“Feel yourself sinking into your vast pool, down deeper into the azure abyss.” Iengoris’ voice still grated against Zahn’s ears, but the demon’s meditation advice seemed sound. He’d been sitting cross-legged on a couch for half an hour, trying to sink into meditation after not using the Ability since the road to the Dungeon. “Let yourself give way from the ground beneath you, there is no ground beneath your mind. Who and what you are is made of energy, merely hosted on the physical network that makes up your mind. Energy has no limits, merely forms it can take and paths it may travel. You are infinite, unshackled from the mortal plane. There is no floor to you, there is no lower bound to the energy that is your mind. Let yourself sink, fall into your mana.” With some of the word choices the little imp used, Zahn wondered if the thing had once been a Player fallen to Chaos himself. It could be possible that he used words and concepts filtered through the combined understanding of himself as a timeless energy being and Ethan’s real-world life, but the longer Zahn contemplated the how that his roommate’s demon worked the longer he wasn’t meditating.
Taking another deep breath, he tried to tune out the pseudo-helpful Chaos monster as it rambled on about infinite power and endless possibilities, waxing poeting about the boundless mind and its boundless worlds. Slipping into meditation wasn’t hard back before he started casting more magic than he’d even thought of yet. The lowbie couldn’t find a single reason why he’d be failing at something so simple now, what he’d even been taught in that absurd classroom. What was it Orinoth said? Trying to pull up the exact memory felt like trying to pull a heavy tombstone slab out of sticky sand by his neck, but the longer Zahn focused on trying to remember the exact circumstances of how he’d first meditated the more he felt something rising from beneath eye level.
Without opening his eyes or powering up mana-sensitive vision, he felt a sensation distinctly blue rise from beneath and fill his senses, as if he’d slipped from a room into an identical aquarium. The feeling made him want to float, to bob from side to side on the current and flow as it swirled randomly around. That’s good, came a strange rough voice from nowhere. Zahn couldn’t find direction in his new place, or feel the couch under his ass. The feeling caused a moment of panic, and his aimless flailing immediately flashed his thoughts back to his time spent floating down in Chaos and he felt his adrenaline spike. Even in his disconnected state, his subconscious reacted to his fear and turned on every natural defense it knew, including the newest additions. Mana burst out from his core, rushing around his body as it searched for the intruding energy to push back out and bring his form back to stable.
As the magic flowed, his calm world of endless blue ocean rumbled and swirled around violently. The previously static realm of blue light and life churned and frothed as it swirled around and began to evaporate, leaving through what felt like endless holes in his previously solid tank in all directions. Where the world had been solid, secure, even tranquil if oddly blue it now felt like the energy of existence was draining away to everywhere else as he flailed helplessly within its chamber. The sense of loss and confusion lasted until his mana stuffed his body full, and the drain stopped as well. He felt like the strange tank he floated in the center of replenished from nowhere just as it drained to everywhere, as if he existed in the space between nothing and everything. The idea of acting as a bridge or medium almost vibrated, the space around him shaking as the thought passed through his mind and he felt something on his back shift in turn.
“Well, seems like you pulled it off after all.” The strange grating voice returned, its rumble echoing around his head. “I thought you’d fallen asleep, in there so long. Can you hear me, Custom?” It took Zahn several long moments of contemplating the question in his blue tranquility before the identity of the speaker bubbled to the surface of his waking mind.
Iengoris. Trying to say the word out loud did nothing, but he felt the idea ripple its way out of his fish tank environment. That’s your name. You were telling me something. Something important, Zahn felt himself trail off as the pleasant sensation of warm tingling surged up his back and let him float, rising as if on a current only he could feel. This is nice. This feels so good. Trying to focus on his last task seemed impossible, and the world itself seemed to float away with him as he coasted on the sensation.
“Well, I’m glad the connection’s stable. Wake up, come on. You’re drifting, wake up!” The strange sounds were now accompanied by another feeling, one quite unwelcome in Zahn’s new blissful state. Something was tapping his forehead, right in that sensitive spot carved out by the purple basket mesh. “Wake. Up. Break meditation if you have to, stupid git. Awaken!”
