Sorting things out.

Bass was quickly patched up by Charlotte and a couple of the medics. It seemed that luckily the bullet had passed clean through and did not hit anything vital. While Charlotte was patching up Bass, John was handed the documents. They seemed quite peculiar, as he assumed they would just be dummy documents, but as far as he could tell they were real. Before he could investigate further, however, Ember took the documents and congratulated them all on finishing their mission.

“I still would like to talk to you,” she added quietly to John.

“You ok Bass?” John asked, hesitant to leave when his teammate was still injured.

“I’ll be fine by the time we start our next class,” she chuckled, then coughed painfully. John wasn’t sure that was true, but he couldn’t help her regardless. Sitting around here would accomplish nothing, and Bass would be the type to dislike wasting time like that.

“Good to hear. I’ll see you all there,” he turned to Ember and asked, “so, where should we go to talk?”

Ember quickly led him down a few corridors and into another office. Much less fancy than Ingrid’s, but it was obviously still made in the same style. She sat down and instructed John to sit on the other side. From the nameplate on the door, John knew it was her own office.

“Like I told you yesterday, Ingrid wants to talk to you, but I have something more… personal I want to discuss.” That came to John as a bit of a surprise, Ember was usually a bit distant. He wouldn’t mind talking to her, however, he had some reason to trust her, at least. She did seem to put her job over most other things, but perhaps now John could understand why.

“Sure. What’d you wanna talk about?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“First, I want to say I'm sorry. For threatening you when we just met and for what happened during the test, all of it. I was just following orders and procedures both times, but it was wrong to trick you. I just wish there had been a better way to recruit you," she started, her voice genuinely showing remorse for the first time since John had met her.

"You could have told me," he said, a bitter feeling overcoming him.

"I couldn't, if the rest of the Council got word of how much we helped you already… They were supposed to kidnap you directly from your home before the test. And even then the test, that was the only thing that stopped them from killing you. Since you weren't a mundane anymore they weren't going to let a potential info leak be left alive. Ingrid fought for you, that's why you're still here," she was being brutally honest, John could see it in her eyes. And they both fell silent for a minute. The next one to talk was once again Ember.

"Any-anyways I… I don’t usually talk about my personal desires, usually just gets in the way of my job, but I need your help John. I want you to ask Ingrid to assign me to your team, once it’s formed. She’ll probably approve it, you guys will need someone with experience to start with, and I’m someone you know personally,” her voice had none of Ember’s usual professionalism, only some variance of raw emotion. John couldn’t tell if it was fear, sadness, or something else.

“I don’t disagree, but why? I may trust you, but I’d like to know what my future team members are thinking,” John wasn’t sure if he should be worried or not, but something seemed off.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Then I’m not sure I can ask Ingrid-”

“No! Please! Believe me, this is important…” Ember responded with genuine anguish, something was definitely wrong.

“I can’t just do that. If you just tell me, I’m sure I’ll understand,” he wanted to believe her, but the lack of knowledge was nagging at him. Maybe it was his curiosity, maybe it was some other ****.

“You know what, never mind,” she said coldly, “I’ll take you to Ingrid.” She got up quickly, and before waiting for John she moved out of the room and down a few corridors. He followed as swiftly as he could.

’The hell was that? Shit, I hope I didn’t drive her away with that…’ John couldn’t stop wondering why she was so quick to forget about it. He knew this would be a problem again, one way or another.

John was sitting in Ingrid’s office, she apparently had quite a bit of paperwork to do in his regard. She looked stunning as ever, but below her blue eyes had formed bags since he last saw her.

“We need to settle quite a few topics. First of all, do you already have access to a mundane bank account or to the Abyss auction? Your wage needs to be put somewhere, and I’d rather not explain what we pay to your parents,” her tone was warm but she was clearly annoyed to be handling the whole ordeal.

“Shouldn’t someone else be doing this? Doesn’t really seem like a job for the leader of the organization.”

“We’re understaffed as always, and most of our clerks can’t handle the paperwork for a late bloomer. Given I know you personally I thought it would be quicker this way. I have to do my fair share of paperwork, I know how to handle it well. Now, please let us get on with it.”

“Ah, ok… I don’t really have any of those. And I don’t even know what this “Abyss Auction” is. But I do have a way of storing money inside my pocket dimension. Not sure if that helps…”

“It might connect to the Abyss Auction if you open an account there.” she paused for a moment, “give me your phone. I can use it to allow you access to the Auction. It’s a sort of online store. Think Amazon but for the magical community.” John quickly took out his phone and gave it to Ingrid. She typed a few things into it quickly and instructed him to place his hand on it. He did so casually and it informed him an account had been made based on his mana signature. It installed an app onto his phone allowing him access and a popup also appeared.

