Tesilim stood outside of Jolly’s inn wondering if maybe they should take things outside the city. He wasn’t worried about privacy since whatever Jolly was doing kept everyone’s eyes off them. Instead, he was worried about any possible destruction that would come about from unleashing his Chaos Mana because that’s how he planned to get the entire contract to work, though not just with Chaos Mana but also with some help from World Crystal.

  Thinking of the World Crystal, Tesilim was curious about how much the entity paid attention to him. Was it already aware of what Tesilim was doing or planning to do? Did it even pay attention to its world to such a degree? The world was a large place after all, though, in fairness, the World Crystal was a godly entity with immense power.

  Not wanting to continue down that road, Tesilim looked at the two ladies with him. They looked at him in turn, waiting for whatever he planned to do, and he decided to communicate his earlier worry.

  “On second thought, maybe we should take this outside the city. I don’t want to cause unintended destruction. I also don’t want to pay for any destruction I cause.”

  In response, Jolly rolled her eyes, and with a wave, they appeared at the spot the party dedicated to Tesilim’s chaotic events.

  It took the two elves some time to recover from being teleported such a long distance. Even then, it should have been worse for Tesilim since, at the very least, Lili had built up enough resistance throughout the years. The only reason it still affected her was because of her rank. However, Tesilim should have been laid out, and the fact he wasn’t impressed the two ladies, who no doubt attributed the elf’s resilience to his interesting nature.

  After recovering, the two elves finally noticed the spot they were in and threw judging looks at Jolly. There shouldn’t have been any way for the dryad to know about that area unless she had been spying on them. The dryad, seeing their looks, just smiled and shrugged as if saying that it was only natural she kept tabs on them, or at least on Tesilim.

  “Alright, Tesilim, now that your concerns have been addressed, can we please move on?” The dryad spoke with unease, clearly worried that Tesilim might decide to go back on the deal.

  “Uhuh,” Tesilim replied, still looking at her with narrowed eyes. Still, he wasn't planning on going back on the deal just yet, and he had a few other important questions to ask, “Do we sign before or after the contract is magically powered? Also, do we need magical ink?”

  “It doesn’t really matter when you sign for most low-powered individuals, Tes. However, with high-powered individuals, it is often best to sign after the contract is powered up to ensure the paper doesn’t disintegrate. Also, you can sign with magical ink, but it isn’t needed as long as you can leverage your will well enough.” Lili answered, shifting her attention from the dryad to him.

  “I see. I am guessing the signature is just a marking that makes some sort of connection to your soul?”

  “Exactly, any other questions?”

  “No, no, I think that’s all. Let me see if I can make this happen.”

  Then Tesilim sat down in his meditation stance and began to focus.

  He held the contract in his hands and could feel the slight magical energy permeating the papers. There was power in the ink, and through an extension, there was power in the words. However, that power was weak and, as it stood, did not hold a purpose. Sure, the words meant something, but they had yet to be directed at the individuals to whom they applied. That said, it's not like the contract was worthless since it did hold enough magic to bind regular folk. The problem was that it did not have enough magic to truly affect D rankers or anyone with any real amount of power, a problem Tesilim was looking to fix.

  After feeling the power within the paper, ink, and words, Tesilim looked inward. He currently had 31 points of Chaos Mana in his tank. He knew it was nowhere near enough to truly reach the level of power needed to reinforce a contract, but the mana was never meant to be the real power behind the contract. It was just meant to be a catalyst. Tesilim was sure that Lili believed he would use his mana to reinforce the contract, but from what he had seen so far, it wouldn’t be enough. He wasn’t dumb and had been paying attention to how much his Chaos Mana actually boosted a spell. And from the looks of it usually tended to be enough for what he wanted to accomplish. Sure, there were deviations, but his Chaos Mana, as its name implied, had yet to truly be consistent. Yes, Tesilim knew that the more Chaos Mana he spent, the stronger a spell would come out, but that’s not what he meant.

  It was more like the mana somewhat listened to his subconscious because even when he spent one hundred points and his spells got boosted by an incredible degree, it was never consistent. Almost like the mana mediated the final outcome to his own expectations, which was an insane thing. Of course, to that end, he doubted it would go past certain limits. For example, he doubted that at his rank, he could actually hurt an S ranker with a boosted spell, no matter what.

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  There were always checks and balances to these things, and since his powers came directly from an entity strictly made to uphold the laws of the universe, it meant his powers also had to have some limits. Limits that Tesilim believed resided within his psyche and were self-imposed.

  The best way Tesilim could look at it was like confidence.

