Jeb looked around him, debating which direction would be safest to launch flames as the sun rose. Since he wasn’t sure how far the flames would end up going, he ultimately decided that straight up was the safest course. Just before he tried to activate them, though, he realized that there was one more precaution he should take. He grabbed a bucket and used Least Conjure Water to fill it.
Jeb went to activate the Wand of Fireballs, only to remember that, while he had set it to turn on and off at a command, he hadn’t yet specified the commands. He went into the Enchantment and set it to respond to “I want Fireballs,” and “I want no Fireballs.” Then, thinking about the many ways that trying to calmly say an entire sentence might go wrong if something happened, he changed the activation to “begin Fire,” and “hold.”
“Begin Fire,” Jeb said, and nothing happened. He looked through the Enchantment, confused why it wasn’t activating. “I wonder what’s holding-” as he said hold, the Wand sent out large orbs of what could only technically be called Flames.
“Begin Fire,” Jeb said quickly, realizing his mistake. He had flipped the activation and deactivation phrases. Quickly reversing them, he started to adjust the different knobs on the Wand.
His first instinct was to test the temperature. From behind, he felt like the Fireballs weren’t even hot enough to catch a piece of paper on fire, let alone a piece of wood. “Begin Fire,” he said, watching a column of Fire erupt from the front of the Wand.
Jeb debated a number of ways that he could test the temperature of the Fireballs. Most of them required getting other equipment. He took a quick look at his Statistics.
Thirty Endurance and Forty One Vitality were probably enough to prevent any lasting harm, so he waved his hand through the column of Flame. As he thought, it wasn’t even hot enough to singe his hairs. Jeb turned off the Wand and adjusted the temperature.
This time, he saw the familiar sight of the air around his flames distorting from the heat. He knew better than to test it again, since he could even feel some of the heat himself. His next priority was making the flame come out smaller.
Although it was somewhat fun to see a column of fire as thick around as any of his relatives, the size of the flame would make it less useful inside in an oven. Jeb considered how he could make it smaller. After double checking that the impact force dial was turned as low as it could, he started changing the Fireball speed.
As he began to adjust it, he realized that adjusting a Wand while it was actively shooting Fire may not have been something that anyone in his life would condone. Then again, none of them were there, and he knew that it was safe. Nodding, Jeb started to make the Fireballs move faster.
As they did, the flames grew more condensed and separated. The Fireballs his Wand produced were roughly spherical, so as they grew smaller, Jeb was more able to see the delay between pulses. As much as he knew that he should optimize the Wand for his mother, he was too curious about where the delay was coming from to not look at it.
“Hold.” The flames immediately stopped shooting out of his Wand. As soon as the air had cleared of flames, a number of bees came out with questioning buzzes. Jeb tried to deflect them, knowing how quickly they had learned other Skills when he practiced them near the hive. While having bees that Enforced their hive or made Elementally Attuned Honey wasn’t too big of a deal, he couldn’t imagine that his family would be happy if he taught the bees how to make automated Fireball launchers.
Thankfully, the bees mostly seemed concerned that he was fighting off intruders. When Jeb explained that he was testing the tribute to his queen, the bees danced their equivalent of a shrug and went off in search of pollen. He breathed a silent sigh of relief that he hadn’t accidentally weaponized his hive.
His mind started to consider all of the ways that a hive that knew how to Elementally Attune Mana might already be weaponized, but he quickly shut off that line of thought. “Begin Fire,” he said, watching flames bloom once more from the end of his Wand. This time, he looked at the Wand with his Magical sight active.
As soon as he did, Jeb understood where the delay between Fireballs was coming from. He watched Mana flow from the activation script into the rest of the Wand and then out the other end. It moved as a cycle, and as a result, it could not start making another Fireball until the first had been released. In the long term, Jeb knew that he would want to find a solution to that problem. But, for a birthday gift, it was probably good enough.
“Hold,” he said, letting the flames die down. Now that he’d made the Wand good enough to work as a fire starter, Jeb realized that he had a Notification he had been ignoring.
Congratulations! By learning and successfully creating an Enchantment, you have unlocked the Magical Skill: Enchanting.
Jeb opened the Skill, excited to see what new Quests he had been offered.
Enchanting: Magical Skill (Held in Abeyance due to conflict with Class-Granted Skill: Least Mud Magic). You will not receive any benefits from the Skill until you resolve this conflict.
Just like with Bardic Magic, it appeared as though he wouldn’t get any benefits from this new Magical Skill at least until he took his next Class. Jeb hoped that he would have met the requirements for a Class that somehow would give him access to Glyph Magic, Bardic Magic, and now Enchanting. If there were other forms of Magic, he would also love if he was able to cast them, though he knew that the odds went down with each restriction he had.
