As I watched the skewered birds cook, I thought about the possibilities for the new mana forms Salvador showed me. The fire dancing over the impaled meat gave me an idea.

Using the system to visualize the mana forms from the enhanced spear strike, I set to work making a modified copy. Rather than using invisible force to push the spear forwards, I changed to mana forms to produce heat instead. The mana forms controlling the direction of the energy needed to be realigned as well. I wanted to push the heat outwards from the point of the spear, rather than just heat up the spear itself.

Standing up from the fire, I once again drew my spear. I tried not to feel self conscious as the others watched me intently. Weaving together the mana forms, I stabbed forwards with my spear.

The result wasn’t terribly impressive to see. There was a slight haze around the tip of my spear, but nothing else of note. The others looked disappointed, but I was still pleased with the result.

I still kind of wanted to show off exactly what my new spell could do though.

Picking up a bit of the kindling for the fire, I made a small target on the ground. Despite the lackluster showing from my first casting, everyone was still watching me with undisguised curiosity.

This time, my spell yielded a much more dramatic result. As my spear plunged into the kindling, the pile started to smoke. The twigs by the head of my spear took only a moment to ignite.

The success of my new spell was immediately met with cheers. Admittedly, only half of my traveling companions actually cheered. Martin gave me a congratulatory nod while Norbert just made an unamused grunt.

Liam, for his part, just stared. It looked like he was confused, intrigued, and a little intimidated all at once. When he realized I saw him staring, he looked away quickly. It could have been a trick of the fire light, but I was fairly sure his face looked a little more red than normal.

Any thoughts regarding the awkward rune carver were quickly forgotten as Salvador approached with a huge grin on his face. He gestured from my spear towards himself enthusiastically. For a brief moment, I wondered if he was asking me to use the new spell on him, but dismissed the foolish notion almost immediately.

It was clear that he was hoping that I would share my new spell with him, but I had no idea how. I tried opening my interface and showing the mana forms for the spell.

Salvador looked at the simplified mana form and scratched the back of his head. Evidently, that wasn’t what he wanted.

As I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do, I took a glance at my interface.

Name: Kyo —-----

Class: Novice Mage

(8/100%)

Mana Pool: 175/175

Codex: 72.40%

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MR:244

TPEL:35

Boons:

System Initiate: 10

Novice Mage: 8

Emergency augmentations: 2

Environmental Conditions:

Mana level: High

Danger present

Limited resources

System Messages:

New Boon Available

Update Available

I hadn’t noticed, but at some point while I was playing around with the new mana forms, I had gained my next boon. Unfortunately, I still didn’t see any new options.

Before making my choice, I tested out my new level of mana perception.

The difference was amazing. Though not as much of a jump as the first time the system improved my perception, I could still see far more than ever before.

Looking closely at a leaf, I found the natural mana forms mesmerizing. Many of them were now clear enough that I would have been able to copy them if I wanted to. Some still remained blurry and indistinct, showing that there was still merit in taking the minor boon again.

I paused for a moment before making my selection. I couldn’t know if taking the same minor boon twice would give me diminishing returns. There was also the chance that I could be missing out on some amazing boon because I was skipping over the prerequisites.

Frustratingly, the people around me probably knew the answers to most of my questions regarding the system. I had no idea how to ask and I doubted they would have a good way to respond even if I did.

Looking back at my options, I pondered what to take. My options were a bunch of minor boons that may not yield very much value, a minor boon to increase my mana manipulation, a pair of mental enhancement boons I didn’t want, and a pair of boons that probably wouldn’t do me much good any time soon.

Looking at it that way, it was obvious that the best choice was the mana manipulation minor boon. I was still a little worried that I was making a mistake, but I selected my boon anyway.

Just before I was about to close my interface, I realized something about the mana forms that Salvador showed me. Each of the individual parts of the spell only required 5th dimensional mana forms, where the full spell would have required 7 dimensions were it all put together.

If the mana form implementation boon I was offered could only handle 4th dimensional mana forms, it made sense that even an improved version of the boon would have similar limits.

Considering all of the magical effects I had witnessed from the warriors, I couldn’t think of a single spell that wouldn’t have been possible to break down into 5th dimensional mana forms. Most of what the warriors used was just shaped invisible force. There was likely a great deal of computation and analysis required, but the spell Salvador showed me proved that those things could be broken into pieces.

If the system was handling most of the spell casting for these warriors, that went a long way to explaining their flawless casting in the heat of battle. I immediately regretted selecting another minor boon instead of choosing the mana form implementation boon.

At least I knew what changes I needed to make so that Salvador could use my new spell. Whatever boon he was using probably needed the spell to be in a particular form to work properly.

Copying the first two portions of Salvador’s original spell, I made a few minor modifications to work with my heat based version. Testing the new, complex mana forms for myself, I found them still functional.

Looking up from my interface, I realized that the others had already started eating. Someone was even kind enough to put a few pieces of poultry in my bowl for me while I was distracted.

As I bit into the wonderfully seasoned, if a little overcooked, meat, I showed Salvador my newest spell. A delighted grim spread across his face as he drew his spear.

Thrusting his spear triumphantly into the air, Salvador cast my new spell. I couldn't help but feel a rush of pride to accompany the wave of heat released by the weapon. I never thought that I would one day teach someone else a spell that I invented.