Khan had never seen himself as a great expert in mana. He had a broader mindset compared to most of humanity, but his knowledge remained relatively shallow. It simply involved multiple fields.
Nevertheless, despite the lack of deep and specific knowledge, Khan had seen his fair share of strange and peculiar stuff during his travels. He could immediately place the Tors with the humans and the Guko. Their approach to mana was clearly scientific.
As the surprise waned, Khan tried to make some sense out of what he had just witnessed. The tubes, the different types of synthetic mana, the Tors' appearance, and the machine on its back were too much to take in a single meeting. However, his curiosity still pushed him toward possible explanations.
The different types of synthetic mana were clues. The Tors was messing with that energy in ways that Khan couldn't fully understand, but he could still gain some surface-level knowledge from looking at the process.
The synthetic mana changed as it flowed through the tubes. Each pipe altered that energy differently, and rearranging the array allowed the Tors to generate what it needed.
Khan wanted to see the tubes as filters, but that description didn't include the entirety of their functions. Some pipes forced the synthetic mana to condense, while others made it expand. The process didn't even stop there since parts of the machine seemed able to add or remove structural qualities depending on where the energy flowed.
‘It's like a small lab meant only to alter mana,' Khan concluded, ‘But it's far from being perfectly optimized.'
The artificial alteration of the mana had benefits over the manipulation field. Khan couldn't even begin to imagine the level he would have to reach to affect that energy so deeply.
However, the process had drawbacks. The oily synthetic mana released by the tube after the transfer into the flask was a waste product that tainted the district as a whole. Khan didn't know the long-term implications of that pollution, but they couldn't be too good if even the Tors refused to use that energy.
The purpose of the alteration remained unclear even after that reasoning, but the metallic structure on the Tors' back was clearly involved. That dark-silver line tied to its body used the mana inside the flasks as fuel for something that Khan couldn't understand without actual examples.
Khan couldn't help but compare that metal line to the Fuveall's implants, even if they had noticeable differences. The Tors' machine wasn't nearly as invasive or sturdy. It actually resembled a weapon of some sort, and the flasks could change its power.
The Tors on the lower floor was a second-level warrior, and the machine on its back seemed to match the quality of Khan's knife. Yet, the mana flowing inside it put it far above average weapons.
‘The flasks act as magazines,' Khan found himself thinking, ‘But they do far more than providing bullets.'
Each flask carried a different type of synthetic mana. Khan also felt quite sure that the Tors had produced that energy through the array of tubes, so it was safe to assume that every container had specific purposes.
The matter didn't end with that diversity. The flasks didn't only carry specific types of synthetic mana. The metallic line blended them into its insides to create something newer and stronger.
Khan knew that he was out of his depths. Technology had never been his strong point, and that machine even went beyond anything witnessed on Earth or other planets. Only the Guko's lab came close, but the Tors' arts had something more peculiar according to Khan's guts.
Strangely enough, the Tors' appearance was the easiest part to accept. Those aliens were nowhere near humanoid. They were highly technological talking snakes equipped with small arms, but Khan quickly grew used to their features.
‘What now?' That question inevitably popped out in Khan's mind once he completed his superficial inspection.
Khan had met the Tors for a reason, but the scene didn't provide him with anything close to useful. He barely understood what was going on. He couldn't possibly know what might help him.
"Just a bit!" The Tors on the first floor eventually announced. "Enough looking."
Khan wanted to remain immersed in the scene a bit longer, but contradicting the Tors wasn't smart. He put strength on his arms to lift his head and sit on the floor, and the caped alien didn't hesitate to approach the trapdoor to close it.
"Price now," The Tors exclaimed while its attention returned to the container full of chaos.
Khan struggled to keep his eyes on the hood after seeing what the cape hid. The cloaking fabric couldn't stop him from imagining the coiled snake behind it, but that didn't interrupt his thinking brain. He had to give an answer, but the truth was undeniable. His mind was blank.
"Explain," Khan uttered. "Explain what I just saw."
"We don't explain our arts," The Tors said without turning toward Khan.
"I can't name a price if I don't understand what you can do," Khan explained.
