Mason's Worry

It was already four days since the night of the "incident". Oscar spent the last three days studying the spiritual core and his necklace. He didn't manage to uncover much but he was able to absorb spirit mana from the core and gained a bit of fire affinity. It wasn't much but his arsenal wasn't much, to begin with.

He also gained a little bit of understanding about foreign energy. It had a weird reaction with Aether. With Aether, it became darker and more powerful. But it didn't last long. Soon it returned to its previous state.

"This could be very well a "key" to use Aether, for me."

He first thought that chasing after power was a greedy thing to do but not anymore. Aether was an energy that was barely explored. It has almost limitless potential in Oscar's eyes. Maybe even more than mana.

Mana could very well replicate and reinforce natural phenomena. But according to Kairi even it has limits. Mana can't replicate life fully. It can imitate it but that's all it can do. It can't create life from zero.

He doesn't really know that Aether could do it or not. The limits of the Aether is unknown after all. But this is the real beauty of it. It's an unexplored region. It holds the potential of achieving the impossible.

He already managed to manipulate some of the Aether. He can condense a little ball of Aether about half of the size of his finger. It was pitch black in color and had no power.

"This is a big step ahead. I still need to work on it but at least I can manipulate it. But this is kinda weird. I wasn't able to manage it until now. Is this because I had contact with that foreign energy."

The more he was in the contact with the foreign energy, the easier it get to manipulate the Aether. This alone proved to Oscar that those two energies had some sort of connection. He just couldn't find what was that connection, yet. He was still searching for it but without enough information, it was hard to make a progress.

"Kairi already explained everything she knew to me. Even she doesn't know of this foreign energy. Maybe there is something in the library of her clan but she can't access it right now. Her body is sleeping to recover some mana."

Kairi put her body to sleep three days ago. Inside Mana Lake, her body was able to recover some mana. Spirits can't naturally recover their mana. When their mana eventually runs out, they die. Knowing this, Oscar didn't want to bother her until she recovered her mana.

[Ting!]

Suddenly a notification noise was heard. Oscar checked his phone and saw a text message from Mason. He was surprised. He didn't talk with Mason for the last couple of days.

"Hmm? He wants to talk with me? Now that I think about it, I haven't gone out for a while."

Half an hour later Oscar met with Mason in a park near the docks. This was the opposite side of the forest. On the fourth day after the incident city was now relatively calm. There were still some unrest and rumors but at least people were now leaving their houses.

Oscar walked in to park and found Mason sitting on a bench watching the fountain in the middle of the park. The fountain was big and took a very big space. There were some ducks swimming it and little kids that were racing their paper ships.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, Oscar. Thanks for coming."

"Don't worry. But what do you want to talk about? You seem... worried."

"Yeah... I needed a friend to talk to. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not."

He seems... on edge, thought Oscar. He easily noticed the weird mental state Mason was in. His words seemed to be normal but his voice sound tired. Oscar also noticed the black circles around Mason's eyes. This wasn't like the Mason he knew. Something must have happened, he thought.

"...I don't know how should I begin..."

After they sat down there was silence for a few minutes. Oscar patiently waited for Mason to talk about what was on his mind. Eventually, Mason gathered his courage to talk about what was on his mind.

"Take a deep breath. We have time, you can start from where you want."

"...haaah... I think I saw something I shouldn't have."

"...What do you mean?"

"I was there when the first explosion happened."

"!!!"

Oscar's body immediately stiffened. He didn't imagine this was the topic Mason wanted to talk about. A lot of questions appeared on his mind. But before he could ask any of them Mason continue to talk.

"The place where the first explosion happened... I know that place. Charlotte's brother was using that place for a while."

"Wait... Charlotte... and her brother... You mean Andrew Houll?"

"Yeah. Charlotte once slipped that from her mouth. She accidentally mentioned it. And on that day that place was where the first explosion happened."

"That's..."

When he heard that the first explosion actually happened at Andrew Houll's place Oscar was surprised. According to the news, it was the old abandoned factory of the Dax Family. But now Mason was saying that the actual place was Andrew Houll's secret place.

Does this mean, Houll Family is in this, he wondered. When the news mentioned it was an abandoned factory he thought that some people choose it as it was a suitable place to do some secret business. But if it is some kind of secret hideout of someone then things change.

Was the spirit being there was just a coincidence? How did the spirit make a pact with a human? That fire spirit was a corrupted one. It should already start losing its mind at that point. There are also humans who were involved with the spirit. Akane and Kairi did mention something like that, thought Oscar.

"Tell me more."

Oscar listened to every detail of Mason's story. Turns out, after school Mason wanted to go for a walk in the forest. By the time he realized he was close to the secret hideout of Andrew Houll, it was already nighttime. And before he could return home a bright explosion happened and just a few seconds later a series of louder and bigger explosions happened.

At first, Mason couldn't understand what was happening. But when he saw the news and where they were mentioned as the site of the first explosion he start to worry. He couldn't gather enough courage to talk about what he saw and what he knew. Only now that he had gathered enough courage to talk with Oscar.

"This sure is troublesome."

"...Yeah. I don't know what to do."

"You should calm down for now. It could be a strange coincidence. It's best that you wait until things calm down. The Government and The Army are... you know, acting strange."

"True..."