I woke up the next day and decided that today will be the day. Today I will take what I’m going to do to the next level. Today, I am going to bathe. Its not much, but Annabeth cares about odor, and its kind of rude not to at least keep myself bathed. I decided this as I do my morning routine of brushing through my hair. My mane is every so slightly matted from sweat and oil. I comb through it gradually, pulling apart the hair and loosening.

The calming sensation helps me pull my mind from the events around me. From the fog that carpets the world outside the grove and its inhabitants.

I wonder if magic is the answer. I doubt a purely physical thing can destroy the undead that cloak the valley every morning. And no one else gets attacked by the fog monster, which means it only pulls itself together to attack me. That could be a double-edged spade however, if whatever the undead is made from pulls itself together like that, and magic can be used to hurt it, it should be relatively straightforward. I just need to figure out how to cast the kind of magic that hurts it. I could also try and use my skill like last time, but I don’t know that I can just plunge my hand into its form and pull out, presumably, its soul like picking a grape. If nothing else it would be a fight of some kind, either it fights me with its claws, or it fights against my skill, magic would be much safer.

I get out of the bed after I am done combing my mane, and make my way down the ladder into the main room, then go back up and put on my clothes because I forgot a step like the fool I am. I go back down to the main room to sit down.

I wonder… if each set of techniques loop together, instead of directly connecting to one another, do the other 5 techniques loop into one another? I know each one is like a tiny fraction of a skill, and the skill produces a spell while you make it. It would make sense if they just looped together, but something tells me that’s not quite right. I would be willing to bet on each loop matching up to one of the remaining techniques, and those skill shards hook up somehow.

Everything in magic seems to loop in on itself, each attribute that effects a stat looping together, the skill loops around to the spell, the spell looping on itself in design. It follows that the loops loop using the big techniques.

Wait, maybe that’s why the drain is so noticeable? It’s not done. Either way, I definitely need to do some more adaptation. The drain is still too damn high to cast it, I don’t want to know what it will do if I cast the spell doing it that inefficiently. I can only imagine what the magical equivalent of a muscle tear is. And what that would do to each of my attributes?

Why is the drain even necessary though? If it was just the skill only the active parts should drain me. Unless… Am I using each part continuously, not passively? Each part doing something? Passive skills work internally, from every example I know of, increased strength, comprehension [toil] etc. And active skills work through doing something outside of the body, using a tool twice in one stroke. If each part is doing something active then that energy is moving out of the body. Does that make adaptation how much I can pull back? Or how efficient I can be? Maybe its splitting the difference, like [Toil] conserving my energy but done externally? Using only what I need is probably a good Idea either way, so I should try to keep that in mind and see if that can help reduce my drainage problems.

By the time Anna comes out I have gotten plenty of work in on adaptation, and made oatmeal. I make sure to add some spice to give us a breakfast, which is a 8/10. Oatmeal can be delicious; you just have to add the right stuff. And afterwards I put a pot to boil.

“Anna, soap where?” I say, I don’t know where the soap is, and it’s kind of the most important part of bathing.

“Hmm,” she responds before looking over at the pot. The pot enlightens her on what I’m doing, and she collects the soap from her room.

“Thank you.” I say, pulling the tub and towels out of the linen closet.

There’s something about Anna today. There is a solidity to her, its like the panic from days ago, and the happy contentedness from after she came back had settled down into bricks. A fortress or resolution.

I have no idea what the deal with it is, I don’t know why she seems so confident. The answer to my poorly worded questions always result in an answer of her being ok, which is good. It’s definitely better than not good, which is a win, I just wish I knew she was OK and not just ok. I have a feeling she is ok though. I don’t smell panic or fear. Just her and the floral soap she uses that reminds me of her garden.

