Ambient Mage

A few days had passed since the hatching of Alea.

Aura and I spent most of our free time with her.

Our free time usually used for training was now spent in training or watching over Alea.

Even though she could handle herself, she was still a newborn.

Her ability to communicate long distance was decent.

I could almost hear her from the city.

Naturally when I went to the library or anywhere else within the academy walls I could hear her voice.

There wasn't much to speak of when it came to difficulties.

Soon enough, Alea began to sleep in the same schedule as me, even though she really didn't need it.

Dragons such as herself could sleep to store energy, mana, and other things.

Mana treated my sleep as if it were a mini nap.

And our sleep schedules were aligned.

As for her diet, expeditions out of the academy into a monsters den, a forest, or ruins, contained enough monster meat with mana for her to eat her fill.

She also continued to snack on my own mana when she pleased.

It was an interesting feeling.

Not like being hurt.

But also not like being healed.

I didn't really feel fatigue afterwards.

I couldn't tell if the effects were dangerous yet, so I let Alea continue to eat my mana.

In the end, whether I was studying, practicing, learning, or training, Alea had become an integral part of my life.

Aura and I on some of our outings to the city would just watch as the baby dragon ran.

Whenever we'd get questions about the race of the dragon, we'd say it was a spirit.

Alea did act like a spirit in some ways. 

Spirit's contract's use mana to be fulfilled, so summoning and keeping a summon both required mana.

Alea's habit of eating my mana served to show off the 'spiritual contract' we had made.

When asked if the contract had any adverse effects, I let them know there were none.

I didn't lose parts of my maximum mana pool, experience emotional shifts, or any of the other major problems related to summoning a spirit.

Naturally this led them to ask it's destructive power.

I knew Alea could probably level a part of this town using whichever magic she chose.

It was a very big percent. maybe 2% of the whole city, but it was still enough to do some real damage.

But as a newly contracted spirit, especially if the spirit doesn't 'talk' despite it's summoning, it was clearly a low ranked spirit, capable of most everyday things, and the occasional battle, but nothing serious.

On another note, spirits are able to disconnect from their contractors.

Whether contractors 'own' their spirit is up for debate, since technically spirits are a race, but they are also a force of nature.

So if one has the attribute of water, one can also have the attribute of the spirit of water.

So for now, until that debate is settled by the great scholars in the echelons above, I'll refrain from any crazy sayings.

The 'ownership' part of the spirits is debated since, aside from natural spirits, any contracted spirit that breaks it's contract to stay in the mortal realm as opposed to the spirit realm, must use all the mana, then all the life force within them to stay alive in the mortal realm.

***

Another few days had passed by.

Over the weekend I asked Genoa about her experience with draconic beings.

Some of her anecdotes helped, some didn't but altogether they gave me a new perspective on Alea, but also on myself. I think she sensed that as she didn't ask me what it was for and let me enlighten myself.

I could feel the 4th circle, I was inching ever so close.

I was already far stronger than needed for the next episode, so I spent my time mostly in the libraries, studying the languages that Fiadh had given me.

I had learned most of the gnomish language, and while it still wasn't truly native, it was close enough to speak with any gnome outside of their capital.

I wanted to take to dwarven, after I learned elven.

I had already started work on elven, but not yet in dwarven.

But after a long few days in the library and the teachings of Aika, I needed some rest.

So I decided today I would go out to the city with Charlotte, or Aura, just the two of us.

And tomorrow, I would take Alea on the big trek to see her mother.

I left Alea with Mark and Harry, since I could trust the two of them to take care of Alea while I couldn't reach her.

They were concerned about the fact she had no food source while I was away and would unsummon herself, but I let them know of the mana meat I had left behind for her.

I purposely cut the monsters into tiny chunks as if Alea was eating a rat or other small prey.

I thought that would keep them from freaking out as she ate a boar's amount of mana meat.

But I could trust them to keep her fed and happy.

With that Aura and I left for the city.

I was originally going to go with Charlotte as I didn't spend too much time with her over the last 4 days or so, but she had something come up with Revonia, so I left it as it was.

Aura and I enjoyed our time out, it was a little different without the scenery of Alea doing alea things like watching and trying to catch butterflies, or snakes and other small creatures.

One particular day Alea went down an alley to chase a wiener dog.

It was kind of cute to see two long pets chase after each other, though I wouldn't exactly say Alea is a pet.

Aura and I spent some time at the emporium and at a few entertainment spots.

