"Very cheap model, he says, about his interdimensional telephone with a will-based interface. Yeah, scan me for mana minting, it's not like any mana I have is doing me any good."

"Not at all. So, there is magic, and there are vampires, and there's an absolutely unfair quantity of demons who are even less humanlike than vampires, and there is me, she who stands against the darkness blah de blah until one day I bleed out against the darkness and am replaced with a different randomly selected non-consenting teenage girl in the mystic destiny. The powers with which I am to attempt to survive my late teens and early twenties and, if I'm really good, possibly even mid-twenties, are super strength and speed and agility, good combat instincts, and prophetic dreams and vampire-detecting powers that alas do not have their own tech support line because mine don't work. Witches are a thing but I can't seem to be one, possibly for the same reason I can't seem to be a prophetic dreamer, which is a terrible pity because it would be way more my style than hitting things. Not that hitting things is not great fun with enough practice."

"...You want a resurrection insurance contract. Those are far above my head to arrange on my own recognizance but I will definitely be submitting your world for branch candidacy, risk or no risk, it sort of needs it. You have at least three different thaumic signatures on you, by the way."

"Three? Can you tell what they - are?"

"Not with any precision yet. Two are similar to each other. The third is probably your strength and combat instincts, it has large VIT potential. I'll figure it soon enough, I enjoy tricky magic."

"Speaking of VIT, is there any reason I couldn't mint one, hang on to it, spend it again if I need to be at full to stab something, and if nothing like that comes up in the three-to-five-day period mint another one and just sort of perpetually have one on hand so I'm never weak when I need not to be?"

"They show up to magic detection unless in an antiscry, and they can be stolen, and there is a 0.5% minting fee unless you purchase the minting device instead of leasing it. Other than that no... VIT scan says you can mint about twenty at a time before being dangerously weak, or sixteen or so before reaching baseline human... One of your mystery magics is very weak, leftover or byproduct or blocked or something. I think the other's a ward of some kind." He changes out his device for a different one. "Ward resonance imager."

"I like how you just have all this on your person. How pricey are devices?"

He smirks. "You can tell a good support technician by his tools. Price depends heavily on the device. A generic thaumoscope is about twenty VIT. A good thaumoscope is closer to a hundred. The cheap link crystals are mass produced, ten VIT."

"And the minty thing?"

"We usually sell them at a loss, standard of a hundred of whatever they're minting, because it encourages future purchases."

"Highway robbery. Some of us sometimes unexpectedly need to suplex six-ton demons on a moment's notice, have a care."

"You'll probably be able to mint MNA or AP to make up for it." His device dings. "Hm... Does the local magic depend on intentionality? Here, hold the link crystal, want to send something."

"I haven't looked into it in extensive detail -" She holds the link crystal and tries wanting to send something.

The crystal does not react. "It should've changed color. This confirms my readings - you have an extremely powerful, very strict magical mental barrier."

"...Well, that explains some things."

"Like your other powerset not working as it ought to?"

"Yup."

"...Wonder if I could fix that. I see where it's sending the information. Install a filter so your barrier no longer sees it as a threat?"

"I really wouldn't know. I don't even know my local magic that well because having determined it doesn't work for me I had more practical uses of my time."

She hands it back.

"What's it going to cost me?"