He knew that there were countless Classes that had access to Glyph Magic in some regard. The same was probably true of Bardic Magic or Enchanting, though if he was being honest with himself, Jeb had never really lookd into those Classes. Still, he hadn’t heard of any Classes that offered access to all three kinds of Magic, and the Librarian’s comments when he’d asked about binding a lute made Jeb worried for his future. Enchanting the Wand had been such a fun experience, for all that it was a struggle. Would he have to give that up forever?
Jeb firmed his resolve. No matter what it took, he would find a way to maintain access to the Magics he’d learned. As he decided that, something else seemed to crystallize in his mind. He had been putting off working on binding his lute out of a sense of fear more than anything else.
His aunt’s concerns still weighed on him. The more that he thought about it, though, the less they seemed specifically relevant to his situation. Right now his lute was probably harder to damage than he was, and he still had so much more Mana to infuse into it before it was bound to him.
Mind made up, he put the Wand of Fireballs into his bag and went back to his home. His family was just sitting down for breakfast when he arrived. “Good morning!” he said cheerily. Even though he hadn’t slept, Jeb found that he was surprisingly energized.
Almost his entire family was there for breakfast. They all studiously avoided answering the real reason that they had come, though some with more success than others. His Aunt Zephra struggled the most, eventually just settling for the excuse that “the sheep all said that they wanted to come back here, and what kind of Shepherdess would I be if I didn’t bring my sheep where they wanted.”
His mother, as was tradition, accepted all of the excuses his family members gave at face value. They didn’t gather for every birthday, but everyone tried to make it to the home for every multiple of sixteen, at least once people had received their Class. They tried to come together more often for younger children, but there weren't any specific traditions, for all that some of his family pushed for powers of two.
His mother had just turned forty eight years old, which was a notable birthday. The super-majority of her life had now been lived as a Classholder. Jeb wasn’t entirely sure what Class she had, but he was excited to find out.
Tradition and an excuse to see the family was probably enough of a reason for everyone to come home, but there was absolutely another reason everyone made the journey home. It was tradition to lie about why you had come home as a guest. It was just as much a tradition to accept any reason people had made it home when it was your birthday. And, it was even more so a tradition in his family to share your Class and Skill progression since your last celebration.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Whether it was a new Class Granted Skill, a Skill Evolution that the System had granted upon Classing up, or even a Skill Evolution the celebrant had managed to force, the family was there to record, remember, and celebrate. Also, especially for those who were younger, there was the added benefit that you had the rest of your family there to help plan the next sixteen years of your progression.
When breakfast ended, Jeb helped his mother clean the kitchen and then went to his room to pick up his lute for the first time in days. He had a brief feeling of sadness over being abandoned when he picked it up, which was disconcerting. If he had known that the lute was already bound to him enough to make him feel emotion, he would never have left it to sit for days.
As he thought about it further, though, Jeb considered the possibility that he might just be projecting what he would feel if he were the lute. That rang slightly truer to him than the lute already being sentient, and he hoped it was true. When he picked it up and mindlessly ran through a few scales, he was surprised to see that it was still in tune. He put it back in its case and walked over to the hive.
Back at the hive, Jeb carefully adjusted all of the tuning ever so slightly. He had realized that while each string was in tune with the other strings, they were all slightly above the pitch of the instrument. It was an easy enough fix, and he started intentionally warming his fingers up to play Lute Enforcement.
As the thread of the Song started weaving out, Jeb remembered that he had just created the Glyph for Attune Sand Mana. Forcing the thread through that Glyph was surprisingly easy. He supposed that since he had made Sand by modifying Earth, his Class’s Attunement to Mud was helping him, rather than hindering.
The Magic of the Song took on a sandy texture, rough and warm. When it connected with the lute, Jeb felt the difference between him and it fade for just a moment. He had forgotten how nice the feeling of connecting to his lute through Lute Enforcement was. For as long as his Mana lasted, he felt as though he was seeing the world as it truly was, beautiful and full of life.
The extra three hundred or so Mana he had since the last time he practiced the Song were a welcome addition. He realized that there was a fairly flat Mana cost to activating the Song, especially when he wanted to run it through a Glyph. As a result, the extra forty or so percent Mana he had gave him far more than forty percent more Enforcement.
When he came out of the Song, Jeb realized he had two issues to resolve. The first was obvious and not time sensitive: he needed to know what Sand Mana did to the lute. The second was almost certainly more difficult but far more time sensitive: what looked like his entire hive was rushing towards him from all around the farm, and the bees sounded angry.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 5604/100
----------------------------------------
Total Statistic Load: 325 Physical Load: 124 Strength: 28 Dexterity: 21 Endurance: 30 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
----------------------------------------
Mental Load: 201 Intelligence: 46 Willpower: 43 Magic Affinity: 53 Mana Depth: 29 Charisma: 30
----------------------------------------
Mana: 875
----------------------------------------
Glyph Attunement: 24 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 Attune Sand Mana Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand Tier 1 Spell
----------------------------------------
Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
----------------------------------------
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 Enchanting
----------------------------------------
Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
----------------------------------------
Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)