[A.N. This chapter was edited (July 13, 2016) for better readability and flow. Some of the information that was originally in this chapter was removed, and will be put back in when it becomes more relevant (specifically the political and economic details of the races), as I felt it was excessive and unnecessary at this point in time. Also named some things that weren’t named before, like mountain ranges.]
Chapter 6
I wake up an hour or two before dawn, and begin to meditate and try and sense mana. Last night, I had tried to make a plan but I realized I didn’t know enough about this world to decide any long term plans. Short term though, I have a few goals.
One, kill Lord Endos and try to protect Albert and his family. I’ve come to like Albert, and over time begun to consider him kith. I will definitely fulfill my promise to him to kill Lord Endos, but I am also going to try my damnedest to reunite him with his family. Unfortunately, I may have some trouble doing so if he shows up in a few days, unless a miracle happens.
Second, learn some skills. Pretty obvious, I know, but it is still important enough to go on the list. The main skills I want are magic and alchemy right now. Fighting is also there, but I don’t know what I can do with my physical stats being so low. Albert is more of a scholar than a fighter, and since I inherited his physical attributes I will need to fix them somehow. Autumn had mentioned that she can teach me fighting as I was thinking this last night, so we planned to try it out later today after History 101 with professor Albert and see what Autumn’s opinion on my fighting style is. So not looking forward to that, I know it is going to be bad since most other games I played had activated abilities and Exile Online has a glaring lack of those.
Third is to get more enchantments. My enchantment abilities are going to be central to my power later so I want to get as much of a head start on that as I can. Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do on this one at this point, since Albert doesn’t have any more stuff. Beyond those three, well, I am still in the tutorial so it can wait, I think. Not much use in worrying about it now, especially not when I have so much else to work and focus on.
So, back to meditating. From Albert’s explanation last night, I should probably focus my mind, clear my thoughts, and try to feel the energy around me, or something. But! And it’s an important but! I remembered last night that my body is partially made of mana. This means that I should hypothetically be able to try to look through my body to find anything that feels different from my regular body, and that difference will, in theory, be mana. If it doesn’t work, then I will go back to the mystic mumbo jumbo and do it that way.
So I start focusing on my body. I try to feel my body and it just all of a sudden lights up like a perfect diagram in my senses. I don’t know if it is a feature of the game or if it’s because I’m a homunculus, but that took way less time than I was expecting. Now I can feel my lungs fill with air, my heart beat, the blood rushing through my veins. I can feel my muscles expand and contract as they move and my tendons as they extend and retract. I can even feel the signals being sent between my nerves, and the electrical pulses in my brain. Shit, I am getting a huge migraine and it’s getting worse. I think I am overloading on sensory information. Stop, stop, stop!
Well, it’s a better idea than any I got and this migraine is bad enough now that even thinking is just hard and painful. I do as she said, just letting the information wash by me. I just relax as best I can and try to go zen and stop thinking. I can feel an immediate slight improvement, so I keep at it. Some time passes, I don’t know how much, I obviously wasn’t keeping track. The whole not thinking thing and all. But, I eventually got to the point where all those extra senses fell to the background and faded away. I still know the information, but I can’t actively feel it anymore so it must be being filtered by my subconscious. Now that I’m no longer in danger of being overloaded, I shift my attention to Autumn.
I can feel Autumn’s focus and worry, so I try and send her some more reassurance. I try to calm my mind again and it takes a bit but I finally calm down. Once I find my zen, I try to look for the mana in my body. I keep looking and looking for what feels like a few hours when I finally find it. I feel like an idiot for not finding it earlier because in hindsight it was very obvious. I am MADE of mana, it isn’t just in my body, it IS my body. Once I looked deeper into my muscles I began to notice that they were saturated in something, which I originally thought was blood. But then I looked at my blood and noticed that it was saturated in the same thing. Turns out that my mana is literally glue that holds my body together, and my mana pool isn’t a specific spot in my body, but is actually the oversaturation of mana in every cell in my body.
I got excited by my success and, like an fool, immediately try to manipulate it. It hurt. A lot. I think I may have screamed a bit from the pain. Autumn was definitely not happy about my, er…experiment. As I thought about what happened, I came up with the possible cause being that I tried to move ALL of my mana, including the glue stuff. Yeah, ripping my body apart is not one of my better ideas. Trying to move only the oversaturated mana worked like a charm, and I can feel it flowing into my hand. I want to try that light spell that Albert showed me, but I’m not sure how to make it, well, light-y instead of mana-y. As I am thinking of how to do this, I hear a knock on the door.
