15 years prior

“Ma’, listen, I said I’m going to take the fucking test!”

“Language, young man!” my mother screams at me. “You are having one of your fits! And you know very well that you will regret it! Just go calm down, and if you still feel like taking the test, you can always do it at another time! They said they are reserving a spot for you even if you don’t want to go and take the exam!”

“I’m done listening to this bullshit!” I scream, “if pa’ wants me not to waste my talents so much, I’ll be whatever the fuck he wants me to be! I’ll fucking show him what I’m supposed to be doing. I hope I’ll fucking kill myself one day, and I hope that someone will regret not listening to me for once in my entire fucking life!”

“Joey, honey, please, calm down. Let’s talk about it before you go and do something you don’t want to. Please.”

My mom has tears in her eyes, but I’m too angry to let go. Once this version of me is out, it’s too late to put it back in.

…

Present

I spread ten spell matrixes around me.

Why ten? You think this is pure arrogance? Well, think twice.

The book told me about the solution in plain terms: you cannot control the individual matrixes as you would a single spell alone.

It’s simple and hard at the same time.

When you write a story, you cannot see how everything will play out. Not even if you are the writer. You build on a concept, hoping that the sum of the components will be greater than the individual parts. The fact that they are ten makes it impossible to think of them individually and helps me focus on the greater picture.

So, instead of wasting my time trying to concentrate on either of those matrixes, I just relax. I let go.

I start weaving magic out of thin air, no structure, just thought. The first batch collapses – an expected failure. But this is the first building step.

When they fail, I get a rough impression of what failed in each one of them. The number is still too high for me to focus only on one, but I get a myriad of sensations about what’s going wrong. I can pool them; I can feel where the Mana has dispersed, where it’s denser, and where it’s still lingering in the shape it should have taken.

When you explain to an athlete the rationale behind how his shooting hoops or hitting the ball should work, he might become worse than before. Knowing the logic will throw off all the sensations he’s built over time. It’s not that rare that this can happen.

And what I’m doing right now is stupidly simple.

Build on the sensations of how it should work and observe the Mana and where it should have gone, but do not look too closely.

I even get the feeling that I’m wasting too much Mana on this and that I could make the [Lights] smaller.

Where do I get that impression from?

From my skin.

I recreate the ten spell matrixes and start weaving Mana into each one without even looking, just feeling. Once again, it dissolves halfway through. But this time, I went from failing in an instant to failing with half of the problem solved.

Now, I take a second to catch my breath and analyze the problem at hand.

A book cannot be read at once.

The words play in my head and mock me with how stupid they are.

My third attempt is filled with anger and contempt, but it’s the sharpest so far.

I weave the magic on a broad level, at first, not even paying attention to the single spells. Then, as soon as I reach the same point I’ve reached before, I start looking at where my sensations bring me. I look extremely close to whatever spell I feel needs my attention and make small adjustments in how the squiggly lines are formed, feeling that they need that particular shape. I don’t think about the big picture anymore, I’m just focusing on where my magic needs me.

I am the conductor of this orchestra.

I’m the master of magic, the performer capable of electrifying his crowd with a simple glance.

I spin the threads of Mana, rearrange them with ease, twist some parts, straighten others, and make them smaller and bigger based on my intimate understanding of the matrixes. Something seems to go a little astray at one point, but I allow it, knowing that it will self-correct and that not everything in this world is perfect.

Imperfection is part of the game.

And I move my hands and arms back and forth spasmodically, whip my neck toward different lights, and my field of magical vision seems to expand gradually, almost reaching 360 degrees. I haven’t even noticed, but I’m now back on the full stage, looking from a distance at the ten lights. I’m not reading sentence by sentence anymore, and the book is done. I’m just looking at its cover.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I deactivate the skill and almost faint from Mana exhaustion.

But in front of me, there are ten medium-sized [Lights] that…

That make me sad.

They don’t make me angry. No, the anger has disappeared in the process. I just feel… sad.

And empty.

I remember my mother crying because I was so damn angry. She just wanted me to ignore what the others were saying and told me I should just enjoy my life. She told me so many times that she would love me no matter what.

‘You only have one life to live, Joey. If you waste it living like someone else says you should, you are going to regret it once you meet Him up there.’

I raise my head to the ceiling and close my eyes, welcoming the darkness this time, not the world of magic. Air goes in and out of my body; there’s a rhythm to it that should be comforting. Instead, every breath seems ready to be my last one.

I open my eyes and look at the ten spells born out of pure anger.

I dispel them with a thought, and I’m left alone in my apartment, with only the insufficient natural light coming from the windows as my companion.

There’s a lot of incoherence in me right now. A part of me came out – the part that disproves a large chunk of who I am, of who I feel I am. And that part is angry, bitter, and resentful. It’s the darkness that taints even the most beautiful story. But I’m not that. I’ve never been that, and I don’t want to be.

Instead, I look at the book.

I get up again and do what I should have done when the tome asked me to simul-cast.