"Credits," The Tors responded.
"I don't want money," Khan repeated for the third time.
The Tors didn't add anything. It remained focused on the container. It almost sounded like the negotiations were over, but Khan was still there, and the alien wasn't kicking him out.
"I can come here once a week," Khan suggested. "I only need something in return."
The Tors retracted its tongue, but its hood remained pointed on the container. Silence regained control of the small room, and Khan waited until he felt the need to add something.
"What did I just see?" Khan eventually asked.
"Twice a week," The Tors bargained while finally turning to face Khan.
"Sure," Khan quickly agreed before repeating his previous question. "What did I just see?"
"Tors' alchemy," The Tors revealed. "Rearranging mana to produce various effects."
The explanation was beyond vague, but Khan was okay with that. He only cared about the Tors' willingness to open up. He had one foot in the door, so the time to push a bit had come.
"Why do you want chaos?" Khan questioned. "What's so special about it?"
An incomprehensible hiss came out of the hood. The Tors didn't like that prying question, but Khan was ready to justify himself.
"It would reassure me knowing that I'm not giving you a weapon," Khan lied.
The Tors remained silent. It turned toward the container before bringing the hood's opening back to Khan and uttering an explanation. "The chaos element is more flexible."
"That can't be it, right?" Khan pressed on.
"Very flexible," The Tors added.
Khan couldn't apply his social skills to the Tors. He didn't know enough about that species to catch them lying, and the hood prevented him from learning to recognize any expression depicted by the reptilian head.
Nevertheless, Khan was far from a fool. The Tors' fame saw them as a highly secretive species. They wouldn't open up for something as meager as flexibility. There had to be something else to the matter.
"We'll never get a deal done if you mix lies with your rare explanations," Khan declared.
The Tors fell silent, but its hood didn't return on the container. It was considering Khan's words, and another incomprehensible hiss resounded in the room once it accepted that he was right.
"Chaos is richer," The Tors eventually explained. "It's easier to alter, and it can create various mana."
‘They might use it for a weapon then,' Khan thought.
Khan felt able to understand something when he reviewed that explanation through his knowledge of mana, but the issue remained. He still didn't know what to ask in exchange for his chaos.
‘Easier to alter?' Khan eventually repeated. ‘The chaos wielders would have something to say about that.'
It was honestly strange seeing the Tors having that opinion. Khan would have understood if the statement came from a species with a deep reverence toward mana, but the Tors had a scientific approach. They couldn't possibly treat the chaos element lightly.
‘Maybe they have special tools to contain it,' Khan wondered. ‘Also, splitting it into different strands of energy might not be as dangerous as casting a spell.'
Khan accepted that something similar was possible. After all, the Guko could concoct and contain anti-mana. It wouldn't be strange for the Tors to do the same with the chaos element.
Still, a vague idea formed in his mind when he thought about the matter. The Tors could alter the mana to make it suit their needs, and Khan required a similar service.
"Can you alter spells too?" Khan asked once his idea fully formed.
The Tors remained silent before voicing a vague "maybe".
Khan joined his palms at that point. Mana flowed between them until it reached the intended amount and allowed him to separate his hands to generate the chaos spear.
The Tors remained strangely calm before the casting of such a dangerous spell. The cape prevented Khan from noticing any reaction or emotion, but the lack of tremors, gasps, or gestures as a whole hinted at the alien's confident mindset.
Soon, the purple-red glow took over the azure light in the small room. The chaos spear shone between Khan's palms, and a question left his mouth. "Can you make it smaller?"
The Tors finally moved. It bent toward the chaos spear and stuck out its forked tongue to inspect it. Its head moved left and right to study the spell from different angles, and Khan recognized the evident curiosity fueling those gestures.
"Just smaller?" The Tors questioned without interrupting its inspection.
"Weaker is also fine," Khan revealed. "I want shorter casting time."
The Tors continued to inspect the glowing spear until it eventually recalled its tongue and retracted its head. Mechanical noises came out from under the cape, but nothing strange happened on the outside.
