Ryan's bike came to a halt, and Jade awkwardly stepped off it. She pulled off the helmet that Ryan gave to her, revealing puffy red eyes, smudged makeup, and a bright smile.

  "Thanks for driving me home," she said, hugging Belle tighter to her chest as she cooed out happily.

  "Well, I couldn't just leave you in the Rapids." Ryan leaned back slightly, sitting down more comfortably on the bike for a few moments.

  "It's where I grew up, it wouldn't have been a big deal even if I had stayed there for a night."

  Ryan raised a brow, looking at Jade with a puzzled face. "I was talking to Belle. Isn't that right?" he leaned forward and scratched the side of Belle's beak with a smile. The gryphon happily grabbed his hand with her talons, and Jade laughed a little.

  "Right, sorry," she replied, and Ryan looked back up at her.

  "How was your grandma doing after I headed out?"

  "She was doing fine, though she seemed pretty tired. You could have come upstairs and spoken to her yourself! Everyone wanted to talk to you and thank you anyway!" Jade pointed out, but Ryan just shrugged. That was a pretty intimate moment. He didn't want to intrude.

  "I can come back around some other time. I wanted to spend some more time in that part of the Rapids anyway."

  "Oh? Really, how so?"

  Ryan smiled awkwardly. He wasn't sure how much he should really tell her right now. There was so much that Ryan had to collect his thoughts on anyway, so he wasn't sure that he could explain all of it perfectly yet.

  "It's just... the people in the rapids are living so much more freely than I thought. They're not hiding who they are as much as in other parts of town. People have a sort of pride of who they are that I know for a fact people in the hidden villages don't have," Ryan started, continuing to play with Belle in Jade's arms. "Plus, there's people there that don't hesitate to tell me about what's wrong with the family. That's really valuable right now."

  "... I think the Aglecards aren't doing that much wrong..."

  "So you think there are some things they do wrong?"

  Jade slowly nodded, but averted her eyes. She bit her lip nervously, and Ryan could see that it wasn't a good idea to pry.

  "It's fine. We don't need to-"

  "If it's been possible to cure corruption, why did nobody come and try to help my grandmother?" Jade asked, and Ryan didn't know what to say. "I doubt that it was only discovered yesterday, so what's the deal?"

  He didn't know what to say. Frankly, he was wondering the same thing. Ryan knew that the Aglecards had taken seeds from the copper wildflowers so that they could go and prepare a full farm. It took just a few weeks for Ryan and Gaia to grow them up on a balcony. There was no way that the Aglecards wouldn't have a way to speed up and maximize the process. They should also have plenty of alchemist or other people capable of extracting the cure from the wildflowers.

  They must be practically stockpiling it right now. So little came such a long way, and Ryan doubted that there were really that many people affected by the corruption that they were going to run low anytime soon.

  At the very least, they should have enough to try and help out the easy-to-reach people as soon as possible, but who was easier to reach than someone like Jade's grandmother?

  "... I won't lie to you, but I don't really know a lot about the intricacies of the family's internal politics, and why they make the choices that they make. All I know is that what they're doing, even if they may have good intentions, is harming a lot of people."

  Jade smiled lightly. She clearly felt quite bitter about a lot of things that the Aglecards did, too. But with how powerful and set in their ways the family was, there really wasn't anything she could do about those frustrations.

  Ryan slowly let go of Belle's talons and went to grab Jade's hand. He squeezed it softly and smiled.

  "I promise, I'm going to try and make things better for everyone, however I possibly can."

  She glanced down at Ryan's hand, and nodded quietly. "I'm sure you will."

  A clearly nervous smile appeared on her face. Ryan's heart skipped a beat, as he felt something intrude into his mind. Something was about to happen that would leave him defenceless. He had been training to make sure that this exact thing wouldn't happen. Hell, he even slept with the horn of shapeless water right next to him. This rang all of the alarm bells in Ryan's head, but even so, he didn't want to stop what was about to happen.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Jade leaned in toward him. Their faces were so close that Ryan could feel her breath on his lips, just a moment before they met.

  Ryan closed his eyes and felt Jade lean in closer, as if she was relieved that it went well. But was this fine?

  Did... Ryan's breath smell okay? He moved around a lot during that fight earlier and sweated a bit, so could she smell that? Oh gods, she could definitely smell it. Wait, what was Ryan supposed to do now? What should he do with his hands. Should he keep holding Jade's hand? No, people usually put their hands on the other's waist or hips or something. Why was he so nervous? It wasn't like Ryan had never kissed anyone before, but somehow he forgot everything he ever knew about it. Hold on, how long were they supposed to do this? Should Ryan pull back at some point, or should Jade? She was the one that initiated. Shit, she was the one that initiated. Wasn't Ryan supposed to be the one to do that? Then again, there weren't any clear rules on this kind of thing. Wait, his face was getting hot. Gods, he could practically feel the colour jumping to his cheeks right now. He had to calm down, he didn't want Jade to see him completely flushed in a second. This was definitely terrible for her, wasn't it? She would-

  With a million thoughts a second running through Ryan's head, the kiss ended just a few moments after it started.

