Bob was a wizard. His otherworldly power consisted in being just about able to sense a ball of mud in his right hand with his eyes closed. The stuff legends are made of. But even Gandalf must have started off somewhere.

Bob enjoyed imagining the wizard struggling to conjure sparks from his staff, growing winded and red in the face, before finally throwing his hat on the ground and stamping on the thing. Besides Bob was motivated by higher purposes than merely saving the world or defeating some age-old evil lord; Bob was motivated by an overwhelming desire to be badass. A true force of nature.

Bob had felt something. He was high-confidence. Definitely. Maybe. He was a wizard’s apprentice no mistake, hopefully. Why are feelings so vague and amorphous? Of course, the sensation must have been blunted by the noise and blare of his traditional senses. Too many bright lights drown out the faint trickle of star light.

As much as possible, he needed to isolate his mud-perception. So he returned the mud ball to its mud patch. Holding a thing in one’s hand was to be bombarded by an endless stream of information: tactile sensational, heat exchange, weight perception, on and on. Next he covered his ears, blocking out even the gentle sounds of the morning plain. The smell, thankfully, he’d long since grown used to and no longer consciously perceived. Finally, he shut his eyes.

The world was dark, quiet, without sensation. He noticed his breathing, cool air flowing in and warmer air rolling out. He noticed half-a-dozen little tensions. His shoulders were tight, his neck rolled forward, his forehead wrinkled. He let everything slip away, one slow breath at a time. He was calm. He was floating in emptiness. He stretched out for the mud on the ground in front of him.

He felt something. Probably. Maybe. It was just the feeling didn’t seem to come from in front of him (where the mud was). Instead Bob thought he felt something all around him, something dancing and playful. Was he just imagining things? Bob opened his eyes and let the world seep back in. He started looking for the source of that sensation. But there was nothing about him, the green plains, the muddy grass, the rise of distant hills, a breeze meandering through and catching in the lines of his cloak. Nothing. He was just imagining things.

Not good Bob. Had he been sure he sensed something earlier? Confident certainly. Convinced well not quite.

"Bob, I hate to tell you this. But I'm afraid you might just have been imagining things."

"I'm not a wizard?"

"No Harry, I'm most sorry, but there's been some kind of mistake. You'll have to go back to the Dursleys and live like an ordinary boy, alright? Cheerio."

Bob sighed and let his chin sink down against his elbow. He navigated to the "Skills" subtab and pulled up the description of mud manipulation:

> Skill: Mud Manipulation (Authority)

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> Feel the Mud, Young Puddler.

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> Effect: Grants unbounded authority over all forms of mud

That was not particular helpful. System humor got old fast. He read through the message again. He supposedly had unbounded authority over all forms of mud. Bob tapped his chin as he tried to puzzle his way through the problem. He had authority over the mud. So why was the mud ball being so incorporative? He had the authority. It should obey his word like the word of god.

Maybe he needed to give clearer instructions. Yeah that must be it. He fixed the little mud ball with a searing stare and commanded out loud: "Rise mud ball." Naturally, the mud stayed exactly where it was. That wasn't terribly shocking. But it was a little disappointing. Bob tilted his head, glaring at the offending mud ball. Calm down Bob. There must be a simple explanation. Maybe his wording was too general. Try something more specific.

Bob spent a couple seconds coming up with something appropriately targeted and then ordered in his most regal tones: "You, mud ball, two feet in front of me by the grass clump, rise slowly six inches off the ground and hover there." You couldn't be clearer than that. And yet, and yet, to the misfortune of all glorious rulers, Bob's muddy subjects refused to obey.

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What was he missing? Bob didn't doubt for a moment the system's ability to grant magical powers to its candidates. He only had to look around at what had happened to his local, downtown neighborhood, now a sweeping grassland, to confirm that the system had mind-boggling powers. No, he definitely was a magician. Somehow he was approaching the problem the wrong.

How could he communicate his will to the mud? Verbal commands did not seem to be effective. He guessed the mud ball hadn't learned English in school. Maybe he needed something more abstract and universal. The only thing Bob could think of was a mental image. He constructed in his mind a deliciously vivid image of said mud ball floating in the air. That was the desired outcome. He did his best to make the image as detailed and concrete as possible. Then he tried to beam the image at the mud ball.

