Nick looked up, taking in the glory of the noonday sun shining through the windows of his luxury safe room. He had already finished his morning exercises, including some throwing and sword practice, then made himself a hearty breakfast.
Now he was ready to move on to his major goals for the day; performing one final experiment, then deciding how to spend his last tutorial knowledge points. Once that was out of the way, all that was left was his final preparations, including revising his various strategies and plans based on what he learned today.
First on the list was another experiment with his mana darts. One that was considerably more dangerous than anything else he had tried. It was something that he had been tempted to do for some time now. But performing this test hadn’t been practical until he was holed up in a safe space with his elixir of restoration ready to drink.
Today, Nick was going to shoot himself with his own mana dart. While he had some reservations regarding the wisdom of this venture, he had concluded that he needed to know what taking the hit felt like if he wanted to incorporate the spell into his plans as effectively as possible.
So far, the pain that the spell inflicted had been the most useful component of its effects, but there were other, subtle aspects that he wanted to investigate as well. Although a small voice inside was whispering that this was a bad idea, his gaming instincts were certain that a single dart wouldn’t be enough to severely injure him, even with his new Force Adept trait amping the output of the spell.
After all, he hadn’t been able to kill anything bigger than a butterfly with his darts so far, even after shooting an injured beast two or three times. In order to fully appreciate what it could do, Nick needed to know how much the dart hurt and for how long, as well as whether the spell had other effects that weren’t immediately obvious. He had already learned that the darts had little lasting impact on living tissue, which made sense, since the spell’s description stated that it directly attacked its target’s vital energy.
Thus, after setting his flask down on the table beside him, Nick settled into his chair, took a deep breath, and conjured a single mana dart into existence. This time around, he wanted to see if he could modify the ability’s output in any way. In this case, by trying to infuse the spell with as little mana as possible, his first time attempting to influence the shaping of a dart. After visualizing what he was trying to accomplish as clearly as he could, Nick gathered his will and began.
He watched as the dart winked into existence and started orbiting his head. He wasn’t certain, but he thought that this manifestation was a little smaller and a bit dimmer than the ones created by the spell’s default configuration, which Nick took to be a promising sign. When he had more time to spare, he would run more tests to measure the difference between their mana costs.
He realized that he was stalling by means of speculating, so he banished all other thoughts from his mind and prepared himself as best he could, bracing himself against the pain to come. After taking a few deep breaths, he set the trajectory of the dart and willed it to fire, aiming for the meaty part of his left thigh.
There was a moment of hesitation, as if the spell was asking Nick if he really wanted to shoot himself after all. After confirming his intentions, the silvery missile seemed to shrug and lurched forth, making the short journey from his head to his leg before sinking into his flesh and vanishing without a trace.
What followed was the third most painful experience of his life, ranking just behind the time Trell had impaled him with his sword and when the bonecruncher’s jaws had savaged the flesh above his knee. His world turned white as the dart’s magic ran rampant throughout his body before dispersing a few seconds later.
Letting loose a primal shriek of agony, Nick put everything he had into pushing past the pain without passing out. His body spasmed violently, nearly throwing him out of his chair and onto the floor, every inch of his skin aflame, as if his leg had been dipped in molten lava.
Blind to the tears that were streaming down his cheeks, he ruthlessly suppressed the nearly overwhelming urge to slam the elixir as fast as he could, intent on riding out the pain to see how long it would endure.
His vision came back online almost instantly, and his limbs ceased convulsing five seconds later. The incandescent pain lambasted him at full blast for another five seconds after that, then gradually dissipated over the next minute. Nick took a deep, shuddering breath, then let out a grateful sigh of relief. It was weird to have gone from hurting so badly to feeling nothing at all in such a short span of time. At least the worst was finally over.
