"Call us if anything's wrong, okay? We'll come here at a moment's notice," Dimos said, holding his daughter in a hug.

  "Also make sure to let us know if you need help with anything. It's a big house," Athina added, patting Silvia's back. The elf nodded with a slight sniffle.

  "I'll be fine, don't worry. It's not like I'm here all alone."

  Slowly, Dimos and Athina stepped out of the house, making their way back to their car. They were the last ones to leave, still helping out with cleaning and putting things up until the very end. Even Yanna and Fae had to leave earlier. They had decided that the first night in the house was going to be for just Ryan, Silvia, and Modak.

  Of course, there was a reason for that. Ryan handed Silvia the box of tissues standing on top of the empty cardboard boxes next to the door, and after she cleaned up the tears from the corners of her eyes, the three just stood there for a moment.

  "So... we're living on our own now, huh?" Modak looked around. The house was still extremely bare, and it was almost suffocatingly quiet. They were still waiting on some speakers that they wanted to set up in here to just play some 'background music' while they were hanging out here. And especially with the slight echo that came together with every step the three took, things just felt... a little eerie.

  "It looks like it," Ryan smiled, patting his friends on the shoulder, "So... do you guys want to see our 'basement'?"

  Immediately, the two nodded their heads, as Ryan led them into the livingroom. He pulled out the small Aglecard-insignia coin out of his pocket and pressed it against the wall. A large square of runes was quickly revealed, and as they activated, the wall simply crumbled away from in front of the trio, revealing an elevator.

  "Just do that when you want to head down. It's going to repair itself after about a minute, or right after the elevator starts moving down. It automatically opens up the wall for whatever 'stop' you go to. There's the one here, one in the actual, real basement, and one in my room which I'm asking you guys not to use without telling me first," Ryan explained as he stepped into the elevator. Silvia looked around, surprised.

  "Whoa, they managed to install a full-on elevator like this in just a couple days?"

  Ryan pressed the 'down' button, and then turned his head toward Silvia, "Oh, yeah, so this elevator is actually running on magic. They put up this big mana battery in the basement that we'll also end up hooking the security system up to."

  "A mana battery?" Modak asked, perking up at the mention, and Ryan just grinned a bit.

  "You can go take a look later. I didn't want to show it to you guys when the others were here because I didn't want them to ask what it was being used for right now," he explained, "It's got this... 'ambient mana filter' or something."

  "Oh shit, I've been looking into getting one of those myself, but they're so hard to get your hands on. They only really use those for industrial purposes, so they're extremely expensive. They work on the same technology that they use to prevent the formation of dungeons when heightened mana levels are noticed somewhere," the orc seemed even more excited about the machine standing in the basement than the hidden space that they were approaching by the second. Though, Silvia was making up for that plenty. She was basically jumping with curiosity.

  "Okay, so. The place down there looks pretty... intense. Again, that's technically a dead body down there, so if you guys aren't comfortable with that, you don't need to come inside of the skull with me," Ryan explained, but both Silvia and Modak just stared at him for a moment.

  "If we were that squeamish, we wouldn't even be coming down with you."

  As Silvia said so, the elevator came to a stop. The doors slowly opened up, and Ryan stepped outside with a smile. There were a few lamps set up around the cave to just keep it illuminated overall. Ryan hadn't actually been down here since these had been put up. With this lighting, seeing this cave was a much different experience than with dark vision. It was actually sort of scary down here, so Ryan was extremely happy that he didn't have to come down here all on his own.

  "Whoa, what the hell? And that was alive once?" Silvia stared at the skull, illuminated by the spotlights set up around the area. Like this, the eye sockets appeared almost like bottomless black holes.

  "Apparently, yeah. According to Runar, this was a small one, too. Oh, and 'small' doesn't mean that it was young. Titans don't have a single uniform size," Ryan led his friends to the base of the skull. The 'mouth' had been replaced by a proper doorway. At least for the time being, they wanted to prevent all the insects from inside the skull to scape out into the open cave, so there was a double-door setup. Ryan opened the first one and let Silvia and Modak through, quickly following behind and pulling the door shut again. Making sure that it was properly closed and airtight, so that the insects couldn't just crawl out through any cracks, Ryan then quickly turned around and opened the second door.

