Viridescent mana curled into a cat-like form as Amy's Familiar manifested into reality, Felin's avatar taking shape. His sharp gaze snapped onto Amy, her eyes baggy and tired, wincing slightly from the hangover from last night. This was not his normal look, however, as his eyes darted about - almost frantic - looking for unseen disturbances in the Mana Ocean.

"Felin?" Amy asked tentatively, standing up from where she had been laying on her bed, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Ah, yes, has... Has everything been alright? Since I was last here, that is," He chuckled strangely.

"Of course it- well, mostly," Amy frowned slightly, before hurrying to add, "Nothing out of the ordinary, just some other stuff that's all."

"That's... good, yes. Good, indeed."

"Felin? Is- is everything alright?" Amy said, becoming increasingly concerned.

"Just... Hmmm. Well, there should be no harm in telling you this," Felin grimaced, sitting down in the air. "There was a bit of a hiccup, let's say, between when you last saw me that's all, my dear Apprentice."

"And what is this 'hiccup' that's causing you to act so strangely?" She asked.

"Ah, just a teensy-weensy... temporal anomaly of sorts," He shrugged, nonchalant.

"A temporal anomaly."

"Yes!"

"A temporal. Anomaly."

"Did I say something odd?"

"Yes! Yes you did!" Amy gaped, jabbing a finger his way. "What the Hell do you mean by a damn temporal anomaly!"

"Well... your plane's timeline went a bit wonky for a moment - well, what seemed like one anyway - and then it went back to normal," Felin explained flatly. "All very usual, of course."

"How is that usual!"

"Oh please, you can't be that ignorant about Mage society not to know about Time Mages, right?"

"Of course I know about them, I'm not stupid, Felin."

"Well when a Time Mage mucks about with the flow of time a bit, things get a bit strange. Hence, a temporal anomaly," Felin said smugly, as if explaining everything perfectly. It was only with a scathing look from Amy that he elaborated, "Albeit this one's a bit larger than usual, probably done by a Monarch, as it affected the entire plane and not a localised region of it. It had a twinge of... age to it as well, so it likely didn't affect anything in the present or future."

"And I'm not supposed to panic about that?"

"Amy, it's fine," Felin purred, "This sort of thing happens all the time; at least, it used to. Not so sure anymore."

"But what if- like, I get erased from existence because of something they do! What if whatever they messed with made it so that I was never born!"

"Time Magick on that scale simply doesn't exist, Amy. The past is immutable to even the greatest Time Mages as mana itself seems to stop them from interfering with it," He said. "It's widely believed that the reason for this is because it violated the whole principle that mana is based on: possibility. If present possibilities were crushed and narrowed because of something changed in the past, then the mana wouldn't allow it. Current 'violations' of possibility aren't stopped on the other hand, because, ultimately it always spawns more possible things. A change in the past never does that, however, it actively prevents the current range of possibilities from occurring, supplanting them with the Mage's own."

"Fine... I guess," Amy grimaced, scratching her cheek. "But... wait, if time was messed with, what was it like while you were gone?"

"I estimate, in your time, about a few months elapsed. For me? My plane's flexible enough that I can simply exist outside of time's flow for a bit until I can slip back in when all the mucking-about is done with."

"Sure..." She sighed, not bothering to try and comprehend the nonsense he had just spoken. There's no point questioning what an Ascendant can and can't do.

"Anyway! What has my dear Apprentice got done while I was gone? Any success with your experimentation with Command?" He asked excitedly.

"I didn't get as much done as I would've liked but I figured out how to incorporate things like motions into my Commands, compared to just words."

"Well done!" He smiled," How come you didn't try more then?"

"Well... I got a bit carried away eating and drinking. I was starving last night, let's just say that. I did figure something new out however," She perked up, moving over to her desk, her hand hovering over a spare piece of paper. "Watch this."

Mana curled around her fingers, virid and something else, swirling together in strange shapes that surrounded the paper, until, before Felin's prying eyes, it disappeared. His eyes narrowed in thought, studying the patterns in mana only he could comprehend, muttering things under his breath.

"...-hints of theft... …substitution perhaps...? …other traces in-..."

His theories were all cut short however when Amy stirred another form in the mana, summoning something else into her grasp. A strange, almost phantom, leather book. Flicking through itself without her having to do a thing, its pages landed on something familiar. That piece of paper, stitched into its covers.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"So, how is it?" Amy asked hopefully, a bright smile on her face, letting the book rest back onto the table.

"You did this... all last night?"

"Yes."

"That's... What- What is the name- no. What are the Elements besides Fae?"

"Just Mind, I think." Amy responded, cocking her head in thought.

"You think?" Felin repeated, creasing his brows.

"It's called Record, if you want to know. It allows me to write down any stray thoughts I have or questions I want to ask you for later when you aren't here. I didn't want just a way to jot down my thoughts though. I wanted something a bit bigger in scope, but still small-scale enough to not veer into Apprentice Tier Spellwork," Amy described. "It works by transforming something I view as a medium upon which I can write on into a sort of... thought-thing. It then gets appended onto my Record, a book I can summon as I wish using the secondary part of the Spellform in isolation, compared to the former which requires the entire thing.

"I can write on the Record as I want, however if I want the words to physically 'stick' it needs to be written on actual appended material, not just the phantom pages of the book that aren't really pages at all."

"That's... quite impressive, Amy," Felin mumbled absentmindedly, his gaze still trained on the Record book, analysing it carefully. "What's the limitations then?"

