MAZE - The Endless Quest

After some time, she sat up on the bed. Hera"s mind was too active to sleep right now. The talk they had during dinner made her realize something. During her entire life, she had one goal, to be an explorer. Now that she accomplished that, she felt lost. As if something was missing. Not having an objective for the first time in 23 years felt wrong. As if there was a hole inside of her.

Hera made a mental list of the things she wanted to do. Find unusual and beautiful places, but that felt too vague. She would end up roaming around aimlessly.

Learn magic, but that was just so she could help Helena. Not that she didn"t want to use magic, but if it weren"t for the mage, she wouldn"t be focused on that right now. Helping her friends was nice and all, but it wasn"t something for her.

She wanted to find her own thing, her drive, her quest in life. Something that she would be willing to work her a.s.s off for, but it didn"t matter how much she tried. Nothing came to mind.

Realizing it was a dead-end, Hera tried to do something else to make her sleepy, the training she did in the ATR. It made her feel somewhat comfortable. She closed her eyes and started the exercise once again. According to the trainer, this was a way to make the body get used to mana.

Cycling the heat through her body, Hera started to feel like she could not just move the warmth, but reshape it. Instead of making it pa.s.s, she tried to cover herself with the energy. It was harder than she initially thought. The feeling seemed to push away from her body, like trying to press two magnets together. That gave Hera an idea. What if she tried to turn the magnet around?

Since she had no clue how to do that, it took Hera some time to make the heat be pulled in instead of pushed out. After several tries, she finally did it. The energy came through her hands and was drawn towards her chest. The moment the heat reached her heart, Hera"s body throbbed. She shivered while her temperature started to rise.

Even with the discomfort, Hera pushed through. It felt weird, but right at the same time. As if she was taking a hot shower after being outside in the rain for too long. The warmth in her chest started to spread, covering her entire body.

The moment the feeling covered the last part of her body, the discomfort vanished. An unusual tranquility replaced it. The air around her felt almost nostalgic, the bed softer, and the sheets warmer. Hera opened her eyes. In front of her, there was a notification.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mana attribute unlocked

Mana is the type of energy used in spells. By unlocking this attribute, you gain the ability to create and use spells.

Unlike other attributes, mana can only be increased by training.

Starting mana: 100

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hera opened a big smile upon seeing the notification. She was one step closer to being able to use spells. She checked Helena"s quest, confirming if she had completed it. However, the wording on it confused her. It said she needed to unlock the mana stat, but also said she needed to learn a spell.

Unsure of what was the condition to complete the quest, Hera looked around. Even in the dark, she could still see some furniture"s outlines, but they had a colored edge to it. Instinctively, Hera understood that this was the object"s mana. The color seemed to be related to the material of the object. The wooden table had a brown outline, while the one on the television had a dark tone.

Glancing towards Bonnie, Hera saw a more noticeable outline filled with dancing colors. Unlike the furniture, the one in the researcher was moving, following the woman"s breathing.

With the tablet in hand, Hera went to the bathroom. She opened the file Helena had sent her and started reading about the mana affinity. There wasn"t much information on it. It mostly talked about how this affinity was very useful for detection, but not many uses for combat had been found. To get it, one needed to have a natural disposition for it, and it would only manifest in a supporting role. It explained a bit of how some spells could be used to perceive the mana around the caster. After that information, Helena had some notes on it. She heard rumors of people who have that affinity as the central part of their ability. They were easily confused with non-elemental mages. That"s why no one thought they existed. Helena had a theory about the use of that affinity. If the spellcaster was able to control the surrounding mana, they could even use the environment mana to cast spells. Lessening the burden they had in their own mana pool.

Hera read the doc.u.ment a couple of times, trying to absorb all its information. Staring at the bathroom door, she tried to sense the mana in the other room. She saw these weird effects in magic. It made sense for her to have a mana affinity, right?

She spent close to an hour trying to perceive the mana in the other room, but to no avail. Finally feeling tired, she walked back into the room and went to bed.

#############################

"Our little girl is growing up so fast," Helena said with a smile on her face.

"Don"t put me in the middle of that. I don"t intend to have kids," Quinn said.

"Loosen up, will you? I"m talking about Hera," Helena said, sitting back in the chair.

"Oh, what about her?" Quinn asked after ordering more drinks.

"She is asking for some really advanced information about affinities."

"Something you weren"t expecting?" Quinn asked.

"Maybe. I had a hunch she might have the affinity she talked about, but I wasn"t expecting her to talk about it so soon," Helena explained.

"I see," Quinn said before eating some fries.

"Are you not going to ask about it?" Helena bellowed.

"Not really. You know I think you are doing something amazing, But I"m not really interested in the process of it all."

Helena let out a lengthy sigh," I know, I just wanted to talk to someone about it."

