Gabe

I'm not sure exactly what I expected, to be honest. Media portrayals of learning magic vary widely in their interpretation. Sometimes magic is the forceful manipulation of mana into the caster's will. Other times, it's communion with mystical beings who lend their power. And other times, it's tapping into the fabric of the universe and pulling it ever so slightly in a desired direction.

As Koji takes my hands and channels Spark, I get none of that.

Just a sharp void-like, sucking sensation that travels through my entire body, starting with my hands, going up my arms, down my torso, and out through my feet. The shock lasts for a moment. Maybe two. But the feeling causes spasming in my muscles, as if the energy is trying to shrink them into a smaller space, and my grip wrenches around Koji's hands. If I were a warrior build, I probably would have inadvertently crushed his bones. That said, I'm pretty sure he has higher stats than I do, even with my newly added Pacifist class and actually *having* a stat higher than true zero (what I'm now calling a grey zero in a status screen).

Koji looks at me askance.

"So?"

"Bro. That hurt."

"I assumed that. How much HP did it take? You're not dead, so that means we should be able to make this work. I just had to channel it a couple times for Carmen, and that was enough."

I check my status screen. 12/14 HP.

"It looks like that took 2 HP."

"Well... that makes me feel great and also suck at the same time. I was hoping to have fine enough manipulation skills to make a Spark that takes exactly 1 HP. That way I could get monsters down to exactly the right HP range in case there's capture mechanics... or drop mechanics... or you know. And it would make teaching easier. It seemed like it hurt though. You squeezed my hand pretty hard."

"Uh, yeah. Having a weird arcane current run through my body *did* hurt. I was expecting something more like an electric shock, since it's called Spark. But that just felt... weird. And painful. Did it not hurt when you did it with Carmen?"

"Uh... well... since Carmen only had 1 HP we used a special artifact that protected her from damage."

"And you didn't offer that to me."

"Well, it has a pretty high chance of breaking, and you mentioned your luck with charms when you were out shopping with Fred the other day..."

"Yeah... if it's a charm, I should probably stay away. My luck is awful for stuff like that right now. Chances are it would explode and kill everyone nearby."

I laugh.

Koji just stares at me.

"You're totally serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I told you I put everything into luck right? I don't know if I still have it there since luck is a hidden stat, but I'm guessing I do. And it seems like luck isn't just good luck. It makes rare stuff more likely. So if there's a tiny chance when I fall that I could break my leg, maybe a higher luck stat makes that more likely. Or a tiny chance that when I get an adaptive stat, little fairies make a rainbow and summon a pool of prismatic slimes, that suddenly becomes more possible. Maybe there's a teeny, tiny chance that the protection charm could backfire and explode, releasing all the damage its blocked so far all at once."

"Yeah... I think you should stay away from charms."

"That's what the charm shopkeeper said."

"Try again? How's your regen?"

I check my status again. Still 12/14.

"Slow as ever. Let's go until I hit 4? I don't want you to get a critical hit and kill me just because we were stupid. And it'll take just as long either way."

Koji channels Spark, and my body seizes up around the weird energy yet again. I nod to him, and he does it again, and then another 2 times.

"Ok. HP is at 3. I'm gonna try to meditate or something, to see if I can improve my regen rate, or my control of mana somehow. How long can you keep one of those Sparks up?"

"A couple of minutes? Longer if I only have a few, and a lot longer if I focus on one."

"Make me one and just leave it... there for me to study? Maybe I'll figure something out." I point to a corner of the stall.

Koji sends a Spark out from his fingertip and it hovers above the ground. I sit down and focus on my feelings. Well, my physical feelings. This isn't the place to be focusing on the rest of what's inside my head.

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It takes an hour to regenerate my HP, and in the meantime Koji has recast Spark a few times. It took an hour because I tried getting close to the Spark. Each cast is a tiny little light, maybe a centimeter or two across in diameter. I felt nothing as I got closer and closer to the Spark, until I was almost touching it - at which point I started to feel the same sucking sensation, and the Spark moved and hit my hand.

And that *hurt*.

The "teaching" method of channeling without a direction must somehow dull the feeling of Spark, or maybe it spreads it out across the entire body, or channels it along both arms and makes the pain less. Either way, the tiny ball of light left a dark mark on my own hand, and the skin felt... numb? Not exactly though. The sensation was still there. It just felt weird. Off in some way, as the purple-silver mark faded. That Spark would be attracted to me makes sense - ionically charged particles are attracted to other particles, which means that Spark is actually creating something that interacts with the laws of real-world electromagnetism. Maybe. I close my eyes and focus on the feeling of my injured hand, and the uninjured one, trying to understand what makes them different.

