Ch 3: Verra

In an oval room with grey walls filled with glowing magic circles, there was a colorful fog floating around the room. The fog was being pulled into the bodies of two shadows sitting crossed legged in the middle of the room. These were Xasha and Verra who were pulling the mana from the fog into the energy sea between their brows. After eight hours of intense mediation, the green-haired duo simultaneously opened their eyes.

"I feel close to a breakthrough," Xasha said calmly.

"Well, it's easier to breakthrough when you're still low leveled," Verra said with a smile, She stood up from a meditative position and started stretching a slim waist.

"You're only one rank higher than I am. I'm rank 4 copper while you're rank 5."

"You know the difference in power between rank 4 and rank 5 are worlds apart. When it comes to training speed everybody in this world is born equal. We all absorb energy at the same rate. The only thing that makes a difference is the Rank of the energy chambers we have access to. Being the son of the grand Court mage, I'm sure you have access to the best energy chambers and external resources to help you level up much faster than others." Verra asked curiously. She'd been wondering how she managed to have a higher rank than the son of one of the richest and most powerful mages on the continent with the little resources she possessed.

"Well, it's simple really. My constitution is different, my 3rd talent is called Open Sea. It causes my energy sea to be 3 times the capacity of other humans. So even though I'm a level 4 copper mage, I have the mana of a level 6 copper stage mage."

"That's unbelievable, if you were a combat mage you would be a monster, an absolute monster. All you would have to do is let your opponent waste all his mana while your mana sea is not even half empty," Verra laughed out loud. That talent seemed unreal.

"There's a downside, my open mind and truth eyes uses equal amounts of energy as my open sea. That means whenever I consume energy it's split into 3, with equal amounts going to my Energy Sea, Open Mind, and my Truth Eyes. So, imagine trying to fill an energy sea 3 times yours with only 30% of the energy you can usually absorb," Xasha smiled with difficulty.

"Is that why you're always tired and hungry?" Verra was surprised. It's the first time she's hearing of these things. She had read about all of Xasha's talents in the talent Archive, but that book doesn't tell the details of everything these talents could do.

"Exactly," Xasha burst out in an apathetic laugh, "they not only take my magic energy but the chemical energy from my body. That's why I need to replenish my energy as soon as possible so I won't be sucked dry by these greedy things."

"I guess my low-quality mana chamber isn't helping you much, is it? Seeing as it's only level 3," after learning all that Verra felt bad for making fun of him all the time for being a glutton and his weak looking body.

"It's fine, it will have to do for now, plus the chamber you have here is great, it's full of magic energy from the plants on your property."

"Well, I'm glad I could help. We're friends after all and that's what friends do, they help each other," Verra said, with a bright and sincere smile on her face.

"A real friend wouldn't charge me for it," Xasha was calling her a hypocrite in his mind.

"Nothing I can do," Verra shrugged while walking out of the energy chamber.

"Hey! wait up," Xasha got up and ran after her, "What are you planning on doing today?"

Verra turned to look at him, "just relax at home, do some light reading. Are you going to the library again?"

"Not today, I will go take a look at the progress being made on the island, I want to make sure everything is perfect," Xasha smiled and looked up at the sky where he could see the sun rising in the east and painting the clouds in a golden hue.

"The construction is being done by Garden Gnomes construction company, they are the best in Lotus City, I can assure you they do excellent work. They remodeled my mansion half a year ago, and it was amazing what they did," Verra had confidence in the Garden Gnomes Construction Company, but Xasha still wanted to see for himself.

"Okay fine... after we have breakfast, we can go take a look. I'll let you have seconds for free this morning," Verra had a bright smile on her face as she skipped towards the house.

In the world of Semeria, there are countless races of which humans are the majority. There are still other races in smaller numbers living throughout the continent, with some having provinces all to themselves and others joining hands to create one. The strongest non-human race was the Beastmen, which are energy beasts that got so powerful that they gained human-level intelligence and had built their own civilization.

