I stepped into Garo’s room as the familiar scent of incense wrapped around me. Earthy and sweet, ambergris again, or something similar to it. A thin trail of smoke curled toward the ceiling. The old man sat cross-legged on the rug, steam rising from the two cups of tea already set between us.
“You’re early,” he said without looking up.
“You said dawn. I don’t break appointments with people who can fight monsters.”
He chuckled and gestured to the spot across from him. “That’s a good habit to have. Sit and relax.”
I joined him on the rug, accepting the tea without a word. After a moment of shared silence, he spoke.
“Tell me,” he said. “What do you think Elemental Bloodline powers are?”
I blinked. “Energy and intent, right?”
“Not a bad answer,” he said, nodding. “But let’s build it up from the ground.”
He held up a finger. “First, every living creature has a soul: plants, beasts, people, and even monsters. That soul is the root of identity. It contains the Self, memories, and experiences. It’s what defines affinity, and how magic resonates in the body.”
I nodded slowly, filing it away.
“The Soul-Dealers from the Soul Realm can extract those remnant of souls,” he continued. “The Soul-Scribes can write books that let someone else use that soul’s power. That’s what your lightning book is: a fragment of a creature’s power, sealed in ink, paper, and intent.”
“And the creature is it trapped in the book?” I asked.
“No, you can’t act on the true,” he shook his head. ”Only what’s left behind.”
He took a sip of tea, then pointed at me.
“Now, what you get from the book depends on where the creature came from.”
I leaned forward.
“If it were from the Elemental bloodline realm, you get something like an innate Bloodline power, a magical expression tied to a specific element or force. If it was from the kindred realm, you get physical traits like a gorilla’s strength, a troll's regeneration, or a dragon's scales.”
“So to master lightning...” I said slowly.
“You train as if you were born with it,” he finished. “The same way a bloodline child would. With will and intent.”
He raised his hand, and a puff of smoke curled up from his fingers. It twisted into a spiral, then unraveled.
“Every bloodline power works within certain rules, a set of limited behaviors. Like how some fire-blooded caster might throw fireballs. That’s easy for them. But if they want to make a bird made of flame?”
He tapped the burner lightly.
“That takes more will, more intent, and a lot more mana. While others, for some freak reason, can only cast flames in bird form and find it hard to do simple balls.”
I nodded. “So magic resists you when you try something outside its predefined shape.”
“Well said. And that definition is writing on the soul.”
He set his cup down and looked at me with his full attention now.
“Let’s talk about aura.”
With a push of his will, he engulfed the room with his presence. It was a strong pressure that made it feel the air heavy and my vision narrow as if he was the only person in the universe.
“Can you feel it?” he asked
I nodded again.
“That’s my aura. It’s the manifestation of my soul. The aura expands as your soul grows, but you can also train it. Aura is also how your magic knows where it is allowed to act. Any external power you use, like lightning, can only manifest inside your own aura.”
“So if my aura is small... my spells won’t go far?” I asked
“Exactly.”
He waved a hand slowly. A puff of smoke drifted to the far end of the room and then vanished as if hitting a wall.
“Intent defines it, the form and aura gives it territory.”
“And mana?” I asked.
“That’s the fuel,” he said. “Everyone has some. You burn it when casting. It slowly recovers when you breathe, eat, and sleep.
“Can I grow my mana pool?”
“Yes. It all dependent on the strength of your soul.” he nodded, “meditation, discipline, and overuse. Even training your body can grow your mana.”
“Until you’ll hit your talent cap that is.”
“My what!?”
He nodded again and took a sip of his tea.
“Your maximum aura strength and mana pool depend on your birth. Think of it like a fruit. With the proper care, the fruit grows. But some people are born the size of a grape, others are apples, and some lucky bastards are watermelons. ”
“And is there no way to fight beyond our birthright?” I asked.
“Some folks can break that cap. Kindred and Bloodline can evolve. Knights and Clerics can ascend. Dreamers? I don’t know how they do it.”
“I understand holy ascension, but how does evolution work?”
“I don’t recommend seeking evolution yet,” Garo shook his head,” you are far too weak for that.”
“No, it’s just... I met someone younger then me, a kindred girl, who claims to have already gone through two evolutions.”
“Ah, you are talking about Nakera,” he nodded, “I heard of her, her parent were civilians with zero training, the poor girl was born with one weakest talent caps ever. Do you understand what that means?"
