A New Light (The Astral Wanderer Book 1) by D'Artagnan Rey (best romance ebooks txt) 📗

asked, a little worried about what made this one different than the scroll. If he failed the easy trial, would this go any better?

“It’ll require Vello,” the other boy explained, opened the large doors of a cabinet, and searched through the contents. “You will pour some Mana into a crystal, which will charge the Mana with its essence and react to it in a unique way, depending upon what class it falls under. It’s basically a curio.”

“A curio?” Devol remarked but the answer did little to resolve his confusion. “I’ve had curios before but they are simply magical knick-knacks—toys. I don’t think something like that can be of much help.”

“That is more common nowadays, I guess.” Jazai chuckled as he continued to search through the cabinet. “But curio is a very generic name. It is better to think of them as exotics that are not meant to be used as weapons. They aren’t always souvenirs for people passing through the big city.”

He regarded his companion with a raised brow. “That sounds like a judgment.”

The boy chuckled again and shrugged. “More an observation. I guess I’m a city boy, technically.” He finally retrieved out a bronzed, three-legged pedestal from the depths of the cabinet. “Here it is. I doubt we’ll have any problems with it being defective. This used to be the only way to discover a Magi’s talent a couple of centuries ago.”

The two rejoined their elders. Zier now held a fist-sized clear crystal and once Jazai positioned the pedestal securely, he placed it on top and motioned for Devol to sit on the floor. The boy did so and, his nervousness seemingly forgotten, studied the crystal. On closer inspection, it had what could be a glow in the center that he had not noticed before, or maybe it hadn’t been there until this moment.

“Place your hands on either side of the gem,” the scholar instructed. He nodded compliance and moved his hands slowly to the sides of it. Immediately, the light inside began to shimmer faintly. “Now, this should not be difficult, but it will require concentration and might be taxing on your Mana supply,” the dryad continued as he sat opposite him. “You need to send your Mana through the outer shell of the crystal so it connects to the light inside. That light is what we refer to as a Mana cell, something that can absorb Mana.”

“Like what is inside cobalt, not so?” Devol asked.

“Not exactly.” The Templar seemed to prepare himself to begin a lecture until a slight tap of Wulfsun’s boot on his back stopped him. “Humph. Well. For now, it is close enough. But this has been modified to take Mana in and search it. As a result, it will have a different reaction depending on the type of power your majestic has.”

The boy nodded and noticed his hands shaking a little. “Wait—shouldn’t I hold my majestic or something?”

Zier shook his head. “This is for people who are still discovering what type of majestic they could wield so holding your weapon serves no purpose. But in your case, you already have a majestic that has connected to you, albeit lightly from what I can tell but enough to leave a type of imprint on you. This crystal will be able to detect that imprint and react accordingly.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” The boy frowned in concentration. “So what kinds of reactions are we looking for?”

“Well, if it is in the constitution class, it will form a tight ball of light. If it is the conjuration class, it will form into a kind of mist and swirl around the inside of the crystal,” the Templar explained. “Things like that, but since we haven’t gone through what each class represents, we’ll hold off on that for now and attempt to discover what your class is first.”

Devol drew a breath and moved his hands slightly closer. “I’m ready.”

“Good, now take a deep breath and concentrate,” Zier ordered and watched closely. The boy obeyed, his eyes closed, and thin trails of Mana flowed from his fingers onto the side of the crystal. “Send a little more now and remember that the Mana cell is your target, not the crystal itself.”

With a small nod, he scrunched his face and focused more intently. The thin strands of Mana grew thicker and finally pushed through the crystal and seeped into the light. He continued to push more into the crystal, where it was drawn in by the light. Zier, Wulfsun, and Jazai all looked on eagerly, waiting to see the reaction from the cell.

“You doing fine,” Jazai murmured. “It might take a couple of minutes but keep going.”

Devol responded with the slightest nod, now almost fully focused on keeping his Mana in check. He didn’t want it to grow weak or even to potentially overload it, although he was unsure if that would create a problem. Maybe a large amount was needed to cause a reaction.

A sense of tension settled over the group. Zier noted small changes and studied each one carefully. The light began to glow brighter and shifted its form, but nothing conclusive resulted. He should have had more patience, but his patience had begun to wear thin. He was oddly invested in the revelation of the boy’s majestic’s power and now decided he would step in and help him.

“Go ahead and increase the flow of your Mana,” he instructed. “Don’t overdo it but send a surge in and let us see if that yields something.”

The young Magi immediately released a pulse of Mana that traveled into the cell, and it flared brighter than it had previously.

“Looks like we’re finally getting somewhere.” Wulfsun smiled and leaned closer. “Now let’s see what it looks like—huh?”

The trio gaped as the light formed into a ball that suggested it might be constitution until it did something rather unexpected. It began to enlarge and a torch-like fire enveloped it as it stretched before it bounced around the inside of the crystal and began to