  Confidence could take you far, but it wasn’t a solution for everything, and more importantly, just because you acted confident didn’t mean you actually were. In this case, his subconscious, which somehow directed his Chaos Mana, was linked to an undercurrent that was affected by events around him. A good example was the cheese elemental. Back then, the fight had been building up, and though it had been rough. How the party had approached that fight, and previous fights slowly built confidence within Tesilim. This confidence then affected his subconscious, making him feel like they could win the fight, regardless of what was happening. Naturally, his subconscious affected his Chaos Mana somehow, and when he had gone to unleash the boosted spell it had done way more than Tesilim expected. Yet, it hadn’t killed the elemental, instead simply providing Tesilim a close enough result to what he wanted, which had been to delay the monster enough so everyone could recuperate.

  Further adding to the cheese elemental fight, if the monster had gone all out from the very beginning and Tesilim had been cut by that pepperoni slice. Thus, he losing that confidence. He doubted the chaotic spell would have been as good. Not that it would have been a dud, but it just might not have frozen the elemental at all or the effect might have only lasted one or two seconds instead of however long it had lasted.

  Now, with that in mind, Tesilim had no confidence in hurting an S ranker. He could hype himself up as much as he wanted, but deep down, he just felt like it was currently impossible. So, this meant that, by extension, any chaotic shenanigans were off the table regarding empowering the contract with this odd subconscious control over his mana. Instead, Tesilim planned to do something much riskier.

  Tesilim wanted to direct his Chaos Mana directly. He had done it before, but somewhat indirectly via his will, and now he wondered if he could somehow trigger that again. By that, he meant to trigger his will to indirectly trigger the Chaos Mana. Because Tesilim had no freaking idea how his will could tell the mana what to do, he had tried, but the damn energy just refused. It had felt like trying to tell a mountain to move. Not only could the mountain not hear you, but even if it could, it was still a mountain, and you weren’t going to move it with your words.

  Anyways, back to the topic of triggering the Chaos Mana. Tesilim hoped that by doing it a certain way, the mana would do something much like it had done with Drex. Aka go crazy and forcibly make the contract power up. From there, the hope was that since Tesilim had a connection to the World Crystal, the mana would use that connection to power up further.

  Now, the craziness of the situation wasn’t lost on Tesilim, but he had no other choice. Alyx and his church and empire wouldn’t help him because of some deal they had to make his journey a proper hero’s journey or whatever. Then, he doubted Lili wanted to call in some favors for something so dumb. Because, yes, Tesilim believed she had to have some connections.

  On top of that, he was broke and would not ask Lili for more gold. Also, he did not want to ask Jolly because the dryad would no doubt ask for more concessions, and even if she did it for free, Tesilim didn’t trust anyone she would bring into the fold. Not to mention, word of the whole thing would spread even more. Hence, a risky chaotic thing was the last choice he had.

  With all of that in mind, Tesilim decided to start, and he reached into his soul, willing the Chaos Mana to come out, pass through his body, and enter the contract.

  The mana didn’t budge and continued to splash around in its section of his soul. Annoyed, Tesilim tried again and again, but nothing happened. Needless to say, Tesilim was confused. Every time he had used it for a spell before, it had worked, so why did it not work now?

  It took him a bit longer than he liked, but the words eventually struck him. Surely, that couldn’t be right. Mana was mana; he should be able to command his Chaos Mana without issue, right? Well, according to his ability, he couldn’t.

  Chaos Boost: You can infuse your Mana with your own attuned Chaos Mana while casting spells. The strength of the spell will be boosted based on how much Chaos Mana was infused. You may infuse 25, 50, 75, or 100 Chaos Mana. Warning: Chaos Mana infusion will trigger a Chaos Event regardless of the amount of Chaos Mana infused.

  He had never questioned it before because there hadn’t been a reason to, but sure enough, there it was. It clearly stated he was limited to spells. In fact, there was no other ability that specifically said he could use his Chaos Mana other than this one. Adding to the issue, why was he stuck infusing only certain amounts of Chaos Mana at a time? Again, this was something he hadn’t questioned before because there was no real reason. Though mainly because he had been dealing with other things, like the fact that he was in a new world. However, now, the restriction seemed dumb. It was his mana. He should be able to use however much mana he wanted, whenever he wanted.

  Furthermore, the issue wasn’t even one of balance. Since less Chaos Mana still meant less of a power boost. The only thing Tesilim could maybe think about was the World Crystal not wanting him to spam a bunch of Chaos Events, but honestly, Tesilim doubted that. It was obvious the entity cared about Free Will, so why would it care for a bunch of chaotic events that ultimately would not affect it? Not like it had the excuse of trying to protect others, since if it did, it had much bigger issues than one elf to deal with, like the Eldritch God and Realm entities killing thousands every day.

  Thinking about it, Tesilim decided that maybe it was just a safety feature meant to restrict him. After all, he was in as much danger as anyone else when it came to his Chaos Events. Either way, Tesilim was going to find a way to get rid of these restrictions.