I have a very rough plan. From what I’d gathered from a few of the books I’d been flipping through, this forest is just south of that mountain...Saiyin hall foyer? Saigen...honestly? I get it Dad. The mountain. I'm not terribly far from Thavim as a lifeline. There’s a particularly large river to the East of the tree that flows all the way from the mountain. So – head east, follow river upstream. Is there an easier route? Maybe. But I’m possibly more likely to be taken advantage of by people on the road as a seven year old than I am to be eaten.

Just as I set off toward the river I hear thunder. Just great. First order of business for wherever I survive to: get my own gear. My own cloak, my own hunting knife, my own pack. Being seven shouldn’t be a reason to be hostage to all these varieties of racist adults. Racist? Species-ist? Specist? My grumbling continues as I trudge along the trees heading away from sunset as I feel the first few droplets on my hair. Brilliant plan Alvis. Leave just before night falls just as it starts raining on a several day hike without food or gear.

Okay, calm down and think. You’re heading into the woods at night and you’ve heard rumors of monsters but have yet to see one. Why not? Most likely reason is that sane people don’t take a seven year old to an area not meticulously combed and cared for. So my safety net is gone. What are my strengths? Well, I’m small. That makes me light on my feet. If I can sneak for large portions of the way, then I won’t have to fight. But that does nothing for if I’m actually found. What other strengths? Well, I can supposedly use all the elements, right? But that’s only for enchantments, isn’t it? Or is it? No one seemed the have any idea about what I can do. And I haven’t really been taught how to enchant anything as of yet but...how did the first person to enchant something succeed?

As I’m walking along I start to hear the river in front of me. Success! Oh, but following the river is a double edged sword. I’ll have access to water but so will everything else. I look down and see a few baseball sized rocks among the pebbles and rocks smooth from the river. I bend down and take a couple. One I put in my pocket while the other I keep handily at the ready.

Alright, I’ve got a rock. That’s probably a solid 1d4 of damage. I just gotta roll a nat 20 with this child’s body to even have a possibility of hitting a target. I’m tossing the rock in the air and catching it absent mindedly. I make a left turn and start following the river upstream to the north.

Okay, back to the magic musings. Maybe it is possible for me to use normal magic. I stop walking for a moment and concentrate on controlling my mana. Instead of a gemstone, I attempt to push it all into the air just above my palm. I don’t know if visualization will help but at this point I’ll take a few gift wrapped miracles. As I’m pushing mana into the spot above my hand, I imagine the molecules of that spot moving faster.

The air around my hand begins to create it’s own slight breeze and I feel a bit of warmth on the palm of my hand. Alright, that was surprisingly effective. What if we go in the opposite direction? I pick back up walking while toying with this new idea. I imagine the air molecules to be stationary and organized in a grid fashion. My hand becomes noticeably colder. That seemed much easier. Maybe I’m more adept at ice magic? No, I wasn’t concentrating on any element, I was concentrating on how the molecules moved.

I wander over to the side of the river and find a spot of relatively calm water where I take a knee and repeat the experiment. I place my hand palm down, and imagine the water molecules in a grid structure as I pump mana into it. That portion of water freezes over immediately. Hahaa! Success!

I imagine the gridded molecules of the ice to be moving much faster than I had before and the ice turns into steam. Alright, that’s pretty definitive. Maybe I won’t have to worry so much about the rain after all. I stand up and continue the walk following the river. What if I didn’t need to touch the water? I repeat the experiment but without bending down and a portion of the water turns to ice again.

Fantastic! No chant, no touching! Ooooo! It’s everything a boy could dream for! Now to get a handle on range. I stop walking and try it out on the spot where I had taken a knee, now several feet away. Success. Alright, how about water at the furthest point that I can see? Hmm….can’t tell if that was successful. Somewhere closer, then. That seems something like a hundred feet away. Oh, a white dot appeared. I jog up to it – success.

