Even if he had the extra vitality to waste, which he didn"t, removing claimed crystal would result in almost the same amount of new inert crystal entering at the same time. What was taken out would evaporate into the air, taking whatever investment of vitality it contained along with it. In some ways, the entire dying world around him was a greater example of his sickly mini plane.

That realization hit Orison like a ton of bricks. With a sh.e.l.l of inert spirit essence crystal to surround his formation, it"s...o...b..ts and his mini plane, it could even theoretically house life. With some creative effort and a lot of time, more than just spiritual existences could live on the plane. Although Orison was far from ready to work on such a project, it did give him a vague direction and another use for the substance.

Before he got too excited, Orison decided to have Herne escort in the box of ginseng whiskers and other items he"d be using to make the medicinal pellets with. Sacrificing the smallest whisker for planting, Orison created a "firefly" sprite to tend it. Being a semi-spiritual existence, the whisker"s vitality would allow it to regrow itself into a full plant with time and external healing. If Orison"s ideas about the insulating properties of the black crystal held true, it meant that he could potentially raise hearty plants as long as they were at least partly spiritual in nature. After all, the condensed eternium might serve the purpose of a sun to spiritual plants but actual photosynthesis was outside it"s current ability.

When and if his plane ever became big enough to support a self sufficient complex biome, those semi-spiritual flora would aid to kick start it. With that thought rolling, Orison started imagining algae crusted ponds teeming with fry. Before his thoughts lead him into areas that wouldn"t be viable for who knows how long, a knock on his bedroom"s office-side door interrupted him.

When Orison opened the door, he was greeted by a sore but satisfied looking Neil. "Wow, kiddo. You look like something the cat dragged in. Did you go out and have a bender the very night you told me to lay off the sauce? That"s not very sportsman like... I mean, you"re too young to be doing that. You"re going to stunt your growth."

Orison said blandly, "Hardly. I was accidentally exposed to a harmful substance while trying to pull an old man from death"s door. I"m not in any danger now but it"ll be a day or two until I"m my old self again. It"s just a little minor jaundice and mild anemia for the most part. I managed to keep the effects mostly surface contact."

Neil frowned. "If running around with that East Village quack is that dangerous, I don"t know if you should keep doing it."

Insulted on Mr. Wei"s behalf, Orison was quick to point out how "quack" medicine was why Neil wasn"t resting in a hospital with bills the detective would be spending the rest of his short life trying to pay. The young mage was also quick to say that it was his own choice and as far as he was concerned, giving a kind old man a few years to enjoy with his family was worth it.

With a knowing look, Neil said, "You get hurt showing off to that little chickadee who gave me a lift back here in our car? What was her name, Little Ying Ying?"

Orison said darkly, "It"s Ying Yue, Mr. Wei"s niece. And if she was even a hair"s width more obnoxious, you couldn"t pay me to stand in the same room as her..."

Neil chuckled. "I"m telling you, kiddo. If she"s under your skin, she"s halfway to your heart."

Orison snorted. "Only if she"s holding a knife."

Neil smiled wider and threw his hands up in surrender. "Methinks you protest too much but what do I know?"

Giving an evil smile back, the young mage said, "Then let me change the subject. Now that a certain lady"s bird feeder is squirrel free and refilled, let me clarify some things. That wine stain on your shirt and the subtle hint of tobacco about you means that the letter of our arrangement is more important to you than the spirit. I"m not going to be an a** about it but I just want you to know that the spirit is more important to me than the letter.

"I"m not going to go ballistic as long as you"re trying but have a moment of weakness. I will if you try to lawyer it because that defeats the purpose. That said, as long as you are putting in your time on whatever good work you get, I"ll mind my own business on your, uh, regulars. It occurred to me that I might have crossed a line there."

During Orison"s dress down, Neil shifted from angry to awkward and then embarra.s.sed. "That"s... I hear you. If a dame offers me a drink I"m taking it, though. Them"s just the rules, kid."

Orison nodded and said, "Yeah but refusing a second or a refill isn"t impolite. As long as you"re not asking for the unavoidable first one, I can accept that. Don"t add holding a pack of cigarettes for clients to that list of rules. Offering a cinnamon toothpick or stick of gum in sympathy is just as good in it"s ability to ingratiate, the rest is not much more than self enabling."

Neil unconsciously ran a hand over his suit"s jacket pocket and sighed. It might have been a bitter pill to swallow from a teenager but the detective wasn"t actually that against turning his life around. Bad habits were just hard to break.

Neil tossed the pack into the trash with one last look of pa.s.sing regret and said, "Let"s talk about that witch"s brew in the fridge. I don"t feel like sitting on the throne for half a day again."

