Ignus may have come to get me, but he was now distracted and I saw a good time to make my own escape. So I left the two investigators to themselves and their deepening discussion and slipped out. I was heading back into the building proper, to see who was where and how they were.

  In the main hall several people I recognized were sitting. This was primarily both sets of my grandparents, Rowenna, Lucas (Who I'd only seen at the beginning of the night.) along with Simon and Priscilla.

  “Thank goodness you're alright,” my paternal grandmother said.

  “Of course he is dear, he was with a priest,” her husband reassured.

  Before the others could get going I stopped them all.

  “Yes, I'm fine, perfectly fine. What's the damage though? I felt that explosion, so don't bother telling me everyone is unharmed.”

  “One of the carts blew up,” Lucas said. “Looks like it was only the one though, and thankfully nobody but the driver and passengers were near it. That bastard goblin also only killed the proprietor.”

  “Any clue on why he did that?” I asked them, there were sighs, I was guessing everyone else had asked that too.

  “No, but it was targeted,” Simon answered.

  “You're sure?”

  “Very, he went straight for the man, we were just in the way. If he'd wanted to kill us he probably could have, since none of us were prepared for the fight.”

  “Yes, I'm going to need to make some preparations I think,” I said. “I'll understand if you don't want to spend too much time around me though, not with this.”

  “I'm sorry my friend, but I'll have to take you up on that.” As Simon spoke both Lucas and I were a bit taken aback, even his girlfriend looked a little shocked. Sure, I'd offered, but I'd not expected him to take that offer.

  “Simon!” Priscilla said.

  “No, this danger is real, and I have people to look after. I have siblings, family, other friends, and you. If this problem were within my abilities it would be one thing, but it isn't, I'll not be getting involved in this any further.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Priscilla looked like she wanted to argue as he took her hand and began to lead her to the door. I didn't though, sure, his move had been unexpected, but he was right, we were all well out of our depth here. These problems were also finding me like a magnet, so sticking back wasn't something I could really blame him for.

  I could see Lucas' eyes hardening as he watched our friend go. He seemed to take that harder than I had, but perhaps that was his age. At that age I'd been all for riding or dying, but had I known what that meant? No, nor had I really thought of what it would do to those around me, too caught up in my own mind to consider the effects of what I was doing.

  “Don't even offer, you're one of my people, and I'm here,” Lucas said without looking. His sister giggled a bit under her breath but nodded as I looked to her as well.

  “The boy is responsible, but the three of you aren't here for anything but to learn,” my grandfather said with a gruff voice. “You're not to go looking for trouble, am I clear?”

  “Grandfather,” I said, turning to him. “I never go looking for it, it just seems to find me.” That got me a huff of laughter.

  “All this talk, you boys need to calm yourselves and let the authorities take care of it. Now, come along, it's already late and we should all head home. Lucas, do you and your sister have an escort?” grandmother asked.

  “Yes ma'am,”

  “Then be about it, it's time to leave.”

  Over the next few days I did find some benefits to the whole night's activities. My family was no longer pressuring me to put on events, which was a huge win. I also had a bit more personal time to work on my projects. People avoiding me was something that I would always take in stride.

  My primary project was to finish the first level of my core. These cores had been how Simon had been helping me make magical objects and with his keeping me at arms reach I would need to finish my own. At first I'd been concerned that this would be a trial, with needing to use the rooms at my school to aid in the meditation practice to make it, but that was a non-issue.

  “Just use the house one,” our housekeeper Mrs. Rider had told me when I'd griped about the need.

  I hadn't known, but apparently most large houses kept the needed room for this advancement on hand, the reason for this was twofold. First there were situations like the one I was in now, where a young member of the family would need to work on forming the first level of their core. There were also the servants who had minor magics to consider, these 'Talents' as they were sometimes called could also form a core, though at a much slower rate. Having the ability for people to advance their abilities inside the home meant they wouldn't spend as much time away, and it boosted the power of our staff as a whole.

  The room in question was one I'd never much cared to look at. It was by the laundry of all things, tucked in one of the areas between where the servants were most of the time and where the family lived. I'd always assumed it was some kind of storage, but though there were boxes the outline on the ground told me the tool that was here was working well. Mrs. Rider guided me in and we found that we weren't alone there.

  Kaylee sat in the center of the small circle, sweat beading down from her brow as she worked on the same thing I had been planning to. After a few seconds her eyes fluttered open and she started, seeing us there before her.

  “Oh, my apologies! I didn't know you needed to use...”

  “It's fine, I wasn't going to at the moment anyway,” I lied, not wanting to interrupt one of the few paths towards power she had.

  “Actually I was done for today my lord. I'm not able to do much...” I gave her a reassuring smile as she spoke.

  Over the next week I passed by periodically, using my enhanced senses to check if she was there before going in. Perhaps I was a sucker for her, but what else should a big brother be? No, that was proper. She was there a lot too, never for very long, as she had almost no mana, but several times a day, presumably when her power recovered.

  When she wasn't using it I was. Even if I'd been a bit reserved on this particular exercise while in school I'd still made progress. The meditation took me into a state where I could see connections, looking almost like circuits, and put them together in an ordered way. It was intuitive, slow, but easy to tell when it was right or wrong. With the time I could put towards it I made massive progress too. Before I realized it I was on the last little bit, pushing with my mind and magic to form the final connection.

  There was a surge and a tingling in my head, so much as I could feel that when I was in this state. Then before me appeared a small set of words, words I'd seen before and ones that told me the original maker of this 'core' item was from my world. There in plain English before me letters formed, the old words, the old joke. Ones even those who only ever played with programming knew.

  “Hello World”