Hariot was taking his time to thoroughly read anything of interest in this new library he had gained access to.
There weren't any legendary secrets arts hidden about, but there was a book for every big denominations of magic around; Pyromancy, Geomancy, Aeromancy, Hydromancy, ect.
Well, except illegal denominations.
So, while Seria sat to the side, wondering what those weird patterns on the covers of the leather boxes meant, he first went for Pyromancy.
Then in order of interest; Moromancy, Chronomancy- Because you can't not want to control time-, Hydromancy, Geomancy, and then Aeromancy.
There were many, many more to read. But the books were quite large, and had a good bit of filler that he didn't need. But what was most interesting was all the talk about how to used the aspected mana, make it do something beyond it's passive effect.
After skimming through he finally put back the book on Aeromancy "Time to go."
Hearing his words, Seria stood up, looking quite bored. But at least she was following commands without much pause now, which Hariot concluded to be her getting used to her new life after a night in his room, on the floor- He did not trust her not to run away.
Luckily she seemed used to uncomfortable sleep, she actually mumbled that the floor was better than she'd expected. It was... Very pitiful.
But that catalyzed his scheme for loyalty; Exploiting human greed.
When she reached Novice rank, he'd give her a piece of cloth to sleep on. And if she got an initiate mastery, he'd go to another inn and take a cheap two-bed room.
He couldn't help but praise himself, he truly was a genius!
But in all seriousness, it was time to get back to making money, after which he would come tomorrow to that smithy.
The bald blacksmith did say it would be finished today, and Hariot had gone over to pick it up, in response the bald man- Speaking through a blacksmith novice- Said; 'I'm not done yet damnit! I'm at the cusp of a breakthrough! I can see the 7th star from here! Tell him to come back tomorrow!'
Which made Hariot wonder; Which rank? He quickly came to the conclusion, it was probably the 2nd. Otherwise he wouldn't be here in Bacallu making money from selling items to middlemen.
He was also looked to be in his late 30's, which usually wasn't even close to enough time to get the the 3rd rank, which was 50's material if one was lucky enough to survive.
With these thoughts floating around, he left the city gate, giving a slight nod to the guard on duty.
The moment he was outside the parameter, he started to pour out mana, every single drop he had saved up outside of his mana pool being pushed outside his body.
Right now, he just wanted to test one thing, for just a moment.
He took a chunck of 1 mp, and instead of compressing it, decompressed it as much as he could, just to see how thin his mana could go. 0.07:1, that's how decompressed it could be without any significant issue.
Hariot had no clue how that could be useful, but it was good to know it was possible. He returned the mana back to it's original 7:1 state, before putting it with it's family.
The next thing he wanted to do was simple, he wanted to anchor some mana to Seria, preferably inside her. Just as a bit of safety, a way to quell rebellion.
So, as he walked towards the closeby forest, he slowed slightly while also turning around. He took a look at the seemingly unnerved Seria, obviously unused to the lack of buildings along with the grass on the ground.
He took a chunk of mana, about 2 mp, condensed it to a 8:1 ratio, and shot it forth towards the young red-haired child.
Seria instantly tried to dodge the ball of mana that had burst out of the large shining mass that he had released after decompressing his mana, but with Hariot's initiate mastery of {Mana-manipulation} he had missed-
But that didn't mean he couldn't just make it take a richet off the air without concern for momentum, Hariot couldn't help but shake his head at the beauty that was mana not being constrained by some physical laws as a spiritual substance.
After a second dodge, Seria fell victim to Hariot's evil scheme. Which honestly suprised him, since dodging a projectile of such speed with little forewarning twice in a row- Even if thinking after the first that it was done- was a feat someone of her age shouldn't have been able to do.
It seemed that he hadn't mistaken some talentless hack for a somewhat talented teammate candidate, his kindness for giving her a roof to sleep under had not gone unrewarded.
Of course, that mattered not. What mattered was where her heart was located, if he just manifested the mana as a ring around her heart after anchoring it, he'd be able to crush her heart at any moment.
First he just felt about through the mana, taking the feedback from the resistance against his mana's movement. Not bothering about Seria, who was currently holding her hands to her chest with obvious panic.
He tried to feel the position of the mana in correlation to the other mana, and then overlay over his vision with the help of mental energy. Though he sadly lacked the ability to mimic any of the effects of his mental space. So he used pure mental ability to imagine it instead.
