“Nice cape,” teased Chuck as Wyatt left the cave.

“Thanks, I just bought it,” responded the mage with an exaggerated twirl.

“It brings out your eyes,” said Angela, offering him some of the food they recently pulled from the bags.

Wyatt took the food, and nodded thanks. He looked over at the family they had with them. Marlene was watching her two kids eat, both of whom hadn’t said much of anything since the day prior. Even the usually fiery Cecilia was quiet in the wake of her father’s death.

He walked over and offered some food to the mother. She shook her head, but Wyatt didn’t relent. “You need to eat,” he said to her quietly, “You’re the only healer we have, and in this world that makes you our most important asset, and the only thing that will keep everyone alive.”

She turned her haunted eyes to look up at him. Wyatt didn’t know what strength this woman had to continue as she was, but he knew her children had something to do with it. She said nothing for a few seconds, then finally relented and took a piece of bread. She ate slowly, but Wyatt was glad she ate at all.

Wyatt didn’t have anything else to say. He was never good in situations like this and didn’t think now was the time to learn. He turned and sat with the others.

Margie was eating quietly, nibbling at the bread in her hand. Brad, Chuck, and Angela were eating absently while discussing what they should do next.

“This solves one of our problems,” said Brad, “at least for now. This should be enough food to last us a few days.”

“And our other problems?” asked Angela.

“Find other survivors. That should be priority.”

“No,” said Chuck, “We need to get out of the canyon and find someplace safe.”

“There is safety in numbers,” responded the barbarian, “More hands mean more swords, and more…” he motioned at Wyatt, “other stuff.”

“No,” said Wyatt, deep in thought, “We are all level three. That troll was obviously a much higher level.” He looked at the family of three, eating together a short distance away. “We need to be stronger. We need to level up.” The others looked at one another, seeing his point. They nodded at the mage, their faces showing reluctance at the prospect of fighting despite their acknowledgement.

“I’m not saying we don’t try to find other people,” the mage continued, “or someplace safe. However, our primary concern needs to be increasing our abilities and leveling. We won’t be any good to other survivors we find if we are weak.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” asked Brad, still skeptical.

“I leveled my earth magic twice when we were checking these caves. I think if we use our skills, they get stronger.”

“Did it give you experience?” asked Angela.

“No. I think we only get that through combat or quests. But I do think there is more to skills than just simply using them. When I was fighting the troll, I cast Daze on it. When it didn’t work, I pushed more mana into the spell, strengthening it.”

Wyatt cast Rock Spike on the ground in front of him. A small foot sized rock erupted from the ground. Without further input from Wyatt, it remained where it was.

“It took me three uses of Daze to level my Enchantment Magic skill to level two. However, after I used it once on the troll, it rose to level four.”

He cast Rock Spike again, this time channeling more power into the spell as he cast. Just like the first time, a rock shot out of the ground. However, after the initial burst of momentum it began to grow. It took barely a second, but the resulting spike was twice the size as the first.

“That took a lot more mana,” panted Wyatt, hands on his knees from the exertion, “roughly three times as much. It seems like it takes exponentially more mana to enhance a spell, but I’m willing to bet the damage this thing can do is a lot more than the original.”

“That’s impressive,” said the archer, inspecting the change in size on the rock, “So I should be able to channel more mana into my Charged Shot ability and make the attack stronger?”

“That’s my assumption. You might have to spend more time charging it, but against a larger enemy like the troll, more damage is always good.”

“And we fight smaller creatures, like the rats, when we can,” exclaimed Brad, pumping himself up.

“It’s settled then,” said Angela, giving Wyatt a smile, “We keep moving, and train as we go.”

With the plan finalized, the party gathered and continued down the path. There wasn’t much to look at for most of the day – cave-ins and the same few plants they had seen throughout the trip – but they made good progress, nonetheless.

They stopped for a rest once around midday, eating some of the food and practicing their skills. Wyatt asked Isaac if he could teach him the spells he knew. Hopefully, he would be able to expand his repertoire of skills and teach the kid at least one offensive spell.