I have Koji recast the Spark after that and try again. I'm hoping there's a point where I can place my hand near the Spark and feel the sucking sensation, yet not have it move. I rest my hand on a table I dragged over under the Spark and slowly move it forward breath by breath, until I feel like I can feel something different in my fingertips. I move my other hand over, close my eyes, breathe deeply, and try to determine the difference.

What's being pulled from my finger? What is causing the pull? If I had to guess, it would be mana. Spark is the basic arcane spell - a tiny ball of manipulated mana that is interacting with the world at the will of the caster. Usually Spark is out of the caster's control as soon as it leaves his fingers, but as a SparkMage Koji maintains control over the Spark even as he continues working with Carmen, charging crystals for Jade, and helping Kai and Gladys corral the other kids.

I wonder.

I keep my eyes closed and check my status screen.

Mana is at 19/20.

I thought it might be.

Everything in Dungeon Quest is fueled by something. My Pacifist powers run off Pacifist points, magic uses mana, and fighting uses some type of stamina mechanic. Right now, the feeling that I'm getting by being near Spark must be fueled by mana somehow. Maybe a mana manipulation skill? Or mana sensing? Or something? No idea what it would be called, but it's slowly draining my mana over time.

I call Koji over.

"Keeping my hand in exactly this spot is slowly draining my mana."

Koji looks at my hand, and at his Spark.

"It doesn't feel any different. The Spark. At least it doesn't feel any stronger or more dangerous."

"That was my main concern. If somehow my mana was being used to power it up or something, that could be an issue. Lol."

"Nah. I don't think magic works that way. Though maybe it does. Maybe try pushing more mana out or something?"

"Yeah! Maybe that will work. Worst case scenario we all blow up right?"

I grin. Koji rolls his eyes and walks away.

Whatever.

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After another hour, I'm no closer to forcing the mana in my fingertips to do anything other than what it seems to do on its own. But focusing so intently on the feeling in my hands *has* given one thing. I read the status screen popup.

[Congratulations! Your efforts to sense the flow of mana may be rudimentary, but you have felt something! You are now aware of the existence of the skill Mana Sense (Internal).]

*Aware* of the existence of a skill. Not given the skill. Not making progress in the skill, or given a bar that shows how many more times I need to practice to unlock it. Just awareness that the skill exists, currently out of my reach.

My HP has recharged, and Koji channels Spark a few more times through my body. This time I have him position one of the floating sparks not far from my hands, so I can continue to feel the draw of mana while he channels the spell itself. I try to focus on the feeling of void and weirdness as it travels through my body. Where before I struggled to remember it at all, the feeling seems more... familiar? Like an extremely dialed-up version of the suction I feel from the tiny Spark floating in the air. So channeling the spell itself through me causes the same reaction, and the damage itself is...

My brain goes a little off.

What is actually causing damage when Spark hits me? Spark is a pure mana construct, and not elemental in any way. It doesn't actually interact with water, fire, air, or earth, which means that it also isn't actually interacting with my body (which is made of those elements) either. Or, if it is, it's interacting with the *mana* aspect of those elements instead of the elements themselves.

In that case, the sucking sensation I feel above my hand is pure mana being... pulled from me? Ripped from the fabric of my hand?

I keep thinking. Does mana take time to move from one part of my body to another? How does mana actually interact with my will, my body, the world? I can still feel the sucking sensation above my hand, and can still remember the sensation as Koji channeled Spark.

From a logical perspective, I would assume that mana is either stored in a central location or "readily available" from any part of the body at any time. The fact that I continue to feel the sucking sensation from my fingertips or any other body part affected by Spark means that mana is available to each part of the body.

But it also means that mana *isn't* instantly available. It has a travel time. Which means that it is traveling from somewhere. If mana didn't have a travel time, or was infinitely available until it ran out, there would be no sucking sensation on my fingertips. It would be on my mana core (if such a thing exists), or on my soul, or my mana circuits, or my entire body. The simple fact that I feel pain as Spark travels through me, and can also feel suction in my hand right now, is proof that mana itself has to move. Whether it's stored in an alternate dimension, or in other body tissues, I have no idea. I also don't have a way of determining how quickly it can travel.

But that should help... right?

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I spend a few hours there at Jade's stand. Koji channels Spark through me whenever my HP hits 13. That's to save time on regeneration (since there's no way I'm going to watch to see the exact moment I hit full, and I don't have a skill or any way of seeing that otherwise), and also to preserve life. Even with Disempowered Cast, we had a critical hit that took a total of 8 HP at once. *That* Spark felt different. Not only did it feel like someone had turned up the dial by a hundred times on the pain, the pain itself felt like it burned pathways in my body. Not just a diffuse pain that went through my limbs, but a burning that stayed deep inside my arms and chest and legs. I meditated and tried to focus on the pain, and the sense of void, as it slowly went away, but still didn't get any popup.

