Nebulous Emperor

Ciara entered and took a seat.

"You've been busy."

Nave's eyebrow rose.

"How do you know?"

"I have connections. I'm more influential than you think."

Nave was curious about something.

"What are you exactly?"

Ciara laughed.

"What you really need to know is I'm your boss."

Nave opened his drawer and pulled out a device with four buttons on it. The same device he used to call Enforcer Thomas to the crime scene after killing Harry.

"Then why didn't Harry put your contact in this little device?"

Ciara scowled.

"Because Harry is—was a prideful and selfish bastard who didn't give me respect." She began smiling. "But now he's gone and you're here. And I can tell that you like me."

Nave put the device back in the drawer.

Ciara continued.

"But to continue my statement, what you want to know is that I manage a lot. From transportation to some parts of distribution and security. I am also slightly educated in the use and production of pyr-powered artifacts, so I fix broken tools and machines and even produce some if I get bored enough."

Nave's eyes opened wide.

"YOU'RE A PYR TECHNICIAN?"

Ciara answered calmly while picking something out of her teeth.

"If that's what you wanna call me, then yes."

Nave bombarded her with questions.

"Why don't we use enchanted pickaxes? What material is used in those forklifts and trucks to convert and transfer the energy to the other components? What school did you go to?"

Ciara answered them casually.

"You wanna give those idiots enchanted pickaxes? Corperium. I went to Lakeshir.

Nave's eyeballs might as well have dropped out of his skull.

"YOU WENT TO LAKESHIR?!"

Ciara couldn't hold in her laugh.

"Nope. HAHAHA".

Nave only had a blank expression on his face.

"That's not funny."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you could've seen your face."

Lakeshir was the most prestigious magic school in all of the explored world. It existed in the royal sector, where all the magic schools existed.

"Seriously though, I went to Edge."

Nave was perplexed.

"Is Edge a good school?"

"Compared to Lakeshir, it might as well be like learning from the miners who work here."

Nave responded.

"It can't be that bad."

"You're right, it's not that bad, but it's fittingly enough on the edge of the royal sector and the economic sector."

Nave realized what she meant.

The economic sector was known for corruption.

Especially if the economic sector could profit off or attack one or both of the other two sectors.

So they must've seen it as an opportunity to take control of a very valuable asset.

The many magic schools that reside in the royal sector are factories to produce magicians. Easily their most valuable collection of assets.

If the economic sector was able to corrupt or even completely take over some of these teachers or the magicians themselves, they would gain ground substantially.

There were constant battles between the economic, scientific, and royal sectors.

"Are there any advantages to the school at least?"

Ciara shrugged.

"Connections in both sectors, I guess."

Nave agreed that that wouldn't be bad.

"I didn't even graduate."

"Why not?"

Ciara looked a little serious.

"Circumstances at home."

Nave nodded.

"Okay, I understand." Nave paused. "How much can you teach me?"

Ciara smiled.

"Is that all I'm good for?"

Nave shrugged his shoulders and said it satirically.

"Pretty much."

"Hahaha, okay. Follow me."

They got up and traveled to a tunnel that Nave only looked down, but never traveled.

"Where are your three boys?"

Nave was referring to Bob, Billy, and Bartholomew. Her three workers that followed her around.

"They're hanging around doing inspections and other various jobs. They come when I need them."

Nave had no idea what the hel that meant exactly, but he didn't care much.

"We're here."

Ciara stopped them at a door made of some metallic material that Nave couldn't identify by eye.

She waved her hand over the middle right section of the door, and a purple-colored transparent keypad appeared.

Nave didn't have words.

Ciara looked back at him.

"Oh, you like this?"

His still-developing teenage brain thought of something inappropriate but quickly got back on track.

"Is that a clear-pad?"

"Yes. Looks cool, right?"

"Yes, it looks awesome."

She entered a code, and the large door opened towards them.

Inside was a laboratory with various scientific tools.

Nave looked around the white room like an awestruck child.