“It means that no matter how much she trains, she could never punch a tree down with her fist, unlike some other kindred people.”
“Exactly,” Garo smiled, “One cannot break the talent cap with just training. they need an evolution, and that only happens in life or death situations.”
“Does that mean people can replace training by living on the edge?”
“No, to break the talent cap, one must first be at the cap. It takes a lot of hard work to even be eligible for an evolution.”
Garo stood and stretched, then gestured toward the center of the room.
“Enough talk. It’s lesson time.”
He took a long breath through his nose, exhaling with focus. “Sit. Close your eyes. Feel the lightning inside you. don’t call it, just... listen.”
I did as told.
The world dimmed. The incense curled inside my breath.
“Good,” Garo said, voice steady. “Now cast a spark, not strong. Just a flicker. Feel where it lands. Feel where it fades.”
I closed my eyes, drawing on that thread of crackling energy I’d begun to recognize. It danced across my fingertips like dry static.
The tiniest spark leapt free. It fizzled out about ten centimeters from my fingertips.
“Push it,” he said, tone flat. “That’s too weak. Push it again.”
I focused harder, summoned another spark, held it a moment longer, and forced it outward. It crackled, arcing into the air, and this time it flew twenty centimeters before dying with a hiss.
“That’s better,” Garo muttered. “But that’s still not the edge of your aura. Not even close. Come on! Push!”
I gritted my teeth and tried again.
The spark formed, then dropped straight down and popped against the floor, like a wire shorting out against stone.
“What was that?” Garo barked. “Why did you push it down?”
I opened my eyes. “I don’t know, maybe because that’s where it’s supposed to go?”
Garo stared at me.
I hesitated, then clarified, “Electricity always tries to ground. That’s how it works. The air is a terrible conductor unless it’s ionized first. So it follows the path of least resistance; down, usually. To the earth.”
A beat of silence.
Garo slowly dragged a hand down his face and let out a long sigh. “Girl. You’re creating lightning out of mana. Why in the hell are you worried about how it behaves in nature?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
“I have seen someone create a lightning sphere the size of a house and throw it like a rock,” he continued, waving his hand for emphasis. “I’ve seen lightning crack sideways into the sky, curl like a snake, shatter armor from the inside out. Never once have I seen it care about the laws of nature.”
“…Right,” I said weakly.
“You’re not summoning real weather, Alice,” he said, leaning forward. “You’re using willpower to give mana shape. You want lightning to go sideways? It’ll go sideways. You want it to hum like a songbird? It’ll hum.”
I nodded, embarrassed but strangely relieved.
He sat back again. “Now. Forget grounding. Forget nature. Focus on what you want it to do. Magic doesn’t care what the world thinks it should do. It only listens to you and your intent.”
I took a breath. Cleared my head. Raised my fingers again.
This time, I didn’t picture wires, clouds, or anything scientific.
I pictured a crackling arc of energy leaping outward, obedient, clean, sharp.
The spark jumped from my fingers and flared half a meter out before blinking away.
Garo’s grin returned. “There we go. That's a good start. However, you are still not at the edge of your aura; you still need more training.”
The next day, I traded incense for bruises. Edmund’s spear class met at sunrise in one of the guild practice fields. The other students were three boys and one girl, all of them younger and fitter than I. At least at first glance.
I noticed that everyone was stretching, so I joined in until Edmund handed me a weighted spear.
“Run,” he said.
“For how long?” I asked.
“Until you drop.”
I laughed. He didn’t.
It turns out, running with a weighted spear is exactly as miserable as it sounds. My arms ached, and my legs begged for mercy.
Sweat poured off me like someone had uncorked my skull, and when someone slows or falters, Edmund shouts at them to get up and run. I collapsed twice, and he made me run again after three minutes of catching my breath.
And all of that was before the lesson actually started.
Edmund had this special kind of cruelty where he waited until you looked half-dead before he actually began teaching. Stance, grip, strike angles, and footwork.
Again. And again. And again.
When our group finally looked dead, he stopped and turned to us.
“There is one secret to fast growth: it’s when you push beyond the limit of your body. That’s how you grow your soul.”
“I can’t…” I panted, “…push… past… this…”
He raised an eyebrow at me and smiled.
“If you were facing a dragon right now, would you just kneel over and die? Or would you fight even harder, and find a hidden strength inside you?” Slowly, he turned and raised his war-pick high into the air.
