The Runic Alchemist

When he woke up again, he was once again in steel chains, but the room had changed. Instead of being on the bed, he was tied up by his hands and legs with even larger chains, naked. They had taken his runic spatial storage bracers. A guard stood in front of him, keeping watch.

Well, not that he could go anywhere even if they let him walk freely. The next room must be Lady Vidalia's, she was just across the wall. As soon as his eyes fully opened, Damian expelled his mana at full force using the mana coating method, wasting his mana once again. He didn't want her to read his thoughts if he couldn't block them.

Let her drag him into battle; she would understand the dire situation she was in then.

'I can just kill you...'

'I'm sure you've already tried. So what was the problem?'

She didn't reveal her thoughts. Instead, Damian suddenly felt a sharp sensation on his wrists.

'What the hell?'

'I felt the cold as you were dying on my roof...'

'Goddammit, this spell just keeps on giving. What accursed tomb did you find this spell in?'

'My grandmother taught it to me before she, well... How did you mess with my spell?'

'I didn't; I was doing my own spell and ran out of mana...'

'That is true...'

'Huh? Are you f*cking with my brain again?'

'I can't read your subconscious thoughts. You seem to catch on quickly. It's a general feeling you get... It's how you make them feel things, fueling emotions... Just like how i just felt your anger and disappointment towards me....'

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'Why are you telling me all this?'

'...'

And with that, his mana spent, Damian fell unconscious once more. He had achieved mastery in it by now.

---

This time, when he woke up, the scenery had changed again. Instead of being suspended from thick runic steel chains, he was sitting comfortably on a padded chair in an ornately decorated room that smelled and felt wonderful, mana lush in it as if he were in the middle of a spring forest.

But his hands were still tied, this time with enchanted vines. Damian was getting increasingly irritated by anything resembling green vines. He tried to free himself, but the enchantment activated, making the bindings even tighter. He gave up. He could use his fiery spear, but first, he needed to understand what was happening.

The door opened, and Lady Vidalia walked in, her hair wet and four maids covering her body with thick white cloth from each side. She had just come out of a bath, most likely. Despite everything she had done to him, her silhouette was admirable.

'You are a boy after all...'

'Heh? Uhm, sorry about that... Let me do my spell...'

'And turn around...'

'Of course...'

Damian hurriedly created a small box and blocked the link. After taking one last peek, he turned around like the gentleman he was. It took her more than an hour to finish with all her royal attire and preparations. When the maids finally left, leaving him alone with Lady Vidalia, Damian was on the verge of collapsing again due to low mana.

However, before he could black out, he felt a warm, natural mana coming toward him from her through the vine link. Damian dismissed the box and let the strange mana pass and enter his body. Suddenly, he felt vibrant again, his body alert and his mana refilled by a quarter.

"You... You gave me mana? You can do that?" All the books Damian had read said that one person's mana in another's body was poisonous.

"It shouldn't be possible... but somehow it is," she said, looking at him with that same blank-cold gaze. Damian hurriedly recreated the small box to give their minds a break from this relentless active thought guarding. It was exhausting, to say the least.

"It's blocked," he said.

"Hm..." she replied, and then an awkward silence returned. After a minute, she continued, "No spell can last without mana. This should end soon."

"It's connected directly from my mana core to yours. That's why it hurts when we move away. That's why I think the mana can be transferred, too. I don't think this nightmare will end soon unless we do something about it," Damian reasoned.

"Mana core?"

"The place that gathers mana in our body," Damian explained. He wasn't entirely sure if what he sensed was real, but it was real enough to cause pain.

"That's not possible. A third-ranker's..."

"Whole body generates mana, I know. That's why the pain is more severe for you than for me. Which is also why you have more control over the link than I do."

"You mentioned vines once. Why did you do that?"

Damian hesitated. Revealing some of his minor secrets seemed like the best way to move things along and find a solution. Even if she was an unreasonable person, she at least cared for her homeland or their proud name not to be defeated here that he could put his trust in. But he was also afraid that she would use his knowledge to remove him from the equation somehow.

She had already proven to be a devious scheming bitch.

"Come on, reveal your stuff and let me solve this, or keep sleeping and I will solve this anyway," she said with the same doll-like face that Damian, for the love of God, could not read.

"I... I am sensitive to mana. I feel it more than others," Damian confessed.

"You mean the mana pattern skill?"

"It's not a skill. I can just feel people's mana. Each one has a unique signature. That's why I can tell who is a second-ranker and who is a third-ranker." Her eyes went wide, the only reaction from her otherwise calm face, as if he had shattered her worldview somehow.

"The link between us is a thick green vine, slightly glowing golden, coming out of my stomach to yours. The spell you used on me also bound my mana core with a lot of green-golden glowing vines, similar to these but thinner."

"My grandmother told me the spell was called [Divine Seeker Vines]."

"So how does it work? How do you normally unbind the spell?"