We decided to return back to the dorms to get Alea, before we went back to the city to grab some food to take home for dinner.

Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Celeste called Aura, letting us know something had happened to the two guys out in the academy square.

I had hoped that Mark and Harry would have kept her happy, and fed.

And they did, but instead of getting Alea once we got to the dorms and going back to the city, we now had to deal with an issue.

Mark and Harry, passed out on the square, with no Alea in sight.

 I couldn't even feel her link.

Something had gone very wrong.

I shook Mark, no response. I did the same to Harry, no response.

This was premeditated.

Someone was going after Alea and had purposefully kept the two of them from waking up to avoid being sold out and arrested.

Whoever was found guilty of this might be expelled, but it was unlikely as the spell to Harry and Mark was nonlethal and would probably let them wake up in a few hours.

I decided that I wasn't going to wait a few hours.

I went ahead and used mind magic to infiltrate the two's memories.

Something I knew I shouldn't have done since it technically was an attack, but Alea was too important.

From what I could find, someone ordered an attack on Mark and Harry to capture Alea.

They captured Alea, mana chunks and all, inside a cage. I assumed the cage kept the mana within, and disconnected her from the outside world.

These people were probably slave traders, and usually weren't allowed on student grounds, except to take those who had fallen into debt.

My initial thought process was someone hired them, but perhaps, someone fell into debt and used my daughter as collateral.

But who?

I needed to calm down and think, before they left someone in different clothing from the traders cast the spell on Mark and Harry, meaning someone had hired him.

I began to suspect the person in debt wasn't in debt at all and had simply pretended to be to have my daughter taken as collateral and sold off.

When I found out who did this there would be hell to pay.

But first to the city where most likely Alea was being auctioned off.

I needed to find Sarah and fast.

I quickly ran to the shop Sarah was usually operating.

When I got there another employee was already standing there waiting.

I pulled out my purple card and asked for Sarah, the employee not knowing who I was, or what my relation to Sarah was told me that she had stepped out.

Next plan. I was going to seek her daughter to find Sarah's whereabouts.

Sally was close by.

So I ran there too.

Sally knew where her mom was, which was at the store.

The employee had lied to me, probably to protect who she thought was a fellow employee from harassment from a purple card owner, not realizing it was an emergency.

I ran back to the shop and this time was greeted by none other than Sarah herself.

"Sarah I need that favor."

"What is it?"

"It's an emergency."

Her face turned solemn at once.

"Tell me what you need."

"I'll explain it best I can."

"I have a high ranking spirit masquerading as a low ranked spirit."

"She is a newborn spirit and has only one spiritual parent her mother."

"I, her contractor have taken the father role, in the single parent dynamic that spirits' families usually are."

"And so your spirit 'daughter' is missing?"

"Stolen."

Sarah's eyes narrowed as they spit fire.

A parent knew the feeling of losing a child by kidnapping, even if it never happened.

"What happened?"

"Slave traders, I believe duped by someone to take her and sell her off as collateral."

"So you think one of my auctions has collateral goods being sold."

"Actually I know a few that do and I need their ledgers."

"What?"

She looked surprised.

"Don't mind the favor. In return for showing me these spots I'll find your daughter."

I took the lantern and Sarah's hand and teleported to 10 of the auctions where Sarah promptly had an overseer come to look at all their ledgers.

We teleported 12 times, once to each auction once for the Overseer and once more to return to the center.

Sarah and I looked over the data, until I found something that matched.

It was a ferret-cat hybrid.

It had notes as well.

-Can sell high to a noble lady

-Is a special animal

I had my target.

"Thank you Sarah."

"No thank you, now go get your daughter."

Without another word, I left to the auction.

I went to the back and turned into ambient mana.

I had gotten better at controlling it.

But it was still decently slow taking a few minutes.

I peered inside at the cages, and looked around until I found the dark orange cage that held Alea.

I couldn't send her a message via mana but I could make noise to attract her attention and partially materialize.

And that's exactly what I did.

I heard a meow come from the container so I knew that she knew she was safe.

Now to find the slavers and the culprit.

I wafted around the back, looking for the sketchy looking merchants.

I used mana to blow off one of the Slavers hats, and began to blow it towards a room I was already manifesting in.

The room was dark and the light ended right at my feet.

You could see my feet standing there in the dark, and nothing else.

The hat came to rest right beside me.

The slave turned and looked in the room.

"My hat. Godd-"

Another one of the two slavers put his hand out.

"Stop. There's someone there."

The other one looked down next to the hat and saw the shoes.