“You’re sure you have it this time?”
“I think so.”
“You thought so last time and it nearly killed you.”
The young man paused at that, head canted slightly to one side as he absorbed her words. Then he nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”
The reply did not fill Valentina with the confidence he clearly hoped for. It had been a day and a half since his last disastrous attempt and the young man could not afford a similar failure. Pretty sure was not going to cut it, especially when the chair had already taken so much out of him.
Seated in the challenge room, Alarion let his arms dangle over the sides as he mentally prepared for what would come next. Struggle. Pain. It was familiar territory, but ZEKE had taught him of the importance of being centered before a battle regardless of they type. It was easy to carry the baggage of previous failures, to learn the wrong lesson and overcompensate. Or to simply become frustrated.
“I am ready.”
“If it goes beyond your MP-”
“Then I will stop.” Alarion assured her. Then he gestured to the nearby door. “Could you?”
“You know I can watch whether or not I’m actually in the room.”
“It is distracting.”
“Hmm.” Valentina scowled down at him, then reality flickered and she was gone. Or invisible. Or on another plane of existence. Who could really tell.
Alarion flexed his left hand. There was still some soreness in it from his last attempt, the remains of the severe [Overspent] condition that he had inflicted upon himself. It wouldn’t impact this attempt, not if he intended to honor his word to Valentina and break the siphon the moment it dug into his HP.
He stretched his hand a few more times, then sighed. He was delaying the inevitable. It was time to get started.
With the help of his [Introverted Mana Sense] Alarion began to weave. He’d been practicing almost every waking moment for the last day, refining the process under Valentina’s watchful eye and tutelage. As it turned out, the way one experienced their own internal mana could vary from mage to mage, through both the skills they used, the aptitudes they possessed and the method by which they were taught.
By far the most common was flow theory, where mages treated their mana similar to the blood within their veins. Others controlled it like an inner fire that spread throughout or an electric pulse that jumped from node to node. Each of these would have their own method of confronting this test, and none were truly considered optimal.
In Valentina’s telling it was far more crucial that the method suit the mage. Many a promising student had floundered in their career when a stubborn instructor insisted on teaching them ‘the right way’. His strand theory as she’d dubbed it, was unfamiliar, but its results were undeniable.
Instead, the focus had been on refinement. Alarion had learned to braid his structure more quickly, fast enough that it might just be practical to use in an actual combat scenario. He’d learned how to tighten it and to increase the density, making it more durable for the challenge ahead.
Most critically, at least according to Valentina, she’d taught him that a visualization was just that, a visualization. He was not actually braiding his mana, no more than others had fire or lightning smoldering within them. The visualization was a useful heuristic, but it wasn’t real. In time she promised that knowledge would be among his most valuable rewards. In practice, Alarion couldn’t begin to understand how.
He was delaying. He’d had days for theory and education. This was the time for application, and still he was delaying. That was probably a bad sign. He wasn’t normally this nervous.
With a deep breath, Alarion lifted his hands and placed them down on the crystals at the end of each armrest.
The sensation of loss was instant, a sudden drain on his mana that pulled at his fringes before he was able to fight back. It was only a few points of MP, but with slightly over twenty minutes to endure, every point counted.
“Nngh.” Alarion grunted in the face of the discomfort as he fought back against the pull. His body was tense, his arms straining and his core taut as he resisted the siphon. It was a war fought in body and spirit, his stamina already beginning to deplete as he drew the braided cord of mana deep into his heart.
And stabbed a pin through it.
The pin in question was Valentina’s idea, the core of the strategy that she totally did not suggest. He’d understood her meaning plain enough from her demonstration but putting it into practice had required considerable trial and error.
It was a bound field, the start of a [Quicken] spell set to cast within his body, but never finalized. The structure was rich with mana and held the surrounding energies in place. In doing so, it served to ‘pin’ the entire braid of mana, drastically lessening the burden on Alarion’s overtaxed willpower.
The strategy was not without its flaws, however. A spell could only be held for so long before the field began to decay. Two minutes was his absolute limit in training, but he was lucky to last half that long in practice. Worse yet, each subsequent casting decayed faster than the first. And each time it failed, it hurt.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
> Spell Failure!
>
> You have suffered minor spell backlash. HP -10.
The best equivalent Alarion could come up with was that of a pulled muscle. Alarion had learned as a child that if he tilted his foot the right way and tensed his calf he could ‘pull’ the muscle on command. It hurt, but the unsettling twitch of muscle beneath the skin had been a fun way to gross out other children. It had been great fun until the sixth time he’d shown off and promptly torn the muscle entirely. This was similar, punishing the same injury over and over again, each time worse than the last.
> Spell Failure!
>
> You have suffered minor spell backlash. HP -15.
>
> Spell Failure!
>
> You have suffered minor spell backlash. HP -20.
But it worked.
The first time Alarion had attempted this strategy he’d beaten his previous record by four minutes. The second time he’d knocked off another minute. The third time…
Fifteen seconds.
