Amelia stared in amazement. “How are you doing this? Are you sure you don’t have some enchanted item hidden somewhere?”
I shook my head. “I feel like I’m pulling energy from inside myself to do this. Come to think of it, it seems to come from the same place where I sensed Mana earlier today.”
“You’re manipulating a Mana pool?” Amelia asked.
“I think so. I never really thought of it that way until today. When I was younger, it just seemed natural. When that boar attacked, I was so caught up with the danger that I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it. The same with the slavers. It was instinctive—I just knew what to do and then did it. It was only once I’d used some of it up that I really noticed it. Using too much made me feel… lightheaded, strange, but now that I’ve used it a bit, it feels like my Mana pool is getting stronger.”
Amelia shook her head slowly, eyes wide with disbelief. “This doesn’t make any sense. No one can channel Mana without having an enchanted item to use as a vector, and yet what you’re describing is exactly how Mana works. As you use it, you regenerate more and more, getting stronger with use like a limb. How can this be? Show me the tattoo.”
I held out my wrist to her. She took my hand firmly in hers and bent over my arm to examine the tattoo closely. I could feel the warmth of her breath on my bare skin as she spoke.
“This is a simple Fire rune, exactly like the one that Mages use as a base for Fire spells. See here, it’s a simple representation of a flame. The spear going through it normally allows Mages to cast fire as a projectile. It’s the same kind of rune that would be added to an item to allow a Fire Mage to use it as a vector. But people can’t be used as vectors—only items. Where did you get this symbol from?”
“It’s just something I saw on some basic weapons when I was in Aranor.”
“How peculiar,” she murmured. “No one can manipulate Mana just like that.”
“Well, we’ll have to work that out later,” I said. “The noise I made fighting that boar may have caught the attention of the trollmen. We need to keep moving.”
Amelia started at the mention of the slavers. “Yes, let’s get going.”
We began to walk out of the clearing, but as we passed the corpse of the boar lying there again, Amelia held out a hand to stop me. “Wait, we have to retrieve the Cores from that Beast first.”
“The what?” I looked at the Beast. “Oh, right. This is a magical monster. This is the first time I’ve seen one, let alone fought one.”
Amelia stooped to examine the corpse, laying her book on the ground beside it. “I’ve never actually seen a monster in the flesh before either. But the Beast Core should be where the heart is on normal animals.”
I stooped as well, the belt knife in my hand. “My guess would be here then.” I lifted the front leg of the boar and held the knife over a spot in the middle of the chest.
“Are you certain?”
I shrugged. “That’s where the heart of most animals is located. I would know; I had to kill my share of animals back in the village when I was younger.”
I plunged the knife into the Beast’s fur and drove it into the flesh. Amelia gasped at the squelching sound as I dug into the chest cavity, but then I heard a clink. I dug some more and could feel a hard object on the end of the knife. Amelia stood up and watched from the side.
With some effort, I cut away a chunk of the flesh and managed to scrape the object out with the end of the knife. This Beast Core looked like a round, bright blue stone about the size of a walnut. I felt a tugging sensation in my mind. My Mana was being attracted by the Beast Core.
“That’s it!” Amelia jumped up and down a couple of times in her excitement. That was pretty endearing, as was the way her breasts moved under her soft tunic as she jumped. I smiled at her and picked up the Core. It was still warm from being inside the Beast.
“What do we do with the Core?” I asked.
“You have no idea how valuable these are,” she said, stooping again to look. “These can be sold for vast amounts of money. There’s a fluid inside them that is highly valued as a powerful magical ingredient. I don’t know how strong this Beast was, but it may have more than one Core, especially since the one you hold is on the smaller side. See if there are any more.”
I dug the knife inside the wound I’d made again and heard another clink. Then I scraped away inside the chest for a bit longer, doing my best to hurry. We’d put some distance between ourselves and the slavers, but there was the possibility they would still be looking for us.
After another couple of minutes, I retrieved two more Cores. Amelia was ecstatic. She scooped up the Cores and her book. I let her carry those things so I could be free to fight if the need arose again.
“What are magical Beasts doing in these woods?” I asked as we set out again, out of the clearing. “Shouldn’t they be in the mines?” I was reminded of what Boris had said about Beasts roaming the lands outside Brightwater. Could what he had said be true?
Amelia looked at me for a long moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “They should be in the mines, yes. To tell the truth, that
