“As great as it is to hear it, I can’t really focus on you as much as I would like right now.” Raising his hand, Layn placed it on Irea’s head before patting it. “Right now, this treasure has the potential to turn most of the academy grounds into a wasteland. I need to finish it before it will be too late.”

Tensing his abdominal muscles, Layn forced his upper body up, almost crashing foreheads with the girl. Escaping from the collision course at the very last moment, a hint of displeasure and disappointment flashed in the girl’s eyes.

‘Figures… No woman would be happy to have her advances put on hold.’ Despairing over the necessary action he had to take, Layn quickly brought a simple knife from the pile of tools and resources he prepared in advance.

“Right now, this twig is… How do I say it… Sucking the energy out of the air? Sucking the mana from another dimension?” As soon as the archmage moved on to specialistic terms required to explain the matter, his translation spell produced red flashes in his vision to indicate how it was unable to convey the same meaning with the words it already learned.

As great as it was to have a self-improving translation spell working constantly, it was still just a low-grade construct rather than a proper and popular tool widely used in the future Layn came from. Thankfully, once Layn would get some time to turn all the remaining stones into his own power source, the situation would change.

“Wait a moment.” Quickly standing up, Layn ran to grab a simple mug from the kitchen compartment of Irea’s apartment before slamming it down into a bail of water normally used for washing and cleaning. Pouring out the content to make carrying it around easy and comfortable, he placed the half-filled mug on the floor before sitting beside it.

“Listen. What you guys are doing right now, is akin to trying to suck the water out of the cup.” To make the explanation even simpler, Layn leaned over the cup, leaving roughly ten inches between the surface of the water in the cup and his mouth. Then, after releasing all the air from his lungs, he inhaled with all the might his lungs offered.

“See? Nothing much.” Pointing his hand at his wet mouth, Layn then spat the dirty water back to the cup. “What we are doing instead, is using a tool to make drinking easier.” Grabbing the leftover part of the unenchanted twig, Layn then moved it above the cup only to lower it down, allowing the thin strand of material to soak the water.

Pulling the twig up after a moment, he brought it up before showing how the droplets of water quickly started to drip from the long strip of cloth directly at his hand below.

“So it’s not like there is little energy in the air, but rather…” Even though she was initially annoyed by Layn’s refusal to accept her advances, Irea proved that she held the position of a teacher at the academy for a reason. With her eyes glued to the archmage’s lips, it seemed as if she was drinking his words directly from his mouth.

“Yes, we can use the magic stone powder to… extract? To pull the magic from a state where it’s hard for us to reach it. By using such a tool, in simple terms, we can force it to endlessly generate energy for our own use.” In the end, Layn didn’t manage to completely convey the message. Thankfully, from the look of understanding on Irea’s face, she at least managed to understand the crux of the matter.

“Tell me, is this how you are using spiritual energy in your world?” At first, Layn started to ponder how he was supposed to answer this question without triggering the problems with his translation spell when he noticed it.

“What the hell are you talking about? There is no such thing as other words, silly.” Shaking his head in apparent disbelief, Layn brought the knife to the very treasure he and Irea spent the last few hours creating. Mercilessly stabbing the blade right at the top of this roughly fist-sized, ovalish item, he then carved out a small cone from it.

‘Thank God…’ As his eyes focused on making sure the shape he portrayed in his thoughts would be perfectly reflected on the item he was working on, Layn used his steady breathing to calm himself down.

The fact that the girl asked about the world rather than the time, saved him. If she happened to strike precisely into the crux of the topic, even after everything he went through in his life, Layn doubted his ability to keep his face straight.

“Ah… And here I thought I managed to figure you out…” Shaking her head with a clear disappointment, Irea hid her triumphant smile before refocusing her attention on the treasure. “What are you doing to it right now? Destroying it?”

Rather than calling out how she instantly went to change the topic when her initial guess failed, Layn only smiled before doing the last few cuts and passing the finished treasure to the girl’s hands.

“Before this cut was made, the energy drawn by the enchanted twig would fill the stone inside, then the unenchanted twig in between… But what would happen next? The energy would continue to flow in, without anywhere to be stored. In short words, this treasure causes the first and greatest mana disaster in… in the entire world.” Holding his tongue back from referring to the ancient disasters while explaining, Layn quickly swallowed a mouthful of saliva before picking up where he left.

“Right now, the unenchanted twig will serve as the outlet of the energy. As for the crystal inside, its only job was to add direction to the initial flow of energy that started when the enchanted twig was first wrapped around the core.” Standing up, Layn offered his hand to the girl. At first surprised, Irea was quick to place her own hand atop his palm, only for the archmage to help her stand up.

“As for now, in about an hour or two, the innate capacity of the material will be filled…” The red flashing of Layn’s vision alerted him about yet another lacking word for the translation spell. “Once the cup will be filled with water to the brim, it will start to overflow.”

Still holding Irea’s hand, Layn took a step closer before wrapping his left arm around the girl’s waist as he looked at her lips before licking his own mouth.

“And that means, we should have a few hours for ourselves.”