It turned out it wasn’t that dangerous for Jack in reality. While there was a chance he could overcharge the crystals each one still held more than three times his total capacity. He was able to charge a crystal on his first attempt of using [Imbue] just by giving it the storage purpose.

  He played around using a tiny amount of his capacity until he felt more confident. At that point he drew from one of the filled crystals and just purged the mana around him. After doing that three and a bit times he was pretty confident in setting a base amount to charge the crystals.

  He absorbed the mana he had purged and stored it along with mana from his vortex until all of the crystals were charged. Sighing, he laid back and started to read his children's story again. It was actually an interesting read as it gave him some insights into the new world as well as helping his reading comprehension.

  Turrel had shown him how to use the device. It was pretty impressive, he had to admit. It was kind of like one of those strange useless touchscreen flip phones. The main difference being this had multiple rectangles stacked on top of itself and slid out to the size of an iPad. The screens locked in place seamlessly as well.

  They were connected to some sort of internet-like knowledge base and he could essentially use the Google equivalent of a search bar to find anything he wanted. There were published stories grouped by world of origin and galaxy. There was information grouped by technology level as well as race and any number of other tags.

  There was some sort of chat assistant as well, but Turrel suggested he leave that alone until he was able to better read and understand context. He had tried to look at some basic information about mana circuitry but he got lost after the first paragraph. Jack hoped it was just his lack of language and not some other intellectual deficit that was the problem.

  He was contemplating buzzing Turrel on the intercom when an announcement sounded over it.

  “WE WILL BE EXITING WARP IN APPROXIMATELY TEN MINUTES. MAKE RELEVANT PREPARATIONS"

  The voice sounded out. This time it wasn’t Monty's voice, however. Instead it was Riven, the stone-like man he met when they had first arrived. Assuming Monty was just busy he decided to just wait out the time in his room.

  Sitting back down on the bed he reached out to grab the tablet when he heard the door to his room buzz open. He glanced over and saw Monty walk in.

  “Damn, I know it is your vessel and all but a knock before entering would be nice. What if I was … you know in the middle of something?” Jack asked, making some inappropriate gestures.

  Monty seemed to not be in a joking mood however and only gave Jack a pitying smirk.

  “Sorry, Jack. There is a bit going on here and I think I might have dragged you into a potentially dangerous situation unwittingly.” He glanced around the room as the doors closed behind him.

  “Okay, I have received a message from the Overseer of the planet we are heading to. It is someone I know, not exactly a friend but an old acquaintance if you will. He wants to come aboard and have a meeting about why we are here, etc. Now, I think that would have happened regardless, but he has specifically requested that you be present.” Monty shook his head.

  “How he even knew about you, I have no idea but either way he does and all I can say for now is he is a very powerful and dangerous man. Nothing I say now leaves this room, okay?” He stared seriously at Jack waiting for a reply. Jack nodded.

  “Okay, these Overseer placements are very boring for most of the people that are chosen to do them. I honestly think Brandt is hoping for some entertainment and may try to drag us along for his amusement.” Monty sighed loudly again.

  “There is not much I can do here, Jack. He is in control at the moment so we just have to nod and do as he asks for the moment. Come, no more talk of him specifically but we can chat more on the way to the conference room.” Monty said as he motioned for Jack to follow him.

  “No stress, man. It is what it is.” Jack replied as he followed hoping that he wouldn't have to freeze mid-walk and embarrass himself.

  Monty seemed stressed which was out of character for him as far as Jack knew. Not knowing the political environment he had no idea what sort of situation he was walking into but had to trust in Monty.

  As they walked down the hallway Monty continued to talk.

  “We were meant to have a bit more time to get settled and up-to-date. We were going to have a briefing session after we arrived to get everyone on the same page. But I honestly don't think we will get a chance now.”

  As they rounded a corner they saw Turrel walking towards them with purpose. As he saw them he slowed his walk and fell in beside Jack.

  “Thanks, Turrel. I thought it was best if you tag along for this, I have no idea how he knew about Jack but I guess we will find out soon,” Monty said as they continued on at a brisk pace.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “So… how big of a deal is this? I am allowed to be here, right?” Jack asked.

  Turrel was the one who answered this time, giving him an apologetic look.

  “You are allowed to go anywhere that I or Lord Montarg accompany you. We should still not be broadcasting too much information about your origins, however. Envoy Thull is able to make his determination and that is well within his rights. Whether that information is spread to every corner of the universe or not... Who knows?”

  Jack nodded, he could understand that. He hated those administrative updates at his day job, the generic ones went straight into spam. The rest of the walk passed in relative silence. Everyone seemed a little tense and it put Jack on edge a little. He wanted to ask more questions but the situation didn’t seem to be right for that.

  They entered the hallway leading towards the transporter and instead of moving towards it, they turned to the right. Jack hadn't been in this direction before but it was easy to get lost inside the vessel. He waited when Monty stopped before a nondescript door and tapped away on the panel. The door opened and they walked in, Jack followed behind.

