"This sucks," Pear muttered to himself as looked into the darkness that seemed to smother him. "Never thought I'd take actual sight as something that I'd lose. Even in the dark you can make out vague shapes and walls, bright colors are a little lighter and dark colors are a little darker, but this? This sucks."

Laying on the ground, Pear moved his hands on the floor he lay on and searched for something different than the smooth, worked surface that didn't even have dust accumulating on it.

"This sucks," he said again as his searching hands found nothing beyond himself.

With nothing else to do, he returned to staring at nothing and attempting to figure out how to make use of the new spells that his master had given him. Eventually, he decided to focus on the most nebulous of them for experimentation, figuring that anything he learned from one would translate to the others in some way. With that decision made, he went down his list and made his decision. Air was everywhere and wasn't that difficult to move, surely the manipulation spell would show the most use and change if he started there.

Waving his hands through the empty space in front of him, Pear activated his spell and watched to see what would change. Nothing happened beyond his MP draining away.

"Dammit," he sighed to himself. "This isn't going to be easy at all is it?"

Waiting for his now depleted stores of mana to replenish wasn't difficult, skills like Meditation would still activate through his cloak's restrictions. As he waited Pear noticed slight flashes of light that seemed to spark and move as he waited for his Meditation to end.

"Either I'm going nuts already, or something's happening," he muttered to himself, breaking his Meditation and scattering the sparkles of light.

Returning to his Meditation, Pear focused on the lights when they reappeared and watched as they seemed to fall into his chest before disappearing. As each one disappeared, his MP slowly restored itself and before long, the percentage read one hundred again.

"Those lights are mana?" he muttered to himself. "Does that mean that my perk is working?"

Reactivating his Air Manipulation spell, Pear tried to pay attention to what happened to his mana as he felt more than saw his stores drain away. Once he drained his MP to zero, he Meditated and returned to his study once it was full. Over and over, he repeated the process and tried to catch what was happening around him. Hours passed and he continued without stopping before a flashing notification appeared in the corner he had dedicated to chat messages.

"Who's this?" he asked himself as he pulled the message up.

Axel: Pear! Dude! I was talking with your teacher guy, Ripspell, and he is still a total asshole! Creepy as all hell too! I took Drago and left the city to figure out what he could do and we fought a boar, you know a wild pig or whatever. Anywho-zer Drago and I killed the pig and then your guy showed up and talked with me a bit. Some certified strange stuff if you ask me. Anyway, get this, he told me that he 'felt something strange in the mana' and went looking for what it was. Showed up in time to see me screw up with my Manipulate Earth spell I told you guys about. He said something about how my spell was a 'beast spell' or something and how your spells are 'learned spells' not clue what that means. Said that the people that first learned magic learned it by copying what the monsters and animals were doing and that beast spells are more intuitive. I didn't know what that meant cause it DOESN"T SEEM VERY INTUITIVE ON HOW TO USE THIS SHIT WHEN I"M TRYING TO SPEAR SOMETHING AND ALL I GET IS MUD!!!!!!!!11 Anyway, he told me that it was still intuitive since I moved my mana through the ground without any training. I'd have told you earlier but it just hit me while I was eating with Jim. He says hi by the way. I don't know if it helps to hear all that but maybe it will and if it doesn't it's probably better than just sitting there blind as a bat. Later dude! Shoot me a message sometime!

"'Moved my mana through the ground?'" Pear read the line aloud. "Does that mean that I need to move my mana through a medium to use these spells? Let me read what the description says."

Air Manipulation: Manipulate raw Air magic and shape it as you will. Can create new or unknown Air spells using this Spell.

"'Raw Air magic?" Pear muttered. "That doesn't seem like I'd have to move my mana through the air. If I did, how would I touch light? Or fire? Maybe I just have to move my mana around like Axel said he did and it'll work out. But how do I do that?"

Concentrating, Pear put all his focus on the portion of himself he felt his mana came to rest while he Meditated. If it was going there, then it must mean that his mana was stored there, right? As he focused, Pear breathed deeply, feeling his Meditation skill activate itself again. Ignoring it's effect, Pear sank deeper into his metaphysical mind and focused on his mana. Like a switch flipping, the world lit up around him. Or rather, the world in his mind.

A bright sun shifting colors from red to white to green to brown and several more floated in his mind's eye. Dimly he was aware of a notification that tried to pull his attention away from the sight, but he redoubled his focus, feeling his physical eyes close. As he increased his focus, he reached for the multicolored ball of light and tried to coax it to his hand.

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Eagerly, the light responded and it wrapped itself around him, caressing his skin and seeming to bind itself to his hand. With a grin, Pear focused his mind further and shaped the light into a circle with his will as more notifications flashed for his attention. Ignoring them, he spent more time playing with the light and watching as the colors shifted through its own spectrum. Red, blue, green, brown, white, black, gold, gray, and finally purple.

