Chapter 3
Mikey stared blankly at the front of the room, idly doodling a poor rendition of his professor's face on a piece of paper. The professor stood at the front of the room repeating the same thing he had for the last hour in the most boring monotone possible. He let out a breath of disappointment at how school had somehow found a way to once again take something interesting and ruin it.
Which made this world's magic system even more confusing to Mikey. The traditional form of magic is shamanistic in nature. To use magic the average mage has to use an item and call upon a concept relating to said item without allowing other concepts associated with the item to interfere but concepts relating to items are set by people through observance so aren’t people just drawing on some collective unconsciousness of humanity. Mikey’s head hurt trying to chase that rabbit-like thought so he left it alone. He had his own magic anyway.
Why does magic even need math? You can take your intent divided by will garbage and shove it, I don’t need to account for nothing I feed it the mystical make magic worky juice and it works. he thought.
It had been one month since he transmigrated, and he had progressed a lot in that time. His plan to live a relaxed life as a shop owner was still very much a go, but there were now a few more steps to the process.
His original plan had been to publish his books and hopefully raise enough money to buy his way out of his contract with their version of the military, known as the Mage Corps, but that had proved harder than he thought.
With a few finished manuscripts he had gone to the biggest publishing company he knew of in Cahokia, they owned the production rights of many novels that were suspiciously similar to a certain comic book company that used to hold the copyright to the word zombie. He walked in confident he'd blow their socks off only to be firmly rejected.
It wasn't that his novels were bad, in fact it was the opposite, the chief had absolutely loved them. She had only read the first half of his novel when she right out told him that his books would sell like hotcakes. No, the problem lay in the fact that he was a teenager, and therefore considered a minor in the eyes of the law. Say what you will about the Sacred Twenty-Eight Nibilian Families, but they took the safety of minors seriously especially when it came to contracts, excluding the Mage Corps standard.
Known as the Sacred Twenty-Eight (the capitals are very much necessary) they held near unchecked power in the states but had been pretty quiet lately because of all the seats that were left empty after they lost most of the older generation to the last civil war/terrorist attacks (A whole ‘nother can of worms).
Anyway, what all this meant in reference to his situation was that he couldn't sign a magically binding contract without the approval of a guardian, but he was an orphan, and a mage in training to be exact. He had waved off any possible guardian once he had signed up to be in the magical school making adoption invalid, so in a sense he was in a pickle. The chief was nice enough to explain it to him, but there was nothing either one of them could do. The chief seemed to be the one most disappointed actually, as she had wanted to leave the stigma that her company had gotten after publishing a “children’s" book.
If he wanted to have money, then he needed to publish his book, but to do that he needed to be considered an adult, but to do that he needed to become a fully certified Mage. Mikey hated the position he was in, but there was only one way to go, he needed to become a mage as soon as possible, publish his books, somehow retire early, and then set up a shop to live the rest of his life in a hopefully danger free environment.
He had done his research and had found out that a Mage could retire early if they suffered grave wounds while out on a mission (like dismemberment), came down with a life-threatening illness (cancer), or served five years as a First-level Mage without achieving a promotion. If they reached Second-level Mage the amount of time required to retire became seven years, and becoming a Third-level mage raised it to fifteen years) which with the life expectancies of mages might as well be until death, since it was far more likely to die on a mission than retire at that point, it’s not even worth mentioning Fourth Level and up.
The only plus side to his situation was that he was in one of the reserve classes in school.
What this meant was that although they didn't get the best resources they did receive some more freedom to choose what happened after graduation. The major benefit being that when they took the graduating test they could apply for a five person squad or remain an independent contractor, each had its own benefits. Being part of a squad meant you could take harder missions, a Third-level mage would be assigned to train you, and a practicing area would be reserved just for your squad.
Being independent meant that you would act as a substitute if another team had a vacancy, meaning they gained a lot more experience working with other people. They could also take low ranked missions alone and not have to split the profit with the rest of a team. Another benefit was that they could set their own work hours as long as they completed the set amount of missions needed each month. Mikey, in the interest of staying away from whatever crackerjack hairbrained kind of person decided this was the best way to utilize their military, decided the latter option was preferable.
The only problem was that the next graduation exam wasn't until a few months from now in late June and it was only the beginning of March. He had also needed to pay the 1000 Dollar admission fee to take the test early.