The prodding finally evoked a reaction, something that seemed to ask his current location for permission before drawing more of his blue world away and empowering somewhere else. Zahn’s space above his eyes tingled before the feeling grew to an itch, then a sharp pain that nearly shocked him out of the trance-like state as his third eye opened once again. The sudden new input felt like he’d found a new and vulnerable wound in his side, driving him to want to cover the cavity and finding he had no hands in his current state. Leaving the weakness wide open, he felt more than saw through the new sense as it took in information.
Outside Zahn’s mediation trance, Iengoris sat on the hearth’s edge as he prodded the low-level Player’s forehead trying to wake him up just to see the man’s sweaty skin ripple and a purple vertical copy of a human eye appear on his brow. The little imp hopped back with a yelp, landing comfortably in the coals as the strange purple eye drawing moved and took in the room. It roamed to the minion before following a line back to his sleeping master behind closed doors, and panned the room briefly resting on things somewhere outside their walls. “What is this?” The human’s voice boomed in the silence, nearly echoing in their small room. The Chaos covered his large ears and muttered curses about improving the wrong senses first.
Zahn found he could see through the new weakness, as if carving a port into his skull with Psychic magic was all it took to see the minds of others through all barriers around him. The small imp’s body was invisible, but its mind shone as a beacon of red and purple knots and whorls spinning around one another as the little demon plotted its dark deeds. There was a line of pink and shadowed by magenta that trailed from the summon to his master, sleeping and resting as a sagged blue bundle laying on a low shelf. The appearance reminded Zahn of a drawing of a brain if it were animated as its own living thing and left to doze the time away.
Thinking about his observations and making comparisons, Zahn felt himself tingle all over as he leaned forward and tried to open his real eyes. The task seemed impossible, leaving him able to see through the lens of thought for the moment as he tried to orient himself. “Are you going to tell me, little imp? I thought you said you were guiding this mediation session for me, and there was something important involved?”
The little demon shook itself, showing up to Zahn’s psychic eye as a wobbling back and forth of the thing’s conscious mind. “That’s right, keep your hair on. So, you’ve slipped into the second level of meditation, where the instructed Classes gain their first benefit which is usually some form of bodily control. I gather from the new face mess, yours is getting that crazy eye going again.”
“I’m not so sure,” Zahn’s voice sounded like it echoed back each time the tiny ripples tinged with purple reached the other being’s mind. “I’m filled with mana already, perhaps it’s just a result of having the power on hand and reacting to stimuli?”
Iengoris didn’t move for a long moment, his thoughts slowing for several breaths. “Like that’s even plausible,” the little beast droned sarcastically when he finally did speak. “If you’re going to be listening along, just pay attention to the guy who knows a thing or two. Stop guessing at everything, you’re probably going to be wrong and proud and lash out, and I don’t want to take the brunt of that shit. So I say you listen to me, and we both get through this intact. Solid?”
Zahn tried to nod, finding the motion impossible but feeling a pulse of assent leave him anyways. Communicating without words was fairly easy to send basic intentions across, but the prospect of trying to organize complex topics without language to act as a medium seemed daunting.
“Right. So, while you’ve been spinning away in there for hours I’ve had the chance to give your body a good ol’ look-over with the magic eye trick you showed my boy. I gotta say, those are some impressively carved mana pathways, but all it really shows me is your body isn’t tempered to withstand the magical forces you’re pushing through it. Basically, your most basic bodily structures are letting the magical energy pass through them more or less freely because they don’t have a magical presence of their own to push back with. Instead of you making specific paths per limb or organ you want to push mana into, you’ve made a whole damned rat’s nest of possible roads for magic all intertwining and wrapping around inside there. It’s pretty clear you haven’t had instruction, so let’s begin.”
Listening to the little demon rant on about mana structures and how they would eventually affect his body was interesting enough, but Zahn struggled to focus against the ongoing rush of pleasant tingling constantly calling from the back of his mind. Giving the Chaos being’s mind the equal to a long stare, he tried to peer into the other mind and get a better glimpse of what the thing meant as it spoke.