By the time the pot boils the sun has already burned off the worst of the fog, banishing it from just beyond the tree line to the shaded canopy area farther away, the sky shines down, and I set the tub down, and clean myself off, ditching the water off down the hill and out of the grove when I’m finished

I started to do some adaptation practice, trying to mitigate my loss of energy while I dry off. I get the sensation of strings whenever I focus on it and try to feel them out. Little strings pulling away from me to a destination that I can’t find.

“Wow, they're thick,” I muttered to myself.

And they were, even as little as they were. They were the thickness of rope, just shy of the diameter of my thumb.

Can I just thin them a little? Let it pull less?

So, I tried. The sensation its self was somewhere between shaping and adapting, and felt like molding clay with my mind, but I did it. I thinned, and thinned until I felt that the strings, now thin as my pinky finger were just holding on. I gave them a little more than they needed, making them less likely to snap, or whatever it is they would do if they got too thin.

When I pulled back, I noticed something however. Adapting and shaping had an addition.

Am I meditating?

It felt like I was meditating, so I decided to move it around, check if that is what I was feeling move along with adapting and shaping. The shape of the addition flexes in time with the two, they wind into one another as I work. Forming a three dimensional structure from the loop. Hoops come off of it, pulled by the meditation, crossing over as it folds out into two upside down V shapes like a pointy roof.

I pull back from it, and the shape shrinks as I come to the surface and do my chores.

One down, four to go I suppose. I should probably get my chores done quickly, that way I will have more time to just focus on magic. I can do visualization work, that way I can still get some magic practice, and do chores.

It is after all, far easier to do that, than it was doing a magic jig while hoeing weeds to death.

I consider how I might improve my visualization and come to a decision.

Land, can you describe mana? I ask it, casting my mind towards it.

Yes, it tells me, before intrusively feeding me a host of sensations, that takes me a moment to separate them.

Small amounts of moisture falling off the face of the mountains, rising as the heat of the sun warms them. The current rising from below to up high, and cooling. The cool moist air falls down and soaks into the ground. It seeps through the rock, and down into the soil, before being pulled up into a plant. Some of that moisture feeds into the roots and stems and flowers, before being pulled out and into the air to continue the cycle. Other water flows past and into other trickles of water before meeting up, forming pools and riding the gaps in the ground as streams down into the massive pool that makes up the valley. I feel the air moving, small inhales and exhales from plants and animals, people and pets and monsters. I feel heat bake the ground and pass into living things.

I feel the world breathe.

A Long and slow and steady breath. Like a sleeping giant.

In, then out.

I flinch back from it.

“Ow.” I say from the giant headache that blooms from the singular moment of information.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I don’t drop the hoe, but I do drop the techniques, and lean against the tool while I rub my temples for a few minutes. By the time I pulled back the worst had passed but it still takes a while to get back to work.

I bring what I can from that to my visualization as I hoe, lacing the ground and air with other mana. I feel my skills working and add in them too. The more I add the harder it is to hold and differentiate.

Wait, nothing’s moving. Everything the land showed me was in motion, but I’m envisioning it as a static thing. Like a rock. what if I let it flow?

So, I do, water going through the soil, from high to low. The air rippling slightly around plants as they breathe. The warm light of the sun moving currents and water in the soil and plants moving in and out.

I let it flow and realize what that means.

Current fits to visualization and differentiation, mana flows and that’s the last step for those techniques. Yep, it’s formed that pointy shape like the last one. Well, three to go, I suppose. But how am I going to use that, how could I possibly, hold and shape that? I know one of the last three is drawing mana, but drawing how?

I decided to take a break after doing my chores, pondering what the hell drawing is. I sit on the porch next to Anna drinking cooled mugs of water. I look over and see her watching me, a small smile on her face.

I originally believed it was coerced, to get something to do something, and maybe I was more right than not. I know that shaping is related to meditation, not drawing so its not related to drawing it literally, projection and imbuement are for after I have already have the spell ready. It’s one of the more physical stats than body or durability?

