Jeb woke up and went through his daily Quests again. He saw his mother in the kitchen again, once more preparing to stoke the flames up. “Can I help again?” he offered.
“Be my guest.” It was easier to stoke the flames up and get the stove ready to cook than it had been the day before. Jeb attributed that to the practice he had with the malt.
In his room, he quickly learned another song for lute and voice. It was nice that his Charisma was slowly catching up to the rest of his Statistics.
At breakfast, he found his aunt. “Today we’ll start by learning about hops, since I need to harvest them soon.”
She led him to the trellises outside the brewing barn.
“It’s important that we keep close eyes on the hops. If there are any male plants around, the hops will go to seed, which is great for making new varietals, but absolutely terrible for producing hops for Brewing. As much as we can, we keep the males in the greenhouse so they don’t ruin any of the hops we have here.” His aunt led him through the full series of hop varietals that they were growing.
“We tend to dry most of our harvest, but there’s something special about a fresh hop added at the end of the brewing process. We don’t have them for long, though, so that’s only really a harvest time special.” Jeb listened attentively, really wishing that he had a slate to take notes. Most of his day was spent preparing the grains for malt and roasting. He had to water the sprouted hops, monitor the unsprouted hops, and kiln what felt like endless numbers of malts. Each time his Mana regenerated, his aunt also had him empty it filling the tank.
When he asked why, she explained, “if you think I’m about to ignore a source of free, pure water, you would be completely wrong.” It felt strange to be used for his Magic, though Jeb couldn’t really say anything. If the positions were switched, he’d certainly be using his nephew to make the water. It did make him wonder whether there was an efficient version of Conjure Water that would work.
After three cycles of watching his Mana fill and empty, it was time to break for lunch. His aunt lectured about proper hop care the entire way back to the home, and Jeb started to feel how well Brewing would synergize not only with his future goals, but with Soil Savvy and Pollination. When they finished eating, Jeb’s aunt surprised him.
“I know you’ve been meaning to learn some Bardic Magic. You should take some time and go practice now. A few hours here and there won’t make Brewing take too much longer to get, and I’m almost out of busy work for you to do.”
Jeb wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he went up to his room to start practicing. He checked the tuning of the lute and started plucking through the pattern.
As he slowly fed in Mana, he felt the resonance building. Each repetition felt like it was adding another layer to some grand song. Somehow, though, Jeb could tell that the lute was out of tune. When he fixed the tuning, the resonance shifted. What had been a growing chorus before was just becoming a single line that grew deeper with each cycle.
In his mind, he saw it like etching something into wood. Before, each stroke had been slightly above or below the previous. Now, though, each one dug directly into the same point.
As he watched his Mana, Jeb realized that it was hardly dropping at all. The resonance he’d built was that stable. Adding in his voice, Jeb again heard the Song break into a chorus.
He was unable to bring the Song back into unison by the time he ran out of Mana. As tempted as he was to learn more Glyphs, Jeb felt like he should go back to learn from his Aunt.
“Back so soon?” she asked, seeing Jeb open the door.
“I ran out of Mana,” he admitted, “and it seemed like a better use of my time to keep learning Brewing than to find something else to do while I wait for it to refill.”
“Well, I was about to check on the brews, so I’ll just lecture on that now. I check the beers most days, if only to make sure that they’re fermenting properly. Now, there are a few schools of thought as to how often you should check your brews for fermentation progress.” His aunt continued to lecture about Brewing philosophy as they made their way to the different fermenters. Jeb realized that the numerous containers probably all had different brews in them, at least given the fact that his aunt wasn’t having him make more batches of beer.
“Aunt Esther, are there other beers you’re brewing right now?”
“No, the rest of these are meads, country wines, and ciders. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. These five over here,” she gestured to five fermenters that had been put slightly further away than the rest, “are for those. The rest of the fermenters are for your uncle. It takes a lot more beer to make a glass of whiskey than you might think, though that’s probably something he’ll work with you on when you start working on Distilling. Still, it doesn’t hurt to tell you that there’s a reason we’re teaching you Brewing before Distilling. Most Distilled projects come from something Brewed, so being able do Brew is fairly essential for any would-be Distiller.”
