It took a while, but I finally managed to corral Elliot out of my room and reclaim a sense of peace inside my personal space once more.

He was surprisingly open to my suggestion that we try to do some actual studying after our talk. I’m guessing the embarrassing outburst of teenage emotions we had, motivated him to change topics to something else, anything else, even schoolwork.

Once we sat down to study the math problems he wanted to go over with me, he was actually pretty attentive and caught on pretty quickly to whatever I was trying to explain to him. I never really thought Elliot was stupid or anything, but it seemed that when he finally put his mind to it, he was a surprisingly quick study. Based on the grades he’s gotten so far, I’m not sure Mom would believe me though, but hopefully he’d do pretty well on this particular math test at least.

Reclaiming my desk chair I flounced back down onto it and heaved out another sigh of exhaustion. My mind and body both were screaming at me to go to bed, but I couldn’t, not yet. There was a certain book I needed to at least look through before I could even begin to contemplate letting myself fall asleep. There was just too much work to do and too little time. I needed to be prepared.

Switching the light on over my desk, I centered the plain, grey-looking textbook onto it. While I say it was plain, it still somehow looked pretty neat and professional. Given that it was published by the IDPA, and from what I saw of them, this seemed to align with their aesthetic and general vibe.

Placing a reverent hand on the cover, I finally cracked the tome open and began to read through it.

With the surprisingly dense amount of theory that was present in the beginning, I soon came to realize I had no chance of actually finishing my reading of this book in just one night. My best hope was to take some notes of interesting sections to come back to and focus on later.

Digging through my school bag, I pulled out a notebook and pencil which I then placed on my desk beside the book, Basics of Magic.

This process felt surprisingly similar to writing a paper or an essay for school. Maybe Gunderson was right, that being good in school also meant I could be good at being a supernatural as well. At least when it comes to studying dense books of information and then applying what I learned to future situations. The more I thought about it, the more I started to actually convince myself this was true.

Pencil in hand, I was ready and waiting to begin taking copious amounts of notes. I tried to start my reading from the beginning, but the preamble, warnings, and the foreword by the editors took up at least a few dozen pages by themselves. I should at least read over the warnings, before I get into the meat of the book. My burning curiosity might have been urging me to get to the good stuff, but I tried my best to suppress it.

The warnings, as far it related to magic would be don't try to bite off more than you can chew. That meant, don't unnecessarily deplete your mana, or you risked exhaustion and passing out. It also meant, don't try and attempt spells or rituals well beyond your level or experience. That one seemed rather obvious, but I noted it down all the same. The consequences of a failed ritual or spell, sounded like they could be quite severe with high enough mana involved. The final note was not to use magic to abuse others, specifically mundanes, as that both risked the veil and was consider a punishable offense by the IDPA.

Well, I didn't plan on going around zapping people with magic, so I shouldn't need to worry about that one.

The book itself seemed to have been organized and edited by a group of IDPA agents. Was agents the right term for them though? Were all the people working with the IDPA called agents? Some of them just staff or employees, right? The people putting this book together should probably be called researchers or scholars maybe, but fortunately or unfortunately they didn’t have any titles listed in the sections with their names.

Having skimmed the foreword and introductions, I found that this book was the 128th edition of this particular text and that the IDPA, or its previous incarnations, had been publishing this book for centuries now. That number seemed mind-boggling to me. It made me recall something Irmingir had said while he was busy yelling directly into my face.

He said that we’d been fighting the invading monsters for thousands upon thousands of years, longer than recorded human history. On that scale, this book was still fairly new. Perhaps, other alternative introductory textbooks on magic were used in ancient times, maybe it was just the methods and styles of teaching that were different then, more decentralized maybe. They’d have to be, right? It would make sense that a more standardized text on magic for beginners like me would only come about when a more organized and centralized group like the IDPA came into existence.

Skipping ahead, I tried to get to where it started getting into the heart of things, magic. It started with what magic was and what magic wasn’t.

Magic was the alteration of our world by various means through differing forms of energy. That definition seemed incredibly broad. By that definition, the physics class I took last year was teaching me a form of magic. Perhaps that was intentional though, but conjuring and slinging balls of magical shadow seemed fundamentally different than turning a potato into a battery for a clock.

Maybe I should just move to the next section. Magic is foremost, not something mundane people have access to. Definitionally if someone can practice or do magic, they are not mundane. This description seemed like a bit of a catch-22 to me. If the definition depended on who could and couldn’t do something, that seemed to be rather flawed in my opinion. Deciding to make a note of it and move on, I continued reading. Magic is most often identified by the form of energy it uses, and in most cases that form of energy is mana.

Now things seemed to be getting somewhere concrete. I recalled on my status screen that I had mana listed amongst the various attributes and labels. According to this text, humans were not naturally able to store and manipulate mana, for use in magic or for any other means.

Well, given that I supposedly had mana and could use it, I assumed that there had to be some exceptions. Quickly reading on, I found I was right.

Throughout human history, the various peoples of Earth have utilized many differing methods to gain access to and manipulate the form of energy we know as mana, enabling them to then use it in whatever task or goal they might devise or desire.

