As I crossed the room, I heard the soft scrape of stone on metal. That meant that I had been correct in assuming that Barti was going to sharpen my sword for me. Which was good because I had no clue what else he might have wanted to do with it.
I stopped a short distance from Mindi as she sat on a cushion of air. While I could have gotten close enough to get her attention, I didn’t want to risk one of the spells whizzing around her head. Of which, the fireball was the most erratic. It dipped and swerved, sped up and stalled out without any rhyme or reason.
I stood there trying to understand how she was manipulating the spheres. Was it some skill or just pure manipulation of the mana? Were such skills given when you learned to access an element or did you have to earn them? I wanted to know and, given that my current instructor, I needed to rely on some other source for information. But where?
Mentally, I pulled up my skill notification page. Quite a few new notifications were waiting for me. I had no clue what any of the listed skills did. Ok, based on their names I could guess but come on, what did the skill Healing do for me? Would it make me heal faster, or would it affect how fast others would heal when I treated them? On top of that, would it just affect my body or any items or spells I used?
Annoyed, I grumbled to my AI. “Is there any way to get more information on these skills?”
“Maybe open the skill tab?” While my AI’s voice was calm, it bordered on snarky with that response. With a shake of my head, I searched for such a tab. Yeah, it was on my character sheet near the bottom. It hid itself behind a button I had never noticed. When I pressed said button, it brought up another list. A list that was much shorter than I would have guessed given all the training I had done and what was already on it.
Skill:
Level:
Type:
Earned By:
Effect:
Fire Element
1
Active
Learn to control the fire element. (Bought)
You are able to cast fire-based spells.
Healing
1
Passive
Heal your HP two times during a single fight.
Your body heals faster. +1 Vitality
Mana Manipulation
1
Active
Learn how to manipulate the mana inside your body.
You are able to manipulate the mana flowing through your body.
Punching
1
Active
Learn to throw a punch.
Your fist will naturally fall into the correct grip so you don’t break something.
Running
1
Passive
Run a decent distance without passing out
Running is slightly easier for you.
Short Sword
2
Passive
Learn some basic sword movements
Your strikes are more likely to strike a specific region on your target.
Survival
1
Passive
Survive an attack that should have killed you.
Your body is naturally more sturdy. +1 Vitality
Tree Cutting
1
Active
Cut a tree down.
Any attack against a tree is more effective.
Weapon Care
1
Active
Learn to care for your weapons.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Any weapon cared for by you will receive an extra 1% durability.
That gave me quite a bit of new information and questions. “What is an active skill and how is it different than a passive one?” I asked my AI.
To my surprise, it was Mindi who answered me in a soft tone. Almost as if she was afraid to talk at all. Her volume increased as she forced herself to continue. “It depends on the effect and whether or not it requires deliberate and conscious activation by the user. For example, running might sound like it would be an active skill because you need to run to use it but it doesn’t just stop working after you stop running. The skill will help to relieve any of the aches you might have gained from running.”
Mindi’s voice grew stronger as her body slowly drifted to the floor. “Some skills can even be combined to gain more benefits than you would get from each skill on their own. A case of how a combination of things can be greater than the sum of their parts.” The balls of mana that whizzed around her fizzled out one after another. “If you had something like muscle manipulation or fatigue resistance and tried to run, you would find that you could run faster and further than you could now.”
With a slight bow, I said, “Thank you for the explanation.”
She blushed and lowered her head enough to hide her eyes behind her bangs. Her voice was soft as she spoke. “Guessing our elfen leader told you to come learn some magic?” I nodded. With a sigh, she lifted her eyes to mine and gestured at the ground in front of her. Suddenly, her voice came out strong and with authority. “Take a seat. What do you know about magic.” The change shocked me enough that I didn’t answer her for a few moments. It was like she was someone dropping into a sort of teaching mode.
Mentally shaking myself, I answered. “Other than what you shared with me yesterday? Nothing.” I tried to sit down with my legs crossed. It hurt. My knees did not want to bend far enough. And here I was hoping the game would have at least gotten rid of pain from things like age. Quickly giving up on sitting criss-cross-applesauce, I moved my legs under me. While my feet and legs would hurt in no time, I would bear it. Hell, maybe I could think of it as mental training of a sort.
Thankfully she didn’t comment on my shuffling. She instead chose to move on. “Ok, so we talked about affinities and unlocked your mana. You did get the Mana Manipulation skill right?” I nodded. “The first level will allow you to manipulate the mana flowing throughout your body. Oh right, you probably don’t know what mana is. Mana is life and death. Heat and cold. For lack of a better term, it is the energy within everything as well as the energy of nothing.”
That, both made sense and didn’t. While there was energy in all things, it wasn’t separated into things like heat and cold. Those were descriptions of how much thermal energy was present in something. But that wasn’t the only issue. The amount of energy that would be required to manipulate such concepts, like earth or water, was astronomical.
Let me put it this way, matter is made of energy. Energy that has become stuck, for lack of a better term. Or at least that is what current scientists kept talking about on various news outlets when discussing revolutionary energy generation techniques. Given the fact that none of them came to be, I was dubious that even modern science could manipulate such forces, let alone a single person using just their will.
