Getting a grinder cost Roge a whopping one gold to buy, though he found it worth it. Adding an extra step to the potion making process wasn’t fun, but it was better to actually make the potions rather than using his hoard skill. It would balance out his classes a bit better in the long run, after all. ‘Speaking of..’ He thought, pulling up the bonuses he received from [Farm Hoard] and [Bonded Tools].

  “Well… this should make Marge happy,” Roge commented, pulling Sean’s attention away from the crowded streets. “I have a bonded slot open, and I got another recipe slot on top of it.”

  “That’s great!” Sean said, the lion giving Roge a pat on the shoulder. “So I’m guessing the recipe is going to be arrows for her?”

  “Yup. Should be easy once I take a look at her stocks.” He hummed as he looked at the new bonded slot, feeling at a loss as to what to fill it with. “Do you have any ideas for what the next bonded item should be?”

  “Not sure. Not much of a magic guy myself.” Roge frowned at that, looking to Sean and getting the distinct feeling of mana from him. It wasn’t really a feeling he could pin down, which probably meant a smaller mana pool, but like he could feel the energy inside himself, he could also feel it from the lion.

  “Why not? Don’t you have a magic ability?”

  “What? No, Roge. Purely martial based abilities here.”

  The dragon frowned at that, not being able to get a taste of what flavor the mana was. “Hey, did I ever tell you how I got the glass bottle buff?” he asked, an idea coming to his mind.

  “No… something to do with the Church, right?”

  Roge quickly explained the extra feature of the primordial ash, Sean’s eyes widening at Roge pulling out the skill gems. “You want to take my skill levels?”

  “No, not at all. I want to see if I’m right about you having mana.” He swapped out the quartz with ash in one of his bottles, pulling it out of his inventory and showing it to Sean. “If you having the ash gives me some connection, then if you don’t have mana, I should be able to feel it.”

  “Shouldn’t I need ten of those, then?” the lion asked, causing Roge to blink. “That’s usually how your buffs work.”

  “Fair point.” Roge found that he could put two units of the ash in one bottle, filling up a total of five of them and frowning at his dwindling bottle stocks. “We need to buy more bottles. Also other crystal dust for the bombs.” He’d noticed in that moment that the recipes for the bombs actually did not include pure quartz, instead requiring other gemstones. He assumed they had elemental properties the potions needed, coming back to the present and handing over the five bottles to a waiting Sean. “Each contains two.”

  Once all five were in Sean’s inventory, a weird feeling suddenly suffused the dragon. It was like he could constantly feel where Sean was in relation to him, noting that even if he turned his head, he still knew where the lion was. “That’s… odd. I can… feel you?”

  “How far does that sense go?” Sean asked, his smile a bit too wide while Roge focused on the feeling.

  “Just a general sense of where you are. Lemme see if..” He trailed off, focusing on that faint sense he got from the lion before. It now was in sharper focus, the languid energy barely moving in his body clear to the dragon. Even as Sean moved him out of the way of running into someone, the dragon continued to focus on the flavor of the mana, finding it to be a fairly light flavor. It almost glowed on his tongue, a bright, sweet flavor that he finally identified. This system seemed to agree with him, pulling up a screen to show it.

  “[Light Magic],” Roge said, Sean’s attention jerking back to the dragon. “It’s rank zero and says ‘latent’.”

  “That sounds… cool Roge. But I wouldn’t be able to use it, remember?”

  “Are you kidding?! Light would be amazing for a tank!” Roge exclaimed, blinking as he noticed them walking into their inn. “I can even see right here that it could lead to healing, burning, and sight related effects. It would mesh so well with you being a tank.”

  “Inside,” the lion grumbled, Roge keeping his mouth shut until they joined Hops and Marge in their room.

  “How can you not be excited about this? What’s your main tanking class?” Roge asked, the two other party members glancing up at the slightly rude question.

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  “[Knight]. But listen-“

  “That’s even better! I bet it could evolve into a paladin class! Or maybe even something totally different!”

  “What’s… a paladin?” Hops asked, Roge freezing as he realized that the fantasy class from Dnd might not exist in that world anymore.

  “I uh… I don’t…” Roge fumbled, struggling to come up with an explanation while Sean looked more accepting, strangely.

  “That strange intuition you have?” the lion asked, leading Roge to give him a confused look. “You always seem to have… ideas regarding everything. And it mostly works, even when we don’t think it should.”

