When I say the word magic, what comes to mind? Well, probably students wearing fancy uniforms in a strange school where you have more chances to die when going to the toilet than you have to be knifed in a place called ‘Stabsville’. You probably see a man wearing thick rimmed glasses angrily shouting words in strange half-forgotten languages before launching a fireball at an enemy army, destroying it in a single strike.
You’ll see a student nearly exploding while trying to cast a spell and failing miserably, or meditating to clear their mind before attempting said spell again.
And you wouldn’t be wrong. At least on that last part.
Magic, intrinsically, is a process of trial and error where a mistake could actually cost you your life. Or a limb. Or an eye. Magic could be called a science, even if saying something like this to an actual scientist would cause him/her to try to toss you out of their laboratory. Through the window, if possible.
But the fact remains, magic is the science that studies the deeper aspects of nature and how to manipulate them. Now, the fact that said manipulation allowed people to break more or less any and all laws of physics if you put just a little effort is something we all choose to ignore.
To put it simply, Isse had some difficulty adapting to the concept of magic, unsurprisingly. She’d spent her entire life living in a world where such things were only phantasies you’d read about in books and see in films, and even now, having witnessed magic, hell, having cast the spell given to her (and very nearly nailing one of the [Carers] to a tree), she found it hard to believe that she, of all people, could use it. Because, deep down, in a place where Siidi had long since stopped going to try and fight the beasts hidden there, she felt like she wasn’t special enough to be given such power.
Grandmother, naturally, dismissed these thoughts, saying that she had the knack for it, she’d just need time. And Makira had fallen to the ground laughing when she’d talked to her about her fears.
So here she was, in Grandmother’s clearing, a few meters away from the tea table (Isse still wondered where the elder hid the damn thing when she wasn’t here for lessons. She didn’t seem to have a bag of holding), all her legs crossed under her, meditating.
Grandmother had explained to her that it was all a matter of perspective and changing it: the Mana she so needed to learn to see was like a veil covering the world. All she had to do was learn to shift the way she looked at the world and, afterwards, impose her will upon what she saw. Isse imagined it was like looking at one of those ink splatters psychologists used and seeing in them something only she could see.
Or like looking at two faces looking at each other, but at the same time seeing a chalice.
In theory, it was simple. In practice, she was so bored out of her skull she’d rather listen to a lecture from their [Teacher] about the properties of silver. But this was the only known and reliable way to achieve what she needed, and she’d do this and more if it meant she would get, one day, to throw [Fireballs] around for fun.
“Do you know, Issekina, why [Mages] like fire magic so in this era?” asked Grandmother.
Isse opened her eyes, slightly annoyed she’d been interrupted but also grateful for the distraction. She’d discovered that the old arachne had some quite interesting stories to tell. In the end, she had to admit, Makira had been right: this wasn’t so bad. This wasn’t the psychological torture she’d expected.
“Why?”
Grandmother opened her hand, palm up, and a small ball of fire, green in color, like the old fox fires from the stories of her world, knitted itself into existence.
“Because it was the only magic that could hurt us.
“Fire Magic is complex to cast, for fire is freer than most and doesn’t like being… stiffled into a form. It is unstable, wild, vindicative and ungrateful. It will bite the hand that feeds it, and then keep eating. Always hungry for more. We arachne, we burn well, they discovered. Our bodies are covered in pale oils, that our webs may not bind us. And the magic of flames is much too complex for us to unravel fast.
“Oh, there were some of us, the greatest, who could turn a [Devil’s Playground] Spell into many harmless [Sparks], but there weren’t enough, and the enemies had Gods and Laws on their side.
“So, as a matter of safety, I would advise against you learning fire spells. Not now. Your dreams of [Fireballs] shall wait.”
Isse gaped at Grandmother. How the hell did she know?
“Stop making that face, young one. Each and every one of the [Mages] I met and trained desired to know the spell. In my opinion, it is not worth it. Everyone expects the giant ball of fire.”
She closed her hand, snuffing the fox fire out, and motioned for her to go back to meditating. The pause had come to an end.
As stated beforehand, it was boring. She was a child, after all, and to that add the time she’d spent bedbound, plus the fact that she’d always been… quite active, back on earth. She liked to move, play, dance, fight with other kids and now that her body allowed her to do all these things again she found it nearly impossible to just stay still for so long.
Yet her desire for magic was even greater, so she sat still and tried to concentrate.
Problem was, she didn’t know for sure how to do that. Sure, she had been told, in words, what needed to be done, but what was the best way to achieve it? The fastest road.
Here was her mistake though. The mistake any and all [Mages] worth their salt and hat would talk about: magic wasn’t fast. It wasn’t some kind of esothermic chemical reaction that happened fast and spontaneously. Quite the opposite actually. Just because magic existed and allowed someone to change the world, that didn’t mean said world wanted you to change it. The consent here was debatable at best.
It was all about taking things nice and slow, cutting apart sliver by sliver a hole in the fabric of reality big enough to see what was hidden in plain sight, yet not big enough for you to fall inside. The gods weren’t friendly towards those who did that.
So here Isse was, sitting and sharpening her scalpel, her own mind, yet doing so clumsily, because she didn’t have enough patience.
Grandmother, unseen, smiled. Both because it reminded her of how she started, and because she was a sadist who really liked watching people struggle.
She watched silently, Observing the little one and her progress, knowing full well that her stubborness alone would be enough for her to reach her goal in the end, just later rather than sooner.
