For several long moments, Zan waited and tried to sense any effects that might be starting.

He felt nothing. And for a long while longer, he tried to imagine any effects that might take hold, but it was difficult to think what they might be.

Would he suddenly be able to cast magic like his mentor? Would threads of energy become visible in his mind's eye, and become so obvious that he would laugh at the sheer ease of shaping the universe to his will? Would he become telepathic?...

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He did notice a slight headache starting to take hold just then - a minor throbbing somewhere in the core of his brain.

Then the pain surged into a sharp intensity that seized his entire head.

He tensed up and shouted out, grabbing at his head as if trying to hold his skull together. And yet the pain continued to scale up higher and higher ...

He thought he might explode in a sudden surge of mental and magical energy as his thoughts seemed to melt away ...

And for the briefest moment he thought he saw some script inexplicably blaze across his vision, like a spectral page from one of his study tomes - but then the mental energy surged exponentially in intensity, and the agony caused him to black out.