Jumping around, doing somersaults, flips, and all sorts of seemingly random movements, Jester was throwing his shadow onto the canvas in front of him. Now that he was able to get a closer look at it, Ryan realized just how amazing what the spirit was doing really was.

  He was wearing relatively loose clothes that were waving around, catching the light from the spotlight that Ryan had set up. The spirit's entire body was cloaked in a small layer of those shifting blue flames; Jester's mana. This was one of his 'acts', basically a spell of his. And through this spell, the shadows he was throwing were being distorted so that he could tell the story that he wanted. To Ryan, the story really didn't matter much, he was more curious about what exactly Jester was doing with his magic right now.

  In front of the harlequin, within the shadows pointing away from him, wisps of flames were filling the empty space, but they weren't providing any light. Rather, nobody beside Ryan would be able to see this anyway.

  When someone used skills, their eyes took on the qualities of their mana, such as colour and texture. But beside that, other people were unable to see someone's mana unless they had special abilities that specifically allowed them to.

  But since Ryan was basically the conduit through which the spirits existed in this world beyond just their cores, he was able to see their mana, and similarly, when they used their skills, his eyes would take on the colour of their mana. Maybe that had to do with the fact that Ryan's own mana was completely colourless that it was just being dyed in the spirits' colours, but it wasn't all too important either. What was important was that Ryan had a new, unique insight into magic.

  He had seen some magic visualization things before; it was basically a standard in high school if you took classes related to magic, and Ryan's high school required those classes. But seeing the real thing was still totally different.

  Jester was the first of the spirits that was using actual, real 'spells' that he could observe. Spells that followed specific patterns and were cast through those physical movements. If Ryan technically had access to the spirits' magic, would he not be able to cast their spells or use their abilities if he understood them well enough?

  Of course, it wasn't as though Ryan was able to just access their mana whenever he wanted. The only time that came close to it was when he was using the 'Spirit Link' skill, and even then, there was a limit to how much of their mana he had within him. When the skill was active, through the thread that connected him to the spirit in question, it was like a constant flow of mana between Ryan an the spirit was created. And every time that skill levelled up, the amount of mana that flowed between them increased. Maybe if the skill continued levelling up, he could start using the spirits' mana more actively.

  Ryan smiled lightly. He sat down beside the stage next to Jester, and decided to observe him. And, during a short break, Ryan activated the Spirit Link skill.

  Jester was taken aback for a moment, but he quickly realized what Ryan wanted to do and nodded his head, as if he was giving him permission. And so, Ryan observed Jester closely. But he didn't focus on the most of the spirit's actual senses. Rather, now that he was able to understand the flow of his own mana, he could actually figure out which part of the information he was getting from the spirits was the flow of their mana. And so, Ryan was able to learn what it felt like to manipulate mana the way that Jester was doing it.

  To say it was mind-boggling was an understatement. Ryan had no idea how it was even possible to do something like that. To Ryan, moving his mana felt like pushing away a bunch of honey with your breath. It was exhausting and slow. But Jester's mana was jumping around inside of him, spreading through different parts of him as he jumped, making shapes within him. The flames of his mana were creating images inside of Jester's body, though Ryan had no idea what they meant, and they were disappearing far too fast for him to try and figure out what they were supposed to depict. While Ryan could tell what the spirits were sensing in almost every way, he didn't inherit their understanding of those things.

  Without the ability to move his mana properly, Ryan had no hope whatsoever to copy what Jester was doing. Even so, viewing the shadow play like this was still pretty fun. The play itself continued on for a while even after the Spirit Link skill's effect was over, but at the end, something did happen.

  [Jester's -Harlequin's Act- Skill has levelled up!]

  Ryan smiled seeing the message. He did use that spell for quite a while, though it luckily didn't use much of Jester's mana. But this was clearly the best way for that skill to level up. It seemed that, though the spirit's abilities were heavily tuned toward combat, at the end of the day, a harlequin was an entertainer first and foremost. Plus, levelling up that skill would definitely allow Jester to use this spells more effectively, or rather, allow him to use more spells in the first place, which would only improve his capabilities in combat as well. Either way, though Ryan was more than just annoyed with Jester in the beginning, he was already warming up to him quite a bit. Not just because of how useful his abilities were, but also because of how genuinely happy it seemed to make the spirit to make all the people down here happy.

  There was no way Ryan could dislike someone who could be beaming with such joy even through a mask that hid his entire face.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A cup of coffee hit the table, and Runar looked to the side. He had deep, dark rings under his eyes, even worse than they usually were. Yamada was looking at him with a light smile, signing to him.

  "Are you okay? You're looking kind of rough," she pointed out, and Runar let out a long sigh.

  "I'm fine, don't worry," he replied, signing as he spoke. He picked up the cup of coffee and took a sip, immediately pulling back, "Urgh... I just hate the taste of this stuff... Moondust coffee is just the worst."

  Yamada shrugged, "I like their hot chocolate."

  "I know, I know," Runar sighed, pushing through and continuing drinking the coffee. While he hated the taste, he hated the sensation of not having any caffeine in his body even more, "Have you found out anything about this 'Richie' guy's movements?"

