As the Librarian’s eyes kept flashing, Jeb started to get antsy. Since the pages showed no signs of slowing down, he started pacing up and down the room of the Library. He had never considered how empty the building was.
There were no shelves of books that he could browse, which made him stop pacing for a second. He knew that he couldn’t be the only person requesting books in the town. Where were the rest of the books stored?
Before Jeb could stop to ponder the question for too long, the Librarian’s eyes returned to their normal shade. “Sorry, Jeb,” he said, “I can’t find anything like that. It could be an interesting project for you to work on, though.”
“Thank you for looking!” Jeb replied, already moving out of the Library. He considered trying to develop an Enchantment to Attune Mana for the bees, like the Librarian suggested. Ultimately, though, it was a low priority task. The bees didn’t seem to have any difficulty finding Mana to Enforce themselves and the hive with.
As he walked home, Jeb couldn’t shake the energetic feeling. When he made it back to the house, he ran straight to his grandfather’s forge. “Grandfather, are you busy?” he asked as he tapped out a continuous beat on the door.
The door opened and his grandfather looked out at him. “Is everything alright, Jeb?” he asked.
“Yes!” Jeb exclaimed, “I’m just really energized today for some reason.”
“One moment, please,” his grandfather said, passing by him. It looked to Jeb like he was walking into the kitchen, which was a little surprising. His mother was probably there, but it wasn’t like anyone else would be.
A few moments later, Jeb’s grandfather came back to see Jeb pacing back and forth in the hallway. “I wonder if, no, wait, if I-” Jeb’s mutterings were cut off by his grandfather loudly clearing his throat.
“What did you come to speak with me about?”
Jeb tried to remember. His mind had traveled down at least half a dozen paths since his grandfather left his sight. “Let me try to remember,” he said, stalling for time. “I was just thinking about how to Enforce a Glyph, which I got to by thinking about the way that the bees were Enforcing their hive. I started thinking about that because I was trying to figure out where all of their Elementally Attuned Mana was coming from. That thought came from-” at last Jeb remembered. “Oh! A while ago we talked about how it would be good for me to learn Glassblowing. Are you free now to teach me?”
His grandfather was clearly reeling from the pace Jeb’s words were coming at. “Can you repeat that all again, this time at about half the speed?”
“My thoughts were wandering, but I was wondering if you would be willing and free to teach me Glassblowing,” Jeb said, trying his hardest to enunciate each word and syllable.
His grandfather shook his head back and forth, clearly considering something. “Tomorrow,” he said, “come down to the forge before breakfast. For today, though,” his grandfather paused, obviously trying to think of some sort of busy work to assign him, “see if you can make a Glyph for Sand.”
Jeb stared at his grandfather. With a start, he realized that he had neglected to tell his grandfather that he had made Least Create Sand. “I’ve already made it,” he said.
His grandfather nodded, unsurprised by the answer. “Didn’t you say that there was some way to make Glyphs Efficient?” he asked.
“Yes?” Jeb responded hesitantly.
“Why don’t you try making one of your Glyphs Efficient?”
Jeb considered the idea. It had some merit, and it would be nice to waste less Mana while Attuning it or pushing it through the lute.
He quickly stopped that line of thought. As nice as it would be to use an Efficient Glyph, there was almost certainly no way that he would be able to force his Mana to follow the three layers that the single Efficient Glyph he knew traced. Still, it would at least be a way to get a little more Willpower.
“Ok!” Jeb said, running back to his room. He found a few pieces of Manaweave and some sheets of paper he had set out for a project. Picking up his lute, Jeb ran over to the hive.
He assumed the Elemental Manas would be in a better balance after filling his lute with Sand Mana, so Jeb called up the Song and began Enforcing his lute with Unattuned Mana. Now that he was watching more carefully, Jeb saw that some of his Mana was flowing into the hive as the bees danced around him. A tiny trickle of Mana came from each bee, splitting both into the hive and into his lute.
He considered whether the sharing of Mana would mean that the bees would also bind to his lute. As that train of thought continued, Jeb wondered whether he would end up binding the hive or the Hive. Since there wasn’t really much he could do about it, he put the thought aside, hoping to remember to ask the Bard the next time their paths crossed.
When his Mana ran out, Jeb considered which Glyph he wanted to Modify. He quickly decided on Attune Sand Mana for a few reasons, most of which boiled down to the fact that it was the closest to a Spell Glyph that he had created from scratch. With a brief thought and effort of will, he inscribed Attune Sand Mana onto the piece of Manaweave.
Staring at the page for a moment, Jeb considered what his next steps should be. “It would make sense to look at the only Efficient and non-Efficient pair I’ve learned,” he reasoned. With another effort of will, he inscribed Least Move Earth and Least Move Earth (Efficient) onto two more sheets of Manaweave.
