The Last Dainv-Chapter 75

The Last Dainv-Chapter 75

The bell at The Coffee Lab's door chimed as Gale pushed through. A crowd of students and office workers waited in line to get their orders in. Black coffee, latte, flat white, cappuccino, white coffee. He had no idea what any of those meant.
However, he didn't care. 26 hours of solid sleep made him feel completely refreshed. He didn't think he would sleep through a whole day, but it was worth it. His sore muscles were less sore, and the pathways felt ever more vivid. Onwards to another day of adulting.
The circuit board from yesterday's morning class gave him a few ideas. If essence flowed like electricity, why not reconfigure it to fit his own essence's electricity? A brilliant idea. All he needs to do next is do that reconfiguration thing in a safe place that Guide recommended.
But first: coffee. Apparently this was what adults did to function, though he'd never tried it himself. There was no reason to not try it now.
The line went past the displays of pastries down back to the door. Gale drooled at the blueberry cupcakes and almond croissants. But no. Adults probably don't take any of these sweet stuff with their coffee.
Gale checked his phone. 1:50 PM. He had time before his next class, but not much. A barista called out orders while another worked the espresso machine. Steam hissed. Grinders whirred. Milk frothed. The line moved along.
His turn came up.
"Hi, what can I get for you?" a guy with sleeve tattoos and a carefully waxed mustache behind the counter said.
"Uhh…" Gale's mind went blank. "What did that last guy have?"
"Black coffee."
"I'll get that too," Gale said.
"Name for the order?"
"Gale."
The barista wrote on a cup 'Gail', looking at him then down at the cup.
"That'll be $7.50."
$7.50 for a cup of coffee not much bigger than his cup at home, that's basically daylight robbery. What kind of place is this? An illegal establishment!
Gale reluctantly reached into his pocket and put a five dollar bill and the rest of the money in quarters. The man behind him groaned and rolled his eyes. Breath of the Void fed him that information, and now the man's face was locked in his memory.
I'll remember that.
He stepped aside to wait, watching the organized chaos behind the counter. The man manning the espresso machine and drip coffee quickly poured a medium cup with his misspelled name on it.
"Gale! Black coffee!"
He grabbed the cup, immediately noticing an ether signature under the cup. It was so faint that it was hard to feel if he hadn't touched the cup at all. There were no markings, symbols, or anything that would indicate the cup was enchanted. From the trace of it, it had a low frequency pulse that was directed back to whatever was behind the door behind the counter.
Walking away, he whispered, "Guide, analyze this energy signature."
[Location Tracking Spell detected. Spell duration calculated at 14 days based on signature emission. Spell uses sub-type energy: Ether. Threat Level: Minimal]
Gale turned the cup in his hands, studying it. The coffee inside was perfectly normal, steam rising and the aromatic smell of coffee hitting his nose, which felt like bliss.
"What are the sub-types of essence?"
[Essence categorized by potency levels. Ascending order: Ether, Mana, Qi, Prana, Essence, Alseith, Sreith, Seith, Enri. Current location predominantly utilizes Ether-based energy signatures.]
"Explain."
[Dainv daily life uses Essence. Lower forms of energy contain lower output. Higher forms contain different properties. Essence conversion requires higher Origin Core class.]
Dammit. Everything was locked behind a Core Class. He took a sip of coffee, immediately sticking his tongue out. It was bitter. Adults like weird things. He should've taken one of the pastries to balance this out. No wonder they were side by side.
However, it was curious. Why would a coffee shop track their customers? Surveillance maybe? Definitely had something to do with the Path. Those evil corporations.
Maybe that was the point.
Hiding supernatural surveillance behind something so mundane that it would be hard to stop. Books did say that information wins wars. Was the coffee shop a warfront?
Gale shook his head, stopping himself from thinking of stupid imaginary plots that were only in books.
He checked his phone again. 2:00PM.
Shit. The
study group
was probably already at the meeting spot.
Gale hurried out, coffee in hand. The streets of Yorkdale teemed with multiple cars honking at each other and people waiting to be dodged by him as he ran through them.
The Adult Learning Centre looked like any other public building. Intimidating brick walls that would force him to learn. It was nothing like UofT he once visited during a high school field trip. Orphans were free to go. Other kids had to pay.
Arriving at the elevator, it was stuck at the third floor. A whining noise echoed down the elevator shaft. Some idiot was blocking the door.
He turned his eyes towards the stairwell. Might as well.
Gale took two steps at a time. The coffee sloshed in the cup, bits of liquid spilling over the small spout. The coffee shop probably knew where he was right now. That's an invasion of privacy.
Reaching the third floor, he passed through the familiar corridors and into a library. Inside the library, he walked fast towards the study rooms. Let's see… 3A, 3B… There. 3C.
Muffled voices penetrated the door behind. Three distinct voices.
Pushing the door open interrupted what sounded like a heated debate about science. Three heads turned to look at him.
"Hey, you made it!" Andrew sat at the head of the study table, a chemistry textbook open in front of him. "Everyone, this is Gale. He's new to the centre. Gale, meet the study group."
