Maiz felt like he was in a dream. The only thing keeping him from pinching himself was the fact that he was being ripped off.

“That is all, then?”

“Yes, Jin’Teslin.”

The seated Master smiled, looking up from the paper she’d been writing on. The expression really did suit her quite well. Bringing out the brightness of her eyes in a way that complemented the shade of her skin and hair. Still, Maiz wondered how the Master of a combat title ended up becoming a glorified librarian. It seemed that she enjoyed her work, but it had to be somewhat disappointing, considering the level of work and ability that went into becoming a Master.

“Excellent! I will be checking this information against our stores then. If anything is unique, I shall present you with your prize when we next meet. Until then, you are free to look through the library. Everything is catalogued in the first room--bookcases are numbered from the front to the back of the library, then left to right. You may look at any information, but nothing may leave, and any damage will be punished by death ”

Maiz suddenly felt less sorry for the woman. She had given her instructions in a rapid, but clearly intelligible mode of speech that Maiz somehow found rather intimidating. Her words, especially the last bit, were even more so. She spoke with absolute confidence, and Maiz had no doubt that she could easily follow through on the threat. He bowed, clenching sweaty hands. There was a stir of air, and when he looked up, the woman had vanished. Gods. Still, he had almost gotten used to interacting with Masters at this point, so he let the matter go quickly.

The ancient Nameless had gotten quite clever when building this library. The Jin’Teslin had promised him a reward for unique information, and required that he give her something in order to continue, but she hadn’t let him see what they already had. This meant that Maiz was forced to relate everything he knew about Spellsword, his supposed title in order to increase his chances of giving unique information. And if he’d accidentally given more than would have been necessary then, well, that was the price he paid. Ingenious.

Maiz found his fear at the Jin’s presence evaporating quickly as he looked ahead of him. There was a curtained doorway there, still stirring a little from the Master’s movements, and beyond was… a treasure. The greatest treasure he could have asked for, really. Knowledge. Power.

He stepped through.

The room didn’t have a particularly impressive air. Honestly it looked like a clean, spacious, but still somewhat musty records room. He looked around curiously. There were shelves along either side of the room, but instead of books they appeared to be lined with plaques of some kind. Curiously, cautiously, he drifted over to the left shelf and pulled one out. It was made of gray stone, with a heft that felt sturdy to Maiz. Neatly chiseled onto it were the words “ABRUPTER, 1-2.”

That’s a title, I suppose. And the numbers are the shelves she was talking about. Wait. Maiz looked around the room again. These plaques weren’t large. And there was enough space for thousands upon thousands of them in this room. Holy hells. Maiz felt a tightness band across his chest, and he had to take a moment to breathe. There were swathes of empty space here, true but there were also huge sections completely filled with the stone tablets. It was daunting. And exciting. He quickly scrambled further into the room, pulling out tablets and trying to find his first target. Even in his excitement, he was careful to place them back correctly. Somehow the death threat had inspired a level of respect for organization that had eluded him when he was a child in his father’s storerooms.

After some searching, he realized that the shelves were grouped by specialty. The entire left side was devoted to combat titles, with the stamina-based ones in the front half and the magical in the back. The front-right quarter of the room had a similar, but much smaller, set of tablets for noncombat titles. And the back-right quarter was devoted to books, most of which seemed to be related to the study of titles in some way. Heaven.

Finally, he pulled out a tablet that had the word he’d been searching for. “SPELLSWORD, 24-2.” He replaced the tablet gingerly, and hurried through the curtained doorway into the next room.

He almost fell, his eyes greedily taking in the sight before him. To most people, it would have looked somewhat unimpressive, a cavernous stone room larger than any other he had seen in the Temple, full of bookcases of dark wood which all appeared to be half-full. But this was more information in one place than Maiz had ever seen in his entire life, and then some. His father had traded in hundreds of books, yes, but rarely all at once. And once he had become a scribe, he’d never seen anything that came close to this. The Grand Library in Tisera-Rey was supposed to hold over a hundred thousand texts. This place was probably closer to ten thousand, perhaps even less. That was more knowledge than Maiz could ever hope to retain, so he was not at all disappointed.

He hurried down the room, counting bookcases. He found the twenty-fourth row, and then the second bookcase in that row. There were five shelves full of material, but he’d realized quickly that everything in this place was alphabetized. It took it only a few more minutes to find what he was looking for.

SPELLSWORD

Flaming Strike-This is the starting technique of the Spellsword, and at the Journeyman ranks it becomes one of the most versatile attack spells in the title’s arsenal. The mana pattern is exclusively executed upon the weapon of the caster. In general, any object may be used, though at lower ranks the spell will not support itself on smaller ones. The basic mana diagram is a three-layered construction, illustrated below with the bottommost layer to the left.

There followed a set of three mana diagrams which, together, presented an approximation of the spell. It was rather difficult to understand--there were strange symbols interspersed in the lines. With his knowledge of the spell, it was clear that these were meant to represent turns and configurations that would be impossible to depict on paper. Maiz wondered if this was some sort of convention. At least he had this as a reference point if that was the case.

The Spellsword’s abilities are notoriously difficult to train, requiring the mana control to enchant weapons entirely within the mind. It is for this reason that, unlike many enchantments, our spells rarely stretch beyond four layers in Novice form. The ability to form the matrix and spell layers is, however, only part of the difficulty. For Novices, the largest hurdle is the ability to maintain organic mana flow within an external weapon without the aid of the channels which Enchanters use. The Spellsword must remain in control of their mana to maintain the spell, and so they often struggle to “allow” mana to flow as it would in a normal enchantment.

