43 Chapter 43

"Multiple colors?" Caly asked confused. "Is it multiple colors or two colors?"

"Two." I replied.

"The other color?" she asked.

"A lot like silver, but a bit paler?" I replied not quite sure myself.

"Platinum." Caly replied then nodded. "Do you remember me telling you I advanced after the gate opened?" she asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah, you were really excited." I replied.

Caly nodded. "Still am to be honest. Advancing...hmmm, it isn't completely accurate, but it isn't wrong either." she said, seeming to mutter to herself before getting back to topic. "Best way I can explain it is when our mana cores level up." she told me.

"Oh?" I asked surprised.

"Yes, the energy I gained from the gate advanced my mana core from blue to purple." she told me. "I wanted you to look at your own to see if yours advanced too. Given what you described it sounds like you are well on your way. When the platinum color completely covers your mana core it will be ready to advance."

"Ready? Wouldn't that mean it had advanced?" Karen asked.

"No." Caly replied. "I don't understand how all of it works, but I know just covering the mana core doesn't cause it to advance. On the plus side you will know when your core advances, it is a very distinct feeling. You feel incredibly empowered, if that makes sense."

Karen looked at me but I just shrugged. My mana core hadn't advanced since it awakened.

"Why now?" I asked. "This isn't the first gate that has opened since I awakened."

"I don't know. Usually you gain the energy to advance from special items like the mana stones your family gave you, or killing mutated beasts and twisted." she replied. "While the gate openings help us grow, I have never heard of it helping us advance."

"Maybe it is the other mana spirit." Megan suggested.

"The mana spirit?" I asked.

"It's the only thing different compared to the other gate openings." Megan replied.

I nodded. "That is true." I said agreeing with her.

"Wait, you have killed twisted, why didn't you notice it sooner?" Karen asked.

"He wouldn't have." Caly answered for me. "As a gold core he needs a lot of energy to advance, and newborn twisted don't provide much. Even with the four he has killed so far I doubt he has even gained one percent of what he needs to advance to platinum."

That was disappointing. Either I was going to have to kill a lot of twisted, or wait until they got a lot stronger if I wanted to advance my mana core, neither of which sounded like a fun idea to me.

"It's fine. If Megan is right, then there will be two more times the gates will open and a new mana spirit will come through. That should help you get closer to advancing." Caly told me.

I nodded, the platinum had covered a bit over half of my mana core, so just one more might be enough for me to advance. I still wasn't sure what the bonus was to advancing, but I was sure I could get Caly to explain later, after their 'girls talk'.

"Alright, I was just worried." I told them.

"It's fine, I would have panicked too." Karen told me.

"I will take a look at the other changes now. Wake me if you need me." told them then leaned back and closed my eyes before shifting my consciousness back into myself. I stared at my mana core with its swirling pattern of gold and platinum for a few moments then pushed my mind inside my mana core so I could see my abilities.

My mana heart which was at the center of my mana core, perfectly reflected my mana core. Again I stared at it for a few moments, beyond resembling my mana core, I could also see the wisps floating within, and there were a lot of them. I decided to look at my abilities first before I tried to count the number of wisps in my mana heart. Like every other gate opening I was expecting them all to gain at least one additional wisp, but since I had passed out for a while I had no idea how much they had grown.

After a few moments I had an idea of the changes. I hadn't gained any new abilities besides the air element, but all the rest had grown.

Bond 4 wisps

Fire 5 wisps

Mental 4 wisps

Physical 4 wisps

Spatial Storage 4 wisps

Shadow 4 wisps

Magic Sight 3 wisps

Regeneration 3 wisps

Tame 3 wisps

Teleportation 4 wisps

Air 4 wisps

I couldn't remember how many wisps I had had in each ability before the gate opened. Maybe I should consider writing it down so I could keep track of how much my abilities grew every time a gate opened. The only issue I had was that someone might find it. While I trusted most of the people I was with right now, I knew there were plenty of people out there that weren't worth that trust. Leaving a copy of the abilities I had and the number of wisps in each, lying around for anyone to find was definitely a bad idea.

