Modak began to cry. Not just the singular tears that were streaming down his cheeks every once in a while but completely sobbing.

  He was the sort to try and rationalize things. By explaining the thoughts and reasons behind others’ actions, Modak found some comfort in the fact that things were not done just randomly out of pure emotion or gut. That he wasn’t hurt intentionally. And Ryan couldn’t offer him that sort of rationalization. He was more emotional, more raw. So, the only thing he was able to do was be there for his friend while he was suffering.

  It took around ten more minutes until Modak fully calmed down and was able to collect his thoughts well enough. “I should … find my own place,” he finally said. “Maybe some distance wouldn’t be bad. Maybe I could make a safe space for my brothers and Kora. I mean … I can definitely afford it now.”

  Ryan laughed slightly. “Want to just get a place together? I’ve also been thinking about putting some space between me and Runar. Plus, that way, we could just get the Aglecards to pay for the whole thing.”

  Modak thought about it for a moment, just shrugging in the end. “Honestly, why not? Let’s do it,” he replied as a smile formed on his face. “But for now, I guess I should get back. The final presentation is starting soon.”

  “Right, but be sure to text Yanna and Kora first. They were really, really worried. I told them that I found you but not much else.”

  “I’ll do that.” Modak nodded, lightly stretching as he stood up. “Do you remember the way back? I just kind of walked without thinking.”

  “Yeah, I can guide us back.” Ryan nodded, patting his friend on the back while starting to lead the way. Modak smiled.

  “Thanks, by the way.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. I gotchu.” With a grin, Ryan held his fist toward Modak, who returned a quick fist-bump as the two of them walked out of the restricted area of the Channel. As they were walking, Ryan’s phone started to buzz. There was a message from Runar that he didn’t quite expect, especially not so soon.

  Unc

  We have permission for you to visit Goria’s shrine, but it has to happen today. Come back quickly.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Technology

  Modak took a deep, long breath, fiddling with his tie. Luckily, he had been able to get someone to clean his jacket for him with magic. He looked at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. By this point, he had probably damaged it so much that the magical calming effects imbued in it by Silvia were useless. Even so, it helped to calm him down. It was a way for Silvia to be there without being there in person.

  Yesterday’s events had apparently given her a concussion, and her parents practically begged her to stay home and rest for the day. She was texting Modak almost the whole time, though, asking for updates and encouraging him. But now Ryan was also gone—he had gotten an opportunity that might not come again, one with massively important consequences. Ryan had told Modak that he would stay and support him during the speech, but Modak didn’t want to carry the weight of taking this opportunity away from Ryan. Not to mention he still had other people there to support him. His girlfriend and his siblings were there to uplift him, and he even had the support of Alicia Boreard.

  She was standing at the side of the stage, where Modak was about to enter from, and looked at him with a smile. “Are you ready, young man?”

  The orc slowly nodded. “I-I think so, yes.”

  Alicia glanced down at the piece of paper that Modak was holding. “Is that your speech? Quite nervous, are we?”

  Modak shook his head, folding the piece of paper and putting it into his pocket. “No, no; this is just something that Silvia made. I memorized my speech … When I’m nervous, it gets kind of hard to focus on words super easily, so just remembering them is weirdly easier.”

  “It’s not weird at all; everyone has their own ways of dealing with these matters.”

  Taking some deep breaths, Modak tried to prepare himself, waiting for his cue. But another thought popped into his head, something that he had been wondering for a while now. The issue was that he hadn’t seen Alicia since she first hired him, so he hadn’t been able to ask her this.

  “I … I wanted to ask, but why did you give me this opportunity? I know that the mana tapes were a pretty fun thing, but I never understood how that was enough to make me the lead of my own team … I would have thought I would be basically an intern at the Tower. But you gave me so much, I don’t know if …”

  Alicia chuckled slightly, looking at the orc’s face. He was avoiding looking at her, his eyes darting around the area nervously. “Do you even know what it is that you have accomplished? In just a few weeks, at that. You have done something that others never even attempted. And that is exactly why I gave you that opportunity, because I knew that you could do something special with the powers you were given. That you could become a wizard like none other.”

  “But … I don’t even have any mana. Do you think I can really become a wizard? I will never be able to cast a spell myself, so do I really deserve that?”

  Though Modak was clearly anxious, asking something that he had been so scared about for weeks now, Alicia simply began to laugh. It was a true, heartfelt laugh, as if she had just heard something ridiculous. “Who ever said that being a wizard, let alone a mage, was about casting spells or possessing something as feeble as mana?”

  “… Most definitions you can look up online, I guess?”

  “Oh, do not worry about such things; who would ever listen to what the internet has to say?” Alicia pointed out with a soft, encouraging smile. “What being a wizard is truly about is to be a seeker of truth. To understand the world around you and to try and grasp the knowledge before you, no matter the obstacles in your way. And you, Modak Stonebreaker, have been given an obstacle like none other. Don’t you think that such a seemingly insurmountable wall has to hide similarly grand secrets on its other side?”