The memory bit at the front of Alarion’s mind, as bitter now as it was then. He’d been so close. Close enough that he’d gambled. Close enough that he’d been sure that he’d make the mark before the [Overspent] condition could drain the last of his stamina and HP.
He just hadn’t counted on overspent becoming so… severe. Moderate had been 1:3, while the more severe form of the condition had converted his HP and Stamina at a whopping 1:20.
He’d broken the connection at the last moment, but even a few seconds of [Overspent] at its worst had chewed through his HP as though it was barely there. He’d escaped with 9 HP, less than half a second from death. Perhaps the closest he’d ever come. Too close.
This time would be better, he was sure of it. But as he watched his HP, Stamina and MP all tick slowly down at the corner of his field of view, Alarion could not shake his unease. He’d tried to keep a running total on his previous attempts in order to track his progress, but doing so was more trouble than it was worth. The drain ramped up the more exhausted he became, and attention spent trying to run calculations in his head was energy taken away from the crucial task at hand.
“Focus.” Alarion told himself through gritted teeth. The word felt good. Reassuring. He was either on the path to success, or he wasn’t. Fretting about it would do him no good.
Still, having 75% of his mana left at the ten-minute mark seemed like it was good progress.
A jolt of pain shot through his body, killing Alarion’s moment of satisfaction as his most recent pin failed abruptly. He created a new one in an instant, halting the sudden strain on his resources, then went back to examine the fragments of the one that had shattered. It was malformed, the outer shell of the field so thin that it was a wonder it had held as long as it did. He couldn’t afford such sloppy mistakes.
He needed to focus. Especially with the most difficult part not far ahead of him.
Alarion did not have enough MP to complete the challenge as it was. Perhaps if he spent days or weeks further strengthening his technique, he’d be able to complete the task with his basic resources, but there was a simpler solution. He had brought gear with him, and that could make all the difference.
Potions were out of the question. Trying to drink one of his handful of mana potions without the use of his hands was a messy and unsuccessful enterprise he was not willing to repeat. But those weren’t the only MP restoring items he had access to.
> Simple Mana Reserve [Common](Rank I)
>
> Description: A basic copper bracelet egraved with arcane markings, this bracer serves as an introductory level storage and retrieval system for the user’s mana.
>
> Requirements: None
>
> Attunement Cost: 10 points
>
> Type: Bracelet
>
> Enchantment: This item will store up to a maximum of 2000 MP of the wearer’s excess MP regeneration. This item can be manually charged on mental command. On mental command, the user can withdraw stored MP at a rate of 100 MP/Sec at a return rate of 1:5 for a total of 400 MP total over 10 seconds.
>
> Ability Bonuses: +2 WIL.
>
> Note: MP stored in this item will be toxic if retrieved by anyone other than the original donor.
Curiously, the item description was full of lies.
Or, well, not lies per se. It was simply incorrect. For the overwhelming majority of users, the item would function as described. He was the issue. His flaw restricted him from charging the item manually, but was a blessing and a curse when it came to withdrawal. Rather than a slow trickle of 20 MP/sec, Alarion found that the item flooded him all at once. It made the effect quick but sloppy, with as much as half of the MP being lost in the process.
It was even worse while he was in the middle of a challenge. All that loose MP, barely even tethered to his body? The chair ate it right up.
Which was of course the plan.
With a slight push onto the unbound field that served as its trigger, the bracelet flooded Alarion’s body with new mana. Some of it was lost almost immediately, his body unable to assimilate it in time. More was consumed by the endless hunger of Valentina’s torture device as it greedily devoured the new found magical energy.
But in doing so the device loosened its ever present pull on Alarion’s core. The gluttonous implement consumed the majority of the new mana, but in doing so it provided its victim the precious seconds he needed to reinforce his position, to tighten the weave of his remaining mana, to strengthen it with what little he’d managed to absorb, and to brace it firmly in place with a new pin that would hold out through the end of the challenge.
Valentina willing, anyway.
He grunted in pain as the last of the ‘free’ mana ran out and the villain resumed is onslaught. Panic welled within him, a moment of unbridled fear that his new ramparts would not hold, that his weave would tear or the pin would break. Yet it held. His willpower held and the seconds ticked by.
A minute left.
Alarion gritted his teeth to the audible pop of his jaw. His mana reserves were low, but were they too low? He couldn’t remember his last attempt to be sure.
Thirty seconds.
It would be enough. Even if the threads were to break now, it would be enough. His HP would be low, but he could endure a few seconds of-
No. The thought hit him like cold water splashed upon aching joints. He had given his word to Valentina that he would not make that risk. He’d try again if he had to, but he wouldn’t have to.
He had this.
His knuckles were white, his face a mask of crimson as Alarion fought with every fiber of his being through those last thirty seconds. It was as much a physical task as a mental one, his whole-body rigid as the timer ticked from down from five.
Three.
Two.
One.
Alarion slumped in the chair as the siphon broke off at last. One of the crystal orbs at the end of the arm rest felt brittle under his touch, and when he finally managed to loosen his taloned grip Alarion found that it had cracked into fragments and powder within his grip the moment the challenge had ended.
Would Valentina be mad?
Probably not. Right?