Chương 16

"Your handshake is still flimsy," Dad told me the next morning, which turned out to be the start of the weekend.

"Put more energy into it. And don't just squeeze hard. Your handshake comes with the same energy as the work you put in. Shake the boss's hand like you really want to work for him. Let's try that again." I stood and offered him a proper, firm handshake this time, having left the previous one intentionally weak. If Dad could identify a reason why I wasn't getting a job, and if he could see me improve upon his advice, his mood improved significantly. As expected, the proper handshake made him smile.

"Good. Just like that. Do that, and you'll definitely see more interviews." Mom and Gina watched us in their weekend home clothes, wondering if this talk had to be held over dinner with both of them listening. But Dad went on, giving me advice, while I nodded along. It wasn't that his advice was bad. He was just distracting me from the dozens of actual goals I had to complete. When Dad's advice was finally over, Gina spoke from behind her plate.

"You should have just taken the job offer, Vora."

"For thirteen crowns an hour? No way. I know I can get better. And it's not like that previous offer will disappear. They told me I have a week to think about it."

"So you're really just planning on working at a bakery for the rest of your life?" Her tone had grown less mocking over the days, but she still seemed to want to compete for her spot as the best of the two siblings living at the house. I smiled and said, "Who knows. If I end up liking the field, I don't see a reason to chase anything more complex. A decent, simple life will make me happy enough."

"Hm," Gina said. She eyed me as if trying to find weaknesses in my smile. Seemingly, she failed, as she went back to her food.

"He's making a real effort, Gina," Dad said.

"Don't mock him for that."

"I'm not!" Gina pouted for a second.

"Good luck, Vora." She finished her last bite and moved out. Dad shrugged at me. I'm so sorry for making you believe in me, Dad. I tried not to look too spaced out while finishing my meal. It did feel wrong to pretend and lie in front of Vora's family. Not because I was particularly attached to any of them, but because they were still people with a son they believed was theirs.

Even without considering transmigration and my identity, I knew their world would be shattered if they learned what Tonir and Vora were actually spending their days doing. But I didn't really have a choice. I would distance myself from them eventually when I committed more to my life of crime. I had no reason to involve innocent people in my personal goals. Who knows. Maybe we can make Asterra into a city where magic isn't outlawed. Then we could continue our normal lives.

That wouldn't change the fact that I was still pretending to be a person I wasn't. The more I thought about my new identity, the more the truth began bothering me. I just wasn't supposed to be in control of Vora's body. When I get a level three core, I'll need to travel to Gondorra anyway. I can start a new life there. My family being home presented another rather silly problem, which was that I couldn't prepare coffee for four people in front of them.

Explaining why I needed so much coffee would come with questions, which I didn't want to deal with. I got dressed and took my empty thermos bottle, then excused myself for another day of pretending to be useful for the Asterran society. I'll thank you guys properly one day, I thought. I promise that much.

Vora's memories led me to Cafe Luminas. Supposedly, one of the best bang for the buck cheap cafes in the city. An interior of pure organic coziness blew me away, as everything in Asterra tended to do. The different seat types, from bar stools to couches, gave layers to the interior. Amongst the flowers were the smiles that came with a good morning coffee. The city had so many cafes and places to hang out in, I could only find it excessive. This wasn't even a tourist city; Asterrans just loved to dine out.

On the line ahead of me were two girls giggling about some gossip about their physics teacher. One of them glanced around, and I blinked when I recognized her as Vora's former classmate. A girl with long, striking eyelashes, wearing a black and grey checkered skirt. She blinked in just as much surprise, spotting me.

"Vora?"

"Hello, Neli." She and her friend eyed me in surprise. I sighed internally, aware that it had been only a matter of time before I stumbled across people Vora knew. He was thankfully a shut in person, making this essentially the first encounter.

"You finally ditched the sweatpants?" Neli asked.

"Yep," I said.

"And I got the coat from thrift store for thirty crowns." That made her friend raise her eyebrows. I didn't recognize her, but she seemed quite impressed.

