The gates of the primary school had changed considerably. Until now, there was only one place that had constructed proper walls, beyond simply piling up whatever they had at hand—the Calibur camp.

  The stone walls, reinforced by the vines Ashton planted, solidly held back monsters much more effectively than other barricades. And now, the primary school had joined.

  It had already been surrounded by stone walls for the most part, but those had been extended upward considerably with wooden boards, and the main gate was reinforced through thick wood as well. It looked like these materials had been salvaged from the nearby houses.

  "They finished this since yesterday..?" Ashton asked himself, whistling slightly. Yesterday, the extensions of the walls were already mostly done, but this gate was completely new. "It really was a good choice to leave things to Rory."

  With a smile, Ashton knocked on the gate. It didn't take long for someone to open it up, either, once Ashton identified himself.

  Luckily, Ashton wore this cloak here yesterday, and it was pretty easily-recognisable.

  Once let inside, Ashton quickly made his way toward the gymnasium's direct entrance. On the way, though, he smiled a little.

  "Hey there, Guardian. I know you can't answer me, but you can still see what's happening, yeah?" he said in a low tone of voice. "It looks like everything went well here while I was gone this time."

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] asks why you would talk to someone that can't answer]

  [[Observer in the Veil] shakes their head at the Daughter, saying they wouldn't understand]

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] agrees and says that this is why they asked]

  "Because they're still here. It's not like I wanted a response," Ashton said, pushing against the gym's door. It felt heavier than last time. When the door opened up a slit, Ashton could see the other side through the mana around here.

  This already fairly solid door had been solidly reinforced even further. Did they do that for all the doors around here?

  Ashton liked the idea, but it seemed a bit dangerous. It wasn't like the door was hard to open, but a young, primary school-aged child might struggle. Maybe they had some plans for this, but otherwise, Ashton would have to talk to Rory about this.

  For now, he stepped inside. People were already talking, and the sound of footsteps bounced around through the tall space. Plenty of kids were awake already, too, though it didn't sound like people were sleeping in here anymore. There were just traces of people having worked here last night.

  Making weapons from everyday objects, or turning salvaged fabrics into bandages. They were also apparently trying to repair some things. People were trying to get generators back up and running, but that probably wouldn't work for a while.

  Of course, combustion motors worked just as well as before, but the generated electricity was disrupted by the ambient wild mana. Generally, this led to electrical surges that fully burnt out and destroyed the components. This was a phenomenon Ashton actually found out about in Lumia.

  While the advancements in that world mostly went a different way, there were still those that discovered electricity, just through different means than before. Electricity was useful for other means than mana was, simply because as long as you understood how it worked, you could make something that could use it, no matter how terrible your spiritual sense was.

  For the most part though, the inventions were restricted to things like lightbulbs, stoves, or heating. Simple, basic inventions. Not because people had no use for electricity, but because of the volatility of mana.

  When mana was stable, there was no issue. It was basically like it wasn't even there, as far as electricity was concerned. But in places where mana became more wild, through things like magic items or simple spells, or even just by magical beings like elementals existing in the physical world, the interference could quickly backfire. Quite literally.

  Earth had better systems to protect against these surges, but in Lumia, when this happened, it often led to wild fires that were hard to put out. That was why most places that actually used electricity were special government buildings that were protected by powerful barriers anyway.

  But... how would he explain that properly? It wasn't like he could show proof for that. Maybe Ashton should just pretend like he studied electrical engineering and act like he was some sort of expert on the topic.

  However, maybe this wasn't so bad anyway. Ashton knew for a fact that there were ways to safely use electricity in worlds with mana, even extremely wild mana.

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  Back in Lumia, Ashton was told a lot about the world their former... companion came from. There, ancient ruins were scattered across the world, using both magic and electricity in tandem perfectly, even eons after the fall of that ruined civilization.

  Maybe if people on earth studied magic properly, they might be able to develop such technology as well.

  But well, for now... it was a bit too dangerous to just keep a generator like this inside. Ashton knew that they were still just trying to get it to work safely anyway, but if something went wrong in here, it could turn out really bad.

  Ashton didn't know enough about motors to tell if this could be turned on, but he hoped it couldn't. He should try and find Rory as fast as possible and have him put a stop to this for the time being.

  But right now, there was someone else he had to find first. This place was almost empty, there were just a couple of people walking around and taking care of some things this early in the morning. Ashton asked them about the situation, and apparently the classrooms had been properly turned into sleeping areas.

  "Do you know where Millie—Uhm, Millicent—is? And where Rory is sleeping?" Ashton asked quickly, and the woman in front of him inhaled nervously.

  "Oh... that child? She's somewhere at the far end of school, on the ground floor. But Rory should be with her... very few others wanted to be."

  Ashton's put-on smile quickly faded. "Ah. Thank you."

