Max stayed still for about ten minutes, trying to stabilize the ring of mana around his heart. His chest rose up and down, his eyes tightly shut. He could still feel the fairy's presence in his mind, but she had been keeping silent. He did wonder how she was able to maintain their mental connection for so long. Would she ever run out of mana? Having such a large pool of mana was such a new concept to him, considering humans could only rely on their hearts' gravity to attract mana and store a tiny amount of it.
Well, at least that was what he used to know. Now, that concept had been shattered. He could feel the ring of mana around his heart that had about twice as much mana as he used to be able to store. If he kept refining the ring and eventually advanced to the next stage—since apparently Ring Formation was only the first one—did that mean he would be able to use mana without the crutch known as mana conductors?
Mana conductors possessed this thing called potential mana. It was basically the amount of mana that could be used to conduct mana 'donated' by a user. Since humans could only transmit a little amount of mana at one time, potential mana within conductors had the job to make up for what the user lacked. It used the little mana sent in by the user to trigger the potential mana within the conductor, and depending on the quality of the conductor, the potential mana would then convert a certain amount of energy around the user. The converted energy was equivalent to several times the amount of mana the user donated. This was how humans were able to provide electricity throughout the country despite only being able to store so little mana within their bodies.
But, with the direction he was currently going, did that mean he wouldn't have a need for mana conductors anymore? Were his gloves going to become obsolete in the future?
He finally opened his eyes to ask the fairy his questions. But then he paused. He hadn't cared much about what the fairy was doing when he was deep in contemplation for several minutes. Now, he finally found out what she had been up to.
The fairy was pacing side to side, her mouth opening and closing. Max switched to his soundwave viewing mode and saw the strings around her face vibrating every time she opened her mouth. He observed her doing this for a few more seconds before he noticed the vibrations becoming slightly bigger.
His eyes widened. He knew what she was trying to do. Because he could do that too! Using his gloves, he could tweak the soundwaves around his mouth so that when he made a sound, his voice became louder. It was basically like using a megaphone, but without the actual megaphone. Not that he used this often, since he didn't speak at all.
He used mana and the mana conductor to do this. So that meant she was doing the same with her seemingly infinite mana. He switched back to his mana viewing mode and saw the mana waves around her face acting up every time she opened her mouth. She was using mana to power her voice.
Suddenly, the fairy stopped. She finally realized Max had been watching her intently. Her face reddened and she looked away shyly. 'Sorry. Practicing,' she conveyed to him.
'Okay, cool. Were you not able—'
The fairy couldn't hold it anymore and quickly zoomed toward Max's shoes and hid behind the left shoe's sole. He had both his legs extended forward, so now that the fairy was where she was, he couldn't see her.
He tilted his left foot, revealing the embarrassed fairy. However, she quickly flew to follow his shoe and once again hid behind the sole.
Max sighed. He decided to just let her do whatever she wanted. But he still asked, 'Were you not able to do that before? Increasing your speaking volume?'
'Able, but rusty.'
Ah, it seemed being trapped inside the wooden chest had dulled her ability to do tricks like that.
Max suddenly realized he had forgotten the most basic manner when having a conversation with someone. He still didn't know her name!
'I've introduced myself before. So can you tell me your name?'
The fairy didn't immediately answer. From the edge of his shoe, her tiny head was poking out, her face looking confused. 'You, name, don't know.'
Right. He was introducing himself in Elysian. He turned on his Iris again and typed his name. The robotic voice sounded out his name while he was pointing to himself.
[Max.]
She nodded and her mouth opened as if parroting the robotic voice. She seemed to have gotten over her embarrassment by now. So she quickly zoomed from his foot toward the side of his face in just a second. She really could fly as fast as a dragonfly.
She grabbed his ear, causing a slight tickle on his skin. He immediately knew what she was trying to do. He switched to his soundwave viewing mode. Yup, he was right; she was trying to say her name by increasing her voice with mana near his ear so he could hear her.
It appeared that she still didn't understand that he was deaf. She probably thought that the reason he couldn't hear her was because her voice was too low. Did she not wonder why he had to use Iris to speak twice before?
With her voice now slightly louder and her speaking right into his ear, at least his audio sensor could've picked up on her speech. Problem was, she was on his right ear.
He could see soundwaves vibrating from the right side of his head, but of course he couldn't hear anything. He raised his hand and flicked his fingers twice, signaling for her to get in front of his face. And so she did.
The fairy looked confused, understandably so. She was probably wondering if her voice still wasn't loud enough. He immediately gestured for her to go to his left ear instead, where his audio sensor was implanted.
After a raise of her eyebrows, she did as he told her. Two seconds later, the notification system on his Iris was finally activated, causing a blinking red indicator light to appear where his Iris holographic screen should be. He immediately opened the device and selected the shortcut to his ReadyScriber app, an app that was responsible for instant speech transcription and speech synthesis. On it, appeared the text version of what the fairy just said.
[Nami.]
That was her name. It sounded foreign. But pretty simple, like his.
He nodded and repeated her name using the app. [Nami.]
She was already back to floating in front of his face by now, and she tilted her head, probably wondering why he kept using the robotic voice. So he just straight up told her, 'I'm deaf.'
Her mouth opened as if saying 'Ah'. She then nodded in understanding. 'Left ear, can hear?'
He knew she didn't mean to ask if he could only hear through his left ear. She meant to ask if his left ear had an aid that could help him understand what was being said to him. He nodded. It was too much of a bother to explain how his audio sensor and Iris worked.
'By the way, can you explain to me now, how this whole thing about Mana Regulator works?'