Orison shrugged. "I can"t say it won"t send you to do some private reading but it"s not even in the same ballpark as the first one. That one was trying to get out what three years of abuse put in your body. This time"s mostly an effort to put back in you what three years of poor nutrition and drinking took out."

The first couple of days were the hardest. Getting Neil on a schedule and radical changes to diet had Orison carefully picking his battles to keep from pushing the detective too far. On day three when the detective was cleared to start exercising and started getting a couple of gigs from the newspaper ad, the outward focus of Neil"s newfound but irritable energy had more positive outlets to pour themselves into.

As fairly recovered as he was going to get without external a.s.sistance, Orison turned to his own projects. The initial and most important of which were dan making. Out of eleven attempts to create medicinal pellets out of the ginseng whiskers and their supporting ingredients, only five were a complete success. The first four botched attempts weren"t a complete waste, however. The escaped vital essence was captured by the mustard seed bracelet before it could disappear into the gaping maw of surrounding black crystal and the dregs were given to the recovering ginseng whisker.

One attempt was wasted to idiocy when Orison removed his first success from his s.p.a.ce without any kind of magical seal or protective container, allowing the ever present inert spirit essence to suck the vital essence right through the wax coating. The remaining failure wasn"t so much a waste as embarra.s.singly lacking. He took it with the "good" one he used for himself. Of the four remaining successes, He sent two to Mr. Wei, reserved one for Neil and kept the last for an emergency.

He felt a little guilty about the final result he"d sent back to the apothecary but considering that the whiskers were all but useless in the hands of someone without supernatural abilities to keep their properties safe while handling and ingesting, it hadn"t been that bad of a trade. For a normal, healthy person the dan would shave a couple of years off someone"s age while adding a couple more to the end. For an unhealthy mundane, it was practically a panacea but it couldn"t directly do anything about toxins, viral or bacterial infections that were still present.

For a person who"d taken inert essence into their physical body or been attacked and somehow survived a creature made from said essence, it was a miracle drug. Not only did it heal them of vitality damage but it could "activate" lingering inert essence, strengthening the body and enriching their gift or awakening one if it was present but latent. The note he sent with the medicinal pellets explained that but Orison hoped Mr. Wei wouldn"t pa.s.s on the message and explained as much at the end, even if he wouldn"t really hold it against the apothecary. It was likely that some medicine makers within their circle already knew about it but if it became common knowledge, there would be negative consequences.

Sadly, for Orison, the "miracle drug" wasn"t that miraculous. It might have galvanized his body a little but there was so much inert essence in his s.p.a.ce that any spillover was lost to the vast glacier of "null" that crammed his inner s.p.a.ce to engorged hopelessness. That wouldn"t be the case forever. With every day that went by, his eternium formation was growing an imperceptible amount faster, a few more grains of five colored earth were produced than the day before and another set of spirit gra.s.s sprouts were a millimeter closer to maturity.

a.s.suming that the world around him stayed just how it was, Orison felt like he"d reach a tipping point in six or seven months where instead of wanting to leave as soon as possible, he"d be staying as long as he could. There was zero chance of that happening. Every instinct and logical conclusion was telling him that this world was on a greased slide to the abyss and every day saw it picking up a little more speed.

With one project done, it was time to turn to another. The young mage studied the crystal capsule. Early on, he had noticed that the unlocking mechanism was on the wrong side. The key to opening it probably shared a similarly strange way of accessing that mechanism. The original method may not be available to him but he saw a different way, divestment. Cracking it open would be a difficult task but even if he could, it would be like setting off a nuke. The only safe way would be to leech away it"s ability to be extrdimensional. Once unfolded into 3D, the items inside would would be capable of transitioning fairly safely inside his s.p.a.ce.

There were a few options available to get that done but the safest one for the moment was discovered by accident. Once, during his frustration of trying to figure out a cheat or loophole to exploit only to end up mentally running circles around himself for a few hours, he had thrown the capsule back onto the mini plane. Startled by the capsule landing beside it, Nibbles picked the crystal up in its mouth and started chewing on it.

Orison wasn"t concerned that Nibble"s jaws were strong enough to forcefully crack it open and kill them all so he just watched. Although it was only a minute amount, Nibbles actually divested the surface of some of it"s tightly woven energy. After that, the hunting hound treated it like a toy and would wallow the capsule around in its mouth when it got bored. Since Nibble"s play served the dual purpose of weakening the protection layer of the capsule and kept the hound from play hunting the firefly sprite that was taking care of the ginseng, he let it be. Orison figured that if the hound kept at it long enough, maybe only one more boundary crossing would weaken the capsule enough to be opened safely instead of two.

