CHAPTER 22: PRACTICING CONTROL
Jenna focused on her breath and calmed her heart. It was still racing after her last fight. Or, at least, it was still racing.
She thought that the healing potion might have been just as responsible for her elevated heart rate as the actual fight. When she felt the world sharpen slightly, Jenna tried to send out a small stream of Magic, all while keeping it under her control. It was a struggle, but she managed to make a small cloud of Magic that she could still control.
She tried wrapping the first ring that her party had found in the cloud. When nothing happened, Jenna was confused. Looking more closely, she saw that the cloud was not totally encasing the ring within it.
As it turned out, fully enclosing an object in Magic was a difficult task. After all, gravity still existed, which meant that she needed to push her Magic through whatever surface the ring was resting on. After a few more minutes of struggle, Jenna had an idea.
“How much is string?”
Query imprecise.
“I would like a small length of string to suspend the ring with.”
Request accepted.
Jenna opened her bag and saw a small spool of thread. It clearly wouldn’t be useful for anything combat oriented, which she realized was probably why her question was deemed imprecise.
She ripped off a length of string and threaded it through the ring. Once the ring was suspended off of her finger, she asked another question. “Is learning to identify Enchantments this way going to hinder me down the road?”
Uncertain answer. Two major causes for uncertainty: You have not yet learned to Identify Enchantments It is unclear how much of your focus in the Training Grounds will be on Identifying Enchantments
That was close enough to a no for Jenna, so she once more tried to wrap the ring in a cloud. This time around was far more successful, and she quickly felt the resonance from the ring again. It was a little interesting that the book suggested that she send a thread of Magic into an item rather than just wrapping it in a cloud, but Jenna supposed that it wouldn’t make much sense for more in depth identifications not to include the information from lower levels.
Try as she might, though, she was unable to tell whether the Magic was being strengthened or depleted as she held the ring. She set the ring down, hoping that the greater resonance from the other ring might make it easier for her to tell what was happening.
Once more, Jenna threaded the ring onto some string and held it up. She pushed out a new cloud of Magic and carefully wrapped the ring in it. As it also failed to give her any feedback, Jenna realized the issue.
She had taken to gathering her Magic from her entire body, so that it was all equally depleted. But, she also hadn’t severed her connection to the cloud of Magic. Jenna realized that she was keeping a set amount of Magic around the ring, because she was still connected to the cloud.
She could see two ways to fix the problem immediately. The easier solution was probably just only using Magic from some small part of her body. With much less total Magic available, she would probably be more able to tell if the Magic was slowly regenerating or leaking.= The other option was learning to separate control of Magic from powering Magic. That seemed like a skill that could come in handy a number of places, but it also seemed more difficult. So, Jenna decided to start with her first idea and only try to change the way she worked with Magic if that didn’t fix the problem.
She severed her connection to the cloud of Magic she had made out of a concern that a detrimental Enchantment might have somehow polluted the Magic. It was probably a ridiculous fear, but without any way to know, she felt like it was better to lose the small amount of Magic than risk something happening. This time, she focused on only pulling Magic from the tip of her right index finger.
As the cloud formed, she felt the Magic leak out of her finger, and she felt that its Magic density had decreased, if only slightly. Holding the cloud didn’t seem to have any draw, but she waited just in case. After all, it wouldn’t do for her to mistake an Enchantment for detrimental just because she needed more Magic to maintain the cloud than the beneficial Enchantment was giving her.
After a few minutes of watching and waiting, Jenna didn’t notice any new decrease in the Magic density of her finger. That was interesting. She had somewhat expected the cloud of Magic to slowly dissipate, but apparently Magic clouds were stable, at least while they were under her direct control.
She carefully maneuvered the cloud on top of the ring. As the ring entered the cloud, she felt a sudden pull on her Magic. At first, she assumed that the pull meant that the Enchantment was absolutely detrimental. But, as the cloud settled around the ring, the pull stopped. That was when Jenna realized her mistake.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Of course the ring, which was resonating with her Magic, would need some Magic in order to resonate. She watched the ring and felt at the Magic density in her finger. It was lower than it had been before the ring went in, but she couldn’t feel it either increasing or decreasing.
