Nothing! The journal showed absolutely nothing new. Blank page after blank page with the index at the back bearing his name as number six. He closed it, opened it. turned it around and even shook it. More out of frustration than hoping to achieve anything. Then Andrew remembered. He needed a drop of blood. So he closed the book, placed it before him and gathered the needle.

He was starkly reminded of how Willow had extracted his blood, ad how jarring the feeling was. It wasn’t painful really, more of a sharp shock. He willed his finger closer to the glinting needle tip. Determined now to do this right.

But when it came to plunging its wicket sharpness into the tip off his forefinger, he just couldn’t do it.

“AAArrrggg!” he cried out with closed eyes, desperately pressing the needle towards his innocent flesh. The problem with this strategy was not in his determination, but in his coordination. The needle did pierce him, but now it was embedded quite low on the finger, having produced a rather nasty gash. In fact to Andrew’s increasing distress, he found it embedded deeply in the first knuckle. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t feel the pain yet, since it was more of a completely numb sensation that protected him from the bulk of the stab. Additionally and putting a positive spin on the situation, the wound which he had gouged provided quite a large amount of blood which pat pat patted onto the surface of the book. Andrew wanted to observe what happened, because he could see something happening to the book. The subtle texture on the cover was becoming less subtle by the second and coalesced into an intricate seal deeply embedded within the cover. A kind of sigil, likely a combination of symbols, glyphs and patterns that emerged, using the dramatic flow of blood to emboss the stamp hidden in the journals plain facade. His blood quickly filled along all the possible channels and it was causing a feint red aura to emit from the book.

This Andrew only noticed on the periphery while his main focus remained firmly fixed on his now throbbing finger with a needle stuck in his knuckle joint. The blood wasn’t helping with traction on the needle either, his desperate attempts to rip it out again, seemingly feeble compared to how he had penetrated his hand in the first place. Emitting an horrified yelp which seemed to stick in his throat. He quickly grabbed the wound to stem the blood flow and rushed to find the first aid kit in the bathroom. It had both bandages and tweezers and with a determination he didn’t know he had, finally managed to wrench the offending spike from his flesh. While wrapping the gash of a wound in gauze, he was gratified to notice the golden sparkle emit from the wound, soothing him and seeming to slow the blood. He hoped that meant he had magical healing of some sort, but even though the pain was dampened, it now had time to manifest, so it literally felt like he had chopped his finger off.

Once the bleeding stopped, he went back to the book to see a completely different artifact. The journal, much changed, heralded all the gilding it never had before and finally looked like something worthy of hosting wise words from the great Merlin, or even wisdom from his father.

Gingerly Andrew turned over the front cover and found the Introduction both enthralling and terrifying in equal measure.

Journal of Essential Knowledge

Hark, ye who tread the Fae's domain,

Where tricks and mischief ever reign,

For they are beings of capricious art,

Who bring both joy and sorrow's dart.

Heed well, ye wanderers of the wild,

Unknowing hearts they'll soon beguile,

For those who venture unprepared and vain,

Shall meet with woe and endless pain.

Time to them, a fleeting, ephemeral thing,

Like whispers on the breeze, their moments take wing.

Gravity also, a mere word's binding,

Their movements fluid, their spelling defining.

Yet magic's secrets they possess,

From rituals deep to mana's caress,

Within these pages, wisdom lies concealed,

To shield and fathom, knowledge revealed.

Protection's cloak, a vital aegis to bear,

Yet detection's art must you prepare,

For foes can strike with fatal blow,

Unless their presence you can know.

With every step, discernment's path you tread,

Before the answer can be read,

For understanding's key unlocks the door,

To power's realm, where fears no more.

Turn back, ye faint of heart, ye weak of will,

Or stride forth valiant, scion of great skill,

The choice is yours, the path to claim,

Embrace the challenge, etch your name.

Archmage Merlin Thæccan Ambrosius

Andrew took a deep breath in and tried to contain his excitement. He didn’t quite understand what had been written, but got the gist of it.

Basically in the first two paragraphs Merlin was warning him that the Fae were tricky, something he had gathered on his own, even with the limited experience he had with them. Add to that almost every story ever told of them expanded on this relentlessly.

The next part was a bit more abstract. Did it mean time flowed differently for them? That they could fly?

Then the word gravity. He had to think about this for a moment. His science class had just covered the history of modern day physics and Isaac Newton defined things with his laws of motion and Universal Gravity. Andrew didn’t know those laws offhand, but knew that Isaac Newton lived in the sixteenth century, long after this was written by Merlin. So perhaps the word gravity used by Merlin wasn’t the same as that defined by Newton?

Stolen novel; please report.

Then again, maybe was thinking too deeply. Mom would know, when he told her later but if he was right, the third paragraph said the Fae didn’t get old the same way, which kind of explained Willow’s ageless appearance and her claim she was as old as the forest was probably true. The verse also alluded that their spells were able to do almost anything including manipulate time and space. If that was true, then what did they need him for? Or was it only because Merlin made the agreement with them that they now required humans to help with their problems?

Andrew had to actively stop himself from spiraling into distracting thoughts. It was so strange. He was overthinking about things on a deeper level than he had ever cared about before, even noticing that he was noticing was too introspective for his usual self. He even remembered some obscure science lesson about Isaac Newton. Perhaps the only reason he remembered it so vividly was because of the apple falling on the guy’s head and Andrew had been hungry at the time and wondered if Isaac ate the offending fruit. Even so, he understood that the extra point in his intelligence ability was making itself known in a very real sense, he was sure of it. He had a quick look at his stats on his Interface.