  Ryan opened his eyes, and saw that Jade's cheeks had taken on a bright red colour, maybe even more so than his own. Clearing his throat, Ryan readjusted the way he sat on the side of the bike.

  "I, uhm..." he stuttered out, though he started speaking before he really knew what he wanted to say. "That was..."

  Jade shook her head immediately. "Sorry, I should have asked first, I just... forget that happened, I..."

  "No! No, it's fine, that's not what I..." Ryan replied, squeezing her hand a bit tighter. "It was nice."

  Modak sat on the couch, twisting some cables together. There were a few last fixes that he wanted to make to one of his projects, but he didn't feel like spending literally all day in the workshop.

  "So..." Silvia started, and the orc slowly glanced over at her. "What are you making?"

  The orc glanced over at her and smiled proudly. "This is the prototype for a distance-based high-precision mana-sensor."

  Silvia raised her brows. "What do you mean, 'high precision'? And 'distance based'?"

  "Well... most sensors can just generally measure the amount of mana around their probe, right?"

  "If you say so."

  "I do. They're pretty high-precision already, but you need to be right there to actually measure things in any particularly useful way. There are some methods to measure things at a distance already, but they're really finnicky and unprecise, because they sometimes just mix all the values in their view together. It's good for measuring general ambient mana, but not details," Modak explained, grinning broadly.

  Silvia nodded curiously. "Right, so... you want to make something that fixes both?"

  Without hesitation, Modak nodded. "Yes! I was already thinking about something like this to help with spell synthesisation, but after last weekend, I figured that if we can measure things more precisely and at a distance, it would help prevent things like what happened at the party. Like, if we had a camera and I installed an algorithm to warn us of anything weird, I could have noticed that the mana of people was higher than normal and was getting twisted and stuff. It would also help pin-point strong individuals with proper mana, so that we can't have someone sneak past us into the basement."

  Silvia raised her brows excited. "Oh! You're totally right, that would be really neat! It would basically be like those spells that let people see mana, right?"

  "Exactly! For the time being, I'm going for measuring just a single value, since this is a proof of concept more than anything, but later on I should be able to measure things like mana frequencies that can be translated into colour or texture."

  "Awesome! But, uh... what is that small pen thingy?" Silvia wondered, looking at the objects in front of her friend. It was a large box, with its top open and wires hanging out, and attached to it were some cables and an object that really just looked like a small laser-pointer.

  "This here is the actual sensor!" Modak grinned. "Essentially, to fix the issue of those long-distance measuring devices, I'm focusing on a single point."

  Silvia was confused. "But wouldn't that mean you need like thousands of them to make a full image?"

  Modak immediately shook his head, "Nope! Basically, this little thing here sends out a minuscule amount of mana, which will then bounce back and can be measured. If I set up some motors and work with some mana-reflective materials, I should be able to easily measure a whole area by sending out and reading individual values for each little point in view."

  In a moment of realisation, Silvia smiled brightly. "Oh! Like how those old TVs work, right? They also just send out small bits of light onto the screen, pixel by pixel."

  "Exactly that! So if we can figure that out, I should be able to create a proper composite image, superimpose it on the footage of a camera, and we'll get a proper, high-precision, long-distance mana sensor," Modak explained smugly, though he shrunk back a moment later. "Well, 'long distance' currently means about the size of this room. But again, it's a proof of concept! With the right materials and tools, I should be able to make something much better."

  "... What kind of distance are you thinking?"

  "Hm, preferably, a few miles would be nice, but that's really, really far off in the future."

  Silvia thought for a moment, not sure if she should say it. But in the end, she just came out with it. "Wouldn't that be a huge deal for early dungeon detection?"

  Modak stopped what he was doing and looked over at her. "You're totally right, it would be amazing for that. Especially if I manage to fine-tune things to potentially get more than just the surface-level information. Right now it's a flat image, but I'm hoping for something bigger than that. Like... a proper, three-dimensional composite scan of the entire area. In that way, if I can get it small enough, it would even be great for making dungeon maps!"

  "Just, uh... just asking, and absolutely no worries if I'm wrong, but do you think it would be possible for that kind of thing to let us see the inside of the door in the basement? Like, we can't go through, but mana probably can... right?"

  Modak grinned broadly. "No, theoretically, that might be possible. With how much mana will be over there, it might be possible to get a full terrain scan just through mana alone..." he pointed out. "We might be able to help Ryan during the trials!"