The cove was nestled between the jagged ebony rock faces. It was a secluded place, somewhere where lonely people went to be lonely alone. Maybe its jagged pebble beach drove away visitors who desired the soft golden sand that was associated with the ocean. Or perhaps the eroded cliffs were too difficult a barrier of entry. The cove itself had once been part of the majestic cliff wall that dominated the coastline. Water bested rock, paper, and scissors when given a thousand millennia. The waves lapped lazily at the pebble-ridden beach. The steely blue of the ocean collided with the bleak gray in the distance.
Steve found the cove on one of his many routine long walks on the beach. Steve was abandoned by everyone as they left for a weekly gate-clearing mission and decided to go on a walk. Normally, he would turn around at the base of the cliff that hosted the lighthouse. Instead, he was struck by the powerful urge to climb the cliff. So he did. Then after some trespassing, he found trees. The urge to go further still was not satisfied within Steve, so he cut through the trees. Much to his delight, a 45-minute walk turned into a two-hour expedition. He found the cove about an hour after he entered the forest. It was as if the ocean carefully carved the cove out of the rock faces with a chisel. He was mesmerized by its uncaring solitude. “You know, there’s a much better beach down the coast,” He had called out to it. Of course, the cove possessed no sentience and gave no response. “That beach has golden sand that doesn’t hurt to walk on. Your mom was a fat bay,” He had yelled, only to be greeted with silence once again. After that, Steve visited the small secluded cove often. Like now, as he perfected his new spell.
Steve launched the pebble with an echoing crack. A faint trail of blue sparks trailed behind it as it shot through the air. The pebble disintegrated into dust before colliding with the jagged rock.
“Why won’t it go straight!?” Steve moaned as he clutched his head. He was able to solve most of the safety issues by launching the pebble further away from his body, but after fixing one problem he discovered two more. First, the pebble was too fragile and always broke before hitting its mark. Secondly, the accuracy of the pebble was wildly inconsistent, sometimes missing by over 40 degrees. Steve wracked his brain for a solution. Do I give the pebble fins? But that’s so fucking lame. Fins could probably solve the accuracy problem, but adding fins physically or through magical means wasn’t exactly practical. I guess rocket ships and missiles have fins… Ok, they’re not that lame. He needed a lightweight and efficient strategy that ideally made the spell cooler. Steve crunched through the pebbly beach and squatted down to watch the lapping waves. Spiraling eddy currents formed as the waves collided with the smooth rocks of the shore.
“Must be nice to be a bunch of spinning water… No rent… No work… No homework. Just spin,” Steve pouted to no one but the ocean. Truthfully, Steve didn’t have any of those three things to worry about with his current living situation. Spin? Beyblades? Rifle. Steve figured it out.
“AHA!” Steve shouted as he had his eureka moment. “Things are less fall over-y if you spin them like a Beyblade! Some geezer once said that!” Steve rejoiced as the inspiration helped him make a breakthrough. Rifles were so accurate because of their long barrels, and the rifling inside them. Steve immediately scribbled down the breakthrough in his notebook. Without time to lose, he began to draft an improved version of the spell. The propellant system stayed untouched, but a new process would be triggered immediately after the pebble entered its suspended state in the air. Steve repurposed the gust rune once again, but this time for another function. A small jet of air would spin the pebble as it hovered a foot away from his shoulder. Suspending objects in the air with mana wasn’t too difficult, and friction didn’t seem to be a problem.
Steve sat almost giggling with glee as the pebble hung by his side and whizzed into rotation. The jet of air made an almost high-pitched buzz as it shot high-pressure air at the pebble. Steve completed the next steps of the spell with an almost mechanical memory. He’d brought the cast time down by almost 30 seconds since yesterday. A violent crack echoed through the cove once again as he released the spell. The pebble flew straight and right on target much to Steve’s excitement. Unfortunately, the pebble still disintegrated before it hit its mark.
“Yes!” Steve cried out, ignoring the exploding pebble fragments raining down on the cove. Accuracy was solved. Next was the problem of maintaining the pebble’s structural integrity. Steve didn’t have to think very hard to come up with a potential solution. He didn’t even have to learn a new spell. He was pretty certain that he could reinforce the pebble using [Aura 1]. Saturating the object with mana would make it effective against the scourge and make it more sturdy. In practice, it turned out much harder to accomplish. Adding one more step to the spell ended up making the entire spell almost 20% harder. His concentration was split up in four different places at any given time, making it remarkably difficult to not mess up at the slightest lapse in presence. Several hours passed and Steve hadn’t successfully fired his spell once.