  Modak could feel his heart almost beat out of his chest. The person in front of him was one of the most powerful magic-users in the world, the one who arguably had the deepest understanding of the true essence of magic, and she was encouraging Modak. She was telling him that his lack of mana didn’t make him any lesser. It was completely opposite from how he had been treated by other mages in the Tower.

  “I—” he began, but he was quickly interrupted. Alicia took a step toward Modak, grabbing his tie. It seemed like his hands were so shaky that he hadn’t been able to tie it properly, so Alicia was doing it for him so that he would be presentable in front of the crowd.

  “No matter what anyone else seems to tell you, you were born for great, great things, and I assure you that this is a fact. You were born to lead this world on a path toward new discoveries. A bridge between the mundane and the magical. A man, whose very existence is rejected by magic, grasped it within his clutches, making it his own. Be proud of that achievement. It will be the first of many.”

  Feeling a sort of invigoration that he hadn’t felt in a long time, Modak nodded. With a smile on his face, so much more genuine than he believed he would be able to present, Modak stepped out onto the stage as he heard his name called. Microphones were set up around the stage, and cameras were pointed in his direction. He could see Yanna standing in the crowd, and next to her was his sister. They were both looking at him with a pride that he couldn’t imagine others could ever feel for him.

  But they weren’t the only people there that his eyes soon landed on. Modak thought they would have left by now, but his parents were standing just a few rows in front of Yanna and Kora. They clearly weren’t happy with the choices that he made, but they were still there. Maybe he really just had to sit down with them and explain things to them properly. He could find out where their disdain for magic came from, and then he could explain to them what magic really meant to him. Why it was such a special thing to Modak. And this was the first step to that.

  Modak stepped up to the podium, starting to speak. He cleared his throat and glanced over toward Alicia. The words of his speech popped up into his mind, but somehow, he rather wanted to improvise.

  “My name is Modak Stonebreaker. I was born with mana rejection disorder, and a particularly strong form of it. My body cannot hold magic, and it actually forces any traces of it out almost as soon as it is within me,” Modak started his speech. What Alicia had said made him realize the true importance of this tool that he had created. He had said it before, but it was mostly empty words. The fact that someone without the ability to use magic now had the opportunity to could truly change lives.

  Mechanical whirs and wisps of magic fluttered around. In front of them was a small figure, maybe two feet tall. It took the form of a man in a suit, with a book for a head. Beside it were two other similar figures, one with a microscope as its head and one with a television set as its head. The three were gathered around a few speakers in the far corner of this larger area. Now that everyone was gathered at the stands, the three spirits were able to get a proper look at the things that so many people were interested in. And this seemed to be the technology they liked the most.

  They placed their hands on the speakers, following the cables around to the source, growing more excited as they went on. They realized what it was they were seeing, and that was exciting to them as well.

  “Are those …” Marge approached the stall. She had noticed some movement from the distance and figured she would check on things. Everything there was secured with magic, so nothing could be stolen, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Are those spirits of technology?”

  Modak smiled, looking out at the crowd. “For my entire life, I have seen magic as this grand, unattainable thing. For others, it was so … natural. All people see the really amazing things. Rockets propelled through combustion magic, or the beautiful displays that we see every year here during Spirit Week. Everyone sees those things and feels … wonder.” He looked down at his hand, which was holding the coin of the Aglecard family. “But everybody forgets the mundane things. The signals flickering through the air every day, from your phone to your television set. They all usually have some amount of mana in them these days. In some places, even opening a door requires you to use mana, and people enter without a second thought, because it is so normal to them. But for me, every interaction with magic and mana was hard and special. As a kid, when I learned that phone signals are stabilized with mana, I left the room whenever my mother called someone, to avoid messing up the call with my presence. And without assistance, getting into the Magic Tower on my first day there was literally impossible, because the building itself refused to see that I was there.”

  The three spirits turned around, looking at Marge, surprised. They hurriedly hid behind some of the machines. Amongst spirits, technology spirits tended to be the most skittish, ironically. Technology was created to be used by people, but the spirits borne from those ideas or objects often refused to show themselves, out of fear of becoming tools themselves.

  Marge squatted with a smile. “No need to be scared. I see that you guys like this tech, don’t you? I was actually one of the people that created it. Well, I mostly did some background work, but if you would like, I could explain it to you.”

  Slowly, the three spirits came out from behind the speakers, looking up at Marge curiously. She herself was also incredibly excited to be able to show something like this to technology spirits. Who knew? If they liked it, maybe they would pass on the information to Kars. If Modak could get a blessing from the spirit of technology, surely that would only allow him to create even greater new things.

  “Alright, it starts over here.”

