“Ahh, you were so light hearted back then! Now you’re all serious and ‘Let’s do our job.’ I miss the training days.” Justin, after reminiscing about our first interaction, immediately started talking like an old man looking back at his glory days.

  My sister smiled sweetly at Justin before showing me a rare look of approval. “Grabbing Justin from the ocean was probably the most significant thing you’ve ever done. If nothing else, I can be proud that I raised you to do that.”

  -My dear sister, I would appreciate it if you would at least acknowledge my efforts to keep up with the monster known as Justin. Not only can he cast instantly, his body is comparable to manarock! For a poor support magister like me, keeping up with DPS magister’s combat ability should be marveled at! Not to mention how fast he’s grown. I was barely his teacher for a couple months before he surpassed me in strength!- My internal whining led me to look at Justin, the prophesized “Hero of Humanity.” I understood that as a hero, his aptitude and mine should be incomparable. I understood it, but why was God so unfair!? -How can someone so talented be allowed to exist without the world laws making it fair for people like me? Where’s the balance!?-

  “Little Bastard, what are you so lost in thought about?” My sister jolted me out of my righteous indignation with her question.

  I didn’t even think, instinctually replying with a predetermined answer. “Just thinking about how much I love you, my dear sister.”

  “Good.”

  I wanted to slap myself for saying that. I flashed back to my childhood, recalling how she would hit seven year old me while yelling at me to, “Show her some damn respect!” On top of that, she made up the nickname “Little Bastard” to use in place of my name. When she finally moved away to work for The Kingdom, I spent nearly as much time as I did cultivating my internal mana on trying to break free from her brainwashing! Unfortunately, the results were unsurprisingly unsatisfactory when they were unveiled.

  I wanted to get up and yell at her, but my rational sense recalled how she almost killed me mere moments ago. -The chill of death, huh? Now that I think about it, that would be a cool title for when we become famous as The Destined’s squad. What would my alias be? It should be something cool, which shouldn’t be difficult considering I’m pretty cool.-

  Following that thought process, The Kingdom crossed my mind. “Oh right, when does The Kingdom expect us to arrive? And are they gonna send someone to fill in for you while you’re with us?”

  I asked my sister some questions that I was wondering about. “Well, I informed them that we were meeting up and leaving some time soon, so we have a few days to rest before we have to be there. And I didn’t ask about that! What do I care about what happens to this damn city that gets attacked every week! I’m so sick of this place!”

  A small smile formed on my lips after she spoke. Whenever she started talking bad about something, that meant she really loved it. What? That’s just me trying to comfort myself? Don’t be ridiculous.

  “You know,” Justin started, “I was thinking about it, and what if we just traveled there on foot rather than taking the Warp Formation?” I looked at him like he was crazy. Such a ridiculous suggestion was obviously unreasonable.

  “Whatever you want Justin~!” My sister immediately agreed, which was to be expected, so my input was probably irrelevant now. -Dear sister, you could at least be more reliable about important decisions like this.-

  Suddenly, a hand reached out and covered my face, placing its thumb and middle finger on each of my temples. A gripping force was exerted, gradually increasing its strength and subsequently increasing my pain. “Huh? Ahhhhhhhhh! Okay! Okay okay okayyyy! Stoooop pleeease!”

  The hand let go and retreated back next to my sister. She seemed satisfied by my suffering because she had a slight smirk on her face. I proceeded to put my hands on the sides of my head and massage my temples to ease the pain with tears in my eyes. I knew it was pointless, but I couldn’t help but ask my sister for her reasoning. “Why? I didn’t even do anything!”

  “Hmm? Oh, I felt like you thought something rude about me.”

  “All of that over a feeling you can’t even confirm?!”

  I said that, but inside I was shocked that she always knew whenever I’m thinking something like that. Even when we lived together a few years ago, it never felt like she was able to read my thoughts so much! -I should stop underestimating a woman’s intuition. It’s clearly stronger than psychic magic!-

  Justin cleared his throat to bring us back on track. “Ahem. Anyways, I’m sure you’re wondering why I suggested walking there, but the answer to that is simple. We haven’t been a team for very long, right? I feel like we should spend some time traveling together to improve our synergy, you know?”

  Zinaethia nestled closer to the arm she was embracing and narrowed her eyes with a smirk. “We can kick the other one out and spend tonight improving our synergy.”

  I wanted to vomit after hearing that. I had to do everything I could to keep that image out of my head. Why was she like this?

