Chapter 15: The Temple (Part 2)

After over two hours of the moderately paced, magically powered cart ride, I can just begin to see walls in the distance.

During the ride, I'm sat next to Jin in the front of the cart, whilst Mary is sitting in the back, keeping an eye on the surroundings and occasionally chatting with my father and me.

Entering my Trance to both help me lookout for anything interesting better, as well as continue to expand my mana pool, the ride so far has been extremely dull. No fights, no bandit attacks, no interesting creatures or monsters, nothing! Just boring stuff all around.

At this point, with my eyes closed and my senses focused on myself, I can start to sense something within myself.

It feels as if there was a second entity, layered upon the exact space that my heart took up. Weird, yet intriguing.

It looks as if it was a small translucent dark-grey crystal about half the size of my heart. Taking a moment, I think I have a way to cure a bit of my boredom. Stepping out of my Trance, I send as much mana as humanly possible out of my body, leaving it with at most five percent of my total pool, more than enough to trigger the weird mana-regen effect.

Re-entering a trance and peering back into myself, I try once again to gaze at the strange crystal, only to be met with a wall of unbelievable, unceasing, pain.

Breaking my Trance state and curling over, it felt as if every single nerve in my body had been frozen solid, then unfrozen by a scalding burning heat.

The pain barely lasted a moment or two, but to me, it felt like hours had passed. My mother immediately stopped what she was doing and picked me up to hold me close, as my father was struggling to keep the cart steady whilst constantly looking back at us.

"What happened? Aero are you okay?" My mother said worriedly, but right now, more pressing matters were at hand.

Although I was not focused at all, in fact, I had just come out of a lot of pain and was still getting my balance back, it felt as if I was still in my Trance state.

I could see better, and hear better. I felt the increase in strength and agility, it was as if I had never left. Focusing on myself for a second, I was able to catch a glimpse of something, before pain once again reared its ugly head. This time, a lot more manageable, and probably just due to mana exhaustion.

"I think I'm okay? My chest hurt but I feel better!" I said smiling, giving my mom a big thumbs up. "You scared me! I thought you might have been hurt." My mother said caressing my hair.

"I'm fine! Can I go back up with dad?" I said, making the best puppy eyes I could muster. I needed to be up in the front to run a few tests. "Go right ahead sweetie, Honey? Aero's coming back up, make sure he's safe okay? I'm gonna stay on lookout." Mary said, placing me back next to Jin.

The first, and arguably most important test, is if I could still cast magic. Sitting next to my father, I cast a very simple square barrier. Based on that, my biggest worry is squashed. I still have my magic! However, casting that barrier made me realize something, and I almost jumped with joy from the discovery.

Almost.

Barely being able to contain my excitement, I discovered something beautiful.

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Waiting a minute or two to let my adrenaline run down and mana regenerate, I took a cursory glance back inward. Gently floating there, superimposed right over my heart, is not one dark gray crystal, but two. Each half the size of the original. 

For simplicity, I'll think of the crystal, or crystals now, as a mana heart. My mana capacity did not go down with the crystal breaking, in fact, each mana heart holds seemingly the same amount of mana! If this remains true, my mana pool quite literally has doubled!

Slowly, I point my finger at the sky and create a small, invisible gust of wind. Looking inward as I cast, I can feel the spell draw from both hearts at once. Whatever or whyever the fuck that happened, I don't care. 

It truly was as if I doubled my mana capacity, my only question, is how? Nothing even related to this was ever written in the books. Whatever, I need to keep this to myself for now. An advantage only lasts as long as you're the only one who has it, and it's not like revealing this to anyone would do me any good.

All I need to do now is take it slow and make sure there are no negative consequences to this. 

After that shocking breakthrough, it took another thirty minutes until I saw large stone walls, finally, for the first time in my new life, I'm stepping foot into a real fantasy city!

As we came up to a large wooden gate, we were in line behind two other carts. After a short wait, we got up to two guards at the gates.

"Name and reason for visiting?" The scruffy-looking guard said whilst holding a small orange crystal.

"Name is Jin Fuoco Lintra, this is my wife Mary Davos Lintra, and this is my son Aero Jin Lintra, and today we're taking him to the Mage's Temple to be appraised." My father said as he reached into his dark blue robe, pulling out a small silver card. "This is my identification, A-Rank adventurer. Anything further needed?"

The guard took one glance at the identification card and quickly gave it back to my father. "Absolutely nothing sir. Apologies for the intrusion of privacy, but with the Crown arming for war, we must stay vigilant. Live free." The guard said as he ushered for the gate to be opened. "Live free." My father replied as he started to take off.

Moving through the streets in the cart, I saw sights I never thought possible, well, never thought probable.

There were weapon and armor shops spread throughout the storefronts, market stalls sprawled throughout the main roads, and most surprisingly, non-humans! I saw a group of elves as I know them, I've spotted numerous people with different ears, and tails, a lizard person or two, and even people with wings!

But nothing compared to the marvel of the temple we were headed to. It was a large, lustrous building, created out of perfectly smooth stone, and accented by a beautiful blue gem. Its large windows seemed to be made of translucent blue glass, with a blue substance constantly moving throughout it. Big fan of the color blue huh?

Parking our cart outside the temple, in a zone labeled "Adventurer Cart Area." it was finally time to enter the temple with my parents.

Walking into the temple was a sight to behold. It truly was a temple to the magic arts as I've always imagined it, the entrance was lined with columns, separating different hallways and rooms where different mages could be seen practicing many forms of magic.

At the front, there was an older man standing in royal blue robes, etched and detailed with golden accents and markings. His beard reached halfway down his chest in a majestic white color, and breaking away from his conversation, he locked eyes with my father with a smile.

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