"Thirty crowns? That's a steal! What about the pants?"

"Also thirty crowns. What do you think?"

"Looks great!" the girl said. She glanced at Neli, then back at me.

"Are you from the same school?"

"We were," I said.

"I got expelled. I'm job hunting now."

"You look like a different person, Vora," Neli said.

"That suits you so much better. I'm glad to see you're looking happier." I smiled at that.

"Thank you." The line moved, and their turn to order came. Neli faced the young man behind the counter and said, "Just drip coffee to fill my cup, please." She glanced into her handbag and said, "Oh, I forgot my cup. I'll take one of yours."

"Five for the coffee, and a twenty-crown deposit for the cup, thank you," the barista said, and gave her a ceramic takeaway cup. Asterra didn't have disposable paper cups, especially not plastic cups, like most shops on earth had. Despite that, takeaway coffee was just as popular. People's bags frequently had pockets to carry their own cups. Or if they forgot theirs, they could borrow one from the store for a deposit that they'd get back if they returned the cup by the end of the day.

While Neli was writing her name down for the cup service, her friend kept glancing at me, as if inviting me to strike a conversation. She seemed to like my style. And honestly, I liked their styles as well. I could have probably joined them in hanging out. A part of me wouldn't have minded that at all. The thought of spending a weekend out in Asterra with some girls sounded awesome. Yet, I didn't want to pretend and hide my double life any more than I had to.

I had work to do, and an endless pile of spells to learn. So I paid ten crowns to fill my thermos bottle, and after one more quick detour, I headed to the sewers.

"Hello, Erden," I said, returning into the hideout. I placed a book on the table in front of him as well as the thermos bottle and said, "I found that in the library. Hopefully it's what we're looking for."" The Enir Angles," Erden read from the title.

"You actually got one, eh? How did they let you out with it?"

"I just put it in my bag and walked out," I said. Erden laughed.

"Fair enough." The mugs from yesterday had not been cleaned. The contrast between the Asterran surface and the way my brother ran the gang down here was quite the experience. Nonetheless, I poured coffee, giving one to Norin and Sallir. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"I'd like to get my mana core empty first with tests," I said.

"And while I recover, we'll copy the spellbook. You can look at the pattern book during it."

"Yep, sounds good." While drinking coffee, I looked at the list of Ellaris' spells. Out of all the complex, utterly foreign spells available, one smaller spell stood out as something that we could solve soon.

"I'm thinking this one has to be a rock projectile of sorts."

"An educated guess?" I nodded.

"I know about seventy percent of the patterns. The first and second patterns are just the basic earth magic and target pointing hand commands. These cross-looking things are the same ones I use to make all of my projectiles spin. They're just ordered differently here. It might be a more powerful version."

"I don't see the patterns to form a projectile, though," Erden said.

"It could be a projectile amplification skill, too," I said.

"Vaela Ellaris has a pink core that specializes in that type of stuff. Either way, there are only a dozen or so patterns missing before I know what every part does." That made him chuckle.

"Only a dozen unfamiliar possibilities. Cool."

"We can get that done today. I'm ready to get to work right away." He slurped the coffee.

"Give me a minute. I'm not going to waste this coffee just because you're impatient." I laughed and drank mine, too, before we brought the new pattern book into our testing grounds.

On one hand, The Enir Angles was one of the best books I could have picked. It provided explanations for the effects of a bunch of spell patterns as I had hoped, like providing a theoretical explanation of how a speed pattern amplified velocity. On the other hand, it provided far more useless information and rambling than actual practical knowledge.

"There's eight pages straight of just the author wondering why the patterns do what they do in the first place," Erden said from the side.

"And after all that, the conclusion he comes to is that God is the one who made all of this possible, and that every mage should be praying when they wake up in the morning."

"The question of why patterns work is a fair problem, though. I've wondered that as well."

"I don't think anyone knows, and pondering philosophy isn't going to get any spells solved."

