"Not really. They're still rocks, there's a lower limit on rock durability, but they're really really cheap rocks."

"Okay. Well, I've had a decent record with cell phones, maybe I'll keep all these things alive and kicking, who knows."

"We can always hope. Bar, I'd like a smoothie, can you take MTU?"

Of course I can. Would you like a particular flavor or prefer to be surprised?

"Surprise me."

A red-and-yellow swirled smoothie with a little umbrella appears. Enjoy. .18 MTU.

"I don't mean to slight your cocktails by the by, I simply ought to keep to one while I'm still working on something." He puts down two triangular coins marked '10\' and takes a sip.

No offense taken. She supplies change.

"Do you have any other advice for stuff I should obtain or wands I should have waved before I go home and start converting downtime into currency? Also, where will my exotic coinage go, am I meant to keep it in the mattress or does it hang out in the minter and I should regularly deposit into some kind of magic bank or what?"

"Minter stores up to a hundred at a time and can produce glowy blue spheres in intervals of ten. A hundred is about the size of-" he makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger, "-down to hundredths that are like half-marbles. I could give you an emergency medevac veil? There will be a lot of awkward questions for both of us if you actually trigger it, but it's in the better-to-have-and-not-need category. I'm giving you all this stuff out of pocket but will want them paid back sooner or later, by the way. Do you also want a VIT minter?"

"How much does it cost to lease the minters? What's the veil thing do? And I sleep eight hours a night, will it automatically do the spheres thing if it's mana-minting overnight and exceeds capacity? What kind of debt am I incurring here?"

"In order: Ten of their respective currency, with the remaining cost taken as a small percentage out of minting proceeds over time. If you are badly injured in such a way as to be in imminent danger of death, teleports you to a time-frozen space where you will then be worked on by expert healers of the highest caliber. And charged for it. Yes, it'll automatically mint a sphere when full by default. Let's call it six hundred mana all told, eight hundred with the VIT minter."

"Is it a lease-to-own thing where after I've made enough to cover the cost it's mine free and clear? And yes that absolutely sounds like a have-and-not-need situation. What do I do with spheres besides hide them in my mattress? How do I perform any transactions besides minting stuff?"

"Yes. You could use them to increase your magical power if you had any. I suspect redeeming them won't double your slayerly power even temporarily, unfortunately. You call me and I connect you to a sales interface program and-slash-or officially register you to MTU."

"And then the sales interface slurps the spheres away, what, via link crystal?"

"The link crystal gives it your location, equipment on our end takes payment and makes deliveries. And I'm about ready to try the first sense-improving method. Ready?" He draws a mostly green wand from the case.

"Sure."

Energetic wave swish flick flick swoopy motion flick. Pause. Flick swish. Then the ward imager comes out again. "...I am mostly sure that worked but cannot be certain without exposing you to a vampire."

"Oh, there's some outside my door. I'll go check on them, shall I?"

"I'd give you a LUK but I don't think you need it."

Yup, there is definitely an extra sense. It's glaringly obvious that that there are some vampires over there-ish. She doesn't get a compass heading and distance or anything, or even a headcount, though.

"I can detect the presence of vampires. I don't have quantity or distance or anything, but it's not unpleasant."

"Excellent. You'll never need to use filters, it's a waste of time, they told me in college. Well, I'm still proving them wrong."

Bella giggles and shuts her door. "You can go to college for that stuff?"