For those without the ability to retain and manipulate mana naturally, the most common method of accessing it was the breakdown and processing of different raw materials. This field of study was historically known as alchemy or herbology, whereas today most paranaturals would just consider it another branch of chemistry.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Huh, it did make sense, given the tales about alchemy found in various books and movies. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it was real in some form. I guess my knowledge of chemistry might apply to this specific type of magic, if I ever have the chance to study it more in-depth that is. According to this text, alchemists could use the mana they cultivated in several ways, from just imbibing it, to using it as a topical salve, or even as a form of aerosolized grenade. The methods of application seemed to be just as vast as the sources of material that alchemists could process and use as sources of mana. In most cases though, the best source of mana for alchemists were processed monster parts.

The second most common method historically, but also still perhaps the most powerful type of paranatural magic users, were warlocks and witches. These men and women would make magical pacts with powerful monsters and beings from other realms to borrow a portion of their power in exchange for their servitude and other possible favors. While this would bind them to the will of an alien and typically unfathomable powerful being, it did give them regular access to mana for them to use however they saw fit. In recent times, the general view of and acceptance towards warlocks and witches has continued to decline, not necessarily because of what any one specific individual did with their powers, but because of the often hostile and dangerous attitudes potential patrons had towards Earth and its denizens.

Sorcery, as it turned out, was a hereditary form of magic, passed down along a familial bloodline through various, but similar, methodologies. Traditionally, it involved extensive tattoos covering some or all of the subject's body. Additionally, it required the ingestion of multiple alchemical concoctions made from rare ingredients, and extensive use of various occult blood rituals. The details of these potions and rituals are all closely guarded secrets for the families involved, secrets they are more than willing to fight and die to protect. The parent or parents who were adding their progeny into their line, would also use their own blood in these rituals, to bind themselves, their magic, and their child together as one. It is theorized by some paranatural historians that sorcerers were originally an attempt to emulate the innate powers of supernaturals, but the result ended up being something distinct and special in its own way. Today, sorcerers and sorceresses are most known for their ability to manipulate mana within and around themselves to power their spells and other magics.

Wizards are distinct in their style of manipulating mana and their use of magics through their practice of infusing objects with mana for later use. Traditionally this meant writing down a large number of symbols, letters, numbers, sigils, diagrams, or other various written icons that had some meaning to them or their culture. Once these culturally resonant symbols or words had been imbued with mana, through one method or another, the wizard could then direct and structure the mana into a spell or magical effect based on the symbols used, or the design of the diagram created. Of the most well-known and studied paranatural magic practitioners, wizards are the least common, mostly due to the extensive study and research required to learn all of these various symbols and diagrams needed in their practice.

It seemed there were quite a few styles and systems of written magic used by wizards and the other magic practitioners, but I couldn’t help feeling reminded of the different computer programming languages I’ve read about online. Each could essentially do whatever task you wanted, but each of them also had their own strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, the various magical writing systems had their own specific qualities and groups advocating their merit or trashing them for being completely terrible.

There were also several other lesser-known magical practices listed following this, from those, most were based upon different cultural and religious variations of the types already listed. In addition, there were magical traditions based upon the use of things like music, singing, and dance, and also styles of magic that depended upon the use of weapons and the blood and wounds from battle. To complicate things even further, many practitioners weren’t exclusive followers of one specific path of magic, many if not all dabbled in the others when they could, and hybrid practitioners were well known and common.

Sitting back for a moment and giving my hand a nice stretch break, it was hard for me to imagine that all this has existed all around me and for such a long time too. Deciding I needed to know more, I dove back into the text. Ready to move on to something new, I flipped to a different part of the book.

This section I was looking at now was the introduction and overview of supernatural magics and their differences from paranatural magics. It essentially seemed to boil down to one point, supernaturals cheated, or at least that’s what many if not most paranatural magic practitioners believed. What a single supernatural magic user can learn in a year would take most paranatural magicians decades if not longer.

I guess this was some of the jealousy Gunderson mentioned that paranaturals felt towards supernaturals. If I had been studying a subject for most of my life, and some kid had been given all of that knowledge and ability, seemingly on a silver platter, I might be a bit resentful too.

It grew even worse for them, as many of the classes magically inclined supernaturals could acquire were named after and emulated the abilities of various magical traditions. So I guess in the future my class options could include things like wizard, sorcerer, or alchemist.

So not only could supernaturals learn magic much faster than paranaturals, but they could innately mimic their various proprietary traditions and methods while also taking on the name of their style of magic and claiming it as their own. I was beginning to get a pretty good sense of why some paranaturals would feel a certain degree of resentment toward supernaturals, and I guess that would then have to include me as well…

“Phew.” I said out loud to the book still sitting in front of me. Putting my pencil down I started to stretch out my hand again from the furious session of writing it had just been doing.

There was so much to learn about magic and mana that I was confident I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of everything involved. Each of the traditions listed seemed to be only small summaries about them, they could each probably take up multiple books explaining each tradition and style of magic individually.

Leaning back more into my chair, I decided I'd probably done enough reading for tonight.

Skills Updated.

“Ah nice, I wonder which ones were bumped up this time?” I mused out loud.

Skills Updated:

Spellcraft 2 => 4

Study 99 => 100

New Quest!

Skill Quest: Study

Write a 20-page research paper on what you’ve learned reading the book, Basics of Magic. Submit your completed work to an agent of the IDPA for review and correction. Quest completion and reward based upon receiving passing marks.

Success: Skill Upgrade, 100+ Exp.

“Oh God.” I choked out. “Now, even the blue box is assigning me homework.”