Thief of Time

“I didn’t know we were close enough for you to warrant sending me off,” Claud uttered, looking at the person waiting at Licencia’s city gates.

Lily Julan, the heiress to the Julan Barony, shrugged. Her…adoration of Princess Dia was still on full display, however, judging from her get-up. “I’m not sending you off. I’m coming with you.”

“To Julan.”

“Yes.” Lily fiddled with the hood of her travelling cloak. “I’m heading there, like you. You can either go with me, or go separately.”

“And…why would you want to go there?” Claud asked, incredibly conscious of the attention she was drawing. Many people were looking at her, and Claud could understand why; she was exuding a charm that could very well blind his eyes.

“You’re planning on doing something to Julan,” Lily replied. “I think my aid will be useful here.”

“…and you probably figured that drawing the Shadows of Grandis with you to Julan would help in screwing over your family, right?” Claud rubbed his head, having come to that conclusion on his own. “Fine. On the condition that you listen to my words while we’re travelling.”

“Good enough.”

Claud didn’t bother asking what Lily intended to do. Nor did she ask Claud about his own plans. That, however, was fine to him. The implicit agreement was for him to help escort her to Julan, which, considering his expertise in wilderness survival, was nothing much. In return, she would provide him with information enough to do whatever he wanted to do.

He gestured at the city gates. “Let’s go, then.”

Walking past the city guards, who — to his irritation — made rude whistles at Lily, they stepped out of the City of Trades.

“Right,” said Claud, “how were you intending to go to Julan? Were you intending to go on foot?”

“Yes” Lily replied. “How about you?”

“Suits me.” Claud took out four skillstrips. “These skillstrips hold Flight. I procured them from certain people. They’re as fast as horses, and don’t suffer from geographical issues. We’ll conduct a fast march until our supplies begin to drop, and then use Flight to get to the nearest town to top up.”

“You have skillstrips with Flight?” Lily blinked. “Haven’t you forgotten…right. You’re a new mana-user.”

“Go on,” Claud replied. “I get a feeling you’re about to say something useful.”

“Do you know about boosting the effects of skills with mana?” Lily asked. “Our Dia gave you a book, right? There should be something about mana infusion inside. If I recall, it’s on page thirteen.”

Under her clear eyes, Claud took out the booklet. Flipping the pages, he stopped at the page labelled ‘Mana Infusion’, before looking up at Lily.

“What’s wrong?” Lily asked.

Claud handed the book over to her silently. Her brows furrowed a moment later, and she let out a small ‘Ah’.

“I’m not saying anything, but whoever wrote this…needs to improve their penmanship,” Claud replied. “Well, since you’re here, maybe you can give me a low-down on how to do this Mana Infusion thing.”

“Alright.” Lily waved a skillstrip around. “Do you know how imbuing skillstrips work? Or do you just do it as instructed?”

“Mostly the latter,” Claud replied. “I do know some bits, though.”

Like how, for instance, Absolute One didn’t have a spiritual structure.

“I’ll start from the beginning, I guess.” Lily looked around, before pulling him into the shade of a tree. “Basically, when you activate skills, they create a spiritual structure. Residue bits of your soul. When mana passes through that structure, a unique effect is created, which is the effect of the skill. Got it?”

“I knew that but, but I do have some questions, though.”

“Don’t bother asking me, I’m just repeating from my lessons.” Lily cleared her throat. When you imbue skills into paper or Elysia wood, you’re effectively replicating that structure. And when you destroy the medium holding this structure, the spiritual structure draws mana in and activates. Usually, skills activate based on ambient mana, but if you can manipulate mana, the effects of activated skills intensify. That’s mana infusion.”

“Oh…” Claud cleared his throat. “I wish I knew that a few days earlier, but…”

“Farah’s handwriting really isn’t decipherable by most of us,” Lily replied. “Not something I could help with.”

“Thanks, though.” Claud passed a skilstrip over. “In that case…how fast can I go if I infuse mana into a skillstrip?”

“That’s…a good question.” Lily examined the skillstrip. “Care to find out?”

At these words, Claud and Lily tore their skillstrips together, and this time, he made sure to feel for that thing Lily called a spiritual structure. A second later, he could…sense it stick onto his body, and Claud followed Lily’s instructions. Blue light began to glow around his chest, taking up a very complicated pattern, and the next thing Claud knew, he was soaring towards the west.

