Chương 51: The Way Mana Runs

The bottle stayed on the table between us while lunch thinned around it. Warm air fogged the lower corners of the windows, and each time the front door opened, cold slipped briefly across the floor before disappearing beneath the smell of broth, browned onions, tea, and the last pans coming off the stove. Jacob's notes lay beside the bottle. Amon sat across from me with both hands around his cup, watching closely enough that I suspected he was waiting for me to make the morning stranger than it already was.

Through the service opening, Tovan lowered the heat beneath a pot while Evelyn caught a returning tray and redirected it toward washing. Nessa crossed the room with the payment box under one arm, and somewhere near the front window a spoon struck the floor, followed by a child insisting it had fallen by itself. I looked at Jacob's forearms again. The scars were gone. The calluses remained.

"Let me check your mana properly," I said.

"I have a better question now than I did ten minutes ago." Jacob pushed his sleeve farther back and rested one arm on the table. Amon leaned forward.

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is a question."

"That has never made me feel safer around Joe." Jacob glanced at him.

"You came voluntarily."

"I came because you woke up missing several decades of damage."

"That is still voluntary." I put two fingers against Jacob's wrist before they could continue. The difference was immediate. There was more mana in him than in most people I had examined, but the amount mattered less than the way it moved. The current passed through his wrist without hesitation, divided cleanly around the joint, and continued into his hand as though the routes had been worn smooth through use. I followed it higher. Forearm. Elbow. Shoulder. The same ease remained all the way through.

When I reached his back and followed the flow lower, the old knee stood out for the opposite reason I expected. There was no roughness around it. The mana moved through the joint more cleanly than mine did through either knee. I frowned. Amon noticed.

"There it is." I kept my attention on Jacob.

"There what is?"

"The face you make when somebody becomes a problem."

"I am thinking."

"That is usually how it begins." Jacob bent his knee once beneath the table.

"What did you find?" I let go of his wrist.

"Your mana pathways are very refined physically. More than mine." Amon looked surprised.

"You have better mana control than almost anyone I know."

"Control is different from conditioning." Jacob turned his wrist once.

"Explain that part."

"My mana goes where I tell it very precisely, but I have not spent decades training the same physical routes under strain. You have." I looked at his shoulder, then his hands.

"Archery alone would reinforce the back, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers over and over. The rest of your guild work would do the same through your legs and core." Jacob flexed one hand.

"And the old injuries?"

"That is what interests me." The front door opened behind us, letting in a gust of cold air and the smell of wet stone. One corner of Jacob's notes lifted until I put a finger over it. I thought about Batch Eleven again. Silverleaf did not decide where mana should go. It helped carry it. The rest of the potion supplied recovery strength and controlled how quickly that strength became available. Jacob's body already had the routes. Maybe that was enough.

"The potion may not be choosing what to repair," I said.

"Your body may be doing that part." Jacob's gaze dropped toward his forearm.

"Because the pathways are already trained."

"That is my best theory." Amon looked between us.

"So his body knew where to spend it." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Something close to that."

"And yours did not."

"My body used it properly." Amon took a drink of tea.

"That sounded defensive."

"It was accurate." Jacob's mouth moved slightly at one corner. I looked at Amon.

"Give me your wrist." He stared at me.

"You managed to make that sound less optional than it was."

"It is optional."

"You say that after asking like a tax collector." Jacob looked into his cup.

"You can leave." Amon held out his wrist.

"I did not say I was leaving." His mana was different from Jacob's. Well trained, but younger. The routes through his arms and legs were broad and practiced, though they lacked the deep smoothness Jacob had built over decades. I followed the current through both shoulders and found a small restriction on the left side. I stayed there. Amon noticed.

"What did you find?"

"Your left shoulder has an old catch in the mana flow." He rolled it once.

"That shoulder has been bothering me for years." Jacob looked up.

"You never mentioned that."

"You have a knee that predicts rain. I did not think the family needed another weather instrument." Jacob gave him a long look. Amon added, "It is not serious."

"That usually means you ignored it."

"That usually means it stopped being worth complaining about." I let go of his wrist.

"That makes you useful." Amon stared at me.

"I am going to assume you meant medically useful."

"I did."

"That is worse." I pulled my notebook closer. The next test needed to be simple. No changes to the formula. No extra silverleaf. No attempt to strengthen anything based on what Jacob had shown me. The same potion. A different body.

"I am going to reproduce Batch Eleven exactly," I said.

"Then Amon gets one measured dose after a full meal." Amon looked pleased.

"Do not look pleased."

"I am not."

"You are." Jacob looked at him.

"He is." Amon sighed.

"I have been outnumbered." Rain started after lunch. By the time I went upstairs, it had settled into a steady tapping against the window and turned the street below into dark stone and blurred umbrellas. Water gathered along the opposite awning and spilled from one corner while the restaurant beneath me quieted into the softer sounds between services: pans being washed, cupboard doors closing, someone dragging a stool across the production floor. My workroom smelled faintly of dried herbs, metal, and clean glass.

