That description had really undersold the Skill.
Immediately upon activation, parts of Robin's brain went numb. The sun's warmth grew cold and the continuous chirping went silent.
Then the sky quickly turned pitch black, with the darkness gradually oozing downwards. It first covered the mountaintops, then it swallowed the nearby trees, the cliff behind him, and shortly after the very ground he was sitting on.
"I mean I expected something to happen, but having this transition be so... forced... feels a bit odd."
This was probably how it would have felt to start meditating while still receiving information from the outside, but that was most likely impossible without the help of the System anyway.
The skill didn't simply boost learning in the way Robin expected - a similar effect to what taking focus pills from a drug store would do.
Instead, it seemed to put the user in a deep trance where emotions and everything not paramount to staying alive were shut down in order to help them focus on their task. It seemed stronger than whatever he was doing by himself, but also more restrictive.
The Skill's potency was a positive surprise, but the thought of being even more defenseless than he was normally made Robin not want to spend a second more than he needed in this state, even though now he wasn't afraid of dying while inside here.
The freedom from fear was liberating, but dangerous. Still, as long as it didn't get him killed, it was a tool he would use.
With his mind made up, Robin began spellcrafting in the darkness.
As with any task, the first step was brainstorming. He did manage to cast magic before, so he went over how he had done it.
The first step had been the creation of a very detailed mental image of what he wished to have. After that, certain he was going to die if he didn't manage to create it, he yearned for it with his whole being. And then...
"Then fire just kind of happened, somehow, through magic..."
He sighed mentally, fearing the first time was just a fluke.
But then he felt like something tugged at his thoughts, and the memory of his most recent failed attempt at water magic bubbled up.
Like a railroad switch changing tracks, his mind curved towards potentially useful information that he knew. He would have once again been positively surprised by the usefulness of the skill, if only it hadn't smothered that thought as it was forming.
"But to cast Spark I used up mana, so basically what I did was... turn Mana into something tangible... through mental images?"
Something clicked at that thought, and the darkness twitched.
This time nothing pulled to prevent Robin's mind from getting distracted.
"Does this mean something happened outside?"
It was weird being so detached when his own life was potentially in danger, but once again he was mentally pushed away from that unhelpful line of thought.
But he was still conscious that the sole reason he started this in the first place was to survive.
Dying while doing it would invalidate the whole process, so his first impulse was to just cancel the skill.
As soon as he had that thought however, a warning was imprinted in his mind, telling him that cancelling was also considered 'disruption'.
He would actually suffer varying amounts of backlash for everything that would end the use of the skill besides finishing the cast - which meant completing the task that it had been used to assist with.
"Well this sucks..."
This time, the darkness shifted slightly as his thoughts were derailed and he felt a slight current pass through his body.
"What was that? Was that just from the Skill or did I get hit outside?"
He mentally commanded his status screen to open.
The moment the screen blinked open, his surroundings protested. Tremors ran across the dark edges of the whole realm, sending sharp pains throughout his body and causing him a very intense feeling of vertigo.
He was caught off-guard, not expecting it to be this bad. He immediately closed the screen, although he did manage to get a squeeze a peek at the top part in the instant it had been there.
Status
Name: Robin Greystone
Race: Human (Uncommon)
Age: 20
Resources:
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Health: 50/50
Stamina: 30/30
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Judging by that, everything outside was fine for the moment. But that didn't make the horrible sensations he was feeling now any less potent, the fact that they replaced the lack of anything further enhancing the discomfort.
The dark grey world was spinning with such speed that his brain thought the centrifugal force was causing the pain along his limbs.
"Is everything in this shitty world going to feel like getting hit in the balls with a bat? Was this the so-called 'backlash' mentioned in the Skill, or can it get worse?"
Once again, the lack of information was frustrating at the very least. Thankfully, the horrid side effects of his Skill were overshadowing it.
The couple of minutes it took for the pain to ease and the vertigo to fade felt like hours.
After that thought, Robin waited a bit more before returning to his self-study session - both to completely recover his wits and see if the darkness would keep moving indefinitely.