He had studied the textbooks back to front dozens of times already and spent a majority of his time working on his fitness. Mikey didn't think he would break any school records, but he could at least pass with the bare minimum as he was right now, and he was also confident in his mana control. With the new techniques he developed to make more products like folding mana and-
The young boy was startled out of his thoughts when he heard the sound of the bell ring, meaning that the school was done for the day.
The Professor looked at the clock before turning to the class to address everyone, "It seems we've run out of time. Don't forget to study the material we discussed today. Also remember that there will be a test once you get back from your two-week break."
With that he dismissed the classroom and literally everyone headed for the exit, most rushing to the door, while others opted for floating out the ceiling window.
Mikey didn't do either as instead he stayed in his seat until everyone was gone, it was a lot less troublesome to let them go first after all. "This is my chance, two weeks to make some real cash moolah," he muttered to himself as he walked up to his professor who was already cleaning the chalkboard.
Mikey had changed the way he dressed, adding several layers to hide his new armor pieces, to have a white silk jacket that reached the back of his knees to cover it all. He had slimmed down from all the exercise he was doing but with all the extra padding and armor he carried it looked like he had actually gotten bigger.
"Ah, Professor? Do you know if my request was approved?" Mikey asked the distracted man.
"Oh, Mikey, you're still here," he said sounding embarrassed for somehow not seeing the teen who is more wide than he is tall , "and yes, I have your approval form here,"
The man then reached into one of the drawers on his desk and took out a signed document before handing it to an excited Mikey, "You are now licensed to use practicing area 5-A for the duration of the break and you shouldn’t have to worry about sharing it since we had no other applicants."
Looking over the rules and directions on the paper, Mikey's face split into a wide grin and looked up at the Second-level mage to say, "Thanks Professor!"
He nodded at the small boy, “Just make sure to train hard, you hear."
Mikey nodded as he walked out of the lecture hall with a giddy expression.
He rushed back to his home in record time. The overly round young man was going to make the most out of this break. So what if all the complicated magic in class flew over his head Mikey didn’t need it anyway. He was gonna pass the exam just fine with some practice but he had two main plans for this break. First was to make some long term clients and second was to experiment on a couple of ideas he had been having.
Mikey took out a large yellow backpack with two veins filled, that was not unlike that of a certain time-traveling priestess, from his closet and started packing all the things he was planning to sell.
The bag was 3ft x 2ft x 3ft and could normally carry 18 cubic feet, but with the two new abilities from strengthening it could now have 90 cubic feet! Five times the space with only a third of the weight.
With this he could carry all he needed in one trip like any real masculine manly man. After he finished posing for Manliness he shoved his camping gear, food supplies, and other things he wanted to test. Wrapping it up he then set it aside to head out after he was done buying the things he needed.
Locking the door behind him he headed off to the Galihai’s flower shop, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families personal shops, to pick out some ingredients. Stealthy checking inside first to make sure to only go in once he was certain that there wasn’t a member of said family at the counter, after all it’s best not to accidently irritate the local overlords and all that.
A few days ago Mikey had finally cracked the method to make pills and elixirs like the ones in those asian fictional novels that he used to read, and he was excited to see what other things he could make. He also needed to pick up the flyers that he had ordered to promote the temporary shop he would set up at the practicing area.
"I guess this is the time to test out that new talisman I've been working on," Mikey said as he took out a small yellow talisman from the depths of his clothes and activated it.
This talisman theoretically should increase his lucky encounters. Mikey never could puzzle these conceptual talismans out, while he knew they were doing something he just wasn’t sure if it was what he wrote down.
Picking out the herbs and plants was a simple thing as he had studied extensively on all of the new magical plants with beneficial properties. He really hoped that he could sell something during the break because just this purchase had left him in the red for the month.
After leaving the plant shop it only took a moment to reach the printing shop and pick up his flyers.
Visit Mikey's Store of Marvels
Location: practicing area 5-A
*Exotic weapons and tools for all, both mage and non-mage. Mystical armor and equipment guaranteed.
*Reasonable prices on all purchases.
*Guaranteed diet pills that work in moments, watch the fat slide right off ;)
*Magic elixirs and pills for every occasion.
*Need luck? Have a crush that doesn't pay attention to you? Check out our talismans and lucky charms.
** Random gift given to customers that make a 1,000 Dollar purchase with this flier.
The paper was purposely made colorful to attract the eye and there was a tiny drawing of him grinning in the corner, as well as a map on the back giving direction to the practicing area.