  “If it could be used to upgrade our classes…” Hops mumbled, once again pulling out his note-taking book. “Explain everything.”

  Once Roge and Sean had gone through what the dragon had done, everyone sat back to think over the implications, Marge snapping to bring Roge’s attention to her. “Gimme.”

  He rolled his eyes as he used the old quartz sack to give her ten units of ash, feeling his awareness of her blossom just like Sean’s still did. It didn’t take him too long to find her mana, the slow energy almost wispy and light.

  “[Wind Magic] sounds scary…” Roge muttered, Marge sitting back and thinking on the information.

  “Roge?” Hops abruptly asked, the dragon giving him a questioning look. “Try stimulating the mana? You said it’s barely moving, yes?”

  “Yeah. Mine is constantly churning in my body even when I’m not manipulating it. You think that’s why it doesn’t show up?”

  “Oh yeah. My fire mana does the same thing. Here.” Hops handed over another empty sack for Roge to fill, his ash stores now going down to a worrying thirty two. “You see now?”

  “Yeah… woah….” Roge mumbled, watching most of Hops’ mana flying around in his body. Almost like it was a living flame. “Wait…” He also saw some of the mana not responding, piquing his interest as he felt it out.

  “You have two types of mana?” Roge squawked, Hops leaning forward in excitement. “My screen says its [Illusion Magic]…”

  “No wonder illusion runes work so well for me,” the elf said as he slapped his forehead. “Do as I said, though. Try to stimulate the magic in me first, then the others if they want.

  ~~~

  While Roge was trying to feel and effect the mana in the elf, Sean and Marge discussed what arrows the dragon could make for her. Marge wanted one of everything, while Sean recommended she stick with a few to make it easier to fight consistently. He was glad for the hard discussion, as sensing the mana inside another person was one thing, but actually coaxing it to activate was quite another. He eventually had to close his eyes with a claw pressed against the Hops’ chest, the elf also meditating to hopefully improve the odds. Just thinking of it moving didn’t work, as well as asking or trying to grab it with his own mana. Frustration quickly built, Roge absolutely sure he *should* be able to effect it, as why else would he have the power. ‘Dragon’s manipulate and hoard things after all, so why…’

  He paused at that, feeling a little dumb as he changed his approach. He pushed in a small bit of his own mana again, Hops moving slightly in discomfort. Then Roge mixed his mana with the illusion mana, not *trying* to move it, but *commanding* it to move. To *activate*.

  With as much force behind the feeling as he could muster, feeling that same pushback that he felt when he was pushing through screens before, the mana finally relented. The illusion mana became just as active as Hops’ fire mana, bursting in his chest and causing the elf to gasp.

  “You did it!” he cheered, a smile on his face as he looked at a screen Roge could also see.

  That was the moment that Roge could feel something else, the fire and illusion mana condensing in Hops’ core. Trying to fill something and… failing? Like he was pushing back against the feeling.

  “Stop,” Roge commanded, his mana still inside the elf and halting the flow. “Relax. What is your body telling you?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Hops muttered, his body seemingly frozen.

  “Your mana-“

  “No. I mean I don’t know what its trying to do, so I can’t help it.” Roge paused at that, taking a closer look at everything and letting out a sigh. He was about to speak when he noticed something. This time inside himself.

  His core was filled, like Hops’ core was supposed to be. But it was filled with both Draconic and Nature mana. But no Spacial mana. ‘And what do those two magics have in common…’

  “What are elves known for?” Roge asked, ignoring the rest of the room to hyper-focus on his friend.

  “Well… they’re good with magic,” Hops hummed, Roge matching his slow breathing precisely. “They commune with nature. Even without nature magic, we have a high affinity with it.”

  “Right. Pull up the species info.” Roge grabbed the screen as soon as it popped up, looking over the information and smiling.

  “Your [Wizard] class. How does it work?” Roge asked, keeping his slow breathing synced with Hops.

  “I use the rune language of the world to make effects.”

  “And doesn’t that mesh well with the Elven Descriptor? I assume the runes come to you more easily.” As the dragon said that, he could feel the magic inside Hops gravitate more towards his core. Like the understanding helped it to fill a hole.

  “Well yeah. The runes tend to work a little better when I have them work *with* natural effects, rather than on their own.”

  “Like they enhance the natural way the magic of the world works.” At that, Roge lost all control of Hops’ mana, it filling and shining out of that part of himself. With a gasp, the elf looked at the new screens that popped up, Roge recognizing them instantly.

  “And there we go.”