryan's black pearl earrings, "Where did you get ones like that? I haven't heard about a magic item like that before..."

  Ryan smirked, "Got them from a friend. Who knows, maybe I'll introduce you at some point? It feels like you two would get along pretty well."

  And that wasn't even really a joke. Michael was brimming with more mana than he knew how to handle, and it was, quite literally, drenched in water energy. Once he managed to increase his Spirituality to a point where he could actually start making use of it, he could become one of the most powerful water mages in this generation. Making a connection with the Great Spirit of Water wasn't all that far-fetched. Especially considering that she was literally just a mile or two underground from here.

  "And you're sure this is fine? And that the earrings really work?"

  "Yes, dude, come on," Ryan laughed, trying to give Michael a bit more confidence in all of this, "I was laying face-down in the bathtub for an hour last night, it's all good."

  "Hmm... okay," Michael took a deep breath. He grabbed something from his backpack. It was some kind of amulet with a large blue stone. But the chain that was holding that stone was far too long, and Michael carefully wrapped one end around his right arm, carefully closing the clasp right behind his neck. The stone was now closely pressed onto his palm.

  Ryan looked at it curiously, "What's that?"

  A bit startled, since he had already been concentrating, Michael looked at his hand, "Oh, sorry... this is a spellcasting conduit... it's pretty old and cheap, though. I can't really afford those high-quality wands or staffs, so I have to make use with this."

  "You need a conduit for this kind of thing?"

  "Other people don't, but I do... even just pushing mana out of my body feels impossible. It's like trying to dig through stone or something. With this, it feels a little more like... clay, I guess?"

  Ryan nodded his head, "Right, of course. You don't need to rush, by the way. Just take it slow and we'll see if it's going to work pretty soon anyway."

  "... And your back doesn't..?"

  "Nah, it's fine. The scars are all healed by now," Ryan reassured Michael, who slowly nodded as the cold amulet was pressed against Ryan's back.

  It took just a few moments for him to feel something else happen as well. It felt like someone was pouring water onto his back, but the water was pushing straight through his skin. Not in a painful way either; it was just that cold sensation spreading through him that quickly gave him goosebumps all over. The water-like mana flowed into Ryan's body and quickly encountered Ryan's own mana.

  And instead of forcing out this foreign matter, his mana simply accepted that it was there, like it didn't mind whatsoever. It didn't quite take on the qualities of Michael's mana, nor did it mix together. It was still two very separate substances that seemed to refuse mixing, but Ryan's body had no issues holding Michael's mana whatsoever.

  Maybe this was because of Ryan's unique way of interacting with spirits? Usually, a summoner would, well, 'summon' their contracted spirit from wherever they usually lived. That was why summoners were usually quite close in principle to spatial-mages, which were an extremely rare class in the first place. But Ryan didn't do that; the spirits were always with him. He was basically their home. So maybe that was why his constitution changed in a way that allowed foreign mana within him, and his colourless, 'inoffensive' mana allowed for the presence of that foreign mana as well. Things were basically working together perfectly to allow this.

  Though, while Ryan could feel his vessel being filled up with mana, his own was being forced outside of his body. Trying to respond immediately, Ryan pulled it back inside of him, so that he could keep as much mana as possible actually inside of his vessel. Michael backed off for a moment after injecting about two MP worth of mana into Ryan's body, give or take, and allowed Ryan to try and keep it within him for now.

  Before the mana escaped naturally, Ryan enveloped it with his own, like some kind of shell. Obviously, he wasn't able to just control Michael's, so he had to force it to behave how he wanted to in some other way. Soon enough, Ryan had pulled all of his mana back into his body, and was holding Michael's as well. It felt like his skin was being pulled taut, as if he were about to burst. Just a single small cut could make him go 'kablooey'.

  Though it may be obvious, while Michael's mana wasn't being forcefully pushed out, holding it inside of Ryan wasn't comfortable by any means either. It felt like he had a massive lump of ice stuck in the middle of his body. Luckily, Ryan had learned some breathing-techniques in anger management classes that he was forced to take in high school that helped him focus his mind a bit more, so that he could push through the sensation pretty easily.

  [Foreign mana has been detected inside of your body! Please expel, convert, absorb, or otherwise remove it from your body]

  The message came as a slight surprise that almost forced Ryan. Of course, usually, nobody would be stupid enough to try this. Or rather, other people might not even be able to try it. Usually, their bodies and mana would force out foreign mana in the first place, and the ones that were skilled enough to stop that from happening wouldn't do something like this in the first place, because they simply had no need to at that point. So maybe that was why this situation was so aberrant even to the system that it felt like it had to warn Ryan.

  But those three words... those gave some clues to him as well. 'Expel' was obvious; he could just force it back out of his body. But 'convert' or 'absorb'... Convert could mean that he was supposed to turn it into his own mana, while absorb might mean that he could save it for later? Like, place it somewhere where he could access it at some other point in time? Why not try both?

  First, Ryan tried to somehow latch onto Michael's mana. Basically, he was trying to treat it like a spirit. And then, he slowly but surely pulled it into his mind. More specifically, into the 'space between the domains' that Ryan entered whenever he stepped into his own mind as well. The mana was disappearing from his physical body, and was instead stored in some 'other' place. Meanwhile, inside of that place itself, something else was being formed. Right above the centre of Ryan's mind a small ball was being formed. It was like water was coming together into a ball. It wasn't a lot, really, just the size of a fist, but it was still something special. It was Michael's mana, after all.

  The warning message from the system disappeared from Ryan's view. He couldn't control this mana otherwise, though. But, he could take it out again, and then force it back into the middle of his vessel to continue trying to expand his vessel. That was the 'absorb' part... but what about the 'convert'? That still didn't work... or at least, Ryan didn't know how to do it. But it was clearly possible, otherwise, the system wouldn't have mentioned it.

  Or maybe it was theoretically possible, but just not for Ryan? Either way, that wasn't the important part. What was important was that he could store mana like this. Once he got a bit more mana from Michael, he would be able to repeatedly do this on his own a bit more long-term to try and slowly but surely expand his mana vessel. And if this worked... then it definitely was a great way to grow stronger.

  Check out the Patreon! Read up to 15 Chapters ahead!

  Join the Discord!