Careful to keep my distance, I walked closer to the two men, still not being able to make out their faces. However, they must have finished casting whatever spell they had been preparing because the dark-red tinted mana I had earlier noticed dancing around their bodies slowly dispersed into the surrounding vicinity. As I noticed them turning around and heading into the alley behind them, I promised myself I would discretely follow them for only a second, just to figure out what they were up to. I have to admit, seeing that strangely tinted mana being manipulated had piqued my curiosity. It definitely wasn’t an elemental spell, and even if they had a different comtype, I had only ever seen mana in the four elemental shades along with pure white.

As I walked up to the entrance of the alley, I could already see the dead end ahead, even in the dimly lit surroundings. The two mysterious men where nowhere to be seen. Curious, I once again channeled mana into my eyes, which I had withdrawn earlier so as not to alert anyone’s mana sense. To my surprise, I saw the same dark red tinted mana particles gathered around the dead-end wall of the alley in front of me. At first, I had surmised that the two men were gatekeepers, and had simply disappeared into a portal they had created. But even though gatekeepers could create dimensional portals to other locations, I had met a gatekeeper at the dojo before, and had only noticed him manipulating pure white mana. Furthermore, portals opened by gatekeepers were a lot brighter, with gold and silver sparks dotting the edge of the dimensional space that opened up after the spell was cast. However, I was surrounded by almost complete darkness right now, and I hadn’t noticed any flashes of light earlier either.

As I walked up to the wall at the end of the alley, I was completely flabbergasted. It seemed to be covered in some sort of sentient dark shadow, flowing back and forth like waves hitting a sandy beach. Instinctively, I reached my hand out towards it, and felt my hand passing through the shadow towards some sort of ‘other side’. My mind was racing, unable to explain what I had stumbled across. This was definitely a portal of some sort, but it wasn’t made by a gatekeeper. 

The shadow in front of me seemed cold, almost evil, as it danced up and down, slowly being enveloped by hues of dark red congregating around it. I wondered if perhaps this was shadow magic, although I had never seen it in person. However, Shadow-wielders were extremely rare, with only three of them currently alive in the entire world from what I recalled from my readings in high school. It didn’t make sense for them to be out here in a random alley on the outskirts of Seoul. Regardless, my curiosity won over, and before I knew it, I found myself stepping through the shadowy portal onto the other side before the mysterious spell dissipated.

Even before I had reached the other side, which must have taken a few seconds, I withdrew any mana I had been channeling so as not to draw attention to myself. If there was a mage actively using mana sense on the other side, I thought I might be able to fool them into thinking I was an animal or something. As I stepped out of the mysterious portal to the other side, I was relieved to see it was still dark out, which would help me hide my presence from the two mysterious men. I had no idea where I was though; after a quick look around, I surmised that I had stepped into the loading dock of some sort of warehouse at a seaport. Although the mysterious letters at the top of the warehouse entrance alerted me to the fact that I definitely wasn’t in the Korean peninsula anymore.

Quickly hiding behind a few wooden crates, I could hear at least four to five different voices in the distance as workers loaded items into a large yet inconspicuous white colored transport vehicle. They seemed to be speaking a foreign language which I was not familiar with, although it sounded like it incorporated parts of old Russian. I was tempted to use my WristNAV to find out my current location, however channeling mana into the wearable communication device would definitely risk alerting everyone here to my presence. This was one of the drawbacks of the Kingdom of Haneul’s magitech; it required the user’s unique mana signature to operate. While I didn’t dare to get closer, after spending a few minutes intently listening to the one person conversing with someone in English on their ear-comm, a language I was just as fluent in as my native Korean, I had put two and two together and figured out a few things.

I had stumbled upon a smuggling operation of some sort, and these mysterious men were definitely criminals. It was painfully obvious that all five of the smugglers I had seen so far were high-level mages. Even without an active mana sense, mages could instinctively sense a kind of aura from the living things surrounding them; indicating that something was alive. But apart from the fact that absolutely no aura emanated from these mages’ bodies; which was something I had never heard of before; they also didn’t seem to be too worried about getting caught out here in the open courtyard either, a testament to their mysterious ability to completely hide their presence. 

While I couldn’t use mana sense and risk tipping them off to my location, to the naked eye, the items they were loading into the white four-wheeler seemed to be, at the very least, expensive artifacts. Although I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were priceless magical equipment and weapons hidden among their loot as well. I had definitely overheard the word regalia earlier; which meant magical artifact.

It was at that moment, that a stray thought entered my head. If there were magical artifacts here, could there also be an emerald mana stone amongst the smuggled items? The possibility almost made me jump off of the concrete floor I was huddled onto; I had to force myself to calm down so I wouldn’t let out any trace of mana by accident. Still, my mind didn’t stop racing. If there was an emerald mana stone here, it might be the only chance I would ever have to cure my sister’s comatose state. 

