The wax seal cracked like a brittle eggshell. Tamsin scanned over the once-sealed scroll, once, then again. Her jaw tightened. She wasn't mad, but rather disappointed. While she had expected the message to come, it arrived earlier than planned. Things were not going according to her plan. First, she could have sworn there was someone listening in on her conversation, and now they got a summons. The master would not be happy with her being away from the boy for so long.

  Meanwhile, in the private quarters of Miss Philaxter, everyone was staring at Alex. His fingers ticked against the porcelain of his cup of tea. The cup had been empty for some time now, but he kept lifting it to his mouth as a way of postponing his explanation. Telling Fillonia had been one thing. Now he was supposed to tell the entire room he had been hearing a voice inside his head. Including both Professor Moor, whom he barely knew, and Zeth, whom he barely trusted.

  "Go on, Alex," Fillonia encouraged him, seeing his hesitation. "You can tell them. None of them will judge you."

  Alex swallowed the saliva that had been pooling in his mouth from his fake drinking with a loud gulp. Fillonia was right. If these were the people who were supposed to protect him from whatever organization Professor Reel was working for, they deserved to know the truth.

  "Ever since I arrived in this world, there has been this voice inside my head, talking about some kind of initialization. Whenever I drained the mana from an artifact, the progress of that initialization went up."

  "Really?" Henry asked as he grabbed the same notebook he had used yesterday out of the inner pocket of his uniform. "Do you think it's his body trying to make sense of the inner mana network it's forming in a way he can understand?" The young Fairy directed the question straight at Miss Philaxter.

  "Hmm, perhaps. We'll need more data to be sure. Please continue, Mister Vansteen," the Elder said, taking her own notebook out of her jacket.

  "Well, earlier today, after I had delivered the first of my deliveries, a strange display appeared in front of my eyes for a moment. It was only there for a short time and partly corrupted before it disappeared again. The voice in my head immediately followed by saying something about forced system use failing and that the progress went down again."

  "What did the display say?"

  "What is the progress at now, Mister Vansteen?"

  Both Henry and Miss Philaxter spoke at the same time, only momentarily looking up from their notebooks.

  "It said something about a quest being updated," Alex answered Henry's question first. "And right now it's at eighty percent."

  "Fascinating," both Fairies once again spoke at the same time, jotting something down in their notebooks. Seeing them both in their element, Henry really looked like a younger version of Miss Philaxter. Alex was glad to have both of them in his circle of trust.

  "Do you have any idea what might have caused the display, Mister Vansteen? I would like to prevent any further decrease of progress," Miss Philaxter was the first of the two academic Fairies to finish writing in her notebook and ready to ask the next question.

  "Oh, we actually thought about this when he first told me, Annaba," Fillonia spoke up, her hand still stroking her husband's, though the faint glow of light was gone. "Since you told us his body was formed from the memories and wishes of his soul, we figured it might be his body trying to integrate him into this world."

  "What do you mean? Integrate into this world?" This time the question didn't come from Henry or Miss Philaxter, but rather from her husband sitting next to her.

  "You do know what an Otherborn is, right, Mister Moor?" Miss Philaxter asked the Drake.

  "Sort of. I know they're not born in this world."

  "Yes, as the name would suggest," the Elder responded. Alex could almost see her rolling her eyes as she took another sip of her tea. "As our resident Summoner, I would have hoped you knew a bit more."

  "Hey, the things I summon, and what most people summon, are beasts, not sentient beings. Whatever ritual those cultists used is not one known to the general public," the large Drake sounded offended.

  "Either way, Mister Vansteen, and presumably other Otherborn as well, was not only not born into this world, he came from a completely different one. His body has changed during the transition, but his mind is still the same. He has no native knowledge of this world."

  "Which makes him as vulnerable as a baby Mareth," Everyone looked in Zeth's direction when he spoke. Why did that sound like a threat to Alex? His shoulders tensed, only slightly relaxing again when the assassin finished the sentence. "And why he needs our help." So it wasn't a threat. He still called him what would be this world's equivalent of a lamb.

  "He does, but I think your theory, Mrs. Fillibaxter, might be right and that his body is also trying to make his stay world less of an abrupt transition in an attempt to keep itself safe." Miss Philaxter placed her cup of tea down on the wooden table, drawing the attention back to her.

  "So what did you do to prompt the display? What made your body decide that now was the time to help you?" Henry asked.

  "Uhm, I was remembering this app I had to keep track of things I needed to do. Next thing I knew, the display popped up. I think it was trying to keep track of the progress I had made on the courier job." Alex tried to explain, forgetting that most of them had no idea what an app was.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "App? Oh, that was one of the modules on that strange machine you told me about earlier, wasn't it?" Henry beamed as he looked around the room. For once, he was the only one who knew something.

  "Strange machine?" Miss Philaxter raised an eyebrow at the young Fairy.

  "Yes, after our first meeting, he told me about this artifact that people in his world used to keep in contact with people from around the entire world," the upperclassman tried to explain a phone as well as he knew to the librarian.

  "So this was some kind of communication device?" Miss Philaxter asked, flipping to a different page in her notebook.

  "Uhm, among other things, yes. It had other functions as well." Alex said.

  "Fascinating," the librarian quickly noted something down in the notebook. "You'll have to tell me more about it later, but for now we should focus on the display. You are probably right that the memory of this..." she glanced down in her notebook to find the right word, "app might be what triggered the display. Did the screen reappear when you completed the rest of the deliveries, Mister Vansteen?"