As Pear continued his examination of the light, he became aware of pain shooting through his hand that the light was coiled around. Unable to ignore it, he opened his eyes and looked toward his hand before gasping. He could see it. Vaguely, it was outlined by the light that wrapped around it and it didn't seem to give off a glow like he would have expected. Instead the light simply existed on another plane of existance entirely and it was his interactions with it as he played with it that allowed it to show itself to him. Before he could do anything with it, a sharp pain shot through his head and his hand throbbed with it, causing him to lose his hold on the light that he'd been looking at.

Without Pear's will to hold it in place, the light faded from his sight and the minor burn on his hand became more insistent as it demanded attention. Reaching for his bag that held water, Pear turned away from his injured hand and called forth his notifications.

Your Skill: Meditation(Lesser) has become Meditation(Common) You've learned the Skill: Mana Sight Your Skill: Mana Sight has been consumed into your Perk: Magus' Sight. Magus' Sight will now allow you to view mana as spells are cast. You've learned the Skill: Mana Manipulation. Mana Manipulation(Lesser): Manipulate raw mana with your will and shape it. This Skill is critical for manipulation Spells. Higher mastery increases skill's fine control You've accomplished the Feat: Mana Crisped. Mana Crisped: You've burned yourself with raw mana that was under your control and damaged yourself over 25% of your HP. Mana burns will now deal less damage. You've accomplished the Feat: Mana Burned. Mana Burned: You've burned yourself with raw mana that was under your control and damaged yourself over 50% of you HP. Mana burns will now deal far less damage. You recover MP from mana burns at a rate of 1/5 the damage you would have taken. You've accomplished a Feat: Mana Scorched. Mana Scorched: You've burned yourself with raw mana that was under your control and damaged yourself 99% of your HP. Mana burns will now deal no damage to you. You recover MP from mana burns at a rate of 1/1 the damage you would have taken. You recover 1/20 of the damage you would have taken from a mana burn as HP.

"Damaged myself 99% of my HP?" Pear muttered as he read through the last notification. "That can't be right. I've got- 1%!?"

Yelping in terror, Pear looked at the singular digit that marked how closely he had come to killing himself.

"Is there some way I can use my new feat to get some HP back?" Pear questioned himself as he turned his attention to his MP. "I'm sure it's full since I was meditating the whole time, so what's- 300%?!"

Staring at the red number that glared at him on his resource bar, Pear tried to take a deep breath and nearly choked at the stuffed feeling that filled him.

"If I don't do something, I'm gonna pop," he muttered. "Time to put that feat to work and raise that skill! This is going to suck so bad."

Gritting his teeth, Pear attempted to pull his mana back into his hands and watched the light return to outlining his hands. Distantly, he noticed that the flor beneath him seemed to swirl slowly with the brown color that the light occasionally flash.

As the mana flooded through his hands and collected within them, pain began to burn through his fingers. Eventually, he nearly celebrated as he watched the dark red 1% for his HP flick over to an equally dark red 2%.

"It's working," he grinned to himself. "How much mana is this burning off from the store?"

Turning his sight to the dark red MP percentage, Pear frowned.

"Why is it still 300%?" he muttered. "Shouldn't it be going down since I'm using the mana to burn myse- Shit! I'm an idiot! If I'm recovering mana at a one to one rate when I take burn damage then as I'm using it to burn myself, I'm raising how much mana is feeding into it and how much is going back into the pool!"

Panicing, Pear waved his hands and tried to remove some of the light from them without letting it sink back into his pool, raising the amount and risking something bad from happening to him. Cursing when it didn't work, he tried another method.

"Air Manipulation!" he cried loudly and pushed more mana through his hands.

With a Whoosh! the air in the chamber reacted for the first time as he used the spell and he watched as his overfull MP drained while the air swirled as it followed the green light that he released from his hands wildly. As his MP approached zero again, losing the concerning red color, Pear felt his long hair leave its simple braid and whip around his head as he watched the minature tornado he'd inadvertently made whip to life before sputtering out in the small confines of the room.

You've been afflicted with a Debuff: Mana Scorched. Debuff: Mana Scorched: You've forcefully collected more mana than you can hold and after somehow surviving your trial, you've managed to remove that excess mana. You must replenish your mana a natural way for the next 24 hours. Skills and Potions that restore mana will not work until you have achieved 100% MP or 24 hours have passed, whichever comes first.

"Noted," Pear muttered to himself as he tried not to touch his now very tender, very burned hands on anything as he read the notification. "I'll just sit here and try not screw anything up. Maybe I'll take a nap. Where's my bag?"