Isaac, being only eight years old and perpetually shy, was not the best teacher Wyatt had ever had.

“You have to feel the air in you,” said Isaac, for the tenth time. Wyatt was getting annoyed but tried to hide it. The description of the spell was no help either. Perhaps The System doesn’t allow tutoring skills until you get to a certain level. Still, he continued trying.

Wyatt sat meditating – or how he believed he should sit when meditating – and tried to feel the air magic inside him. He thought on how it felt to cast his two spells; the differences in how the mana felt. In both cases, he could feel the mana flow through him like water, then shoot forward at the height of the spell to leave his body.

However, each type of magic felt just a little different, like a signature feeling embedded in the mana. Enchantment magic felt like a thick fog, just a little lighter than water; whereas earth magic was almost like a thick paste with a sandpaper feel to it.

Maybe air magic isn’t much different? He felt for the mana inside him again, unformed and generic. He imagined it getting lighter. Then, when he tried to push it out of his body using the hand signs Isaac had shown him, it seemed to solidify at the last second. His hands burned briefly, and he lost five health.

I have to be close! Wyatt tried again, and again, losing another five health with every attempt. He could feel himself getting frustrated and began to hurt his own progress by forcing the magic in anger.

Luckily, Marlene was getting a good skill workout in by healing him as he injured himself.

“My Healing Magic is level four now,” she told Wyatt when he had asked.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Something good is coming from my mistakes, at least,” the mage answered with a slight chuckle. The mother only smiled wanly before turning her attention to the others.

Almost a real smile, It’s a start, at least.

Brad had been sparring with Cecilia in an effort to increase their respective martial prowess’. At first, Brad had used his fists, going easy on the kid, even gaining the Unarmed Combat skill. It didn’t take him long to realize underestimating the child was a bad idea, and he soon resorted to his axe.

Marlene had protested at first, but Wyatt had pointed out the quantifiable damage she could take from his axe and compared it to her health pool. It would take Brad four good hits from his axe to bring her health down to a dangerous area. The mother had finally settled on healing her daughter every two hits, not wanting to risk more loss in health.

The sparring didn’t seem to grant any experience toward leveling a class, much to the party’s dismay. However, sparring in this manner made leveling skills easy to do. Their only limiting factor was how fast it would take Marlene to regenerate her mana to heal them. To this end, Wyatt gave her his Cloak of Mana Storage to increase her mana pool.

Wyatt was sitting on a rock deep in thought when he heard someone calling his name. He looked up to see Angela, who waved him over.

“What’s up?” the mage asked as he got to her.

“I need a sparring buddy,” she answered, “and you need practice.” She pointed at his staff, still sitting where he had left it.

“I think I’ll stick with magic, thanks.”

“No.” Her voice lost all humor, her word final. “You’ve already ran out of mana in a fight, what are you going to do if that happens again? You need to be ready for anything.”

Seeing her logic, and only a little embarrassed he hadn’t thought to train his martial skills sooner, Wyatt retrieved his staff.

The sparring that ensued was laughable, to say the least. Angela had leveled her rapier skill to level two already. That, coupled with her higher physical stats, meant that the mage was at a disadvantage from the start.

Angela went on the offensive first, both her and Wyatt agreeing that working on her attack and his defense was the best choice for future battles. Unfortunately, this meant that the bouts between them lasted mere seconds, as Wyatt was never able to properly defend himself.

It wasn’t until they switched their roles that he finally received a notification.

You have gained a new Skill:

Staff Mastery – Level 1

Apparently, in order to gain a skill related to a weapon, he needed to use it offensively. He didn’t understand the logic but filed the information away for later. When they resumed practice, the combat was slightly less one sided.

“Mind if I cut in?” The two had stopped sparring briefly when Wyatt found himself on the ground. He looked up to see Chuck, hand held out to help him up.

“Not at all,” laughed Angela. She was clearly amused at the practice session but knew she wouldn’t get much sparring with the mage. Chuck, on the other hand, had already used his short sword against the cave rats, and since his physical attributes were higher than Wyatt’s it would be a closer fight.

