“At least this particular quest didn’t come with a due date.” I said as a wave of relief washed over me. “Unlike most of the other assignments I get from school.”
I considered, only briefly, trying to get a start on the quest assignment, but quickly realized my brain was way too tired for the reading involved and everything required to start making any decent headway on it. Plus, the quest seemed to base its reward on my performance when completing the quest, so it was probably in my best interest to just take my time and do it the right way, assuming I was really working without a deadline.
Gunderson also mentioned he wanted to talk more about skill quests and rewards next time I see him I think, another reason to wait.
Deciding to leave the assignment for later, I turned back to the book I'd been reading. There was still quite a lot more to it, and most of the sections I’d been over already were mostly just skimmed through for important details. Doing a more thorough reading of the book would take me a decent amount of time to actually finish. It was not something I could even hope to complete in a single night.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve done more than enough reading for now. Closing the book and leaning back in my chair, I stretched my arms up high into the air as I relished the feeling of relief it gave to my back and arms.
Now, it was just a question of do I go to bed, or…
Looking at the clock I saw it was almost 1 am, and everyone else in the house was almost certainly asleep. The perfect opportunity for me to sneak outside again, and maybe do some late-night magic practice in our backyard.
Grinning mischievously, I decided on my plan. After putting my socks and sneakers back on, I also made sure to snatch up my new book of magic from my desk to take with me as well.
Now, taking a book outside to read at one in the morning might seem a little bit ridiculous, but one of the new skills I’d gotten after becoming a supernatural made this ridiculous idea into a maybe slightly more plausible one. The skill was called ‘Eyes of Night’, and I brought up the blue box for it so I could take a look at it again.
Class Skill:
Eyes of Night - Level: 2 Rank: F
Eyes of Night grants one the ability to see better in low light conditions so that they are better equipped to see the hidden dangers that are lurking in the dark. Additionally, while active, this skill also empowers one’s magic, so long as that magic has close affinity with darkness or shadow.
Vision in darkness improved by 5% per level
Potency of darkness or shadow magic improved by 10% + 1% per level
So once I stepped outside of my room, and as quietly I could close my bedroom door behind me, I willed my Eyes of Night skill to activate.
Seemingly having obeyed my request, I felt a familiar tingling feeling begin to take place behind each of my eyes. Having felt the sensation again, I remembered experiencing the same thing back in my fight with the ghoul hound at the party. I guess this was at least one of the reasons my magic seemed to have some extra oomph to it against that monster.
Looking around with my altered vision I could see that the once pitch-black hallway, had now seemed to have brightened up slightly. It was as if lights in the hallway had been turned on, but at a very low setting. Out here in the complete darkness of the hallway, the skill by itself wasn’t enough of an improvement to allow me to read, but I hoped that light from the moon and nearby street lights outside would be enough for me to read the words in the book I still had with me.
Deciding that finding out firsthand was better than debating the probabilities one way or the other while standing by myself in an empty hallway, I began my slow descent downstairs and out the side door of the garage.
This was the same route I’d used on the night I went to the ill-fated party at Damien’s, but thankfully this time my Dad wasn’t waiting to ambush me in the garage. Thinking about him now made me glad that he and Mom seemed to be starting to patch things up. At the very least, they seemed willing to talk to each other again, that was progress.
I made my way to the backyard without any further trouble, and like I'd hoped there was more than enough light for me to use while I had my ‘Eyes of Night’ skill activated.
Smiling happily, I placed my book down on the grassy green ground of my backyard and sat myself beside it. Opening it up, I turned to the section on common class skills for starting mages.
As Agent Knowles had briefly explained, and also confirmed by the information in this book, classes for supernaturals didn’t always automatically receive all of the possible class skills from the start. Sometimes, they could be unlocked as one reached the higher levels, or as I was hoping to do now, they can be unlocked manually by a supernatural who wanted access to them earlier. If you knew of a given skill's existence, and enough details about how it worked, it was possible to teach it to yourself. The Akashic Record would then unlock it for you, if you'd successfully learned how to use it that is.