"Come, chaos wielder," The Tors exclaimed as it ignored the container and approached the house's exit.
Khan turned the glowing spear into a harmless purple-red cloud before standing up and following the Tors. The two left the house and walked through the district's streets until they reached another small building that stretched on the lower floor.
The Tors entered the house without saying anything, and Khan followed. The building looked almost identical to the previous, but the alien didn't hesitate to take off its cape once the entrance closed.
The reptilian figure and the dark-silver machine attached to its back unfolded in Khan's view. He could see the entirety of the alien and the flasks connected to the structure tied to its body. The Tors only had two of them, and they justified the item's overall lower power.
‘It's weaker than my knife,' Khan thought.
"Don't peek," The Tors ordered while tapping on the floor to reveal a trapdoor.
The Tors' was quite big. Its reptilian body was thick, but that didn't hinder its passage through the trapdoor. Its movements were actually pretty swift and controlled as it dived into the hole and occupied the lower floor.
Those movements were inhuman. Khan couldn't even think about imitating them. The Tors could lift most of its body by using only a small part of its tail, and the flexibility it could express wasn't something humanoid beings could replicate.
The trapdoor remained open, but no sound or unusual strand of synthetic mana came out. Khan felt the urge to look at the lower floor, but he held back to respect the Tors' orders.
A few minutes passed before the reptilian head peeked past the trapdoor and voiced another hissing order. "Come down, chaos wielder."
Khan followed along. The Tors left the trapdoor, so he could approach it and study how to handle his descent. That building wasn't made for beings with arms and legs, but a four meters drop was easy to handle.
Khan grabbed the trapdoor's edges before stuffing his legs past it. His lower body followed, and the same went for his torso. He soon found himself hanging from that opening, and the lack of footholds forced him to relax his grasp.
The ceiling wasn't too tall. Khan landed on the floor without touching any tube or item lying there, and his curiosity immediately took over. He had seen a similar room just a few minutes ago, but the different perspective created an entirely new scenery.
The Tors was hanging from a series of knobs placed on the wall. It was a whole meter above Khan, and its reptilian body allowed it to move freely even when relying on those small handholds.
Tubes covered the walls and left them to amass before the Tors. The same machine that Khan had seen previously hovered near the center of the room, but its layout was far different. The pipes didn't create a thick array. Instead, they left a vast open space among them.
"Summon the spell," The Tors ordered while making the last adjustments to the machine.
Khan executed the order. A chaos spear soon formed between his hands and filled the room with its purple-red shades. The Tors partially left the wall to stretch toward the spell and study it for a few seconds before returning to the machine to complete its layout.
Each tube typically carried a different type of synthetic mana, but all the energy inside them seemed to harmonize when the Tors finished tinkering with the machine. Low sounds joined the symphony inside the room, and even the spear between Khan's hands grew slightly more stable under their influence.
The Tors used its head to push the machine down. The tubes stretched and moved freely without altering their overall layout, and Khan soon found them standing above him.
"Put the spell inside," The Tors announced.
Khan couldn't help but glance at the Tors. Leaving the chaos spear unchecked would probably lead to an explosion, and the room didn't offer hiding spots.
Yet, the low sounds added to the symphony hinted at something, and Khan felt able to trust the Tors' expertise. He grabbed his spear and slowly lifted it until it entered the array of tubes, and new changes happened at that point.
The low noises had already made the spear more stable, and being among the tubes only intensified those features. Khan wanted to retain some control over the spell out of fear of an explosion, but everything remained calm even after he let go of the glowing weapon.
It felt actually strange to see the chaos spear hovering among the tubes on its own. Khan wasn't affecting it. Usually, the weapon would explode and release a destructive pillar, but it retained its stability inside that machine.
The Tors ignored Khan as it inspected the machine from different angles to gain a complete view of the spear. Faint hisses left its mouth during the process, and its tail eventually left the wall to search for items on the floor.
Khan performed careful steps left and right to avoid the tail and dodge any item lying on the ground. Still, it turned out that the Tors wasn't looking for any of that junk. A hidden drawer opened when the alien touched a corner, and a series of bright flasks appeared in the open.