And it was in that brief instant that I had somehow made up my mind; I was going to try. I didn’t know if there was even an emerald mana stone here, or how I would get my hands on one even if I did manage to locate it undetected. There was also the matter of having no escape route, since the mysterious portal had already closed, and I was surrounded by, what appeared to be at minimum, five A-rank mages, if not higher.

But first things first. Assuming there was an emerald mana stone here and that it hadn’t already been loaded into the four-wheeler, I had to circle around the warehouse in front of me and enter through the back without tipping off any of the smugglers. Luckily, they seemed overconfident and weren’t exactly on the lookout for intruders. I suspected that the mysterious shadowy portal that had brought me here was undetectable to even high-level mages without my unique colored mana sense, especially in the middle of the night. I assumed this gave the smugglers a false sense of security. Still, this would work to my advantage. 

Making sure I had contained as much accidental mana leakage as I could from my body into my mana channels, I slowly took a long route circling around to the back of the warehouse. I used stray storage containers and boxes as camouflage whenever possible, thankful that I had chosen to wear a loose black t-shirt tucked into black jeans as my outfit for the day.

Somehow, within a few minutes, I had made it into the warehouse from one of the large windows at the back which had been left open, I assumed for ventilation purposes. The inside of the warehouse looked more like a well-curated museum exhibit than a smugglers’ den. Although crowded with items, there was just enough space for even my taller than average body to move around discretely. Careful not to make any noise, I first inspected the items at the back. Even without using mana sense, I could still tell that most of the weapons and artifacts in front of me were regalia, simply from the almost palpable aura that leaked out from most of them, eerily similar to living creatures. 

I remembered reading in school that regalia, which were magical artifacts, were of two types. Ancient regalia were those whose origins were unknown; simply having been found by expert archaeologists and scholars, while modern regalia were those which had been created by mages since the Aurora Magilis, mostly by alchemists. Regardless of the type of regalia however, they were often imbued with not only the mana but sometimes the magical characteristics of their creator, giving them something akin to a personality of sorts. However, as it was my first-time seeing regalia in general, I couldn’t be sure if these were high-level regalia, or whether all regalia gave off the aura I was perceiving.

I had somehow made it half way across the back of the warehouse towards the middle-left side when I noticed it. Until now, I had mostly seen items like swords with intricately decorated hilts, statues with mysterious runes on them, or a plethora of magical staffs and wands which seemed to be made out of rare natural materials. However, what was now in front of me was a simple white mannequin head placed on a shelf surrounded by its peers. But while the other mannequins were supporting the weight of gemstones of different colors locked amidst intricately designed jewelry, this mannequin simply wore two large silver earrings decorated with a single green gemstone in the center. For a second, I was almost lost in the gem’s emerald hue as it shone commandingly among its peers.

‘Is this what I’m looking for?’ I almost questioned out loud. I had only seen an emerald mana crystal in magical texts before, and while it did look exactly like a brilliant green emerald, that was about the extent of my knowledge on the subject. I figured that it would be sensible to assume this was no ordinary gemstone, since it was here among a plethora of regalia being smuggled to god knows where by high-level mages with mysterious magic. Still, there was only one way to be sure, and that was to channel mana into the crystal to invoke its healing effect. But would that mean inviting a quick death upon myself? I mean, the moment I channel mana, I was sure it’d be a piece of cake for these high-level mages to figure out my location and kill me before I even had a chance to react.

‘It’s okay Jun, calm down,’ I told myself as I regulated my breathing. I reasoned with myself that if I channeled a small enough burst of mana into the stone, perhaps the mages wouldn’t be able to detect it, or mistake it for the aura from one of the regalia stored in the warehouse. And even if they did suspect something was wrong, they couldn’t exactly charge in here or unleash high-level magic with all these seemingly priceless artifacts surrounding me. Maybe, with a bit of luck on my side, I could identify that the crystal was indeed an emerald mana stone, and make my way out the back undetected. After that, I would just run as far away from this place as I could on foot, and figure out how to get back home when I was safe. ‘Yes, it’ll be okay,’ I reassured myself, confident at my reasoning of the situation.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I removed one of the earrings from the mannequin and used its sharp edge to give myself a medium sized cut on my palm. As blood dripped from my hand onto the marble floor of the warehouse, I channeled as little mana as I could into the crystal, holding it tightly in my closed palm. And… it worked. ‘It’s workin-…’ I exclaimed to myself as the crystal glowed and my skin started stitching back together, only for my happiness to be cut painstakingly short. Before I could even make sense of what was happening, I felt an alarming pain in my left arm to the point where I felt it was going to fall off my body any second. If I had screamed, I couldn’t hear it over the ringing in my ears as I made eye contact with the terrifying man in black robes standing a hair’s breath away from me, tightening his grip on my arm.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’