  Justin just laughed off her remark and continued. “No, really. We can practice using our magic together, or think of strategies for when we’re fighting the undead. We should also think of tactics to use against other magisters as well. After all, the undead aren’t the only enemies.”

  Listening to Justin trying to prepare, I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. “And I’m the one who’s all, ‘Let’s do our job,’ huh? Look at you, jumping straight into strategist mode. Well, whatever. I’m fine with walking I guess. Plus I can show my sister how much stronger I’ve gotten—”

  “I don’t care about you, but if Justin wants to do it, let’s do it!”

  It seemed like we were all in agreement, but… -My dear sister, couldn’t you at least let me finish before you crush my dreams?

  After deciding that we’d walk to The Kingdom and practice our teamwork along the way, Zinaethia said she’d cook for us (or rather, she said she would make some food for her and Justin, and I could figure something out) then decided to go to sleep early so we could start walking sooner. I was worried about what I would do because she really didn’t make any food for me! Thankfully the attendants that took care of the house made me something to eat, or else I might’ve gone hungry. While they were preparing the food, I learned they were brother and sister and named Shunaeser and Shunaesia respectively.

  The next day, on the road connecting Twin Star Lake City to The Kingdom, all three of us were discussing magic circles after Zinaethia brought up my casting speed again. “I just don’t get why he still even needs to form magic circles. By the time I was his age, I had almost forgotten what magic circles were even for!”

  “Zinaethia, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hold me to your ridiculous standards. I think it’s pretty remarkable I was able to survive training with Justin for five years.” I tried to get her to understand I was actually pretty amazing in my own way. Justin agreed, so he chimed in too.

  “Yeah, I’m glad it was Zinaether that was my teacher. He’s probably the most trustworthy person in the world! Besides, I think you’re just awesome for being able to skip the step of making the magic circle and directly moving your mana into action.”

  That was certainly true. Whether I liked it or not, my sister was indeed a once in a lifetime prodigy.

  Mana was omnipresent in the world. Some areas had higher or low concentrations of mana, or different prominent mana natures, but mana itself was a natural part of the environment. Magisters (with the exception of my sister) couldn’t just manipulate the ambient mana freely, so they developed magic circles that allowed our mana to issue commands to the ambient mana. These commands were the spells that magisters used and the circles had effects that range from simply using the mana inside one’s body to make an attack to converting ambient mana of a different nature into the circle’s nature to have enough mana to form the desired result. Magic circles were infinite and had a range of complexities, with more complex circles being bigger and harder to form in exchange for more powerful and/or more precise spells. In order to keep people organized, spells were divided into tiers based on their complexity. In order of simplest to most complex, the spell tiers were basic, intermediate, advanced, and complex. Since magic circles were devised, they’ve been refined and improved upon and countless more have been created and can be created, but magic circles themselves have been considered the foundation of a magister’s strength and always present, unless they were my sister.

  “Aww Justin, I didn’t know you were such a sweet talker. It’s surprising considering how foul mouthed and uncouth this one is. It’s really unbelievable that you choose to associate yourself with him.” Zinaethia took Justin’s compliment and ran with it, but she quickly switched her tone when she directed the conversation back to me. “Besides, the little bastard still doesn’t have an excuse. We have the same blood flowing through us. If I can say one thing about that one, it’s that it is definitely my little brother, so I don’t think expecting it to be able to mobilize mana without a circle is unrealistic.”

  I think this was the closest thing to a positive expectation that my sister has ever had for me. I would’ve been moved, if not for one reason. -Did she refer to me as “it?” So I’m not even a person anymore, huh?-

  Justin responded to her cold hearted expectations with a voice that obviously was pitying me, which kind of made me feel worse. “Even twins can’t be expected to achieve the same feats as each other.”

  Even though he tried to defend me, his argument wasn’t strong enough. Although I was reluctant, even I had to take my sister’s side if I knew she was right. “That’s true, but it’s slightly different for magisters. I’ve told you that those in power in The Kingdom are considered to have noble blood, with the King’s family even being said to have descended from the first magister, but I don’t think you took that seriously enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Justin didn’t seem to understand, but before I could explain it, my sister seemed all too enthusiastic to explain how the power system worked. “He means they were serious about their noble blood.”

  “Noble blood?”