I followed the original notes exactly. The vitality root went in at the same cut and temperature. Red moss followed after the first extraction settled. Bitterstem stayed low, and silverleaf steeped late enough to guide the mixture without turning sharp under too much heat. This time I watched the mana instead of only the ingredients. The silverleaf joined what was already moving. It did not impose a route. That matched Jacob too well to ignore. By evening, I had six bottles ready.

Three were full working bottles for controlled testing. The other three I filled only to the measured half-bottle dose and sealed separately. Single use. No leftovers. No convenient second attempt. That felt better. The rain had stopped by the time I put everything away. Amon and Jacob returned before opening the next morning. The restaurant was still dim, with only the kitchen lamps lit and pale gray morning pressing against the windows.

Rain tracks remained on the glass, and the room smelled of tea, rice, eggs, and browned meat. Amon looked at the breakfast spread.

"You took the food requirement seriously."

"You need a full meal first."

"I support this part of the procedure." Jacob sat across from him.

"You support any procedure that begins with breakfast."

"That does not make my support less sincere." I waited until Amon finished eating before bringing out one bottle.

"Half the bottle after food, then no training and no other healing potion today. If anything feels wrong, you tell me immediately." Amon turned the bottle once in his hand.

"You managed to make this sound less appealing after feeding me."

"That was intentional." He drank to the mark and set the bottle down. Then we waited. The stove behind me ticked softly as it cooled. Outside, someone opened a shop shutter with a long wooden scrape, and a few moments later the first warm smell of bread drifted across the street from Mara's bakery. Amon rested his hands on the table. After several minutes, he rubbed his stomach.

"The warmth started there." Jacob nodded.

"That matches mine." It spread slowly through Amon's chest and shoulders. I watched the mana with it. Recent training strain smoothed first. The roughness through his forearms eased, followed by the tension around his upper back. Then the potion reached the left shoulder. The old restriction softened. Amon rolled the shoulder once. Then again. His expression changed. Jacob noticed before I said anything.

"What happened?" Amon lifted the arm higher.

"That usually catches." He rotated it forward, then back. Nothing caught. He tried again, slower this time.

"It always pulls near the top." I touched his wrist and followed the mana route. The pathway was cleaner. The old restriction had not disappeared as dramatically as Jacob's damage had, but the current no longer stumbled through it. That was enough.

"The response is stronger than mine," I said.

"Less than Jacob's, but clearly stronger." Amon kept moving the shoulder.

"I am comfortable being second in this particular comparison." Jacob looked at me.

"You believe the training matters."

"I believe physical mana refinement matters. Now I have two results pointing the same direction." Amon lowered his arm.

"And one shoulder I would like to keep."

"That is the goal." He smiled.

"That was almost reassuring." I ignored that and opened my notebook. The theory still needed more than two people. Jacob set a small padded case on the table.

"I know three people." I looked at the case.

"You planned ahead."

"I brought an empty box." Amon leaned toward it.

"That is how planning usually starts." Jacob ignored him.

"They are people I trust. Old guild injuries, years of conditioning, and none of them are foolish enough to treat an experimental potion like a prize."

"That last part matters."

"I assumed it would." I thought about the three single-dose bottles upstairs.

"No payment. No selling it. No dividing it between people. They eat first, take one dose, use no other healing potion that day, and report everything afterward." Jacob nodded.

"They will understand."

"If the first dose works, they still do not get another."

"I heard you."

"I am saying it because success makes people less careful." Amon looked at his shoulder.

"That is unfortunately reasonable." I went upstairs and returned with the three single-dose bottles. Each contained only the measured amount. Jacob checked the markings before placing them into the padded slots.

"You filled them differently."

"Each bottle is one dose."

"So there is nothing left to misuse."

"That is the idea." Jacob closed the case. Amon had already started putting on his coat. Through the front window, Mara's bakery was beginning to glow across the wet street. A shadow moved behind the counter, and a moment later the front shade lifted. Amon noticed. Jacob noticed him noticing.

"You have work today."

"I also have a shoulder that requires observation."

"Across the street?"

"Mara is observant." Jacob looked at me. I kept my attention on the notebook.

"I am not becoming involved." Amon opened the door, letting in cold morning air and the smell of damp stone. He crossed toward the bakery. Mara opened the door before he reached it. Through the glass, I watched him lift his arm and demonstrate the shoulder. She looked at the arm. Then at him. Then back at The Second Spark. Whatever he said next caused her expression to flatten. She caught him by the sleeve and pulled him inside. Jacob watched the door close.

"He may have explained that badly."

"That is likely." Jacob picked up the case.

"I will bring you the notes after I speak to them."

"Do not improve the story when you write it."

"That instruction belongs to Amon."

"Agreed." He left a few moments later. The restaurant stayed quiet after the door closed. Morning light reached farther across the floorboards, catching the edge of Amon's abandoned cup and the thin steam still lifting from the teapot. Across the street, Mara's bakery windows brightened one lamp at a time. I opened the notebook. The formula had stayed the same. The results had not.

I added one careful sentence beneath the Batch Eleven record: physical mana refinement may increase recovery efficiency and reach older damage. Then I closed the book. For now, changing the potion would only make the answer harder to see.