  Trying not to show his anger at that, Ashton left toward the classrooms. He navigated the hallways easily enough, hearing more and more people talk. As he walked, he made sure to ask some other people to see if they knew anything more, and was quickly directed to an old classroom at the end of the hall.

  Ashton stepped inside and could quickly smell the dust in the air. The walls were covered from top to bottom in boxes, and the shelves were crammed with random documents and teaching materials.

  "Hm. Wasn't this the science classroom before?" Ashton asked, compressing his channelling range a small amount to take a closer look at everything. There really were random things in here. A model of the human eye, a frog skeleton, old beakers covered in a thin crust, and random bottles that probably shouldn't be just left out in the open.

  Maybe Ashton could find something useful in here.

  Rory was standing at the other end of the room, sorting through everything here. There was a pile of random papers, with a purpose that Ashton could already guess. A lot of this could make for great kindling.

  "Oh!" Rory turned, surprised. He stepped over the thin, hard gym mat that was on the floor, covered in a thin and torn up blanket. A few steps next to it were a few more mats right next to each other, with thicker blankets on top. The bad kids were sleeping on there. Millie, Joey, and Sean.

  "You're back!" he said, slightly too loud, and snapped his head toward the kids. He whispered and walked toward the door. "Come, lad, let's go outside."

  Rory closed the door behind him, and looked Ashton up and down.

  "Och, lad, what happened to you? Ye look like a barrel of shite," Rory said, taken aback now that he got a closer look at Ashton.

  Ashton nodded. "I feel like one, too." He leaned against the windowsill just a few steps away, and briefly made sure that the door to the old science room was actually shut. Ashton then briefly pulled off the mask over his eyes, and Rory didn't just stand there in silence as so many others had.

  "Jesus suffering fuck! What happened to you?" Rory took a step forward as if the reality he was seeing would change a bit closer up, but he soon realised that wasn't the case.

  "Things went... worse than I had hoped. But you know how the costco was taken over by lizardmen? Those are all gone now. People at the Calibur camp are figuring out how to secure the area right now so that they can hand out as much as they can as fairly as they can."

  Although Rory was hearing Ashton's words, he clearly wasn't listening. He just stared at the hollow spaces where eyes were supposed to be in the man in front of him.

  And so, Ashton sighed and put the mask back on. "Listen, I showed you because I didn't want to hide anything, but don't make a big deal out of it. Yes, I'm blind. But at the same time, I can still 'see'."

  Ashton slightly waved around the summoner's staff, with the wisp sitting tightly in the spiralled wood on top. He had been swapping between the summoner's staff and the heavy barbell a lot. The 'wisp sight' felt a lot easier to keep up when the wisp was attached to the staff like this. It wasn't more effective, just... less of a burden.

  "Through the magic of these children, I can see the elements that make up their bodies, to some degree. The flow of air through the sylph, water through the undine. And through the wisp, I can see 'mana'. And since mana is essentially everywhere, it gives me an... alright view of the world. But within limits." Ashton turned his head, pointing the staff forward. "I can see the edge of that door over there, and not an inch further. And at this range, everything is too blurry to make out details. I can tell that you're standing in front of me, but not what kind of expression you're making, or even telling how many fingers you're holding up would be hard. But..."

  Ashton shrank his channelling range, his staff still held out. "Now, I can 'see' just beyond the tip of the staff. And at this point, I can see the wrinkles on your brow perfectly fine."

  Rory stared at Ashton, not sure what to say. "I... And you're okay with this?"

  Ashton scoffed, shaking his head. "Of course not, but it's a choice I made. It was either my eyes, or my life. I'll be able to get some new eyes sooner or later, and until then, this arrangement is... fine."

  Confused, the old man frowned. "What do you mean, you can 'get some new eyes'?"

  Laughing loudly, Ashton shrugged. "What do you think it means?"

  "I haven't the foggiest, lad... but really, just how can you–" Rory was interrupted as a creaking door was pulled open. Ashton's range was compressed, so he didn't see who it as until she basically jumped right at him.

  "You're back!" Millie clutched Ashton's cloak with her hand and looked up at him. "How did it go?!"

  Ashton smiled lightly, rustling through the girl's hair with his hand as he looked at Rory. "It went pretty great. I made it snow over there, you know?"

  "Wait, what? Really?"

  "Mm-hm. I can actually do a bit more fun stuff now, want me to show you?" Ashton asked, already having the Backpacker prepare a bottle of water. With the undine's new ability, making snow was easy enough, even if it wouldn't actually be cold.

  As Millie excitedly ran back into the old science room, Ashton noticed the old man's stare.

  "What? I saved dozens of people, secured a ton of food for loads of people in town, and got rid of something that could make the wyvern even more dangerous than it already is," Ashton said and walked into the classroom. "Weighing everything against each other, I'd say 'pretty great' hits the nail on the head."