Jeb slept fitfully, waking often. He remembered snippets of his dreams. He dreamed of an ocean of water and an ocean of blood.
When he finally gave up on sleep, Jeb looked outside his door to see another package from his Uncle Frank. Inside was what looked like Manaweave, but what Jeb knew instantly to be Waterweave.
Jeb eagerly opened the package, revealing smooth white paper. The Water Mana had faded from them, though Jeb still could feel that they were attuned to Water. He tried putting a Fire Glyph on them to check, and confirmed that it wouldn’t imprint. A run through Least Create Air and Least Create Earth mirrored the results, which was slightly more surprising. He had expected the opposite Elements to oppose each other, but he hadn’t expected all other Elements to.
Even Least Create Mud refused to imprint onto Waterweave. That one was more surprising, because Mud had Water in it. Still, if Waterweave was only useful for holding Water Spell Glyphs, it was good to learn this now, rather than after his grandfather went to market with the seeds.
Jeb decided to try pushing Least Conjure Water into the sheet. When he tried imprinting the Glyph onto the Waterweave, Jeb felt more resistance than he had with Manaweave, but he was still able to put it in. As the Glyph started to imprint, Jeb didn’t feel the same clean break that he had in the past. It seemed as though he could keep pouring Mana into the Glyph. That was strange, and Jeb didn’t quite know how to respond.
He ended up cutting it off at 170 Mana. Jeb thought about what would happen if 170 Mana of Least Conjure Water suddenly activated. It wasn’t a pleasant idea.
As soon as Jeb stopped filling the Glyph with Mana, he felt his connection break. The Waterweave looked normal, but something about it felt wrong. Jeb really didn’t want 170 Mana of Conjured Water to fill his room, so he quickly inscribed another piece of the Waterweave with Least Conjure Water, only putting in ten Mana this time. As he reached out to it, Jeb felt like he could activate the Spell. Thankfully, he had an empty bucket in his room, so Jeb tried activating the Glyph.
A little bit Water water filled the bucket, and the Glyph on the Waterweave disappeared. The Waterweave seemed slightly damaged, but Jeb couldn’t point to anything in specific for how he knew that.
On the same piece of Waterweave, he inscribed Least Shape Water, since that shouldn’t cause any problems if the Mana all emptied out at once. The ten Mana he’d used for Conjuring emptied too quickly for him to tell if the limiter was doing anything.
When he started pouring in Mana, he again felt like he could put in as much Mana as he wanted. When he’d poured 180 in, though, his connection to the Glyph snapped. Jeb found it a little humorous that he had stopped filling the first sheet of Waterweave so close to its maximum, but he supposed that was life.
Jeb activated that Glyph and practiced shaping the Water as the Mana slowly used up. Now that the Glyph was running for longer, Jeb could see that once he activated it, the Glyph glowed. The light slowly dimmed as the Mana flowed out.
He made sure to keep the water directly over the bucket when it seemed almost completely dimmed, and he wasn’t surprised when the Spell ended. What was a little more shocking was the Waterweave crumbling away into nothingness. Apparently the Mana he’d poured into the piece had destabilized the Waterweave more than he thought.
Well, he did still have a few sheets of paper, so one more for experimenting like this couldn’t hurt, right? His Mana had recovered while he played with Least Shape Water, and he wanted to try filling the Waterweave the first time to see if he’d maybe lost some Mana capacity from the first time he inscribed a Glyph. To his mild surprise, he had.
The fresh sheet took 200 Mana to fill entirely with Least Shape Water, and as Jeb looked closer, he saw that the Glyph seemed totally connected to the paper. The Glyph had reoriented all the fibers in such a way that without it, the paper would fade away.
Or, at least, previous experimentation would suggest that without the Glyph, the paper would fade away. The fact that it took 200 Mana seemed to suggest that Waterweave lost some of its capacity when a Glyph was activated. With a single data point, it looked like it lost 10 Mana with each use.
He left that Glyph unactivated, since he wanted to see if his family could also activate the Glyph, or if it was only something he could do. Setting the second sheet of Waterweave aside, he decided to test his current hypothesis that the Waterweave lost 10 Mana with each cast. Before inscribing, he accepted the Quest Notification for having Inscribed four First Tier Glyphs.
Jeb used the next sheet of paper to see how many times he could inscribe it before it would wear out. He only put 1 Mana in at a time, and the Spell barely took hold before it ended. As expected, he managed to inscribe a Glyph onto the Waterweave 19 times before it finally dissolved. That was certainly nice for his Mana capacity, though Jeb felt like he was at the end of his ability to actually form Glyphs. Each casting on the Waterweave had felt taxing, and that strain only grew with each attempt.
It was nearly time for breakfast, so Jeb stopped his experimenting, making sure to note down the 19 times the Waterweave could be enchanted before collapsing. He would need a few minutes to try figuring out the numbers, though trying the same inscription with different Glyphs or different amounts of Mana would be really helpful too. Still, he grabbed the sheet holding 200 Mana of Least Shape Water to see if his family would be able to use it as well. Jeb quickly left his room, hoping that he might have found a way to let non-Mages have access to Magic.