  Yamada quickly nodded and grabbed something from a nearby table, handing it over to Runar before starting to explain, "He used to live with his family, but around when he would have become corrupted, he moved out into a place in the Channel directly sponsored by Bluesky. Every morning at 7am, he steps out and buys himself breakfast at a nearby shop. He will go out to a specific park, eat his food there, and then goes on a short walk before going to the nearby Bluesky offices. From what I can tell, he has a quite regular workday, starting at 8:30am and ending at 5:00pm. He is out of the building by 5:10pm, and then gets into a car registered to one of the White Shadow Society's shell companies. I tried following them a few times, but I always lost track of them at some point. He returns to his flat by 11pm without exception."

  Runar stared at Yamada's hands confused, not sure if he really just heard her right, "Wait, you lost track of someone in a car? Seriously?"

  As though she was embarrassed to admit this, Yamada looked away and nodded, "He seems to be manipulating the traffic signals and in some cases even the circuitry of other cars. More than once, a car seemed to have turned off randomly, allowing his driver to move through at the optimal time."

  With a sigh, Runar rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Okay, so, clearly there's something going on here. When he's back from checking on the nearby fire spirits, I'll have Anders talk to our construction contacts. Maybe one of them can be bribed into breaking some NDA's about secret underground construction that's not in any of the official documents," he explained. Otherwise, if this weren't the case, there had to be two Richard Snapperties running around this town. At the times he had apparently been at work or inside of his flat, he was spotted in different locations of interest all over New Riverside. Most of these locations didn't even seem to be related to the spirits, but that he was there for something else, more long-term.

  "... Get me a map of the path that he walks in the mornings, and send a recon team member into his building to check out what's going on around there," Runar said, thinking intensely about what could be going on. As Yamada quickly stepped up to one of the computers, Runar stood up and started pacing around. This place was one of the flats owned by the Aglecards. It was specifically set up for surveillance of Bluesky here in the Channel. Runar was actually here a lot when there was some shady business going on in this part of town.

  While there was crime all over New Riverside, the sort of matters that Runar usually dealt with happened here where the mega-rich were on their own turf, able to do whatever they wanted with little to no consequences.

  "Come on, what the hell is going on?" Runar bit his thumb nail. They were able to barely prevent some chaos today, where a shadow spirit was corrupted and supposed to attack a crowd under one of the veils, but someone did still get injured. Luckily, it had been possible to strengthen the Corruption Cure that was grown by Gaia to the point where it was stable enough to be put into one of Yamada's bullets, so the spirit's body was quickly destroyed and the core could be retrieved safely so that the spirit could recover at another location. Since Runar had prepared a magic item that could suppress sound well enough, it was possible to hide the attack that happened surprisingly easily, but it just showed even more that something big was supposed to happen tomorrow.

  Even if you weren't the sort of person that liked to celebrate Spirit Week, there was almost nobody that wasn't paying attention to Angir's celebrations. Usually, this was because of the fireworks lit up city-wide, but this time, it was also because this Spirit Week had a lot more attention drawn to it due to the spirits' attack at the expo the other day. It was the absolutely perfect opportunity to place the seedling of some real fear into the entire city. Runar had to prevent this under all circumstances.

  He took a long, deep breath and walked back over to the desk he was sitting at before. Runar was preparing things for some potential counter-measures for tomorrow. In particular, he was inscribing some runes onto small magic stones that were going to be put into some fireworks all over town tomorrow. Though, these fireworks would only be lit in an emergency, and were supposed to act as a powerful signal-flare for all the Aglecard agents working around the city. Luckily, this was a situation where even the elders weren't able to stand in his way, so he had more than doubled the active Aglecard workforce within the city for the next little while to make sure they could react wherever they were.

  Of course, this 'signal-flare' had a few other effects. When the explosives around the magic stone activated the spell inscribed within them, a powerful blast would temporarily make everyone that saw the light from the explosion more susceptible to suggestions while dulling their potential panic responses. Basically, it could allow the nearby Aglecard agents to immediately evacuate any nearby people. On top of that, though it was sort of hitting the limit of what could be placed onto a single magic stone, Runar wanted the light of the explosion to temporarily scramble any cameras to avoid the spread of information about any rampaging spirits.

  Any regular cameras could be shut down just through some specifically targeted pulses of mana, completely distorting the images. And, as for mana-sensitive cameras, even they just worked by actively sensing the mana in the capture area and countering the resulting distortion. But as long as Runar was able to place a particularly annoying, fluctuating wavelength into the mana pushed out by the magic stones, it was possible to even scramble the specialty equipment used by the Awakened Association.

  That was much easier said than done, though. Not only did Runar have to worry about the magical integrity of the conduit, but the magic stones themselves were small and light to make sure the fireworks could be launched safely.

  Right when Runar was putting the finishing touch on the first of the magic stones, his phone rang. He quickly answered the call, but there was only silence on the other end.

  "Anders, are you okay? What's going on over there?" he asked, immediately concerned for his friend and aide.

  But it wasn't Anders that answered the question. Instead, it was a voice that Runar had only heard on recordings.

  "Take this as a warning. Stop following me."

  The voice of Richard Snappertie sounded out, and Runar's body froze in response as the call disconnected.