Mage Manual
Chapter 347 - Chapter 347 Chapter 293 The Prison is My Home

Chapter 347: Chapter 293: The Prison is My Home Chapter 347: Chapter 293: The Prison is My Home “Coming to the prison feels almost as comfortable as coming home,”

Ash slapped the iron bars and exclaimed, “It’s just that the environment is much worse than Shattered Lake.”

“This is just a detention room, so of course it’s not that great,” Igula said. “I’ve seen documentaries; the luxury level of Gospel’s prisons far exceeds that of Blood Moon, and they don’t even have the Blood Moon Judgement. You can look forward to that.”

“That’s good. As long as prison food includes some fatty Lara, I’ll be satisfied.”

Listening to their aimless chatter, Hanna raised her eyebrows, “You guys don’t seem too worried about your own situation?”

“Ah, who would have thought, miss, that you actually have a mother who’s a Holy Sanctuary Mage. How could we afford to worry?” Ash spread his hands.

“True,” Igula added, “according to my understanding of ‘parents,’ even if your mother cannot sacrifice her life for you, she should at least fulfill most of your requests. Shielding us would fall within the obligations of a parent.”

“That’s debatable.”

Everyone’s gaze turned to Liss, who was looking down at her little mirror, swinging her legs, and said, “Not all parents love their children…”

Then everyone’s gaze shifted back to Ash, with a hint of reproach in their eyes.

Ash bared his teeth and grimaced back at them–he was a father for the first time, and it was already an accomplishment that Liss hadn’t been through life-and-death dangers for so many days; he had been as responsible as possible!

Ash would never forget the few days when he was little and under his father’s care, which were more thrilling than a roller coaster ride… There was even a photo in the family album of young Ash on parallel bars, the only issue being that he was not even as tall as a fire hydrant in the picture.

“If we were to categorize the parents of this world, 99% would have feelings for their children and 1% would not. Hanna’s mother would belong to those parents who wish their children had no feelings and were just their puppets,” Hanna said with flawed logic. “If you’re counting on her to shield you for my sake, you might as well wish that Banjee could arouse her desire.”

Everyone looked at the angel-faced housekeeper boy, and Banjee sighed, “Miss, I know you feel bad when you see Madam Qinna, but it’s one thing to insult me, you can’t insult your own mother.”

“I’m not insulting her,” Hanna said. “Isn’t Dad pretty much the same type as you?”

Banjee: “That doesn’t mean you can insult me.”

Ash asked curiously, “Your mother is an elf, and yet you’re human?”

“Have you forgotten? Once the reproductive barriers are broken, the child born of parents from different races is random, one of the two. The human genes of the Doran family defeated the elven blood of Senheiser,” Hanna said indifferently. “Qinna would have loved to lengthen my ears to prove that Senheiser’s genetic material is superior.”

Igula asked, “Is your relationship with your mother very bad?”

“My relationship with her can’t even be described as ‘good or bad.’ It’s still at the stage of ‘existent or non-existent.’ I have no desire to tell you about my insignificant childhood or to feed your sympathy with my tears. All you need to know is that the old woman has no concept of family. The only thing she cares about is the surname of Senheiser,” Hanna said with a sneer. “I’d rather ask my aunt for help than associate with her. In fact, our meeting just now was the first in almost a decade… See, Qinna was quite enthusiastic towards me.”

She pointed to her swollen face because the magical chains were suppressing her magic power, and she couldn’t heal the injury inflicted by her mother’s high boots.

Ash and Igula exchanged glances, and their eyes revealed the same sentiment.

Hanna sniffed, “I can smell your cynicism…”

“Has your nose been modified like Harvey’s?” Ash teased. “Harvey is sensitive to corpses. Are you intolerant to unspoken words?”

Purple Moth scoffed, “You’re not thinking that Qinna actually cares about me a lot, but she’s just a mother who is bad at expressing her feelings, so there are many misunderstandings between us… are you?”

Igula and Ash blinked, clearly hit by the lady’s accurate guess.