Once I knew where my abilities were sitting I shifted my attention back to my mana heart. There were a lot of lights floating around within it, and as they didn't stay still it took me a little while to count them all. I had to try a couple times to ensure I was getting an accurate number and not counting any of them twice. When I was done I was pretty sure I had eighteen wisps. It was a lot more than I had gained from the other awakenings. I would have to ask Caly if that was normal, or another oddity from it being an awakening containing a different mana spirit.

No matter what it was I didn't mind having the extra wisps. I considered using them immediately. I did have a lot of them, and Caly wanted to know if I could gain any of the other elements, but I decided to wait, at least for now.

Instead, since the girls hadn't 'woke' me up yet, I felt it was the perfect opportunity to go through the download of information that each ability provided to me. That way I could start using them. Especially bond and tame. Delilah had been right, I could have created a better bond with the cat, but I was far too nervous with the cat sitting in my lap to take everything in. Let alone bond wasn't as easy to use as it initially seemed. As such reviewing those abilities again would be a smart idea.

Of course the first ability to look into was teleportation. Shadow fire was great, but adding blink to that would be awesome. Plus having a means to get away was always a plus, especially when more mutated beasts and twisted were showing up every day.

I took my time absorbing the information I gained from each of the abilities. I didn't want to rush it and miss something. Teleportation was complicated, I could do it, but I would definitely need practice and the notebook my father had given me if I wanted to get good at it. The biggest downside was the fact that with only four wisps in the ability my range was limited to forty miles, and it would take a lot of concentration and time to make that jump, and that was by myself. To take others with me would add even more time and energy. If I wanted to use it in battle, or to get away from a battle, I would need lots and lots of practice.

Regeneration was pretty self explanatory, but I now had a better idea of what I could heal from and how fast. I was sorely tempted to dump all of my free wisps into the ability to help guarantee my life, but with a great act of will power I resisted.

Mana sight was different. I could activate it and use it to see the magic around me, whether it was free floating, in an object, or inside a person. What it didn't mention was being able to look into another person's mana. Yet that was exactly what I had already used it for. Obviously the information that the ability provided was not nearly as all inclusive as I was beginning to believe it was. While I hadn't expected it to cover everything, I figured the things it didn't mention were merely advanced ways to use the ability. Looking into another person's mana heart didn't feel like an advanced way to use the ability. Instead I felt it was an entirely different facet. Which made me interested in what uses I could find with my other abilities.

The more interesting use it did describe was the ability to track those who contained mana, kind of like a bloodhound tracking a scent. It was something I was going to have to experiment with.

There wasn't much of a surprise with the elementals abilities until I reached air. With air I now had an element that wasn't linked to the others. I considered that for a few moments then I decided to see what I could do with it. Summoning out a wisp from my mana heart I attempted to link air and shadow. I had no idea what kind of ability I would gain from that, but I was incredibly curious to see.

No go. No matter what I considered nothing happened. Not willing to give up I switched to fire and air, the combination for that seemed like it could create very hot fire, or maybe lightning. The wisp was immediately absorbed into the abilities and formed a link between them. Once it had formed I looked into it to see that it really was lightning! I smiled to myself as I realized that I had accomplished another of those links that Delilah had said was difficult. I wasn't sure why I had such an easy time forming those links, but I was grateful for it. With shadowfire and lightning I would have an easier time protecting not only myself, but the girls as well.

Though I had to admit, combining lighting and shadow fire together to form black lighting or something similar would be really cool.

I half expected something to happen when I came up with the idea, but nothing did. Either it wasn't something I could do, or maybe I needed to figure out how to combine shadow and air before I could link all three of them together.

For some reason that idea made me feel like I was on the right track.