The day continued on in this manner, the party alternating between walking and training. Both Chuck and Wyatt had managed to level their respective combat skills to level two by the time the sun had started disappearing. They couldn’t quite see the sunset, being stuck inside a canyon as they were, but it was clear by the rapidly fading light that night was approaching.

They found a nice spot in the cliff wall and began setting up camp. When camp prep work was finished, Wyatt had decided to practice channeling air magic again.

During their traveling that afternoon, he had spent a majority of the time contemplating what the kid was saying. You have to feel the air in you, the kid said. Maybe I have to think about the mana like air, as well. He closed his eyes and felt for his mana. He stirred it inside of him, thinking about it scientifically. He made his mana ‘feel’ less dense, but rather than forcing it out, he simply let it flow out of him. The result, when he raised his hand forward, was a gust of wind, followed by a prompt.

You have gained new skills:

Air Magic – Level 1

Wyatt was ecstatic, but he had one more thing to try. He looked over at Chuck, who was walking towards the camp. Wyatt began channeling his mana in the same way as before, but this time, just before he released the stored-up air, he formed the brief gesture with his hand in the air in front of him, aiming it at the archer.

The effect was instant, and the air around Chuck swirled a light blue color as the Haste spell took effect.

Chuck, not expecting the sudden increase to his speed, kicked a large boulder he was originally going to walk around. He tried hopping around on one foot as he held the other. Unfortunately, the archer was still under the effect of Haste and on his first hop went higher than he anticipated, landing awkwardly on the other. He fell backwards with a pained grunt, and Wyatt could tell he had hurt himself.

“What the hell just happened?” he shouted, causing Brad and Angela, sparring nearby, to immediately look around for danger. Marlene tried shielding her children as she, too, assumed they were under attack. The kids and Margie, however, saw the entire thing. They were laughing up a storm, and Cecilia was trying to push past her overly cautious mother to get a better look.

When Wyatt was finally able to explain what had happened, the others joined in on the laughing. All except for the archer, who now glared up at Wyatt as if he had slapped him. Even Marlene was smiling as she bent down to heal the man.

“Sorry,” Wyatt said when the laughing died down, “Games usually don’t include negative side effects to speeding people up.”

“As we have already stated,” grumbled Chuck, “this isn’t a game. Spell descriptions won’t tell you about stepping faster or farther than intended. That felt like walking up the stairs and overstepping because you thought there was one more.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said the mage absently, already lost in thought. Before, Wyatt had assumed the seven years he had spent learning physics was a waste of time now that he was in a world governed by different laws. Now, however, he realized those fundamental laws still existed, he simply had more of them to learn, and a built-in system to quantify it. Already, his mind raced with how spell effects would react to real world situations.

He opened the notification that had been flashing in the corner of his vision and read what he had been waiting for.

You have gained a new ability:

Haste

Wyatt opened up his stat page and read the descriptions for his new skill and ability.

Skill:

Air Magic

Level:

1

Attribute:

Intelligence

Description:

Air magic focuses on the manipulation of wind and lightning. Effectiveness of abilities in this field are based on level of Air Magic and intelligence.

Ability:

Haste

Base Cost:

20 MP

Skill:

Air Magic

Cast Time:

1s

Duration:

30s

Description:

The target gains a 25% boost to movement and attack speed.

Wyatt, realizing he was now standing alone, joined the party at the fire. He asked Isaac to show him his Shield ability and try to describe how it felt to cast.

Isaac didn’t know how to explain this one, apparently.

“All’s I know,” the boy told Wyatt, “Is I didn’t want the troll hurting my…” he grew quiet for a moment, not wanting to say the word. Finally, he continued, “I felt that…everywhere, and my mana felt tough. Does that help?”

“Yes, Isaac,” said the older mage, “That helps a lot.” He squeezed the kid’s shoulder before trying to change the subject. “I think it’s time I taught you the magic I know.”