  The dark space was filled with a soft glow, as the secret garden was revealed.

  "Oh my gods..." Modak looked around. Ryan had never seen him this awestruck before. He did have to admit, this was a pretty damn impressive thing. This was like a small pocket of something that seemed almost untouched. Plus, there was so much magic down here that you could practically see it in the air. Even Modak must be feeling it. Though, more importantly...

  "Silvia, are you alright? The mana is quite..."

  "Dense? Yeah, I can tell," she took a few deep breaths, trying to acclimatize herself. Clearly, she was a little lightheaded, "But really, this place is incredible. What are you planning on doing with it?"

  "Uh... I don't know," Ryan admitted, "I was hoping to maybe make this into a place for Gaia to plant some of her magic plants. But beside that, I guess it would just be a training spot? Apparently, the presence of mana is supposed to help magical abilities develop. It's similar to dungeons, actually. Some researchers found that people's skills level up faster in there, but there's no actual solid proof right now..."

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  Modak snapped his head toward Ryan, nervous, "Wait, hold on, this place is like a dungeon? Will there be monsters all of a sudden?"

  "No, no, don't worry. I was worried about that as well. But apparently this is different to that. Don't ask me how it works... you're the future wizard."

  Modak looked around the area. This was a pretty intense experience. He could feel the mana in this place brushing against his skin. Mana had a pretty unique sensation to it that couldn't really be mistaken for anything else. He could feel it in the dungeon as well, but there it was like stale pond water, while this place was more like a fresh stream that just sprung up. Modak could feel it enter his body through his lungs, more and more with every breath, but his body just forced it straight back outside.

  But... as this happened, he noticed something weird. It was like the mana was twisting around in his body before leaving, like it was getting caught on something. To test it a bit more closely, Modak took some deeper breaths, and he could feel it happen with every single one. That was when an epiphany came to him.

  "External stimulation!" he exclaimed loudly.

  Ryan and Silvia looked at each other for a moment, before the elf groaned a bit, "I don't really want to know what you and Yanna are up to..."

  "Huh? Oh, ew, get your mind out of the gutter," Modak sighed, "I mean the mana itself. I told you guys before, right? How mana and aura interact with each other? They're similar in nature, but they don't like to really exist together. They're a bit like oil and water in that sense."

  "Okay?" Ryan curiously raised a brow.

  "And because of my MRD, I'm acutely aware of any mana that I encounter and push out. Like, I can physically feel mana, but I keep struggling even finding a hint of my aura. But I just felt something! The mana inside of me started twisting around, like... when a current hits water!"

  "Wait, do you think you found your aura with that?"

  Modak immediately nodded, "Yes! Because I don't have any mana in my body, I think my aura might have gotten... I don't know, stuck somehow? Like, because of the coexistence of mana and aura in one's body, there's a constant flow of both, because they're stimulating each other. But because of my MRD, that stimulation isn't happening. So, if I can just inject a ton of mana into my body, I should be able to either dislodge my aura or at least stimulate it to a point where I can feel some of it, and then take some kind of control of it. Hopefully. Maybe."

  "... And how'd you do that? Controlling these things isn't easy, you know? It still feels like I'm pushing around cold honey all the time."

  "It's the best idea I have right now. Though, it might still be a bit rough with just this much mana... Ah, do you think we could hook me up to the mana battery upstairs, and-"

  "Are you fucking insane?" Ryan interrupted Modak immediately, "Do you want to kill yourself? Even with MRD, that's like electrocuting yourself, man."

  "Then what else do you suggest?" Modak sighed, but Ryan didn't have a particularly great idea either. Maybe they could just syphon some of the mana from the battery down here? Modak probably knew how to switch that 'ambient mana filter' around so that it could output mana from the battery instead, right? In that case, they just needed to-

  "Why doesn't Ryan just push a bunch of mana into your body?" Silvia, who had taken a seat on a slightly elevated part of this small garden while she was getting used to all of this mana, looked up at her friends, "You said that you did that kind of thing with that Michael guy, right? He pushed a bunch of mana into you? Just do that."