He wouldn't stop asking questions.

"Okay, let's be quiet for a second."

Ciara had various pieces of equipment in the room that she was working on before.

On one of the tables was a pickaxe.

Nave picked it up.

"What is this?"

"I've been experimenting with various enchantments on the tools. Less expensive ways."

"How does it work?"

Ciara walked over and grabbed it.

"Most tools are made with material that can be enchanted, but I attempted to create a tool that is coated with a material that can be enchanted."

"How's it going so far?"

Ciara sighed.

"Not well. The enchantments don't actually hold up well."

"How do enchantments even work?"

"You'll learn about it in magic school?"

"Who said I'll go to school?"

"I did. I can see it in your eyes. You want power; I just can't tell exactly how much. And school is a critical part of it."

"Whatever. Don't teach me if you don't want to. Keep explaining how the tool and how enchanting works."

"The first part is learning about the materials that have to be used during the creation of the tool."

"Can you teach me about it?"

Ciara looked to the roof and tapped her chin.

"I guess I can." Ciara grabbed him by the shoulders. Listen to me, Nave; you might not survive though."

Nave looked at her with a blank face.

"I don't believe you."

"Yeah, you shouldn't; that was a lie."

Nave was unsurprised. He adapted to her jokes.

"So when do we start?"

"Right now, I guess. What do you see and feel when you look at the pickaxe?"

Nave took the pickaxe into hands and started to feel and pay it a lot of attention.

It had a wooden handle and a grey metallic head with a slight purple glint.

"All I see is a pickaxe with a purple tint."

Ciara nodded.

"Yes, that's accurate. You'd probably have to enhance your eyes to actually see what's taking place."

"Enhance eyes?"

"You'll learn in school."

"Fine, what else?"

"You'll have to study the various different materials and their intended uses before you do anything else."

Nave thought about it and came to a realization.

"Wait, to go to a magic school, you should be able to do magic. Can you?"

"No, I can't do magic like you can."

Nave dropped the pickaxe along with his jaw.

"What? I can't do magic. What are you talking about?"

Ciara shook her head.

"Come on, man. One thing I did learn at magic school was how to identify magicians. You can do magic. Your mother probably could do magic too."

"No, neither of us can or could do magic."

"No, she could do magic. I heard about her. That's definitely how she kept up with the men when it came to mining."

Nave listened in bewilderment.

"You knew this whole time?"

"Not the whole time, but I just enhanced my eyes to analyze the tool one more time and saw that you could use magic."

"Wait, so you can use magic?"

"No! Like I said, I can't use magic. You don't have to be able to use magic to be able to enhance things with pyr."

Nave didn't know what to do.

"Okay, so where do we go from here?"

Ciara didn't seem to care.

"I don't really care if you can use magic. As long as you run the business somewhat well, you're good to me."

"Fine, you can use magic without using magic; know I can use magic, and you won't really teach me magic. Why did you say you would teach me magic?"

"Can you say magic one more time?"

Nave ignored her snarky comment.

"What will you teach me?"

"Like I said, you have to learn about the different materials and their intended uses first."

She pointed to a bookshelf.

"Read the books that have the word material on the spine."

Nave approached it and looked at the books.

"Almost all of them have material on them."

Ciara smiled.

"Have fun."

Nave understood that he wouldn't learn anything else until he did what she wanted him to.

Nave started grabbing books and walked out of the room and all the way to his office, dropping some along the way.

Nave sat at his desk and started reading.

He learned more than he thought he would from just one book.

Nave decided to start with what he thought would be the most interesting book.

It was more theory than literal, but Nave seriously enjoyed it.

It talked about theoretical uses for different materials compared to their intended uses.

'I actually like this.'

Nave usually got bored when it came to actually learning. But when it was fun like this, he loved it.

Even though he wasn't learning a lot and part of the information was completely theoretical and loosely based in reality, the other part told him the actual uses of the different materials.

'Maybe this won't be so bad.'