The three were travelling once again.
They passed through the Mana Dead Zone using the same route they had taken before. But this time there were no funa to be seen or sensed, as if they were hiding.
Soon they crossed the barren but still living stretch of the zone and entered the forests they had come from earlier. Dense foliage surrounded them as they moved through creeks and streams. After some time, they reached a clearing and decided to rest, letting the horses graze on fresh grass after three days on fodder.
They dismounted. Naga and Gopala tended to the horses while Mina and Hamsa checked their supplies before settling down.
"Hey, Naga," Hamsa said. "We're passing through that town where we killed those tigers, right?"
"Yes," Naga replied, still focused on the horses. "But in your condition, taking the central road would be risky. So we'll head west and take the mountain route back to the Capital."
Hamsa looked down at his hand and saw mana leaking from it.
"Am I really that bad right now?" he asked.
"Yes," the other three answered at the same time.
Hamsa frowned, clearly annoyed.
Then suddenly —
Hey kid, why not use your mana the way you did with your little brother?Burn off some of the excess.
Adi… is that you?Why were you silent till now?I thought you wouldn't talk until my mana stabilized.
I thought I'd be out longer, Adi replied. But your body handled me better than expected. I was active again within a few hours.
A faint smile appeared on Hamsa's face. Hearing Adi's voice calmed him, and his mana stabilized slightly. Mina noticed.
"Rajkumar, is something wrong?" she asked, glancing up from her weapon. "You look… happier all of a sudden."
Hamsa paused before answering.
"It's nothing," he said. "Just remembered something."
Kid, try it, Adi urged. I want to see how you do it.
Shut up. I'll do it before we leave.
____
They rested for a few more hours, sometimes in silence, sometimes chatting idly. Eventually it was time to move again.
"Alright, this is the plan," Hamsa said as they prepared to leave. "We go to the town. You three gather supplies while I wait outsid… actually, I'll go into the forest. It's been over a week since the incident, so there shouldn't be any guards or patrols."
"Is that wise, Rajkumar?" Gopala asked. "Going alone?"
"I'll be fine," Hamsa said. "My control weakened. It didn't disappear."
They finished preparing to leave. But-
"One moment," Hamsa said. "Before we go, I want to do something."
The three turned toward him.
"Come here," he said.
They gathered in front of him, waiting.
"What I'm about to do," Hamsa said quietly, "must stay secret."
Before anyone could respond, he released his mana in a sudden surge. When he blinked, his light brown eyes had turned pale white.
The three froze, unable to move or speak.
Hamsa raised his hand. Thin threads of mana flowed out and connected to each of them, his own mana, which he had left them with, acting as a gateway and forming a smooth link between them.
A few moments later, Hamsa stopped and brought his mana back under control. He observed the others carefully.
Then —
"Rajkumar, what did you do?" Naga exclaimed. "It feels like my mana just got cut in half."
The other two nodded in agreement.
They waited for an answer, but Hamsa was distracted, lost inside his own thoughts.
So I was right, he thought. It costs less of my mana if the person I'm altering already has developed mana circuits.
Hey kid, that was impressive, Adi said. Though you could be more efficient.
More efficient how? Explain.
Instead of doing the building yourself, guide their mana to do the work while you give instructions.
Think of it like this, Adi continued. The other person is a nation, and their mana circuits are its transport network. You're a foreign government trying to help. Instead of sending your own workers and materials, you share technology, funding, and expertise. You tell them what to do and let them handle the construction and maintenance.
What you're doing right now is sending your own men to build everything and then handing it over. Instead, you should only provide support and supervision while their own system does the work.
There's more than one benefit to that, Adi said. The mana you spend expanding or strengthening their circuits might only decrease a little, but the mana you leave behind for them to adjust will be much less.
So I can do it like that… huh.
While they spoke inside his head, Hamsa noticed the others watching him with confusion and growing anxiety.
Realizing how long he had been silent, he turned to explain what he had done. They didn't believe him at first, and after several rounds of argument, Hamsa simply filled their mana wells with natural ambient mana to prove his point. After that, they finally accepted what he said.
The group rode in silence for nearly half a day and reached the town around midday.
They dismounted to discuss their next steps.
Soon, they split up — Rajkumar Hamsa heading into the forest west of the town, while the other three entered the town to gather supplies.
____________
Inside the town, the three first visited the temple to offer prayers. After that, they headed to the markets to buy supplies.
Gopala and Mina were in charge of gathering food, while Naga went off to buy miscellaneous items.
"Surely you're going to question all this?" Mina said as she walked beside Gopala.
"Not really," he replied, carrying a bag full of goods. "If anything, this answers a few questions rather than raising them."
"Answers to what?" Mina asked as they stopped to pick out dried meats.
"You know about what happened recently with his brother, right?" Gopala said.
"Yes, but what does that have to do with what he just did?" she asked.
"Well, when it happened, it caught everyone by surprise," Gopala explained. "None of us or even the temple predicted it. It wasn't supposed to happen for a few more years, based on our best estimates."
He paused before continuing. "And after it happened, the elder brother was sick for a week, while the younger one had the elder's mana leaking from him."
"I see," Mina said quietly as they finished paying and walked back toward the agreed meeting spot to wait for Naga.
"Don't you question any of this?" Gopala asked, sounding both bored and curious.
"It's not my place to," Mina replied. "In my line of work, we don't think beyond what's needed for the task. We may get curious, but in the end we don't question what we're told or what we see unless it becomes necessary."