As he made his way downstairs in excitement, he realized one miscalculation he had made. It was still dark out. After sitting and twiddling his thumbs for a while, just enjoying the feeling of doing nothing, breakfast started.
“So Jeb,” his mother commented as everyone ate, “it looked like you had something on your mind when you came down the stairs.” Jeb had nearly forgotten. In a rush, he pulled out the sheet of Waterweave and explained it to his mother.
“I think that anyone should be able to activate it,” he said, “but I don’t know for certain. After all, I was the one who Inscribed it, and I know how to use the Glyph.”
Playing along, his mother got a glass of water and tried to activate the Glyph.
The sudden silence in the room spoke volumes. Everyone watched as Dorothy, well-known to have no Magic whatsoever, started controlling a stream of water. Every eye in the room fixed on Jeb when the Mana had run out, and Jeb suddenly felt nervous.
He’d never been comfortable with people looking at him, and there was a certain weight that a group of high Tiered people had when they all looked intently at someone. It wasn’t a nice feeling in the least. Still, it faded quickly as they all found reasons to look away. Clearly they were as aware of the feeling as he was, and they didn’t want to force him to experience it.
“How hard would it be for you to make more of those?” his grandfather asked, breaking the silence.
“It’s just putting a Spell Glyph on Waterweave,” Jeb said, “but the Spell is only as powerful as the amount of Mana that I put into it. So not difficult at all, I suppose?”
“I’ll try growing a patch of Watergrass today, then,” his grandfather said. “Can you put any Glyph onto it?”
“Only Water Glyphs, but I feel like the principle should be the same to Attune any other strain of Managrass to an Element.”
“Well, let’s not put the cart too far in front of the horse. First we’ll need to make sure that your Watergrass breeds true without a constant input of Mana.” Jeb quickly wondered whether it would be sustainable to use the Waterweave to store Attune Water Mana if it wouldn’t, but quickly tossed the idea aside.
Even if it did, that would require having a Mage who could use Attune Water Mana to constantly refresh the fields. There wasn’t that much of a difference between doing that and just having the Mage Attune the water themself.
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Jeb continued to think about how to optimize the situation until his grandfather cleared his throat. “Jeb, are you planning to eat breakfast today?” he realized that he had been sitting in thought while he ran through the numbers in his head. Before he refocused, he thought about how helpful it would be if he could put more Mana in the Waterweave.
“I also noticed that you weren’t using your Soil Improvement Skill the other day,” his grandfather said, “is there a reason for that?”
Jeb looked through his list of notifications, scrolling back to when he’d gotten Fertilizing. To his chagrin, there was an unopened entry.
Congratulations! By learning Soil Savvy and Fertilizing, you have unlocked the Synergy Skill: Soil Improvement.
Better late than never, he supposed. He wasn’t hurting for Statistics or Experience, so it didn’t really matter, but as a matter of principle Jeb disliked that he’d left that option unopened for so long.
“I um,” Jeb muttered, “missed the Notification when I received it.” His family laughed, as he feared, but then all began recounting similar experiences they’d had. It lightened the mood at the table a lot. Jeb hadn’t realized how much the idea that non Mages would now be able to use Spells had affected the tone at the table.
With nothing else to do, Jeb decided to try out his new Skill. He had been wanting to make a new Skill, and now seemed like a great time to do so.
He called Least Create Earth to mind, putting just enough Mana into the Spell to get a handful of Earth. He looked at it with Soil Improvement active, seeing where the soil was nutrient deficient and the issues it had. The earth would need at least a little bit of Sand to be healthy soil, so maybe he could emphasize that part of the Earth Glyph and change the placement of the points to Attune to Sand.
Jeb quickly ran to his room to grab a notebook before running outside to start testing. He tried casting Least Create Earth again, this time splitting his focus. With one part of his mind, he carefully restrained the Mana from flowing through the Glyph too quickly. With the other, he focused on creating sandier Earth. Soil Savvy helped him here, because it gave some deeper understanding of what sandier Earth would mean.
If it hadn’t been for all the training he had with Lute Enforcement, he knew that he never would have been able to accomplish it. The Glyph lit up less uniformly brightly than he remembered. Another handful of Earth later, Jeb dismissed the Glyph, quickly noting the parts of the formation that had seemed dimmer. A look at the Earth in his hand confirmed that it had slightly more sand in it than the previous attempt had. Now came the tricky part.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 5488/100
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Total Statistic Load: 313 Physical Load: 124 Strength: 28 Dexterity: 21 Endurance: 30 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 189 Intelligence: 45 Willpower: 38 Magic Affinity: 51 Mana Depth: 25 Charisma: 30
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Mana: 860
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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 Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water 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 Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)