His voice boomed across the stone like a thunderclap:
“RESOLVE!”
His aura erupted like a banner catching the wind: broad, bright, golden. It didn’t feel like pressure or heat. It felt like a presence. Like certainty. Like my shaking limbs had found a second wind.
The world steadied.
My hands stopped trembling.
I gripped the spear again, and this time, it held.
Edmund’s voice followed, low but clear. “This is a Holy miracle from knight class. It doesn’t heal you. It doesn’t protect you. It just reminds you of your strength.”
We began the drills again, starting everything all over again.
Thrust. Step back. Rotate. Guard.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I could feel my muscles burning, but the exhaustion didn’t pull me down anymore. It drove me forward. I couldn’t even feel bored from the repetitive tasks, I was way too psyched for that.
Every time I thought, This is too much, my resolve whispered that I have more.
Edmund didn’t stop us, not until the drills became automatic, and not until our bodies had memorized the motion because they had no other choice.
And finally, when it was over, and my sweat had soaked through my tunic, I collapsed backward in the dust, gasping.
Edmund crouched down beside me.
“You feel that?” he asked.
“Pain?” I wheezed.
“No,” he said with a smile. “Growth.”
I blinked at him.
“Your physical limits are also affected by your soul; this training also grows your Aura,” he smiled, “and Resolve gives you the will to keep pushing when you’d normally quit.”
I sat there, blinking up at the sun, the taste of iron in my mouth.
“That’s not a miracle,” I muttered. “That’s cheating.”
He laughed and stood. “Every miracle’s a cheat. Do you find it fair when a cleric brings back someone from the brink of death when many others don’t get the same chance?”
I stayed in the dirt for another few minutes. Then I stood. My legs shook. My spine cracked. But I stood.
If what he said was right that mean…
I raised my hand.
Lightning.
A small spark arced across my fingers, brighter than yesterday. I focused and pushed.
The arc jumped. I watched it dance almost a full meter past my fingers.
I smiled.
Progress.
A day in the contested realm has twelve hours under the yellow sun, or what the locals call the Firedays. Twelve hours under the blue sun: Waterdays.
For the next few days, my life flowed to this new beat; Firedays meant training, magic, spear, and pain. Waterdays meant books, baths. Hanging out with friends. But mostly books.
Every first, third, and fifth day of the week, as the yellow sun climbed over the West Gate, I found myself sitting cross-legged across from Garo Agame. The room always smelled of Incense and Tea. The relaxing atmosphere made way for painful lessons.
We started the lessons with meditation. The aim was to teach me to perceive my aura and better control my mana flow. This was the easy part since I had some experience with meditation in my past world.
Next came the aura drills. I’d spark lightning from my hands and push how far the current arced before fizzling into the air. This was my life for the first week until I was able to go further than two meters.
Then he had me cast within his aura. It was a miserable experience, having him looming over me with a suffocating dome of dense pressure. My lightning spark could barely reach past my skin. I had to will the sparks to exist. The more resistant the space, the clearer my intent had to be.
“Your willpower can only be as strong as your soul,” he told me once. “Push and grow. That’s the only way.”
We also did shaping exercises. At first, it was simple. Sparks turned into rings. Then cubes. We escalate to more complex shapes. I made a thunderbird, a bull, and a cat.
Once I could hold shapes reliably, he made me move them, after casting. That meant keeping them inside my aura while shifting their position, like trying to puppeteer without strings. I couldn’t just throw and forget them; I had to maintain control while also moving my body.
It felt like trying to walk and count backward and forward at the same time.
Then it got worse.
He started making me give the shapes velocity, not just guiding them gently through my aura, but launching them outward. Once they left my aura, they were no longer under my control and only lasted a few seconds before blinking out.
“Your aura’s your anchor,” Garo said. “Past that, you’re trusting the shape and momentum to hold it together.”
By the final week, he had me drop all the shaping and just focus on range, throwing raw lightning spheres like baseballs.
There was no need for form or frills. Just power and direction.
And it worked.
My aura had grown to about five meters by then, but with the right push, I could send a lightning ball four times that distance; twenty meters of clean and controlled throw. That was a major range advantage, especially since I can only arc lighting within my aura.
And at the end of each session came the hardest part. After my mana was completely drained, he had me cast one last time despite being dry. It was torture; I would either faint or collapse with a nosebleed.
