Sam walked into the room, pulling up the spare chair standing near the desk to sit down. Ashton really didn't want to see his face right now, so he compressed his channelling range more and focused entirely on the paper in front of him.

  "So... what were they like? You said they weren't from there, so were they a human?"

  Ashton shook his head. "Nah, they weren't. I mean, close, I guess. They were a lot taller than me, and apparently were on the short end of the spectrum. Their skin looked similar, but just because they were really pale. Apparently their people are shades of blue. But besides that, apparently they're physically pretty similar to humans. They taught me quite a bit about staff fighting, actually. At that point, I was just relying on completely self-taught techniques, but they gave me a lot of pointers."

  With a slight laugh, Sam leaned forward and picked something up from the table. It wasn't much, just some random fidget toy that he played with sometimes. But it did startle Ashton a little, since he barely heard him move. "So they were stronger than you? I can barely imagine that at this point."

  "Well... physically, they were, yeah. But no, they never beat me in a fight. It was close, until they gave me those pointers, and then the gap just kept growing. But it was fine, they didn't care. They mostly just learned fighting to protect themself while travelling."

  "It doesn't sound like they were from a modern world, if they had to know how to fight to travel."

  "Hm, I mean, kind of. You know how there's tons of fantasy stories where an ancient, super-advanced civilization existed? They came from that kind of world. And there, they have what they call 'Jargo-Maras'. Past-seekers." Ashton smiled lightly, momentarily clearing his throat to get rid of the lump forming in it.

  Sam could clearly tell that Ashton was feeling a bit weird about this whole conversation, but at the same time, it didn't seem like Ashton wanted it to stop just yet. "Past-seeker? Like... historians?"

  "More like Archaeologists, but a lot more dangerous. The ruins they would explore had what were essentially magical robots that the jargo-maras might have to defend themselves against. While they were exploring a specific ruin, they accidentally activated some ancient magic and fell into Lumia."

  Ashton finished the drawing of the outfit he was planning putting together, setting it aside to plan out the specific materials and items he would actually need for it. Sam stood up and walked around the table, putting a hand onto Ashton's shoulder. "I'm sorry that things ended the way they did."

  "So am I. They were looking for a way home, but I ruined that. I was actually hoping to escape from the Summoner at some point to try and find a way to their home and bring back the broach that they had on them before they passed."

  "The broach? What happened to it?"

  "I wore it for a while as I was travelling around, but the moment I was called back to the Summoner's side, they incinerated it," Ashton clutched the pen in his hand tightly. Even the constellations weren't saying anything right now, they were just silently listening to the story that Ashton told. He would have thought that especially the Observer would be interested in hearing more about his time in Lumia, but clearly even they knew how to read the room.

  "By the way, how the fuck are you this good at drawing?" Sam changed the topic immediately, picking up one of the sketches that Ashton had drawn earlier. "This is better than what I can do..."

  "No it's not. I've just had a lot of time to practice. You don't hold a pen almost every day for a century without learning how to use it a little."

  "Well I guess, but mate, you're fast with it, too," Sam laughed. "But what is this for, anyway?"

  Ashton relaxed slightly, expanding his channelling range. Now that the topic had moved away from that part of his past, Sam wouldn't have that look on his face. Whenever a topic became a little bit grim for Ashton and Sam was trying his best to figure out what to say and how to act, he had that same exact look his face. Ashton could already hear it in his voice. If he saw his friend's face as well, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from spilling everything there was to tell. That's always how it turned out in these situations. And even a century later, that probably hadn't changed.

  Sam narrowed his eyes and stared at the paper. "Clem mentioned you fine-tuned how well you can see through the wisp, but still, nobody would ever believe a blind man drew this." Sam glanced down at his friend, as if there was something else he was trying to say, but didn't quite have the right words. "By the way, what you did earlier with those fuckass annoying guys from the top floor? Good job, in general, but you really freaked them out."

  Ashton shrugged. "I think they probably felt some of my anger or something."

  "They felt your anger? You seemed pretty calm there, all-considered."

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  "Oh, that's not what I mean. It's like bloodlust or something," Ashton explained, but Sam just scoffed and shook his head.

  "Seriously, 'bloodlust'?"

  Ashton turned his head toward Sam, even if he couldn't see. "Bloodlust is where you draw the line?"

  "Sue me, it just sounds a bit silly, I guess." Sam leaned against his desk and shrugged. Clearly, he didn't really take it seriously. Which was understandable, it was a hard concept to grasp if you haven't experienced it before.

  So, Ashton figured he could show him, so that he wouldn't be surprised once monsters were able to throw it at him. With a moment of intense focus, Ashton directed some intense emotions, like anger, hatred, and all the bad things that were whirring around in his head at Sam just briefly. None of it was originally meant for him, obviously, but it was easy enough to direct those emotions at others, especially just this briefly.

