After the experience of trying to wash dishes with new fingers is dealt with after his breakfast, Alex starts getting dressed and ready to head out and get to his office. No reason for all this to keep him from going in for work, right? He’s definitely going to need to get new clothes with his new height and sizes though, but some baggier clothes should do for now. As he’s midway through lacing up his boots however, he gets a text from his boss, Mrs. Morrison.
Hey, don’t worry about coming in today, I decided to make today a day off while all this craziness is going on. Might do the same thing for the next day or two as well. Don’t worry about pay, I’m going to consider them paid leave since no one really knew all this was going to happen. Oh, really? Thanks, I was hoping to work through some of this stuff after work, but now I can do that for the rest of the day. Thanks Mrs. Morrison!
Mrs. Morrison is nice like that, she actually understands that her employees are human beings. She does insist that everyone calls her by her last name though, not sure why. Since he’s already dressed up to go outside, Alex decides to get the clothes situation out of the way now, rather than later, though replacing everything is going to cut into his budget for the month by a good chunk. He goes through his clothes, sorting everything that doesn’t fit him anymore into trash bags for easy moving, lifting everything into his car before driving off.
After a stop at a pawn shop to donate his old clothes, he spends a good hour or two driving to the nearest shopping mall, getting a new closets-worth of clothes fit to his new body. It’s quite interesting seeing everyone else too, though for the most part a lot of people seem to have gone for either humanoids like Dwarves and Elves, or the more human range of the Beastmen races. Oddly enough, though he can see some people talking into mid-air, he can’t see any other screens like Lucy, who had been mostly quiet up until this point. Seeing the question on his face, Lucy answers him, floating along to the side of him as he walks.
You're wondering why you can’t see other Sub-Systems right? It’s mostly because having a whole bunch of text boxes everywhere was thought to have been too distracting for everyday use, and could be an invasion of privacy to be able to see the skills and such that a person might ask their Sub-System to bring up, so instead you have to ask for permission from a person to be able to see their Sub-System.
“Oh yeah, I wasn’t even thinking about the issue of privacy...But yeah, once we get back home, I”m hoping to start working on some of these Abilities and such, see how they work and all that. Do you think you could help me with that?”
Of course! I am pretty much your guide now after all. I would recommend starting with your [Mana Pool] ability, it should help you gain a good few magic based skills that are generally good for building a foundation on for further magic use in relatively quick succession.
“As good an idea as any, I’d say.” It only takes another hour to finish up at the mall, as well as to grab a bite to eat for an early lunch. It’s weird to feel that you don’t like certain foods as much, when only the other day you would have loved them. It definitely makes him glad he took that [Humanoid Diet] Ability, he couldn’t imagine not being able to enjoy some nice mashed potatoes or other vegetables at all. He really hopes that nobody took something weird like a Vampire Race without also taking [Humanoid Diet], sure there are blood banks but only being able to eat one thing would be terrible.
Once he gets home, Alex gets out of his work clothes, putting all of his new things away and putting on something comfortable and casual, sweatpants and a loose T-shirt. “Alright Lucy, how do I do this? Do I have to meditate, or ‘feel it out’ or something like that?” He cracks his knuckles and rolls his shoulders, ready for anything.
Nope, you’ve just gotta find it.
...If this were a cartoon he’d have just face-planted. Instead, he turns to the smug little screen to his right and gives her The Stare™.
What? It’s an Ability, and a pretty high tier one at that. You‘ve just got to look inside yourself and instinct will lead you right to it. The Abilities wouldn’t be very good if nobody could use them, after all.
Grumbling under his breath at the screen and her jokes, Alex settles down on his hardwood floor, sitting cross-legged and with his hands in his lap so that he at least can look like he’s doing something impressive. Besides, mental stuff is as much about your attitude when you’re going into it, so maybe it could help. It takes a solid few minutes before he gets any results, but he does eventually find...something.
