Lucius stood in the center of the dark forest, feeling the cool night air flow over his skin each time the breeze picked up. It was close to midnight now, and the noise of the insects this deep in the forest was like a melody playing on repeat in the background. The damp leaves on the ground beneath his feet squished as he adjusted his posture, taking a deep breath of the musky air.
"So, how come I have to be in Mythification to control your power anyway? Didn't you say this power was a part of me and that I could command and dismiss it as I see fit?"
The tiny head of the bat rose from the shadows on a tree trunk beside Lucius, popping out horizontally as Whisper responded.
"You would be able to, Father, if you had spent even a single attribute point in Magic Power. Instead, you’re fully reliant on the Magic Power gained from Mythification in order to manipulate the shadows."
"But... what about my ring? It adds five points to all attributes. That includes Magic Power."
"If you had no arms or legs, would adding points to Dexterity be of any benefit? Right now, those five points of boosted Magic Power from your ring are completely wasted. Until you add at least one point of natural Magic Power for it to enhance, it's useless."
Lucius rubbed his chin for a moment before releasing his Mythification. The darkness of the forest came crashing in around him before he realized his mistake and quickly focused his mind to reactivate the night vision part of his transformation on its own. It was the first time he had attempted such a thing, and it took a few frustrating minutes of standing awkwardly in the darkness before the familiar glow reappeared in the depths of the young man’s eyes.
"What are you doing?"
After Lucius dismissed the transformation, Whisper reappeared in his full form on the ground nearby. The tiny creature looked up at him with a confused expression on its face. Lucius ignored Whisper's confusion as he pulled up his status window.
Strength 40(45) Vitality 25(30) Dexterity 40(45) Intelligence 5(15) Creativity 6(16) Luck 1(6) Stamina 22(25) Magic Power 0(5) Magic Resist 6(11) ... ... Free Attribute 1
"I was checking, and just like I thought—I still have one free attribute point from my last level. Now that I know I'm wasting the benefits of my ring, I refuse allow that to continue. Beside, adding to Magical Power should also increase your ability to control shadows during mythification, so there is no reason for me not to do it."
Lucius wasted no time allocating the free attribute. It should have been a simple matter since he was only adding one point, but he had already forgotten about the ring on his finger—just waiting to hypercharge his magical power the moment it had something to work with.
As Lucius added the point, he felt a pulse of warmth, much like when he added points to Vitality, but this time it came rippling out from his the center of his chest, just below his lungs, rather than rising through his whole body like it did with Vitality.
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The pulse of warmth started off gentle but grew increasingly intense as needle-like burning sensations spread throughout his body. Thankfully, it wasn’t any worse than the feeling when blood flow is cut off from a limb for a few minutes—it was like all the parts of his body had "fallen asleep" simultaneously. Lucius shifted his weight back and forth uncomfortably, slapping and massaging his numb body for the next few minutes until the sensation passed.
Once the unpleasantness subsided, Lucius immediately noticed that his perception was different. He had always been able to feel the magic power emanating from his items, but only in the same way someone who doesn’t speak English can still hear the words—what he felt was just a meaningless pressure to his senses. Now, however, it felt as if Lucius had learned the language of magic, or been granted another sensory organ to absorb and interpret the data.
He could feel and differentiate the magic in his various items and was beginning to slowly grasp how that magic interacted with his body and the environment around him. The earth mana within his armor had the most distinctive feeling—completely different from the magic in his other items—while the magic power contained in his ring was by far the most intense, like a happy little ball of sunlight compressed over and over again into a small space.
Lucius' eyes shot open as he glanced toward Whisper and felt an incredible strange web of magic spreading from the creature, interacting with the multitude of shadows surrounding them. Now Lucius could tell how unique the magic that made of Whisper's power truly was. When Lucius looked down at his own body, he noticed that the same web of unique magic was connecting to the area in his chest where his own Magic Power had been generated, though the connection was much weaker than the ones connected to Whisper.
"Good! Now you have access to my power all on your own!", Whisper clenched his tiny winged hands as a grin spread across his rodent like face, "Though you won’t be able to control them as well as I can—not even with Mythification. At least for a while anyway. Let’s get started."
Whisper flew around Lucius a few times before landing in front of his feet, motioning toward the ground with his wings.
"Sit down."
Lucius did as he was instructed, crossing his legs as he lowered himself to the ground. As soon as he did, a rope of shadow rose from the floor like a snake, floating in the air in front of his eyes.
“Focus your mind and attempt to wrest this shadow from my grasp. This is how we will exercise and enhance your control.”
Lucius nodded as he focused on the snakelike shadow swimming through the air before him. When he reached out with his mind toward the shadow, it suddenly danced away from him as Whisper waved his wings back and forth in frustration.
“Stop it! You’re using telekinesis—don’t do that. You need to focus on the connection in your chest, not on the power of your mind.”
Lucius took a deep breath and reset his focus. He had become so accustomed to using telekinesis whenever he concentrated that he did it without thinking. Now, with Whisper's rebuke in mind, he forced himself to avoid that instinct, concentrating instead on the feeling of the ethereal connection in his chest.
After a few minutes, Lucius began to sense that the connection wasn't as immaterial as it had seemed. Instead, it began to feel like an additional limb—one he had simply never realized was there. Once he thought of it that way, the process became much smoother. Within a few minutes, the snake-like shadow halted its lazy swimming and slowly floated toward him.
“You’ve done it! Very good!”
Lucius squinted, a look of satisfaction crossing his face at his achievement. But Whisper’s next words quickly washed away any pride he was feeling.
“You’ve learned to crawl, but you’re still a helpless baby. Your Magic Power output is too low, and you’re not going to be binding any powerful creatures with such weakly controlled shadows. Try again—this time, I’ll offer you more resistance.”
Lucius let out another breath as the shadow returned to its starting position. This time, it swam through the air a bit faster, and Lucius could tell without even trying that persuading it to obey him would be more difficult.
Reaching out once again through the connection in his chest, Lucius tried to pull the shadow toward him. He watched as it twitched for a moment before continuing its previous path through the air. Lucius’ brows furrowed as he tried and failed repeatedly, his teeth clenching tightly as he mustered all the effort he could.
After an hour of effort, the best he managed was to move the shadow a few inches toward him. He had a sneaking suspicion that Whisper was silently raising the difficulty again and again. Additionally, the area in his chest where his Magic Power emanated from was growing increasingly sore, and his ability to influence the shadows was starting to get weaker with each attempt.
On the plus side, all his efforts had earned him a welcome message from the system.
Through effort, you have gained +1 to the Magic Power attribute.