>><>---<><|CHAPTER 2|><>---<><<

<<>>|INSPECTION|<<>>

After further inspection of the room, Kane found a few more choice items.

Inside of the chest he found a set of clothing consisting of linen pants, a shirt, leather and brass belt, some wooden shoes, clogs he believed they were called, and a thick gray robe with many pockets lining it on the inside. There was even a stereotypical wizard hat of the same soft material as the robe! All of the clothing looked to be in surprisingly good condition.

Besides the clothing he found more items such as a small sack of colored glass beads, (and possibly even gems, though Kane was no expert on the matter,) an honest to God wand, carved to look like a long claw with a leather handle, and a jar filled with some kind of cloudy fluid. He swore he saw something else in there but decided to leave it be.

On the bookshelves he found, well, books. None of them had the same odd transcript like the Guide To Magic had so none of them were useful to him. On the floor by the bed, he found a knife, albeit rusty and completely useless. This didn’t prevent him from pocketing it though, he had no idea what could be behind that door.

After he finished searching the room, all that was left was to see what was on the other side of the ancient looking door. He carefully gripped the handle, rusty and caked with dust, and pulled. The door resisted with all its might, croaking and groaning like a falling tree, but eventually gave way.

Kane was blasted with cold as soon as the door opened. Blankets of snow covering everything he could see. He could see a tree line in the distance, and only a few dozen feet away he could see what looked to be a village with stone and wood homes, homes that looked to be abandoned for many years. The sun was thankfully the one to illuminate this and not his phone.

‘What the hell happened here?’ He thought between cold shudders and shakes.

If he wanted any answers, he was going to have to leave, and if he wanted to leave, he needed something to keep him from freezing.

He took some of his work clothes and replaced them with what he found in the chest as they looked to be far better at keeping the cold at bay. The robes helped the most, and the hat was mostly for flair, though he did find it quite comfortable. While he was at it, he decided to take a few more items such as the bag of beads, the odd metal triangles, wand, clogs, an empty notebook from one of the shelves, and the Guide To Magic. It's not like there was anyone who owned these now, was there?

The Guide interested him the most, but the logical part of his mind berated his whimsical side by telling him that magic wasn’t real and the book was only a waste of space. His whimsical side, equally logical though in different ways, reminded it that he was transported to a completely alien location and that the book had a language that Kane could read but had never seen before. The logical side stayed silent.

Still slightly chilly, but far warmer than he had been earlier, Kane trudged through the snow, the crunching of it being the only sound around other than the slight howl of the wind.

Kane could not see any obvious paths in the town and chocked it up to the snow covering it. True to what he thought the place was completely abandoned, not a single soul occupied the area other than him. There weren't many buildings, with there only being a hundred or so.

Windows were smashed, doors off their hinges, and roofs were caved in. He doubted anyone had lived here for at least two decades Kane thought.

He gazed upward, noting there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The sun hung smack dab in the middle of the sky, marking it as being mid-day. He had a good amount of time before nightfall.

His mind drifted back to the book he had in one of his robe pockets, the one that he had been trying to ignore as best as he could for the time being but ultimately failed in the end.

‘Magic...’ He thought. There was no way, right? Magic isn’t real, it was the stuff of stories, movies, and games. Magic was known specifically for not being real.

Yet here he was. Somewhere where he couldn’t possibly be, walking around an abandoned town dressed in wizard robes, holding a wordless book that told him that it could teach him magic.

Kane gripped it in his hands, staring at the leather that made up its shell, wanting nothing more than to crack it open and feed on its knowledge like an otter to an oyster. But the small part of his brain, ever present and forever nihilistic, told him that it was junk, that it was nothing more than a trick in order to make him waste his time. What was that time supposed to be used for? It didn’t matter nor did it care, it made him waste his time, and for that it meant it was useless and he should just drop it into a ditch where it belonged.

With practiced ease Kane easily shoved this voice away and sat on one of the steps leading to a collapsed house, ready to begin.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Kane had dreamed of magic since he was a child, slinging fireballs and calling down lightning upon his foes, it was something he always loved fantasizing about. Now that he was given the slightest possibility that he could do what he could only dream of? It set him into an absolute fervor.

Opening the first page, he was first given an introduction. Trying not to pay too much attention to how exactly he was reading this, he focused on what he was being told.

Magic was categorized as ‘Anything needing Mana, Aura, Divine Power, or Spell String in order to function for its intended purpose.’. The first three he was somewhat familiar with, but Spell String was totally foreign to him. He continued.

