Tom did nothing for a moment, absorbing everything that had just happened. He was still clutching the trait stone in his hands. Everlyn had clearly stated that he could use it, and had even gone as far to physically block Dimitri to give him that opportunity; however, despite her assurances, he had some doubts.


    “Should I?” he asked the older man, ignoring Everlyn for the moment. Because of her erratic behaviour, he wasn’t confident in her judgement. Fifty years could do a lot to change a person, and he was worried about who she was now.


    “Open your fingers, Tom,” Dimitri ordered gently, gesturing as he did so at the hand that held the trait stone. “Let’s see why Eden thinks this is a good investment.”


    Mutely, he did so. The gleaming, beautiful stone lay in his hands. While the other two could identify it, Tom, without the ability that came with access to using experience, could not.


    Slowly, the big man nodded. “I can empathize with Everlyn’s decision. She’s right.” He frowned. “Those conditions really limit its utility to most.”


    Tom instantly went on guard. “What restrictions? Can you tell me what it does?”


    It was Everlyn who answered. “Ten mana cost reduction for every unique spell you cast, with each of them getting their own six-minute cool-down.”


    “Six minutes?” Dimitri inquired.


    She shrugged as though it was inconsequential. “For Tom, yes, unless reincarnation changed things.”


    “Ah… I see. It can, but rarely by very much. Usually seconds, and very occasionally tens of them. I’ve never seen anything larger than twenty.”


    Tom was lost listening to the conversation, but then he suddenly realised that they were discussing his mana recharge rate. Six minutes was what he had in his previous life, and he hadn’t bothered to check since then. Relative to others, it had been a good value, but nothing exceptional. His mind puzzled over what the trait offered, and he rapidly did the required mental calculations. “So, if I’m understanding this correctly, then, if I used a hundred spells on rotation in a fight, this would be worth a thousand mana.”


    “Theoretically,” Dimitri agreed. “But practically, no one uses that many.”


    Tom understood exactly what Dimitri was saying. “I concur, but I’m right in suggesting a mage could easily use ten spells in their rotation, and that’s a hundred mana reduction.”


    The big man chuckled. “Are you trying to talk yourself out of a trait stone?”


    “No, just making sure it’s not wasted.”


    “It’s not.” Everlyn told him firmly. “Do you know how much mana a powerhouse has?”


    “Probably around fifteen hundred.”


    “How about a mage?”


    “Three times that?” He guessed. Between investing more heavily in magic and having the supporting traits to boost their spell number and power, they would be far more dedicated to magic than the ones with a more balanced build than Dimitri and Everlyn were probably pursuing.


    “Yes. Close to five thousand mana. An extra hundred mana against that is nothing.”


    He wanted to claim it was still two percent and that could be the difference between life and death, but there was an easier target. “But for you, a hundred mana increases your reserves by, what, eight percent? Why wouldn’t you take it?”


    “This trait only works as a bonus for people who use multiple spells and run out of the mana. I’m not sure there are any humans in the competition who fight like that. Personally, I tend to use one spell in battle, and that’s chaining power shots until they’re basically free to cast. It’s worthless to me.”


    Tom felt a thrill of excitement at her comment. He remembered sitting on the wall when they had both been around rank ten. Back then, she had been theorising that synergies between her titles might make such a feat possible. She had not known if it was going to work, and had been worried the GODs might see it as an exploit and shut it down.


    “Did it work? You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t believe the GODs let it through and the titles worked as expected. Are you serious that you can actually get free and instant Power Shots? That’s so broken.”


    A genuine, beautiful smile crossed her face. Tom liked seeing that and realised it was not something she did often anymore. Her world had become dark and depressing, but at this moment, at least, she was happy.


    “Oh yeah, and against the right monster, it’s spectacular.”


    “A continuous stream of death,” Dimitri agreed. “It’s exhilarating, but, even as an ally, it’s terrifying to watch. You can’t imagine without seeing it what a Power Shot a second from someone as powerful as Eden actually feels like. Words can’t describe it. She can vaporise a charging army. It’s amazing. But, Tom, she’s right about the trait. Warrior types,” he gestured at himself and Everlyn. “We rarely use even half our pools as for spell users. Well, a typical mage has a couple of big hitting options and their highly-levelled base spells. Once you take the vulnerabilities of the enemies into account, they only use three to five spells per engagement.”


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    “I hear you, but are you really claiming that forty mana is nothing?”


    “Compared to five thousand, yes.” Dimitri shrugged. “I agree with Eden. This will mean more in a reincarnator’s hands. You have a mana pool bottleneck you need to defeat”


    “Let’s face it, I’m never going to have enough mana the way I fight.” Tom joked.


    “Everyone has learned to fight more conservatively. What we did when we came to Existentia showed incompetence. You should never pick a battle where you go close to having to use all your resources. Never do that, because eventually you’ll fail. They don’t have issues with magic. You do. Use the trait stone.”


    Everlyn nodded in encouragement, approving of Dimitri’s words.


    With both of them blessing him, he raised it to his head and absorbed it. The stone crumbled away to nothing.


    The trait was a passive ability, so there was no download of information on how to use it beyond an extra feeling when he thought about casting a spell. When he did so, he could feel that the first section of energy would be free.


    He clicked his finger, and, without any warning, shot a blaze of lightning at Dimitri.


    Tom was too close, and the spell was too fast; it struck before Dimitri could consciously react. The automatic magic defences of the large man, however, did not have the same restrictions.