  “That’s right.” Zinaethia nodded before shooting me a glance. “Unless that one is a terrible teacher, he should’ve explained that the reason magisters can even cast spells is due to their mana vein producing mana. Whatever type of mana the vein produces is the magic nature of that magister, which is the type of mana they can control and absorb. Excess mana produced by the mana vein during certain processes condenses in the heart to form a crystal that becomes more refined as more mana is gathered into it over time.”

  “I learned that. It’s the reason the Demon God tries to kill us magisters. He steals the Life Crystals since they’re essentially the lifetime accumulation of a magister’s mana.”

  “Correct~! You’re well informed. Maybe that one isn’t completely useless after all.” My sister looked me up and down. She wasn’t showing approval, but she didn’t outright disapprove of me either. Was it bad that I felt happy about that?

  “Anyways…” Zinaethia adjusted her hair and continued her lesson for Justin. “That means the more powerful the magister’s mana vein, the more powerful the Life Crystal, correct? The same is also true of the magister’s abilities. If a stronger magister has a child, it’s highly likely that the child will inherit their parent’s strong mana vein and be able to become a strong magister. The reason the noble families have maintained their status is because they marry other strong magisters to produce strong descendants and keep their bloodline strong. That’s why I believe in the little sh*t’s ability to achieve circle-less casting. If I can do it, that means we have naturally strong mana veins, so it shouldn’t be impossible for him.”

  That was probably the nicest thing she ever said about me. If she didn’t say it so matter-of-fact-ly, I might’ve cried due to overwhelming emotions.

  Ignorant of the joy I was feeling, Justin continued his conversation with my sister. “I see. Is that why you’re so hard on him? Because you believe he can do great things?”

  Oh? I was also interested in hearing if my sister was actually a caring older sister who simply had an icy exterior. “What? Hell no, I just hate his guts! I get you lived with him, but imagine trying to raise the little bastard! It’s always a snarky comment or sarcastic remark, but he acts so innocent, like he’d never wrong anyone. That’s why I had to beat it into him to show respect to people, especially when he first awoke his magic! Do you know how many pranks he played on me by messing with my senses and vision before I eventually left to work for The Kingdom and defend that god forsaken city?”

  And there go my dreams, thoroughly crushed and drifting like dust in the wind. Despite my shattered hopes, I couldn’t just let this story be told one-sidedly!

  “Hey hey! I may not have been the most peaceful little brother, but what siblings don’t prank each other? If anything, she’s the terrible one! Justin, imagine being raised by such a violent, rude, and worst of all, attractive sister! Do you know how many times I was almost drowned, frozen, and buried alive? For no reason!? There was no privacy until she finally moved away, and all the guys from the magic school who talked to me were asking me to try and set them up on a date with her! My childhood was full of physical and emotional abuse! I think it’s a miracle I’m a functioning human being after being raised by her!” The opportunity to complain about my sister to someone besides her rarely presented itself, so when I started the floodgates were opened. It wasn’t like I hated Zinaethia, but she was awful when she was raising me.

  “So I’m a bad guardian, huh? Who was the one that started sending extra money after someone decided to pick up an, albeit handsome, stranger off the street?! I wanted to come check on you right away, but that god damned city just has to get attacked every damn day!”

  “Wait, really?” I was struck off guard by that revelation. -Was she worried about me after I picked up Justin?-

  “Yes really! If you were living with some girl, I would’ve murdered you in your sleep before she seduced you into the honey trap.”

  -Of course not.- I was a bit disappointed that I got my hopes up, but in an argument you have to take everything in stride. Without hesitating, I shot back at her while maintaining an indifferent tone, even though I was feeling fired up. “Wow, that's crazy. Just like the fact that me asking for extra money didn’t affect you in the slightest! Clearly, you were still living just fine even while sending over extra money. In fact, you probably should’ve sent more, seeing as you still had some extra funds leftover.”

  After seeing Zinaethia’s house, I knew for a fact that she had plenty of money to blow. At least, she had enough to have two attendants maintain a garden full of magical plants. For a poor man such as myself, such luxary would easily double or triple living expenses, so a rich older sister like her should be willing to help out her less fortunate little brother, right? “Like hell! Learn to live on your own!”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I was fifteen, Zinaethia.”

  “I was living on my own when I was fifteen! And I was providing for a kid that wasn’t even mine, and apparently not grateful in the slightest.”

  I threw my hands to the sky in exasperation. “Once again, I ask that you not hold me to your ridiculous standards.”

