And what is this?

Phil, who was watching over the gate was relaxing in the cabin. It was quite peaceful in the suburbs. The cabin was heated, it was quiet and nobody bothered him.

Thinking he has enough time he leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes.

The door then opened startling the poor guy. Phil jumped out of the chair as if there was a fire in the building.

"Did something happen?" asked Mark confused.

"No, It´s fine. Why are you here, though?"

"I´m done."

"You are done?" Phil asked with his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah. The dungeon is cleared. I´m done."

"Of course. Sorry, I´m just a bit absentminded today."

"Can I like ... give you the essence stones?"

"Yes we redeem them for a set price, but you can also go have their mana measured. With that, they can get you a little more money."

"That sounds like a bother. You can have them."

"Alright then dump them onto this tray."

Mark took out the contents of his backpack and Phil began counting the stones.

"95,96,97! Here you have a paper so you know I didn´t steal anything and you can go. The money should arrive on your account the moment I get these stones to the FBH."

"Thank you and have a nice day." Mark said, grabbed his stuff, and got on his way home.

[Later at home]

"How was today´s raid?" asked Mark´s father seeing him come back.

A smile appeared on his face. "It was great, but I have a lot of work to do too."

"I thought you were strong. Did my little hunter have a problem in a low-rank gate?" his dad asked in a joking tone.

"I´m taller than you, nevermind that. It´s not like I´m not strong enough. I haven´t even come close to exhausting a tenth of my mana. I just want to be prepared rather than dive into a high-ranking dungeon recklessly like an idiot."

"You´re right in that. You better be careful, because I don´t want to lose one of my two favorite sons."

"Don´t worry one of your two favorite sons is going to go prepare for the next raid." said Mark and walked into his room.

[2 hours later]

Mark was in his room, writing down new drafts. Today´s raid didn´t go as smoothly as he would have liked it to. The difference of 4 ranks and he did not one-shot the boss. 'What a disgrace!' he thought in retrospective.

The door opened and in walked his dad holding a plate with cut-up apples.

"You want some?" he asked.

"Sure, put it on the edge of the table." Mark said focusing on the drafts.

"What are you doing?" asked his father looking over Mark´s shoulder.

"A spell"

"Yeah, what kind?"

"Well, today when I was in the dungeon I burnt up almost all of the oxygen."

"That´s ... not good."

"You´re right it wasn´t good. So that meant I couldn´t make fire anymore and that made me think I need a way to solve that. This spell should make shockwave by pushing the air in front of me and depending on the strength of the shockwave it could kill the monsters."

"Wouldn´t it be easier with explosions rather than pushing the air in front of you?"

Mark turned to his dad, smiling at his interest in magic.

His father interpreted it a little bit differently. He thought that Mark was laughing and that his stupid idea was stupid. "What? I´m not an expert? I´m just saying what comes to my mind."

"No, It´s great, continue. But for your question, not really. It´s always much more efficient to use something you already have than create something from mana. This is also much easier to control. I could make some explosive spell when I´ll be more proficient, though."

"Hmm, what is this?"

Mark grabbed the gray essence stone on his table and explained. "That´s the essence stone that dropped from the boss today."

"Alright, then what is this little scribble?" he pointed at a symbol in his grimoire.

"Are you going to point at everything magic-related and ask what it is?"

"Only if it's interesting."

"I´ll gladly explain everything. You only have to ask" Mark said happily. "What you pointed at is the variable symbol. I don´t always use the same spell, because I need to change it depending on the situation. This symbol helps me change some values."

Mark then listed to the back of the book. There was a magic circle drawn. He poured his mana into the page and the circle appeared on his hand.

"Whenever I cast a spell this thing pops up on my hand because the circle is linked to all the spells in here. Then if I want to change something in the spell I move my fingers like this. For example, I can choose the variable then set it to some value, fire off the spell once, keep firing the same spell over time, deactivate it, etc. There are so many things you can do with this thing!"

"Ehe..." hummed his dad pretending to understand the word salad his son just threw up.

"Ok, I´ll try to explain it again, but this time slower."

"Yeah, yeah."

The explanation continued to the late evening. Seeing how passionate his son was about this, Josh couldn´t interrupt him. Mark who saw his father´s interest in the subject was eager to have a whole presentation on his grimoire. Unfortunately, it had to end because the bladder of a forty-nine-year-old can´t wait forever.