  Sam flinched and his arm slipped off the table. He tripped slightly, but caught himself with his other hand before falling over some of the random stuff that Ashton had deposited in the room. He placed his other hand onto his chest, exhaling sharply, only just realising that he held his breath just now. "What the fuck was that?"

  "Bloodlust. It's not that hard to do, really. Once you have a certain level of control over your mana it's actually pretty simple. Affects even monsters once it's strong enough."

  Sam slowly nodded, recovering from that mental shock. To him, it must have felt like Ashton jumped up and was about to physically attack him. Even if he knew that this would never happen, it was hard to fight against, especially if you've never felt it.

  "God, why haven't you been using this on monsters this whole time, then?" Sam calmed his breathing.

  "Well, because you also need to have a certain amount of mana. Until recently, it would've been barely enough to be a small annoyance. It's probably going to be pretty useful to learn it yourself once your spirit stat is high enough. But be careful and don't try to force this sort of thing. If you don't have a proper understanding of your emotions, it can backfire and make you go kind of crazy instead." Ashton put down his pen and took a closer look at his finished sketch. He had broken up all the clothes into individual pieces so that he could make this all once he found the right materials.

  Best-case, he could try to find some white fabrics and then dye them using pigments extracted from different mana-dense plants so that they were actually filled with magic. There might be some newly developed magic plants in the botanical gardens, maybe Ashton should go by there again later.

  But even so, there was something that was still a bit... 'wrong' about the sketch.

  "Any idea how I can improve this, still?" Ashton asked, but Sam didn't seem to have a lot of good ideas.

  "I don't know, I think it's fine. But I guess you're more of a coat guy than a cloak guy, right?"

  With a long sigh, Ashton shrugged. "I guess. The cloak really doesn't fit the way I do summoning, but it might come in useful in the future. Especially the effect of the magic in it is really useful. Swapping it with a coat wouldn't really help much."

  Sam shook his head and took a few steps away, walking back over to the door. "I don't know, can't you turn it into one or something? Either way, I just came to check in on you, I can ask around if anyone more fashionable than me has some ideas."

  "Yeah, yeah, just go, I'll figure something out," Ashton said and waved Sam away while leaning back in the chair. He put his feet onto the desk and sighed, but Sam quickly threw that small fidget toy over to him.

  "Feet off."

  "Killjoy."

  "Just because it's the end of the world doesn't mean you get to make my desk dirty."

  Ashton smiled and pulled his feet back off the desk. The door was closed shut, and Ashton was left to think about the outfit more, only really getting help from Poppy who sadly couldn't even express what she liked about each outfit.

  But he did think that Sam had a point. A coat really would fit a lot better with his style. Plus, if he had sleeves, it wouldn't restrict him as much, and he'd be able to at least fight weaker enemies without having to take it off. He could still have access to all those pockets, and it would be possible to hide some smaller summons within the coat if necessary, so that purpose of the cloak wouldn't be lost completely.

  But there were issues with that. If he wanted to turn this into a coat, he needed to not only have the right tools, but also a proper understanding of the magic and craftsmanship of the cloak. And even if both of that was the case, it might take Ashton a full day or two just to unravel the magic in the cloak enough that he could start taking it apart, not even mentioning that he would need to place it back into the altered clothing in a way that wouldn't change the magic's effect.

  Not impossible, obviously, but hard. Especially with the tools he had right now. "Then again... I'm at the level as a summoner where I can afford to make a few more lowest-grade contracts without it affecting my capacity too much," Ashton said to himself, resting his head on his hand. "A Seamstress spirit? Hm, no, at lowest-grade, something like this coat would be too complicated for them, and I definitely don't have the resources to make a low-grade contract with a seamstress. Not to mention that I can do most of it myself, I just need the right tools..."

  With a long sigh, Ashton started tapping his fingers on the random box, continuing to fill it with his mana. "It would be great if I got an item out of this that would help me. Like some kind of magical sewing needle or... something..."

  Just as Ashton said this, a memory popped into his head. There definitely was a sewing needle that he could summon. There was a construct called a 'Mending Needle'. Its powers were mostly meant for repairs, but there was no reason why it wouldn't be able to imbue some other magics into the items they were used to craft. It was the same with the Pen of Insight. With every level it gained, it became a much more effective magical pen if Ashton chose to use it as such. The same was the case with almost every construct.

  The summon actively changed the nature of the object it now called its body, and would continue to do so and imbue it with magic more and more.

  Just that this was one of the summons that Ashton didn't know a ton about. The Summoner certainly had one in their army for a while, but it was annihilated at some point to make space for a 'more useful' summon, and that was before Ashton knew enough to pay attention to summoning circles.

  But surely, there was a way for Ashton to find something once he called on the Salesman.

  "I guess my first requests are going to be a bit more broad than I thought..."