Those sessions ended with my brain feeling like it had been crushed with a hydraulic press. I’d stagger back to the dorm with a migraine that felt like the entire sky had collapsed onto my frontal lobe.
Worse, I kept doing it. Voluntarily.
On the second, fourth, and sixth days, it was another kind of torture under the Edmund regimen.
Wood clashed with wood, sweat hit the dirt, and muscles screamed.
Edmund’s training was less metaphysical and more “here’s a stick, now swing until your arms fall off.”
After running, we rotated drills. Spear guards. Sweeping arcs. Quick thrusts. Weapon retention against grabs. My palms had new calluses before the first week ended.
We ran. We climbed. We lifted, we jumped, then held the weighted spear for extra drills.
Sparring was the final reward or punishment.
I was physically stronger than the girl and one boy in our group, similar in strength to another boy, and weaker than the third, but it didn’t matter. All of them had more endurance. All of them had better footwork. Every one of them had an extra edge I lacked; I was raised in luxury and peace.
Still, I had one advantage: the gravity in Hano was lighter than back home. Only slightly, but enough that, over time, I started to hit harder. Jumped further. Hold my ground just a little longer.
“You have good instincts,” Edmund had said, after I finally scored a clean hit in week three. “Your body will start to listen to them eventually.”
On the second morning of every day of the week, under the serene blue sun, I rested.
I’d retreat to my room, the temple, or the officer’s lounge; quiet spaces where I could stretch out with a book and try to forget that my legs were made of boiled noodles or that my brain was turned into soup.
I swapped recipes with Louis, focusing on learning the available ingredients to improve my diet, since I had been eating a lot more than usual with all the training.
I talked medicine with Vena, who was finally free to hang out with me after sweeping the slums, healing people.
I introduced chess to Justicar Gray, and he showed me a similar game, something like Go, but where the pieces could be eliminated instead of captured, and the loser was the one who ran out of pieces first.
I watched Yon train his scrappy group of misfits, and I noticed, eventually, that Kan was among them.
I got drunk with Nakera and Kuru, and gambled a few dozen bronze coins on newly learned card games and unlucky dice throws.
And whenever one of the girls was free, Louis, Vena, Nada, Nakera, Kuru, or even Sara. I would take them shopping or exploring the city.
This wasn’t just learning magic.
I was learning how to live in a new world.
The end of the month saw me at the east training yard, sweat clinging to my skin before I even stepped into the sparring ring.
Across from me stood Rell, one of the quieter boys in our group. Polite, focused… and frustratingly safe. He never took risks in a match, never overextended. Just kept his guard tight and waited for you to mess up.
Which, to be fair, I usually did.
Not today.
Edmund gave the signal with a sharp whistle. Rell approached with his usual caution, spear held in a perfect mid-guard, steady steps, not a hint of aggression.
I mirrored him. Kept my breathing level. Waited.
Rell came at me with a probing thrust, testing range. I shifted my footing, letting it pass just outside my hip, and jabbed forward with a quick counterstrike. He caught it with the shaft of his spear, pivoted, and brought the butt of his weapon around toward my knee.
I ducked back. He followed, closing the distance.
He feinted with a jab. I didn’t react. He stepped in with the real one, a forward thrust aimed at my shoulder, more probing than serious.
And that’s when I moved.
Instead of deflecting, I snapped my left hand forward and caught the shaft of his spear just beneath the head. His eyes widened.
I didn’t wait.
I twisted hard to pull him slightly off-balance and then stepped in close, bringing my knee up sharply and planting my boot right into his chest.
It wasn’t elegant, but it worked well enough.
He hit the ground with a surprised grunt.
“Match,” Edmund called.
Rell coughed and pushed himself up, rubbing his ribs. “Okay,” he said, not unkindly. “Didn’t see that coming.”
I offered him a hand up. “You should really take bigger risks.”
He chuckled. “Noted.”
As we cleared the ring, Edmund walked over and gave me a slow nod. “That’s two wins today. Good read. Good timing. And a clean reversal.”
“But also two losses, but I’ll take it,” I said, still catching my breath.
“You should.” He paused, watching the next pair set up in the ring. “You’re ready to train on your own now. You’ve got the basics. You’ve got instincts. What you need next is experience.”
“What kind of experience?” I hesitated, “I don’t see myself fighting in wars.”