"Is that so," Gopala said.
Soon Naga arrived, and they prepared to leave. Before heading out, they picked up some roasted meat to eat on the way and some extra for the Rajkumar. Then they set off toward the meeting spot west of the town.
After some time, they saw him.
But he wasn't alone.
He was holding a tiger cub.
"Bala," Naga said, raising an eyebrow, "why do you have that, and where did you find it?"
"When I went into the forest, I followed the footprints and faint mana traces left by those tigers," Hamsa explained, lifting the cub slightly. "They led me to this little one. From the looks of it, he's alone."
Mina looked at the cub more closely.
"He's not from around here," she said. "From what I can tell, this kind of tiger usually lives near the mountains. It looks like his group was driven into the Mana Dead Zone and eventually ended up here. We could probably leave him with another group near the base of the mountains where there are open fields."
Rajkumar Hamsa thought for a moment.
"Can he be kept as a pet?" Hamsa asked.
"Well… you can, but will that be accepted?" Mina replied.
"If he can be kept as a pet, then I'll keep him," Hamsa said. "I can deal with convincing people later. Now… for a name."
He slipped into thought.
Oi, Adi. Any ideas?
I'm probably the last thing in existence you should ask that question.
You have access to my memories. That should be enough to tell you I'm in the same boat.Yours was just a fluke.
Hamsa held the cub up to his face.
He has fluffy fur and he's white… so, Mr. Fluffy.
Are you serious, kid?
Then how about Whiteso?
Yep. You're just as bad as me.
Then… how about CHOTU? He is small after all.
Give it a few years and exposure to your mana, and it'll outgrow that size fast. Also, is that even a real name?
Doesn't matter. He looks cute now, and he'll still be cute later. Besides, imagine a fully grown tiger named CHOTU. That's funny.
Well… you do you, kid.
"He'll be called CHOTU," Hamsa announced proudly, lifting the cub above his head.
After that, they waited while one of them went back to collect a few extra supplies. Once everything was ready, they continued their journey.
Almost a day later, after sleeping in tents and passing through farmlands and small forests, they reached the mountain path around midday.
"Hey, Naga," Hamsa called out. "Is the mountain path an actual road, or just something people use so often that it became a path?"
"To be honest, there's no real road here," Naga replied. "The path we're taking is rough at best. Mina probably knows more about it than I do."
He continued, "That's why travelling through here takes almost twice as long."
Because of the difficult terrain, it took them ten more days than expected to finally reach the capital.
Inside a cave
"This storm doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon," Hamsa said, glancing outside.
"We can only wait it out," Naga replied while looking over a map. "You should rest, Bala. After this point, there aren't any known safe caves or resting spots for two full days."
While they talked, Mina prepared a simple meal and Gopala secured the horses.
"Alright," Hamsa said. "Wake me if anything happens."
He sat near the fire with CHOTU and helped Mina as much as he could. After they finished eating, Hamsa stood and spread out his mana.
He manipulated the air so that fresh air from outside flowed toward the fire without being fully consumed by it. At the same time, he set it to act as an alarm if anyone approached the cave. Once finished, he lay down to sleep.
"He truly is amazing," Gopala said quietly.
Naga, Hamsa, and CHOTU were fast asleep. Mina and Gopala had woken a little earlier, checking everything and preparing another simple meal.
"Well, he certainly is," Mina said as she brought out the meat they had packed. "This journey has been far easier than expected. No animals attacking at night, controlled temperatures… I was half prepared to call for other agents if things went bad," she added.
Then, glancing at the others and back at her own hand, she continued,"And now we have more mana to boot. That's something I've neither heard of nor read about."
________
White Room — Inside Hamsa's room
Hamsa stood in the same white room he had been in a few days earlier. CHOTU stayed close to his leg, meowing and moving around restlessly.
Hamsa bent down, picked him up, and started walking with the cub in his arms.
After a few steps, he saw a familiar face — his own from the past.
Adi, still using Hamsa's old appearance, was lying on a sofa eating popcorn while scenes from Hamsa's past life played nearby like a television show.
Hamsa, visibly irritated, smacked him on the head.
Adi rubbed his head and moved slightly to the side.
"Oi, what are you doing?" Hamsa asked.
"I have nothing else to do," Adi replied still rubbing his head. "So I'm going through your memories."
"Could you at least ask first before looking through them?" Hamsa said, annoyed as he put CHOTU down. "And for the love of everything, can you pick another appearance? It's starting to feel less weird, and that somehow that makes it even weirder."
Adi raised a hand, casually manifesting an empty field in front of them.
"I don't have anything else I find interesting," he said.
Hamsa let out a tired sigh.
"Fine. We'll deal with that later. I've got a few questions." He paused. "First — will this affect me in any meaningful way besides increasing my strength? And second… why do you talk like this? You're way too bubbly for a being as old as you. You sound like the dumb, cheerful friend every insufferable rom-com protagonist has."
"Well," Adi said, leaning back, "your lifespan will increase significantly. As for the second question — before meeting you, I had brief glimpses of your memories. I analyzed them."
He grinned. "This personality is a mix of your best friend Arjun and characters from the shows you watched. It makes you listen to me more. And honestly, I like it now, so deal with it."
Hamsa stared at him in disbelief.
As they continued talking, they occasionally glanced at the cub, and eventually ended up playing with him for a while.