It was slow to come to his attention, and he didn’t even really notice it at first, but once he did it hit him like being slapped by an entire lake at once. It wasn’t something that any one sense could pick up on, if anything it was like all of his senses had merged into one thing, describing it in its entirety with only one signal. It felt like the feel of his own skin, both when he was still human and the rough, scaly texture it has now. It smelled like his favorite shampoo, and the smell of home after a long time away. It tasted like his blood from the many little cuts and scrapes you end up with in his line of work, which was odd to say the least. It sounded like his deep, calm sighs after a nice stretch, and the slow beating of his own heart. It looked like a collage of blue, red, brown and gray, all the colors being distinct from each other and yet merging together into one unique hue. Whatever this was, it was him.
Despite discovering what felt to him like an entirely new sense, and the pounding of adrenaline from the flood of unique information coming through it, Alex continued to breath in and out calmly as he rode the near sensory overload out. Eventually, though he didn’t know how long it took, he opened his eyes once more and looked at Lucy with an awed expression.
“Holy shit. What the hell was that? Was-was that mana? That was...I don’t know what that was, but it was simultaneously the weirdest and most exciting thing ever. It felt like it was all just me, but it couldn’t be, right?“
Well, yes and no. It is your mana specifically, and as such it takes on your characteristics. I guess a good way of describing trying to sense your own mana would be like tasting your own mouth, or seeing your eyes in the mirror but without the mirror. Continue trying to find your mana pool multiple times, both to familiarize yourself with the process and to help deal with all that new information you’re getting.
Taking a few more deep breaths, Alex does as she says, spending the majority of the day just going between that mental state of seeing his mana and back in the real world. As he practices, it almost feels like he can get a sense for his mana even when not actively looking for it, like a hum-rumble-glow of energy in the back of his mind. It sticks out like having a missing tooth, drawing his attention to it, and he can only hope that the feeling of off-ness will fade just like with a missing tooth as well. After one last dive into his mind, sensing his mana and starting to get a feel for more of the nuances there rather than just being overwhelmed by it all, Lucy pops up with a new notification.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Good Job! You’ve gotten enough personal experience learning how to read your internal mana to get a Skill for it.
New Skill Acquired: Mana Detection (Internal): Beginner
As the notification comes up, that odd sense in the back of his head seems to lock into place, becoming more...solid, would probably be the best word for it. Less like a vague notion that he has mana and more like a vague notion as to how much mana he has, though how accurate it is isn’t known. Right now he can tell that his mana pool is full, which makes sense since he hasn’t used any of it. “Huh. Does gaining a Skill in something new change how much you know about said thing?”
Most of the time no, or at least not by a lot, but the System decided to help out more with magic Skills than more normal skills, since literally no one has ever had it before now. It’s the same thing with things like tails and extra limbs, the System helps pre-install instincts for entirely new things.
“Oh, that’s quite helpful. So, I know that I have mana, and I can ‘see’ where it is inside me and how much I have. Next would be trying to draw it out and manipulate it, right?”
That’s correct! Unfortunately, The instincts that come with [Mana Pool] don’t extend to the manipulation of the mana itself, so you’ll have to figure out a method on your own. On the bright side, your mana isn’t connected to any particular body parts, just to your body in general, so you don’t have to worry about ‘drawing it out of your blood’ or anything like that.
“Hmm...” Alex sits for several moments, thinking through what he knows and what he suspects for any way to do this efficiently. Eventually, he snaps his fingers, getting up and moving to another room in his house as he talks. “I’ve got it! The [Elemental Affinity] Abilities, they ore just a general ‘work better with this element’ kind of thing, right?”
Essentially yes, why do you ask?
He leads Lucy into what is essentially a small home shop, filled with small power tools and appliances. Everything from a table-side drill press to a 3D printer is in this room, the only exceptions being large machinery like a CNC machine. He rummages through some scrap supplies, eventually pulling out a rod of aluminum, about 2 inches in diameter and as long as his forearm. “Because, that should make it easier to try and draw metal out through something like this, rather than straight into the air. It should work as a training aid if nothing else, at least until I get the Skill.”