Even without activating my skill, I simply recollect the sensations from before. It’s easier and harder because now, I only need three lights. But one of them is not a globe; it’s a different shape.

This time, however, my heart is free. It’s light, not heavy.

And magic comes easier than ever because of that.

An obscenely long form appears between two large globes of light.

I start laughing like an idiot after composing the most common shape ever drawn by humankind and shrug off the anger from before.

...

I crack my neck and stretch my arms.

Working out how multi-casting functions was not easy. Yeah, sure, the book said it would take me a month but aren’t deadlines made for those who follow a linear progression? If you find the right way to use the tools at hand, most things can be solved much, much quicker than you would imagine. Sure, not everything has shortcuts in life; fitness and marriages are prime examples of that. If you try to cheat your way around one of those, you might either die from a heart attack or penniless under a bridge after a bad divorce.

I wave a hand to dispel the phallic [Lights] that I conjured to complete the book’s assignment. Instead of following the spell matrixes, I went for a more holistic approach. Sure, the matrixes were still there and guided my overall efforts, but there’s a lot about feeling the magic as well.

And truly, I suppose that’s what the book was trying to teach me, right?

It’s literally impossible to multi-cast everything at once, so it would be just stupid to attempt to do it. Maybe after a month of practicing for 18 hours a day, I might have been able to cast three [Lights] with the custom method, but that would have been the stupidest thing ever. There’s no doubt Magister Mulligan set me up for a trap.

Who in the whole world would think that that’s the right way to do magic? And what kind of an idiot would even fall for it? I mean, the book is clearly a demonic creature trying to zap me to death, right?

I stop for a second, suddenly remembering that the infernal bundle of pages can read my mind or something. Thankfully, there’s no zapping happening anywhere on my body. It appears the book doesn’t mind being called an infernal being—which probably makes it absolutely true.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that the book is clearly trying to mislead its user. In fact, I believe that even this ’30 days deadline’ was just a ruse to mess with me.

If the book brought the first deadline down from a few days to a few hours, it means that a few hours must have always been the right amount of time to complete it, right? It makes no sense otherwise. Indeed, it would mean that the book would most likely kill any student it took up...

Which is not the case... I think.

But yeah.

If a book raised the level of difficulty every time you did something right, you’d be doomed to a terrible death unless your talent was out of this world and defied the very logic of the book.

Now, I know for a fact that my talent is decent, but I also know for a fact that it’s nowhere near whatever insane [Archmage] crafted this book wanted from his disciples.

This now kind of worries me because if my prediction about the ever-increasing difficulty was right, then that would mean that, at some point, the book would most likely kill me.

Damn, Lady Luck.

Please, please, let that not be the case.

But alas, I know how Lady Luck works.

Hers are not mysterious ways; they are plain and simple.

Wish for something, and you shall never get it.

See, this is one of the reasons I don’t like being an overachiever. When you work too hard, people start realizing they can squeeze more out of you. And I don’t like that. I like slacking off. I like working three hours instead of eight. If I can triple my productivity, I will not triple my working output, I will just reduce my working time by three. I’d rather spend my free time with a generously-bosomed woman than with my co-workers—unless my co-workers were even more generously-bosomed women with a romantic interest in me and an open mind to being married to a man with multiple wives, obviously.

Now, though, let’s check out what the book has to say.

‘Description: simul-casting [Lights] is the most appropriate exercise based on your evaluation by the Omnium Compendium! Your last attempt gave birth to a superior [Light] spell. Now, you must take on one of the great challenges well in advance. Wasting your talent is a mortal sin. And with a mortal [Thunderbolt] you shall be rewarded if you slack off!’

‘Requirement: learn how to simul-cast at least three inferior [Light] spells in a month.’

New ink appears right below.

‘The Omnium Compendium is evaluating your attempt...’

I look at the book with a frown. This is the first time I got a loading screen – well, loading ink, I suppose – from the book. How come it actually needs time? Was I supposed to actually take a month?

...

I must have been staring at the book for a good ten minutes before I see new words appear on it.

‘You successfully completed the challenge. The Omnium Compendium has adjusted your learning journey to reflect your proficiency. Your simul-casted [Lights] were classified as flawless by the standards established by Magister Mulligan, and that earned you a reward!’

“Well, that isn’t half bad,” I mutter.

‘A great prize will be awarded to you for such a great deed!’

This is another prank, isn’t it?

‘A prize that few people have ever deserved!’

Definitely homework.

‘An even bigger assignment!’

Did Magister Mulligan put some flawed recursive loop in this book? Like, really?

‘The road to mastery is hard! You will need to practice different matrixes, always more and more complex. However, [Light] is the foundation of everything else.’

‘You will need to practice spinning, shape-changing, dynamic movements, coordination, and many other cantrips!’

‘Magister Mulligan prepared 529 cantrips to practice! And you qualify to practice them all!’

What?

WHAT?!

How many?!