Okay, we’ve established that touch is not required and range is more or less line of sight. What about potency? How much of this river can I turn into ice? I imagine the entire river is made of the gridwork molecules and the river freezes over all the way to the other side and about the same distance away from me as my successful test. I step closer and examine the ice. It appears to be several inches thick but not frozen all the way to the bottom. Now that I think about it, I think water actively fights being completely frozen with pressure, so maybe I should consider this a success.

I did need to cross the river at some point and the water is only going to get faster the closer I get to the mountain so I decide to risk it and walk across my ice. No cracks form so my estimate on its thickness was accurate. Although I do tend to forget that I’m absolutely tiny right now. Maybe it didn’t really have to be so thick.

I imagine the entire ice slab that I’ve created to have super excited molecules and the slab almost explodes into steam. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely was not an explosion. The area is now filled with fog and a steady rain is pouring down on top of me. It somehow feels wrong for there to be fog and heavy rain, but I continue to put one foot in front of the other as I follow the river north and begin to ponder.

After a ways further the rain dies down a bit. Why has everyone been harping on enchanting for me if I can do regular magic?

Movement in the corner of my eye stops me cold in my tracks. Why is it so dark? When did the sun fully set? Right. I was supposed to be sneaking. I was so caught up in finding I could use magic that I was just casually strolling through the woods. I slowly turn my head to where I saw the movement.

Edge of the woods. Nothing there.

I don’t trust that. This is like when I know I’ve forgotten something but can’t remember what. My subconscious knows. And my subconscious saw movement. Come on Alvis, think.

Okay, I can do magic now. What do I need? I need a weapon. I need to be able to see. I need to know what I’m facing. How do I get these?

Freezing a distant object could likely stop whatever it is in its tracks. That can be my weapon. That weapon can’t work if I can’t see though. Line of sight requirement.

How do I create light? I made a brief amount of heat earlier by exciting the molecules. It wasn’t light, but maybe it’s a start. I’m right next to the woods, so there’s plenty of fuel nearby. I search around with my eyes in the dim gloom until I see a dead tree branch on the ground. Worth a shot.

The branch has a Y shape and is bowed upward in the center and away from the ground. I focus on the air just underneath the junction and imagine the molecules there to be super excited. This is taking longer than I’m comfortable with since the wood is wet but eventually the junction in the branch sparks up and flames lick up from the bottom of the junction.

With a fire now a lit, I try to take in my surroundings a little better. Shadows are now dancing wildly from the small flame making movement a bit harder to discern, but it’s more light than I had a moment ago. Just before I decide to move I see the shimmer of yellow eyes in the darkness. The moment I lock eyes with it I hear a hiss followed by what sounds like an angrier version of Thavim’s gravelly snore. The noise scares me a little and I jump.

That movement spurs the creature into charging at me. Once it enters into the light I can finally make out what it is moments before it reaches me. It’s a badger, only it’s huge! It’s the size of a large dog or maybe a small bear.

I try to imagine the molecules of blood flowing through the creature slowing down and forming into a grid as I pump out mana at an enormous rate. Blood doesn’t seem to organize as easily as water but it does slow the badger down. It’s no longer running but it is slowly walking until it finally stops moving altogether. I don’t stop attempting to turn it to ice for a while after it’s stopped moving though. I want to be sure that it isn’t going to suddenly warm up and attack me again.

Once I think that it’s at least mostly frozen I slowly circle around to the rear of it and poke it with my finger. I guess it was mid step when it froze because from just that poke it toppled over with a crash, its paws remained jutting forward from it until the moment of impact where they broke off. I can’t believe that worked! I mean, I didn’t really have any other options so I’m thoroughly grateful that it did, but still – that seems a bit overpowered, doesn’t it? Does that mean I can effectively kill anything with blood?