Feeling satisfied, he left the place with 200 flyers intent on passing them out that day.
Walking around the market area, he handed out flyers to all of the casual shoppers hoping to get some wealthy clientele. It might have been the talisman but the number of people that actually accepted them was a lot higher than he thought there’d be.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Looking at the only flier he had left, he got an idea, "I should post this in a place that many people walk by. I think that the Magical Ministry’s tower has a bulletin board at the entrance."
Feeling lucky, he headed in that direction choosing to use the backstreets to avoid all the mid-air traffic from those flying. Stepping inside of the imposing building he saw the clearly marked mission counter, where Mages could request additional missions that would pay based on commission, to his left was a large bulletin board the size of the wall and covered corner to corner with different flyers ranging from lost and found posters to simple lawn care.
This is the work their insane city-state has their military doing because of the ridiculous amount of standing military they possess. Couldn’t demilitarize without prompting an invasion from other countries Mage corp and couldn’t afford to pay their military a livable wage so clearly the only option is to start taking tasks from civilians and making money as contractors. Of course all contracted missions must come from the city-state itself for the active-duty military otherwise it’s considered dissertation.
How this city hasn’t burned to the ground Mikey would never know.
People that usually didn't have the money to pay for a mission would sometimes leave small tasks here and hope that someone would take them. The reward was much less than missions, and not everyone offered cash rewards, but at least some retirees and handymen could survive this way.
The room was empty, so he walked towards the counter, having to stand on his tippy toes just to be seen, "Hey can I borrow a stapler?" he asked the bored receptionist.
The man finally noticed the walking talking battleship of a teen that is Mikey, having to pinch himself awake, before he shrugged his shoulders and handed over a stapler, "Huh? Oh yeah, sure kid."
"Thanks!"
Taking the stapler, the overly round teen finally went back to the board to find the perfect place to hang it. It was just as he found the perfect spot that something attacked him.
Some kind of fur covered ball had hit him in the side of the head and knocked him over, sending him tumbling on the floor.
"Little Lionor, no!" came the voice of a woman.
Mikey looked at the ceiling above with some amount of confusion, 'Lionor? But my name's Mikey.' It was then that he felt something squirm beneath him. Reaching under him he saw a fat orange and brown striped cat trying to escape. Mikey must have fallen on top of him during their little tumble.
"Ah, not again!" he said out loud as he picked up the feline by the scruff, making sure not to let the irritated cat take a swipe at him with those surprisingly sharp claws. Turning to the out of breath woman, he easily recognised the local overlords wife, Madam Chaska.
Similar to his old world, the country that surrounds the walled City-State of Cahokia is run by an Elected president and his wife just happened to be standing in front of Mikey. Madam Chaska was a plus sized woman nearing in her forties that had a soft spot for animals and children if you asked anyone around but her mana veins said differently instead they seemed to be flowing in awkward pattern avoiding what could only be numerous old injuries that were never quite healed correctly. Mikey could tell with single glance that Madam Chaska must have had a long time in the service as a war mage.
Standing up he extended Lionor to her, "Here you go mam, this is your cat right?"
The plump woman cried in joy as she snatched the struggling cat into her bosom, "There you are Little Lionor Prickly Princess the Third, don't run away from mommy. Thank you, young man."
Mikey smiled at her, "It's fine." He turned back to pick up the stapler and flier when she talked again.
"What’s in your hand, mister….?" she said trailing off.
"Ah, Mikail Anderson, mam. This is a poster for a shop I'm opening," he said as he handed her the piece of paper for her to see.
She inspected it briefly before her eyes stopped at the mention of diet pills and she had to ask, "Do these diet pills actually work?"
"Huh, those? Yes they do, I can personally guarantee that you will get results within only minutes after eating one?" Mikey said as he puffed out his chest in complete confidence.
"Truly?" she said skeptically as she inspected his own reasonably plump form.
Mikey took the hint, taking a wooden practice knife from the depth of his clothes and showing it to her, "I'm a Mage-in-training so I need this fat for my magic." That was a lie of course, Mikey hadn’t learned a single real spell yet preferring to rely on his pure mana manipulation instead, but she didn't know that.
"Oh, of course. I apologize, I didn't mean to insinuate anything," she sounded slightly embarrassed at having assumed. "Ah silly me, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Madam Chaska."