Oh, that’s not a bad idea. Give it a try at least, let’s see what happens!
He sits down once more, this time in a chair rather than on the hard ground. He holds both ends of the rod, one in each hand as he closes his eyes and takes a few deep, calming breaths. First he tries just willing his mana to flow into the aluminum, but as Lucy said there doesn’t seem to be any instinctual way of just making it happen. Instead, he decides to dive back into his mental space, soaking in the sensation of his mana to get a better mental picture of it.
Once he feels that he’s ready, Alex begins to try and mentally ‘drag’ some of his mana back to the here and now, focusing on the sensation of his mana and all the little sensory things that remind him of himself in it, trying to strengthen the feeling of it in his hands. For just a moment his mana seems to stretch and redistribute towards his goal, but the feeling alone startles him enough that he loses concentration on his task, the energy snapping back into place and feeling just a little bit depleted, as if even the act of moving mana costs energy. “Well. That’s a start at least.”
He spends another few hours trying to work on moving his mana, only taking a break to make some dinner and take a shower before getting back to it. It’s around 10:00 pm before he makes any significant progress, and even then it’s just moving more mana to his hands, giving them a faint multicolored glow-sound-smell just like what his mana feels like inside of his mental space. Despite that, he’s proud of what he’s managed in a day and goes to bed content.
The next morning, after checking in with Mrs. Morrison that today is in fact another paid leave day, he gets back to working on trying to push his mana into the aluminum rod. After a few minutes of warm-up practice to get himself back to where he was last night, he tries to will that feeling of his mana to actually touch the aluminum instead of just gliding over it. He jolts a little and almost loses his concentration once again feeling something similar to what his own mana feels like.
It has that same multi-sense experience of smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing, but for aluminum instead of himself. Even weirder is that he’s sensing the aluminum through his mana, which means that it’s twice the information. Heck, he almost feels like he’s getting a headache from it all. Eventually, he gains enough control of himself that he feels ready to try and actually push his mana into the bar itself, rather than just prodding it. That only makes the sensations more...deep, if he had to give it a description.
He could feel the individual metal grain of the metal rod, and as his mana continued to push into and fill up the rod it seems to almost gain a life of its own, the sensations of both himself and the aluminum merging together into one thing. Eventually he comes back to his senses, opening his eyes to see a lightly glowing metal rod in his hands and a very happy looking Lucy showing not one, but two notifications.
Good job, you managed to actually piggyback one skill off of another and get two in one go! New Skill Acquired: Mana Detection (External): Beginner
New Skill Acquired: Mana Manipulation: Beginner
As it turns out, your [Mana Detection (Internal)] Skill really helped out when it came to you gaining the (External) version.
“Phew, that was harder than I thought it would be. Then again, this whole area is completely new to me, so maybe I’m just expecting too much of myself.” Alex goes to wipe some sweat off his brow before remembering that he doesn’t really sweat anymore. Huh, winter was going to be hell for him, he already has enough trouble getting up at any reasonable time of day. But, back on topic. Filling that aluminum rod up with his mana took a decent chunk out of his mana pool, though not by an amount that would concern him. Although now that he’s stopped channeling mana into it, his mana seems to be leaking out of it at quite a high speed, it already barely has any glow to it. Maybe aluminum is a natural mana conductor, like how it’s good for heat sinks? Something to look into at a later time.
“Well, as much fun as this is, I think I’m going to take a bit of a mental break from trying to manipulate my mana for a bit, it takes a lot of concentration and I’ve been doing it since yesterday. Might be a good idea to look around on reddit and other places on the internet, see what everyone else has found out about everything so far.” Alex walks over to his computer, sitting down and starting it up while Lucy hovers over his shoulder like a younger sibling trying to sneak a peek at something.