As it turns out, learning to dodge does actually hurt quite a lot. Her entire body was covered in welts from the two demons. They didn’t hold back at all and sent peanuts at her full power. Each time they impacted her tender flesh, they left stinging red marks.
They were an hour in, and Quinn had only moderately improved. She followed Atamai’s advice and moved as if she was dancing; focusing on her feet and hips to dodge the salty projectiles instead of her torso. It was quite effective for a time until Willa joined in on the action. And Willa threw quite a bit harder than Atamai. In fact, it almost felt like the kindly Willa was intentionally trying to bruise her with how hard each shell impacted her body.
“Ah!” One last peanut shattered against her kneecap as Quinn staggered to the side in a massively delayed reaction. The shell cracked and sent its payload everywhere as bits of fiber flew across the room. She was sure that it was going to bruise.
“Damn, I'm out of nuts,” Atamai said from beside her.
“So I’m free-” One last nut whizzed at her, smacking her in the nose. “Aw!” Instantly a spurt of red flew from the impact zone. Quinn grabbed at her bleeding nose as she glared at Atamai.
The demon's lips drew up into a triumphant smirk. “Rule number 7, never assume that the attack is over!” The rules were something the mechanic had been spouting the entire hour she had been torturing Quinn. They were rules for daily life that Atamai had picked up over the years:
Always be prepared to attack!
Never think you're too safe to be attacked!
Dodging anything you can’t block and block anything you can’t dodge!
Always pay attention!
Expect an attack from every angle! Your enemies won’t just wait for 1v1s!
If fighting overwhelming odds, retreat and find a way to even the odds!
Never assume that the attack is over!
Most of the rules were common sense, but that didn’t mean they weren’t helpful. Although Quinn was irritated by the constant painful nips, she didn’t once think the practice was useless. Every nut she dodged now could be a weapon in real life. And the rules themselves were reminders of how dangerous the world was. Atamai herself reinforced this fact by telling stories of the times she was ambushed while traveling.
Quinn collapsed to the floor in a heap of peanut shells as she cleaned up her bloody nose. “A-are we done now?”
“Hmm… I wonder.” Atamai mimed throwing another projectile, but nothing came out of her hand. “Congratulations, Quinn! You just passed my… my introductory course to staying alive!”
Willa clapped from her side of the room with a small smile on her face. Quinn thought she looked awfully happy for someone who was just indulging in their sadistic ways. Her small demeanor was so irritating. She almost looked like a righteous saint as she cheered along and not a demon who enjoyed torturing poor, innocent souls.
Quinn stood up and moved to her bed, using Cleanse to clean off the bits of shell all over her as she did. She collapsed on it in a heap and spoke into her pillow. “Well, thanks for the lesson…”
“No problemo, friend!” She could hear Atamai’s heavy metal boots walking towards the door. “We’ll keep up the lessons till you can master dodging!” Quinn groaned in her pillow as the two fiends left her room.
It was an hour later that she finally had enough energy for anything. She, of course, decided to read a book. Her weathered tome of choice this time was Magic 101. She had put off learning about what this world thought of magic and mana for far too long. Unless she wanted to be bitten to death by any wild monster or robbed by bandits, she desperately needed to have a deeper level of understanding regarding the power of this world.
----------------------------------------
After several hours of reading the almost textbook-like layout of Magic 101 by Sir Issac Bohr, she had come to a few conclusions. First, the people of this world were rather dumb. The book didn’t show any hints of answers to questions like ‘Why do we have mana?’ and ‘Where does mana come from?’ They just took the powerful energy at face value and didn’t even question it.
They also had a rather… interesting idea of how mana was used and how magic came to be. According to the book, magic was an exchange for sacrificing one's own mana to the world. Quinn’s own theory on how magic was just an advanced form of energy conversion felt a tad bit more fleshed out than their theory. They also took mana at face value and said that it was produced by all living organisms. She couldn't say too much against the theory, but it did make her wonder what the people of this world considered to be living.
Aside from the pitfalls of theories, she did find out several things she wanted to know. The first one was the practice of using mana to cast magic in other forms than the runic way. It turns out that there are a few other ways, but they involve the help of an Outsider. That kind of magic was called sorcery and was strictly warned against by the book. Something about mental corruption and the permanent degradation of humanity was mentioned several times.
Another way was through the process of enchanting and formations. The use of magic circuits, which Ada had mentioned in the past, was also included. And the last way that humans knew of was through the use of a magic item such as a wand. That being said, every ‘other form’ of magic seemed to still rely upon the runic casting method just in a different way, excluding the one with Outsiders. Magic items had runes engraved inside of them, enchanting and formations still used runes in a written form, and the magic circuits were literally engraved runes in one's body.
Mana circuits were quite interesting. According to Magic 101, by engraving a set of runes into a person's veins, said person can manipulate and control their mana a lot better. It was almost a cheat to get better control instantly if not for its side effects. The main side effect was binding mana to the body. The bound mana that kept the inner runes working would no longer be accessible to the aspiring mage, resulting in a permanent loss of mana. A secondary side effect was the mana causing a slight mental deviance in the person. The example used to show the effect of mental deviance was a fire mage that underwent surgery to gain a mana circuit. He went insane with rage and became quite an explosive personality.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
The book also warned against experimenting with magic if one was at a low level in their understanding. Mana was an extremely unstable substance once it was taken from its normal habitat i.e. a person's body. If magic went unstable, mana would revert to its natural state instead of being used in a spell. This was what happened to Quinn the other night when her hand got torn up.
