“To learn a spell is to create a pattern of mana channels inside your body which is the same as the one instilled by the crystal. The best way to do it is to overcharge your body”

Ok…

“ Every time you use a crystal for just a moment a pattern of mana channels open up to control the energy in your body. Right afterwards this pattern closes and you would have trouble emulating it. You can either use a crystal spell so many times that by reflex you could use it again even without crystal, or you can force it to open so strongly that it would take a while to restore the body to the previous state. In that window of time when the your channels are open, you must memorize the feeling in your body just enough so that you can activate it even without the crystal”

Quite easy for now, but how to overcharge? It cannot be that easy I imagine.

“Spells have already been created by people before you, so for all low magic it is quite cheap to use crystals. When you will become experienced wizards, you could start modifying spells or even create completely new ones. For now just know that it is something far in the future”

Well, I have already modified a spell. I created Tentacle starting from Slimification. Probably it doesn’t count much, because they were skills introduced by my class, rather something I learned by myself.

“Thus we get to the juicy part…the overcharging. The most important thing is to get a crystal able to resist for as long as possible to the flow of mana. The durability should be as high as you can get, so higher level crystals are recommended. Second thing is to get access to as much mana as possible. Your body is able to sustain the maximum level of mana you have, but adding some from the extern will put it under strain. More mana means more pain. Keep this in mind if you want to succeed. Being a successful wizard is painful”

That’s why women are so good at this. If they can go through child labor, they can certainly handle a few spells.

“Enough theory. Now I will show you how you do it in practice. First you set up an external source of mana either by asking for the help of other people, or by using mana crystals which have already been infused with mana. For now I will just hold this mana crystal in my hand, but there are other ways that can be more efficient, however you are not ready for those. Tomorrow I will explain how to infuse mana in a crystal.”

Damn! Explain now otherwise how can I overcharge myself without any. I don’t think I saw them displayed in any of the magic shops outside.

“Now that I have excess mana I can work on a crystal. I will be using one of the light crystals I had used before. I already know the spell, but the more you practice with one the easier it will get to use it. I could just work on it while holding it in my other hand, but it isn’t the most proficient way to go. Any little detail can greatly improve your efficiency. During the opening of the mana channels you will feel a lot of pain and you may risk losing control of your body and losing contact with the crystal. In the end the best way is to eat it”

Right after saying it Nertain opened his mouth and threw the crystal down his throat as if it was a normal pill. He stayed silent for twenty seconds and then he raised a hand. Suddenly light exploded from his body illuminating the room as if he was the sun descended on them. Zortex closed his eyes, turned around with the face covered by his hands and looking at the ground. He hadn’t felt so much distress since his first experience with light after leaving the sewers. His mind was completely out of focus and he had trouble connecting thoughts.

Next thing Zortex saw was the instructor looking at him. He was standing and Zortex was laying on the floor. The other students were nowhere to be found, so he had probably lost consciousness from that event.

Idiot Idiot Idiot! I had already trouble handling the light from the normal spell, so of course an overcharged one would be too much for me. I should have thought of that, but I let my guard down. Now I have an headache as if my brain was being ripped apart.

“I see you have woken up. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No I just want to sleep. Leave me alone”

In that instant Zortex froze. Without realizing it he had spoken to real person….or almost a real person considering that he was an NPC.

“Ok, good enough for me. But you cannot sleep here. Soon there will be another class and you cannot attend it until you pass the first test. Also you are not in your trial, so if you want to sleep here in the Tower you will have to pay and it will not be cheap”

Zortex just grunted and got up. He was feeling dizzy and the first few steps were quite unsteady, but after a minute he could almost move again as a normal person. He left the building and moved in the direction of one of his hideout. Now he had the money to afford a decent room in an inn, but he was feeling so tired that he didn’t want to deal with anyone. His mind felt as if he was drunk, so as he stood in front of the entrance of the abandoned building, it took him a minute to remember that he needed to slimify to enter through the wooden restrictions. Right afterward he crawled to the darkest corner of the ground floor and fell asleep without even eating anything beforehand.

Zortex’s sleep was flustered, so when he woke up again he still felt tired. At least the headache was gone, so he could think straight. First thing first, he obviously prepared himself a meal. With so much food at his disposal he had no qualms in eating more than he should had needed…much more. With the food also his mood became better, and considering that it was dark outside he decided to make a trip back to the tower. He already had a method to train with weapons, so now he wanted to get the recipe to train with magic. He understood the way to learn a spell, but he didn’t know how to make mana crystals. He also needed crystals with spells, as he only possessed ones for fire and ice. His class description said that he could learn only spells related to darkness or compatible with slimes.

“Status”

Name: Zortex Enark

Class: Shadow Slime Warrior

Level: 8

Stats:

Strength

20

Health

214(214) + 2.1/min

Endurance

16

Stamina

252(252) + 11.5/min

Agility

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

12

Mana

287(287) + 12/min

Spirit

27

Skill proficiency

Knife mastery

Level 4

Throwing mastery

Level 2

Slimification

Level 10

Slime summoning

-

Sonar

Level 5

Slime eating

Level 9

Mana control

Level 13

Spear Mastery

Level 1

Tentacle

Level 4

· Resistance to darkness: Every darkness attack will have 50% reduced effect on you. Increased vision at night.

· Weakness to fire: Every fire related attack will have 500% more effect on you.

· Weakness to light: Every light related attack will have 100% more effect on you.

· Slime muscles: Small resistance to some physical attacks

· You will not be able to choose any spell or skill unrelated to slimes or darkness.

Remember that you can always discover new skills. Combining skills you already have or by using them in creative ways new skills can be created.

