Chapter 278: Shared Support
Highstep Reserve came in two pale-green vials. When the attendant scanned their tokens, a brief spark passed between the bottles. Martin caught it this time. The formula had recognized the same two mana signatures before the attendant even removed the stoppers.
The liquid tasted of pine sap and cold mint. Coolness spread through Martin’s chest, easing his breathing as he followed Rias onto the ramp.
Their stamina bars barely moved on the first incline. Farther up, the ramp grew steeper and the air thinner. Martin’s bound chest armor made each step more expensive than the last, while Rias climbed with shorter, cleaner strides and used far less stamina.
The red line inside Martin’s token brightened, and his stamina began falling more slowly. On his next step, Rias’s bar dipped even though she had not changed her pace.
Martin stopped climbing. "I’m using your dose."
"At first, you were only using the part of my dose I didn’t need." Rias rolled one shoulder and drew a deeper breath. "Once that ran out, it started draining the share that was still supporting me."
The attendant asked Rias to remain on the lower platform while Martin climbed through three white distance bands. Her support stayed steady through the first band, but when he entered the second, the line inside his token dimmed and his stamina began dropping faster. The extra support disappeared when he reached the third, though the token continued showing Rias’s direction and distance.
As soon as Martin descended past the second band, the coolness returned to his chest. Rias repeated the test, but the borrowed support cut out one step earlier for her. The difference confirmed that the effective range depended partly on the mana signature of the person receiving the support.
The tooltip called the mechanic shared support. Martin put it more bluntly in his notes: one careless partner could burn through both stamina reserves as long as the pair stayed close enough to maintain the bridge. Highstep Reserve lasted eight minutes, and the cold numbness in his throat lingered for nearly half that time.
Before they left, Rias copied Highstep’s ingredient list and batch mark. The merchant had disclosed both the shared drain and the weakening link over distance. The warning text was tiny beside a painting of a smiling couple reaching a mountain summit hand in hand.
Reaching Stoneward Blends required them to cross one of the academy’s moving bridges. Narrow slabs of dark rock traveled between two market shelves, briefly locking together before separating again to make room for the freight lifts.
Martin stepped onto the first slab, turned, and offered Rias his hand with a solemn expression. "Come, sweetheart. I shall guard your every step."
"You were more convincing before you tried to sound convincing."
Martin gave up on the performance and held out his hand normally. Rias took it.
The first two slabs remained locked beneath them. Near the middle, the chains groaned and the next section slid sideways without warning just as Rias planted her boot near the outer edge.
Martin tightened his hold on her hand and caught her around the waist with his free arm, pulling her toward the center. Rias gripped his shoulder and shifted her weight with him until they were both steady in the middle of the slab.
By the time he remembered their cover and the limits they had set, Rias was already steady against him. He had reacted the same way when Angel’s shell tilted beneath them and when the Sea Dragon’s death wave struck.
Once the slab settled, Rias released his hand and slid her other hand down from his shoulder to his forearm. Martin kept his arm around her waist, and they crossed the remaining sections in step.
Stoneward Blends served Bedrock Accord in squat gray bottles. At the testing post, the alchemist had each of them bare the forearm opposite their visitor token. Once they drank, faint mineral lines appeared beneath the exposed skin.
A padded stone striker hit Martin first. The markings on Rias’s arm faded while those on Martin’s arm darkened, drawing her unused resistance toward the point of impact. The blow still hurt, but the HP loss was far below the tester’s posted estimate.
The pattern reversed when the striker hit Rias. Gray lines gathered beneath her skin while Martin’s forearm returned to normal.
Rias flexed her fingers after the test. "The resistance moves where it’s needed, and the extra weight follows it."
Martin rotated his wrist, testing the lingering stiffness. He could live with it if the resistance helped him hold a shield against a heavy strike. Rias needed speed in her weapon arm, though, and that much weight could cost her an opening.
They recorded both observations. Stoneward’s alchemist had warned them against mixing Bedrock Accord with movement formulas, and every testing post had a neutralizing rinse ready. The public tooltip was accurate, including the localized stiffness the advertisement hid behind the phrase "steady as the mountain."
Before leaving, they used the neutralizing rinse and waited until the mineral lines and stiffness had completely disappeared.
Lucid Current was quieter than the other stores. Crystal lamps shone through rows of colorless brews, and every matched vial held a thin strand of silver-blue light. When two paired bottles drew close, the strands leaned toward one another without touching.
Clearthread Pair promised to make existing mana currents easier to distinguish. Martin and Rias drank beneath the clerk’s inspection lamp and waited for it to take effect.
The mana currents that normally blurred together separated into distinct layers. Nothing in the shop looked different, yet Martin could now distinguish the slow current bound inside Worldshell Carapace from the mana flowing through his body. A finer thread from the paired formula ran alongside both currents, separate from the red direction line inside his visitor token. Even the enchantments that warmed the shop windows no longer blended into a single pressure at the edge of his awareness.
Rias had already shifted her attention from the silver-blue currents inside the vials to the nearest patch of shadow.