Albert: Tobias! Are you alright in there?
He opens the door and looks in with a worried face.
Me: Yeah, I am now. I was meditating and I found my mana, but when I attempted to manipulate it I accidently tried to move the mana that is binding my body as well.
He takes this in with a shocked impression on his face. Ha! Shocked Albert, another achievement unlocked! (20% progress towards achievement [Struck Like Lightning!]. Not really)
Albert: You found your mana?! Already?! I was expecting that to take at least a week or two, not your first try. Hmmm, I guess I will start teaching you how to manipulate it later today, although it is a fairly straightforward concept, just takes a lot of practice. Anyway, now that you are up, I am ready to begin teaching you about the world we live in. Come down to the table.
I follow him out of my room and downstairs to the table. He motions me to my usual seat and as I sit down, I look at the map he has on the table.
[A.N. I have a map sort of sketched out on paper, and I will be trying to make a nicer copy to post up. When it is done I will post it as its own chapter, with just the map and any annotations I feel are needed. I will have it up before the end of the tutorial arc, which we are currently in. Until then feel free to ask in the comments if you have a question about the map.]
When I get settled Albert takes a deep breath and begins.
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Our world has three continents, Northland in the north, Eastland in the east, and Darkland in the south. In between Northland and Eastland is a stretch of sea named the Broken Sea, due to the large number of islands in it. Perpendicular to the Broken Sea is the Leviathan Sea, and it separates Northland and Eastland from Darkland. There have been some sea expeditions in the past to try and find any other continents. However, all ended in failure and most people have given up on the idea by now.
There are seven major races in the world; humans, elves, dwarves, merfolk, beast-kin, demons, and celestial. There are also many other minor races that exist. This includes the monster races like orcs, goblins, and kobolds, as well as more neutral and friendly races like dryads in Sel’Merilyn and draconian in the mountains. I personally haven’t travelled far, so my knowledge about the other races is mainly through books and hearsay. We will start with humans, since you will mainly be dealing with them when you leave.
Humans are one of the most populous races, only the demons come close in population. We are also a versatile and adaptable race, taking up the largest amount of land of any of the races. Human lands span almost the entirety of the western and southern areas of Northland, and are separated into four kingdoms; Salem, Andlen, Morghal, and Carrendin.
First, the kingdom we are in is the Salem Kingdom. It claims the southwestern coast of Northland, and mainly contains plains and rolling hills with scattered forests. The people of Salem are light skinned, and have colorful natural hair and eye colors due to the higher density of mana. It isn’t unusual to see some greens, purples and blues for hair, and the entire color spectrum for eyes. I personally am a little odd with my normal black hair and green eyes in comparison. Our kingdom is ruled by a hereditary mage king or queen, and currently Grand Magus Merlin holds the throne. Salem is well known for its magic, including both people and items. Most villages have a magician of some sort and cities usually have magician guilds. The capital of Salem is Camelot, in the center of the kingdom and about four days travel east of here.
To the north of us is Andlen, which takes up the western coast line and stretches to the elven forest in the far north. They are also fair skinned, but with more usual hair colors like browns, reds, and blacks and blue, green, and brown eyes. Their kingdom controls a good amount of mines and quarries, so aside from the dwarves they provide a large amount of metal and stone goods. They are also the foremost alchemists and artificers, but lacking any major magical aptitude within their population. They have a hereditary king, currently King Joseph III, who rules with a council of advisors made of prominent nobility. Their environment and climate are very similar to Salem, the only difference is their forests are a more prevalent and their hills less numerous.
To Andlen’s east, and our northeast, is Morghal. Morghal is bordered on their north by the elven lands, and their east by a mountain range, called the Darkroot Mountaints. Morghal is mainly made of plains, with very few forests or hills except for closer to the mountains. Its people have dark tan skin, with dark hair and eye colors. The Morghal kingdom is a kingdom of warriors, where strength is the greatest virtue. Their king is chosen by rite of challenge, and the strongest warrior is the one who holds the throne. The current leader is King Zackman, but that may change anytime due to the nature of the position. Morghal also has the most farmlands of any human kingdom, and produces most of the food that is traded around, aside from the elven lands.