  Ryan was about to protest that idea, saying that it was too dangerous, but now that he thought about it, there wasn't actually any reason not to try this. After all, the main reason why you shouldn't mix different types of mana inside one's body was that you physically rejected it, like rejecting a transplanted organ, and it could cause your mana to start acting erratically. The only reason it worked with Ryan was that his ability's and very own mana's nature allowed him to hold different types of mana within his body. As for Modak... he didn't have any mana in the first place, so there couldn't be any sort of reaction like that.

  The two looked at each other for a moment, "We could give it a shot? If it works, then that would be pretty great, right?"

  "Right..." Modak nodded, clearly excited. He started looking around for a good spot that they could sit down and do this at. He followed the overgrown path further into the secret garden, soon finding a small flat circle that seemed like a good place. He sat down, and quickly patted the ground to tell Ryan to also take a seat.

  "Wait, right now? Really?"

  "Sure, why wait?" the orc said as if it were obvious, so Ryan sighed and looked over at Silvia for a moment, who was still getting used to all of this mana.

  "Fine. But just so you know, you need to take off your shirt."

  Modak pulled back slightly, raising his brow, "... Why?"

  "If I push mana into your hands, it won't even reach your wrist, dude. You clearly felt the change when breathing in the mana here, so it was happening in your chest. So I'm going to push the mana straight into your back so that it hopefully does something, alright?"

  "... Fine," Modak awkwardly took off his sling so that he could pull of his shirt. Ryan looked at his friend, seeing some bruises and scrapes that still covered him all over his chest and back from the expo. But there were some parts that he should be able to touch without hurting Modak.

  Ryan sat down behind Modak, "If this hurts, let me know and I'll stop immediately."

  The orc nodded. Ryan carefully touched Modak's back. His breathing felt erratic, like he was nervous. Or rather... scared.

  "I'm starting," Ryan said, starting to push some mana into Modak's back, just like he had learned from Michael. The only issue was that he could neither supply mana with the sort of force that Michael could, nor did he have close to the same amount. So... there was something else he was trying. Since there was no other mana blocking his way within Modak, since it wasn't actually that far away, he should be able to just pull it right back in. Like he did with the spirits.

  Out of his right hand, into his left. Rather than just force it all in, he was trying to create a flow. Just anything at all. It would circle around into his shoulder, through his heart, back into his other shoulder, and right into Modak. There, Ryan could hold onto the mana and try to pull it right back in. The only issue was that he was now dealing with a rather confusing force. It was like trying to push two magnets of the same polarity against each other. Or, if he had to compare it to something more relevant, it was like trying to balance that blob of Michael's mana inside of his body, as he did during his, so far, failed attempt at increasing his own mana. He was just in the opposite position now. His own mana was the thing that had to be balanced to avoid being thrown out, surrounded by a force that wanted to push it away.

  Doing it this way was so much harder, but luckily, his goal wasn't to keep his mana inside of Modak. His goal was to just slightly control exactly where it was being thrown out. Rather, somehow, because of how hard Modak's body was rejecting his mana, it was like he was able to accelerate that small, colourless wisp. A cycle was created; a flow, that was really only speeding up.

  And then, suddenly, something interrupted that flow. A boulder that was thrown into the river, just as Modak had described it. That 'lump' of aura. No... that slightly more concentrated aura, right around Modak's heart.

  More and more, he realized what was going on, and why Modak's body was rejecting mana so hard. A normal person's aura was like a thin mist, a fog that was flowing through their body. But Modak's was different.

  Modak's aura was like a thick, dense rock that was being forced into a new shape whenever the orc moved around.

  With an awkward, nervous, and half-forced grin, Ryan stared at his friend's back, "How the fuck am I supposed to get this moving?"

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