I visualize and decide to check if I can figure it out, first performing gestures, which creates ripples but does not draw energy to her, if anything it just keeps it solidly in her grip.

Not gestures then, let’s check breathing.

I breath in, in the pattern Annabeth showed me, performing it. A tiny amount of energy pulls in with my breath.

Well, well, well. Breathing pulls some mana in. But where does it go? Does it just float around inside me? Does it just fill me up like a bowl? Where have I been holding it? Am I holding it, or is it just leaking out slowly?

I feel around, and try to find where the mana goes, but no matter where I probe, I can’t find it. It’s just nowhere. Poof. Gone.

I sigh before muttering to myself, “If I can’t find it, it’s doing something. I just don’t see it.”

I’ll just have to keep an eye on it, maybe I will see a tiny ripple of where it goes.

I decide to take a huge breath. Sucking in more than normal, trying to suck it up and hold it. And it feels wrong.

Why, I have to keep asking why. Why does it feel wrong to draw it in… is it just that I’m trying to hold it? I just figured out that mana wants to flow after all.

I let the energy just flow, letting it move to its mysterious destination.

Well, I know that drawing and breathing are connected, I just have to figure out how to connect them.

I think about it, sipping from my cool mug as Anna watches me over hers. I swear, from the corner of my eye it looks like she’s smiling. When I finish, it’s refreshing, and go to draw in more mana with both components. Watching for how the drawing portion might work in with them.

I can practically feel the mana pull a little bit towards me. I just can’t hold any.

If the mana needs a container, then channeling must be body. It made some ripples and seemed to hold the mana, maybe it makes a container, a mug that holds it. Or at least keeps it close enough to use somehow.

Doing both steps, I channel and perform a half-hearted drawing. Drawing pulls the mana close, close enough to get caught in the ripples. The gestures and stretching carve a kind of channel as they pass through the drawn in mana and pull some into the channel.

That’s the pattern I’m seeing. Each pass the channel is emptied, the mana inside making a more noticeable pattern. Thickening the spells outline. Presumably I have to fill it somehow. At least I know how to keep the energy flowing, the channeling pulls energy in the wake of my movements, and at some point, the wall will overfill, and the channel will push the old mana out as I push the new mana in.

The pattern also holds mana close, but I have no idea how to fill it. I can feel that channeling connects here but the pattern does not fold quite right, I am missing a little bit of what makes it work somewhere.

I come back to myself and look around. Some time has passed, and the sun has moved from where it was for my midday break. I look around and find Anna over by the potatoes, hoeing the dirt and pulling up the roots, making room for the tuber bits to be planted after.

I can use a break from magic, and just do what I do best. What kind of self-respecting [Ditchdigger] would I be if I let the [Druid] dig, while I do magic. I have to pull my weight.

I walk over to Anna and tap her on the shoulder. She stops and looks over at me.

I smile, “I help. You help. Faster.”

She nods, “Thank you.”

We work together, pulling up the tubers, and leaving a bit of tilled soil to plant the roots back into the field. One potato from each plant can be used to plant four new plants. And while it takes a while to pull them out, it’s fast and easy to plant, cover and water them after.

I quickly explain that I have a skill for it, so Anna cuts, I plant and cover them, and she waters afterwards.

It takes an hour to sow a new crop, and it leaves a lot of potatoes for us to put in the pantry. Anna pulls out a few sacks and I drag half her body weight in potatoes into the house.

They might not be the tastiest on their own, but quantity is a quality all in its own.

And the entire time I do it, my mind is trying to puzzle out centering.

There is only one remaining thing that it can fit with. But imagining how it factors in makes me come up with I am the center of the casting. The only problem with that is.

It’s too simple. There is no way it’s that simple. Me being the center of the spell is stupidly simple.

When I finish, I find that, yes. It is that simple.

