CHAPTER 32: MASTERING HER FIRST SPELL

When Jenna awoke, she debated whether or not it was even necessary for her to get out of bed. After all, it was just as easy for her to increase the Magic density in her body lying down as standing up. Or, at least, she assumed it would be.

A quick test showed her that it was, in fact, a little easier if anything. Then again, with how comfortable the bed was, Jenna became a little worried that she might just fall asleep if she stayed in the bed. Forcing herself up, she began to stretch as she kept the Magic pushing through her body.

When she had finished stretching, she began Enchanting the pieces of glass in front of her. F Grade glass slowly gave way to E Grade. E Grade slowly ramped up as well, until she was reliably making D Grade Hardened Glass at least two thirds of the time.

As soon as she stopped making E Grade Glass at all, Jenna’s progress was incredibly quick. Each new piece had at least a plus mark more than the one before it, and the System seemed to limit her progress to at most ten plusses within a Grade, so she was quickly back to where she had been the day before.

With a few more pieces, she managed to add another plus to the end of her Grading. In her excitement about that, Jenna ended up with a few B Grade pieces of Hardened Glass. Her enthusiasm got the best of her, and it showed.

She took a small break to focus her mind. As she did, she noticed how much more quickly she was able to move the Magic through her body than even the day before. The Magic depth traveling through her was nearly just a boulder rolling down a snowy hill, slowly getting larger and denser. It did pause at each location, but it was only for the smallest of moments.

Refocusing on the external Magic she was working, Jenna made her first S Grade piece of Hardened Glass after a few dozen more attempts.

Congratulations! You have Mastered the First Tier Spell “Hardened Glass”

“What should I do now?”

The Pyramid updated her schedule. Enchanting practice was no longer on it. Strangely enough, the Pyramid still didn’t have times for her to work like she did before entering the rift. Then again, given how irregularly she was sleeping, Jenna supposed it made some amount of sense to plan around milestones rather than hours.

Her first goal was to be able to read relative Magic densities with the second technique. It was similar to what she needed to do with identifying, wrapping the item in her own Magic. Now that her Magic was so much denser, she felt the piece of Hardened Glass begin to resonate.

It was interesting to know for certain now that the rings and coins had been no less than a tenth her Magical density last time she’d checked. Jenna kept on focus, however, slowly ramping up the density around the glass. When she’d gotten to about twenty percent of her Magical density, she felt her own Magic begin to resonate. It was far more extreme than the last time she’d tested relative density.

Her Magic density was now approximately twenty times as dense as the piece of Glass she’d made. That was an incredibly change in her density over such a short period of time, and Jenna was shocked that she wasn’t feeling any negative side effects from having done so. Last time her Magic density had increased rapidly, she was unable to walk, let alone carefully Enchant Hardened Glass.

The schedule in her vision quickly changed, showing her that it was time to learn to identify an item. “What should I learn to identify?” she asked, since the schedule didn’t say.

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Suggestion: Learn to Identify Hardened Glass. Accept Suggestion?

That made some amount of sense. She would be able to know whether or not she was doing it correctly, at least. Jenna picked the piece of Hardened Glass back up.

Pushing Magic into it, she immediately felt it resonate. “So it has an Enchantment,” she said aloud. “I still haven’t made any Second Tier Enchantments, so the second level of identification is a wash.” She probed the Spell anyways, in case there was a notable difference that she would be able to find when she looked at the rings or coins.

Next came what had been nearly impossible for her before: wrapping the object in Magic. For whatever reason, her intense practice with the Spell had made enclosing objects in Magic far easier. Well, she amended, that or her increased Magical density.

With the Enchantment surrounded, Jenna was finally able to understand what the Grimoire meant. It was less that there was an influx of Magic into the cloud around the object, and more that the Magic felt firmer as it settled over the Enchanted Glass. The longer she held it, the more real the Magic felt, though with clear diminishing returns.

“Without a doubt, the Enchantment is beneficial. Now then,” she continued, “what was the fourth step?” Jenna opened up the Grimoire when she realized that she had never actually read the fourth step. It said not to attempt it until identifying whether an Enchantment was quick, easy, and accurate. At least with the piece of Hardened Glass that she had made, all three of those were true.

The fourth step was, in many regards, a combination of the first three. It differed depending on whether the Enchantment was beneficial or detrimental, though, which explained why it cautioned waiting. Since Hardened Glass was a beneficial Enchantment, she needed to push a pulse of Magic into it while holding the item in a cloud of Magic.

The Magic pulse would follow the lines of the Spell, which the cloud should, in theory, amplify. If Jenna did it correctly, she would be able to see the cloud condense around the Spell’s shape, if only briefly. With no other recommendations, she reformed a cloud around the sheet of Hardened Glass and sent a pulse of Magic into it.

She felt the way it resonated through her, if only briefly. There was a chance she was just imagining it, but she swore that she could see the spiral of the Spell for a moment. Since that was where she had always started the Spell, it would make sense that it would be the first place her eyes were drawn to.

She sent another pulse in. This time around, Jenna was able to recognize her mistake. Rather than sending the pulse of Magic into the item, she was sending it through the cloud and into the item. While it had the same net effect of Magic entering the Enchantment, the flow through the cloud meant that she was disturbing it too much to see the Spell echoes.

Jenna considered what she could do. The fact that she was able to Enchant the Spell from a distance meant that it was probably possible to make her Magic form somewhere without traveling through the intervening space. Her next pulse did so, and she saw a clear image of the Spell in a bright and brief flash.

It was only when the glow faded and she stopped being so excited that Jenna realized that her Magic wasn’t necessarily skipping the space between herself and the glass she had been Enchanting. It was just as likely that there was just nothing interrupting the Spell in the middle. Either way, though, her method worked. Now it was just a matter of refining the cloud and pulse so that the glow lasted for longer, letting her copy it out.

Jenna’s Status:

Jenna Fredrickson First Year Spells Known: First Tier: Hardened Glass Expected Years Completed: 8 Prediction Confidence: 46% Points: 190 Qualified to Ascend to Next Year? Yes