There were a fair amount of common mage class skills listed that I’d like to learn eventually, but there were three in particular I was most interested in learning at the moment. They were: somatic magic, mana sight, and mana purification.
Somatic Magic, at least according to what the book had to say about it, involved using different hand gestures as part of the casting process for any given spell. It was supposed to improve the efficacy of the magic and spells it was used with. In addition it was also supposed to reduce the mana cost of any spell it might be applied to.
The ‘Somatic Magic’ skill seemed to actually pair quite nicely with another skill I already had called…
Class Skill:
Incantation- Level: 2 Rank: F
The Incantation skill allows the skill holder to impart form and structure onto their magic through the use of words imbued with meaning and sounds that resonate with the caster’s emotions and feelings. Mastery of this skill will increase the strength of one’s spells per level of improvement, and the amount of mana needed per casting will also be reduced by a modest amount.
Potency of magic improved by 10% + 1% per level
Reduce the mana cost of spells by 10%
Regarding the other two, I was most interested in learning mana sight because it seemed like it was a must-have for any mage. The book also stressed the importance and ubiquitousness of its usage among mages of all levels. It lets you actually see mana with your eyes, and with that capability, you could then study and observe it like any other natural force that surrounds us. Mana sight was also a useful skill to have in battles. While fighting monsters, it allowed you to possibly learn more information about the monster you were facing, more specifically its abilities, and your options for dealing with them.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
It was a bit strange honestly that I didn’t have it already as, according to this book, most supernaturals with the generic mage class were given it from the start. Perhaps getting other skills at the start prevented me from getting mana sight as well? Hopefully I’ll still be able to learn it, I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn't be able to. My class ‘Magi’ was supposed to be a variant of Mage, and variant classes could usually learn all the normal skills of their non-variant counterparts.
The last skill I was interested in was called ‘Mana Purification’, and it lets you separate the essence of your mana in order to turn it into pure mana. Why would you want to do this? Well, most spells one could find in this and other books assumed that the reader was using pure mana when casting them. There were thousands of different types of essences apparently, and each essence would work differently for any given spell. The obvious example used in the book was a supernatural with a water essence trying to use it to cast a fireball spell that was written and designed with pure mana in mind.
In the best-case scenario, the spell would just fizzle out and not work. The worst case was that it would blow up in the caster’s face.
The ratio between filtered and unfiltered mana was also not 1:1 unfortunately, but as your level in the skill improved and you acquired other supplementary and alternative skills, the mana lost from filtering out your essence was reduced.
So the short version is, if I wanted to learn any new spells from this book or any other, I needed to learn to filter out my essence first.
There were some shadow and darkness type spells that I should be able to learn and use, but I wasn't certain cherry-picking the few that might work for me was the best use of my time. It seemed smarter and more efficient to try and gain access to a vast repertoire of standardized spells first.
Tonight though, I was going to try and hopefully learn the skill ‘Somatic Magic’ and then try and practice it with the few spells I already knew.
Somatic Magic, also known as somatic casting, seemed to work like most supplementary casting skills and was based on what felt right to the wielder when they were using it. While it was comforting to know it would be hard to get it wrong once I knew how to actually use it, it made learning how to make it work more problematic. If the skill worked based on what felt right, the natural question that followed then was, what felt right?
Should I just start making random silly hand gestures in the air while trying to cast a spell…?
I mean, that might not be the worst idea…
Shrugging to myself I decided to give it a go with the Dark Wind spell I had.
Another thing I was going to try to do tonight was to try to avoid using the Incantation skill while I cast the spell. I wanted to test and see if that was even a possibility.
Maybe I should try that out first, no need to try these two different experiments at the same time. It’d just skew the results.
Standing back up on my feet, and looking directly upwards into the vast nighttime vista above me, I tried to will the spell to activate.
The good news was that the spell activated, the bad news was I forgot that the spell seemed to originate from my right hand.
A strong gust of shadowy wind burst forth from my hand and shot down beside me, launching me a few feet off the ground and sending my poor little book flying away.