It's finally when the sky begins to turn golden and Jade is about to call it a day that something different happens. Kai, a sleeping child in his arms, comes and sits by my side, looking at the Spark hovering above my hands.

"Gladys cast magic through me back in Faerie Beach. She has a skill that allowed her to do that. I don't know if she could do something like that to help you, but she is really good at magic."

He sits there, quietly, as I continue focusing on the Spark.

"That would be really nice. I'm... sort of lost here. Koji said that learning new magic is as simple as just channeling through me without a target, but Carmen picked it up after only a few tries. We've been here all day, and while I feel more comfortable with the channeling, and the feeling of mana, I still find myself wondering if I'm actually any closer to being able to cast the spell."

"I'll ask her."

Gladys shows up moments later and looks at me.

"You're trying to learn Spark?"

"Yeah. I have a skill that allows me to learn any spell... and Koji said that just channeling it through me should be enough..."

Gladys has a smirk on her face.

"Oh, it would work. Eventually. After a hundred years or so."

"What?!?"

"Look at the Spark above your hand, Gabe. Compare it with the Spark that Carmen casts. Go ahead Carmen, cast Spark on the ground over there."

Carmen casts Spark, and the tiny ball of light leaves her hand and hit the ground with a soft *thwump*.

"See any difference?"

"Well... there are a lot of differences, right? One stays in the same place, and the other moves. They're different brightnesses. Koji's is smaller..."

"They're different spells, Gabe. They may have the same name, but the Spark above your hand is cast by a SparkMage - a Special Class dedicated to Spark - with additional modifiers on the spell itself. Read me the text of the skill you mentioned you have - the one that allows you to learn any skill."

I pull up the skill notation and read it out loud.

[Passive skill: Pacify]

[Use awesome, flashy powers to change hearts and bring peace to the world! The user may equip any weapon or learn any skill without fear of causing harm]

[Skills, abilities, and attacks no longer cause physical or mental damage to others]

[Each skill, ability, action, and weapon type will be assigned other values that will allow the user to pacify enemies]

[Due to the extreme difficulty of turning all actions into pacifist skills, all skills, abilities, physical actions, and mental actions taken by the user now require 3x the usual amount of resources to accomplish at all times. In addition, due to the practice required, skills, abilities, and weapon proficiencies must be at least level 1 to be effectively used in "battle"]

Gladys whistles and then laughs, her laugh sounding like the ringing of bells.

"That's one crazy skill you have there, Gabe. Without the caveats, I would venture it's the most powerful skill I've ever seen. With them... you'll have to see about the impact, but I'm guessing it'll only grow with time. Especially if it can be leveled."

"The crux of the issue is this: Words are important when it comes to skills, and your skill clearly says you can learn *any* skill. That sounds great and all, but reality is much more complex. When Carmen was learning Spark, she was only capable of learning one thing. Spark. The basic spell, with no added bells or whistles. Her body, mana, learning, and the world itself helped her to focus on that simple skill, and it came to her easily. She couldn't learn metamagic, or skills, or anything else added to the spell. Just Spark."

"You, on the other hand, are able to learn *any* skill. Which means that when Koji is channeling Spark through you, your body, mana, and mind are trying to learn far more than just Spark. You're trying to learn Spark, and anything he's added to the Spark, and his specific flavor of Spark as a SparkMage (which I'm guessing takes hundreds of thousands or even millions of casts to unlock), and the skill of channeling, and mana sense, and regeneration, and arcane resistance to name only a few. Each attempt gives you a little bit of progress towards learning, but since it's being spread out among so many different skills, it'll take close to forever for you to get there. And it's very possible that your passive skill will also require three times the effort that it would normally take to learn a skill in the first place."

I look up at Gladys, back at the Spark, most definitely made by a SparkMage with multiple skills in metamagic. It makes sense. Being able to learn *any* skill could be interpreted in multiple different ways - either simply being able to learn any type of skill, or literally being able to learn every iteration of a skill, as they are differently expressed by different individuals and circumstances. It looks like the reality is the second. Which, honestly? Is absolutely *awesome*. That means I could probably learn dragon's breath from a massive dragon. And actually breathe huge swathes of fire. As well as a tiny dragon's breath from a fire lizard that would be more useful in lighting campfires, and won't need to use metamagic to light a campfire and not the forest. But it also means that actually learning those skills, especially since there are so, so, so many... may be insurmountable. I have no idea how long it would normally take. And if I have to simultaneously gain experience in all the situational circumstantial skills as well... and get 3 times the amount in all of them... that easily expands to explain why working with Koji all days hasn't gotten me anywhere.

Kai next to me speaks.