User Interface:

Andrew Thatcher

Rank:

Squire

Class:

N/A

Skills:

N/A

Level

1

Ability

Strength

4

Dexterity

2

Constitution

2

Intelligence

5

Wisdom

2

Charisma

3

Magic

Unbound

Mana (16)

5

He wondered abstractly how the additional point to his intelligence score had boosted his mana capacity so drastically. He also noted that in the interim between depleting his Mana reserves to now, he had gathered 5 mana. He guessed roughly 20 minutes had passed, so within an hour he would be at full capacity again.

That being the case, he decided he would wait to make use of it, when it was full. He didn’t want to get caught up in watching his mana tick over as it filled up though.

He returned his focus to the journal and read through the Introduction again from start to finish and tried to glean meaning from the last few paragraphs.

Basically, from what he could gather, it said he had to acquire knowledge before the secrets would be revealed. That wasn’t exactly fair. He was reading the book to acquire knowledge. How could he get knowledge first before having the secrets revealed. Andrew was starting to learn that Wizards were as tricky as the Fae, if not more so, and he would have to elevate himself to be taken seriously. He made himself a promise that whatever it took, he would do it and more besides. His life had been swept up and was part of an amazing legacy and wanted to leave his very own mark upon the world.

The last part of the foreword was clearly a warning that he would need to persevere. He already knew it was too late to turn back now that the egg had seemingly merged with his soul, and based on what he had learned already, he was literally all in.

Andrew turned to the next page, to find it completely full with writing, symbols and glyphs. Arrows with notations, and so much more. However everything that was written seemed to be illegible. Completely overwhelming any sense of excitement he had for the whole ordeal. In a peak of frustration, Andrew almost slammed the book closed, but something made him bide. He thought then of his father. He wouldn’t write in code and symbols, he would use normal letters.

Andrew quickly leafed through the book, looking out for any writing he could recognize. Towards the end of the book he found some annotations that he could read. Some of the diagrams he could recognize. One being very similar to the Vetruvian man from De Vinci’s codex. He remembered that because De Vinci had invented the prelude to the helicopter and Tim had made a presentation at school about De Vinci. The difference in the drawing was an egg shape he recognized, drawn in the bellybutton area, with a series of eggs going smaller and smaller until it was a small dot on the page. The caption read:

The core gains power by being diminished. Core diminishing techniques are needed to reach the ultimate perfection. ref: pg 489 Tier 1 through 5. Am I too late?

The writing was in his father's hand. He quickly turned to page 489, heart racing. Again the page was full of gibberish, except for a slight flickering. He stared, the flicking catching his eye. It only flickered once more.

Then suddenly the writing was legible. As if he somehow had passed a test and the veil was lifted from his eyes. Finally he had found something he was worthy of. This was proof that he was meant to be here. What had the verse said?

Within these pages, wisdom lies concealed,

To shield and fathom, knowledge revealed.

The knowledge was revealing itself to him. He had to fathom the basics before the book would reveal the technique. It suddenly made complete sense because Andrew knew about his core and how to approach it. Now here was something that finally he could learn.

Tier One Core Technique

1. Access your Core space

2. Envelope your core in your awareness

3. Squeeze the core using the mind compression technique

4. Expel the excess core into plumes to embrace your purity

5. Practice manipulating the plumes as pseudopods and wrap them around the core.

6. Maintain continual pressure.

7. Continue wrapping the core until it is completely entwined and compressed by the pseudopods

8. Repeat until the outer layer is one constant color. Notice the diminished size of the core.

The next tier remained frustratingly opaque and Andrew, despite knowing what was required of him for Tier one, felt let down. Where was the magic?

He flipped through some more pages and found another flickering page that after a moment revealed writing he could read.

Identify (basic)

Look at a magical item with intent to know about the item and information will be revealed. Limited by mana and rarity of items identified.

Develop experience to enable Advanced Identify, which based on your wisdom, will reveal even more peripheral information relating to the item.

Group Identify (basic)

Look at a group of magical items with intent to know about them and a limited list from a basic basic surface scan will be revealed. Limited by mana and rarity of items identified.

Develop experience to enable Advanced Group Identify, which based on your wisdom, will reveal even more peripheral information relating to the items.

Group or Adv. group identify spells are part of the unbound magic spell formulation and occur intuitively. The awareness of them, and the specific control of their utility ensures mastery.

Yep, these were things he had already done. Again Andrew felt let down. Identify was cool, but where was the magic? All that did was tell him about items, it didn’t open any doors to infinite powers and agelessness. It certainly wasn’t a fireball or even a meagre frost spell. What could he do with this?

He shrugged. Impatience wasn’t a good thing if you wanted to learn magic, and since he was already a de facto Custodian Knight member so he had no other choice but to persist. In a way he had already learned cool stuff that would make most people green with envy. He had to do this. One small step at a time. After all, he wasn’t even eighteen yet. How may spells or methods would he stumble upon before then? He had to admit this gave him one heck of an advantage.

Andrew continued to flip through the volume. Quite sure by now that he wouldn’t find much more, considering the book only showed him what he knew something about. And what Andrew knew about magic left a lot to be desired.

Eventually at the last page he found all the names filled in.

1. Merlin Thæccan Ambrosius

Archmage. 542 A.D. - 1184 A.D

2. Heath Thæccan Smith

Arch-Runesmith. 1161 A.D.-1502 A.D.

3. George Thæccan Smith

Arch-Elementalist. 1466 A.D. - 1802 A.D.

4. Allaine Thatcher

Master Magician. 1788 A.D. - 1888 A.D.

5. Albert Thatcher

Master Mage. 1859A.D. - 2023 A.D.

6. Andrew Thatcher

Apprentice

Andrew quickly scanned the list, but then did a double take. What!? He looked again and besides his father’s name he saw the dates.

Impossible! was his first thought, and he read it again.

No ways! was his next thought. Clearly the book was wrong. How could his dad be one hundred and sixty-four years old?