No sooner than the intent to look into his head solidified his Psychic weave warped and reached out to its thoughts. Zahn saw a thick band of purple ribbon reach out in a loop, wrapping around the red and purple mess of a mind and drawing it closer like a lover’s embrace. The thick violet wrap seeped into its mind, dragging images of the spiraling mess along with it and sending those pictures down the path back into the Player’s mind and past where he could see through his third eye. Sporadic images flowed in, following the imp’s conversation as it tried to make its point clear and rambled on, apparently ignorant to the Psychic intrusion.
“Your body already competes between physical and mental energies moving around, so you’ll need to condense your insane mess and refine it down into a more cohesive path in each prominent direction.” Zahn saw through the demon’s eyes his own body, larger than life and swollen with yellow light pulsing just under his skin. Past the barrier of gold the thick cords of blue darkening nearly to black ran all around, blocking clouds of green from flowing along their essential paths to help his body function. “As long as you work to keep your resource pools balanced, you’ll find the path of being a spellblade is fairly simple. You need to condense your unconscious options into more directed paths so your magic flows properly. This is a lot like doing physical training to give yourself muscle memory, just with the essence of all life itself.”
Coming along with the lecture, Zahn saw images of possibilities his body could experience. First he saw an image of his own body filled with blue light, not letting the green pass anywhere and organs dying as a result. The picture warped to show his mana paths coming together like hair being gathered in a tie to split the mess of options into five major groups instead of a tangled weave wrapping around inside his chest. The amount of blue and green seemed to compete, each color displacing the other as their respective sizes swelled and shrank against one another.
“Your body can only hold a finite amount of each resource, depending on how your training goes. If you can empower yourself permanently, you’ll unlock storing mana inside your body’s cells and calling on it later. The only problem with this, is if you follow that path you’ll find binding stamina to those same parts very difficult indeed. The best path, from what the Monks claimed over on their precious mountaintop, is to strive to bind stamina and mana to yourself in equal amounts at all times. Ethan couldn’t hack it, his mana pool was almost five times the size of his stamina when he tried to pull it off and the result wasn’t pretty.”
Listening to Iengoris, Zahn saw the images as the little demon remembered them and realized the thing had been mostly a pet in its previous life. All its memories were from either a perch on its master’s shoulder or a similarly high up branch or chair. The memories showed flashes of groups standing together, robed and humming the same chants as they bent and swung their arms in unison. Images of Ethan wrapped in robes not too different from his current fighting outfit trying to copy the group and failing, falling from logs high in the air and tripping over his own feet cycled rapidly as the beast called on their fond past.
“So what you’ll need to do first, is retrain how you move your mana around your body. I’m sure you’re already familiar with how mana can be ‘spent’ due to your book studies, which is when it normally goes off back into the Mana Realm. When the mana is still inside you, depending on how well your internal attunement goes it could stick around in the Physical Realm with you for months, even years later. If we’re going to work on removing old magic habits, we need to work on teaching you how to cycle your mana out and expel old energies to replace them with new ones. First, sink into your mana pool as you’ve already done.”
“I’m not sure that’s the thing either,” Zahn found his thoughts answering before he gave the topic any consideration. “From how the environment reacts, I think I’m in the source of my mana instead of the pool storing it. Maybe inside my Core itself?”
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The groaning sigh was as audible as it was felt, with the ribbon into the other being’s head giving him feedback. This fucker needs to stop with the guesswork. He can’t be skipping around like this shit. He felt the little imp sigh again before it spoke. “No, not likely. To sink into your Core before you manage to hang out in your Pool is like sprinting before you walk. Even if you could, it’s a stupid idea and you don’t even know about stretching yet. Mind letting me finish?”
Loosing another pulse of consent, Zahn pondered his new discovery. So I can basically hurt myself right now, because I haven’t mastered whatever it is I should be learning while chilling somewhere else. But do I even want to leave here, if he says I should? Damn, reading minds is a lot easier than I thought it would be. It probably doesn’t even need eye contact. Pushing the ideas of reading his opponent mid-fight, he tried to focus on the ongoing meditation lecture while being distracted by the pleasant lazy sensation from behind and idle thoughts popping in on their own.