The last human kingdom is on the southeastern coast of Northland, and is the kingdom of Carrendin. Carrendin is populated by people with features of all the human populations, and is considered a big mixing pot of heritages. This is mainly due in part to the extensive ports they maintain and the trade that runs through the kingdom. Their land is mainly arid savannah and ill-suited to extensive farming so they rely on their fishing industries and trade for the majority of their food. Carrendin is ruled by a council, which is theoretically ruled by a merchant king. However, the council goes through enormous amounts of intrigue and infighting and the kings are either assassinated quickly or the puppets of one faction or another.
Unfortunately, humans are somewhat xenophobic as a whole, and generally discriminate against other races. Populous cities are usually more open minded due to trade, but most small villages and towns will chase out non humans. This, coupled with the policies of other races, has led to the formation of roving bands of nomads and gypsies, who are predominately half breeds of one form or another. They roam the human lands trying to make a living off the land and through trade. Unfortunately, their lives are usually dangerous since they tend to be accosted by bandits and slavers.
Elves live to the north of the human lands, in a great forest named Sel’Merilyn, and usually have lithe bodies and long pointed ears, as well as an aura of grace. They live in scattered cities they call “enclaves” and are ruled by a “Grand Enclave” from their capital of Mar’Doryl. There are three types of elves, high elves, wood elves, and moon elves. Elves have a high affinity for magic, with each sub race having its own specialty, although this doesn’t prevent them from branching out into the other specialties. High elves are experts at arcane magic, and they are the premier wizards and magicians of the elven people. The wood elves are attuned to nature magic and I have never heard of a better druid than a wood elf druid. The moon elves specialize in divine magic, and are the priests and priestesses of the elven people.
The dwarves live on both Northland and Eastland, in their mountain cities which they call “Forgehomes.” They have stout, short bodies, and have clan tattoos on their face and beards on the males. They are also the finest metal and stone workers of any of the races. One of the interesting aspects of the dwarves is that their Forgehomes are within the bounds of another people’s lands, albeit in the mountain ranges. There are two Forgehomes in human lands, MacDurnadin which is in the Darkroot Mountains. The other is in the Skyreach Mountains, on the border between the kingdoms of Salem and Carrendin, and is named Anvilmet. The last Forgehome, Stonehearth, is in the beast-kins’ territory in the southeastern mountain range called the Spine.
Beast-kin live on the southern half of Eastland, and their society revolves around tribes made of specific beast types. The beast-kin tribes also have varying abilities and attributes based on what beast they are a hybrid of. They are generally a free-spirited people, prone to combat and fighting. They are almost always at war with the demons on the north half of their continent.
Demons live on the northern half of Eastland, and are somewhat of an enigma to other races. The closest approximation of their government style would be a theocracy, and they worship the Council of Sin. Their appearances vary drastically from demon to demon, and there seems to be no common factors aside from a general dark appearance. They tend to be radical and unrestrained in their actions, causing them to either have skewed morals or no morals altogether. This fact causes most other races to be wary of them, with the beast-kin at war with them due to the demons frequent raids on beast-kin territory.
The celestials are an enigma for another reason, which is their extreme isolation. They are a winged race capable of flight, and live on two flying island cities that migrate between Northland and Eastland. We know they serve the gods and goddesses, and we know they are mortal enemies of the demons. Aside from that, they mainly keep to themselves.
The final race is the merfolk, who live in the waters between the Foul Lands and the demon lands a little northeast of the Broken Sea. They are another race that greatly varies between individuals, with some looking like finned blue humans to having the body of a human with the lower half of a sea creature and covered in fins and scales. All merfolk are adept swimmers regardless of body type and all can breathe underwater. They are slowly expanding into the broken sea and have a small colony in the large inland sea in the center of Eastland called the Middle Sea.
Those are just the main races. There are many other minor races that exist. This includes the monster races like orcs, goblins, and kobolds, as well as more neutral and friendly races like dryads in Sel’Merilyn and draconian in the mountains. Most of the major races leave the neutral and friendly minor races alone, but in human lands they are basically treated the same as half breeds.
The southern continent is called Darkland. It is mainly unexplored, and is one of the prominent locations for adventurers to go to find their fortune. There are ruins and dungeons filled with dangerous monsters and rich treasures for the strong and prepared to find. If you find yourself looking for new enchantments, I would recommend going to Darkland once you gain some experience, as you would likely find new and powerful artifacts in the dungeons there.
On a side note, the Saul Empire at its peak controlled the lands that are now Carrendin, Salem, Morghal, the Darkroot Mountains, and a little bit of the Foul Lands.