"If we understood patterns at that level, I think we'd know what every single thing in that spellbook did," I said.

"But you're right. Just pondering about it won't help us right now. Does the book say anything about this pattern?" I showed it to Erden, who skimmed through the book in search of a matching pattern. He landed on a page and read for a moment.

"That's supposedly a rumble pattern. It instructs mana to ' disrupt the state of material matter by causing a slight mana-induced tremble.'" He looked up at me.

"This author just loves sounding like a smart-ass, doesn't he?"

"A tremble pattern?" I thought, blinking at the spell.

"Well, if that's true, I don't think this can be a projectile."

"Any clues?" I thought about it, but the only conclusion was, It's insane how complex even the simplest spell here is. The rumble patterns were connected to three different patterns at the same time. One was similar to the spin pattern I used, but different enough that I couldn't guess the effects.

"We'll need to solve the rest. What's this one do?" I showed him the next attached pattern. After another minute of skimming, Erden said, "That's called a glue or a stick pattern. And if I understand this convoluted text, I think it makes mana stick to an object."

"A rumble and a sticking effect, huh," I said.

"Maybe it's a trap that causes a tremor?" Erden suggested.

"The target is still a pointing hand effect, and I don't see any patterns that would reverse the effects back to me." I considered it for a minute.

"At least, I'm fairly positive this isn't a trap. If it is, the effects don't seem strong enough to cause serious harm through a shie—" My thoughts were cut off when I sensed someone's mana core walking toward us. Two strong ones. Erden eyed me oddly, until his senses caught on a few seconds later. He paused and focused on it.

"Oh, fuck. Act respectful, Vora. The bosses are here." We turned to the entrance. Tonir walked in first, clad in the gang's cloak with a core full of mana, boots freshly cleaned and shiny. The second mana core followed, and Erden immediately bowed. With a hand pushing my back, he prompted me to bow as well. I glanced up to see a cloaked man just as tall as Tonir, yellow mana visibly oozing out of his chest. He was fully masked, but in a distinct mask that I recognized from Vora's memories.

If the regular gang mask was an edgy, mysterious one, his was more monstrous, with sharp mana-filled teeth. His real face was fully covered, and gloves made sure not one inch of skin was showing.

"Welcome, Rend," Erden said. This was the first in command of the Survivors of Ellaris, operating a different branch from Tonir. Vora had only met him once before the raid on Ellaris' keep. They hadn't talked, but just being near him had given Vora chills. He ignored Erden entirely and faced me.

"This is the dream stuck boy?" a deep, distorted voice spoke. I sensed magic in his throat, changing his voice. On earth, I would have called his outfit the edgiest thing I'd ever seen. Here, Rend certainly had the mana to justify presenting himself this way. His level two core had a bigger presence than Tonir's or Vaela's. He pushed excess mana outward, giving him a slight aura. I had a feeling I wouldn't like to hang out with him, but I wouldn't win in a fight, so I bowed regardless.

"Vora Rovander, sir. Tonir's brother."

"You shouldn't give your identity like that," he said.

"Your double life will be in jeopardy if a single one of us gets caught."

"Good point," I said.

"I'm not planning on keeping the front for long, though."

"He's been hiding his core from my father," Tonir said.

"Successfully so far." Rend observed me from behind his mask, and I found his emotions impossible to read. I bowed and said, "I'm lucky to be alive and uncaptured."

"Certainly," Rend said.

"Tonir, let's make this fast."

"Yep," Vora's brother said.

"We're here to ask for progress before a raid. Erden, do we have a spell ready?" Hesitantly, Erden held the spellbook open and said, "This one, we're fairly certain is not a trap." Tonir took it, expression much more demanding now that he was in Rend's presence.

"How positive are we?" Erden glanced at me. I didn't want to get too involved too quickly, especially not with Rend watching, but it looked like I'd need to be the one to answer.

