Chapter 27 | Stellar Lily

“Phew, that should do it,” Theo muttered under his breath, wiping the sweat off of his forehead. Both parts of his consciousness were inside his mindscape, inspecting his mental palace. That little incomplete corridor still extended from one side of his cube, waiting to be finished.

There remained five other walls for Theo to create spells and experiment on. Throughout his trials, he had realized that placing two different spell formulae on the same wall caused their efficiency to be reduced, so he spread his spells. The fireball on one wall, the arcane shot on another and the arcane net up top.

With the new addition of his mana core, his fireball spell had become automatic, releasing one every second. If not for his newest increase in mana, he would have lost consciousness on the spot.

Theo had thought for a moment and decided that deleting some inscriptions to jam the formula was the best choice until he found a solution. He scratched one of the inscriptions until it lost its meaning and got smoothed out by his mind palace.

Then, he painstakingly detached the mana core from the spell formula and placed it to the side.

With the immediate problem resolved, he could now focus on utilizing this new ability. After all, the rate at which he himself could produce spells was a couple of seconds, even with all of those perception enhancements he had. With this mana core, he could more than double his output.

When the core touches a spell formula or gets too close, it digs half of itself into the wall, fusing with it. And that in turn makes it hard to pull out, he thought with his eyes closed, disregarding the confused gazes of his party members. But do I even need to detach it? Can’t I just make some on/off mechanism?

The solution came to Theo quickly, as he had personally seen it before.

The valve-like group of inscriptions back in that arcane barrier’s nexus formation was perfect for the job. Though Theo couldn’t use the exact same inscriptions because of his lack of understanding of the individual characters, Nicole had taught him how it worked in general.

Let’s see, I think it went like this.

[Valve Handle]

[Stem]

[Valve Ball]

Once he wrote the correct words, they connected and curled into each other in a circular shape. He had found it truly weird how the components of a valve formula were literal valve parts from real life, but it made some sense. It was semantic, after all.

After completing the valve, he attached the mana core next to it. Just as he hoped, mana didn’t leak. And when he pressed his index and middle fingers onto the valve handle text and slid them across, the valve opened and released mana into the fireball spell formula.

He fixed the scratched-out part before closing the valve and exited his mindscape, finding Satou and Long Tian to have gone back to meditation.

Just as he was about to explain what had happened, he felt a strange premonition. He was about to jump to his feet and brace himself, but was too late in doing so. A crushing, iron-like hand grabbed his shoulder and pressed him down to his knees. Then fingers wrapped around his throat.

He knew that if the person wanted, they could immediately rip out his trachea, or simply pull out his spine. Even with all of his endurance, he was powerless.

Satou must have felt the commotion as he slightly opened his eyes to see what shenanigans Theo was up to again. However, when he saw the person grabbing him by the nape, he got to his feet. Long Tian was the same, only much more terrified.

“Look, Tanaka. There is no need to do thi-“

“Silence. I bided my time, and you took me out of this tower,” the young man replied. “And you didn’t hand me over to that bastard. It seems… It seems you were telling the truth about being his enemy. But that doesn’t mean I will be playing house with the bunch of you.”

“Then-“

“Move,” Tanaka said while pointing at the entrance of the hiding place. Satou and Long Tian were blocking the way, after all.

The two stepped to the side silently, visibly worried about Tanaka hurting Theo.

The young man pulled Theo closer to himself, practically covering himself with his body.

Throughout all this, Theo could constantly feel the touch of his fingers around his nape. He knew that if he struggled or so much as moved, it would be his end. So he kept silent, took deep breaths, and stood motionless like a mannequin. Tanaka seemed satisfied with this, as he carried him gently across the hiding place.

He slowly turned, gave his back to the entrance, and threw Theo onto Satou.

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“Let’s never meet again,” he mumbled before disappearing from their sight.

The trio released deep sighs at the same time. Once Satou caught and stabilized him, Theo fell to his knees as they practically buckled under him.

“That was strange,” Theo muttered as the adrenaline in his blood evened out.

“Yes. The first time we met him, he was nowhere near as rational. He seems to have calmed down…”

“I’m sorry. I should have felt it,” Satou said while gritting his teeth. Theo sighed and rubbed his own neck.

“It’s okay. None of us would have expected him to clean out your aura. I wonder how he did that,” Theo replied, shifting the conversation. Long Tian settled back down to the ground with a sigh. Satou thought for a moment, then replied.

“He probably replaced my aura with his, hiding the fact. He then suddenly released it, probably during the chase, and waited for his healing to work. But truly, what a monster of a guy,” Satou said with a sigh. Theo nodded along, feeling a soreness around the place Tanaka had lifted him.

His eyes darted around, searching for something instinctually. He bent down and picked three different but seemingly ordinary herbs. He then threw them in his mouth, chewed a little, then spat out the paste and rubbed it on his neck. It was practiced, as if he had done it a million times and it was just the natural course of action.

When he realized how weird what he had just done was, the others were already looking at him, amazed.

“The bruises…” Long Tian muttered with raised brows. Satou was the same.

“They healed. So you’re some sort of… Herbalist? What did you even do before coming here? Aren’t you from Earth?” Satou asked with his arms crossed. At this point, Theo was sure Satou knew there was more to him than what he had told. He just didn’t seem too interested in asking.

“I was…” Theo averted his eyes unconsciously. “I was a student.”