It was a pity that his range of spells was limited from the beginning, but most mages, after the first few low ranked spells, decided to specialize only on one category. It was not so different from what he could do.

His steps brought him back to the wizard tower. His confidence was much higher now. Even if by mistake, he had talked with an NPC, so he could do it again…hopefully. The guards recognized him from the day before and let him in without questioning. The previous times, Zortex avoided to talk to the person at the reception and preferred to just snoop around listening to the other people conversations to orient himself and understand how things worked. This time he stopped at the reception and looked at the person sitting there, busy with some papers. Luckily for him it was a man, otherwise he didn’t know what he would have done if it was a woman. The NPC looked up at him smiling and said:

“Hello Sir. How may I help you?”

“Basic….Magic…low” Zortex was able to say. His back was sweating and he felt dizzy again, but he was able to do it. He spoke again. That was another great victory.

The receptionist looked weirdly at him for a couple of seconds. Zortex had still his intimidating looks with all the bandages and even thought he was able to speak, it was barely more than a whispering mumble. Nevertheless the guy was able to understand him and picked up a piece of paper and handled it to Zortex who picked it up from the desk.

“That is the schedule of classes for the Rank 1 courses. On the left you find the level of the course and the name. In the center it his written the teacher and on the right there is the time when it begins. The next ‘Low basic magic course’ will begin in around two hours in room M1.07. Please be punctual otherwise you will be left outside”

“Thank…you” Zortex mumbled again and left.

Zortex found himself a nice dark corner and sat down looking at the sheet. Nertain next lesson was scheduled for next afternoon. If possible Zortex wanted to continue with him, but he had missed the last part of that first lesson, so he had to get it somewhere else. He would follow the course starting in two hours and also the next one from Nertain.

In the time waiting, Zortex kept himself busy training his Sonar and Slimification skills. He was still incompetent in Sonar, and could not get any use out of it, but he was getting better little by little. Also his Status showed that he had increased it by one level.

At the right time he was in front of the door waiting for the teacher to arrive. There were ten students with him, a bit less than before, probably because it was night. A couple of guys went to him trying to start a conversation, but he flatly ignored them. The teacher name was Bhaner in the sheet. Zortex thought it was a man name, but it turned out to be a female teacher. She was old and had a raspy voice, white hair on her scalp and big round nose. Still she exuded the aura of a powerful individual, much more than Nertian.

The lesson proceeded much like the one he had already followed before, and he had just to repeat everything the same. Luckily for him Bhaner changed tactic at the right moment. Instead of showing off the way to learn a spell, she explained the best way to charge the mana crystals. It was actually very easy. For inexperienced people the best procedure was to cut themselves and put a normal crystal in the wound. That way you could form a sort of connection between the crystal and yourself and you could pour your mana into it. The same way it took to connect with an item. In that case the crystal just worked as an intermediate, or as a catalyst, for the connection to happen. In such a case the mana of the crystal could be used only by the person who made such crystal. The other problem is that the crystal is not a perfect container, thus it will slowly leak some mana. A person could not prepare an indefinite amount of crystals for himself, because after a day or two the mana would have completely disappeared. Obviously the stronger the crystal, the longer it can resist and the more mana you can put inside. Money always win.

At higher levels of mana comprehension a mage could even transfer his mana into a crystal without the use of blood. In that case there would be no connection between the creator and the mana, so the crystal could be used by anyone. There was still the problem of the leakage, so no one could really sell such items.

Bhaner gave a raw crystal to every student and had them try the procedure. Of course when she arrived at Zortex she asked for the money for the crystal, but he simply took out one of his own without saying anything. Afterwards he cut the palm of his hand and holding the crystal he filled it with mana. He noticed that after poring 147 units of mana the crystal just stopped filling and any new infusion would just disperse. Apparently that was its limit. The procedure was super easy for him, but some of the other students had trouble with it, and could not fill it. By now I have more experience than normal noobs Zortex thought. After ten minutes the teacher called to a stop even for the people who didn’t succeed yet, since the lesson had to proceed.

Bhaner started to explain the procedure to learn a new spell, also using a light crystal like Nertian. Zortex was prepared this time. He put on his eyes all the bandages he had, until he could see nothing at all, he turned on the opposite side from the teacher, covered his eyes with his hands and looked at the ground. The spell passed by without him realizing about it, thanks to so many precaution he had taken.

For last she listed some of the most common spells noobs should start to learn. There were the basic fire dart, wind slash, ice bolt, electric shock, stone shard etc. All were forbidden to Zortex, so if he needed them he would have to use through a crystal. There were also blessings, such as low healing or cure poison. Still uavailable for Zortex.

Of all these basic spells two caught Zortex’s attention. The first one was a curse named ‘Blind’ and the second was ‘Acidic Shot’. Curses, such as Blind, were available to him, thanks to his Darkness attribute given by his class. He had already an idea on how to use Blind. Acidic Shot also evoked some memories in him. When he got his Shadow Slime Warrior class he was given the opportunity to choose an extra skill. At the time he chose Sonar over Acidic Shot. He had always doubted if he had made the right choice, but now he knew that he had. For sure he had complicated his life, since to this day he still couldn’t use Sonar, but right now he had already again the opportunity to learn Acidic Shot while Sonar remained something unknown.

The teacher finished the lesson telling everyone to train making mana crystals. Once they were really good at that they should start trying to learn new spells. About where to find the spells, she told them to go to the library. Zortex already found super easy to fill the mana in the crystals, so he decided to not waste any time on that. He wanted to go directly to library. It was time to learn new spells.