Return

A chaotic few hours pass, and an exhausted duo leave the association building. A short drive later, they arrive back to the headquarters of the Haven Greenhouse party. Tired and throats sore from talking to various association members for the previous few hours, the duo quietly enters the elevator, selecting the 5th floor. The silence in the elevator lasts until it opens, when a blast of noise and excitement hits the girls in the face.

"Welcome home Callen!"

A resounding cheer erupts among those present, and Callen can't help but smile at the enthusiasm of her friends. Entering the room, Callen is led to a chair by Sera, highly reminiscent of a throne that has seemingly been hastily constructed in the time she was gone. Sitting down, Callen looks around the now bright and cheery room, and then excitedly raises her fist to the air.

"Let the welcoming celebration begin!"

a hearty laugh erupts from the group, food being passed around before questions begin to be asked. Tia, after taking a bite of her sandwich, inquisitively looks at Callen.

"So, what ended up happening exactly Callen?"

Taking a moment to swallow, Callen smiles as she responds.

"I awakened as a German Shepard wolf mix, my power's name is Enchantress."

Almost choking on his food, Fredric snorts, receiving looks of disgust from the women in the room in response.

"Pfft, Enchantress, who would have guessed our big strong Callen would become like this!"

Mercilessly, Sera kicks Fredric in the shin, to the surprise of no one. Ignoring the troublemaker, Destin tilts his head and coughs.

"U-uh, that aside, what can you do exactly? It certainly doesn't sound entirely combat focused, but its not simply the enchanter ability so I guess it isn't purely craft based either."

"To make it simple, I'll just explain it like this."

Touching her hand, an intricate magic circle appears on the palm.

"By controlling my mana, I can apply temporary or permanent magic circles with various effects to objects or creatures. Right now I can only do a few things with the mana I have, but I'm basically an all-rounder. Plus I can heal, so I can fill that slot you've been missing!"

Smug smile on Callen's face, the party dramatically bows to the queen for a few seconds.

Jack, rising from his joking worship, enters the kitchen and grabs a few snacks before sitting down once more.

"So, now that I have more snacks, and we finally have a full party, what do we want to do? Shall we keep responding to breaks like we have or do we push for dungeon clears for the big rewards?"

silence falling across the room, the group is unable to respond immediately to the question. After two minutes of nothing, Callen sighs.

"I say we stick to the usual, and if desperate or if we receive a specific request we can do clears. I personally have never been in a dungeon, so I couldn't tell you what its like to clear em."

A nod of agreement circles the room unanimously, and after a while longer of chatting, Callen makes her way to the room that she was given, new bag in hand and smile on her face.

Upon entering the room, Callen immediately changes into a set of fluffy pajamas she bought, and spends a bit admiring herself.

"I've always wanted to wear one of these, they looked so comfy!"

Plomfing down into a office chair, Callen spins over to the desk, pulling a large circle locket out of her bag. Opening it, Callen begins to create a magic circle that she had memorized.

Mana, although something that comes naturally to awakened, isn't natural to the human body and takes a unique form for every individual. Due to this, methods of mana collection that allow for you to discover the most optimal method of gathering can't be made in a general way. An individual had to either figure it out themselves, which is extremely inefficient, or find someone to cast the combination spell 'Mana Insight'. In order to cast this spell, despite it's low complexity and cost, you had to be able to create a spell utilizing four separate magic circles. Due to this, only fourth stage spellcasters could cast the spell, which created a large demand and low supply of people that could actually cast it. Callen, with most of her belongings having been destroyed, could never afford the price that it would cost to have the spell cast on her. Thankfully however, she had memorized the spell years ago for Destin, who was absolutely terrible at memorization. She would simply draw the circles on a small piece of paper which would be consumed in the process. It was terribly inefficient, but thinking back to that time brought a smile to her face.

It took her a few hours and around a few hundred broken circles (which thankfully didn't consume mana), but Callen finally manages to finish the Locket before the sunrises. Immediately putting it on and infusing mana into the locket, Callen is delighted to find that with little to no mana cost she could sense her internal flow of mana. With the knowledge that she would soon be able to find an efficient way to collect mana, only a day after awakening. Standing for half a second before slamming into the bed next to her, Callen quickly falls asleep.