  “What’s ridiculous about it? Justin is closer to circle-less casting than you, and he’s only spent half as long on magic as you have. Guess that means he’s twice the man, huh?”

  But I could reply, Justin cut in. “Okay, let’s relax.”

  I wasn’t upset, but I guess Justin was a bit uncomfortable with the atmosphere. I knew he had a younger sister at home, but I guess they didn’t fight like we do. To be fair, I thought Zinaethia was a bit excessive and very emotionally driven.

  “Hmph!” As if to prove my point, she made an extremely petty sound and turned away from me.

  “Sorry, she’s just really petty and hates losing.”

  “Who lost?!” Zinaethia immediately snapped at me like I was publicly slandering her. All it earned from me, however, was a smirk.

  “See what I mean?”

  Justin had to hold her back from attacking me, which I was grateful for. After he calmed her down, we continued on our journey towards The Kingdom. The road between The Kingdom and Twin Star Lake City was pretty straight forward. Along the way, we ran into a few people on their way to the city. Most were people going there to sell stuff, but we ran into the occasional magister on the way to gain experience against the undead on the front lines. The road traveled along the edge of a few Beast race territories, but Humans and Beasts were typically neutral and wouldn’t attack each other unprovoked in The Kingdom.

  Typically that was the way things went, but the Gargantuan Ketxalconda that attacked us didn’t appreciate such peace. The feathered snake was at least five meters long and as thick as an ardentwood tall tree. The first one to notice was Zinaethia, who quickly slid Justin and I away by turning the ground around us into a liquid and pushing the solid platform we were standing on back with a wave. At the same time, she jumped forward and landed a dozen meters away.

  Beneath where the three of us fled, the liquid soil fell into a black abyss big enough to swallow at least ten people. In the next instant, a massive snake with feathery wings burst through the surface and flew into the sky. Its thick tail swung back and forth as it ascended, flinging stone scales in all directions.

  I reacted quickly and grabbed Justin while simultaneously casting a chaos spell. I sensed a trace of mana I left lingering on my sister and cast my Instant Teleportation spell. In the next instant, I was looking in the sky at a perfectly square sheet of ice, blocking the storm of stone showering us.

  Zinaethia looked back at us, her royal blue eyes filled with worry. “Are you alright, Justin?!”

  “With Zinaether here, such an attack would never reach us.” Justin responded casually, but why were we ignoring how she totally ignored me?

  After a moment, the scales stopped falling, so Zinaethia dispersed her barrier. The ketxalconda’s body shook in the sky, its figure appearing as a black silhouette since it positioned itself between us and the sun. It released a loud noise reminiscent of gurgling and hissing intertwining in a horrible cacophony.

  Justin patted my shoulder while squinting at the sky. “Can you make this a little easier on the eyes? Its sneak attack proved its skill in concealing its aura, so it’ll be hard to aim like this.”

  I nodded as I looked back into the sky. Extending my hand forward, a white magic circle quickly spun into existence, casting my bright spell after a second. In the next instant, it was as though an invisible mirror blocked the sky between our trio and the ketxalconda. The light from the sun that was beaming down on us suddenly flashed over the figure of the feathered snake in the sky.

  Justin smirked and pulled back his arm. Next, he stomped his foot and fiercely punched his fist at the ketxalconda. When his arm reached full extension, there was a flash of yellow around Justin’s arm and a massive fist of lightning the same size as the Beast’s body quickly climbed into the sky.

  The ketxalconda was no pushover and flew towards all of us, swirling around Justin’s spell and avoiding it with ease. As it charged at us, the ground rumbled intensely before massive roots upheaved the earth beneath us.

  The massive plant tendrils were dozens of meters long and all at least as wide as a large person. They pierced towards us violently like giant spears, surrounding us completely and closing in quickly. Justin turned to Zinaethia and quickly doled out an order. “Make a bunch of ice shelters for us. At least ten!” Following that, his head spun to me. “Teleport us into one of the shelters.” Zinaethia only needed a breath to complete Justin’s request. At a glance there was easily double the minimum ten. With so many options it almost made it difficult to choose. I picked a random one in the crowd and grabbed both of them as I cast another Instant Teleportation. In the next second, what surprised me was the sudden wave of heat I felt that was incongruous with what I just saw. My eyes darted to Justin, who looked towards Zinaethia and I as an orange light dissipated in front of him. “Make sure to keep your auras down.”