Sweat dripped down his brow despite the constant wind from the sea. The spell was cheaper to use than [Magic Missile], but he still ended up using half of his mana pool. Is there any process I can cut? Or put off until another is finished? Steve thought for a while, but all of them were strictly necessary at the same time. The simple act of supplying mana to the amalgamation of runes was the least mentally demanding. It was a lot like peeing in many ways. Sometimes if he held it for an entire movie it was hard to stop, but it usually was fine. What if I created another bladder to supply the piss automatically? Steve thought about it deeply, recounting all the fundamental rules he had learned. It’s theoretically possible. Dense enough clumps of mana could survive outside its caster for nearly a minute before dissipating. Plus, raw mana liked to equalize itself, so when the exterior mana was linked to the spell, the spell would naturally draw the ‘Piss’ without needing a dedicated process.
Steve began to question his skill after the fruitless several hours. Even when testing the new addition, he remained less hopeful than previously. But in a surprising turn of events, his theory had been correct. The exterior automatic supply proved to greatly unburden the mind, and Steve was able to cast it in four tries.
Steve picked up a round pebble the size of a thumbnail. First, he formed a sufficiently large secondary pool of mana as the ‘Extra bladder’. This would now automatically supply the entire spell from now to when the pebble was launched. He suspended the pebble in the air a foot away from his shoulder with a stream of raw mana from the extra mana pool. The pebble began to buzz as he spun it with the gust rune. Gradually, tendrils of blue materialized into a blue dome on the back of the pebble. He formed the pump rune with some noticeable effort but was successful in pressurizing the dome. Next, he connected the physical surface of the rock with mana source, imbuing it with mana. Steve took aim before the last step. He chose the empty crab shell on the rocks 30 meters away.
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Finally, he formed the high-energy pinprick of mana and shoved it through the blue dome. In a fraction of a fraction of a second, a blue rose exploded into existence behind the spinning pebble. A thunderclap ripped through the cove and echoed off the cliffs. The small gray object shot into motion leaving a perfectly straight blue streak through the air. It pulverized the crab shell before bursting into dust after it bore into the rock below. Steve stood speechless at the crater in the rock. He was awe-struck at the fruit of his efforts. It was basically a gun. Steve had made a gun out of mana and some magic bullshit. Casting a [Magic Missile] that would cause this much damage would cost significantly more mana than his spell did now. What should I name it? He still hadn’t named it after his first choice had been rejected by GateOS. Kovac gun.
[Congratulations on creating your first new spell Kovac Gun. +30XP
“Fuck yeah!” Steve screamed to himself, his voice echoing off the cliff walls. It was no [Ultra-Mach, Supersonic Judgment Beam] but it was an acceptable compromise. He was excited to show Rachel. Steve fired his spell several more times until he began to hear ringing in his right ear. The sun had passed its zenith long ago and was on the final leg of its journey as it drew closer to the ocean. Guess it’s time to head back. There wasn’t enough daylight left to stay at the cove any longer, plus his ears rang. He needed hearing protection to prevent long-term hearing loss.
***
Steve stood in the field next to the team gym. Dew still clung to the long yellow grass of the field, the sun finally rearing its head over the horizon. Rachel observed Steve from the side curiously.
“Alright then, show me what you got,” She encouraged. Steve nervously bit the inside of his cheek as began to cast [Kovac Gun]. Dark bags had burrowed their way under his eyes after he spent most of the night practicing the spell without triggering it. In return, he was able to cast it in just under 20 seconds. One by one in a streamlined and methodical manner, Steve went through each process of the spell. With the spell locked and loaded, he reached into his pockets and pulled out a pair of orange earplugs.
“It’s going to be loud,” Steve warned Rachel as he inserted the earplugs. Rachel heeded his warning and covered her ears with her palms. He took aim at the battered pile of dummies, specifically the metal head of one dummy he propped up earlier. Then he triggered the spell. The familiar thunderclap filled the air as the force of the reaction overcame the confines of its chamber. A wave of heat washed over the two from the small blue explosion as the glowing pebble almost reached Mach 2. Almost simultaneously, the head of the dummy exploded into a flurry of metal shrapnel. Little clinks rang out as metal and small chunks of pebble rained down on the dummy pile. Steve stood with a slight smug grin as he gauged Rachel’s reaction. Her eyebrows were raised and she nodded hesitantly.