The Tors didn't give Khan the time to study the energy inside the flasks. The alien used its tail to grab those small containers and attach them to the machine on its back. It even replaced the almost empty ones from before.
The dark-silver line grew stronger as the Tors added new magazines, but that wasn't the end. Something changed in the nature of the machine, and those effects spread to the alien. An azure light filled its vertical pupils before expanding through the entirety of its reptilian eyes.
Khan could sense the significant amount of mana flowing toward the Tors' eyes. He couldn't understand its effects, but it wasn't hard to come up with ideas. The situation and the scene hinted at an enhancement to the alien's sight.
The effects of the machine didn't stop there. More mana flowed out of the dark-silver line to reach the Tors' head. The alien stuck out its tongue, which glowed with azure light while shaking and sending tremors toward the chaos spear.
The spear's surface destabilized as tremors landed on it, filling Khan with the urge to run away. He eyed the open trapdoor and prepared himself to activate the [Blood Shield], but nothing dangerous happened.
Strands of mana left the chaos spear and began to float among the array of tubes. The machine contained Khan's energy while the destruction of his spell continued, and the weapon eventually transformed into a formless purple-red cloud.
The Tors used its tail to replace two flasks at that point. Its eyes continued to glow even after the dark-silver line sent its new energy, but its tongue began to release different types of tremors.
The new tremors forced the purple-red cloud to condense. The Tors handled the process slowly, focusing on a single strand of mana before moving to the next. Then, after a few minutes passed, Khan became able to recognize the silhouette of his chaos spear among the tubes.
The Tors was rebuilding the chaos spear from the same energy that had once made it, but Khan could see that the process wasn't seamless. Some mana inevitably dispersed even if the tubes tried to contain it. Also, the spell lost many of its unique properties since the Tors couldn't replicate Khan's casting.
The Tors repeated the process after turning the entirety of the cloud into a spear. The weapon shattered and reformed, and the alien immediately broke it again to go over everything once more.
Khan waited patiently. The Tors was allowing him to watch everything, and he didn't complain, but the matter remained strange. That behavior wasn't in line with the secretive fame that enveloped that species.
‘Is this not important enough to remain hidden?' Khan wondered. ‘Did they partially accept me?'
The second guess sounded unrealistic. Khan would find it easier to believe that the Tors had gotten too immersed in the process to care about him.
‘Maybe it doesn't consider all of this important,' Khan thought.
The Tors didn't turn at all. It kept shattering and rebuilding the spear until the entirety of its mana dispersed. The container made of tubes finally became empty, but the alien kept staring at it with glowing eyes.
Khan kept track of the consumption of mana. The dark-silver machine had never stopped pouring energy into the Tors' body, and the state of its flasks depicted the process since the fuel inside them had significantly diminished.
"It won't be the same," The Tors announced once its eyes lost their glow.
"What do you mean?" Khan asked.
"The spell needs to change," The Tors revealed. "Something is missing. It won't be the same."
Khan's face remained calm, but his thoughts were already on the matter. The Tors had sounded lost, and Khan could guess the reason why. The chaos spear wasn't the result of a mere gathering of mana according to a specific pattern, so it made sense for the rearrangement to produce inferior results.
"Can you do it?" Khan questioned.
"Yes," The Tors confirmed, "But it won't be the same."
"I'll choose that as a price then," Khan exclaimed. "We can find a new deal afterward."
"No new deal," The Tors argued.
"What reason would I have to bring you chaos after getting what I want?" Khan asked.
The Tors remained silent for a few seconds before voicing a warning. "We won't show more of our arts."
"I'll think about something before my next request," Khan reassured. "I won't pry any further."
"Twice a week or no deal," The Tors reminded.
"I already agreed to that," Khan declared. "How long will it take to alter the spell?"
"One or two weeks," The Tors revealed, "But it won't be the same."
"That's fine," Khan uttered. "We have a deal then."
The Tors didn't answer. Its attention went to the machine on its back, and its tail moved to remove some half-empty flasks. The energy flowing inside the dark-silver line changed, and its overall power fell.