    A shield flared up and countered the magic he had sent.


    Dimitri rolled his eyes. “Was that necessary?”


    Tom chose not to answer and checked his mana total. Just like the trait promised, the spell had been free.


    Once more, he clicked his fingers. The same bolt of lightning erupted, but this time it fizzed away to nothing before reaching Dimitri.


    The other man smirked at how effortlessly he had countered the spell.


    Naturally, Tom didn’t care. He was focusing internally. This time, his mana had bottomed out as he had stripped the full ten mana from it. Gingerly, he touched his forehead and winced at the slight headache that the empty pool had caused.


    “The trait works.” He declared.


    “Of course it does.” Dimitri rummaged in his bag and brought out the portable status ritual screen and placed it on the desk. “Use this so you can see the exact wording. It’s unlikely, but it might have changed from what mine and Everlyn’s identification showed.”


    Tom touched the controls, then focused on getting a description of the trait he had just received. Almost immediately, the text appeared on the screen.


    Trait: Flat Mana Reduction


    This trait covers the first ten mana of any system recognised spell.


    A cooldown equal to your mana recharge time will apply to each unique spell.


    Tom read it and frowned.


    It was exactly as the other two had promised… with a single issue. He was certain that it wasn’t going to help him create new spells from scratch. The wording of ‘system-recognised’ couldn’t mean anything else.


    “Damn it.” He cursed angrily.


    “What’s with that face?” Everlyn asked.


    “Give me a moment. I just want to check,” he muttered. He formed the raw mana lines of the spell form he was currently practicing, and then spent two points of precognition mana on it. A lightning spear crackled into existence and struck the far wall. It was weak and malformed, but it had worked - at least to an extent. The new trait did not activate, and his mana levels dropped. “Yep, exactly like I feared.”


    “What’s wrong?” Dimitri asked.


    “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t sound so disappointed, but I guess I had an unrealistic hope that I could use it to grind my spell learning faster.”


    “A clever idea. But no, it won’t do that,” Everlyn agreed.


    “That would definitely have been overpowered,” Dimitri agreed with a chuckle. “Through ten mana for every spell you possess should increase your effective mana pool by five to ten times.”


    “A lot less,” Tom corrected, knowing that the other man was assuming that he only had access to his primary pool and heaps more spells than he had managed to learn. “With my thirty mana in my precognition pool, I can currently only double it. Though. maybe…” he mused. “Maybe I’ll relearn all of my tier-zero trash stepping stones. They were lost in the evolutions, and usually I wouldn’t have even considered it because the new spells they formed were just superior at every level. But, but with this trait, the maths of it changes.”


    Everlyn, for a moment, looked confused and then nodded as she realised what he was talking about. “Yes, you should,” she agreed firmly. “Under normal circumstances, you’d be right - Spark and Touch Heal are more efficient than their precursors, but with the first ten mana being costless, you might as well rotate through the lesser spells. Presumably, as you’ve done a perfect cast once, it’ll be quick to do it again.”


    “My thoughts exactly.”


    “It could be a lot of work,” Dimitri said quietly.


    “I don’t think it will be,” Everlyn disagreed. “It’ll be a fraction of the time it took initially.”


    “I’ll find out, but for now I agree with Everlyn. If I have fate to invest, it shouldn’t be too hard. All I’m doing is trying to duplicate something I’ve already done once in the past. It doesn’t sound that unlikely to me.”


    “Still, it does nothing for your long-term build.”


    “Yes, but short-term, it’d be better. Once I have reacquired them and grown the breadth of my spells, I might be able to churn through five or ten times my normal mana pool in a fight. That’s a massive advantage, even if the spells would be less efficient than most. Volume has its own quality.”


    Dimitri made a point of looking at his wrist. There was no watch there, but they were all from Earth, and knew what he was referring to. “We’re almost out of time. Tell me about these million points.”


    Tom sighed as he remembered the likely reason. “I got into the Divine Champions’ Trial at the expense of someone else. Their civilisation was apparently doomed by that result.”


    “That’s it?” Everlyn asked in stunned surprise.


    He shrugged. “Evidently. But,” he thought about the disks he was making. Their value suddenly extended beyond the personal benefits. If they worked, then they were going to be great for humanity as well.


    “But what?” She asked.


    “I think there’s a good chance I’m about to make a mountain of points.”


    “How?” she questioned suspiciously.


    “Passively and without risk.” He told them the cliff notes of everything he had done to get into the trial, and everything he was now doing within it.


    “Wait, hold up there.” Everlyn demanded. “Did you just say Maurice gave you the critical trait stone?”


    “I did, but why are you asking?”


    Everlyn laughed. “I almost killed her when I found she had given away the perfect trait for you. If I had of…” she chuckled again. “Damn. That would have been bad. I can’t believe you got it, anyway. That’s some luck.”


    “It was.” Tom agreed. “It’s not the first luck of that kind I’ve benefitted from, either.” There was no point in elaborating further. He knew that she and Dimitri talked, and he was sure he had told her about the other random gifts he had received. “Do you know anything about that?”


    “Nothing explicit. But I have an idea.” Everlyn said carefully. “But I don’t know why DEUS stripped you of your memories, but if she wanted you not to have them, then I’m not going against that.”


    Tom hit the table in mock frustration. “I knew you’d say that.”


    She just shrugged, and then his time was up.