“Right then. Start by moving your mana around like normal, but instead of letting it rebound against your skin make it push past. It helps to start with a single weak point, like out your hands and work from there. Your ultimate goal is to make a cloud that extends past your body, and push the aura around once it’s made. You have to expel the spent mana, fill yourself with completely fresh stuff.”
Following along, Zahn spent endless moments in a fugue state as he repeatedly felt himself sinking into the pleasant depths and rising back to wakefulness. The flickering state of meditation held his progress back, each time he’d pushed a path down an arm or leg to drive out the dregs of mana sticking to the inside of his outline he’d fall again and find himself swimming in bliss once again. The constant dragging down began to give a tell, like sand sticking and pulling backwards in his brain before the sudden lack of awareness took him.
Coming back to task after another bout of oblivion had Zahn feeling breathless, as if the constant bobbing between states of consciousness were the diving of a distance swimmer between gasps for air. Clinging to the illusion of rising to the surface for a breath, he tried to hang onto the buoy in his ocean of pleasant sensation trying to drag him back down to complacent oblivion. The endless tides of temptation rocked against him, nearly throwing his awareness from its perch yet again as he spied the partially helpful imp’s mind. The little mess of color and lines stood like a rock, distant from the tumultuous waves trying to drag Zahn’s mind down and resting solidly in the far background.
Fixing his mental stare on the small mind, Zahn tried to gasp for a larger breath as he worked to push mana around and re-excite the same waves he’d been stirring before falling into a daze last. The task of pushing mana out from his core into his body was already making him strain at the unnatural movement while he tried to also push that fresh energy all the way to the limits of his skin and past. As he held his focus in the endless swirls of distraction, the pushing in various directions started to feel like a dump that wouldn’t come no matter how hard he strained. The Player despaired for a long breath, his focus feeling like it could snap at any moment. He felt the little demon’s thoughts, ready to give up on the idiot Mage who couldn’t even cycle his mana properly.
I’m not a Mage. The single thought rose to the surface and then above, floating around his head like a bubble. I did not choose the Mage Class, I skipped over that shit. The longer he dwelled on the single point, the easier it became to resist the temptation to sink back into relaxation. That shit’s too simple, it didn’t have the perks, it didn’t let you max the right stuff. I chose Custom, and I rigged it from the fucking start! Hearing himself and remembering his first day in this superdigital prison, the Player Zahn remembered how he measured the writing on the walls. And everything is checked against Will. Fuckin’ everything. The blue waters of the oasis around him began to tremble, reacting to his presence as it began to vibrate with intent. I will not fucking fail this. I rigged this stupid shit, so I just have to power through it. Let’s fucking go! Amping himself with his thoughts and trying to pump up adrenaline did nothing in his meditative state, but the rising energy and enthusiasm caused another effect entirely.
“Uh. Whatcha doin’?” Iengoris’ voice sounded less sure, as if his student had begun fishing in the class aquarium during math lessons. “Stop that. Don’t do that, it’s not going to help. Stop. Custom, stop!”
Zahn rose, feeling the nature of his tank change along with him. He felt himself lift up high, higher than the ceiling and briefly found a thin layer of resistance that burst like a bubble. Soaring straight up and above, he felt deep in his chest as if he’d risen to sit up on a cloud knowing he’d need to eventually turn his attention back groundwards. As he rose, his environment shifted alongside him until it scarcely resembled the fishbowl it once was. The borders to his little world seemed to swell and flee, flinging themselves in each direction as the glass simile stretched thin into the sparsest barrier holding him in. The room now filling the size of a futbol stadium as a sphere trembled, its once vibrant contents fading to dim. The blue glowing medium he’d been suspended in and distracted by looked washed out and diluted in its new chamber, as if seawater had been spread until clear. The fluid frothed, bubbling as darker swirls formed from beneath and erupted to fill the tank once more.
The new blue waters were darker, taking in the light and holding it to glitter quietly as it smothered the source entirely. Zahn sat captivated by his own mana, taking in its rich color and depth as his Core swirled with greater force and filled with even more of the sapphire energy. Completely confident in what he once voiced as possibilities, the lowbie settled as his awareness within his mana core and enjoyed the powerful feeling of this new intoxicating mana as it churned around inside him. The exercise of pushing mana through his body now seemed trivial, and with a mental flick of a finger his new mana leapt to respond.