It didn’t act like normal ice. Curious as to how solid the badger is, I pick up the now burnt in half branch and hit the badger across it ribs and it shatters. I stand there slightly stunned in my amazement. Normally if something is frozen solid you would be hard pressed to break it with an ice pick – you know, a tool specialized for breaking ice into pieces. Perhaps my version of freezing things makes them colder than normal ice? Like say – more along the lines of what liquid nitrogen would do?

I’m starting to think that this would not be a skill to show off to many people. If they find out I can freeze and shatter others at will, I’m sure they will fear me. And maybe even hunt me. Well...I suppose they already are hunting me like that baldy cult from Thavim’s place.

I look around at the shattered fragments of the giant badger. I wonder if this is edible. I did leave without food, after all, and I doubt I will be gifted possible sustenance like this again in the future. Worth a shot. I gather up all of the dead wood I can find and make a small campfire on the edge of the river. I snap a few sticks until I get one that is reasonably sharp and then pick out pieces of frozen solid meat that are mostly void of fur.

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I thaw them a bit with my power before skewering them with the sharp stick and roasting it over the flame. I could have cooked it with my power but don’t feel I’ve a good handle on fine control just yet. As I’m roasted these badger bits, I mull over things I’ve just discovered about magic in general.

1. There is a range limit not just based on line of sight.

The river stopped freezing at at a set distance from me even though I could see further.

2. As long as mana is supplied with a visualization the magic will work.

If this is true, how come I’ve been fed this line about how people can only typically use one element? Actually, maybe that second point isn’t true. But how to test it, hmm. Oh, I know! Moving molecules with mana is technically telekinesis right? So does that mean I can move anything I pump mana into?

I look at a rock sitting on the ground next to the fire, imagine it floating and fill it with mana. It dutifully floats in place until I cut off the mana flow.

Alright, telekinesis confirmed. That feels a bit backward though; I moved molecules with magic before I had moved a simple rock. The molecules definitely required many times more concentration. I may have been going about this the wrong way. But also, if magic seems this easy to me now, how come I couldn’t figure it out before? Did that orichalcum ingot really teach me how to use mana? Knowing what mana flow feels like has definitely leveled up my abilities, of that there is no question, but to this degree?

I take a small tentative bite of the cooked meat. It surprisingly tastes pretty good, but I still don’t trust it. I remember reading in a scouts book when I was a child...well...the first time...that when trying new food in the wilderness, you should rub a bit on your skin and wait, then eat a little and wait, then eat more and wait. Since I’ve skipped the first step, I figure I might as well wait a bit this time and stab the handle of the kebab into the dirt.

Since I’ve a little time to kill, why don’t we find out if there’s a size limit to this telekinesis. I get up from the ground and walk down the river a bit to where I see a large boulder. By large, I mean it’s just slightly taller than me, but since I’m still rather short maybe that doesn’t mean much. I imagine the boulder floating and push mana into it. It surprisingly jostles a little bit so I push more mana to coax it into flying. This is feeling like the barn door theory of aerodynamics where if you put a large enough engine on anything – to include a barn door – it will fly. I was mildly obsessed with planes in my first childhood and that neat little tidbit has stuck with me through two worlds now.

So maybe I can make anything fly as long as I supply it enough mana. I stop concentrating on the boulder and it makes a large splash into the water as it drops because I’ve just made an astonishing discovery. If I can convince anything to fly with mana, this means that I can fly! Oh, I’m way too excited now. Wait, Alvis, stop. Stop and think.

If I’m going to use this to fly, how exactly would I do that? What portion of me do I imagine can fly? Clothes would probably just rip over time. Skin? Same issue. Muscles? Muscle tissue? I guess muscle tissue is what technically moves the bones but I’m worried about the muscles sloughing off because I applied too much power in one spot. Bones? Hmm...bones are kind of the body’s structural integrity. Wait, am I overthinking this again? What if I just imagine the obvious of ‘all of me’?