  "No, it did not."

  "Hmm, the feedback your body received after the failed attempt might have been enough to prevent further use, at least until the initialization process finishes. The reason it might have attempted to use it in the first place might be that it was close to finishing the process in the first place."

  "So, what now?" Henry asked. "Do we just continue like we did yesterday? Or should we take a break?"

  "I suggest we continue, see if we can get Mister Vansteen to full initialization. That was the original plan, and now we can get concrete data on how far along we are." Miss Philaxter stood up from the table and walked over to a nearby drawer. She once again pulled out a familiar-looking stone and placed it in front of Alex.

  "Another Catalogue Stone?" Alex looked over the stone on the table. To him, it had looked exactly like the last two stones she had given him. But then again, they had also looked the same and were clearly different to her. Was she seeing something in the stones he was not? Or did she have some kind of special skill that allowed her to inspect artifacts?

  "Not another," the librarian said. She grabbed the same book they had last time out of her personal collection. "That is the very same Catalogue Stone you drained the first time we met. Mister Ghestalt has been so kind to return it to me recharged. From his investigation, he saw nothing wrong with the Catalogue Stone; it was just completely drained of mana."

  "So I didn't break it?"

  The librarian placed the book next to the Catalogue Stone on the table in front of Alex before walking back over to her spot at the table. Seeing that Alex didn't immediately take it, Henry quickly grabbed the book to get a closer look at it. The young Fairy brushed his finger softly over the title that was engraved into the book's cover.

  "You did not. Now, if you would be so kind, could you try to drain it again, Mister Vansteen?" Miss Philaxter flipped her notebook back a couple of pages. "I would like to see if you are able to drain the same mana signature multiple times. Could you hand him the book, Mister Rixtor?"

  "Hmm, oh, right, sorry," Henry apologized, handing the book over to Alex. As soon as it was out of his hands, he quickly grabbed his notebook to jot something down. It was like he was afraid of forgetting the title of the book as soon as he didn't have it anymore.

  Alex took a deep breath before reaching for the Catalogue Stone. By now, he knew that as soon as he touched it, a shock of pain would run through his head. It would only be a quick message from the voice, so the pain wouldn't be too bad. But that didn't mean he was looking forward to it. He really hoped that as soon as this initialization was over, he wouldn't need to deal with that pain anymore. And that he could use this world's artifacts without any new complications. He had seen how useful they had been, even in the short time he had been here.

  Partial Power Source connection detected.

  Continuing Initialization...

  The familiar scraping of the voice against the back of his skull made him wince. The entire room reacted differently to his pain. Both Miss Philaxter and Henry immediately started writing in their respective notebooks, recognizing the start of the draining process. Lukyn looked over at Fillonia with concern for his health. She, in turn reassured him that this was normal, and that Alex was fine. From the look on her face, it was clear she didn't like the fact the process came with pain, but knew that it was necessary. Zeth was the only one who didn't really react. The assassin had been keeping a close eye on Alex, but his eyes showed neither concern for the boy's health nor glee in the boy's pain. It was unnerving to see how calm he was.

  "Thank you, Mister Vansteen. Did the voice mention a new percentage of progress?" Miss Philaxter asked, looking up from her notebook. Alex shook his head. "So it only reports the progress once it stops draining. Is that correct?" This time, Alex nodded. "Thank you. Now, I believe actively using the Catalogue Stone sped up the draining progress, did it not? If so, could you use the artifact like I showed you?"

  Alex nodded again and pressed the Catalogue Stone against the book in the same way he had the last two times. When the pulse came, he closed his eyes, bracing for the pain again. He had seen the orb of light fizzle out the last time; he didn't need to see it again.

  Partial Power Source depleted.

  Initialization paused at 91%

  No matter how many times he felt it, the scraping of the voice against his skull never got any better. But he was almost there. The progress was over ninety percent.

  "So, Mister Vansteen, what percentage are you at right now?" the librarian asked as soon as she saw the orb of light fizzle out. Fillonia glared at her cousin for not first asking if he was okay.

  Alex put his hand on the back of his skull. It wasn't exactly where the pain came from; he didn't fully understand where it came from, but that was as close as he could get. "It's at ninety-one percent."

  "By Helene, that's close," Lukyn exclaimed. Alex didn't know who this Helene person was, but the Drake was right. One, maybe two, drains and he was hopefully done.

  "So it went up by eleven percent. Do you remember how big the increase was the last time you drained this Catalogue Stone, Mister Vansteen?" Miss Philaxter asked, continuing to write in her notebook as she did.

  "I'm sorry, I'm not sure. I think it might have been the same. It was stuck at fifty percent before I started draining artifacts, that I know."

  "So the initialization had started before you started draining?" Henry asked, looking up from his notebook for the first time in a while.

  "It did. At first, the voice spoke in my head whenever I woke up."

  Once again, both academic Fairies spoke up at the same time, "Fascinating."

  The Elder quickly noted something down in her notebook before getting up from her chair again and grabbing another artifact from a nearby drawer. Like the Catalogue Stone, it was one that they had used before, or at least one that looked like one they had used before. She placed it in front of Alex before sitting back down.

  "If my calculations are correct, this one should be the last one you need to drain, Mister Vansteen."

  That produced an actual smile on Alex's face. Oh, how he wished she were right. He eagerly grabbed the artifact and drained it as fast as he could, bracing the pain, hopefully for the last time.

  Partial Power Source insufficient.

  Initialization stopped at 99%

  Permanent Power Source needed.