Chapter 11

  Walking back to the truck, Michael found himself unable to resist the temptation to experiment with magic some more. Of all his skills, the flame version of [Candle Light] was cheap enough that it wouldn’t put much of a dent on his now-expanded stock of Copper coins, he thought, and soon a small flicker of flame appeared right above his left index finger.

  He looked at it with his mana sense, which he had taken to calling mana sight due to how it felt mostly visual to him, even though it was not limited to sight. He watched the movement of the little colored motes of mana, noticing how most of them were of a reddish hue, along with some elusive white and yellow ones. Elements, perhaps? It was hard to tell, but if colors were hints to elements, being able to see them with ease was a huge advantage.

  After he dismissed the skill, he turned his attention to the magical coins. They were blazing with power, all the colors of the spectrum fusing together into a white halo that surrounded them, and as he pulled magic from one of the coins and it crumbled to dust, he could see the white energy flowing into his body through his hand, only to disappear from his sight once it had crossed the barrier of his skin.

  He tried to see beneath his skin, but no matter what he tried, he could not. He could sense his mana pool like a disembodied reservoir of power, but nothing concrete or spatially defined. However, his efforts were not for naught. Looking at his arms he realized that he could see a sort of haze, like an aura clinging to him, that wasn’t there before he got the mana sight skill.

  Happy with his new findings, he finally reached the parking spot. The other car was gone, leaving his truck all alone in the shade of the large oaks that grew all around. It was quite pleasant, to enter the truck and not be greeted by hell itself despite the summer heat, the parking spot earning bonus points in Michael’s mind.

  By the time Michael reached Old Dave’s Pawn Shop, it was too late and the pawn shop had closed for the night. Too bad, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Surprised at his own patience and mellow reaction, Michael stopped at a diner close by for a quick bite and got back to driving. It was getting quite late, his mana experiments had taken a few hours longer than planned, and he was tired. Tired enough that he missed the first few strange lights he saw at the side of the road, mistaking them for traffic or garden lamps powered by solar cells.

  It was only when he kept seeing strange halos of glimmering light, strange shapes that sometimes floated, sometimes hung to the ground like blobs, that Michael realized that perhaps he wasn’t just seeing some normal lights. He concentrated, slowing down so that he better could see the strange apparitions, and noticed that the lights seemed to spring into existence when he got close to them, only for them to disappear behind him as he drove past them.

  Their colors were many, and sometimes they behaved like a swarm of fireflies, dancing in the air. Stopping the truck when he saw a particularly large cloud of these lights, he walked right inside it and frowned. His mana pool was slowly filling itself up.

  The mana tasted… stale, for a lack of a better word, compared to the mana of the dungeon. As if the clouds of mana by the road had been drifting around for ages, their colors diminished and less vibrant, fireflies compared to the bright embers coming from the dungeon. They also lacked something, a missing ingredient that made their power limited. Indeed, while Michael’s mana pool was filling up, he also noticed that there was something else, like a second pool which wasn’t benefitting from the mana clouds.

  The clouds themselves were just floating around, but sometimes he could see a little rock, or perhaps a sign, or some little debris by the side of the road glowing with the faintest traces of magic. Some of them were items of significance, others were just random junk or literal rocks just lying there and doing nothing. It was puzzling.

  The clouds of mana were by far the most common phenomenon, drifting lazily in the air, unperturbed by the air currents and moving according to their will. Or moved by forces unseen.

  Michael tried influencing them on a whim, and found that he could somewhat manipulate them if he concentrated on his mana regeneration. It drew the cloud towards him and into his body, slowly but surely diminishing its bulk, but even as he struggled to maximize his pulling power, the amount of mana he gained was vanishingly low. A single Copper coin easily held as much mana as the biggest of the clouds he encountered, which would take him ages to absorb.

  This meant that there was mana in the world after all, he thought as he was once again driving home, this time keeping a keen eye out for any abnormalities. He wondered whether it had always been there, or if perhaps it had once been more prevalent, growing stale and losing power with the passing of the ages.

  Did this mean that there had been an age of magic, long ago, and that for some reason magic had been slowly vanishing from Earth, at least until the dungeon arrived? It could explain some things, he guessed, but it was too early to make assumptions.

  Seeing magic at large in the world made him more paranoid. His backpack, currently resting on the passenger seat, was literally glowing with magical power to his sight, packed with the 68 Copper coins inside of it. And if Michael could see it, then someone else with a similar skill or ability might also see it. It was like a bright beacon in the dark, compared to the mana-starved rest of the world.

  He had to hide the coins, and all proof of magic, until he knew more. Were there other entrances, other people with powers, and if yes, how strong were they? Was magic a thing before the dungeon, and how much of its former power did it lose to time? He thought about half-forgotten facts about Stonehenge, or about the cathedrals built in the vast plains of France in the middle of nowhere, supposedly following ley-line divinations.

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  He felt his mind expand just by thinking about all these possibilities, the edges of thought touching upon worrying topics, ones that could upheave his prospects of life forever, opening up opportunities and exposing him to risks.

  ***

  The next day, first thing in the morning, Michael went to Old Dave’s Pawn Shop. He almost skipped his new morning routine, but then thought better of it and forced himself to eat and train. He was starting to put on some good muscle thanks to his cheat training regimen, but apart from his height he was still a long way from looking threatening.

  He knew he would need to toughen up if Old Dave was to give him the job he promised.

  “Probably a bouncer at some shady club, but money is money and you can meet all sorts of people in clubs. Plus, Old Dave himself looks like a good connection to have.”

  Making up his mind to convince the old man to give him the job as soon as possible, he walked into the pawn shop with the loot from the previous day’s dungeon delving to sell.