Looking at the differences, the most obvious change was clearly the way the lines on the Glyph were shaped. The Efficient Glyph’s lines were all curved, flowing from one point to another. By contrast, the base version of the Glyph had sharp corners and straight lines.
Jeb first tried sketching out what Attune Sand Mana could look like with smooth lines. After filling three pages of paper with different variations, all of which felt like they could work, he realized that he would need to build the Glyph in his mind. The low droning of the bees lulled Jeb into a meditative state, and he leaned his back on the hive as he began to visualize the Glyph.
The moment he called Attune Sand Mana to mind, Jeb realized the first issue he would need to contend with: Least Move Earth was not planar. He called Least Move Earth (Efficient) to mind and forced it to turn. When he was looking at it edge on, he saw that the curves flowed just as smoothly in the third dimension as in the other two.
Jeb looked harder. As he did, he saw that, unlike what he had thought, the secondary and tertiary connecting lines were not in plane with the rest of the Glyph. They didn’t even lie orthogonal to the plane in the same direction that the points which came out of plane did. Instead, they moved orthogonally in another dimension altogether.
The fact that the Glyph could not exist in the physical world didn’t faze Jeb at this point. He was a little surprised that he wasn’t struggling to bend the Glyph in more and more directions, but he supposed that all his practice with Glyphs had to be doing something.
A bee landed on Jeb’s nose and broke him out of his focus. When it saw that he was paying attention to it, it flew away. He watched it go, confused why a Sand Attuned bee would be trying to get his attention. Shrugging, he went back to work.
Or, at least he tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He traced his thoughts backward, remembering that he was going to try to make the Efficient Attune Sand Mana. Calling the Glyph to mind, he debated between adding the extra levels of connections and adding the curves to the lines.
Jeb felt an instinct that adding the extra layers of connection would help more, because they stabilized the curved shape. Trusting his gut, he began tracing out the lines.
The first point touched itself on the second level. The second touched the fourth, and the third touched the ninth. By the fourth point, though Jeb had to start looping. Thankfully, all his work doing calculations and working on modifying Glyphs carried over here and he had no struggle knowing that the fourth point would connect to the final point and the first point. The fifth, he knew, would touch the final and the tenth. When he got to the fifteenth point, he looped it to itself fifteen times.
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Second layer done, he tried to reckon whether it would be better for him to try to start adding curves or to add the third level of connections. His gut was silent, so Jeb decided to go with the easier choice. The first point he connected to each point in the Glyph. The second went to the evens, and so on until he’d reached the seventh point, which looped to itself and the penultimate point.
When he finished those connections, the Glyph blazed brighter in his mind, though not in a positive way. Unlike most of the times he had learned a Glyph, this light didn’t seem to be coming from the fact that the Spell was engraving itself onto his soul and reality. Instead, it seemed like the increased flow of Mana through it was destabilizing the structure somehow.
With a renewed sense of urgency, Jeb started adjusting the lines in his Glyph to be curves. To his relief and surprise, it took no effort at all to shift the structure. If anything, it felt like he had just released the hold that he had been subconsciously pushing onto the Glyph which prevented it from reshaping. The light burned far brighter and imprinted itself on his soul.
Congratulations! You have completed the Minor Quest Glyphmastery Fourth Tier Glyph Chain “Create a Second Tier Glyph”. Like a true Glyphmaster, you were not bound by others’ Glyphs. Rewards: 78 Experience, Mana Depth +4, Willpower +4, Mana +25, Unlock Glyph Chain Third Quest “Create a Third Tier Glyph”.
Jeb looked up from his focus to see that the sky was growing dim. He had apparently spent more time working on the Glyph than he thought. As his mind returned to his body, he noticed how exhausted he felt.
Standing up to go to bed, he had to catch himself. “Are any of the Sand Attuned Bees awake?” he asked the hive. A few dozen bees answered the call and flew out.
“Can you tell me if there’s a difference between these two Mana clouds?” he asked. He spent thirty Mana on both Attune Sand Mana and his new Glyph, which the System helpfully told him was called “Attune Sand Mana (Efficient)”. Watching the clouds, he couldn’t see any real difference, though the bees told a different story.
“So the second cloud had about thirty percent more Mana?” Jeb asked, making sure that he understood what they were dancing. Seeing the bees dance their confirmation, he nodded. “Good to know.” He made his way back home, flipped the tag to say that he was in, and collapsed in his bed.
In the morning, Jeb woke up at his usual time. He had a slight headache, though, which was strange. Drinking a glass of water helped, so he quickly forgot about the pain as he made his way to the forge.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 5721/100
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Total Statistic Load: 336 Physical Load: 124 Strength: 28 Dexterity: 21 Endurance: 30 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 212 Intelligence: 47 Willpower: 48 Magic Affinity: 54 Mana Depth: 33 Charisma: 30
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Mana: 910
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Glyph Attunement: 25 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 Attune Sand Mana - Efficient Tier 2 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 Enchanting
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)