Chapter 5

"You still haven't told us what any of this means." Karen pointed out.

I opened the fridge to see what I could find. "Not exactly sure myself. For some reason I started to gather mana from the world around me. To deal with the mana in my body I awakened a mana core. Then I had to create a mana heart. With the mana heart I gained a few abilities. Two of those abilities synced, combined, or whatever it is called, while I was unconscious. That synchronization is why Enya is here." I said then gave up on finding something good and grabbed some lunch meat and cheese to make a sandwich. It would tide me over until I could go out and get something else. It would probably break my diet, but I really didn't care right now.

"And what abilities did you get?" Megan asked excitedly. "Is that why you seem even slimmer?"

I paused then looked down at myself. I hadn't noticed before but my clothes were a bit looser than they had been when I put them on.

"Part of the awakening is a transformation. It doesn't change much about the person, just helps their bodies adapt to the mana. Some weight loss is to be expected. Though I have heard that some unlucky people put on weight instead." Enya told us.

"Good to know, but besides that I have a fire manipulation obviously." I told them grabbing the loaf of bread. "A mental one that improves intelligence, wisdom, memory, defense against mental disorders, and a few other things."

"Telepathy?" Karen asked worriedly.

I shook my head. "No, no empathy or other mental powers either. At least not yet." I replied. "The last is some kind of bond ability that allows me to create bonds between living beings."

"What kind of bonds?" Karen asked.

"Whatever I can imagine I guess, the stronger the bond the more mana it will take to form and maintain. The bond with Enya is one kind, she gets mana from me in exchange for helping me and teaching me. The drain from that isn't too bad, but I think that is because she is willing, maybe even happy about it." I replied.

"You bet I am!" Enya said as she flew up off the table and circled around my head while showing off her naked form. "I was able to keep our bond closer to equals than normal, hope you don't mind." she told me.

I shrugged. "As long as you don't turn out to be a waste of mana. I also know how to break the bonds, and no ours isn't permanent." I told her.

"I knew I forgot something." she grumbled to herself before landing back on the table then quickly shifting back to the raven form.

I smiled at that then grabbed my sandwich and took it back into the living room where the girls were sitting. "I can expand my abilities a bit if I wanted, or try and activate a new one. Though I have no idea what I would want." I told them.

"Nope, you can't just brush that off." Karen said sternly. "Can you force a bond on someone?" she asked.

I nodded. "As far as I can tell I can force different kinds of bonds up to something like slavery onto someone, don't ask details, you really don't want to know how bad that can be. While I can do it, the amount of mana I would have to use to force such a powerful bond onto an unwilling person is a lot, and maintaining the bond would probably eat up a lot of my incoming mana." I told her.

Karen didn't seem very comfortable as she sat there watching me take a bite out of my sandwich.

Megan snorted, "Could be useful under certain circumstances. I trust you not to abuse it but I hope no one else gets such an ability." she confided.

Hearing Megan's words seemed to make Karen relax. "You're right." Karen said with a sigh.

"So what else can it do?" Megan asked.

I considered it for a moment going through the limited information I had. "I can create weak bonds that do nothing more than tell each person where the other is. At least it could give direction and distance. Maybe in the future I can link the bond with my mental and…..oh." I said as I felt a wave of dizziness roll through me making me feel rather weak.

"What?" Megan asked worriedly.

Enya laughed happily. "Master developed a new link." she told them.

I closed my eyes to access my interface and sure enough a golden thread had attached to my bond and mental abilities. Unlike the link between the fire and bond which glowed brightly, it was dull and lifeless.

"Huh." I said, opening my eyes. "I did form a link between my mental and bond ability."

"What does it do?" Megan asked curiously.

"Nothing right now." I replied. "In the future when I improve my mental ability I can add empathy or telepathy like abilities I get into the bonds so we could ignore distances." I said telling them what I gained from examining the link.

"Can I get the one you were just talking about earlier?" Megan asked.

"Huh?" I asked, looking at the blonde. She had perched herself on the very edge of the couch and was wringing her hands nervously. In fact she seemed really anxious. "The bond that lets us know where the other is?" I asked.

"Yeah, no wait, let's do the telepathy one!" she said.

I frowned. "What's wrong?" I asked her seriously then looked at Karen.

Karen was staring at Megan in surprise.

"Just some weird stuff happening. It's why we came back." Megan replied.

"You mean after the two of you hit it off and ditched me for the day?" I asked pretending to be angry.

Earlier it had hurt when I realized that they two of them had taken off without a care for me, but now I could recognize that most of that was because I was holding onto unrealistic expectations. I still thought it was rude, but the two of them had always done what they wanted when they wanted. Besides it had been a spur of the moment idea to hang out rather than something we had scheduled in advance so I didn't really have any reason to be angry. Just irritated.

"Oh, uh, yeah sorry about that." Megan said nervously. Of the two she had actually seemed interested in some kind of a relationship even if it was the wrong kind, so she seemed the most concerned now.

"We decided to go clothes shopping." Karen spoke up.

"Seems I was miss reading the situation." Enya commented. "Don't worry master. There will be plenty of women throwing themselves at you soon enough." Enya chimed in.

The three of us all turned to stare at Enya in surprise.

"What? It doesn't matter which world it is, women are always drawn to powerful men. Now that you have awakened a golden mana core you are guaranteed to become a very powerful man." she said defensively.

"How strong are you now?" Karen asked, looking at me curiously.

I shrugged. "My mental and bond aren't really offensive abilities. Fire is, but until I have an opportunity to experiment with it I am not sure what I can do with it." I replied honestly.

"I can do a lot of damage, and master can match me once he learns to use his power." Enya spoke up.

"Really?" Megan asked skeptically.

"I am a fire elemental." Enya reminded her.

Both girls seemed to relax.

"Sooooo?" I asked obviously a bit curious about what had caused the two girls to get so nervous.

The pair of women looked at each other. "Like Karen said, we decided to go shopping. We had a blast together, and just kept hanging out. A couple hours ago we were at the mall when something happened. We didn't see what happened, the cops had already shown up and handled the situation when we heard about it and saw the taped off area." Megan told me.

I nodded then waited. "Even if it was over we were still curious." Karen added. "So we looked it up. We found it easily enough, plenty of people were on the second floor taking videos while it happened." she told me then stopped.

"And?" I prompted.

"Some red skinned monster showed up and started to attack people. It was really strong and merciless." Megan replied. "It was really bad Daryl. A couple of guys pulled their guns on it once they realized what was going on. They saved a mother and her kid, but not after a few others were already dead or dying."

My mind raced after hearing that. I had gained powers and a monster had appeared, it couldn't have been a coincidence. Could it?

"What makes it worse, is it that there were more of them. A quick search brought up five other attacks here in the valley, and dozens more across the country." Karen spoke up next.

"Sounds like twisted." Enya chimed in.

"Twisted?" Megan and Karen asked together.

"Yeah, I don't know a lot about them because I don't get to stay long, but wherever there are awakened there are also twisted. They aren't mindless monsters, but they are easily enraged and mercilessly harm any but their own kind." Enya explained.

"No idea where they come from?" I asked.

"Sorry no. All my information I have is from listening in on those who summon me. I have learned all kinds of secrets, but most of them only mean something in the world I was summoned." she explained.

"More than we knew before." Megan commented.

"Not really." Karen argued.