[By infusing mana into spiritual structures, you can intensify their effect. This works on all skills, except skills that generate mana. Conveniences of a mana-user discovered: 3/5.]

He glanced at the screen that had popped up in his vision. He had a feeling that this was directed at skills like Absolute One, which granted unlimited mana and—

“Say, Lily.” His voice came out oddly in the high-speed flight, but since the Flight skill also included a small barrier of compressed air to protect the user, Claud could still speak.

“What?”

“Does the output of the skill improve if I force more mana into the spiritual structure?” Claud asked.

“Yes, but you’ll drain your mana reserves faster. Once you empty your mana circuits, you’ll have to wait a whole day before we can move at such speeds,” Lily replied.

Claud licked his lips. He could already see it in his mind; with his Absolute One, he could supercharge his flight speed for ten seconds. Running away from enemies, even people like Zulan Patra, had never seemed easier.

He would need to find some free time to experiment first, however.

“Take note, however. Even if you have artefacts that store mana, you’ll need to be skilled at controlling them too,” Lily carried on. “Simply pouring out the mana in your storage artefacts won’t do the job; if you wanted to boost your speeds to incredible levels, you’ll need to channel everything properly too.”

“Oh.” Claud felt like wilting, but since he was travelling at an incredible speed, he had to restrain himself from doing anything that was remotely dangerous. “So I’ll need to work on control.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been talking about Flight so far, but what happens if you infuse mana into other skills?” Claud asked. “Like Dia’s Sword Dance, or Fated Sword.”

“I’m not sure about the specifics, unfortunately.” Lily mulled over her thoughts for a moment. “However, I can tell you that when it comes to skills that produce items, infusing mana increases the speed of creation, as well as the quality of the items produced.”

“You have skills geared towards making items?” Claud asked. “What kinds of items are we talking about, specifically?”

“General items like weapons, armour, food and bombs,” Lily replied. “Unfortunately, I cannot yet make artefacts. Most artefact schools are rather…exclusive. Someone like an heiress of a rundown barony won’t qualify to enter.”

“Wait, if a noble can’t enter, who can?” Claud asked, smashing through a small cloud a moment later. For a moment, he thought he had heard something odd in them, but maybe he was a bit…fatigued.

“People of certain lineage, apparently.” Lily’s smile evoked sadness within Claud himself, a feeling that lasted until she turned away. “There are bloodlines for many skills. Artificing happens to be one of them.”

“Can’t you learn it by yourself?” Claud asked. “It’s not like it’s a skill granted by the Coloured Gods, right?”

“It’s not that easy…never mind. I don’t feel like talking about it.” Lily’s speed increased, and Claud soon found himself working hard just to supply mana towards his chest.

The fields continued to roll past them, but Claud eventually got Lily to descend. Flight only lasted for thirty minutes, and there wasn’t any buffer time to let the user land. Once it ran out, that was it. Claud, as a death-fearing individual, naturally kept track of Flight’s duration, but even he himself was prone to doubting his timekeeping.

Touching down on a well-trodden patch of grass, Claud took out a map and began to look for his current location. From the looks of it, they were around ten kilometres away from a small town, Nachtville. Off at the side, Lily was examining the naturally formed path beneath her feet curiously.

“It’s what some bounty hunters call a bootleg trail,” Claud said out loud. “When people constantly tread on a similar area, the vegetation begins to change and adapt.”

“I know that much,” Lily replied. “I’m just wondering why such paths would form here of all places.”

“Probably because it’s most efficient,” Claud replied, dismissing her worries. Closing his eyes, he tried to gauge the remaining mana he had left, which didn’t amount to all that much. More than three-fourths of his mana had been consumed in the past thirty minutes, and after posing a few more questions to Lily, he learnt that she was roughly in the same condition as him too.

It would take around a day before his mana reserves returned to full. Unfortunately, now that he’d experienced high-speed flight, the remainder of their journey to Nachtville was a bit too slow for his liking, a feeling clearly shared by Lily.

Their slow march to Nachtville, therefore, was peppered by requests to use another Flight skillstrip, which Claud had to reject over and over, despite his own inner thoughts.

His ear, heart and soul were stinging by the time the gates of Nachtville came into view.