He looked back at me. “Guild missions. A monster cull. Maybe patrol work. Anything where you have to apply what you’ve learned, not just repeat it.”
I nodded, still gripping my training spear. It had weight and balance. But it was… not a real weapon.
Edmund must’ve noticed the way I looked at it.
“You should buy a proper weapon,” he said. “Something with a real edge. Learn its shape, its sound, its balance. Make it part of your body. It won’t magically win fights for you, but it may stop you from losing one.”
I let out a breath and nodded again, more certain this time.
He rolled his shoulder and leaned slightly on his war-pick. “Also, you don’t have to train alone. I’ve seen some of your friends.”
I blinked.
“Try Yon’s, he is solid for formation drills and close-quarters strategy,” he said. “And Nakera?” He smirked. “Slippery as an eel. Good for learning how to fight someone who doesn’t fight fair.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you keeping tabs on me?”
“I’m a freelancer sergeant,” he said. “I keep an eye on all my juniors, especially the one who paid me a full silver for training.”
“Fair enough.” I laughed.
He gave me a final nod. “You’re not finished. But you’re no beginner anymore. Keep training. And don’t die on your first mission. That would reflect badly on me.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
And for the first time, I believed I actually could.
I didn’t realize it was my last lesson with Garo until it was already halfway through. We started with range drills. Out behind the West Gate, a row of battered training dummies had been set up. Most were half-charred from previous attempts. One was missing an arm. Garo just waved a hand at them and sipped his tea.
“Throw.”
I summoned the familiar crackle of mana and shaped a tight, compressed sphere of lightning. My aura stretched about five meters now, farther than most people without innate talent. I focused, pulled the charge tighter, and launched it.
The sphere hissed through the air and slammed into the chest of the second dummy, leaving a deep black scorch.
“Again,” Garo said.
I learned that I had ten good lightning balls. After that, my mana got too low for strong attacks. I also noticed that my attack got weaker after 20 meters. When I asked Garo about it, his answer was simple. “Inside your aura, your power has structure. Outside it, you’re throwing whatever you have formed, and nature starts to erode it after it leaves your aura.”
I nodded, breathing hard. “So the range is longer but weaker. Does that mean lighting attacks within my aura are stronger?” I got a few steps closer to one of the dummies and threw a lightning arc at it. The attack was notably stronger.
“Try that again, but on me,” said Garo.
I didn’t hesitate after a month of training. I learned I can't hurt him yet. I went closer to Garo and tried attacking him; however, my lightning attack faltered, and I could feel the pressure from his aura.
“Getting this close to your enemy makes the surrounding area contested. Most of the time, that means the stronger soul wins,” explains Garo. “But an attack that was thrown from outside your enemy aura can finish forming, and those can no longer be interfered with.”
“I see,” I nodded, “can I try something else?”
“Sure.”
I approached my teacher and formed my finger in a V form and focused my intent on transforming my fingers into electrodes, one positively charged and the other negatively and tried pulsing current like a taser. A small arc of electricity started forming. I looked up
“Can you stop those small arcs from forming?” I asked.
He tilted his head. “No. I can't. What did you do, girl?”
“I limited my mana control to inside my body rather than my aura,” I smiled, glad that my idea worked.
“Ah, just like Fire Blooded people heat up their fist before punching.”
After that, we kept on training my aura by having me try to suppress him this time, of course, that always led to failure, but I could feel a modicum of improvement.
“My aura’s been growing steadily… You think it’s because of my sky affinity?”
Garo stroked his beard, smoke coiling faintly from his wrists as he did. “Could be. A sky affinity that high isn’t common. Especially since you are not from the bloodlines. Most people with that kind of natural growth have an innate power of their own. Elemental Bloodline powers flare during puberty at the very latest. You haven’t, which means…”
“I don’t have innate powers?” I offered.
“Or maybe you have something esoteric,” he said. “Hidden. You might want to get a soul map drawn. A proper one. It’ll tell you what kind of magic might be locked inside you.”
“I heard those cost a gold coin.”
“They do,” he said, smiling slightly. “And they’re not essential yet. But later? If your aura stops growing, discovering your power may be your way forward.”
I mulled that over quietly. My aura had grown, yes. But there was still so much I didn’t understand.
I turned back to Garo. “So that’s it?”
He nodded. “You’ve got control. You’ve got power. Keep practicing, and keep pushing, You’re on the path now, you don’t need me standing over your shoulder.”