  I instinctively retracted my aura and shot a questioning gaze towards Justin. In that instant, there was another loud gurgle-hiss accompanied by the sounds of shattering in crashing nearby enough to still feel the impact, but far enough away to not feel threatened. Justin might have been reacting to the noise, or maybe he read my expression, but he started explaining without me having to ask. “I’m a man who must repay a favor, no matter how small. Since it wanted to sneak attack us, it’s only right to return the favor. On our last counter attack, it didn’t seem affected by Zinaether’s bright spell at all.” As Justin explained, there was another hurgliss a bit further away along with more shattering and crashing. “I suspected such a scenario. Since it hunts underground, does it really need eyes? Plus it’s a snake, so it probably has an organ for sensing heat. With the proof of the light being ineffective, I decided to enact a little ploy.” Another crash echoed, but this one was closer than before. “By using Zinaethia’s freeze magic as a disruptive filter and my fire magic to conceal our body heat, we would become invisible to the snake once we hid our auras. It would have to guess to find us, and I trust my luck enough to buy a little time.”

  Following the sound of another ice shelter being destroyed, Zinaethia looked at Justin with infatuation in her eyes. “You’re so quick witted. Those useless nobles in The Kingdom could stand to be more like you.”

  Justin smiled at my sister’s flattery before facing me. “After the next crash, follow the sound to teleport us to that snake. We shouldn’t waste too much time here.”

  I nodded and willed my mana vein to generate more mana, rapidly expanding my aura and allowing me to teleport within its range more easily. I didn’t know if the next crash would be nearby or not, it never hurt to be prepared. Luckily for me, there was yet another roar from the Beast before a booming crash that caused the ground to shake and the sharp sound of shattering ice made me wince. -Nearby enough. Looks like this won’t be hard.-

  I grabbed Justin’s arm and teleported us about thirty meters above where I heard the crash. I expected the ketxalconda to be flying high as a precaution, but it was actually down at the wreckage of the ice shelter it destroyed, slithering along the ground with its mouth open, consuming the debris, ice, and fire. Everything along its trail vanished as it passed.

  Justin reacted quickly and cast a wind spell, spinning me around as my body was parallel to the ground. I released Justin from my grasp after several revolutions, launching him straight down towards the ketxalconda like an arrow. A yellow magic circle briefly appeared below Justin’s rapidly falling figure before instantly fading away. In the next instant, sparks flashed around him before he became a sharp sword of lightning that fell upon the ketxalconda. With a flash, a severed snake head flew into the air. Justin bounced out of the way as the blood spurted from the Beast’s decapitated body.

  The ice shelters that remained simultaneously shattered into dust and the fires burning inside instantly died out. Zinaethia approached the head of the Beast as Justin jumped above the body and sliced his hand across the air while casting an electric spell. A slash of electricity cut across the ketxalconda’s body, penetrating its stone scales and cutting it in half along the length of its body. Revealed towards the upper body, next to its beating heart, were a brown orb and a dark green orb.

  Justin caught me as I fell from the sky and we gracefully landed together. At the time of our landing, Zinaethia also walked over to the corpse and grabbed the two Beast Cores revealed by Justin’s last attack. I looked around to discover the loose head was nowhere to be seen, just a puddle of blood where it used to lay. Justin let out a light sigh and smiled as Zinaethia approached us. “Good work guys. Looks like I was worried about our synergy for nothing.”

  Zinaethia grabbed his hand with both of hers and got close to his ear. Despite that, she still spoke at a regular volume so I could hear. “We can still get rid of the other one and improve our synergy.”

  I almost threw up. “How about you improve… in literally any other way!”

  She snorted and snapped back at me. “How about you improve your casting skills!”

  In the end, after quickly disposing of the Beast, we spent most of the time talking about magic until it got dark. I say talking, but it was really Zinaethia trying to explain how to manipulate mana without circles. I was more confused because she used vague descriptions like, “feel your mana leave your body,” and “push its influence as far as possible.”

  -I get what she means, but I don’t know how to put it in practice.- I could imagine what it felt like, but I couldn’t create that feeling. The closest thing I could imagine was the feeling of chaos mana running through my blood and enhancing my senses, but thats was influencing my senses rather than ambient mana. It was like comparing pushing a child over vs pushing a grown man over. -Plus, my senses are within my own body, versus the mana that’s a foreign existence. The only way I know how to manually get my mana to exit my body is by using magic circles to prompt it.-

  I seriously contemplated the issue, but I couldn’t see a solution. Eventually I gave up and watched Justin contemplate her words for a while. Maybe he was trying to do it, but it didn’t look like he was successful. After a while, he was apparently satisfied or gave up. “Alright. I’m done.”

