Chương 517: B8—Chapter 23: Academic Slog and Drawing Lines

The day after our fight, Mahya still acted betrayed and mostly ignored me. She wanted to head out and start clearing the ring, but I refused, and her death glares didn't scare me or change my mind. It wasn't about trust. I knew she loved me and would protect me with her last breath and never doubted that for a second. I just didn't want to head out under such negative circumstances and a heavy atmosphere. The dungeon was dangerous enough as it was, without making things worse.

Instead, I headed to my library and looked for a magic book to study, preferably not written by a wizard. It took a while and a lot of books, but I eventually found one that I thought would help me progress my enchantment work. Or, more precisely, the materials I used for enchantment. The book's title almost served as a deterrent; it was too damn long.

Theoretical Models of Mana–Material Resonance and Saturation Thresholds and Their Practical Implications for Applied Craft Disciplines Material Performance, Failure Points, and Optimization Through Controlled Mana Application But on second thought, I gave it a chance. The Material Performance part sounded promising. With the book in hand, I settled into a couch by the window in the library up in the attic and started reading. Fortunately, it was written in an academic language, not wizard language.

That was a partial blessing. The not-so-blessed part was that the author clearly assumed the reader already understood several core concepts related to working with mana-saturated materials, or even the basic means of saturation. I didn't. And the book never bothered to explain them. I knew how to flow mana into something to saturate it, the way I did with food, but that was the only method I understood. The book mentioned over ten, and the only two that made sense to me were my method and mana crystals.

I hadn't reached the part about saturating materials with mana crystals yet, but at least I partially understood that one. With a sigh, I told myself to keep reading and hope things would get clearer. Another problematic subject was the difference between passive and active saturation, discussed as if everyone naturally knew when a material absorbed ambient mana on its own and when it needed to be forced.

Then there was the idea of saturation thresholds, casually referenced as points at which materials either destabilized, degraded, or catastrophically failed, with no attempt to define where those points actually lay. I already knew that trees would eventually turn to mulch if over-saturated, and that the amount of mana they held initially determined that turning-to-mulch threshold, but that was the only concrete example I had.

The author also mentioned resonance drift and its dangers, without bothering to explain what the hell that was. It was one of those books that made you feel smart for reading it and stupid for not understanding half of what it talked about. Slowly, chapter by chapter, I managed to understand another five methods. Not in any practical sense, but at least well enough to recognize what the author was talking about. Placing materials in active dungeons was one.

Placing them on top of mana vents was another, accompanied by long digressions about flow direction and ambient pressure that somehow avoided saying anything actually useful. Then there were special enchantments, magic circles, spells, and a few hybrid approaches that combined several techniques. I almost stopped reading the book at that point, because I was thoroughly pissed.

Instead of using normal language to describe any of this, the author insisted on technical terms I had to guess at and piece together from context. For example, placing a material inside a dungeon wasn't called saturation in a dungeon environment, or anything remotely sensible like that. It was referred to as Core-Influenced Mana Compression Through Prolonged Proximity to Active Matrices. Which, as far as I could tell, meant "leave the damn thing near a dungeon core and wait."

The rest of the methods remained a mystery, and the book wasn't forthcoming about them. Worse, it clearly mentioned those methods, sometimes repeatedly, but never bothered to specify how to use them. It kept circling around thresholds and resonance, layering theory on top of theory without ever stepping into application. Every time it felt like it was about to get practical, it pulled back and dove into another abstract model instead.

By the time I reached chapter ten, I was fairly sure this book was part of a series, and not the first one. Probably number two or three in the chain. Knowing Lis, I refused to believe he didn't have the earlier volumes, so I went back to searching the library. Throughout the day, monsters banged against the house, and every hour or two, sounds of fighting drifted in from outside. When I peeked out the window, I saw Mahya chasing them down, and a couple of times, Al joined her. I left them to it.

At some point, Rue joined me in the library. We ate from my Storage, and he snoozed by the window as I kept searching. Late in the afternoon, I found what was clearly the preceding volume. Foundational Principles of Mana–Material Interaction and Early Saturation Dynamics Initial Models, Terminology, and Observational Frameworks for Applied Craft Disciplines Leafing through it confirmed my suspicion almost immediately. It wasn't the first book either. Same problem.

Concepts were introduced as if they were already familiar, terminology was used without definitions, and long theoretical sections assumed the reader had done their homework elsewhere. By late evening, after far more searching than I felt was reasonable, I finally found the basic text. Introductory Studies on Mana–Matter Relationships and Saturation Techniques A Preliminary Survey of Energetic Behavior, Material Response, and Safe Exposure Limits By that point, I didn't feel like studying anymore.

I closed the book, left it on the table for tomorrow, and went to sleep. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The next morning, while I was making breakfast and coffee, Mahya came down and looked different. The previous days, she'd either ignored me or shot me death glares. Now she fidgeted, kept tugging at the ends of her braids, and her eyes slid away instead of settling on me. A strong wave of shame and discomfort rolled off her.

I shut off the burner and leaned back against the counter.

"Ready to talk?" She nodded. I crossed my arms.

"I'm listening." She started to cry. Not loudly, just tears running down her face. I rubbed my face and watched her. Knowing Mahya, if I walked over and hugged her, that would be the end of the fight. We'd reset and keep going like before. But that didn't feel right. I'd let her get away with too much shit, and it was time to draw some lines and be clear about what was acceptable and what wasn't. We stood like that for a while, her crying and me watching her, neither of us moving.

Al came down the stairs, glanced between us, took in the situation, and quietly went back up without saying a word. She mumbled something.

"I didn't get that," I said. She looked up at me, then immediately looked away again.