“Just what has Randal brought to us,” She muttered. “How long have you been able to use mana for?” Rachel asked.
“One… two, five… just over three weeks,” Steve counted on his fingers. Rachel seemed more concerned than impressed by his invention.
“From a technical standpoint, that was impressive,” Her face softened. “I will warn you though, your spell is probably illegal,” She sighed. Steve stood there perplexed. Question marks almost seemed to radiate from his head.
“Illegal? But exploding mana projectiles are fine?” Steve was more confused than dejected.
“Ah, I didn’t think you would be already cooking up second circle spells, so I guess I never told you… The North Atlantic Mage Alliance highly regulates spells and their publishing,” Rachel explained. “There are certain regulations and guidelines spells must meet to ever get published before they are legalized.”
“Aha! I knew there was something. Those old fogies are to blame for all the lame ass spell names,” Steve exclaimed. He tuned out the parts about regulations and laws for the simple reason that he did not care. To Steve, laws were suggestions, stop signs were optional, and speed limits were for beginners.
“Well, you’re not wrong. Most spells have to adhere to one attribute to have a chance to be passed,” Rachel chuckled at Steve’s hangup with the Alliance naming schemes. His complete disregard for the law was amusing and fitting of a paragon.
“Attribute? Oh, like water, earth, fire, and air. Is there a practical reason for it though?” Steve wondered. From the standpoint of magical advancement, the policy was really counterproductive.
“Unfortunately, there is. The council decided two hundred years ago that unregulated magic was too dangerous. After the spellbreakers all but died out, it was too much to keep up with all the changing spells. So, in typical council fashion, they basically banned most advancements in magic. Spellcraft was pulled from most academy curriculums. If all the spells in use in the world are heavily documented, countering them is easy.”
“So magic has stayed mostly the same for two hundred years?” Steve was appalled. No wonder all the spells had stupid names like [Ice Bolt] and [Magic Missile]. To prevent the decentralization of arcane power, the old fogies had essentially destroyed any potential for an arms race.
“Yep,” Rachel nodded.
“Is that not incredibly short-sighted? If our magic was 200 years more advanced, couldn’t we have saved Beijing? Or even California?” Steve didn’t understand the politics involved in magecraft, but they seemed jealous and bitter.
“Many others have thought the same, and the influence of NAMA has been on the decline ever since it declined to aid the non-magic populations during the first invasion,” Rachel explained with a hint of bitterness in her voice. Rachel hated the council, the academies, the reliance on outdated traditions, the nepotism, and most of all, the elitism. She came from a humble background of two non-mage, working-class parents. Status in the mage world was determined primarily through lineages and bloodlines, and as a result, Rachel was treated poorly. She worked hard for many years in an attempt to earn the bare minimum of respect from her peers, but her efforts were fruitless. Becoming a paragon was the best thing that ever happened to her for the reason that it elevated her magical talent and gave her a unique status among humans. She was chosen by a god and as a result, was able to break away from the rigid social structure of the mage world she was embedded in.
The two continued the training session for another hour. Rachel started teaching Steve the fundamentals of a second circle shield spell. The spell was called [Mana Shield] and was a prerequisite to learning [G-Shield], a third circle spell that was considered to be one of the most widely used spells.
“Spells are divided into ten tiers by their complexity and difficulty. A third-circle mage is able to cast most third-circle spells pretty easily, and so on. The spell you created is probably a mid to high second circle spell, which is impressive you created it just weeks after becoming a mage,” Rachel explained evenly. She wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest bit. Steve’s affinity with mana and systems was mostly unheard of. He was a strange kid with a likely troubled past, but his brain just seemed to click with anything she threw at him. Of course, the god blessing and GateOS helped Steve out immensely, but creating a second circle spell in two weeks was ridiculous. It took Rachel half a year of rigorous academy training before she could cast a second circle spell in the beginning. She was beginning to fear what Steve could become, regardless of what path he chose. Could the West Coast finally produce someone capable of competing with Sylara, the one nicknamed ‘The Empress’? Rachel shook her head, she was getting ahead of herself. Steve was but a fledgling and the life of a paragon was brutal and short. He could’ve made waves in the world had he become a mage, but his future as a paragon was uncertain. She sighed again, she couldn’t get attached.