Ivan Doppelganger’s Study

  The Artifact ended up clattering on the desk as Veronique let go of it with a yelp.

  “Are you alright kid?” Mr Doppelganger had commented sounding a bit worried as he tried to take a look at her hands

  “Yea, it just got too hot to hold, I should try again” she brushed the accident off, raising her hands up in air to show that her palms had just got a bit red from the accident

  “Nah leave it, explain to me what approach you used” the Skill instructor had told her, while he checked the integrity of the Artifact, which had already cooled to the touch

  “I spread out the mana all over the surface to keep it cool, but left more bit on the marble to make it move” Veronique had explained a bit disheartened that this method didn’t work either.

  “Did you make the mana flow or let it stay static?” Mr Doppelganger inquired, his quirked up lips and tone indicating that he already knew the answer to that question

  “I kept it still” she admitted guessing that she had done messed up, but not why

  “Leaving mana stagnating in one spot makes it highly reactive” he had explained

  “Are you saying I made some kind of bomb?” Veronique made the comparison while wondering if any of what she had studied with Miss Hawkings would ever turn out to be useful, but to be fair they were mostly practicing mana control while her studies with Miss Hawkings were focused straight to the Skills themselves.

  “Kind of, trying to move the marble made it ignite, but even in your case making an actual explosion with just mana control is impossible, fire is probably the most you could make” he kind of confirmed her statement, scaling down on it

  “Probably?” Veronique would rather not have such ability, people were already going to freak out on her if they ever found out she could kind of pop up the Dead into the living realm.

  ‘It doesn’t work that way, but it’s what it would look like’ she thought knowing that alone could get her burned at a stake without adding the whole can explode things with her touch to her resume.

  “There is still too much we don’t know, so I can’t exclude it out entirely” the man had justified his reluctance in ruling the possibility out “the Skills of the past could do wonders we can only dream of now” the was a longing in his voice when he spoke about those wonders that didn’t set right with Veronique

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “The Duke said that Skills are fading away without the Labyrinth, so it’s probably useless to compare them to the past” she pointed out

  “Without the Labyrinth? You really think its gone?” from the cadence of his voice he didn’t believe such thing and seemed to mock her for believing so

  “Err it isn’t?” Veronique had said uncertain, after all she had only just learned about this stuff so what did she know

  “I think its foolish to think that something so powerful could just disappear” Mr Doppelganger had explained his point of view

  “But the Duke said it was confirmed that it was gone” the redhead doubted the Duke would lie

  “Those were reports from the Undead and Avians, no human has confirmed it with their own eyes and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it still existing”

  ‘Why I am sensing a because humans are superior rant incoming?’ “Why would their reports be invalid?” she asked hoping such rant wouldn’t come

  “For one neither have Skills so it would be in their best interest if us humans stayed stuck on this Island and didn’t spread out” she had to admit it kind of made sense, but the argument kind of fell apart in her head because then why they even bother to interact or help us at all? “then there is the possibility that the Labyrinth has merely moved”

  “Moved?” this prospective inquired Veronique

  “Yes, it was said that it appeared out of nowhere, so why would it be out of the realm of possibility that it changed place?” he had explained “and even if it didn’t, how can we be sure our records of where it was is even correct? We could have sent them to check the wrong spot”

  “That kind of makes sense, but then why are our Skills weaker?” what the Duke had said simply made more sense to the current state of things, if it was like Mr Doppelganger said then the Skills should have stayed the same

  “My own personal theory is that the Unique Skills in the past were far stronger” Doppelganger had started to illustrate his theories on the subject “It’s not the Skills at whole that got weaker, but the quality of the Unique Skills that has decreased so nothing really changed from the past and we still got the potential to make wonders”

  “Speaking of wonder can I try to cast Hover now?” Veronique felt the need to change the subject

  “Oh of course, go ahead” he gave the green light, but instead of trying to cast it on the marbles he had provided on her desk Veronique had stood up and aimed for her chair

  “Hover!”

  The chair floated up a few inches and stayed stable.

  “I figured it would be easier to manage it with a bigger object!” she exclaimed with glee

  “Good thinking Veronique, with a bigger target your abundance of mana isn’t that much of a problem” Mr Doppelganger had praised her sounding impressed “try to keep it up as long as you can, once the Skill registers then it will be easier to manage smaller objects as well” he instructed her on the next step

  “How long does it take to register?” Veronique had asked, her concentration fully going on keeping the chair floating

  “This is a novice Skill so you should get it in about a week, it takes longer with more complex ones” he had informed her as he took the labyrinth toy “maybe you will have an easier time if I make this bigger, so keep practicing with Hover” and so she did.

  ‘This is a bit boring’ Veronique had to admit to herself once the novelty of finally getting it right had faded.

  If you are thinking Ivan gave up too soon after insisting so much you got to understand that he found out what you would consider a critical piece of information.

  Now both Veronique and Ivan are under the false impression that the whole dead thing is the second skill that Madame Luise didn’t disclose.

  However you and I both know the skill in question is “Fireball”