It stilled at the same time his discomfort completely faded, so he figured there was a connection between the two. Hopefully there was some transparency between the meditation realm and the outside world, and it was not just a representation of his inner state.
Now that he was stable once again, Robin figured it was high time to actually do what he initially intended to by locking away all his senses. Every second spent in this magical pseudo-coma meant one more opportunity for something to snack on him, and that thought would never not make him shudder.
"So I basically just need to get a hold of the Mana inside me, pull it outside, and transform it into water.
Three simple steps..."
Unfortunately, he was capable of doing none at the moment.
He took a deep breath, and began improvising.
***
In the end, learning how to do magic intentionally turned out to be easier than he feared, but harder than he hoped.
Robin had been right with what the process was supposed to be, but actually doing it was... complicated.
Manipulating Mana was like pulling a string from a yarn, only the material that they were made of was oobleck slime;
When he pulled too hard it would harden, stop moving or even snap, and the section not connected to his core would fizzle out, both wasting the Mana and causing a sensation similar to touching a hot stove.
On the other hand, if he pulled too slowly the strand would just dissipate and the Mana would be lost as well.
Adding to that the fact that Mana wasn't really physical, which meant the only way to move it was through mental means... it made for a hell of a learning process.
Surprisingly, the 'transformation' part was actually the easiest to get down.
He just had to imagine what he wanted the Mana to become and it would transform into that, so the first time he managed to pull a Manastring outside he completed the spell.
While he was Meditating quite a bit of time had passed, as indicated by the how the orange sun in the distance very close to touching the horizon.
In retrospect, he had been careless. He should have made preparations and at the very least not be in plain sight when he activated Meditation.
He should have noticed the lack of any mention of 'cancelling'.
He should have thought twice about what a disruption could mean; the System could consider only abilities with a 'disrupt' effect actually disruptions, for all he knew.
"Still, all that time being basically unconscious and nothing even tried to eat me. I guess I don't look very tasty."
The buzzing and numbness in his head hadn't faded right away when the darkness dissipated so Robin decided to sit down a minute longer.
He was unsure and unwilling to test how having parts of his brain turned off would affect his ability to walk, and not even the puddle of water he created and was now sitting in would change his mind.
"Probably the only time I'll ever be proud of sitting in a puddle of my own making."
With nothing else to do, he opened up his Status.
Status
Name: Robin Greystone
Race: Human (Uncommon)
Age: 20
Resources:
Health: 50/50
Stamina: 30/30
Mana: 4/30
Influence: 1/100
Attributes:
Agility: 2
Endurance: 3
(!) Intelligence: 6
Perception: 3
Resistance: 1
Strength: 3
Vitality: 4
(!) Willpower: 6
Skills:
Identify* (C)
Elemental Affinity* (S)
Spark (I)
Meditation (C)
(!) Soak (C)
(!) Truecasting Novice
A smile was his reaction to the instant dopamine hit he got as he saw the markers. Then he checked each of them in order.
Intelligence
Attribute determines cognitive ability, maximum magic potential and Mana pool.
(!) Notice - Unusual achievement detected. Attribute recalibrated. 2 points awarded.
Willpower
Attribute determines spell casting speed, mental resilience and Mana regeneration.
(!) Notice - Improvement detected. Attribute recalibrated. 1 point awarded
There was a difference between the two upgrades. Robin figured that the achievement would probably have something to do with how he - a level 1 - discovered how to cast spells without using the system.
"Bet that last Skill has something to do with it as well.
Also, it makes sense now why Willpower is what determines casting speed, given the fact that the only way to control Mana is through will."
New Skill (!)
Truecasting Novice
Passive Skill
User is an initiate in the field of truecasting. Provides minor increases in Mana affinity and sensitivity.
"I'm not sure what truecasting is, but any increases are welcome."
New Skill (!)
Soak - Common
Active Skill - Scaling cost
Conjure a layer of water around the target. Volume of water created and Mana cost increase with size of target. Requires physical contact
"Well, there's my first Skill that doesn't cost a chunk of my max mana! With this, I at least have drinking and washing covered.
Now I just need to get strong enough to survive meeting something that wants to kill me..."