"I'm sorry." I sighed.

"I know you are. But we can't continue like this. Yes, what I did was wrong, and I feel bad about it. I apologized and even compensated you for it." She opened her mouth to say something, but I lifted my hand to stop her.

"I know an apology isn't always enough. I get that. But considering our past, and the sheer number of times you've fucked up and I forgave you, I expected the same grace in return." She nodded and sniffed, wiping her face. I ran a hand through my hair and shook my head.

"Look, I don't expect us to kiss and make up every time I mess up. That'd be illogical. But I'm also not going to let you play those stupid games of ignoring me and acting like a spoiled child. You're over a hundred years old, goddammit. It's time to grow up." She nodded again.

"Now you can talk," I said. She stood there quietly for a minute, hands clenched at her sides, then took a deep breath, still not looking at me.

"I reacted so badly because I didn't expect it from you." Finally, she looked up.

"I felt betrayed." She walked over and sat on a barstool, shoulders slumping.

"It wasn't because I missed out on some dungeons in a forest." She let out a dark chuckle.

"Okay, correction. I was pissed that I missed out on some dungeons in a forest. But that wasn't the main issue." She rubbed her hands together, staring down at them.

"I was angry because you decided for us. Instead of telling us what you were thinking, letting us talk it through, and choosing together, you decided on your own. You didn't give us a chance to even voice our opinion." She looked back up at me, her expression tight.

"It felt like you were treating us like sidekicks. Like we're here as accessories, not as actual team members whose input matters." Her voice dropped.

"That really hurt me. Not just make me angry. Hurt." She held my gaze this time.

"And when you combine that with the anger of missing the dungeons, and the fire pushing me hard, I exploded and overreacted."

"You can't keep blaming the fire like it's the answer for everything," I said. She sighed and looked down at her hands.

"I know. And I'm not blaming it. The reaction was mine. The fire just made it bigger." The coffee finished brewing with a soft gurgle. I turned, poured two cups, and set them on the bar between us. Then I leaned against it from the other side, bracing myself with both hands.

"Look," I said.

"In this situation, both of us acted badly. I was selfish and didn't think about you or Al. I thought what I wanted mattered most, and that was wrong. I'm sorry, and I promise that won't happen again. Not just because of how you reacted, but because of how guilty I feel about it. Next time, we'll talk it through and decide together." I paused, watching her closely.

"But you need to understand something, and you need to change something too." She frowned.

"What?"

"You don't hide things the way I did. Instead, you push. You nag, you press, you make cute faces, you keep talking, and you use about a dozen different ways to wear us down until we go along with what you want, even when we're clearly against it." She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"So yes," I continued, "I kept quiet. But it wasn't because I wanted to hide information from you, or because I see you or Al as sidekicks, or any of that bullshit." I tapped my finger against the counter.

"I stayed quiet because I knew that the moment I said something, you'd push for us to go into that forest, and you wouldn't let the subject drop until we did. I didn't have the energy for a fight, and I didn't see a way to say no without it turning into one." I met her eyes again.

"That's what you need to change. Instead of applying pressure until you get your way, and shutting down or ignoring us when we're against something, you need to learn to actually listen. Because if every disagreement turns into a battle of attrition, we won't have many choices left. And people start hiding things not because they want to, but because it feels like the only way to protect themselves." She crossed her arms on the bar and leaned her head on them, her shoulders shaking.

I let her cry quietly and get it out, but I didn't move to comfort her. My stance wasn't changing. Enough was enough, and we needed boundaries, not another reset. After a few minutes, she lifted her head and looked at me, eyes red.

"I'm not sure I can change that in a day," she said quietly.

"That's something I had to learn as a kid. Otherwise, my older siblings would've completely ignored me and walked all over me."

"We're not them," I said.

"Yeah, I know," she replied with a tired sigh.

"But it's an ingrained habit. It's how I learned to get heard and how I got things I wouldn't have otherwise. After I left home, I traveled with a group of seasoned Travelers who viewed me as a child." She chuckled.

"Which, to be fair, I was. I was only seventeen when I left with them. But that's not really the point. What matters is that they gave me no say in anything. And when I say no say, I mean literally none. I didn't get to decide where we went, what we ate, when we stopped, or even when I went to sleep. They made every decision because they were older and more experienced, and they assumed they knew what was best for me. At first, I argued. Then I tried explaining what I wanted. I tried asking.

None of it made any difference. They simply didn't listen. It took me years to get them to consider my opinions at all, and eventually I figured out that manipulation worked when everything else failed. So I kept doing it. The better I got at it, the more control I had over my own life. In retrospect, getting too good at it was probably a mistake. Eventually, they decided I was mature enough to continue traveling on my own, but by then, I'd been doing it for so long that I barely thought about it anymore.

It was simply how I dealt with people when I wanted something." She hesitated, then met my eyes again.

"I don't always notice when I'm doing it. So let's make a deal."

"I'm listening."

"You don't hide anything from me," she said slowly, choosing her words, "even when you think I'll push back. And if I slip into my old patterns—pressuring, nagging, not letting things go—you call me on it. Right then. No letting it fester." She swallowed.

"I don't want you keeping things from me because you feel cornered. If I do it again, I want to know." I extended my hand for a handshake.

"Deal." She looked at it, then mumbled, "I prefer a hug." I walked around the bar and hugged her. She hugged me back so tightly that one of my ribs actually creaked.

"Good," Al said from behind us.

"It is time to eat breakfast and start on the new project. I do not wish to stay in this dungeon for years." I turned and stared at him in horror.

"Don't even joke like that." He sniffed.

"I was not joking." Yeah. Right.