I do just that and imagine myself hovering a solid inch above the ground. Hmm...yeah, not working. I can’t feed mana into myself since it’s already here. Maybe I can feed it into an object and ride it though – like a broom! I look around in the dying light of the fire as it dwindles. No broom here though. Riding a broom actually seems like it would be kind of painful. Aren’t they rather thin? Maybe I can find a thicker branch to use in the morning.

My stomach doesn’t seem upset from my nibble of badger meat so maybe it will be alright to finish eating it. I reclaim my kebab and take another bite of the meat. It’s a little dry but I overcooked it a bit to make absolutely sure there was nothing that would harm me. I’m after sustenance with this meal, not flavor, and this honestly did seem less dangerous than trying random berries that I could find.

I sit down and ponder my magic again. If size and mass are not an issue so long as an adequate amount of mana is supplied...can I even manipulate photons? I imagine a vertical knife blade in front of my face that repels the photons emitted by the embers as they travel toward my eyes. Almost immediately the embers seem to go out. I stop feeding the imaginary knife blade mana and the embers spring back to life. An Idea forms in my head. A wonderful, brilliant idea!

I walk over to where there’s a tree and place the tree directly between myself and the embers. I repeat the experiment from before with a slight variation – I imagine the shape of a plane wing encompassing the trunk of the tree for as high up and as low down as I can see. Immediately the embers are visible through the tree. I look up and down the height of the tree to find that the portion above me and below me are still visible just slightly blurred, as if someone used a smear tool trying to edit the image out. I walk to the side of the tree without dispelling and inspect there. The tree is visible, but in complete shadow.

I walk back to the embers and sit down against a tree, allowing the spell to die out and muse on my findings. That makes sense, I guess. The tree was invisible to me on the far side because I was specifically redirecting the photons from the fire directly into my eyes. But once I moved from that spot, the image of the tree in my eyes was no longer being overwritten. Had I adjusted the spell to follow me, the middle portion of that tree could have stayed invisible. The bottom where it touched the ground is problematic. I may have to use it in conjunction with flying. Wait a second, can I even use two spells at once?

I repeat the experiment of repelling the embers photons while I attempt to make the rock float. Nope. One spell at a time, I guess. Perhaps this is something that could be overcome with enchanting after all?

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I wake up shivering and slumped against a tree. I must have fell asleep at some point. I feel kind of stupid for that. The ground is littered with the remains of an animal I killed, I cooked it here, and then slept in the same exact spot. I’m lucky the cold woke me and not another predator. No amount of power can save a fool from himself.

A thick blanket of fog rises from the river and laps at the edges of the forest. I decide to, if nothing else, put distance between myself and this particular location immediately and begin walking north following the river. I’m constantly on the lookout for a larger tree branch, one that I wouldn’t feel terribly uncomfortable riding on for a long period of time. A good ways from where I started, I finally find one. It’s at least as thick as my thighs so it should provide more comfort than something as thin as my seven year old forearms. I gotta stop saying ‘year old’ in my head and switch to the ‘seven winter’ thing the locals do. Need to get better at blending in.

I drag the large, still damp branch, out from the edge of the forest and lay it down in front of me. Don’t want it under trees in case things go wrong. I imagine it floating at seat height, which it dutifully does. Applying my weight to it only needs slightly more mana. Successful so far. I imagine it moving and it begins a slow glide forward. Gradually I increase the speed until I start worrying about the impact should I fall.

I decide to move the flying branch to the middle of the river. In case things go wrong, falling into water at high speed is much less likely to be fatal than land. Again I gradually pick up speed. As the morning progressed, the fog from the river slowly rose to block out all sight of anything but the river, so I feel a bit more secure at traveling along at blistering speeds. I’m hoping to at least cut a few days travel off my time before the fog clears out.

After a few hours I come to where the river exits the forest. The fog is starting to thin out as well, so it’s probably for the best that I stop regardless. The terrain has been getting steeper for a while so I’m pretty hopeful that I’m close. I think I’ve either underestimated my travel speed or overestimated the distance because once I leave the forest I can already see the entrance to the mountain off in the distance! Still too far to see if there are guards and a line, but still! I’ve turned a weeks trek into a pleasant morning flight! I’ve gotta figure out how to perfect the invisibility so I can use this more often. Oh, and figure out how to enchant to use multiple spells. Oh right, and that whole reading thing. Maybe the tutors Thavim set up are still available.

