Taiven blinked, seemingly baffled by the question. «Well, that would be downright inhuman!» she said finally. «Is that even possible? Anyway, I’m not sure whether that would even be a good thing, even for a battlemage like me. Anyone with such mana reserves would have to spend years longer than their peers just to gain a basic level of proficiency expected of a certified mage. Maybe as much as a decade even, I don’t know.»
Zorian thought about what a relative failure Zach was before the time loop and frowned. He had thought that Zach had simply been a lazy slacker, but maybe there was more to it than that? Then again, he had a feeling Zach was a special case. Those inhuman mana reserves were just that — completely outside the human range. He found absolutely no records of people like that in any of the books, and most of the experts he asked flat out told him such people didn’t exist outside of myths. Also, while Zach had been a crappy mage, he did succeed in getting certified so his huge mana reserves clearly weren’t as crippling as they should have been.
Maybe it was a Noveda House bloodline? One that gave their family huge reserves without the crippling loss of control, perhaps. Of course, the Noveda publically claimed they had no bloodline, but it wouldn’t be the first time a House had lied.
«I hesitate to even bring this up,» Taiven said, breaking him out of his thoughts, «but if you’re really desperate for a short term mana boost, you can always absorb ambient mana faster than you can assimilate it. I’m sure you’re aware of the drawbacks, though…»
Zorian nodded. There were two main forms of mana available to the mage: his personal mana and the ambient one that emanated from the underworld. Personal mana was something that all things with a soul possessed in varying amounts, and it was attuned to the person producing it — it bent easily to its creator’s will, and was innately more malleable and controllable than anything else they might use to power their magic, since it never resisted the caster’s efforts to shape it. Ambient mana, on the other hand, was both harder to control and toxic to living beings. Not enough to kill a mage just for using it once, but any substantial, prolonged use resulted in sickness and insanity. The mages of old believed that ambient mana was tainted by the World Dragon’s hate for humanity and shunned its use, but modern mages had discovered a few tricks to making use of it. One was by using it to power items, which had no minds to corrupt or bodies to sicken. The other was to assimilate the ambient mana into their personal reserves, negating its toxic properties. While the process of assimilation was too slow to power actual spells, being able to regenerate personal reserves faster was useful enough that the skill spread far and wide. These days, every student of magic was taught how to do it along with the other basics of spellcasting.
«I’ll get sick,» Zorian said. «And possibly mad, if I keep using it constantly.»
«Right,» Taiven said. «Using raw mana on a regular basis is pretty stupid, but if you’re in a real bind… well, it’s better to spend a few days bedridden with a fever than end up dead.»
«You’ve used it before,» guessed Zorian.
Taiven gave him a surprised look, like it was unexpected he figured it out. «Uh, maybe once? Or twice?» She shifted her stance, looking uncomfortable. «But keep quiet about that, will you? Most combat mages have done it a couple of times in their life, but Guild inspectors don’t accept ‘everybody’s doing it’ as an excuse.»
Zorian made a gesture over his mouth, indicating that his lips are sealed. It’s not like she didn’t know plenty of things to get him in trouble with, anyway.
«Let’s just get back to the lesson, oh great teacher,» Zorian said. «Since you’re so intent on teaching me mana-intensive fire spells, how about that fire vortex I heard you can cast…»
When the time came, Taiven and her two friends let Zorian take point as he led them towards aranea territory. They had already tried and failed to divine the location of the watch, which wasn’t terribly unusual if it really was taken by the aranea — the aranea had been engaged in a shadow war with the invaders for a while now, even before the time loop started, and their anti-divination wards were top-notch.
[We meet again, Zorian Kazinski,] the matriarch spoke telepathically to him. She was surrounded by 6 honor guards, though only 2 were actually visible while the other four hung from the ceiling while under some kind of invisibility spell. Zorian only knew they were there because he could sense their minds. [And once again you bring additional guests with you. Three of them this time. If this pattern continues, we’ll have to find a more spacious area to house them all after a few more restarts.]
[Funny,] Zorian sent back. [But actually, this is the group I was a part of when I first met the aranea. We were looking for a watch supposedly in your possession then, same as we are now. Sounds familiar?]
«What’s going on?» asked Taiven. She and her two friends were hanging in the back, looking apprehensively at the three spiders in front of them. «Why are you just staring at them?»
Before Zorian could say anything, the matriarch started waving her front four legs in the air for a while and then spoke.
«What’s this about a watch I hear?» she asked, turning her two biggest, forward-facing eyes at Taiven.
It took a few minutes of explaining and clarifications, but in the end the matriarch finally seemed to remember the event in question.
«Oh, now I remember,» she said. «Though the man in question certainly wasn’t any kind of innocent passerby, and the ‘watch’ is no simple time-keeping device — he had assaulted our web with a couple of other thugs and ended up dropping his bauble when we chased them off.»
[He’s one of the invaders,] the matriarch told him telepathically, so only he could hear. [Or at least he works for them. You say you saw him? Excellent, we finally have an entry point into the organization. A face, a name and face-to-face contact should be enough to divine where he lives… you know his name, don’t you? Excellent. Hopefully he gave away his real one. Did you shake hands with him when you accepted the job? No? Try to shake hands with him when you give him the device. Maybe put a tracking spell on it if you know how…]
Somehow, the matriarch was able to participate in two separate conversations at once, speaking out loud to Taiven and her two friends as she spoke telepathically to Zorian. Zorian himself was not similarly blessed, and mostly tuned out her explanation to Taiven in order to absorb what she was telling him mentally. Finally, she seemed to realize this and cut her telepathic communication with him short, allowing him to pay attention to what she had been saying to Taiven.
«…so I’m not sure what the device is for, but it’s clearly a magical item of some sort,» the matriarch said out loud. «It’s useless for us aranea, but we are well familiar with the concept of trade. We were hoping to trade it to some of our human contacts for something we can actually use, but since it’s our dear friend Zorian that’s asking for it, I guess we’ll give it to you as a favor. I’m sure Zorian will make it up to us… eventually.»
«Uhh…» fumbled Taiven, looking at him uncertainly. «Is… that okay, Roach? Are you…?»
«Yeah, I’m fine with that,» Zorian shrugged. Although as far as he was concerned he didn’t really owe any favors to the matriarch for this.
[I only said that for appearances sake,] the matriarch told him telepathically. [It would be weird if we just gave it up for no reason. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, you will repay my generosity by helping me track down your employer so we can wring him for information.]
«Fang of Victory will go and retrieve the bauble,» the matriarch said out loud, causing one of the two visible honor guards to suddenly skitter off into the darkness. «I’d ask you to warn your employer against further aggression against us, but it’s probably best if you keep quiet about talking to us.»