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The solution is to treat the weapon as part of the body itself. Mana in the weapon is no different than mana in a limb, and it can be cycled through a pattern much as other mages do with the magic in their bodies. This is easier said than done--however there are several manipulation exercises involving a weapon which can train a student to successfully cast Flaming Strike and other Spellsword spells.

The document, which had been bound loosely together with a bit of twine, went on to list several different exercises, and Maiz devoured them all. Spinning mana within his weapon, pushing it in and out as quickly as possible, forming areas of mana saturation and others barren of magic. They were extremely similar to the exercises that Hakim had taught him, only extended to his weapon. It was so simple, yet so incredibly valuable to him. He hadn’t even realized it, but he had been thinking of his staves as something external that he was casting a spell on. That wasn’t right. He was using magic through them, and he needed to make manipulating mana with them as easy as it was within his body.

Maiz found that he was grinning. Eagerly, he read to the end of the page. The next one was written in a different hand, and it seemed older.

The Novice feat of the Spellsword is to defeat an enemy without the use of weapons. This act, while antithetical to the very nature of our title, speaks to the spirit of focus and determination necessary to become a true Spellsword. Success in this feat grants the bonus title ‘Dauntless,’ an honored appendage in the annals of history.

This one seemed quite a bit more pompous to Maiz. He himself had written everything he knew about his Spellsword abilities, trying to be as clear as possible. He certainly hadn’t done as good a job as the person who explained Flaming Strike, but he felt he’d been less grating to read than the one who’d written this.

The next sheet was an explanation of Windblade, which was not as detailed as the one for Flaming Strike. Luckily, it didn’t matter much because the first explanation gave him more than enough general information to advance the spell anyways.

The next page was about… Flaming Strike?

Flaming Strike Variation-Throughout the Novice ranks, Flaming Strike remains a powerful attack spell relative to those of most other titles. It follows the standard realm progression for activated abilities, leaving it a low-cost, damage-focused attack at the end of the Apprentice ranks. The Journeyman realm however, which generally introduces ability variation in the form of effect scaling and application, is instead focused on the manipulation of the effect. Almost any elemental aspect is compatible with the base spell, and as the Journeyman progresses they will become more able to modify portions of the spell layer, allowing for increasingly specific effects. Here are listed the most basic changes to the spell, possible in the early ranks of the Journeyman realm, which are concerned with altering the base element of the spell without disrupting any other aspects of its function.

There were several mana diagrams which followed the words, but Maiz barely glanced at them. What? He read the words over a second time. One phrase in particular stood out: ‘leaving it a low-cost, damage-focused attack at the end of the Apprentice ranks.’ Damage-focused it might be, but Flaming Strike was certainly far from a low-cost spell. In fact, both of his Spellsword spells had become increasingly mana intensive as they progressed. Come to think of it, all of his attack abilities had--oh hells, I’m an idiot.

Maiz did something he should have done the moment he ranked up his Warrior Monk attacks to the Apprentice realm. He looked at their descriptions.

Illusion Strike (Warrior Monk): Creates an illusory attack based on the existing motions of the user’s weapon or limbs. The target becomes unable to perceive the user’s true movements for a short time.

Rank: 23

Cost: 145 stamina

Effect: Illusory attack can be perceived by targets with Wisdom or greater. If the target has less than 46 Wisdom, they cannot see the user’s true movements for 1 second.

Hells. He knew immediately upon reading it that he’d been an idiot for not looking at the ability when he’d first increased its rank. He’d assumed that the Wisdom threshold would go up as it usually did, and that would be the end of it. But the cost, if he remembered correctly, should have been higher than it was. It had been 160 stamina at rank 20, and now it had dropped. The same was also true of Flicker Strike--both skills were the same cost and had mirrored each other in their cost reduction. Because, obviously, that was what happened at the Apprentice ranks. Which meant that all of his worrying about his mana pool and the drain his skills were causing was completely unfounded. He’d just needed to advance the abilities to the point where they stopped increasing in cost!

It was a little silly that he hadn’t considered that the pattern of his abilities’ advancements would change as they advanced through each realm, but honestly he knew very little about titles and abilities. Much less than the average person, because he’d lost his father before being taught many of the more obvious things. Just one more thing to thank the Sharir for. Now he knew however, and the information led him to some important conclusions.

A thought had been running in the back of Maiz’s head since the Jin’Teslin had told him what this place was. What should I learn? Of course, he wanted to pick up everything he could put his hands on, but he had enough trouble keeping up with the progression of the abilities he had now. If he tried to learn an encyclopedia of skills and spells, where would he ever find the time to train them enough to advance? This new information just highlighted that fact--learning too many spells would not only leave them all weak, but he would likely never be able to raise enough of them into the Apprentice realm, and make them efficient enough to be useful.

So then, what should he learn? Maiz had a sudden vision of himself wading through a battlefield with his staff and a suit of armor, sweeping massive, magical blows left and right, conjuring fire to engulf his enemies and stone to weather their attacks. Or of standing in a beautiful hall, weaving spells and dancing around attacks as he effortlessly quashed rebellion.

No. He still had a plan. A goal. He’d always wanted to wait until he was an Adept as powerful as any other combatant in the city, but now he saw a different way. Shadows, manipulation, and chaos. Power as focused as the edge of his Windblade. There were people that Maiz needed to kill. It was that, not glory on the battlefield or honor in society, that he needed to develop his abilities for. He would leave the Temple of the Sands ready to enact his revenge on the bastards who killed his father.