  I gave him a thumbs up as I extended my other arm forward. “Cool, let’s go back.”

  “Huh?” Zinaethia looked at Justin and I like we were speaking nonsense. “What do you mean go back? It’s already dark.”

  I smirked at her and chuckeled. “Yeah. Let’s go back to the house. Unless you want to spend the night outside?” As I said that, I cast Gate, opening a portal inside Zinaethia’s house.

  “When did this become possible? Don’t think it’s okay to show up whenever you want now.” Despite saying that, she walked through the portal anyway and sat down on the couch. Justin and I followed close behind and also sat down before I closed the portal.

  “Trust me, I don’t intend to use this more than necessary. And this is a perk of my chaos magic. I read somewhere that it’s about influencing senses, but that’s technically inaccurate. I guess the best way to explain it is that chaos mana is a booster of other mana.”

  While I spoke, the two attendants of the house came and greeted Zinaethia before getting sent off to do something. Without missing a beat, she questioned my explanation. “What does that have to do with having a gate in my house?”

  Given how vague I was, it made sense that she didn’t understand how I open portals, but having an edge over my sister was an extremely satisfying feeling. I was almost reluctant to explain because this was something I knew that she didn’t. Before I could truly relish in the rare instance of advantage over my sister, however, Justin decided to run his fat mouth.“Basically he leaves a trail of mana wherever he goes, and then he can feel that mana from anywhere and use chaos magic to open a portal there.”

  “Justiiiiiiin! I was gonna explain that! Way to steal my thunder.”

  Zinaethia nodded lightly, but then turned towards me with confusion. “That makes sense, but what does that have to do with chaos mana being a booster of other mana?”

  I sighed audibly and looked at the ground. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I was gonna explain the fundamentals of how chaos magic worked, but you got your answer, so I bet you don’t care anymore.”

  “Pretty much.” She spoke in her typical, matter of fact tone, making me wince. I was expecting that, but when she confirmed my thoughts it still hurt my feelings a lot more than I would’ve liked. I could practically hear my heart breaking. “But I guess I’ll hear you out.”

  “Huh? Wait really!? You really mean it?!” My eyes lit up and my heart rate accelerated. Hearing my sister admit she was okay with me talking was probably the most heartwarming thing I ever heard her say. If only my dear sister knew of the joy I was feeling in that moment, maybe she would even treat me better!

  “Calm down! Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t care about what you have to say. The only reason I’m hearing you out is because I’m thinking ahead.”

  “What do you mean?” Justin asked her to clarify, but to be honest, I didn’t really care about what she meant. I was excited that I had free reign to talk in my sister’s presence! With that in mind, I prayed for Justin to withhold any follow up questions he may have.

  “Since we’re headed to The Kingdom with The Destined, chances are they’ll want to team you up with some young nobles on the path to reaching the Imperial Guard, the strongest from each of the 16 noble families, to tap into their full potential. I’m probably fine since they already know me, but they may want me to compete against those kids. Since they have noble blood, there’s a higher chance of encountering a Hidden Class magic like chaos, so I’m okay with hearing out how it works.”

  I see, I see. So that meant I was up, right?! Hmm? I’m too excited? Don’t be ridiculous!

  Zinaethia looked at me expectantly while Justin seemed to begin thinking about something. “Okay. So when I said chaos mana is a sort of booster to other mana, I meant that in about as literal a sense as you can imagine. In my five years of training with Justin, I got to experiment a lot, and I discovered that chaos mana doesn’t have much attack potential, but rather can enhance your other natures. Think of chaos mana as a wild horse, and your other mana as the riders. By itself, it just runs around crazily, but when it works with other mana, it increases the speed and potency of that mana. The reason it can affect senses is because the bloodstream flowing through a magister’s mana vein is interconnected with the other veins and arteries in their body.”

  Zinaethia nodded along with my explanation. “I see. That makes sense. If you stimulate the mana in their blood with chaos mana, of course you can affect their senses.”