I spend the next couple of hours walking towards the entrance. I’ve been brainstorming how to fix the invisibility issue and I think I’ve found a solution though am hesitant to try it out in the open. I’ll need to test it on something else so I can inspect it before I’m willing to use it to hide from others. The problem with the tree version was that it was only accounting for one direction. But a circle has 360 degrees, right? I just need to account for many more directions. 360 is probably too mana intensive, so I may have to test out different amounts to see what the minimum viability is. Eight, twelve, sixteen, thirty-two...since the spell is directional, eight would only cover four sides and would probably show gaps. Top and bottom aren’t even accounted for in this model, this is just something to walk around with. I continue in this vein for quite a while.

Once I finally reach the line to the entrance, I remember another problem. I’m still a child. What guard is going to listen to the words of a child to send another guard to fetch the head of a smith to come talk with them at the gate on the far side of the city?

I suppose there is the option of sneaking past. No one really gives you a second glance once you’re past the entrance, so the two guards are really my only obstacle. Those that are clearly dwarves can seemingly come and go unquestioned by the guards. And though I’m of a similar build to the dwarves, if a little small, I still can’t pass myself off as them. Guess that leaves magic and timing.

I can currently turn myself invisible to one persons eyes. The new spell might work for multiples but I’d rather not test it here and have it fail. So I guess I’ll just keep allowing people to pass me in line until I find someone that is very clearly not dwarven. That should make the second guard rush off to find the party the non-dwarves are here to meet.

It takes another hour, but eventually a group of humans show up. They look like stereotypical adventurers: bow, sword and board, staff. Does this world have an adventurers guild? Can I be an adventurer? The humans are briefly questioned by the guards but are ultimately let in. What gives? They were supposed to be my ticket through the gate.

I begin the waiting game again allowing everyone in line to pass me while I try to pretend that I’m still in line just not in a hurry. It took another few hours before someone fitting my needs came along. It was a human man and woman. They spoke to the guards briefly before he motioned for them to step off to the side and then the second guard disappeared inside the gate.

Now’s my chance. I wait until someone tall crosses in front of me and activate my invisibility and point it directly at the sole remaining guard. Now I just need to walk natural and with the flow of traffic. Everyone else can still see me, so as long as I don’t do anything suspicious in their eyes I should be in the clear. I keep an extra sharp focus on making sure the spell stays active and pointed directly at that guard as I pass quietly by him next to a group of dwarves that look like they’re returning from a hunt. The guard doesn’t bat an eye at the group and the group seems too fatigued to care about me so everyone proceeds smoothly through the gate. Fantastic!

Once I’m around the first bend I let the spell dissipate and slow down a bit to not walk so close to that group. They were going a little fast for my ‘seven winter’ pace anyway. I cross into the city proper and start making my way toward Thavim’s house. It, once again, does take an astoundingly long time to cross the entire city – longer still that I’m not able to ride on my fathers shoulders.

I finally reach his house and knock on the door. No answer. He seemed the type to work late at the forge so I’m not terribly surprised. I’ve already probably broken a few laws getting into the city, what’s a little breaking and entering among friends anyway, right? I try the door – locked, of course. I remember what the lock looked like from the other side of the door though, and visualize it turning. I flood the keyhole with mana and hear the satisfying ‘click’ of the door unlocking. I note that I could probably be a pretty successful burglar. I’ll save that as a backup plan in case the whole world turns against me though.

I step inside, close the door, and relock it. I then proceed to the oddly comfortable stone couch and sit down to rest. It may have been a shorter trip than I had planned, but it was still extremely tiring. Maybe I’ll just rest my eyes until Thavim comes home.