Bob didn't have much experience beaming images. And there was no feedback mechanism. He had no idea if the image was being transmitted. The results were painfully obvious: there wasn't a peep out of Mr Mud-ball. Bob cycled through a couple different beaming strategies. These mainly consisted in alternated head position and angle. How many ways were there to think something at an object?

Had he been unlucky in his choice of mud ball? Was this mud ball some anti-authoritarian lout that willfully ignored the commands of his mud majesty? Maybe authority didn't mean power as such. A subject could certainly disobey the word of his king. A subject could even betray and murder his king. The mud ball might not recognize him as its master?

Well Bob knew how to solve that. Bob picked up the mud ball and threw it in the distance. Sayonara sucker. He collected up another handful of mud and sculpted it lovingly into a spherical shape. This new mud sphere, Mrs Mud-sphere if you will, he set up it in the same spot and patted on the head, whispering "your mud king cares for you very much." Ok this mud sphere surely adored Bob and would listen to his instructions.

From the top now. Bob wanted to be exhaustive in his tests so he started off with verbal commands: "Please, dearest mud sphere, sculpted by my own hands, standing nobly a foot in front of my person, gradually lift yourself up into the air, to a height of six inches and remain there floating."

Alas courtesy is just as ineffective as tyranny. Nobody wants to do what they're told. Next came Bob's beaming attempts. But no matter how many times he blasted the mud sphere with a picture of his desired end state, nothing happened.

Bob was grinding his teeth together at this point. Magic was supposed to be fun, wasn't it? It didn't feel fun. It felt frustrating. Bob you're only a fledging mud magician at this point. The mud's too far away.

Very well. Bob lay down on the ground and touched his forehead against the mud sphere. Perfect. No more informational leakage when image beaming. He concentrated, squeezing his forehead and trying to push the image of a floating mud ball out of his skull. The mud ball trembled. "Yes!" Oh... he'd just accidentally knocked into it with his head.

Bob jumped up and started cursing and spitting. "Damn system, with its stupid magic and unexplained rules." Bob had never read a single novel where the hero was utterly unable to use any his powers. It was absurd, just flat-out ridiculous. What was he supposed to do? "This'll make for bad fiction," Bob shook his fist at the sky, "bad fiction I say." Bob paced back and forth, practicing his French.

Calm down Bob, calm down. This must just be the nature of system skills. They don't work like video game magic. Point and click and boom! Ah yes the point-click-boom mechanism. System magic required more up-front investment. You had to train, practice, develop your senses. Bob would have just to stick at it and fight his way up the sharper side of the learning curve. No matter how much it felt like a Sisyphean slope.

That was both bad and good. Because if Bob couldn't use his magic, then odds on no one else could either. And yes it sucked to have a magical skill and not be able to use it in the slightest, but Bob's skill was mud manipulation and other sentients might have got significantly more lethal abilities. He might not have gotten the worse end of the stick.

This line of reasoning made Bob feel a little better. He was powerless. But so was everyone else. Consequence: he should be relatively safe for the near future. It would take enemy mages a long while before they could blast out fire-balls or chain electric-bolts. Bob had nothing to worry about.

That was the moment Bob was suddenly knocked to the ground. A warm, wet, furry creature was in the midst of eating him alive. “Good morning George.” Bob's loud cursing must have roused the dog from his slumber. Bob pulled himself back up and returned the dog’s excited greeting.

“You’re a late riser today, huh? Guess I can’t blame you after the whole initiation shitshow. I think I’d have died on my feet if I didn’t get a little nap halfway through.”

George wasn’t listening though. Bob’s mud ball had attracted the dog’s attention. George approached nose first, sniffed, frowned, staggered back with an offended and unhappy air (it wasn’t that bad was it?), steadied himself, took in a great breath of air and... spat out a column of red fire.

Bob jumped back, wide-eyed and spluttering. Mrs Mud-sphere? George cheerfully patted down the black smear, all that was left of Bob’s erstwhile subject, before sidling up to Bob to show off his black paw.

Bob examined the black smear that had once been the delightful Mrs Mud-sphere. She didn't look herself somehow. Had she been ill? Bob gave the dog some mumbling praise and grudgingly stroked his head (best not to get on the bad side of a fire-breathing golden retriever), all the while quietly muttering the words: un-fucking-believable again and again in sort of half-prayer-half-curse. Nothing ever works out as we expect.