The first thing that Jeb noticed was that where the Glyph he knew had straight lines between the 25 nodes of the Glyph, the Efficient one had arcs. That made sense, since the same was true with water. Trying to make a flow of water change courses along tight angles worked far less well than having arcs.
Other than that, though, the Spells looked the same. Where the Glyph he knew had a tight angle, the new Glyph had the curve changing directions smoothly. Just to confirm that, though, Jeb started to cast Least Move Earth, pulling the Glyph into reality. He stopped short of actually feeding it Mana, though, since he knew that would exhaust him too quickly.
Moving the Glyph to hover over the Earth Primer, Jeb confirmed what he had already thought. The two Glyphs overlapped on the same points.
Since that much of the Spell was the same, Jeb decided to learn the new Glyph the same way he’d learned the last Glyph: connecting each point from the start until the end. He sat down on his floor, sitting in a comfortable position. This might take a few hours, he thought, closing his eyes and visualizing the Glyph.
Almost immediately, the difficulty started. Where before he just needed to remember the locations of the points to connect them, now he also had to hold in his head exactly how the curve moved. Since he already knew Least Move Earth, he didn’t have to struggle to recall the points at all. Instead, he called Least Move Earth to mind. Intentionally severing the Glyph, he focused on connecting the first two points together in a smooth curve.
When he managed it, he could already tell that the Mana would flow much more smoothly between the points. Still, holding it was more effort than he remembered from learning the first Glyph, even with his new Skill helping. With two points lit up in his mind, he tried changing the bend in the light so that it moved from the second point to the third. The effort it took made it clear to Jeb why Classes giving gains to Magic Affinity was so important. If it was this difficult to learn a slightly improved version of a spell he already knew, it must be nearly impossible to learn the upper-level spells. He’d never keep his Affinity Statistic in pace with the others without getting bonuses from his Class.
Thinking about that made him realize that his concentration had slipped, though, so he refocused and tried again. This time he made it to the fourth point, and felt the load on his mind reduce slightly. Of course, that connection came with a sudden alert from a System Notification.
Jeb wanted to know what it said, but he wanted to learn this Glyph more. He muted his notifications and focused back on the Spell.
This time he took a moment to watch what was happening more closely. Sending the smallest stream of Mana into the Primer, Jeb studied the Glyph as it lit up. As he watched, the light from the arcs he’d seen slowly slipped out of his vision. He looked deeper, and saw a second set of connections.
If the first were like a river, pounding down the earth, the second set was like a small stream. Still, it was clear that they were important. The first point had a small stream connecting back to itself. The second connected to the fourth, the third to the ninth, and the fourth to the sixteenth. The fifth point connected to the last point in the sequence. Jeb was starting to see a pattern, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Finally, something clicked.
If I number the points on the glyph starting at one, each point connects to the point which would be the area of a square with a side the same length as the initial point!
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That didn’t work, though, because the sixth point connected to the eleventh. As he watched, though, the stream going to the eleventh split before it connected, reaching the twenty-fifth as well. That was easier to figure out. Eleven and twenty-five was thirty-six, which matched the pattern.
Looking, he saw that was true for each square larger than the remainder.
Ok, I should check that idea, though. The seventh square should go-
Jeb paused for a moment, thinking,
“Forty nine would be the square, and that is larger than twenty-five. So, it should flow into both the final point and the penultimate point.” And it did.
That explained part of the easing when he got to the fourth point: some of the light started flowing back from the fourth into the second. Reconstructing the Glyph in his mind, Jeb saw that the smaller streams were forming, even without him actively making them. Making the channels himself, though, made the flow that much smoother.
What had felt like a raging force completely out of his control calmed as he tied the fourth and second together. This time he linked to the fifth point. Then the sixth. Then the seventh. By the eighth point, the stress had grown too much for him again, and his concentration broke.
This time, though, he saw the secondary paths fading after the first had already gone away, as though they were dimmer but longer lasting. When they had faded totally, Jeb saw the slightest glint of another web of paths.
Once more, Jeb poured a small trickle of Mana into the Primer. Once more, the Primer lit up. This time he was quickly able to ignore the trunk of the main path. Looking carefully, he was able to see past the branches of the second level. What was left felt almost like spiderwebs. They were delicate, but overlaid the entire Glyph.
The first point seemed to connect to every point in the Glyph. As Jeb traced the points, he realized that it did. The second connected to itself, and then to the fourth, sixth, eighth and so on. The third connected to itself, the sixth, the ninth, and every next third piece. Jeb guessed what was causing it and was correct with his guesses for the fourth and fifth.
Quickly jumping to the thirteenth, Jeb was glad to see that it only connected to itself. It seemed that the looping was only in the second level of the Glyph.
Jeb focused on clearing his mind once more. He had started to feel a piercing pain in his skull as he focused on the web of the third level of the Glyph. Either that was as low as it went, or he would not be able to learn the Glyph.
Once more, Jeb pulled up a mental image of the points for Least Move Earth. This time, before connecting the first point to the second, he set two small loops to go from the first back to itself. He then connected the first to the second, breaking off a piece of one of the small loops to connect to the second as well. When Jeb reconnected the second to itself, it was as if all the pressure had faded. The light felt no more out of his control than it had before he’d linked the second point at all.
Going to the third point was equally easy. Jeb connected first the river from the second point, then the small piece from the first point, then the small loop back into itself. The fourth was harder, though.
Jeb nearly lost his focus trying to connect all of the points. Still, when he managed to put the two different connections from the second point into it, he felt the pressure loosen.
After what felt like seconds or hours, Jeb reached the final point in the Glyph. The major artery of the Glyph in his mind was far weaker now, with much of the light looping between the closed cycles earlier in the Glyph. Still, he connected the twenty-fourth point to it, then went through and made a loop from the point to itself, which he split into twenty four more loops. He carefully threaded the loops from the fifth point in the Glyph, then looped it to itself.
When the final loop connected, he felt the Glyph crystallize. Jeb knew that if he checked his Status, he would see the Glyph listed there. It was a nice feeling.
Thankfully, the sun was still in the sky, though it had dropped a fair amount. As Jeb fully moved out of his focus, he heard the rhythmic thumping he’d been mistaking for his heartbeat. It was his door.