I opened my eyes, and stood up. I hadn't realized I'd closed them.
"We need to get to class," I stretched as I went out the door.
To my class nap time I went with Ethan. Lunch awesome. Then afternoon classes, and gun practice. I was kind of hoping for a level up in marksmanship, but the still targets weren't exactly a challenge for me to shoot at so my hopes for getting the level up I wanted shrunk the longer I was in the class. Back to the dorm for Savannah's lessons.
I got back to the feeling I had this morning before classes pretty quickly. I let my eyes drift closed slowly again as I focused completely on the feeling. Even Savannah's bumping, and pushing couldn't distract me from the feeling I was grasping at now. I could feel it almost clearly now. The torrent of energy that flowed through me.
I could almost feel it's source as I tried to follow the torrent back to where it was coming from. Deep within my chest. Savannah grabbed my arm. Startling me out of my complete, and total focus.
"What?" I snapped at her angrily.
She just pointed at me. I looked down at myself, and realized quickly that I was glowing faintly.
"Are you doing this on purpose?" Savannah asked.
"Not really," I pushed her hand off, "But I was getting close to something."
I looked at my hand as the glow faded slowly. It didn't hurt or burn like it usually did when I glowed.
"Do you have any idea how much mana was circulating throughout your body just now?" Savannah rubbed her hand gingerly.
First thing I noticed was that the number on her watch had changed. It had gone from one to two.
"No," I gently took her hand.
Pulling it towards me. There was a burn like mark across her palm, and the inside of her fingers.
"At least five times the mana I have in my whole body," Savannah flinched when the water I was controlling rushed the the burn like mark to heal her.
"So what?" I finished healing her, and drew my magic back in.
"You said you've had magic a little over a month," Savannah rubbed her now healed palm, "Do you know how much mana you started with?"
"I'm registered as an F class student," I wanted to focus inward on the mana flow I'd been following before, "They never tested my mana."
"Here," Savannah took her watch off, "Put this on."
"No," I looked at her watch funny for a second, "I don't want to be scanned by your watch."
"Relax," Savannah pushed it closer to me, "It only reads mana levels, and it's not a hundred percent accurate. Techniques that mix tech with magic are still in their early stages so it won't detect anything else, and it can't read out users."
I took it from her, and put it on my free wrist. The number on the readout jumped up to eight. Savannah just stared at the number on the watch for a minute.
"You have way more mana than me," Savannah tapped the watch face, and the number didn't change, "How is that even possible? I never detected that much mana from you."
My camouflage was probably what was doing it, but I couldn't say that outright to her.
"I keep my mana in as much as I can," I lied.
Thank god for my blank expression. I could never lie like this before.
"This mana crystal you absorbed," Savannah took her watch back, "What exactly did it look like?"
"I didn't get a good look at it," I got up, "I was busy trying to stop it from melting into my hand."
"Unique mana crystals have unique effects on a human body," Savannah was deep enough in thought that she'd hardly noticed me standing up, "It might be continually altering your body as you use more, and more of your mana. You might not be human by the time it's done with whatever it's doing. You might not be completely human now."
"I'll deal with it," I didn't want her to continue following this line of thought.
"It could be slowly destroying you from the inside," Savannah kept going, "You could have magic tumors growing out of control inside your body. I mean that's highly unlikely since you're not in pain right now. The crystal could just be lying dormant in your body collecting mana until it goes critical, and you explode." Savannah looked at me with a worried expression, "You should really get checked out."
"No," I snapped, "Everything you've said so far is nothing more than a theory. If I turn myself in. Me dying is a sure thing. No ifs, ands or buts about it."
"What makes you so sure?" Savannah stood up.
"Because," I looked at her, "I'm a big ball of unknowns to them, and human beings often choose to kill unknowns."
I sat down in the desk chair in an attempt to get the blood flowing back into my legs after having my legs crossed for so long. Savannah was watching me carefully again.
"I'd like to get back to practice if you don't mind," I looked at her, "I don't have much more time till we head to rift city."
Savannah nodded slowly, and hopped on Ethan's desk computer. Leaving me alone to focus since I could tune out most of her distraction now. I got back to where I was following the flow of mana before really quickly. I was probably glowing again, but we were on the third floor, and the curtain was closed so no one would see anything if I was. I was inching closer, and closer to the source of the mana flow.
Mana control level up. Mana control now level 4.
I could see my flow of mana clearly now as I looked within. I cut off the flow off mana that was slowly leaving my body. I still couldn't reach the core of my mana, but I'd made a lot more progress than I thought I would. I opened my eyes, and easily formed an X in the air with my water. Savannah noticed that I had formed that X, and shoved me hard enough that I almost fell out of the chair.
"Hey," I looked at her angrily.
"Look," Savannah pointed at the X that was still floating in front of me despite the deliberate attempt to throw me off, "I can't feel any mana coming from you anymore either. Can you keep it up without trying?"
I shrugged as I stood up, and yawned. It was dinner time, and I was done practicing for today. I left the room as Savannah clicked off the desk computer. Ethan ran up behind me when I was close to the elevator, and we got in together. Somehow managing to get to the elevator without Savannah.
By some miracle we were alone in the elevator.
"Are you sure you're not telling her too much?" Ethan asked.