  “Nonetheless, I persisted. The things that others ignored were so … clear to me. What was mundane to them was magical to me. I tried to learn more about it so that I could make sure I knew how exactly my disorder could affect the lives of those around me, and the more I learned, the more I fell in love with magic,” Modak said. He looked at the tablet on the table in front of him and tapped one of the buttons. The speakers set up around the stage started up, and a visual illusion was formed through this auditory magic. For now, it was a small butterfly, flapping its wings down toward Modak’s hand. Once it sat there, he continued. “I mean, how can you not? Is something like this not absolutely amazing? That’s why, whenever I had the chance, I tried to make something that could help me navigate this world of magic without any of my own. I made a phone case that allowed me to activate mana sensors in the subway. Like that, I was able to use the sort of magic that I saw everyone use every single day. And then I got an opportunity that I never expected. I got the opportunity to grasp at even greater magic, beyond most people’s reach.”

  “… and this part here then takes that mana and places it into …” Marge explained, glancing over at the spirits. But they were acting sort of … weird. The ink on the pages of the book-headed spirit was smudged, and the TV-headed spirit was flickering. The lens of the microscope-headed spirit seemed a bit dirty, too. And then the ink flowed from the book-headed spirit’s head, dripping to the ground.

  Confused and worried, Marge took out a handkerchief. She tried to hold it under the spirit’s head, catching as much of the ink as possible. She didn’t want to press it against its pages, worried it would be rude, but none of the spirits reacted whatsoever. They were just standing there, growing disinterested.

  What snapped Marge out of that confusion was the sharp pain she soon felt on her finger as she touched splotches of ink. It was like it was searing hot, as if someone was pouring boiling oil onto her. And it was sticking to her skin, growing and spreading.

  “Oh … no, no, we can’t have that,” a voice said, as a young gnome stepped onto the lot.

  As the music coming from the speakers grew louder, the butterfly on Modak’s hand exploded into a whole swarm, fluttering around the stage. “And that is exactly what we have done. It is still in its early stages, but some of you may have seen it earlier already, at that stall tucked away in the corner. We have created a way to bring true magic into the hands of anyone. I believe that it is possible to bring this technology further than you or even I could imagine right now. This magic has no true caster. It is synthetic, starting from a computer, turned into a song that has this power.”

  Modak pressed the next button on the tablet, and the butterflies almost immediately fell apart into magical sparkles that were carried by the wind toward the people in front of the stage. Above the heads of the people, another illusion was being created. It was a parade of dolls, a simple recreation of a popular spell that was often used at special events and was seen on TV quite a lot, so there was almost nobody who couldn’t recognize it.

  Richard stepped up to Marge. The cyclops’ whole arm had been overtaken by corruption at this point.

  “Wh-What is going on? P-Please, get help; I—” Marge practically begged, feeling incomparable pain in her whole body as the roots of the corruption took hold within her. But Richard shook his head.

  “I … don’t think I can do that. If people knew that there’s corruption at play here, all of this would be a waste. What a shame, though; if you were compatible with my corruption, you could have at least become a useful asset.” The gnome let out a long sigh, looking over to the technology spirits. “I guess I need to speed this up a bit.”

  With a snap of his fingers, black sparks were flung from Richard’s hand over to the three spirits. Immediately, their bodies began to distort and grow. Their heads were torn and cracked and bent, as if they had been thrown to the curb years before. It didn’t take long until they each towered above Marge. If they had had eyes, they would be staring at her with animalistic hunger, towering over her.

  “I-I … What’s going on? What did you do to them?!”

  “I just improved them a bit; that’s all,” Richard said as if it were obvious. He looked at the spirits. “Anyway, seems like this worked out. Okay, tear her arm off and give it to me.”

  Before Marge could let out even one more sound, two of the spirits held her body while another grabbed her arm. With a quick motion and an unnatural strength, Marge’s flesh and muscles and bones were pulled apart. It happened so fast that Marge didn’t even realize what happened at first, before the most unimaginable pain of her life overtook her. She let out a loud scream, so Richard knew he had to hurry up.

  After being given the arm that held all of the corruption that had tried to attach itself to Marge, he stepped into the back to hide and get rid of the evidence before others could find him.

  As he left, he looked at the spirits that were still holding Marge, who was slowly falling into unconsciousness.

  “Oh, and just finish her off, will you?”

  Modak smiled broadly as the people in front of him enjoyed the sight that he prepared. He was seeing the impact that his creation had on others, and he could hear their wows and laughter as he continued playing the next segments of the illusion songs he prepared.

  The pride that filled his body was incredible. It wasn’t an exaggeration to call this one of the best moments in his entire life thus far.

  This was a day he was always going to remember.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  The Shrine

  The sound of dozens of waterfalls drowned out almost everything else. The car’s engine, the footsteps of the crowd that had gathered around one of the pools at a waterfall’s base; not even Ryan’s own thoughts were easy to hear with all this noise.

  “This is it? This is the entrance we’re going to use?” Looking out the windshield from the back of the car, Ryan tried to figure out what was going on. “Aren’t there too many people around?”

  Runar let out a long sigh. “They’re Goria’s acolytes. Self-appointed, for the most part. They’re the people we needed to get permission from, and it looks like they want to see who it is that was personally invited by a Great Spirit.”