The silence left Khan in a pickle. In theory, he had yet to plan a few details with the Tors, but the latter had completely lost interest in him.
"How do I contact you?" Khan decided to ask.
"You don't," The Tors stated. "Come to the district. Give chaos."
Khan gave up at that point. Trying to reason with the Tors seemed straight-up impossible. Their general lack of interest and secrecy made any attempt to start a conversation pointless.
The Tors didn't speak anymore. It sorted the flasks in its drawer before closing it and bringing its attention back to the tubes. More synthetic mana flowed through them after the alien pressed on a seemingly random spot on the wall, but it didn't modify the array.
"Leave now," The Tors ordered, and Khan didn't hesitate to follow the order. He performed a jump that made him reach the trapdoor, and the opening closed after he pulled himself up.
‘I wonder how they really are,' Khan found himself thinking while leaving the small house and studying his memories to find a way out of the district. ‘Maybe I'm overthinking this. They might be too inhuman for my understanding.'
The Tors' coldness and indifference reminded Khan about the Guko, even if the former weren't as emotionless. His curiosity wanted him to find out more about those aliens, but the environment didn't work in his favor. He actually had to consider himself lucky to have seen them without a cape.
‘They can dismantle and reassemble mana,' Khan summarized as he walked toward less oily areas of the dock. ‘That should be their foundation, so the machines on their backs should be catalysts.'
The Tors appeared physically strong, but their machines were the real deal. Those aliens could increase their power and alter their nature as long as they had suitable mana. Their potential was probably limitless.
A cold realization hit Khan during the walk. He recalled when a Tors sent back the shot from the sniper in the hunting team. The feat had been incredible, but it had also looked effortless.
‘Did I just give them the chance to do the same with the chaos spear?' Khan wondered. ‘They should be unable to explain many important details.'
Khan couldn't be sure about that, but it was already too late to regret his decision. The Tors had studied the chaos spear. He had only himself to blame if that species learnt to counter it.
Nevertheless, seeing the Tors in action made Khan desire to avoid a conflict against them. They felt too troublesome to fight, especially when given the time to prepare.
As for the negotiation, Khan was fine with getting a weak version of a lesser spell. His approach was different anyway, so he only wanted the Tors to develop a blueprint or general method. He would make the necessary changes by himself at that point.
Some mental exhaustion assaulted Khan while he walked toward the Nele's district. Training with Maban and dealing with the Tors while he had yet to recover fully had been tiring, and the plans that popped into his mind only added weight to that feeling.
The hunting season, Luke's mission, Maban's technique, the deals with the Tors, and the training in the Nele's arts were tasks that Khan didn't know how to fit into his daily routine. More problems were also bound to appear as some situations evolved. He had a lot to do, and all of that would take time.
‘Well, I never liked sleeping anyway,' Khan mocked himself. He didn't mind being so busy. It actually reminded him of happier times in his life.
The walk back to the Nele's district featured the usual spies who kept track of Khan's movements. The symphony didn't reveal their exact position, but Khan sensed their attention on him. Still, he would ignore everything as long as nothing came on his way.
That strangely didn't happen. A familiar presence joined the symphony before moving toward Khan. He raised his gaze, and Sen-nu's smiling figure soon became clear.
"[My human customer]!" Sen-nu announced in the Nele's language while spreading his arms.
"[I thought you lived on that street]," Khan commented while showing a polite smile.
"[Even Sen-nu has to move at times]," Sen-nu laughed as he stopped and dropped his backpack on the floor. "[I have to show you something]."
"[Were you looking for me]?" Khan said through his smile, but his thoughts inevitably grew cold. His left hand even approached his sheath to prepare for the worst.
"[Look at this]," Sen-nu exclaimed after taking a screen out of his backpack. "[This is you, right]?"
Khan carefully approached Sen-nu and gave up on his polite pretense once he saw the scenes playing on the device. He knew that video. It was the recording from the Orlats' club.
"[So much for protecting your customers]," Khan insulted.
"[Don't blame Sen-nu]," Sen-nu stated. "[Even I have to follow orders at times]."