A few days into his capsule experiments and study, Orison finished "digesting" the silk purse. With the breaking of his teleportation magic, a small but significant change occurred. The subtle whisper that had been resonating form his marrow cut off in dead silence the moment it happened. After some self examination and reflection, Orison came to the conclusion that the intuitive side to the secondary spiritual bloodline had been overwhelmed by the mechanical and practical applications of dimensional concepts. In short, his concepts favored rational knowledge over mysticism and choked out the inner voice.

As far as the young mage was concerned, not having the "shadow in his bones" was a good thing. There was a manipulative quality to it that didn"t sit well. His biggest reason for feeling that way was the "impulse" in it. There was no explanation, just a sudden drive to do something that didn"t make sense until later if at all. Even if everything it drove him to do was completely for his own benefit, it still forced him on a path not of his own choosing and that wasn"t something Orison could tolerate in the long term.

Without the need for testing or experimentation, the young mage knew that teleportation in this world would be dangerous, as every adjoining s.p.a.ce to it was filled with little more than dangerously dense inert spirit essence and whatever anti-creatures that dwelt in it. Just a little time later, Orison had discovered that trans.m.u.tation wasn"t particularly welcomed by this world and the only uses that wouldn"t eat through his reserves too alarmingly was actually due to the black crystal which could be changed to gas capable of producing moisture, carbon or iron. That could be further controlled to only produce breathable air, water or refined carbon and iron at a days worth of reserve every few seconds.

The young mage was neither overjoyed or disappointed with the results. On one hand, he had hoped for more. But on the other, trans.m.u.tation was only a theoretical concept which barely did more than make his s.p.a.ce more adaptable or aid with the reproduction of some spells that had never really been that "cheap" to use.

Nearly three weeks in, Orison humorously found himself thinking about more mundane matters as he picked up some slack for Neil on easy solve side business. Until the detective had a chance to ingrain some good habits, the young mage hadn"t wanted to stress Neil out or let the detective have excuses to skip morning exercise with busy work. That trend had eaten into the mage"s own private and free time.

Fortunately, a few decent paydays later, an academy blacklist with a similar story to Neil"s own of having tried to apply the law to a city untouchable, came to work as a part-timer. Since the mid twenties man never stepped foot in the office and was only a freelancer Neil pa.s.sed "small potato" gigs to, Orison didn"t even bother with learning the name. Same went for the professionally pleasant and completely bland personality secretary that was hired a few days later to man phones and do the paperwork.

The young mage hadn"t really involved himself in Neil"s work overly much outside of a supporting role and avoided the office during business hours entirely. By the end of the fourth week, his involvement in Neil"s affairs was becoming more and more hands off as the detective became far more personally interested and invested in self improvement without a "smelly brat" goading him. Orison would have credited the sudden increase in younger and prettier clientele as the main culprit but in truth, Neil was starting to enjoy the fruits of his labor and had become a little privately narcissistic.

The middle of week five saw several laid ground works finally reaching a satisfactory ripening. Orison felt fully recovered and conditioned to the world he was in. Neil had reached the baseline of fitness and self defense capabilities to not be a complete liability in slightly risky endeavors. But most importantly, his time and effort spent with Ms. Derby had reached close to its grand payout.

The woman had reached a point where her "fast food" model was growing past her ability to handle. Even with the extra help she had hired, her business had grown beyond her managerial and even intellectual capacity to compensate for as an independent responsible for all aspects. With a patent pending on the fast food model, Orison innocuously maneuvered a few big business types to investigate Mrs. Derby and in a whirlwind shark romance, the first round winner between the "buy out specialists" almost hoodwinked the poor lady into selling out for 10,000 and a name holder.

Unaware of how she had become somewhat reliant on Orison"s easy offered solutions, Mrs. Derby threw it all out on the table to the teenager and Orison was more than happy to sit beside her at the negotiation table. The next day, the investment shark that had expected a fat lamb faced a dragon among men. Two days later, Mrs. Derby hung her grease stained ap.r.o.n up with 50,000 in the bank and a ten percent profit share for twenty years in a natal franchise chain named after her.

Alice had laughed when Orison said he"d take a twenty percent commission on anything over 20,000 or a maximum 10,000. She wasn"t laughing when she was standing at the bank teller with him, however. Out of her settlement of 75k, Orison got his max commission and in a surprising turn of altruism, Mrs. Darby gave each shift"s lead waitress and evening cook 5000 apiece.

Unlike with Mrs. Darby, Orison"s development plans in Ms. Messier and her "accidental" discovery of sweat resistant makeup and waterproof mascara had spiraled completely out of his control. Smiley"s attempted theft of the pending patents and Ms. Messier"s inexplicable "real" whirlwind romance that came in the shape of a five year widowed CEO from "The Big Apple" had trashed the young mage"s plans. Fortunately for Ms. Messier, her new beau was a high ranking "Mason". Unfortunately for Orison, he "pinged" on the man"s radar.