"It's a pleasure to meet the Fire President's wife in person." he said as he extended his hand to get the flier back.
The fat woman nodded good naturedly and shook his hand, mistaking his intention, with a smile after putting the flier inside her coat. "It is good meeting you as well Mr. Anderson. I will be sure to drop by tomorrow to see these pills myself."
With that she left the building with a struggling Lionor. Mikey might have imagined it, but for a second he saw Lionor glare at him and slice a paw against his throat in a menacing manner.
Once he was alone again he turned back to the bulletin board and let out a small whine, "My poster."
The next day at the crack of dawn he was standing in the practicing area trying to figure out the best place for his stand. It was a rather large clearing with an open field surrounded by trees, and a medium sized lake on the side that was perfect for taking a dip. However, most importantly it was just outside of the massive wall that surrounds the City-State of Cahokia.
The reason for getting a practicing area outside of the City-State walls had to do with the fact that sales outside the walls didn’t require a permit. Going to his backpack he opened the top and glanced all the way at the bottom of the much larger internal space. Carefully he climbed inside of his bag, making sure not to get trapped inside.
Taking out a flashlight from his pocket he searched until he found his tent. Looking at the entrance he pushed mana into his feet to help propel him to the outside world. To an outsider's point of view it must have seemed ridiculous for someone his size to pop their head up and clamber out carrying a full sized tent.
It only took a few moments for him to set up his tent. Cobbled together out of some old sheets and wooden posts that he got for cheap, it looked more like a circus tent than the roadside stand he was going for.
Taking a spare knife from his clothes he stabbed the side of the tent and watched as the knife bounced off. He nodded in satisfaction.
"It won't stop a sword or anything but it'll do for now," he said before applying some protective talismans to the outside.
Slowly he started to fill the much larger tent with all manner of items from his bag. He didn't have much money to buy brand new materials and equipment to work with so most of the things he would be selling was gotten from dumpster diving then slapped together with some good old strengthening.
It wasn’t much but with a few counter tops it was homely and most importantly his. Strengthened weapons and armor on one side of the tent while food supplies and useful items on the other. The very back had a section that was closed off from the customers that held his more expensive goods and surplus stock. To make up for the lack of display cases he made a few catalogs with hand drawn pictures of them with a small description of what they did.
It was still early so he still had plenty of time to train for a bit. Walking to the lake outside, he placed one foot on the water's surface and channeled mana under his foot. Placing his full weight on it, his foot refused to sink. He took another step onto the water and then another until he was right in the middle of the lake.
As it turned out, spending all his time strengthening items and meditating had given Mikey a lot of practice manipulating pure mana. It also helped that he was still new to having mana and therefore was hyper aware of it traveling through his body. His sight gave him the ability to easily tell how much he was using. Learning to walk across various terrains like water, air and vertical surfaces had been a breeze since all he had to do was check how much mana he was using, and either lower or raise it. Now he can run away even in the middle of the ocean.
Still, Mikey was pleased and called them over to his side. "Nice, I think I have this mastered already. Now, all I need to do is see if I can use it effectively."
He started with a simple reflection spell. By using a small shard of mirror which has ver few other concepts besides reflection tied to it as long as it’s not broken. The small Mage pushed his mana into the bit of mirror and its surroundings creating a small cage surrounding the mirror. Quickly a copy of himself appeared in front of him. He had heard that the reflections acted exactly like holograms that could be mentally controlled by the user. In his excitement quickly had his reflection give himself a high five only to pass straight through the illusion killing Mikey’s giddiness at figuring a standard spell.
"Sometimes I really wish I had friends. I think that's enough practice for now," he said as he dismissed the clones and walked back to land, never noticing how the talismans he was wearing shook.
Once his feet were firmly on the ground again, he pushed his mana to the just above his skin. His mana was scattered from his body momentarily before it began clinging to his body like a layer of oil. After some careful manipulation, he had transformed the mana to look like a famous figure, Chieftain Bearden. It seemed that the more mana that was added into the mixture, the more lifelike the transformation became. For example, if someone pushed an excessively large amount of mana into it, then they could even physically transform themselves into an object that was either larger or smaller than themselves by expanding and compressing the body respectively.
Once again he brought out even more mana, at least four times as much as the previous amount. Once again he shaped the mana with a careful hand and as the remaining spare mana wisps dispersed what was left was a much skinnier and taller version of himself.