"So, what can he do to learn Spark?"

Gladys looks down at Kai, who's still sitting next to me. She smiles.

"The best thing is to experience the simplest form of the magic. Either one cast by a beginner - like Carmen - or a mage with the ability to remove all other skills from their magic and cast pure spells."

I look up at her for a moment.

"I'm guessing you're the second?"

"I can cast a pure Spark spell."

I notice that she only answered part of my question.

Carmen has been watching my progress, practicing her own Spark as Koji juggles and makes designs. Earlier in the day she suggested using the amulet of protection, wondering out loud if it somehow made it easier for her to learn the spell. At this point, she walks closer.

"That means I can try to help, right?"

Kai looks up at Gladys.

"Would it be useful to have both of you channel at the same time?"

Gladys reaches up to rub the side of her chin, thinking.

"I... I'm not sure actually. I would guess that either it would have no effect, or have a mild potential positive aspect though. So we can give it a try. Carmen?"

Carmen takes my left hand, and Gladys takes my right.

"Koji, can you extinguish your Sparks? And..."

Gladys pauses.

"...actually go outside the stall for a bit?"

"Ok... why?"

"I think it's possible that you might have an influence on all Spark spells nearby you. Did your class ever say something like that?"

"Yeah... actually it did... so does that mean I can't help teach Gabe Spark?"

"It means that you can help him learn all sorts of ways to use Spark. Eventually he might be able to cast Spark the same way you do. Right now, though, we're trying to teach him the most basic spell itself... and you don't cast that anymore."

Koji looks slightly crestfallen. The sparks floating around the stall wink out of existence, and he walks out.

"Alright Gabe, we're going to do this. I'm going to channel a Pure version of Spark with Carmen. I'll also activate my teaching skill in hopes that it improves your ability to learn, without spreading out the skill progress too much. Carmen is a brand new mage, and shouldn't have any metamagic skills interfering with her casting. Keep your eyes open. Don't try to feel the magic. Simply let it go through you. We want normal levels of everything else - light, sound, and other inputs - so that the progress doesn't get matched to darkvision or mana sense or mana manipulation or anything other than Spark. On three, Carmen, we'll channel Spark without any target."

"One."

"Two."

I hold my breath and almost close my eyes to feel the magic, then keep them open and breathe normally.

"Three."

The familiar sensation of Spark flows through my body. It feels slightly different. But I don't let myself even think about it. It flows in, it flows out.

[Congratulations! Your efforts to learn a new spell may be rudimentary, but you have felt something! You are now aware of the existence of the spell Spark.]

"I got a status screen! It says that I'm aware of Spark! I didn't get that one before."

"That sounds like significant progress. How many more times can we cast before you run out of HP?"

I check my status.

"Uh... maybe twice more?"

Kai looks up at Gladys, with an unasked question in his eyes. Gladys looks back at me.

"I'll heal you when that time comes. If Carmen runs out of mana, I'll continue casting alone."

Carmen runs out of mana a few casts later. She *is* a newly minted mage, and a little kid. It makes sense that she would run out. Gladys, on the other hand, seems to have no end of mana, channeling Spark and then alternating some type of healing spell when my HP drops low.

During the fourth cast of healing that I get another status update.

[Congratulations! Your efforts to learn a new spell may be rudimentary, but you have felt something! You are now aware of the existence of the spell Heal.]

"I just got a popup for Heal. Was... were you channeling it through me on purpose to teach me the spell?"

"Yes. I heard from Grace and the other children about what you did for them. I don't have all the details, but I'm guessing that a skill like that would have extremely high costs. Otherwise it would require significant cooldowns and charges, and being able to use it so many times in succession isn't likely for someone of your level. It's probably only available as a last-case scenario. A normal healing spell will be useful considering that you're able to learn it now."

"Thank you, Gladys."

"Don't thank me. Thank the children, who spoke about you, and Kai, who asked me to help. Especially Kai. I go where he does."

A few minutes later, I finally get the popup I've been waiting for.

[Congratulations! Your efforts to learn a new spell have born fruit! You can now cast the spell Spark at a Level 0 proficiency!]

[Pacify additional effects: 3x cost. Spark is unable to cause harm. Level 0 Spark is available only outside of combat.]

Along with the popup comes the knowledge of how to cast the spell - not a true or exact explanation for mana manipulation as much as a rough, crude estimate for making mana eject from my fingers. But that's enough.

"I got it! I got it!"

I pull my hands from Gladys, reach into the well of mana, and a flickering spark leaves my fingertips. The group cheers and I flip my status screen for the spell.

[Spark: Active Spell (9MP) Level 0 (0.0333/100)]

[Casts a spark of mana.]

One spell down. A whole lot of practice waiting in the wings. And a million more to go.