Then I practically smacked my head against the floor. This was a fucking video game. So what if magic didn’t follow the laws of physics, it didn’t have to.
Still, I had questions for her, but before I could ask even one, she held up a hand. “I know that you want to argue about this. Every traveler I try to teach does. I don’t know why this world is how it is nor why one can do what they can with their will. Those questions are for the philosophers and magical theorists. All I know is what I have been taught and what I can see.”
She waited a few seconds as her eyes bore into mine. It was as if she was daring me to ask her my questions anyway. I refrained. Letting her resume her lesson. “As your skill in manipulating mana increases, the range of mana that you can manipulate will increase. This will give you access to the mana of your surroundings. Increasing the amount of mana you can access as well as how fast your mana pool fills.”
That sounded stupidly overpowered. If one could gain enough levels in Mana Manipulation then they could just use the mana around them to throw spells without using their own pool. Fights between two mages doing this could go on for hours if not days.
“Of course, there are limits to this. You must spend your own mana to control the mana outside of your body. The farther you stretch your control, the more mana it will require to control it. For example,” Mindi held up her hand, a small ball of fire appeared hovered. “While this spell only consumes a few dozen points of mana to form, holding it in place will constantly take yet more mana.”
“How much more?” I asked, curious as it sounded a bit like resistance in a wire. The farther you had to push electricity, the more you lost in the transfer.
“The exact value depends on a few things. As your Mana Manipulation skill increases, you will find that the value will drop as your range increases. On top of that, your affinity for an element will affect anything you do with said element. Since my affinity for fire is low, the cost to hold it even this far from my body is significantly higher than anything made of earth.”
Suddenly, I recalled the position I had seen her in earlier, I asked her a question. “What were you doing when you had a few elements floating around you?”
“Mental and mana training.” A few orbs formed around her. They floated behind and over her body. Each danced and played with each other as if with a will of their own. “To cast a spell, one must keep their mind focused on said spell. If your focus wavers for even a second,” the elements around her exploded or went flying off in a random direction. “Then the spells will go wild or fail. With smaller spells, this isn’t so bad, but when you get into massive spells meant to take down larger creatures, such a loss of focus can lead to a disaster.”
I could imagine. Honestly, this mechanic was quite common in games that had magic. Even some popular dice-based, tabletop games had ways to interrupt spells as they were being cast. Given that I was going to be learning some magic, I had to make sure to learn how to cast a spell while fighting. “How can one fight while casting spells?”
“Tons of practice.” She waved at the room around us. “At first you practice being able to hold your mana in a given shape. After you can do that we move on to having you holding a spell near you. As you gain proficiency with that, you start adding other distractions. Small things at first. Things like running or general activities.”
“Then we get into the fun part.” Came Tindi’s shouted voice from across the room. As I glanced over I noticed that she was in the middle of kicking a bag to death. “Sparing while you hold a spell.”
With wide eyes, I looked at Mindi for confirmation. She was scowling in Tindi’s direction. “Thank you for your input Tindi.” Her eyes returned to me as she let out a resigned sigh. “But she is right. After that, we start working on integrating magic into your fighting. Working our way from holding a spell to casting a spell while fighting off multiple opponents.”
Well, that sounded like a lot of time-consuming and mind-numbing work. Then again, I would be able to use magic, MAGIC, fairly freely. Hell, I might even be able to throw fireballs around. Actually, now that I thought about it, I could probably do that now if I had the spell. “So, what do we do first?”
“First, we need to teach you your first spell, well your first rune which can be used to cast your first spell.” Wait, already? I thought she was going to have me hold my mana in a given shape first like she said a minute ago. “Spells require three things, a clear image, mana, and a spell form. While you can cast without one, you must make up for its loss with more of the other two. Since you don’t have all that much mana, you will need to make sure to keep a clear image of what you want the spell to do and have a nearly perfect spell form.”
I raised my hand to ask a question. The move brought a smile to her face as she gestured for me to speak. “What is a spell form?”
“Think of it as the pathways for your mana to flow down as you cast a spell. It is typically made of one or more runes depending on the complexity.” With a simple flick of a finger, a small symbol of water formed in the air between us. “Most of the time you will form it out of mana, though enchantments will have them embedded into the material using special ingredients. This is the rune for fire and can be used to cast the spell fireball. I want you to use some of your mana to form this symbol just on the skin of your palm. Do Not cast it until I look it over!” She emphasized that last point while glaring at me.
Her expression smoothed out as she saw that I understood her. With a brief nod, she closed her eyes and dropped into a light meditation. The symbol stayed where it was. Defying the world around it as it floated there, frozen in place. Not even the soft breeze that blew across the room generated so much as a ripple across its still surface.
Not having anything else to say or do, I focused on trying to do as she asked. My eyes moved over the symbol to memorize as much of it as I could. After a while, I started to draw the thing on the mat in front of me by dipping my finger into some water. The process took a while but eventually I felt like I could draw the thing by memory, maybe. Now, how in the hell was I supposed to move my mana to create this thing?