Jeb listened raptly. He had assumed there was some reason for which Skills he was learning in what order, but thought it was more to do with who was free when, rather than actually needing baseline Skills to build on others. By the time they’d finished measuring and recording the densities of all the brews, including the ones destined for the Distilling, his Mana had recovered.
“I take it by the look in your eyes that your Mana is back?”
“It is!” Jeb confirmed.
“Come back whenever you run out again,” she said.
Jeb went back to the home. “Back to practice?” his sister asked.
“Yeah!” Jeb exclaimed, excited to learn the Song.
“How much longer are you planning to play the same piece? It’s starting to get a little repetitive.”
“I’m not sure, I’m trying to learn a Bardic Song, and I keep feeling like I’m about to finish it. Then when I fix whatever issue I find, I realize that I was really making more than just that mistake,” Jeb said, realizing how much it sounded like an excuse.
“That makes sense,” his sister said, surprising Jeb, “I was wondering why the tone sometimes sounded so different, but it being Magical makes sense. I won’t keep you,” she gestured to the stairs.
Jeb pulled his lute out of its case and started playing again. Once more, with just the lute and the Mana strand for it, he was able to get the Song into a single note. When he tried singing, though, it was still slightly out of alignment.
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Jeb tried stopping the flow of Mana. When he did, he realized that he’d been changing a few of the sounds when he fed Mana into the Song. Even without the Mana flowing, he still needed to think about what to sing. That was almost certainly going to be an issue, because it took significant effort to keep his Mana flowing exactly right. Since he just needed to practice the non-magical parts of his Song, Jeb saw no reason not to use his Mana for something useful.
“Back already?” his aunt asked.
“I realized that I don’t need my Mana to practice the Song right now,” Jeb said, “and I figured that I could be useful making water.”
“Of course I’ll take an offer for free completely pure water. Start whenever you want.” His aunt seemed happy that he’d come to the idea himself.
As Jeb started singing, his mind started wandering. Something about the Least Conjure Water Glyph was bothering him. He was just trying to produce as much water as he could as quickly as he could. Improved Glyph Groking told him that there was something in the Glyph that was stopping him.
Jeb stopped practicing the Song and cut off the Spell. He brought the Glyph to mind and imagined the flow of Mana through the Spell. Something about it was clearly limiting the Mana throughput, which he normally wanted. After all, if he just immediately used all of his Mana, he wouldn’t be able to control what happened. That wasn’t an issue now, though, so he tried to find what part of the Glyph was responsible for it.
Staring at Least Conjure Water alone didn’t come with any revelations. As he started looking at the other Glyphs he knew, though, Jeb saw that they all shared a part of their flow. Continuing to look at all of them, there was a loop that he saw used the slightest bit of Mana to prevent it all flowing out at once. It probably wouldn’t save that much Mana to not have to use that loop, but every bit counted, and Jeb had a feeling this would finally complete his Mana Manipulation Quest.
Modifying Least Conjure Water in his mind was easy enough. It was a First Tier Spell Glyph in an Element he had an Affinity towards, and he’d cast it more times than he cared to count. As he rerouted the flow of Mana, he could tell that it was not becoming a new Glyph, but he could feel that he would be able to choose how to cast it in the future. If he wanted to be able to do the same for the other Glyphs, though, he would have to manually change them all too.
Congratulations! You have completed the Minor Quest Modify a Spell Glyph. Keep changing the Spells you know to fit your needs, rather than the opposite. Rewards: 39 EXP, Magic Affinity +1, Mana Depth +1.
Jeb saw that this Quest was apparently also repeatable. It did make him want to try raising his Mental Statistics a little, but he decided to see how the new Glyph worked first.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 3042/100
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Total Statistic Load: 216 Physical Load: 124 Strength: 28 Dexterity: 21 Endurance: 30 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 92 Intelligence: 25 Willpower: 20 Magic Affinity: 26 Mana Depth: 4 Charisma: 17
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Mana: 570
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Glyph Attunement: 18 Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient Tier 3 Spell Least Move Air Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud Tier 2 Spell Least Shape Water Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Water Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire Tier 1 Spell
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Skills: Least Mud Magic Meditation Mana Manipulation Spell Glyphing Improved Glyph Groking Gift of Gab Running Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lifting Athletics Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)