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Albert finally stops long enough to take a breath and drink some water. I have been following along with his explanation using the map, and so far it seems the world is fairly large.
Me: Albert, what are the Foul lands? You mentioned them but never explained it.
Albert: Oh, did I? Sorry about that. The Foul Lands are the area beyond the Darkroot Mountains and north of the Sea of Sand, a desert north of Carrendin. They are filled with tribes of monsters and various minor races, and almost all of them are hostile to other races. There are a few dungeons in the area, as well as some places with valuable resources. The reason most of those resources are unclaimed is because the monsters breed incredibly fast and there always seems to be more, no matter how many subjugation teams we send in.
Albert: Morghal is a prominent staging point and supplier for subjugation teams. The adventurer’s guild has their headquarters in Morghal as well, at least the human headquarters. The adventurer’s guild is a group of people similar to mercenaries, but where mercenaries will hire out as security details or as supplementary troops in an army, adventurers will accept jobs of all sorts, from gathering herbs to joining subjugation teams in search of rare resources or treasures.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Me: What are dungeons?
Albert: Dungeons are another one of those mysteries. We know what they do, but not how they work. A dungeon is basically a regenerating monster den to use simple words. Dungeons are filled with monsters, resources, and treasures and the dungeon absorbs mana in order to replenish them if they are killed or taken. Be careful if you go into a dungeon, because they will try to absorb your mana. But how a dungeon absorbs mana and creates creatures and objects, or why they exist at all, are not known.
Me: So magicians are useless in dungeons?
Albert: No, there are methods of shielding your mana from outside manipulation that I will teach you once you practice some more with mana manipulation. Considering what you are, mana shielding spells are going to be something you want active all the time.
Me: Got it. So after I kill Lord Endos, is it safe for me to stay in Salem?
Albert: Yes and no. Legally, yes. You are safe from persecution if you were to kill Lord Endos, as he is still wanted by the Grand Magus. They may even give you a reward. The reason I say no is because of what you are. There are no laws protecting the rights of sentient constructs as they are incredibly rare, so you as a homunculus would have little protection against, say, some researcher abducting you to study you. If you want to stay here, you would need to work very hard to learn how to disguise your mana, or find an enchantment that would protect you from scrying or detection or some such. Although now that I think about it, if you were to be rewarded by the Grand Magus you may be able to ask for such protection, so that may be an idea to keep in mind.
He stands up and starts moving into the kitchen.
Albert: Now, it is time for me to get lunch, I’ll let you work your way through all the information and get to your practicing. Oh, and with manipulating mana. In order to change mana into some sort of attuned mana, you simply need to “imprint” it with the idea of the element. For example, if you wanted to attune mana to fire, you would need to imprint the “essence” of fire. The heat of fire, the light it provides, how fire both consumes and burns. Then you need to mold it into the effect you want. In the beginning you will probably only be able to do simple spells, but with practice you will be able to do spells with complex conditions or operations, and with multiple variables. So for right now, focus on simple, and elements you are familiar with, like light, fire, water, earth, air, and shadow. Things you encounter every day. Don’t go trying any of the more esoteric or unusual elements until you are more adept. Make sure you manipulate mana outside of your body. Don’t go summoning fire inside your body or something like that. Oh, and you can keep that map with you.
Me: Alright, I will be outside practicing then. Thanks for the map!
Albert nods at me and waves me out. I grab the map and put it in my pocket dimension then head outside, eager to begin practicing magic.
I do as she says, sitting down and meditating to clear my mind. Focusing on the feeling of home and following the connection to my soul home only took a few seconds, and then the world blacks out around me and my library fades into existence. I am standing on the black stone circle in the middle of the first floor, and Autumn is standing at the edge of the circle.
Me: So are we just going to spar here?
She giggles at me.
Autumn: No, we will spar in there.
She points behind me. When I turn around I see a door there that I haven’t seen before. I think it took the place of one of my windows.
Me: Where did that door come from?
Autumn: Where do you think my soul home went? Everyone has one; it is just that most people don’t realize they are there. When we bonded my soul home became attached to yours, just as our souls are now connected. Come on, let’s get started.
She dashes forward, grabs my arm, and drags me over to the door. She pulls it open and in we go. Wow, this is cool. It looks like one of those Japanese martial arts dojos, but it is huge. It looks like it is the same size as one of those earth gym rooms that hold swimming pools, with a longer length than width. All along the walls are weapon racks with every type of weapon imaginable with a few tables with what look to be special or unique weapons. I can see archery targets on the far small wall and practice dummies on the small wall near us.