Mana Reversion was what the process was called and its effects depended on the person. The effect of Mana Reversion depended on how the caster’s mana felt, or their Mana Signature. From what she could put together, her mana caused a compression similar to a black hole because her Mana Signature felt like it was a black hole. The example of Mana Reversion in the book was an archmage casting a seventh-tier magic and exploding into a ball of fire, taking out a city with him.
Mana Signatures were also an interesting topic. Everyone had their own unique mana signature. It was developed and changed as a person grew. Major life experiences cause the biggest impact on a person's Mana Signature, but it would never change too far outside of its natural state. Someone with a warm Mana Signature will never have theirs turn to a cold Mana Signature.
The book also mentioned why sharing how mana feels is a bad idea. Apparently, it has to do with something called Contractual Magic. Contractual Magic requires a piece of a person’s body, usually blood, to uphold a contract. The most common contractual magic was slave contracts and merchant contracts. Quinn panicked when she read that part. The thought of being turned into a slave for losing a drop of blood somewhere was too horrid to even think about. Thankfully, there was a catch. Intent matters in contract magic so blood needs to be freely given with the intent of signing a contract for the magic to take effect.
Back to why it was a bad idea to share your Mana Signature. There is a loophole in the entire consent and intent requirement of Contractual Magic. If a person can replicate someone else’s mana signature perfectly, they can sign the contract without the other person knowing. Hence it was a terrible idea to share that particular aspect of mana.
Quinn also finally figured out how magic was tiered. A magic circle can only hold so many runes on it. The more complex a spell and the more runes involved, the more rings it would require. The tier refers to the number of circles used in a spell. For instance, Lifestyle Magic is all tier-one magic since it only has a single circle with four runes. Tier-two magic would have two rings and a total of twelve runes but would require far more control and mana. This continued with the tiers as more rings and runes were added.
She read several other tidbits of information that were quite helpful, including the base formula for creating stable magic. After decades of research, it was found that magic was most stable when using sets of four runes. The first of the four runes was usually an element followed by three modifiers. Intent also mattered when casting magic. If someone were to just randomly smack four runes together without any idea or intention for what the magic would do, there was an extremely high chance Mana Reversion would take effect.
There was also something called Elemental Attribution. Some people were better suited for certain kinds of Elemental Magic than others based on their Mana Signature. The example given in the book was if a person’s mana felt warm, they were probably better suited for elements related to warmth like fire.
Knowing way more about mana than she originally had, Quinn was quite excited to experiment with it once more. Although she still felt a nagging fear in her spine about being sucked into a black hole, she pushed through it. Experimentation was the path to advanced knowledge, after all. If she never put herself out there and tried to work mana in her favor, she would never be able to find a way home.
She moved to a space in the room and rolled up her sleeves. What did she want to do? She wanted something that could protect herself first and foremost. It wouldn’t have to be powerful, but she wanted some kind of shielding magic. What would be the best element to use according to her Mana Signature? Something heavy and yet empty…
She looked through the table of elements in Magic 101 to find the best fit. Unfortunately, the list of elements was quite lacking. She only saw light, darkness, fire, water, wind, and earth. According to the book, there were hundreds if not thousands of other elements that could be used in magic, but the author was unfamiliar with the others. Since Sir Issac Bohr didn’t know much about the others, he didn’t include them.
Quinn sat down on the floor. What did her mana feel like? She felt deeply, feeling the weighty feel to it. Maybe gravity would be a fitting element? She always feels weighed down when full of mana. Her mana also felt as if it had no substance, so it would be a good fit. And blackholes had a strong gravitational pull, just like her Mana Reversion two nights ago. She was just hesitant about using something so similar to her past tragedy.
She shucked off her feelings. Now she has her element, what does she want it to do? Three words need to describe the magic’s function as well as modify the spell. She once more turned to Magic 101 to find common modifier runes and their meanings.
She glanced through them, taking in the hundreds of modifiers in the ‘beginner’ category. The modifiers were all over the place such as expand, purify, exception, detect, form, and strengthen. There were simply too many modifiers to remember them all. She decided on a better idea of how she wanted the magic to work before she picked modifiers.
First and foremost, she wanted the magic to be stable. The last thing she wanted was to have her hand swallowed by an intense gravitational field again. So what was gravity? Simple, it was a fundamental force that held everything down. Since it was a force, modifiers like form and shape that made the mana physical were out. Making gravity - a force - physical sounded very unstable.
So then, what did she want it to do? Creating a full field of increased gravity to stop attacks sounded nice, but that would most definitely require a high-tier spell due to its complexity. Since she was limited on mana she was limited to a smaller space where the gravitational field could take effect. She would also need the gravity to be super strong to knock weapons away.
She looked through the book and found two modifiers. Form could set the size of the gravitational field to what she wanted, and Strengthen would increase the field’s overall strength.
What else would she need? Quinn flipped through the book once more. Nothing quite fit what she was trying to do. The best thing she could find was Direction, which would potentially allow her to change the gravitational field’s direction.
Quinn settled on the magic she wanted to cast and memorized the runes. She came across a problem shortly after; she didn’t know the rune for gravity. What should she do? She wanted to just vault the entire idea for the time being, but a large part of her really wanted to experiment. She wanted to twist the natural forces with nothing more than her will and a bit of mana.
Quinn stood up and began to pace. Should she just use her maiden language? It failed last time… There were several other reasons why the magic failed last time though. The circle was entirely unstable and only had one word. Should she just try it and be ready to run? What’s the worst that could happen? Right, she could be crumpled into a tiny ball of agony.
She paced for a long time before she finally made a decision. She summoned her mana out and formed a small circle over her bandage hand. Slowly, as if afraid the magic would become unstable if she went too quickly, she wrote four words on it in the cardinal directions. Starting at the top and working clockwise, she engraved Gravity, Form, Strengthen, and Direction. Then she released her hold over the magic.