Scorching heat erupted down Zahn’s mana pathways, scoring new troughs along the gentle roads paved in dozens of directions. The new channels seemed blistering hot as they roared their way up and down his body, branching upwards between his shoulders and head while splitting for each leg below. The five paths were met and reinforced again by the splitting routes punching out left and right, merging with the arm and leg channels to thicken them and add additional paths for the power to flow. He stopped before carving new channels out the front and back, both unsure how to connect them and finding the pain too much. Each time he directed the thicker darker roots, the heat seemed to linger inside and leave him aching as if burned.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” the little imp’s voice echoed from far outside his new container. “What in Chaos possessed you to punch up to eleven? I thought I made it clear, your body wasn’t able to handle tier seven mana in it yet. You needed to write paths from the weakest levels to the strongest, and you carve rank eleven paths into your rank one body? Are you an idiot, boy?”
Zahn refocused on the mind merely a few feet away from him, still sitting in place as it guided his own. The small being seemed so puny, so crushable between his mental fingers that for a moment he felt tempted to smear the bug as it sat. The temptation lasted until he felt something pulse in his chest and almost fell, as if he’d missed a step on the stairs and dropped down a half-foot. The world was the same, slightly colder but otherwise having barely shrunk at all.
“There, see. You can’t even hold past ten for long. I suspect you’ll drop a rank at a time until you reach a level you can hold on purpose. Now, back to task. You have some seriously damaging mana in your system that needs to leave, and you need to flush it out. Focus on pushing mana through your body, and try to keep it as low-tier as possible. Even an inch of water can wash a building away, you know.”
Turning his attention to the instructions, Zahn found the possibilities embarrassingly easy. He still sat high in the sky, no longer on a cloud but still standing far and above his problem. Reaching down with intent, he told his dimming mana to push outwards as a wave after spreading itself out to weaken itself. The rapid dilution of mana dropped the energy by several ranks, but made up for the difference in power via volume which began to rapidly fill his Core and push outwards. The lowbie congratulated himself on the progress and repeated the instruction, intending to drop the ranking further and flood himself with relatively weak mana when he felt himself hop down and lose another rank of Willpower.
Dropping his task to mentally catch himself, Zahn missed the chance to stabilize his Core and could only watch in fascinated fear as the entirety of high-tier mana inside him shuddered and collapsed, erupting into beautiful shades and colors of blue with varying thicknesses and extreme volume. The explosive outburst of weakened power pushed Zahn’s awareness clear out of his Core and into his Mana Pool, dropping him from the strange fish tank environment completely and into what felt like a large plastic bag merged with a sponge as the flooding outpour of mana gushed through his new vessel and poured down the newly-carved mana channels.
Trying to hang on in his new realm felt like trying to hold his breath in a river. Rapids poured on and over his mind, each taking a morsel of thought he had to grab back onto and making him want to giggle and relax in the tingling power. Being constantly drenched in his own mana felt similar to being in a hot tub and waterboarded at the same time, as if the energy intended him well but was drawn along too fast to actually help him in any way. The helpless rush and onslaught of magic continued as Zahn struggled to think against the current, trying to find a way to center himself and then he heard it.
“Ohhh yeah. That’s the stuff. Oh, baby.” The imp’s grating voice carried a tone Zahn was quite certain he never wanted to hear, and his sudden disturbance was enough to find his mental balance and address the new crisis. “Aww, yiss. Ohh, you just can’t get it like that. Awhuh, it's so good I’m gonna…”
Urgency grew as Zahn tried to reassert his mental position, beyond certain something had gone past what he was comfortable with. Trying to break his meditation wasn’t as easy as wanting it, but as he tried to rise back to being awake he felt something like an opening shift above him, and pushing himself upwards became as easy as breathing. He rose up and away from the rushing current, feeling the drag slip away and into a state of null sensation like he’d first felt meditating, until he rose from that as well. Thousands of grains of sand made their way down the sides of his skull as Zahn slowly opened his eyes and blinked the feelings away.
