The Dao of Magic

88 - Convert

"Why is he staring off into space like that?"

Tess stops to ponder this question for a few seconds as Ares looks at the single person still sitting at the table, a bearded man. "Ket also does this, too busy with thinking to be around us."

"So he is just thinking?"

"Uuhm, how do I say this. Ket tried to explain it to me... They make stuff in their mind." Tess nods firmly at the last part.

"Make stuff in their mind?"

Tess shifts a bit while rubbing her stomach. Dark qi can be seen wafting from her as she releases her cultivation base into the atmosphere. A sphere made of white contains the dark qi.

"They can have libraries inside their heads. It's like having access to all the pens, paper, time and books that you could ever want. Their cores are in their brains." Tess becomes a bit green as she releases even more structural qi from her body and core. Holding a hand to her mouth, she swallows and breathes out power again.

"They are bookworms."

"WHA-" *hurk* *COUGH* *GULP* "...That's really rude to say."

Ares looks even more surprised than Tess at the remark. "I didn't mean to say that, it just came out."

"I never knew you had such a foul mouth, sis!" Vox grins widely as he walks by. Ares goes red in the face as Vox lays his hand on the barrier made of light. "Tess, you sure this is going to work?"

"I can just change the intent and suck it back in again, turning the free qi into my own takes too long."

"Are you sure this isn't blocking your breath?" The red-haired boy looks at the seated girl with worry in his eyes. "I'm pretty sure this barrier only blocks qi but we haven't tested that. You could suffocate from lack of oxygen."

Tess looks up at Vox with dark eyes. "Oxygen? What are you talking about?"

"This. It's filled with medical stuff, but Teach put a lot of knowledge around it." A green egg appears in the boy's hand. "I needed to learn about the basic elements to understand why some plants healed. I then learned about some physics, aerodynamics and some mathematical stuff in order to project this field."

Vox pats the dome around Tess with love in his eyes. "It's around ten times as strong as before I learned those things. Knowledge really is power." Every pat of the redhead's hand causes the barrier to glow a little brighter until Tess is barely visible inside.

"That should do. It will hold for at least a day." He throws the green piece of jade inside the dome.

*pok*

"OW"

"Catch. That way you can do some reading while you expel your qi. I'm going to read some more before rebuilding my own core. Cya sis."

With a wave, Vox saunters towards the greek temple library. Tess starts cursing him in a very colourful language and Ares just sits on the grass, staring at Teach with a contemplative look on her face. She is broken from her musings as Teach suddenly stands up.

"Tess? Where... Let's see. Over there." Teach points to the black and white dome after closing his eyes for a bit. He then walks over and taps on the glowing shield. Only for his crooked finger to slip through the surface without any resistance.

"Qi containment mode, that's clever. Vox is learning, I see. Here Tess, see if you can sense something from this, catch."

A black skull appears in his hand, causing Ares to back away quickly. It leaves a shadowy trail is it flies in an arc.