41 The Way Back 3

Ben and Charles looked around the teleportation gate to see what was wrong.

"It needs more power to teleport three people. It looks like it needs to restore some of its power and it seems it'll take a few days with the lack of mana here," Ben answered after looking at its battery levels.

I curiously checked the amount of mana I had to see if I could reboot the gate immediately. When the mana started to hum faintly, I discovered I had about a quarter of mana left supplied within me. Normally, my mana would recover faster, but with the severe lack of sleep and exercise and not enough nutrients to supplement my body, my mana was recovering very slowly.

I looked at the battery levels and discovered it would only take half of the mana I had right now. "I'll charge it," I volunteered.

Before Charles and Ben could stop me, I started pouring a great amount of mana into the gate.

As more of my mana left me, I could feel my vision wavering and blacking out more often.

Huh? Why was this happening? A similar thing happened when I felt drained from pouring mana into Charles.

"Stop Rika! Stop!" Charles screamed while pulling my hand.

When Ben held my other hand, I couldn't feed my mana into the gate anymore.

"Why? How?" I asked to Ben in confusion and panic.

"I'm stopping you from being able to use your mana with my mana." Ben sleekly answered.

"Your body can't handle the mass amount of mana leaving your body. That's why you felt like your vision was wavering and your body about to go limp. Charles noticed so he tried to stop you." Ben continued.

"Because when someone leaves less than an eighth of their mana left, there's a chance they'll go into a deep sleep to recover their mana for a very long time with a chance of never waking up." Ben grimly finished his warning.

"Well the teacher said it was like I had unlimited amount of mana. So the amount of mana I have even though I have only one eighth of my mana would be above the average person in the first district." I whined as I tried to defend myself.

"Well it's those type of people that never wake up," Charles quietly mumbled with worry in his voice.

'Vampire?' The thought quickly came across my head.

In some folktales in my past life, vampires went to sleep to recover from over exerting their powers.

I wondered why I suddenly remembered this concept now rather than ever coming up with the idea before when I felt tired when over practicing my mana.

"I get it, I'll stop," I resigned.

Still not convinced, both Ben and Charles held onto my hands and Ben poured out mana into the gate with his other spare hand.

Few minutes later, the gate flashed to indicate it had enough power to teleport us to our destination.

I followed him and Charles stepped in after I entered to find ourselves right in front of the school.

"Finally!" I whispered due to the lack of energy I possessed.

I soon spotted Daniel while he was patrolling around campus under the bright warm sun. "Daniel!" I shouted with last bits of my energy.

"Rika! Charles! Ben?" Daniel exclaimed.

"They were in the sixth district," Ben offered as a explanation while looking equally tired.

Daniel frozen from shock stood unmoving while I dropped onto the soft grass from exhaustion and a feeling a safety.

When Daniel got over the shock, he dragged Charles, Ben and I to the ever so familiar dean's office.

Surprisingly, I saw both Luke and Miliana already sitting down on the comfy couches with untouched snacks on the table while the dean sat down in his usual chair behind his desk.

Ben, Charles and I grabbed a seat on the other couch. The delicious smell of the cookies led my hand to quickly hover above the plates.

Before anyone could respond, I stuffed the cookies in my mouth so no one could stop me. After Luke and my occasional visits to the dean's office, I knew the snacks were only a formality but I could not care less after eating only flowers for the past three days.

I quickly chewed as everyone inside the room looked at me in utter amazement. "Continue?" I asked.

"Can we hear the situation from the senior student?" The dean asked while trying to ignore me.

Meaning, Ben was to explain everything that happened. While Ben started to explain the whole situation, Charles and Luke stiffened as the explanation got longer and more detailed.

"Anything else you would like to add to the explanation Charles?" The dean faced Charles while Charles blushed heavily in embarrassment.

"No, I believe Ben covered everything sir." Charles meekly added.

The dean glanced towards my direction for the first time as part of a formality.

"It wasn't my fault" I replied.

Both Charles and Luke glared at me to stop talking while Ben seemed amused. Miliana just looked at the floor as if she was not part of the conversation.

"It was the school's fault for allowing the hover buses to go haywire in the first place. I clearly remember teleporting Charles and I onto a hover bus that on the way to this location." I added to shift the blame.