I stepped forward and gave a small bow. “Thank you, Garo. For everything.”
He waved me off with a lazy motion. The incense curled behind him like a signature.
“Any time, girl. You’ve got questions, you come back. I’m not going anywhere.”
The training was over, but I was dead tired. After the last session at the West Gate, I limped back to the guild, soaked in the Guild bath until my skin was a prune, then crashed for a nap that was half unconsciousness.
When I woke, the blue sun was already high.
I slung my empty backpack over my shoulder and made my way to the temple.
The courtyard was fuller than usual; locals and pilgrims gathered beneath the arched walkways, the sunlight filtering through colored glass into dappled beams. Upon the altar, Lady Sana stood, robed in white and speaking with her usual calm certainty.
“The bravest knights often fall young. The purest clerics may never know a lover’s touch. And so it falls to the rest of you to bear the world forward. It is not shameful to bring life into the world. It is sacred. It is necessary. The wilderness covers most of this realm. Monsters keep growing stronger, unchallenged. We are still outnumbered. Still scattered. The world has room for more children, and the future demands them.”
It was a soft-spoken sermon, but the weight in her voice made it land like scripture.
I waited near the back, letting the crowd move first. Everyone wanted a word, a smile, a brush of her hand. She gave it with the same warmth to each person.
Eventually, the last lingerers faded, and I stepped forward.
Sana turned toward me and smiled. “Alice. I see your posture straighten. Training agrees with you. You look more dangerous.”
“I would hope so,” I said. “My bruises should be worth something.”
She gestured for me to walk with her. We made our way to her study, tucked in a room next to the altar, where the air was cooler and smelled faintly of peaches and pressed herbs.
After a short exchange of pleasantries and tea, I casually mentioned something.
“If we perfect the vaccine project… child mortality might plummet. Eventually, maybe people won’t feel the pressure to have so many kids.”
She tilted her head and smiled, not dismissively, but with that same gentle reality-check tone she used in sermons.
“Alice… ninety-nine percent of the world is wilderness. Unclaimed stretch of land, untamed and full of monsters. We are not running out of room... not even close.”
Then she chuckled. “But I doubt you came to talk about birth rates.”
“No,” I admitted. “I came to ask for my devices back. My laptop. My phone.”
She nodded once, stood, and retrieved a locked wooden box from a tall cabinet. Inside was my phone tucked neatly next to the closed laptop.
“Still in one piece,” she said. “Though I have to admit, I was tempted to poke at the little one for more music.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, carefully placing both back into my backpack. ”But they are depleted of magic. I think I found a way to charge them again.”
I thanked her again and made my way back to the freelancer dorms, slipping into my room just as the temple bells signaled the end of the blue sun’s ascent.
I sat cross-legged on the bed and pulled the devices out.
Time for science.
I booted the laptop first. The battery still had 18%. Just enough to access the encyclopedia app. I searched battery, lithium-ion, and charging methods.
After 30 minutes of study, I scribbled a few notes:
- Phone and laptop batteries are lithium-ion.
- They store energy via chemical potential, and overcharging can fry them.
- Power goes in as low-voltage direct current, smooth, steady, predictable.
- Too much heat, too much power, or irregular pulses? That’s how you blow it.
I stared at the phone. “You’re the guinea pig.”
I placed it on a folded blanket, focused my breath, and reached for mana. I tried to avoid creating force or flash, but to gently make a flow of current. I visualized it entering through the charge port as a thread rather than a surge.
For a few seconds, nothing.
Then the screen lit up. 1%. 2%. 3%. I grinned. it was not a complete victory yet, I still needed to maintain it for the duration of the charge while keeping the current stable.
I held the intent steady for ten minutes until it ticked up to 70%. Stopped and waited. There was no heat or smoke. I even checked for the smell of burnt rubber.
Nothing, and best of all, the phone was still alive.
“Now for the real task.”
The laptop was easier, since the battery was removable and I didn’t fear frying the main hardware. Also, with the battery being larger, I used both hands and charged faster while making sure it didn’t heat up.
The task required a lot of concentration but was not mana-intensive. I used more mana to throw a single lightning ball than to charge both my devices.
By the time the blue sun began to reach its zenith, both devices were powered with no damage. I smiled; the main objective was complete. Bonus point, I learn how to fight to achieve it.
And now, finally, I will be able to fall asleep listening to music.