It was Charles’ third day in the apartment and he was beginning to get bored, he had tried to sleep through the first day but was unable to so instead he picked up his old hobby of making masks. Now shortly after finishing his 22nd mask he was incredibly bored, he probably should have wasted more time by sleeping. Charles let out a massive groan and started looking at his masks, some were epoxy some were wood and a very small portion of them were metal. Then suddenly Charles remembered his gifts, maybe he could play with the to pass the time. He sat down and started looking for his mana, it was a little tough because he didn’t even know what he was looking for but his absurd magic control pulled him through. He felt warm energy collected in a ball inside of his head right next to an organ he recognised as the center of his magic control. Smiling he tried a classic first test for magic forming a ball above his palm, his mana flowed easily through his body but the moment he pushed it out of his skin it fell out of his control and he couldn’t get it back.

“What the hell?”

When he asked that question a little number one appeared floating above his wrist, it reminded him a little of a notification system in vr and so he flicked his wrist to try and open any menu that the notification belonged to. A small transparent screen opened up on his wrist, the page it was open too was titled Gifts, it was a list of his gifts a little more fleshed out than the versions he gave to the man. Judging from the list, it appeared that for every three gifts that you receive you get a negative. In exchange for his peak mortal magic control, the ability to turn anything he draws into a rune as long as he puts meaning into it and his inventory that was almost infinite, he is completely unable to control mana outside of his body if it’s not going into a rune.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

A little sad Charles moved on, his inventory was easy to access and almost infinite just as advertised, Charles took a break from assessing his own abilities to stock his inventory with everything he could think of before learning that anything he hadn't processed whille there would not be taken with him through the inventory. Charles cursed, stupid magic screen at least let him dream, the only thing he would be able to take was all the shitty masks he made.

Charles had an idea, he could turn anything into a rune by adding his mana and meaning so he could turn his masks into runes. He picked up one of his masks, it was carved out of wood and looked like a woman crying, channeling his mana he found that as long as he focused on making the rune it was just as easy to control as inside his body, just as advertised. He imbued it with memories of all of the funerals he had been to, his grandparents, his best friends mother, any memory of group sadness went in the mix. He kept channeling the magic and circling it inside of the mask even as he started crying the memories seemingly fresher than before. The mask shined lightly and settled leaving the carved tear on the cheek of the mask shining blue, a little notification appeared on his wrist and Charles went to check it.

The menu told him he had crafted a mask of the grieving family, a magical mask that when worn caused all who saw it to be hit with extreme sadness, temporarily disabling them. Charles smilled if one of his shit masks could become this powerful imagine what he could do if he crafted a mask from the get go intending to make a rune.

Before Charles could get to it there was a sound of a door opening, rushing Charles shoved all 22 of his masks into his inventory, and prayed that whoever was coming was coming to send him to his new home. Wanda came through the doorway and beckoned him over.

“Your planet has been chosen and a suitable vessel obtained, come right this way and you’ll be sent right there. Just a little tip though, magic on the planet strengthens by repeatedly emptying your capacity even though you can’t control it outside your body I recommend shooting it out to increase your power ”

Charles smiled and immediately leapt into the white void excited to finally get out of the apartment.