"Aren"t you going to the wall next week? You can find some people to talk about that there."

"I guess, but I can"t say too much. Even in the order, we keep some information a secret," Helena said.

"Sucks to be you. By the way, how are you going to get there?" Quinn asked.

"I could go to another guild and take a faster route. But I think I"m leaving on Friday and going through Brinefront. I want to see if I can peek at my new intern," Helena said, almost giggling.

"It"s been a while since I saw you so attached, you are not going for the teacher-student route are you?" Quinn teased.

"Very funny, no, I"m not. But... she kind of reminds me of Avery."

Quinn widened her eyes, "Holy c.r.a.p, she really does! How could I have missed that?"

"Beats me, but that"s just another reason why that is not happening. You know how that ended," Helena said, downing her drink.

"Yeah, but I also remember how it started. What did the doctor say during that first week? Stretch before doing anything like that again," Quinn snickered.

"Alright, alright, Let"s change the subject. And even if I wanted, I couldn"t do that again. I"m not that limber anymore, and I don"t even remember how it was, to be honest."

Quinn waited for Helena to start drinking again before saying, "I still have a picture if you want it."

Helena choked on her drink and started coughing, trying to cuss at her friend. Quinn just watched the scene, laughing and fiddling with her phone to taunt the mage.

#############################

For the next few days, Hera and her friends figure out a routine of sorts. In the morning, Leo would do some easy quest in the city while the rest trained or studied. They would meet up to eat and then go outside the city to hunt. They had already completed three hunts, Leo tried to get several frog hunts at once, but apparently, quests that required only to kill monsters could only be taken one at a time for species. Hunts were mostly for population control, taking more than one for the same type of monster would lead to completing quests without getting the desired results.

The hunter was taking the quests on how own. That way, the number of frogs he had to kill was smaller. The only problem was that he needed to be the one to deal with the killing blow, which reduced the group"s speed. The rest of the group would be training or running some smaller errands in the morning and hunting in the afternoon. The evening was free time, with each doing their own thing.

Friday night, Bonnie called all of them to an arena in the guild to show off her first spell. She was in front of a training dummy made for practicing magic. It had a light purple glow around it, and it seemed to be made of crystals.

Bonnie placed two hands in front of her chest with the palms down. Hera could see the energy being gathered under her hands. A few light blue particles started to form in the spell. Unlike the last time, the lights moved together, rotating and spinning, creating a blue web inside the energy.

Bonnie pumped some more mana into the spell and hurled it towards the dummy. The attack wasn"t fast. It took a couple of seconds to reach the target, but when it did, a gust of cold air covered the room. The dummy was now covered in a thin layer of ice.

"That is my first spell. It reduces the temperature in an area when it makes contact. According to what I found, it can slow down monsters and make some objects more brittle,"

"That is amazing, Bonnie!" Hera exclaimed.

"Yeah, if you can hit a clumped up group, we can get rid of them really quickly," Leo agreed.

"There is a problem, though. You take a bit of time to make that spell, and I"m guessing it can hit us too. So it"s like a one and done. What if something comes at you after it?" Alex asked.

Bonnie replied with a c.o.c.ky smile, "Well, I can also do this,"

The researcher spun around and raised her arm. Instead of having the hand out like Hera saw the day Bonnie got hurt, she had the fingers pointed at the target, making a cup with her palm. Before the explorer could see the energy gathering, a high-pitched sound of the wind going through a small opening echoed from Bonnie"s hand. Following that, something that broke most of the ice on it hit the chest of the dummy. On the screen, behind the target, a large 50 appeared.

"I retract my criticism," Alex said, staring at the dummy.

"Did you really just used two spells?" Blue asked.

"Sure did, the first one is called Cold Bomb, and this one is Air Fist. Just a warning, Cold Bomb doesn"t seem to any damage by itself, and Air Fist just give a score of 20 when I use it by itself," Bonnie explained.

"Still, that is impressive," Leo said.

"Not really. I bought the compendium for the Air Fist. When I figured out how it worked, I toyed with it. Luckily, my learn skill helped me fill up some gaps," Bonnie said.

"No, it is really impressive, Bonnie. You took less than one week to get your mana stat, learn a spell, and create one all by yourself. Don"t play this down, you are amazing!" Hera said.

"Even I have to admit, that was bada.s.s," Blue said.

"Thanks, guys. Now you still have to complete one Hunt right Leo? Let"s go, I want to put these spells to the test, and I also need to get some money since the compendium wasn"t that cheap."

"How much was it?" Alex asked as they left the training room.

"250 gold. That"s the last of the money the guild gave me," Bonnie said.

"Ouch, that"s expensive," Leo commented

"Yeah, but with her help, I think we can give her a full refund after today," Hera said as they walked towards the city gates.