He touched his now flat stomach and sighed, "I don't get what people find so good about being thin, I'm pretty happy with being round."
Dismissing the transformation, he headed back into his tent where he could wipe off the sweat he had accumulated.
Once he was done, he waited behind the counter in preparation for his first customers.
So he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was already noon, and no one had come by yet, but Mikey still held hope. Glancing at the clock he decided it was time for a lunch break and took out the meal he had made that morning. A large loaf of ciabatta bread filled with roasted garlic cloves and provolone cheese. The pleasantly plump Mage-in-training had begun to experiment with the different types of food he ate as a hobby, apparently something was wrong with his taste buds since anything he ate would taste bland to him causing him to add as much flavor as possible, even if others thought it was repulsive.
Finishing the last of his meal, he decided that if he was going to waste his time anyways, he might as well do it by making more products. Searching in his pack, he took out something he liked to call a pill furnace. The furnace was half his size, fashioned out of an old coal stove with top cut off, it looked like a travesty but it worked. The benefit of making pills, besides making a costly product out of a few simple plants, was that it helped him immensely with his pure mana control.
Getting another bag out, he took a pinch of dust from the inside and put it into the furnace. Focusing on his mana he pushed a large amount to his pointer finger tip and started vibrating it moving it faster and faster until in a spark of light his finger caught flame. Manipulating the mana as it burned he moved it to the pile of dust sitting in the center of the furnace. The dust was quick to catch on fire before it turned blue due to the special dust he had used.
As it turns out, all of the initial dust he was left over after his many failed attempts at strengthening items did have some use. The dust was actually supercharged with mana allowing it to be used to help control and sustain a small flame. Of course, finding the right ratio without having it blow up in his face took a few tries, since the slightest instability would make it go off like gunpowder.
Next came the plants. He took some pink flowers that had eight petals in the shape of lips, also called the Lady's Kiss, and a couple of orange small flowers that was commonly known as the Field Lily into the newborn blaze. Closing the door to the furnace he moved quickly using his improved mana control he created a dome over the top of the furnace to stop the smoke from escaping.
It took approximately five minutes before the black smoke began to turn white. Swiftly he opened the door and used his mana to pick up the ash pile that was left over, floating it outside without touching it. With one hand he molded the ash into a ball and added it to the smoke contained in his mana dome. Steady he placed both hands on either side of the dome and created a mana shell to contain it, then began to knead it like dough.
Finally, the final process was to condense it. With that in mind he focused on the very center of the mana shell and began to grow a specific structure inside the pill similar to a blessing veins while constantly compressing it into a solid sphere. Once he was finished, he was left with a white marble sized pill with a smooth glass like surface.
Gently he collapsed the mana shell still holding in the air and let it drop into his hand.
Looking at the mana swirling inside the vein structure he could easily tell this was a successful attempt.
"Another one done," Mikey grinned as he placed the newly created pill into a special marked box. "Couldn't have done it without you," he spoke as he patted the furnace affectionately.
Without this special made furnace all he would end up with would be a pretty dirt ball that did absolutely nothing. As things stand, the furnace was currently his highest quality item as well as his most costly investment. Just to get to this point he had turned nine other furnaces and hundreds of dollars' worth of ingredients into dust. There were time where he wanted to give up, but he knew the connoisseur of fiction novels in him was determined to make this fantasy item at all costs.
All the failed attempt had at least showed him a little more about his strengthening abilities, mainly how many how many ways to fail the process.
There were also a bunch of little facts that determine the limits of how much it could be strengthened such as initial quality, material, personal attachment, etc. Another new discovery he had made was that he couldn't strengthen food or anything that could be consumed, too many teeth were hurt while figuring out that directly strengthening food just made them impossible to bite into.
Checking his mana he noticed that he had yet to recover from the earlier mornings training. Usually he would waste all of his mana and take a 3-hour nap, the bare minimum needed to recover all of his lost mana, and go back to practicing his mana control or upgrading items. He took notice that despite almost quadrupling his original mana amount during the past month, he still had less than his classmates. "I wonder how long it’s gonna take to reach First-level mage level reserves? How long does it usually take people?"
Despite his musings, he heard the sound of bells chiming as the front curtain was moved aside. "Oh boy, my first customer," he said in an excited whisper as he looked to see Madam Chaska walking in followed by a large man wearing a fine suit with an earpiece.