“Such tedious fantasies wouldn’t even comfort my six-year-old self,” Hanna said calmly, “Back then, I even thought that maybe I’m the reincarnation of some Divine Lord, and that Liss treated me the way she did to foster my growth, to nurture my hatred. In the end, as a sacrificial offering, she would guide me to patricide, freeing me from hate, elevating me beyond mortal comprehension, ascending the ladder of Gospel… And I must say, such gratifying plot really did offer me a bit of solace as a child.”

“I’d advise you not to hold out any hope for that old lady,” the young lady said with her eyes closed, “That’s the voice of experience talking.”

These family matters left no room for discussion, but only Igula showed an expression of ‘as expected’ – being a cynic who highly disdained family institutions like a true ‘Blood Moonist,’ he thought the relationship between Hanna and her mother was the only logical one.

“Ahem, cough cough cough!”

Harvey, who had been lying on the iron bed, suddenly awoke with a series of coughs. Sitting up and holding his head, his expression was incredibly odd, both excited and haggard.

As he picked at the hangnails on his fingers, he said, “Don’t you all feel it?”

“Feel what?”

The Necromancer pointed to his head, “Dopamine secretion is way over the top… My brain’s five types of receptors are constantly stimulated by dopamine. If this keeps up, the threshold will rise to a dangerous level. I have to be careful even when smoking or eating sweets, since once the threshold goes up, it can’t come back down.”

“Look, I don’t feel a thing when I tear at my hangnails; it’s even kind of pleasurable, the pain has completely become pleasure,” the Necromancer showed his hand, “Purple Moth, you don’t feel pain in your face, do you? Just a cool breeze… Has this city gone mad?”

Even the Necromancer felt the City was too outrageous.

But Ash and the others certainly didn’t feel anything abnormal – though to be fair, the fact that they were still so relaxed despite being in a detention center was indeed a bit troubling.

However, due to Ash’s past experiences, he had difficulty feeling any fear about the reality of being arrested. He didn’t know whether it was due to an inner confidence, or because the mist was too comforting.

“Well, I didn’t expect the first to notice the problem would be the nicotine addict…” Hanna commented, “Makes sense, though. Habitually numbing yourself with hallucinogenic pheromones, you’re more sensitive to bodily hormonal changes than us. Like a frog boiled in slowly heated water; since Mr. Harvey has once been scalded, he’s more attuned to changes in temperature.”

“But as I mentioned before, Vatican Mura is exactly that kind of city. Shrouded in Beauty Mist in every corner, it keeps everyone in a perennially cheerful and pleasant mood. That’s the ‘essence’ of Vatican Mura.”

Banjee explained, “Azura is a new City that has only developed in the last two centuries, utilizing all the latest technological achievements of the Kingdom of Gospel. It can be said to be the most developed and advanced City in the Empire. Other First-tier Cities might not be as advanced as Azura, but they retain the cultural essence accumulated over hundreds, even thousands of years.”

“Essence?” the Necromancer laughed, “You’re aware that if the threshold keeps rising, you know what happens, don’t you? Endless joy only leads to a brutal end.”

“What happens?” Liss asked curiously.

“Suppose that a person is a machine, and happiness is the on button,” Harvey elaborated, “Normally, a person might press it four or five times a day, those scattered moments of happiness keep the machinery of our lives running smoothly.”

“But for those living in this city, their happiness button is constantly pressed by the mist non-stop. This, of course, greatly improves the ‘machine’s’ operational efficiency, but machinery wears down, buttons rust. Increased threshold means the button is getting stuck due to rust.”

“When the threshold rises to a certain point…”

“The button can’t be pressed anymore,” Igula interjected, “And then the machinery of a person becomes completely inoperative.”

“From what I perceive, people living in this city will break down mentally within a year, rusting into completely immovable toys,” Harvey expressed some doubt, “But I feel like the people on the street still seem to function normally in life and work…”

“Your thought process is mostly correct,” Hanna countered, “But Mages themselves are a bunch of aberrations that defy common sense, creators of miracles.”

“Buttons might rust, but all you need to do is oil them regularly, right?”

Ash queried, “What kind of oil?”

“Fight poison with poison,” the young lady, caressing her swollen face with noticeable disdain in her voice, said, “A pleasure more intense and maniacal than Beauty Mist, than dopamine, than any hallucinogenic drug – ”

“Love and family.”