Beastmen stick to themselves, they mainly live in the three Beastman provinces which are White Tiger Province, Lion Mountain province, and Holy Beastman Province. Though there are a few that venture out and live peacefully within human society.

The Gnomes were one race that lived in human society; they are great at mining and construction and the Garden Gnome Construction Company is the best of the best in construction even among Gnomes.

Xasha had to agree with that sentiment when he made it to the island and saw what these 3ft tall chubby men had accomplished in a fortnight. They already completed the sewage, running water, and water storage facilities. 18 greenhouses and 6 warehouses to store all the energy beasts and precious plants already on the island. They completed the roads, even the mansion, and all the courtyards were complete.

They were just doing the finishing touches on all the facilities, painting walls and cleaning up dirt, etc. When Xasha got there he stood in the air with his mouth agape, staring at the masterpiece that was his new home.

"I told you they did marvelous work," Verra laughed sheepishly, almost feeling proud of herself.

She had already made a whopping 4.5 million Libras off this young man, so she had no reason to shortchange him. She sent 1 million back to her family in the Vinci Province, she had brothers and sisters that will soon be old enough to practice magic.

The rest she kept in her storage pack. She was saving up to buy a higher quality energy chamber; she wanted to get stronger, faster.

"You were not wrong," Xasha said with a bright smile on his face, he was keeping Verra and himself in the air with wind magic, they soon descended.

"How come you still have enough energy for a long-distance flight with your body how it is?"

"The mana that's in my energy sea is mine to use and can't be siphoned away by my talents. They have to take the energy before it gets to my energy sea."

Hearing this, Verra became even more shocked, "what a strange body you have," she commented. After landing on the ground, they made their way to the foreman who was a Gnome with a tall red beard and a bald head. He was slightly taller than the other gnomes, "Welcome to DenoVega island, Ms. Green, Mr. Von Creig."

"How's the progress going so far?" Verra Asked.

"As you can see, we're almost done. All the buildings have been built with the best materials and only need a touch up here and there. We need to wait on the enchanters to come and build the rune houses, energy chambers, and labs."

"Great, that's great. You did outstanding work, Gooseman," Verra praised with a bright smile.

Gooseman, the foreman, was filled up with pride after hearing those words. He straightened his back, puffed out his chest, and with a serious tone said, "Thank you for your kind words. He then turned to Xasha and said, "Your highness, before I forget, we had made 3 discoveries on this island while we were clearing the land. The first was that there is a magic Mana Vein underneath this island."

"I figured more or less that was the case, there had to be a reason that the magic energy is so high here," Xasha wasn't surprised at all.

"Well, the Mana Vein here is very powerful and it could easily provide magic energy to over 10,000 Rank 10 energy chambers, it's an E grade vein close to D grade. This is a priceless treasure, your highness, my advice is that you build an energy chamber formation on this island and create a guild where you can start training your legion early."

"Thank you for your advice Gooseman I will give it some thought," Xasha liked Gooseman more and more as they talked. He thought he was honest and intelligent.

"What were the other two discoveries?" Verra was curious. If the first discovery was so amazing, what could be said about the rest?

"We discovered a seedling of a mana berry tree-," Gooseman was cut off.

"Holy Cow! A mana berry tree? Really? Where is it?" Verra said, frantically shaking Goodman's shoulder, asking him a barrage of questions over and over, not giving him a chance to reply.

He finally gathered the strength to lift a finger and pointed towards the first greenhouse a few hundred meters away. She let go of him and ran towards the greenhouse, leaving the two males behind her in a daze.

After a while, Xasha looked at Gooseman and said, "well... let's go after her I guess."

Gooseman joked, "Do we have to?"

Xasha burst out laughing, "It's best if we do, who knows what she will end up doing if we leave her alone," He put his hands be behind his back and trudged towards the greenhouse Verra had zoomed in.