  This was likely the most lavish room he had seen since arriving on this vessel. The rest of the ship was practical and while it was still homely where it needed to be, it lacked an aesthetic flair. This room was entirely different. The ceiling for one was a little higher but on top of that it was covered in some sort of screen. The roof was mimicking a clear blue sky, there were strange clouds floating by occasionally in much different shapes than Jack had ever seen before, they were occasionally filled with pulses of colour.

  The walls were softer, padded and white in contrast to the metallic steel design outside. They had texture and gold trim throughout, seems a desire for golden trim was a universal trait. In the centre of the room ran a large decorative table, the centre of the table was slightly cut out and filled with a transparent material. Inside this there flashed occasional bursts of mana of different colours in a light gentle hue.

  There were couches in the corners of the room and what looked like bottles of wine stacked in a rack on one wall. From context and the layout of this room Jack assumed they were in the meeting room, the one place where Monty deemed it was necessary to show a little pomp and decorum.

  Monty motioned for Jack to follow him over to a couch in the back corner of the room, Turrel followed.

  “Okay, Jack. Try to just answer anything he asks but keep your secret. If you are uncomfortable I will step in but until we know why he asked for you, let’s just play it by ear, yeah?” Monty asked.

  Jack nodded, he didn't want to say it out loud but that had been what he had been doing this entire experience so far. One more social interaction shouldn't be too hard to manage.

  “Chances are you might not understand a lot of the stuff that is talked about, we can go over any questions you have later but it is probably best to not talk more than needed here.” Monty looked at him very seriously as he spoke that part. “This is serious, Jack. No matter how the situation may look or the words that are spoken, this is a very dangerous situation.” Monty was clenching and unclenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Can you give him a quick rundown of the planet, I don't want him to be blindsided if we get rushed on planet all of a sudden.” Monty replied as he got up and started pacing.

  Jack looked at Turrel and then glanced at Monty. The man shook his head and started to speak instead.

  “It’s fine, Jack. Let's do the quick version of this. I don’t think we have…” Turrel was interrupted by an announcement over the intercom

  “EXITING WARP IN THREE MINUTES”

  “As I was saying we don’t have that long.” Turrel smiled.

  “We are about to exit our warp in the Gemini-V system of a galaxy whose name will mean nothing to you. The inhabited planet we are heading towards is called Zerra. The system is a binary star system, meaning there are two suns.” He held up two fingers and moved them very far apart, he wiggled one finger.

  “This is the primary sun and it is the one that Zerra orbits. This one.” He wiggled his other finger. "Is a blue giant unlike Earth's yellow dwarf and is much further away. I will save you the science lecture and just say it is hot and the light may look a little different.” Turrel started tapping his finger on the chair again. Jack noticed he did that whenever he was trying to explain something to him.

  “This is a single intelligent race planet like earth. The inhabitants here are Lizardkin, scaled humanoids with tails is the easiest way to describe them in our short window here.” He tapped Jack on his temple.

  “Your translator will work for communicating with them but there may be cultural things that are different or that don’t get translated correctly. I haven't had time to study this culture specifically in enough detail so I am sorry. All I can say is they are a very proud people, they take honour very, very seriously. Please do not offend them if at all possible.”

  Jack had an exasperated look on his face as he was about to make a comment about that statement but Turrel held a hand up to stop him.

  “Later, Jack. Water is sacred here, okay. It isn’t the case as much anymore but it has always been in the past and they are a very long-lived race, think thousands of years before the Origin wave. The technology level is probably a little behind earth but they have integrated mana into their daily lives so it will be very different for you. This is probably not the best place for you to look for high tier equipment but they may still have some useful things here for you.”

  Turrel seemed rushed almost as if he had an internal counter going in his mind of how long they had left. Come to think of it… maybe he did.

  “This would be considered a poor planet; however, it is sparsely populated. There have been some mineral deposits uncovered but there is not much of worth that has been discovered yet. That may change as the planet is explored more but it will be a few centuries before that becomes a reality.” Turrel looked up as if he was waiting for something, not hearing it he then looked at his hand and started to count his fingers. He got to five when the announcement came.

  “WARP EXIT IN FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE”

  The strange feeling of space mana around him hummed stronger for a moment, he reflexively froze. A wave of uneasiness washed over him and the world shook a little as everything snapped back into place. Jack stood still for a moment while he settled his stomach.

  A light above a screen that Monty was standing in front of flashed green.

  “He didn’t waste any time… Must have been waiting. Ahh fuck I am not ready for this.” Monty shook his head and glanced at Turrel.

  “Okay let’s do this. Time to go and greet Overseer Brandt. Oh, and Jack. Please no handshakes this time.” Monty said as he reached out and touched the screen.

  I hate doing stuff like this but I guess I can do it once for the new year. The story is doing pretty well recently and is sitting right on the cusp of hitting the Main Rising Stars list. (Also we are so close to breaking into the top 10 for Sci-Fi as well)

  If you are enjoying the story so far and you haven't already I would really appreciate it if you could favorite or leave a rating as that would help the story get some more attention.

  Thanks again for reading.