A woman with purple-streaked hair raised her hand. "Mia. Biochem major before I dropped out of uni. Now I'm just here for fun."
Next to her, a guy in a Star Wars t-shirt waved. "Jacob. Former IT guy turned perpetual student. You're late, by the way."
"Traffic," Gale lied, sliding into an empty chair.
"We were just getting into electron configurations," Andrew said, flipping pages in his textbook. "Mia's explaining why noble gases are so unreactive."
Mia launched back into her explanation, drawing diagrams on a whiteboard. Something about having full electrons. Gale tried to focus, but who would want to track customers at a campus coffee shop?
"You with us, buddy?" Jacob said, snapping his fingers.
"Yeah, sorry." Gale set the coffee aside. "Something about electron shells?"
Mia crossed her arms. "If you're going to show up late, at least pay attention."
"Sorry," Gale said again. "Long week."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. any appearances on Amazon.
"We've all had those," Andrew said. "Give him a break, how about it?"
Gale pulled out his notebook as Mia resumed her explanation. Pencil scratched at the notebook, not at the concepts being explained to him, but at the ether patterns that he saw from the coffee cup. He traced the paths, drawing lines that curved and intersected like circuit diagrams. And then it hit him, the pattern itself looked like an overly simple pattern compared to the symbols and shapes he saw on the ship. The tracking spell used a basic triangulation pattern. It had three points of contact that created a field of resonance to create a frequency.
"And that's why the outer shell of neon is complete with eight electrons," Mia's marker squeaked against the whiteboard.
"Gale?" Andrew tapped the table in front of him. "You getting any of this?"
"Yeah, sure," Gale said without looking up.
Jacob snorted. "Dude hasn't written a single thing about electron configurations."
"I'm taking notes," Gale muttered as he drew the remaining distance factor into the spell. According to the parameters of the spell, the cup can transmit its location across the whole city. But who was watching?
"Okay, that's it." Mia slapped her marker down. She stalked around the table and yanked Gale's notebook away. "Let's see these amazing notes you're... what the hell?"
She stared at the page, squinting. The lines shifted under her gaze, writhing in pulsing patterns. Her body went sideways as she caught herself on the table with her free hand. Sitting down, she rubbed her temple before looking away from the notes.
"You okay?" Andrew asked.
"Yeah, just..." Mia blinked hard, shoving the notebook back at Gale. "Weird headache came out of nowhere."
"Sorry," Gale said, closing the notebook.
"As I was saying," Mia stood back up, using the table to balance, "noble gases have complete outer shells, which makes them extremely stable..."
Gale sighed. This was supposed to be a group study, and he was wasting it away on a random thought about a location tracking cup. Andrew looked at him, smiling awkwardly. He wasn't doing himself any favours by looking like he doesn't want to be there
with friends
.
Pulling out another notebook, he wrote down what Mia had written on the white board. Noble gases and their unreactivity.
The next few hours passed in a blur of chemical equations, atomic structures, and practice problems. He immersed himself in the study. Mia would sometimes call him out to answer the balancing equations, of course, that didn't end well. At least he was learning.
Andrew was a good friend. He broke down the complex concepts of balancing into step-by-step digestible pieces of information. Logically, everything had steps in science.
"Hey, what did the atom say after losing an electron?" Jacob asked with a grin. "I really gotta keep an ion that!"
"Shut up, stupid!" Mia's eyes lit up as she gestured at her diagram. "Pay attention."
Just less than a year ago, he was ostracized by the kids in the orphanage. Here he was, socializing fine with people older than him. Relatively, anyways.
"Okay, last problem," Andrew said. "Balance this equation..."
Cu + HNO3 → Cu(NO3)2 + NO + H2O, Andrew wrote on the whiteboard.
They worked through it together, adding coefficients until both sides matched. The simple tackling of a mundane chemical equation felt refreshingly
normal
.
"And that's time," Jacob stretched. "My brain is officially losing electrons."
Mia gathered her books. "Same time next week?"
"Works for me." Andrew looked at Gale. "You in?"
Gale hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah, I'll be here."
They packed up as a couple of cleaning staff's carts rattled past in the hallway. Gale threw the coffee cup into the recycling bin. Who cares about your stupid tracking spells.
"Hey," Andrew tapped him on the shoulder. "You seemed pretty intense about whatever you were drawing earlier."
"Just trying to work something out," Gale said. "Thanks for letting me join the group."
"No problem. Though maybe next time actually pay attention to the chemistry?" Andrew said.
Gale smiled slightly. "Will do."
They filed out into the hallway where other study groups were also finishing up.
Jacob headed for the stairs while Mia veered toward the elevator. Andrew and Gale took the stairs, just behind Jacob. When they reached the first floor, they gave him the side-eye. He could feel it boring a hole through his temple.
"Seriously though, those drawings of yours. They looked like some kind of magic circles. You into that?"
Gale froze at Andrew's question. Emmerson warned him
never let mundanes know about Aur or else.
"What do you mean?" Gale tried to keep his voice monotone, but failing.