His body was erupting with mana, enough to power his Mana Sight via residual energy and show him the full display immediately. Clouds of blue in various shades and hues poured out from his skin, leaking off of his body like steam as it rose and dripping oil as it fell to disperse into more clouds before it could drip even an inch. The outpour condensed at points, streaming like a kettle out from each fingertip and causing a distracting haze around his nose.
Seeing past the colorful blue-tinged display of waterworks, Zahn could see the energy already being repurposed as it was drawn into the hearth like a vacuum. Each brick on the waist-high circular structure full of coals pulsed as they took in the clouds and pushed the magic deeper into the construct. He didn’t particularly mind his source of cooked food and rebirth getting free juice, but its occupant suddenly irked him. Iengoris the imp lay splayed out on the coals, his body flickering in flames as he groaned and moaned with pleasure, taking in mana from the air with every gulping breath. Each time he panted he sucked in a great cloud that dwarfed the hearth’s intake and seemed to swallow before gasping grey wisps back into the world with murmurs of pleasure. Each breath of power taken in filled its tiny body and swirled around before pushing into its mind and enriching the vibrant bright colors before leaving through its body and out the mouth once more.
“Ahem. What the fuck, little dude?” Finding his voice again, Zahn tried to break the overly generous outpouring of mana by shaking himself like he could fling the excess water off. “You call that guiding my mediation? Are you smoking, eating, or beating it? Goddamn.”
Iengoris coughed, choking on his inhale as he was caught. He squeaked and rumbled out a series of coughs as he tried to roll over, visibly struggling to turn his tiny body upright. “Ack. Hah. Ahem. Sorry about that, it’s just. Well, it’s. Hard to resist, see. Ah.” Finally standing upright, he turned in tiny steps to face the stern Player. “It’s just. I’m a Fire-type, see. I’m just like a Fire spell, I take in mana as both heat energy and the fuel potential. Different kinds can make different sources and whoo, I’ll tell you.” The demon paused and patted his belly, gesturing at Zahn with his free paw. “That’s some tasty stuff.”
Zahn raised an eyebrow, crossing his outpouring arms to keep the fonts of mana pointed away from the beast. “And wouldn’t your Master just be feeding you? He was obsessed with bringing you back before he’d cast anything at all.”
“Right, right,” the imp raised its hands as it tried to look both directions and track it's free meal escaping. “So he needs to cast mana through me for spells, and I get a whiff and snack here or there sure. But that’s not real food, and I’ve been drifting in Chaos for fucking ages since my last summoning, I’m starving! Could you really resist a cake that’s right in front of you tubby?”
“Considering my toilet is a pot I have to empty myself, yes. A fat chunk of sugar after months without is just a bad plan, no matter how tempting it is. And that’s not even the point, this is my mana not your cake!”
The little imp’s face was briefly lit as Zahn opened his eyes from blinking, finding a faint purple light fading away. He blinked again, and watched as the demon shrunk back and carefully stepped to the far side of the hearth.
“I didn’t know I was doing that,” he tried to say.
“Most don’t.” Iengoris cut him off, his tone no longer pleading. “It’s tied to your thoughts, so when you just want to lash out? When you get angry? It’s just-” he held up a paw, snapping his fingers. “There. Reminds me of a camera flash, just painful to look at.”
Ethan stepped out from his room, seeing the pair turn their heads to him in unison. “Well. Not creepy at all. Good morning, I trust you two are fully rested after your little meditation session?”
Zahn scowled to answer snippily when he glanced at his clock and saw it was half-past five, and they’d passed the night completely. Standing from his sitting perch, he found his body light and loose as if he’d slept all day. “Actually?” He jumped a little dance in place, feeling his limbs happily obeying him. “I do feel rested. Does meditation replace sleep?”
“Not usually,” Ethan yawned as he passed and headed for the washroom. “It might be class-specific to you, though.”
“He spent so long without progress I thought he had slept,” the little demon’s voice sounded as it jumped to its master’s shoulder. “But he worked in the end. Day one, passable.”
Zahn flipped the little beast a finger as he stretched, trying to limber up before the day. I need to try Sprinting during the morning run, and take the physical shit more seriously. Balance between Stamina and Mana? His mana bar sat at nearly double his stamina, and serious stat imbalances keeping them apart. Okay, game plan. Let’s do this.