Chapter 6: Intruder Alert

Laying in his room, Felix was pondering over the event from today. It was definitely not the best, but with the strange feeling permeating inside him for the whole day, he felt that something bigger would've happened.

'No use in thinking about it. The day is already ending. Moreover, both Aysha and I got acknowledged, and we're going to an actual academy!'

He knew however that this wasn't the best outcome for Aysha. She made it clear that she was not interested in stuff like adventuring, and the magic schools taught exactly that - how to survive in the wilderness, develop your skills into deadly weapons and utilize them to their fullest.

'Wonder what she'll do...'

Well, he was excited for the future, at least. And that excitement made him unable to fall asleep...which turned out to be for the best.

A couple of hours later, in the dark of night, half a dozen shadowy silhouettes emerged from the shadows. They would've been truly invisible for the average resident of the village, yet Felix was no longer average.

Sensing that same mana flow as the cloaked person inside the church earlier in the day, whatever drowsiness Felix felt at that moment dissipated almost instantly. He slowly adjusted himself in bed, so he could better focus on the mana clusters outside. While unable to see them, he judged there were around six of them by comparing the number of mana strings to the ones he saw earlier.

While tracking them, he noticed that at some point the mana cluster had diverged into two roughly equal parts: one headed to the other side of the orphanage, while the other...was headed right for him

Unable to think of anything else to do, Felix decided to run out and alert the others of the intruders. For those moments he took to decide and steel himself however, the people those mana strings belonged to were already inside his room.

Just in front of the door, Felix felt himself getting pulled backwards. Looking closer, he noticed thin mana threads surrounding him, most probably the thing drawing him towards the uninvited guests.

He tried to get out of them, but wasn't strong enough, or maybe just lacking in skill, yet he soon found himself surrounded by the three people that had ambushed him. Now in his room, he could have a better look at them. Two of the people were clearly big, burly men, one holding a sack. The last one Felix couldn't deduce the gender on the fly, yet they were of small stature and lean body. They also seemed to possess the majority of the mana strings.

All of that was for naught though, because as that thought formed in his mind, he suddenly felt really sleepy. He tried to fight it off, yet it was too strong and soon he was tied, not that he noticed.

'...'

Felix had once again found himself in that mysterious space, only this time it seemed much more lively. That could be attributed to the fact that he now saw what the mysterious liquid he seemed to float around in was made of. In fact, he had seen it many times before - it was made by mana strings of different lengths and colors, yet they continued to move like one.

'Now where is it?'

He was hoping to encounter to mysterious voice he had heard last time before entering this space.

As it turned out, however, his hopes were fulfilled, at least this one was.

A couple of hours, or maybe just a moment passed, when Felix heard that familiar voice, now ringing throughout this vast space.

"Look who decided to come back!"

"Yeah, like I even want to be here." Truth be told, he did prefer this to the situation that had transpired in his room. At least here, he could think for as long as he needed, and could try to forget about what had happened.

"Anyway, did you know this was going to happen?"

He acknowledged that, in the end, that mysterious feeling was correct all along.

"No? How would I? Right now in this body I could barely exert even a miniscule amount of my power. You're going to have to work a lot harder from now to accommodate me."

This was not the answer he expected. If not this, what had made him feel that way for the whole day?

"That is your innate sense trying to tell you how dangerous that place was. All I did was enhance it so you could feel it in every fiber of your body."

Felix didn't truly buy it, but it wasn't like there was a better explanation anyway.

"Then what about the evaluation? What happened then?"

"Oh, there it was me, yes."

"But why? What about when I summoned mana outside my body, I managed fine, didn't I?"

The voice seemed to sigh, even if he wasn't sure how it could do that.

"I did that for two reasons. The first one is that if I allowed you to try and expend all of your mana in that orb, you would have been studied inside and out, both because of research and because of the potential threat you pose. Even without me, I would guess you would have turned out pretty powerful."

'That seems reasonable.'

"What about the second reason?"

The voice paused for a moment, before it answered.

"The second reason is that using too much mana in any way is taxing on one's body. Especially an untempered one like yours. If you had continued, my guess is that they would have had to clean your blood of the walls and gems."

Felix shuddered at the thought of what could have happened.

"Then, how do I become stronger?"

"Don't worry, you'll know. For now, our time together is over once more."

With these words he felt that familiar pull upwards, before his vision turned completely dark, and he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he found himself staring right at Aysha, who was bruised and battered, and chained to both him and the iron bars that made their cell.