Your wallet has been connected to the Abyss Auction’s bank services.

“It just told me it connected to the pocket space.”

“That’s over and done with then. You should expect your wage to arrive, then. It’ll be somewhat small until you finish your training, and afterwards it’ll be based on how well you do. For now you’ll receive... I believe fifty thousand dollars per month,” John’s mouth flew wide open, “you’ll have to take up any problems you have with HR, I’m not dealing with petty monetary complaints.” John obviously had no complaints, but the number was apparently real.

“Anyways, the next matter is slightly more personal. First, a question. Have you thought about my proposal?”

“Yes. I agree. I’m still not sure what it entails, but I trust you and it is true that my purpose is here. However, I still have family outside the Abyss, I expect to be able to continue to visit and interact with them.”

“That will be fine. I’ll have someone order an Abyssal SIM card for you as well, that should let you talk to them while in the planes, at least,” she paused for a moment, “now, we will start your next lesson. As it is with me anyways,” John was once again confused, but she continued a moment later, “each one of you students gets a tutor for your specific type of magic. To help you expand your abilities. That was your next lesson, and given our similar fields and my experience, I assigned myself as your tutor. I expected you to accept my proposal. Be aware, however, this will be extremely tough. I will teach you what I know only as long as you put your all into it.”

“Yeah…” John was still hesitant, but his choices were as limited as always.

“Good.”

She stood up and instructed him to follow her to a nearby room. It was a training room of sorts, built like a Japanese dojo, in quite a departure to the rest of the building. On the far end were training dummies. In the middle stood a table with a bowl of water on it, and to the left were packed various seemingly random objects. Books, chairs, balls of various sizes and so on.

“First, let’s cover mana. Every person has their own type of mana, which is usually one of the elements, though exceptions can be found. Mana is what allows people to cast spells, the way it is shaped, formed, and manipulated is the application of most magic. It is occasionally tied to their personality but more usually tied to the soul. Or as some people believe, the true self. I am not one of those people, there are different aspects to every element, and different people represent many aspects. Regardless, the way we discover what sort of mana each person has is something I will show you now. Even though we all are fairly sure the majority of your mana, at least, is Psychic, it is customary to perform the test on any Abyssal of age. Most Abyssals, those that are somewhat competent in magical matters, can manifest their mana in one way or another, so it is part of our basic schooling. The water and the leaf in the bowl are enchanted to react to the mana the body naturally generates. In other words, using it we can determine what type or types of mana one has.” She quickly instructed him to step towards the table. He now noticed that a leaf was placed in the water as well, as she had said.

John began feeling nervous as he approached it. It seemed crazy to him that his world now had magic systems in the vain of his favorite fantasies, but nonetheless that seemed the case. Maybe somewhere inside him he still denied he had it himself. Once Ingrid told him to hold his hands above the water and he did so, he could not deny it anymore.

The leaf began floating in the air. It pressed against his hand before he could see it, and as he moved it up to view it it came with his hand, following at a small distance. Ingrid began talking, but John’s attention was elsewhere, something was pulling him as it pulled the leaf. Some **** within him demanded his focus.

“It seems we were right. Your Psychic mana seems quite strong as well.” John heard her speak, but it was all muffled, as his mind still focused on the mysterious pull. As he honed in on it more and more, things began to happen around him. A flower spawned from the leaf, then died off, and instead of moving towards his hand it started moving in the air as if affected by wind. Below it, the water in the bowl expanded as more was created and contracted as part of it evaporated, and the water that spilled onto the floor in the process became muddy. On the water’s surface a rainbow was barely visible, as the water became darker and more opaque.

Ingrid’s shocked expression matched John’s own, and she quickly ushered him away from the table.

“I think that’s enough for today. I promise I’ll explain what happened next time,” she said calmly after collecting herself for a minute.

“Ah, ok....” John wasn’t sure what to do. Then he remembered what he had wanted to ask, at least, “can I see Orianna?”

“Yes, I’ll have one of my maids take you to her. She’s recovering in one of our wards.”

A maid came in a few minutes later and escorted John out. He followed her through the usual industrial and mansion corridors into new ones. The walls of these hallways were painted entirely white, and medical personnel were busily roaming them. Eventually, they reached a small room in a corner of the area. Orianna was laying on the bed inside, awake and eating what looked oddly like a pudding cup.

“Hey, Orianna!” John was glad to see she was alright.

“John! It’s good to see you. I was wondering when you’d come by,” she said, chuckling. It seemed whatever **** had possessed her earlier was now gone.

“I’m glad you’re alright. It’s good to see you’re recovering well.”

“Yeah… Though I don’t have much time left before I need to go back to the Federation. Need to finish my training, same as you.” Her smile faded for a moment only to come back in full ****.