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Note to self, the darts hurt like a motherfucker. That instant of blindness will come in handy too, if I can manage to get the timing right. He wiped the tears from his face with a towel, then kept right on wiping after realizing that he had broken out into a cold sweat over his entire body. When he was done cleaning himself off, he slid his left leg out of his coveralls to inspect the damage to his tissue.
The flesh where the dart had impacted was red and slightly swollen. Nick’s skin was lightly scorched, but not badly enough to blister, and the hairs on his leg were singed. When he went to put his clothes back on, he noticed that the denim of his boilersuit was completely unaffected by the dart passing through. It wasn’t even warm to the touch. The darts dissipate rapidly when passing through nonliving material, but a thin layer of cloth isn’t enough to disrupt their payload.
Although he was sorely tempted, rather than drinking his elixir right away, he sat back down in his chair, breathed deep, and sent his awareness inside his body. He still had one component left that he wanted to examine. This was the first time that Nick had knowingly lost health, the vital energy governing the body’s natural regenerative properties, and he wanted to see if he could feel any difference now that some was missing.
As he tuned in to the sensations of his body, the first thing that he noticed was that his mana was lower than it had been after casting the spell. Not by a lot, but enough to feel the difference. He was glad to see that he was slowly learning how to sense the mana within his core, although it took intense focus, and his impression was murky and vague.
He decided that he felt a little worn out as well. It might just be a byproduct of the painful experience he had endured, but Nick had a hunch that the real reason was that he had lost some stamina too. The modest hits to his mana and stamina made sense, now that he thought about it. After all, the spell’s description said that his darts directly damaged the target’s vital energies, not only their health.
This observation was intriguing on any number of levels, but it wasn’t what he was hoping to learn right now; how to sense the pool of health circulating throughout his body. Seconds turned into minutes as Nick deepened his concentration, until the better part of an hour had passed.
He was about to give up when he felt something new. A pulsating surge, like a backbeat to the rhythm of his heart. A warm and vital flow of something Nick had never felt before. Somehow, he could tell that this mysterious flow was a little weaker than it should be. That the embrace of the energy supporting his body could be just a tiny bit more uplifting.
The experience endured for only the ghost of a moment. But that was enough to put a smile on his face. Health. That’s what my health feels like. Although it was only on the most primitive, transitory level, Nick had now experienced all three vital energies listed by the System: stamina, health, and mana. Satisfied with his findings, he officially concluded the day’s testing.
He picked up his flask, popped the cap, and then quaffed the elixir inside. He began to feel better immediately, and by the time a minute had passed, Nick could no longer tell that he had been shot by the dart at all. Even the red circle on his leg had healed, although he was still missing a dart-shaped patch of hair.
He nodded in satisfaction, immensely pleased by the results of his experiment, glad that he had taken the risk. Not only had he become intimately familiar with the effects of his mana dart, he had also made significant progress on what he suspected was a foundational step to walking the paths of power, sensing the vital energies inside his body.
It was important that he learned how to sense the state of his various energetic reserves, which was critical on a tactical level. But that wasn’t the main reason he felt driven to gain this faculty. Nick had come to believe over the last few weeks that progressing with his spells and combat abilities past a rudimentary level would require consciously manipulating the vital energies within his body. It was something that he would continue to work on over the days ahead. Now that he had cleared the first hurdle, he suspected that his sensitivity would increase over time.
When he went to check the display, Nick learned that his experiment had paid off in other ways as well, one that he hadn’t been expecting.
You have deepened your connection to the mana within your body and improved the following baseline attribute:
Magic has increased from [2] to [3].
Hell yes! Nick had been trying for some time now to increase his baseline magic, the only critical attribute he had yet to improve until now. He wasn’t sure which part of his experiment had resulted in the change, or if it was the cumulative result of his attempts to sense his core, but he had a hunch that blasting himself with more darts wouldn’t help him progress any further.
Now that he had shot himself with his own spell, he was ready to move on to his other key goal of the day. Spending his final tutorial knowledge points as wisely as possible, then using that information to refine his plans.