I started to put it all together. I started with the body, channeling the mana I contacted into its pattern. I could feel the portion was a skill, and I pieced it together into its loop. I hooked in channeling and it took on its wonky shape. I visualized the currents, filling my vision with phantom colors and formed the shape in my mind next to the first. I began to draw, the pattern thickening, and energy enters through my mouth. I began to slip into meditation as I started to move the energy, thinning the strings that drew from me down to size, and formed the shape, firming it. Its shape formed in my mind, the fourth in the sequence.

And finally when I brought the final set, the final loop in, and moved the spell pattern around me, centered on myself, it snapped in and the pattern formed the same shaped piece as the two other complete sets.

You have to be kidding me. Well then. If I had to guess, I would need to affix each step. Each skill shard needs to fit together somehow. Let’s see. Channeling holds the energy I Draw in from the currents, but also creates a kind of current. I reach out and check to see if each step connects with one another. The Larger techniques do, but they also have extra bits. Each shard has hoops like a hair pin, but more importantly two long strands. I start puzzling it together, each strand connects one to the next. Feeding through the hooks, by the feel of it.

I stop the sections from joining which they actively attempt to do, trying to meld and fuse together. Two of the steps are not totally complete, and I don’t want to cast it right now.

Let’s see… Currents seems to connect with… Meditation and that connects with channeling. Centering with currents. That’s a pattern, I think. Let’s see.

I rotate the feeling, which has become more and more like an image as I work on it. Five points connect into a pentagon. The top point channeling connects down and left to currents, which connects to draw. Viewing it from top-down shows what seems like a five-pointed star forming.

That seems to work, channel to draw and draw to centering. It’s slightly malformed however which means I’m missing something to complete drawing and channeling. And from the side the three finished bits have changed their shape, the loops are all curved.

Each loop looked like it had been twisted up into a curve. I decided to probe the techniques.

I have a feeling that each of these connects, I need a new hairpin hoop thing. There we go, a tiny change mirrored on both ends of the spun loop.

I move the spun loops to see how they connected, and they seem to want to form a smaller five-pointed star on the top and bottom with a second pentagon in the center. From the side it looks like a tent reflected on either side of the main pentagon, with the loops crossing one another at the top, and triangular sides.

Ok, I have the final shape, I think. Now to work on the final changes. Channeling and drawing are the ones acting up, which means it’s entirely in how I work with the mana. Where is the mana going?

I start tracing the strings that connect from me and I am lead… to the skill shards? And from the shards outside to the spell. I reach through the shards and start toying with the strands and see how they affect the skill shard. Ballooning them out they fill the shape before channelling snaps into focus, and when it starts to fill with mana draw begins to fix its shape.

That explains how I hold the mana, it must enter me, and go through my attributes and up into the skill. Wait, does that mean that skills work like spells? Could you affect them the same way? I suppose I can check later. The parts are slightly off, so I might as well polish it until dinner.

And so, I did, small changes making the pieces flex and warp in shape until Annabeth tapped my shoulder and I almost jumped out of my skin. I feel that it’s polished enough to work with just a little more work. I’ll have enough time to cast it tomorrow.

I sit down for dinner and it’s not long before Anna cheekily asks, “Good?”

Nodding I say, “Good now, good good tomorrow.” And while it’s not the right way to say it, correctness is not needed for her to understand I’m giddy and that I’m almost ready.

She starts nodding, before telling me, “I’m out tomorrow, be back break time, check you later.”

I nod, and we eat some more. Before deciding to ask her about the potatoes. “Why no potatoes around?” I asked her.

She seems confused before I point at the pantry full of tubers and she gets it. She shrugs, “No know them. Why?”

“Very good, give some to…” I don’t know the word for a neighbour, “Others close house.”

She thinks about that before nodding, “Can give some tomorrow, many.” I nod in return.

And with that, we begin to finish up dinner, I get confirmation that each piece is correct, and we go to bed. I climb my ladder and, in the bed, I roll around, exited, until I can finial get to sleep.