Chapter 74: Huh? Oh, Yeah

Chapter 74: Huh? Oh, Yeah

Harold shot me a confused look after I asked my question.

"Our bodies naturally attune mana. Why are you worrying about that?"

I scratched the side of my head.

"I was just thinking that if we could attune mana outside of our bodies manually, then it would be easier to cast spells."

Harold let out a laugh.

"I commend you for your creative thinking, but that's unfortunately impossible. For starters, an esteemed mage can only see concentrated mana, but it is not possible to reattune mana that has already been assigned to an object or person."

I held my chin with my hand.

"Why can't mana be reattuned? And why can only concentrated mana be seen?"

Certain teachers would just get impatient at this point and start rebuking me because they were getting annoyed as they could only barely meet the requirement for teaching because nobody else wanted to. Harold wasn't one of those.

"There have been mages that attempted to absorb the mana within iridescent stones, but the natural process that the body uses to attune does not work before that mana is repelled out of the body. As for why only concentrated mana can be seen..."

He held out a finger, after which a ball of water formed on top of it. Right after, it vaporized into steam. Harold smiled.

"While we are able to see the steam whale concentrated, if it spreads out into the air, your eyes are unable to pick up on them at all. It's not that it has disappeared, but rather just unable to be seen."

Hearing that, I gave a small nod.

"Ah, I see."

But while I said that, I didn't exactly agree. Because I still remember what I had almost accomplished while extracting mana from Raisa. I first observed how the body attuned mana by itself and tried to replicate it manually, doing it in a more forceful way.

I didn't succeed, but I could tell that I was on the right track. n(.OvElbIn

As for seeing mana that wasn't condensed, while I had no basis for going against it, I still wanted to challenge it. So far I didn't even know how to begin to go about that, but a man could dream.

And kids could too, I guess.

While my thoughts wandered pointlessly, the lesson continued on. Nothing too eventful happened at school. The only things I could really remember was Nathan asking me to get him a metal spear and the disheartened commoners once the results of the English test were announced.

Charlotte tried to volunteer to get a spear instead, but Nathan rebuked her until she backed off. I understood why, as she would probably go for something more gaudy and expensive rather than practicality.

I told the servants to go and get a spear and went on back.

Although it felt a little weird not to go to the slums for two days in a row, I said that this wasn't something to be put off. As such, I got my getup on and headed over to the black market once more. I brought along ten gold pieces and fifty silvers just in case there was anything at that place, though there probably wouldn't be.

It had still been as lively as it had been before. Following where I remembered where the hideout should've been, I retraced my steps. When I did end up getting there though, the hidden door was already open.

Or more accurately, it wasn't there anymore.

As of now, it was pretty late, so they should've been here. However, there wasn't a single person in the room. The room itself was dark and dingy. To get a better look, I casted the fire spell.

The place was trashed. Chairs were scattered, while papers were ripped apart and all over the floor. Several candles had been toppled over, with their waxes spreading out and staining the floor.

But there weren't any traces of fighting. At least, not physically.

Although I wasn't too strong about it and mentioned that they could continue meeting with one another despite not using Dark Arts anymore, it looked like they disbanded. They hadn't even waited for my answer and ended up giving it up themselves.

I guess they didn't really need my confirmation that Dark Arts made gaps in their memory. They were already aware of it but forced those thoughts to the back of their minds. When someone had shown up and made those thoughts surface, they were forced to confront it.

And this was the result.

I heard a voice speak faintly in my mind.

"Are you happy with what you've done? You've taken away something they all enjoyed. Now they are likely no longer friends with one another."

It was the book talking to me. Even if I couldn't recognize his accent, there was only one person I knew that talked like that.

"I didn't take away anything. My words only forced them to confront a reality that they were already somewhat aware of. If that was all it took for them to disband and stop being friends, then it was bound to happen sooner or later."

With that, I turned away, not giving that abandoned place another look. Although I could've left right then and there, I decided to see if the person that originally introduced me to that place was still there.

I wandered around the black market once more. Although people were still off-put by my appearance, they seemed to have gotten somewhat used to it, and thus didn't pay that much attention to me.

The things that were being sold pretty much stayed the same. There were a decent amount of people just browsing around and buying as though it was a convenience store. It really made it feel like I was going overkill, but I still had no plans of coming here without a disguise.

I paced around the entire place, but unfortunately, I was unable to find the person that had originally introduced me. It appeared that the entire group really just up and left like that.

I remained at the last stand set up there for a little while, thinking to myself.

Now with no more reason to think further about that weird cult, I took a look at the wares this guy was selling. There were various pieces of jewelry at his stand, but none of them looked particularly flashy and many of them looked damaged in some capacity.

However, there was one of them that almost looked brand new. It was a pendant linked together by a thin chain. It attached itself to a black four-pointed star along with a small red bead at the center.

I pointed towards it.

"What does this do?"

The seller looked at me with a complicated expression.

"It is a piece of fine jewelry! Why don't you take it for a piece of gold?"

My eyelid twitched. I turned to look at him blankly.

"Why would a piece of jewelry like that cost so much?"

The seller flinched. He ended up letting out an awkward laugh.

"Haha, sorry. It appears you understand the style isn't too popular... but it's about personal taste!"

I blinked a few times. What the fuck was this guy talking about?

"Huh?"

The seller broke his smile and sighed.

"Ok fine, I can sell it at a loss for only one hundred silver coins."

...It appeared all of these guys thought other people were idiots. Without another word, I responded.

"Fifty silvers."

The seller frowned slightly but pondered over it for a little while before letting out a defeated sigh.

"If that's the case, then I will be generous and sell it at a great loss, simply because this is your first purchase."

From how he was talking, I could tell that I was being heavily scammed, but honestly, I was fine with it because these kinds of people would drag it out as long as possible just to get a little bit more. It looked nice enough, so I decided to get it.

After handing over fifty silvers, I took the pendant. It was cool to the touch and made out of some sort of metal. The red bead itself was somewhat transparent, but it was hard to tell unless you were looking at it up close.

Not thinking about it too much more, I put it on.

I won't lie, in the back of my mind, I hoped that it had some sort of special ability, but the mask thing was a stretch already, and even then it was a plausible stretch because of the knowledge I had in the game.

On the other hand, I've never seen this necklace before. If it was actually something remarkably special, then it probably would've appeared in the game.

Still, I tried to imbue it with some mana while holding onto it, but as expected nothing happened. I considered using Dark Arts, but there was no way in hell I was going to do a stupid experiment like that at the cost of my memory.

The seller was in the middle of trying to convince me to buy something else, but I had already lost complete interest. There was a strong temptation to just teleport back home, but I decided against it.

Yet, before I could begin heading home-

"Hey, what are you doing buying stuff? We have places to be."

Someone had grabbed onto my shoulder. I turned to look at them and noticed they also had a black cloak, but no mask.