  “Welcome back, kid.” Old Dave beckoned him over, “I was wondering whether you’d show up again. Looks like I was right.”

  “I was late yesterday, couldn’t make it,” Michael said, wincing at his own need to explain himself. He had blurted out the first thing that came to mind, as if Old Dave’s sheer presence demanded explaining.

  He forced himself not to thrust his hand in the pocket where he held some coins for emergencies.

  “If you’re late again, just knock. I live upstairs. If I’m not sleeping, I can make time for a friend. So, what do you have for me?”

  Michael took out the bracelet and the coin. Mustang was soon called, bursting out of his tiny room in the back with a slew of instruments. As the large man crouched over the goods, Michael and Old Dave made small talk.

  “It sure is hot, these days.”

  “It is. I go hiking and it’s always a sweaty business. That’s why I bring a lot of water with me,” Michael said, pointing at his large backpack. The bulk of the coins was in the car, hidden, as were the dagger, shield and gun. But the backpack stayed with him.

  As they talked, Michael tried to use his mana sight to see if there was anything out of the ordinary in the dusty shop. It was harder to tell in daylight, but not impossible.

  “Old Dave has no mana signature, and neither does Mustang. So far, I have seen nobody with even a shred of mana in their bodies,” he thought.

  He had examined himself in a mirror in the dark, at home, and had confirmed what he had seen before: he was glowing faintly, an aura of magic shrouding his body. It was on a similar level to the Copper coins and made it impossible to hide his magic from anyone who could see mana.

  Some items in the shop had a faint glow.

  “Ah, that one,” Old Dave said, noticing Michael’s gaze, “it’s an old heirloom. A sweet old lady sold it to me. I gave her a good deal because she was nice, but she never came back to buy it back. Sad, it happens all too often. Sometimes I wonder, what’s the story behind all these things they sell me? They rarely tell me, and Mustang here surely doesn’t care, only trying to strike the good bargains and shooing people away once we have their stuff. Cold heart.”

  “You’re the one to talk!” the man grumbled, “don’t listen to him kid. He’s ruthless.”

  “Well,” Old Dave shrugged with a grin, “you gotta make yourself a living, don’t you?” he looked at Michael. “I did help you with the silver, didn’t I? Friends get treated well.”

  Since Mustang was still studying the coin, having finished his evaluation of the bracelet, Michael decided it was time to broach the other topic he wanted to talk about.

  “Listen, Old Dave,” he began, and saw that he had the old man’s undivided attention. It felt sharp, heavy. “About the job you talked about last time.”

  Old Dave hummed. “Yes, you have been eating. Doing other things too… perhaps. It ain’t worth it, kid, not for this job and not for any other.”

  “I’m not on gear. I have a… special training method.”

  Old Dave shrugged. “If you say so. Even then, I don’t know about it. It’s a bit early. You look tougher, and your eyes… you have seen some shit these last few days, I can tell. A fight club or something?” the man laughed to himself, “but do I know for sure that you can keep your cool when some rich brat and their drunk friends start making a mess of things in a club, with all the music and mess? I don’t know about that.”

  “Just give me a chance to prove myself. If I mess up, I don’t get paid. But trust me, I have skills. I just hide more than I show.”

  There was a twinkle in the old man’s eyes. “You know how to speak my language kid, I’ll give you that. I’m all for fair wages, heck, even more than fair wages, but I don’t give no shit to people who don’t deserve it. Right now, you need to show me that you deserve my help.”

  “You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Old Dave thought about it for a few seconds. “Mmh. That, plus whatever the hell your side hustle is…” he looked at Mustang, who was salivating over the coin like a hound presented with a juicy steak, “yes, I can see the profit in working with you. Plus, my gut tells me you will surprise me. Perhaps it’s bullshit, but gut doesn’t lie, and my gut says you can be a good asset.” He held out a hand, and they shook.

  “Come back this evening,” Old Dave said, “you don’t have the presence to do any real bouncer stuff yet, but that can be fixed with time and practice. This job I got for you will give you an idea of the sort of stuff you gotta do as well. If you like it, and I like you, then there’s more down the line.”

  They shook hands again, and Michael walked out with a nice sum of money from the bracelet and coin he sold to an overly excited Mustang. The job would also pay well, and bouncer duty at a club would play well into his current skill set, even though he had no intention of making it into a career.

  He could also scan the crowd in search of other magically enhanced people, as well as make connections. Tonight’s club was supposedly nothing of importance, but Old Dave had hinted at bigger jobs where the sons of some big shots liked to hang out, the kind of people with more money than sense, and always with problems to solve.

  Ideas upon ideas quickly sprung to his mind as he sat at the small diner close to the pawn shop, taking notes on his phone and ordering coffee after coffee so as not get thrown out of the place.

  “Healing is probably the safest route. There are a lot of rich people with incurable illnesses who would pay handsomely for a cure. I need to find the limits of my skill and how to improve it of course, but… yeah, I could make a lot of money with it. If I want to use him and his connections, I need to win Old Dave’s complete trust and make sure I can trust him as well. To do that, I need to become irreplaceable. One step at a time.”

  One step at a time. Do the job, meet people, gain some trust with Old Dave. Repeat as many times as needed, while still delving the dungeon every other day. Then, when the right opportunity presents itself, make the move. No earlier. Michael was not some sort of superhuman who can lift cars or shrug off bullets. If he messed up, no amount of healing or repulsive force bubbles could save him from his mistakes.

  It was at that moment that someone walked in, the little bell attached to the diner’s door jingling twice. Michael looked up, and his jaw snapped shut.