"I would say… about eighty percent sure. I'd be ready to test it if we have a green core nearby." Tonir studied it for a bit.

"Well, if it's a trap, we're about to find out now. No time to wait. I'll trust you've done a good job." Oh, fuck, I thought, when Tonir lifted his palm at the cavern wall. I was eighty percent sure the spell wouldn't be a trap, but the twenty percent could very well get me in trouble. I stepped back with my own defensive spells active. One hand holding the spell pattern, the other ready to cast magic, Tonir drew mana, and the spell burst into action.

A hose of invisible mana shot from Tonir's palm, onto the wall, where the mana stuck firmly to the surface. The crack in the wall filled up with the most mana, concentrating tightly there, when the physical effects took place. A loud, crackling rumble came, like a machine made of stone breaking apart. The crack in the wall grew in size, as if the wall itself was being pried open. Sparks of Tonir's red magic blew out.

That continued, the crack doubling in size, before the effects went out, and the cavern became silent. Everyone, including Rend, watched the effects in silence.

"The hell?" Tonir asked. Interesting, I thought. So it wasn't a projectile at all. I decided to keep my mouth shut with Rend standing here. Before I understood his character better, I didn't want to make myself into a commanding presence. When acting as an underling, it was better to wait for questions instead of speaking when not asked.

"It widened the crack," Tonir said.

"And what else? Is that it?"

"I might know what it did," I said, "if you let me take a look."

"Tell me, Vora." I studied the crack closer. It was rough from the inside, as if it had been grinded open by tiny sparks.

"The stick and rumble were definitely what opened the crack. I'd like to do one more test on a smaller object to know for sure. Like a small tree."

"I'll give you a minute," Tonir said.

"Show me this spell can do something more useful, Vora." They led me one more cavern down, where the same blue magic-grown vegetation continued. This small hallway had a sapling growing in it, perhaps nine feet tall. Its glowing leaves were the main light source in the small, cozy enclosing. I found it rather cute.

"Blast it," Tonir said. With an internal sigh, I relayed the spell pattern from the paper to my mind one pattern at a time. I hadn't yet memorized it. If I wanted to have this spell readily available to cast whenever, I'd need to spend a few hours staring at the pattern until I had a flawless memory of it. For now, I lifted my palm and shot the spell at the sapling. My mana collided against the tree bark, pushing deep into every imperfection within its surface.

Instantly, the tree bark was pried apart, and more mana pushed deeper inside the tree. The smoother surface under the bark proved problematic, but mana eventually found a small crack to pry open. The moment it caught on, the trunk snapped vertically in half with a loud crunch.

"Yep, that confirms my thoughts," I said. Tonir didn't seem all that impressed.

"What is this spell?"

"I don't know about a name, but this is what the spell does. It first shoots mana until it collides with a physical object. The mana sticks there, and that's when the physical effects come in. The mana heats up and trembles back and forth along with heavy forward pressure. If it hits a crack or any tight space, the trembling pressure causes the crack to pry open. I think that's the intended use of the spell. To open cracks."

"I see…" Tonir had his arms crossed. He tapped his fingers, then turned to me.

"So we spent all this time, and we discovered some mana that trembles really hard?"

"I could imagine this being useful for breaking doors and such," I said.

"But essentially, yes."

"Fuck's sakes." Tonir shook his head. He gave Rend an apologetic look.

"I don't think that's going to help us with the raid. My apologies."

"My team hasn't progressed much more," Rend said. He turned to Erden and I.

"Thank you for your efforts. We shall return with a faster method to solve the spellbook." Tonir stood next to him, looking determined.

"Let's go. Keep the hideout safe, Vora. If the tree attacks, grab the spellbook and run."

"Are you raiding something?" I asked.

"Yep," Tonir said.

"We found a weakness in one of their routines. If all goes well, we'll have the spellbook solved by the end of the day." Oh god, I thought. Outwardly, I nodded and said, "Good luck." The two mages exited side by side, leaving me with the worry of just how many people would be dying tonight.