With nothing else to do before he went to sleep, Jeb made his way over to the hive. The bees seemed as though they were already dancing along to the Song before Jeb had even pulled out his lute. His lute seemed to want to connect to the Song more than it had before, and it hardly took any effort for Jeb to start the Song playing.
The urging he’d felt the past times he had played the Song finally crystallized. Or, at least, Jeb realized which Skills were urging him right now. Spell Glyphing and Mana Manipulation both seemed to be urging him to do something. Strangely, Improved Glyph Groking stayed silent.
After a few moments thinking, Jeb thought he knew what the Skills were urging him to do. Jeb started shaping the thread as it flowed into the lute. Hoping against hope that he wouldn’t end up with Mana Backlash, Jeb called the Glyph for Attune Water Mana to mind.
He carefully shifted the thread until it flowed over each point in the Glyph. To his surprise, Jeb felt something shift in the Song. The thread took on a slight blue tint in his eye.
It still seemed to go into the lute with no problem, but Jeb could tell that it wasn’t going to strengthen the lute as a whole anywhere near as efficiently. The nearly fixed bow in the neck was no closer to being fixed. However, Jeb could tell that the instrument was becoming far more resistant to humidity, even if he wasn’t sure why. There was something else happening to the lute, but Jeb could only see that it was happening, not what it would do.
His Mana drained more quickly than before, but Jeb was curious what would happen if he let his Mana run out without stopping the Song. Most of the thread was bound up in the Glyph, after all, and his first experiment had already worked.
To his surprise and slight annoyance, the thread just seemed to keep flowing into the lute. When the wheels stopped turning, the end of the thread just detached from the wheels and kept moving through the pattern. It all faded into the lute, and as the last piece of the Song went into the lute, Jeb felt his grip on the image disappear.
Hm, that will certainly save some effort. Now that Jeb knew he didn’t have to worry about backlash as long as the Song had connected to the lute, he could experiment more. He was sure that if he made Fire Aspected Mana, he could make the lute fireproof, which had to be helpful, right?
Maybe not.
After all, Jeb had no real intentions of setting his lute on fire. Still, what else had putting Water Attuned Mana into his lute done?
Since he couldn’t play the Song, Jeb played through his scales. The sound from the lute came out darker and smoother than it had been before. Something in the sound suggested slow and continuous motion in a way it hadn’t before, though incredibly subtly still.
The lute itself looked different too. Its finish seemed glossier and darker, as though light itself was starting to be caught. Jeb was now incredibly curious what putting other Elementally Attuned Mana into the lute would do.
Still, that was an issue best dealt with in the morning. It was nearly time for him to go to sleep. Jeb hoped that he would be learning Elemental Analysis in the morning, but he would need to wait and find out. As he drifted off to sleep, Jeb dreamed of what his future would bring.
In the morning, Jeb made his way quietly over to his hive. It seemed like more of his bees were awake this early every passing day. This time through the Song, Jeb wanted to try pushing Earth Mana into his lute. It seemed smart to start with the two Manas the System had pushed him to before he tried to work with Fire and Air Mana.
As Jeb started playing and singing the Song, he tried shaping the thread through Attune Earth Mana before it connected to the lute. To his minor surprise, the thread moved far more easily while disconnected from the lute. At the end of the Attuning Glyph, Jeb saw that the Mana had taken on a greenish brown color and felt somehow heavier.
As it entered his lute, Jeb noticed that it also wasn’t fixing any of the issues that the lute had. He was beginning to feel like he would need to put Unattuned Mana into the Song if he wanted to get rid of the last bow in the neck. Then again, he had gotten used to how he needed to bend the strings as he got higher up the instrument. Did he really need to fix it?
His ruminations distracted him from seeing what the Mana was doing. Jeb got a feeling that the instrument was becoming more resistant to physical damage. As with the Water Mana, Jeb was sure that there would be a change to how the lute played, though he wasn’t sure what it would be.
The thread finished feeding into the lute as he slowly wound down the Song, and Jeb took the chance to play his lute again. The smoother tone was still there from his Water Mana, but as Jeb kept listening, there was something new. The tone felt more powerful as he plucked out each note.
It wasn’t like when he played his Song, where each note was etched into reality itself. Though, it felt like the first step on that path. Jeb had a feeling that everything he played might begin to feel like a Song if he kept feeding Earth Mana into the lute.
He could think of at least a few situations where that wouldn’t be ideal. Jeb tried playing more scales, this time trying to avoid that extra presence in the notes. To his relief, the lute started sounding like it had a few days before. None of the effects from the Water or Earth Mana were obvious in it.
Convinced that there were no downsides to Enhancing his lute with Elemental Mana, Jeb took another look at the instrument. The Water Mana had made the lute seem darker and glossier. The Earth Mana, on the other hand, seemed to make the wood underneath appear more present. The lute seemed darker for the effect, and it seemed to spread the light more like stone would.
