as I walked I started to notice some serious changes to my environment since the previous day.

everything just seemed more, vibrant.

the air was crisp and clear and even in the early morning sky I could still clearly see the stars.

when I reached the next road along my path I noticed it was cracked and broken with greenery pushing its way up through the cracks.

taking another deep inhale of the crisp air I started to ponder a rather abstract concept, magic.

the screen from earlier had very specifically said "happy discovery!" at the end of the announcement. this lead me to believe that it was entirely possible to lean magic with no outside help.

Considering what I had read previously from other apocalypse novels that featured magic there were generally two types of magic: "curated" magic where you had predetermined spells, and "freeform" magic where you create your own spells. judging from the discovery comment I figured it would be the second as it was much more associated with self-discovery than the first type.

thinking about some of those novels I considered how magic might actually work.

having been walking for about 3 hours and no longer feeling as worried as the day before about outrunning whatever was happening in Seattle I sat down for a moment to think.

the first thing I considered doing was the most common way I remembered having seen. sitting in the grass is started to "feel" inside myself. after about 10 minutes of sitting and making a real attempt at meditation, I started to feel silly. about to open my eyes I started to pull out of my meditation when I felt something weird.

I nearly facepalmed when I realized the obvious clue I had missed. in fact, I had even made a mental note about it when I first opened my status screen and it was even slightly mentioned in the "happy discovery!" message... ambient life-force. while sitting with my eyes closed if I focused it felt like I was surrounded by a maelstrom of energy. all around me I felt a powerful force pressing against my body.

working on instinct at this point I mentally reached out to the energy and recoiled when it snapped at me. reconsidering my thought process I moved my conscienceless to the very edge of my skin on my arm and attempted to coax a little bit of energy inside, I was thrilled when the energy formed a little stream into my body. thinking quickly in case the energy had any negative effects when it collected inside me I stretched out my arm and imagined a hole at the tip of my finger for the energy to escape from. just as I thought the energy left my body with a little "pop" closing off the entry hole i opened my eyes and was not very surprised at what I saw.

Ambient Life-force Manipulation Acquired!

messing with raw life-force outside your body is a dangerous task, luckily your body can shield you from most of the ill effects allowing you to mutate the life-force to your will!

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

considering the flavor text that came with the ability I figured that what I had just discovered was the keystone to magic in this apocalypse.

knowing that my body could shield me from some of the bad effects of raw life-force I started to do some tests. to start I opened another point for life-force to flow inside of my body on the back of my hand and was pleased to see that after some time life-force stopped flowing inside my hand. considering my next move I figured I would try for something like a traditional magic missile. opening my eyes I willed the life-force in my hand to shoot out from a point on the tip of my finger in a small bullet shape.

"FFFWOMP"

with a loud noise, a small bullet-shaped mass of what I could only assume to be life-force flew out of my finger and hit a tree about 20 feet away leaving a splintered crater on its surface.

Spell "magic missile" Created!

Spells do not appear on your status screen. in order to replicate the spell, you will need to repeat what you did originally to manifest the spell. however, there may be other ways of using magic... have fun!

looking at the new popup I started considering what I had learned so far. from what I could tell letting life-force build in my body had no ill-effects so I opted to leave the in-port on the back of my hand.

the fact that spells could not be easily cast once you discovered them worried me slightly as it may become cumbersome to cast more complex spells in the future, but for now with my magic missile being extremely simple to cast I wasn't all that worried. however, I still did want to look into alternate casting methods in the future perhaps crafting external items may be able to help with ease of casting.

 putting aside that thought for later I started to do some experiments as I walked, the first was with the measure of ambient life-force around me. leaving my status screen open as I walked I noticed that the number constantly fluctuated. getting on to my next experiment I cast a magic missile off into the distance, at first I was puzzled when the number remained the same but when I felt more life-force entering my hand and the number started to decrease it made sense to me.

in all, it took about 100 ambient life-force to cast a "full power" magic missile but I learned i could preemptively cast it for less cost and less power.

messing around a bit I figured out that I could control the general direction of the missile when it was in the air if I wished for it to follow my command while casting it. 

this reminded me about the whole reason I prioritized learning magic in the first place. mentally I said "activate star power" nothing changed that I could notice immediately but I did feel as if I was a tiny bit lighter. it was only when casting magic missile again that I noticed a real difference. when I ordered the life-force to shoot out of my body I felt a slight pulling feeling that went up my arm and noticed a stream of something else mixing with my life-force, it was an iridescent white strand of energy and when the missile shot out of my arm it was the same color as the strand.

I noticed a difference immediately, for one the missile was significantly quieter than previously, and the fact that it exploded into white flame when it hit the tree I was aiming for was another feature that was pretty obvious. for a second I thought I would start a forest fire but luckily it went out after a few moments leaving only scorch marks on the tree along with its customary crater.

considering the outcome I mentally turned off star power. it didn't necessarily make my magic missile more powerful in a literal sense, though I still have no idea how powerful the white flame will be.  it just augmented it. 

pondering on magic, in general, I continued my journey north.