As she wondered how long she had been watching, the Pyramid helpfully supplied a clock showing how long she had been in the rift. Even though Jenna knew that watching the clock would only make time feel like it was moving more slowly, she couldn’t stop herself from staring at the ticking seconds. One minute passed.
Three minutes passed.
Ten minutes passed.
When twenty agonizingly slow minutes had passed, Jenna gave up on the technique. She let the cloud of Magic fade once more, and was surprised to see that, without the cloud, the Magic density in her finger was slowly restoring.
“Why is the Magic density in my finger increasing so rapidly?” she asked. Maybe that was another bonus to staying in the rift that she hadn’t remembered.
Query imprecise. Best guess: I have drained Magic from just my finger in order to more easily see whether the ring provides a Magic drain consistent with a detrimental Enchantment or a Mana surplus consistent with a beneficial Enchantment. Now that I have stopped holding the cloud, the Magic levels in my finger are beginning to equilibrate with the rest of my body. Why is that? Accept guess?
It was the first time that the Pyramid had given so much context for its guess at a query, and Jenna was honestly impressed. Then again, it had been able to sense her desire to see time passing, she assumed, so maybe it was just being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic. In either case her answer was the same, “Guess accepted.”
Guess accepted. Magic Density levels within body will equilibrate naturally. While within a rift, the equilibration rate is significantly faster, as the rate your body produces and takes in Magic is significantly faster.
“So then how am I supposed to tell whether the rings are beneficially or detrimentally Enchanted?”
Recommendation: Learn how to separate maintaining control over a cloud of Magic with replenishing the Magic within a cloud.
“Do you have any advice on how to do that?”
Grimoire updated.
Jenna flipped to the back of her Grimoire. In the third level of identifying Enchantments, there were significantly more directions now. It was a little frustrating that she had wasted so much time without the Pyramid helping her, but she supposed it would have been more rewarding if she had been able to learn the skills with less help.
More to the point, she had already met the requirement for her first year in the Pyramid. At this point, developing skills that would carry her further was worth significantly more than a few minutes. She started reading through the directions.
It wasn’t anything particularly novel. Her Grimoire’s advice really did boil down to the single line that the Pyramid had given her. Control over a piece of Magic and feeding a piece of Magic were technically separable, like she’d even thought earlier.
Of course, the fact that the advice could be reduced to separate them didn’t mean that it wasn’t useful. There were seven techniques that it advised her to try, since the Pyramid’s “current model of your mental Magic model currently incomplete.” She started with the first one, which imagined a thread of intent connecting the cloud to her own Magic.
Jenna felt like she could visualize the thread touching the cloud. Now she just had to make it real. Rather than simply being an idea, she needed to truly believe that there was a thread between her own Magic and the Magical cloud she had made.
She thought that she had succeeded. There was no doubt in her mind anymore that there was a thread connecting her Magic to herself. Looking down at the book, she saw the next step.
She inspected the thread more carefully. As she looked, she knew that she needed to see that the thread was made up of two strands. Jenna couldn’t quite visualize what a thread made of two strands would look like.
Just as she was going to give up, she remembered the string that the Pyramid had given her. Luckily, it was woven out of two strands. With a better mental image of what it should look like, the vision in her mind slowly crystallized.
Jenna felt like she could actually see a connecting line between her right finger and the cloud that was hovering just above it. The line was tightly woven with both her control and her feeding it. She started spinning the cloud against the direction the thread was spun in.
She couldn’t keep her eyes on the cloud, because it was moving so quickly. Her eyes watered and she started to grow dizzy as she watched it spin. Instead, Jenna focused on the thread touching it.
As she watched, the thread seemed like it was slowly starting to unwind. The two strands of the thread appeared less and less interwoven with each other as she kept watching. When the threads were nearly completely unwoven, she slowed the spinning cloud down significantly.
After all, it wouldn’t be useful for her to have unwound the thread just to rewind it in the opposite direction. She saw that the two threads were now just joined where they faded into her finger or the cloud. With a mental tug, she separated the two.
Jenna’s Status:
Jenna Fredrickson First Year Spells Known: First Tier: Hardened Glass Expected Years Completed: 7 Prediction Confidence: 47% Points: 5 Qualified to Ascend to Next Year? Yes