Andrew's eyes lit up. "You know, like in anime! I've been watching this show called 'Nanoha' where they use these complex circles. And they also have different ones depending on the use. Your drawings reminded me of the magic circles they use." He pulled out his phone, swiping through images. "See? The concentric patterns, the flow lines. Pretty similar, ain't it?"
Gale sighed in relief. "Oh, that. No, I just read a lot of fantasy books. Sometimes I doodle stuff from them when I'm thinking."
"Fantasy nerd, huh?" Andrew said. "You should check out this series I'm reading. The magic system is incredibly detailed…"
Walking out into the street and letting Andrew ramble on, they walked towards the crosswalk. Cars crawled past the busy street of both other cars and pedestrians. A cluster of pedestrians waited at the corner. Gale noticed an elderly woman with a floral-print shopping bag.
That was cute.
The light turned red. The walk signal blinked on.
That's when Gale saw it. A silver sedan speeding toward the intersection. Breath of the Void fed him information. The driver's head looked down at something, probably a phone.
The elderly woman stepped off the curb.
Time slowed down as he saw the whole thing play out. The outcome was obvious.
The woman took another step.
Gale activated Distort over himself, vanishing from view. He lunged forward, planting his feet on the crosswalk.
The car slammed into him at full speed.
The impact rattled through his bones, but Gale held firm. Metal crumpled against his hands. Windshield shattered. The front end of the sedan accordionned inward, momentum stopped dead cold from his planted stance.
This pressure was nothing. The knight's sword strikes felt like freight trains slamming into him at full speed. Or a garbage truck. The car was barely a love tap in comparison.
Still, his palms stung from the impact. A bruise bloomed across his chest. Nothing serious.
The elderly woman stumbled backward, startled by the crash though unhurt. Other pedestrians gaped at the car that seemed to have hit an invisible wall.
"Holy shit!" Andrew spun in a circle, searching for Gale. "Where did you- how did- what just happened?"
Gale slipped away from the wreck quickly, maintaining Distort. He circled back to the garbage can near Andrew, then let Distort fade in the blink of an eye.
"Sorry about that," Gale said casually, appearing beside Andrew. "Had to throw something out."
"Dude, did you see that? The car just stopped! Like it hit something invisible!" Andrew waved his hands wildly, pointing to the crumpled sedan. "I'm telling you, this whole area is haunted. Last semester, all the computers in the lab crashed at the same time. The week before that, someone saw a shadow figure in the stairwell. And now this!"
Ghosts? Those were real?! Gale screamed internally. Of course they would be after all this Aur stuff, right?!
"You really believe in that stuff?" he asked.
"Of course! There's too much weird stuff happening around here to ignore." Andrew took one hand and whispered into his ears. "They say this building used to be a hospital in the 1800s. Lots of people died here. My cousin's roommate's sister's friend works in administration, and she says they find old medical equipment in the walls sometimes during renovations."
Didn't Canada only exist after 1867? Gale held back an awkward smile. Goosebumps went up his spine. Great choice going to Yorkdale Adult Learning Centre instead of the other choice.
"That's... interesting," Gale said.
Emergency vehicles wailed in the distance, getting closer. The driver had gotten out of the car, dazed and unhurt. A small crowd had gathered, phones out, recording the scene as if there weren't enough videos of cars crashing on the internet.
"Maybe it was a ghost saving that old lady," Andrew said. "Like a guardian spirit or something."
"Maybe," Gale said. "Hey, I should get going. Thanks again for the study group."
"No problem! Same time next week?" Andrew still staring at the crashed car. "Man, wait until I tell Jacob about this. He's gonna flip!"
"Yeah, next week," Gale said, already backing away. He needed to get out of there before someone started asking questions. The Path could be everywhere.
"You know, there's been tons of weird stuff happening," Andrew said. "People hear strange noises in the library all the time, and books just fall off shelves on their own. And these random cold spots in the hallways. It's like you'll be walking along and suddenly it's like stepping into a freezer!"
Why was this human not stopping with the ghost stories that he didn't want to hear? He did read before that adulting came with its own negative consequences, like listening to another adult babble on.
"Oh, and get this, just last month, a security guard vanished during his night shift. They only found his flashlight on the floor," Andrew said. "That's why none of the cleaning staff work alone anymore. They all use the buddy system. Too scared to be by themselves in here after dark."
Note to self, never go to the school late at night.
The first police car rounded the corner, lights flashing. Perfect timing for an exit.
"I really need to go," Gale said. "See you in class?"
"Sure thing!" Andrew waved at him. "Watch out for ghosts on your way home!"
Gale suppressed a shudder. He didn't even wanna think of what he could do against a ghost. He can't possibly just swing at it, right?
“Psst, Guide. What is the probability of killing a ghost?”
Gale whispered.
[Query Accepted. Ghosts do not exist. Threat level: Minimal]
More like threat level: maximum.
He walked faster as a cold breeze rustled dead leaves across the pavement.
Behind him, he heard Andrew from across the crosswalk say, "Hey, does anyone else feel like it just got really cold right here? It's definitely ghosts."

.
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Chapter 75