Me: Wow.
Autumn: You like?
She asks with a smirk.
Me: Yup. This is cool.
She giggles again.
Autumn: Alright, so I think the first thing to do is to see what you know. You can pick any weapons you like, then we spar for a minute or two, then we will move on to another weapon. We will do this until you have gone through all the weapons you have used before, and any weapons that I think may suit you after seeing how you fight. Don’t hold back here, this body is just an avatar of you that your mind creates. Any injuries you take will hurt, but will heal automatically.
This is going to be an un-fun experience. I know how sloppy my weapons styles are without using in game abilities. Might as well get it over with. I go and grab a long sword with a hand and a half grip as Autumn goes and grabs a replica of her sword, Autumn’s Song. We move to a clear spot on the floor and begin. After just a few seconds I can already tell just how much better at weapon fighting Autumn is than I am. I can’t even get close to her and she always seems to find all the holes in my defenses. And she isn’t holding back on the injuries either. This hurts like hell. After a minute she calls out.
Autumn: Halt!
I stop and step back, groaning a bit at the residual pain. She gives me a searching look.
Autumn: Hmmm. Next weapon.
I put up the sword and grab a spear. We keep sparring with all the weapons I have ever used. Knives, swords, shields, greatswords, spears, axes, hammers, maces, staves. I have at one point or another used almost all of the common types of fantasy weapons and I sparred with Autumn using all of them. She even had me shoot a bow and throw knives and axes at the archery targets from varying distances. After two hours or sparring I was beat, and hurting all over. Autumn finally calls an end and we sit facing each other in the center of the floor.
Autumn: Your fighting style is…peculiar. Your transitions between forms and moves are expert, but the moves themselves are awful. Your use of the shield, and your dodging, are also very good. Where did you learn this?
Me: Well that is going to be somewhat complicated to explain. You remember that I am from a different world right?
Autumn: Yes, and your soul was taken from the afterlife and put in a homunculus.
Me: Right. Well, in my old world we had the capability of creating…other worlds, so to speak. People were then able to create avatars on those worlds, and experience them as if they lived there, while still allowing them to leave and return to the real world. That is where I learned all of my fighting. I never fought on the real world. The reason for what you noticed is that in a lot of those worlds, the creators were able to, um, grant knowledge to the avatar itself in the form of things called abilities. A user would then be able to activate the ability and the avatar would perform the ability without the user really knowing the knowledge or having the skill.
Autumn: That is bizarre, but I think I understand now. So to attack you would use one of these abilities and the avatar would perform it, but you would have to set your own patterns and transitions. And I am assuming from your skill in blocking and dodging that these were not abilities that the avatars had?
Me: Yeah, that sums it up well.
Autumn: Hmmm. This will be difficult in some ways and easy in others. Did you notice where your strengths and weaknesses were when it came to weapon choices?
Me: I wasn’t strong enough to handle a lot of the larger weapons, and even some of the medium sized weapons, like I was used too.
Autumn: Indeed. I assume this is because your current body is significantly different from your avatars. Your body is significantly more dexterous than it is strong. In addition, you seemed to focus heavily on skill and strategy rather than brute force. Hmmm. I think that you should foremost learn unarmed martial arts. This will mesh well with your abilities and enchantments in addition to being available in the case of being weaponless. Additionally I think a sword style focusing on speed and precision will work well with you. A sword would give you the capabilities to stand face to face with other weapons users and are a good weapon to choose when fighting against monsters, which I imagine that we will be doing fairly frequently.
Damn, I am SO glad that Autumn is with me. She is crazy smart and helpful in addition to being a weapons master. I can easily see how the ruling family of the Saul Empire allowed her to stay around until she got old. I definitely will make sure I take care of her as well as she takes care of me.
Me: That all sounds good, I will defer to your judgement in this. What do you want to start with? And when and how long should we train each day here?
Autumn: Well, time moves slower here than it does outside, with about a three to one ratio. So we could easily practice for a long period of time in here and only take up a little time out there. However, this is still “awake” time for you, so we should probably limit it to four hours here at the beginning. That will be a little over an hour outside and won’t strain you too much I think. We will do that for a few days and see how you do, and make changes as needed after that. For now, we will start with the martial arts since that is what you have the most enchantments for. Unarmed combat will serve you better in the beginning since until you travel to the Foul Lands, most of your opponents will be humanoids who will underestimate you for being weaponless.