Apparently, according to the book, one needed a ‘Particularly sensitive soul or Aura,’ in order to be able to use magic. He panicked slightly when he saw this, thinking that his dreams may have been stripped from him in nothing but a moment, but was relieved when he was told that if he was able to read this book (which he now knew was written in ‘Magescript, or informally known as Allspeak,’) he was qualified to be able to use magic.

The next page gave him some relatively important details.

‘In order to create spells, one must use their Aura to shape their Mana into what they desire. Think of Aura like a muscle. You create larger, more complex spells consistently to train your Aura to be able to create larger or more complex spells than you could before. Because Mana is stored in your Aura, one must train their Aura in order to increase its size, and therefore the amount of Mana you can hold at once. Aura itself can also be used to power spells, but it is not recommended as it can cause Aether Fatigue.

When creating spells, unaltered Mana and Aura is not enough. You must use your Aura to ‘Spin’ your Mana into what is known as Spell String. If Aura is muscle, then think of Spell String as the bones of your spell. You create a frame for your intended spell to hold itself together with and prevent it from collapsing or, even worse, exploding right in your face. If you are having trouble with creating a frame for your spell, try taking some pointers from the physical world such as making boxes to hold or store, points and cones for intended areas of impact, and so on.

When your frame is finished, it is time to move on to the final part. If Aura is muscle, and Spell String is bone, then Mana would be the brain, what makes the spell function at all and do what you want it to do. Place your Mana into where it should be on the Spell Frame and push your intent into where you need it. If you are creating, say, a firebolt spell, one would think of heat, flame, propulsion, and impact. When looking over your finished spell, you should be able to feel what intent is where if done right.’

There was more, but compared to what Kane had just read they didn’t feel as important, mostly just small pointers and such, with the exception of one thing.

‘If you are having trouble with sensing your Mana or controlling your Aura, there is a simple exercise that can be used to help aspiring mages with their work. First, take a small, flammable material, a candle wick would be best if available. Next, hold your hands over it, as if you are heating your hands over a fire, then, take a deep breath and focus on the feeling of heat as much as you can, try your best not to think of anything else. Finally, try and constantly ‘Push’ that feeling of heat into the material. Eventually, the material should be set alight. Do this repeatedly until your control and sense of Mana are strong enough to move onto more complex practices.’

If anything, this was probably one of the most important things in the book as he had no idea how he would know what Aura or Mana felt like or how to use it.

The next few pages consisted of small, simple tutorials on basic spells such as creating a small light or creating a shower of sparks.

Before practicing any spell craft though, he would need to learn how to control Mana and Aura. So, he got up and quickly sought out a twig free from any moisture and eventually found one under a stone in the rubble of an old home.

Placing it on a flat stone, Kane sat with his legs crossed on the snow and quickly began the process. His hands in place, he pushed his mind to the thoughts of heat and flame. He imagined himself with his hands over a burning candle, hovering just outside the range of burning himself. The warmth of the sun on a steaming hot summer’s day. Boiling water in preparation of making a meal. A roaring campfire used to roast marshmallows. A warm, freshly made pizza.

‘What I would give for some pasta right now.

No! Shut up and focus you idiot!’

Berating himself for already losing focus, he straightened himself and tried again.

He imagined a small sun at the palms of his hands, radiating heat. Its glow brilliant and its flame hot. He imagined this sun’s heat getting more intense with every second. He focused as much as he could on the heat that could be, a glowing fire that could be born if he focused just a little harder.

When it felt as hot as he could make it, Kane took a deep, mindless breath, and pushed the heat into the twig. Like a smith’s bellows, he repeated this over and over. Air in, heat out. Air in. Heat out. Air in, heat out...

The aspiring mage had no clue how long he had sat there, nor did he pay that time any mind. All that existed for him at the moment was the fire in his mind and the flame that could be.

After one final push, something changed. The heat began to feel more real, and before he even opened his eyes, he was already aware of something. He could feel something not only rippling on his skin but throughout his whole body. Swaying, shifting, and dancing, like a roaring fire and the ocean’s tides all in one. He was so utterly confused on how he was so blind before. Even with closed eyes it felt like he could see. He knew there was a fire on that twig like how he knew he had ten fingers and toes. He took a breath and it felt like he was breathing for the first time in his life.

He opened his eyes. The sun was lower in the sky, late afternoon he knew from how the sun was just touching the horizon. He peered down to the twig, its light browns turning into whites and blacks from the fire it held.

Kane stood and held the book in front of him, at a complete loss for words.

Magic was real. Something he had always dreamed of was now possible.

He sighed.

He would be lying if he said he knew what he was feeling at the moment.