I gave a short but desperately quiet “Aaaah!” and loud unceremonious “Oomph.” when my butt landed on the ground.
Feeling a bit stupid for forgetting the spell's point of origin, I got back onto my feet and brushed off my pants as best I could. Remembering the mortal danger my new book might be in, I rushed to its rescue. Finding it just a few feet away I cradled it comfortingly in my arms.
“There, there little book.” I cooed to it. “I’m very sorry for hitting you with that spell, I promise I’ll do better next time and avoid endangering you like that.”
Placing it back down on the ground where it had originally sat, I also returned to my previous position. This time I raised my right hand above me and pointed it upward.
When I activated Dark Wind this time, it worked successfully as a dark shadowy gust of wind shot forth into the open sky above me.
Good, the first experiment was a success. Now, step two, learning a new skill.
I took up a wider stance, with each of my feet spread a shoulder’s length apart, and this time I put both of my hands above my head. I then began to move my hands about in gestures that seemed like what mages would do in movies, sharp ups and downs of my fingers, crooking some, uncrooking others. My hands weaved back and forth as I continued to try and emulate what I thought a mage's hands should be doing while casting.
After a few seconds, I willed Dark Wind to activate again to see if it had any effect.
The familiar gust of black wind flew forth from my hand and out into the empty air, but the effect seemed to be the same as last time I saw it.
I also didn’t get any new blue boxes popping up, so it must not have worked.
“Hmm.” I mused to myself. “What did I do wrong?”
The book said to do what felt right to you in the moment. I thought emulating Hollywood’s style of magical casting would work for me, but I guess simple emulation is too impersonal.
I need to focus on what feels right. Avoid any preconceptions, what others try to do doesn’t matter, only do what feels right to me.
Getting back into my wide stance, I raised both my hands out parallel to the ground this time and toward the distant tree that was fair ways away from our house.
I closed my eyes tightly and let my thoughts fall back into myself, focusing on the spell I was going to use and the effect that I wanted. Trying to hone in on that feeling, I let my hands move in ways that I hoped were right, that seemed right to me while I was doing them. It all felt right, I think.
As I let my thoughts wander, in order to a get a grasp on the correct feeling for the skill to activate, my thoughts drifted towards the large intimidating face of Mr. Irmingir from the IDPA’s office.
I remembered feeling afraid and anxious when he was yelling just inches away from my face. At the time I felt so incredibly small and vulnerable, as I just stood there and let him shout at and belittle me.
I hated feeling like that. I really hated it. In fact, just thinking about it now made me feel angry, really angry actually.
Stupid jerk, who was he to get in my face like that, to yell and put down like he did.
As the feeling of anger flowed around in my thoughts and the face of Irmingir persisted within the center of my mind’s eye, I kept my hands moving and gesturing in front of me in ways that seemed almost natural to me now.
Finally, I decided to let loose another Dark Wind spell.
A much louder *Wooosh* sound seemed to erupt from the direction of my right hand, prompting me to open my eyes to see what results I’d find.
The shadowy wind was just now blowing through and out the backside of the tree, all the leaves and branches were still rustling around pretty energetically.
“Nice, it worked!” I said triumphantly.
New Skill Unlocked!
Somatic Magic
Reward: 100 Exp
Congratulations!
Level Up!
Class: Magi 3 => 4
Mind: +2
Spirit: +1
Skills Updated!
Somatic Magic 0 => 1
Eyes of Night 2 => 4
Spellcraft 4 => 5
Mana Manipulation 1 => 2
Shadow Affinity 2=> 3
“Even more awesomeness!” I cheered happily, giving myself a celebratory fist pump.
As if on cue from my words, a loud crack emanated from the tree that I had just blasted with wind. One of its larger branches broke off and gravity then did the rest, pulling it down onto the conveniently placed wooden fence right beneath it.
A loud echoing crunch reverberated outward as both branch and fence collapsed into a small but impressively loud pile of dirt and debris.
“Frick!” I loudly protested at the unfairness of it all.