She motions for me to rise and begins teaching me hand to hand combat. We go over some basic forms and moves, and practice those for the next two hours.
Autumn: Alright, that is enough for now. You are learning very quickly, I will have to adapt my training plans, especially since I can’t give you physical strengthening exercises. Hmmm. Ah well, something for me to think on. Time for you to practice magic.
We head back to my library.
Me: Yeah. Hey, I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, I probably thought it was obvious, but feel free to read any of the books in the library. The first two levels are all stories I have read in my world, the third is practical knowledge, and the fourth is stories about my time as an avatar in those created worlds.
She gives me a smile.
Autumn: Thank you. I didn’t want to presume or ask since most people who know about them are very protective and guarded about their soul homes.
Me: Oh, yeah, I imagine they would be. I didn’t even think of it that way, I still just treat this like it is my library and not my soul. Either way, the offer is still open. And thank you for sharing your soul home with me.
Her smile deepens and I can see a faint blush in her cheeks.
Autumn: You are welcome.
I give her a smile back and leave my soul home. Getting back to my body I check the sun, and it looks like Autumn was right about the time difference. A little over an hour has passed, so I have about 4 or 5 hours until evening. Time for some magic!
I ponder and contemplate what to start with and I finally decide on light. It is fairly easy to imagine and since it is a form of energy it shouldn’t be too hard to imprint it on mana which is already energy. Light also has the benefit of being hard to backfire with. I could blind myself sure, but I won’t be burning myself, drawing blood out of my body, or turning my arm to stone by accident. Having all my limbs intact is a nice feeling and I’d like to keep it. I start to meditate and focus on my mana. Once I get a good grasp on it, I shift it to the palm of my hand. Oh, wait. Do I manipulate the mana, and then form it? Or the other way around?
The second option would probably be a little safer. I take the mana in my hand and form it into a sphere floating a few inches above my hand. Or I would have if it worked. Turns out making my mana leave my body is a “bit” more challenging than I expected. I spend another two hours beating my head against the metaphorical wall before I figured it out. I had started to go a little crazy from failing too many times and decided that I had to cut my hand open to “LET THE MANA OUT” or something like that. Not exactly sure what my reasoning was at this point. Also, I have cool blood, it is red like normal but it is shiny and kind of glows. Anyways, one bleeding hand later, I had an epiphany. I technically DID need to bleed my mana out, I just didn’t have to literally bleed it out.
Turns out that my skin naturally creates a barrier to keep my mana in my body and in order to get my mana to leave my body I had to make the barrier porous. Then my mana would naturally flow out from my high mana density body to the comparatively low mana density area around me. Luckily enough, I could still feel and control my mana like normal once it was outside my body. After that, manipulating it to be light mana came pretty naturally. I just had to focus on the mana I wanted to change and “push” the idea of light into it and it became light mana. So aside from those two hours I will never speak of again, using magic is pretty easy and straight forward. Seems like all I need to do is have a clear idea of what I want the mana to do and keep focus on it until it is done. If I lose focus then the mana starts to dissipate and spread out into the area around me.
With some more experimentation I learned a few important things about spells. One, the effect lasts only as long as I keep feeding it mana and costs more mana the more potent the effect is. Two, the mana I release into the area around me is only under my control within a certain radius. Outside that area I lose control of it and it becomes absorbed by the environment. Third, Albert was right about doing the manipulation change outside of my body. Sudden fire mana inside my body is indeed very painful. The good side to this one is I learned how to do an arcane healing spell on myself by pushing the idea of healing into the mana in the damaged parts of my body. Lastly, doing things with mana inside my body is significantly easier than outside my body. Like using a quarter as much mana and almost no focus compared to doing things outside my body.
After a significant amount of testing, experimenting, and explaining to Autumn how I got hurt, I came out of my meditation and realized that the sun had set. Wow, those stars are beautiful. I wish I could take a screen shot or something. I activate night vision for the first time in order to make it back to the house. Once the enchantment takes effect, everything becomes visible from what looks like an ambient pale light. I can easily see shapes but the colors are in greyscale. I make it to the house and it looks like Albert already went to bed, so I must have been practicing for a lot longer than I originally thought. Well, I am pretty tired too so I go straight to bed and I will worry about my plans and research tomorrow.
[A.N. Woot! History 101 with Albert! If you have any questions about the world or anything else, feel free to ask in the comments. Thanks for reading!]