"Ah, well, I didn't quite have enough time last night to figure it all out. It was late and I was feeling the drink fading a bit and the unpleasantness of, well, everything afterwards, setting in," She explained. "When I was coming back though, I encountered a, let's say, mild inconvenience."

"A mild inconvenience?" Felin said, latching onto the words immediately.

"I mean... it kind of was in the end? Felt a lot worse in the moment."

"Amy..." Felin growled, "Now it's my turn to be worried. What. Happened?"

"Just some random guy coming up to, maybe... mug me?" Amy admitted abashedly, before hurrying to elaborate, noticing Felin's slitted eyes widening, "It wasn't that bad, alright! All it took was me Commanding him to drop his knife to make him run away, okay?"

"Oh Amy..." He moaned, dropping his head. "Please try not to get too into trouble while I'm not here, alright?"

"It wasn't my fault!"

"And I'm not saying it is but- Hmm... All this is just detracting from your achievement. You did get away safely, correct? Unharmed?" He asked pointedly.

"Yes, yes, not even a mark."

"It's all fine then. Just the more unfortunate for him that he ran into a Mage of all people," Felin laughed.

"It is strange he didn't notice my FPG-band, but maybe it was too dark out for him to see properly."

"Perhaps," He shrugged. "Now then, if you haven't done it already, how does testing your brand new Spell out sound?"

"It sounds perfect," Amy grinned.

* * *

In the end, a few big problems came up almost immediately. While keeping the Spell down in Tier helped the upkeep of it massively, it meant the burden on her actual mind was heavy. When she experimented with a tissue next to a bin, or a spare piece of paper, it didn't matter as much when it came to Recording it. However, when she reached to Record her entire notebook, the problem became immediately obvious.

"Gods, it feels- I can barely think!" Amy exclaimed, rushing to expel her notebook immediately, it reappearing in the air and flopping back onto the desk. "It's like there's just this pressure, all the damn time, while it's in my head!"

"And that's the downside to relying on Mind to store the notebook as a thought-form. With an unenhanced mind, no less," Felin nodded to himself sagely. "Anything more complicated than - let's say - a piece of tissue, requires a significant amount of mental power to store."

"Then what do I do?" Amy asked haggardly. "I mean, I can still use it for jotting stuff down, but it's then a bit lacking in... other aspects that I'd like."

"Well, the simplest way is to jump up a 'Tier', crossing that bridge from peak-Mageling to Apprentice. More of the burden is then placed on the shoulders of the Spell, rather than yourself, and you could most likely easily store your entire notebook. Maybe not a full-fledged novel, but something of that size would definitely be simple enough."

"And if I want to keep the Spell how it is?"

"Then simply get a better mind."

"What?"

"You didn't think a simple undirected brain-boost was all you got from ascending to Apprentice, did you?" Felin smirked. "Just like there are many facets to your Mage Sight that you had to learn, there are even more to the qualities other Tiers award. In Apprentice's case, you don't get just the ability to enhance your brain completely with mana. Hells, you've probably already figured out one way to manipulate it by regulating the flow of mana it receives. And after that stage there's even more you can do."

"Is improving my memory possible then?" Amy asked excitedly, taking a seat on the bed, fidgeting.

"Oh yes, and more," He added. "First, let's start simple. You're currently most familiar with your mana sight as a Tier-given ability. So let's improve upon that with some basic enhancements to the part of the brain that processes vision; your occipital lobe; well, it would make my previous contractor unhappy if I left it just like that but although the occipital does a lot more than just visual processing, that's the easiest part of it to focus on for now."

"Was your previous contractor some sort of psychologist then? He seemed to have known a lot about the brain then with that 'nature' and 'nurture' stuff you were talking about too?" Amy asked.

"He... you could say that he was one yes. The psychology of the human mind is very important when you want to make Illusions. At least to him it was," He muttered, his eyes going distant. He broke from his forlorn state shortly though to give a tentative smile, "Never mind that. Let us focus on the present."

"Alright then."

"The occipital lobe. It sits right at the back of your brain, right above another important part of it that looks a bit different from the rest. While it also helps with forming memories," Felin explained, giving Amy a look as he mentioned the last part, "It's most important aspect is to do with, as I said before, visual processing as well as interpreting depth, distance and colour. Today, we'll focus on this aspect to act as a compliment to your Mage Sight, enhancing it beyond its current state to allow for better interpretation of what you're actually seeing in the mana. Of course, a side effect of this is that your mundane vision will also be improved.

"The end goal of all this though isn't just to enhance one aspect of your mind and move on, no. Rather, we want to improve every aspect of your brain until each enhanced portion works together in harmony, creating something greater than its component parts. A successful Apprentice ready to advance to Journeyman will have enhanced every part of their brain many times, at the very least, and I expect more from you than just 'successful' if you want to excel."

"So how should I start? Similar to my ascension to Apprentice?" Amy surmised, scratching her cheek.

"You guessed correctly, my Apprentice. Instead of aiming to spread your mana through your entire brain, you will rather direct it through that specific portion of it, the occipital lobe. With this mana, you will focus on improving the parts I mentioned before, one at a time, trying to not to confuse them together. Undirected, general, enhancement is almost always unsuccessful, leading to only temporary improvement. Only by focusing on one part at a time are those parts actually enhanced. For this, just remember to always keep your thoughts on the visual aspect of the lobe, and nothing else."

"Got it," Amy nodded, resolute. "Is there any harm to me starting now?"

"Are you well-rested enough from the strain Record caused you?"

"I think I am."

"Then yes, you may begin."