  “Exactly. The reason I could make the portal here is also because of chaos mana. Since it’s so wild, chaos mana is actually constantly leaking from my body separately from my aura and blends into the ambient mana. Since it’s still technically my mana, I can sense it as if it was still within my body. After a lot of studying and practice I mastered the Gate spell, so I can open portals wherever my mana lingers. It doesn’t technically have to be my chaos mana, but since it’s constantly exiting my body and just kinda floating around, I typically use that.”

  A flash of realization shone across Zinaethia’s royal blue eyes. “So that’s why you decided to come back here? We can just return to where we left?”

  “Yup! I can even warp back home if I want.” I nodded enthusiastically. It looked like Zinaethia was finally starting to appreciate my abilities.

  “Interesting. You may be more useful than I thought. Okay, you can go now.”

  There was a brief, yet palpable silence between us before I could react. “Huh?”

  “You said it yourself, you can go back home. So go.” She flicked her hands a few times, as if to shoo me away.

  -I thought she was finally seeing me in a new light, but instead of praise, she immediately kicks me out? Dear sister, please don’t toy with my emotions so, my heart won’t be able to take it!-

  She was still looking at me like she expected me to leave when it seemed as though she thought of something. “Wait, so you’re telling me you can open portals just by feeling your lingering chaos mana, but you can’t do circle-less casting?”

  I was startled. How did she make such a connection between the two unrelated actions? “Wait wait wait, those are two different things. That’s like asking someone to move the sweat that’s dripped off them already. The only reason I can even sense my chaos mana is because of magic!”

  “Sounds like excuses to me. Honestly, it feels like the chaos magic is wasted on you.”

  “...” I opened my mouth to retort, but ended up closing it again after a moment. I didn’t even know how to respond to that. I actually thought it was amazing that I was able to do long distance teleports so easily, but once again, I was being held to unreasonable standards.

  “Honestly, I don’t know why Justin respects you as much as he does.” We both looked over to Justin, who still seemed lost in thought. It didn’t seem like he heard her, so I chopped him lightly on the back of his head.

  “Hey bro, you good?”

  “Hmm? Yeah? What happened?” He looked back and forth between the both of us.

  “Nothing love. What were you lost in thought about?”

  Justin stroked his beard absentmindedly. “I was just thinking about The Kingdom wanting me to squad up with some of their prodigies.”

  “What about it?” I tilted my head to the side.

  “I was simply wondering if they’d stop us from traveling together? Do you know, Zinaethia?”

  “Like I said, I wouldn’t worry about myself, since The Kingdom already knows me, but it’s possible. Although that would only happen if we were deemed unworthy, so I wouldn’t worry about it. The chances are higher that we’d all travel together, depending on how many they picked out as candidates.”

  “That’s a relief. I’d rather just keep it as us three if I’m being honest, but I suppose I wouldn’t mind one or two more. Ideally, we could use a healing magister. It’d really be great if all of us had different magic too. Between you and I, all we need is plant magic to cover the Common Class natures.” Justin looked at Zinaethia thoughtfully before turning his gaze to me. “Beside the four Rare Class natures that we possess, what are the other ones we could use?”

  I raised my fingers to count off the remaining Rare Class magic natures. “None of us have metal magic, acoustic magic, poison magic, psychic magic, or like you said, healing magic.”

  “You know babe,” Zinaethia placed her hand on Justin’s to get his attention. I cringed at her use of “babe.” Eughh… “I could make a call to some of the higher ups and ask them if they can get someone. I’m sure there’s no lack of Rare magic among the nobles in The Kingdom.”

  “Please don’t call him that. I almost threw up.”

  THUMP!

  After receiving a punch to my shoulder that I could swear almost dislocated it, I promptly shut my mouth. Meanwhile, Justin responded to Zinaethia. “It’s fine. Like I said, I’d rather keep it just the three of us. To be honest, I feel like anyone else would be weak links. Plus, I like our dynamic.”

  “I don’t.” I made a remark while still rubbing my shoulder in an attempt to ease the pain.

  My sister instantly replied with a bright smile. “You could always leave.”

  -Dear sister, I realize you don’t want me here, but you don’t have to emphasize it so much.-

  After we finished talking, her attendants came back with plates of food for us. They were stacked with different foods, but the meal looked primarily meat based with vegetables to the side. The smell that wafted over as the two approached was enough to wake my stomach up and make it growl.

  We had a long day of walking and we were all pretty tired anyways, so after we finished eating we decided to go to sleep early and leave when we all woke up tomorrow.

  Continuing that routine, we spent about four days walking before we finally reached The Kingdom’s gates.