Then the mana was guided to the chestal cavity, which he could be assured would correctly sensed by letting a small, small, small amount of mana wisp out back to the fold through where the sternum would be.
And it coincided roughly with what he expected, so he decompressed the mana in order to fill the entirety of Seria's ribcage in with a 0.8:1
Seeing the sudden shudden from Seria as her legs shook, Hariot finally took notice, and temporarily anchored the mana to something in the chest just to make sure it didn't suddenly leave.
Which seemed to be a pretty smart decision, as Seria fell to her knees while breathing heavily, seemingly in the middle of clawing her own chest.
Hariot scratched his head while taking back all of his mana, he walked up and flicked his finger against her forehead "What's the problem?"
It obviously had something to do with his mana, which was far harder to move inside her instead of the air or his own body.
But she didn't say shit, with eyes saying 'You did this!'.
Hariot would not tolerate such arrogance in his meatshield, so he started to continue with feeling for the heart, and then remembered that he also had a heart.
He felt towards the right of the centre of Seria's chest, and found nothing special, no mana conduit or anything.
Which highly confused him, since that's where his heart was hidden. But maybe he was special, so he took his time and felt the entirety of his mana-filled domain. And found a mana conduit that was actually better than his own.
'How!? HOW?! I've been putting in an enormous amount of mana into my mana conduit, and this slum rat has a better one?!' for one single second, Hariot's mental state shook violently, before calming down with a sigh.
He quickly did what he was planning, and forced the mana back into a compressed state, this time 1.2:1, and formed a slightly wider than the 1st ring circle around the conduit.
Then finally disolved the first anchor, and created a new one to a bit next to the precise place where the mana conduit was centered.
But then, he finally realized the crutch of this whole little 'Experiment' of his.
He can't maintain mana from too far a distance.
So, if he just so happens to stand... Hariot shot out a small ball of 1:1 mana with 0.2 mp, instantly dissolving after reaching a distance of 5.2 meters away from him.
If he just happened to stand more than 5.2 meters away from Seria, his dastardly plot would dissolve into thin air.
So he quickly forced the mana back out and returned it to one his rings, specifically the 6th.
So, basically. He had put Seria in unnecessary pain and shook his world view for a moment, all for nothing 'Well, I guess I did learn how far I can shoot mana out without it dissipating, but that's almost nothing. Such a waste of time...'
He sighed as he stood up, pulling Seria up to her feet "Don't be such a cry baby, the hell's the issue anyways. I'm passing mana through my body at all times, and you go fall to your knees from as little as 2 mp? You're a disappointment to your ancestors."
He continued to walk to the forest, with a large frown. But he perceived that a certain meatshield seemed to have gained arrogance, as her words entered his ears;
"What do you expect?! That tearing feeling, that feeling of- Of wrongness! It felt like something was moving inside me! And that feeling of my chest being filled to the brim, as if it was going to burst... How do you expect me to walk with that?!"
Hariot stopped 'Wat? Really? Is this what happens when I put mana into someone else? Or is this just special for her?' He thought, a notion lodging in his mind 'Is this going to make the meatshield want to kill me? I can't let this be! My investment won't be wasted without me trying to at least mend the situation...
I can't let that happen.'
Hariot took a deep, sharp breath, after which he took out his new sword "Is- Is that arrogance I'm hearing? Seria, Seria, Seria. I know that you're young, but,"
He once again closed in, at rapid speed putting his face before her's "You should now; I don't like arrogance in my 'Teammates'."
After saying those words, he put the tip of his blade, to the neck of the victim in front of him.
Seria recoiled after a miniscule amount of time used to register her new truth "I-I'm sorry, p-please don't kill me!"
Hariot calmed down, his neutral smile returning to him as humility had returned to Seria's previously corrupted heart "No worries, as long as you learn from your mistakes, no harm will come to you; At least not from these hands."
This seemed to bring a slight bit of relief to recently purified slum rat that had been corrupted by the sweet allures of arrogance.
With the snap of his fingers, the atmosphere between them returned to something similar to before, though Seria was a bit less... Nervous, and a bit more... Cautious.
'Mission accomplished, very bad situation over turned through threats... I... Threats aren't the best way to assure loyalty in hindsight. But the past is the past, and I'm not a Chronomancer.
-Sadly.'