Strangely, the effects from the Water and Earth Mana, while seeming opposed, didn’t seem to affect each other at all. Jeb felt certain that the effects would remain separate even if he kept filling the lute with the two Attuned Manas. It almost made him hope that his grandfather wouldn’t be ready to teach him Elemental Analysis. He was only too curious what Fire and Air Mana could do, to say nothing of Mud Mana.
That reminded him. Jeb called the Glyphs for Least Create Mud, Least Conjure Water, and Least Create Earth in his mind. He still couldn’t find the way to overlay Water and Earth to make Mud, though he was certain that he was getting closer. When he looked at the end, however, Jeb was able to overlay the Creation parts of the Earth and Mud Glyphs.
Trying to connect the points in the Mud Glyph to make Attune Mud Mana failed again, though. As Jeb thought about it, it made some amount of sense. The secondary connections between each point in the Glyph were dependent on the square of the number of points in the Glyph. He would need to do the math for where they should connect.
A quick glance at the brightening sky showed him that he would need to wait until after breakfast. Jeb saw his grandfather at breakfast and went to go see what he would be working on that day.
“I’m sorry, Jeb,” his grandfather said, “I’m still not totally sure how to teach you Elemental Analysis. It would have been easier if you hadn’t learned Soil Savvy, just because of how much overlap there is between the two Skills, especially for the materials I have expertise in.”
“That’s completely ok!” Jeb replied, “so what will I be working on instead?”
His grandfather looked at him for a moment.
“Do you have any other projects you could work on? The rest of the family isn’t ready to teach you any of the Skills they might have been planning to.”
That was a nice coincidence. “I do actually!” Jeb confirmed happily, “I’ve been working to continue Enforcing my lute. I found out that I can feed in Elementally Attuned Mana and that doing so changes the lute in different ways than feeding unattuned Mana.” Even as Jeb said that, though, he realized that it wasn’t totally accurate.
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If he looked at his Mana honestly, it was slightly brown, which Jeb knew meant that it was Mud Attuned. Still, it was only the slightest coloration, and by the time it was woven into the thread of a Song, Jeb was positive that it was unaspected.
After breakfast, Jeb walked back over to his hive. Sitting with his back to the device, Jeb felt a few bees land on him. He pulled out his lute, ready to Enforce his lute again.
As Jeb quickly found the Song again, he decided to be rigorous and see what happened if he didn’t do anything exciting and just put the Mana into the lute. The moment that the thought went through his mind, he almost lost the Song. His voice caught for a moment as he suppressed a laugh.
What had changed in his life since getting a Class that sitting next to the hive that he’d established while Enforcing a lute with his Mana was an unexciting event?
Jeb moved on from that question and noticed that his memory had been correct. The thread going into the lute lacked any color from a specific Elemental Aspect. As his Mana ran out, Jeb was curious if the Song would still take the rest of the thread as it spun down. To his relief, it did.
As Jeb looked at his lute, he found that the bow in the neck had completely fixed itself. So far as he could tell, there was no longer anything that needed to be repaired in his lute. The last Mana that had gone into the instrument was serving to do nothing more than the Song implied that it would. It was Enforcing the lute, generally making the instrument more reliable and playable.
Now Jeb just needed to find something to occupy his time before his Mana refilled. He remembered that his hive was constructed to make getting honey out easier. His grandfather had said that his aunt wasn’t free, but Jeb was sure it couldn’t hurt to check.
As he opened the door to the Brewing Barn, he saw his aunt working. It was so different from the way that she taught Jeb to brew. Malt darkened to the perfect color nearly instantly.
She didn’t bother measuring a single ingredient, and yet Jeb was certain that everything was poured perfectly. His aunt gave a brief nod to him before going to another fermenter and emptying it into the waiting barrels.
Well, clearly his grandfather wasn’t lying. Jeb went back to his room to grab the Lute Method Book. He figured that would give him something to spend the day doing as he waited for his Mana to refill. Back at the hive, he kept part of his focus on his Mana as he started learning the next song in the book.
From the first notes, though, Jeb could feel the difference Enforcing with Attuned Mana would make. Even as Jeb messed up notes, the lute made them sound like intentional choices.
His Mana had refilled before he finished learning the song, at least if he trusted the System. Jeb started to play the Song and move it to Attune Air Mana. As the thread started to move through the Glyph, though, Jeb noticed an issue.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 4124/100
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Total Statistic Load: 273 Physical Load: 124 Strength: 28 Dexterity: 21 Endurance: 30 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 149 Intelligence: 25 Willpower: 25 Magic Affinity: 51 Mana Depth: 25 Charisma: 23
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Mana: 585
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Glyph Attunement: 22 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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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 Brewing Distilling Bardic Magic Smithing
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)