In the end, she called an end to the lesson and told Isse to go play with her sisters.
They had time.
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This went on for another three more days. Three very long, very frustrating, days.
Sure, the sessions with Grandmother lasted no more than two hours, or at least that’s what Siidi told her, but time dilated whenever she was there meditating.
She wanted to see some actual progress, yet all she did was sit and stare at the darkness of her closed eyes, not a ray of light managing to penetrate through due to the webs hanging over her.
And the worst part was, apparently, she was doing nothing wrong. Grandmother didn’t tell her off, or say she had to change the way she was doing it. She just quirked her lips in the approximation of a smile and told her to come back the next day at the same hour.
They’d have tea, maybe biscuits, then she’d sit down and stay put, trying to change her perspective and impose her will upon reality.
It was so… so… ARGH!
She finally snapped on that third day, after a week and a half of this. It was a Drenei, which Siidi confirmed as being the same as Earth’s Thursday. Well, the day itself didn’t matter so much as what she did: after an hour of sitting with her eyes closed, the slow burning anger that had been there for days finally boiled over.
She snapped her eyes open and screamed at the sky, spouting insults in english. Not Irevian, which confused Grandmother, who heard only strange angry gibberish.
As expected, she thought to herself.
The way arachne did magic, no, the way magic should be done, was leagues more complex than what [Mages] did nowadays. They brute forced their way to power, which made the whole process faster, sure, but turned the spells themselves less powerful. A good trade-off, one would say, but that was why the arachne had been their bane during the Era of Hunts.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Grandmother watched Isse shout insults at the web covering the sky, and imagined the God of the Skies himself hearing them all and grimacing. Or being just as confused as her, seeing how she doubted that deity knew languages from another world. Now, if it was the Old Man by the Stars, she was certain he would understand something and have a laugh.
After an entire three minutes of stomping and shouting, Isse finally calmed down.
“This is not helping. It’s useless!”
“So you say,” she nodded neutrally, neither agreeing nor denying.
“What am I doing wrong?”
“Nothing.”
That was, perhaps, the wrong answer to give, since the girl became red as a tomato from anger again, yet it was the completel truth.
“Then why am I not progressing?”
“I don’t know.”
And that stumped her.
“Magic, as I said, is the imposition of one’s will upon the world. How could I possibly know the way you do that? I am not, despite what you believe, inside your head. I cannot command you to see the world in my way. That would destroy your ability to progress.”
Her tone as she explained that was, as always, monotone. Like hearing a bored and tired teacher in the afternoon trying to explain something complex and equally boring to an extremely unresponsive class. No inflection, nothing. Just words.
That… calmed her down. Just a bit.
But it still didn’t answer her question: how could she impose her will upon reality? How did she even begin to see reality as it was supposed to?
Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way, proposed Siidi.
Probably, since we haven’t advanced, she grumbled.
… Let’s try something different. Try using your Skill again. [Mana Sight]. Maybe we can try to understand the feeling from there.
Grandmother told us not to.
Grandmother is also not being very helpful. What’s the worst that could happen?
And at those words, the world laughed. Because everything and anything could happen. It was all a matter of what would be more satisfying!
Still, Siidi, always the little devil on her shoulder, was speaking sense.
So she whispered those words: [Mana Sight].
And the world was engulfed by fog.
What now? she asked
What did it feel like?
Like nothing. One moment it wasn’t there, the next it was.
Damn. Too fast.
Still, she didn’t dismiss the Skill. She instead sat down and stared at the fog. It was a formless and non-uniform mass that just… existed. Still as a rock, unchanging as far as she could see. Completely unlike the beautiful web of snowflakes Grandmother had shown her.
Yet this was, she supposed the way Mana existed in its base form: the way the world itself imagine its own soul. She could understand that. After all, Grandmother had told her once that the world itself disliked being changed by magic, even if it allowed us to do so. So it made sense that it would see its own soul as something so stable and all-encompassing.
She stared and stared, trying to make sense of it.
Try changing it from here, suggested Siidi.
What?
Try putting your idea of how Mana should be while watching it like this. Maybe with a basic reference you could get it.
And here is where Isse was stumped.
Because, of all the things she’d thought about, she’d never actually thought about what her Mana Sight should look like.
Of for the Stars’ sake, you’re fucking kidding, right?
I thought it would come naturally! I’d just have to concentrate real hard and everything would go in place!
This is not one of your world’s fucking fantasy stories! Shit here won’t just ‘magically’ happen because you’re you! When you do something at least think about the possible outcomes. For fuck’s sake, we lost an entire week of our life.
Isse’s face changed color, back to her tomato red.
“Well, I believe for today we may end our lesson, Issekina.”
“But we’ve been here for only an hour.”
“I feel you will not progress more today. Take some time to rest and think about things.”
She made a shooing motion with her hand.
When Isse finally skittered out of the clearing, she smiled.
Took her long enough. They all make the same mistake.
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Isse didn’t think about where she was going. She just walked, like she’d done so many times when leaving Grandmother’s clearing. Usually a [Carer] would appear at some point and get her back to her other sisters, and if it wasn’t one of them it was just another arachne.
This time, though, she found no eight-legged woman waiting for her behind a trunk. No, the woods seemed deserted. How strange.
She realized only ten minutes in that she was lost.
We should really learn the trails around here, commented Siidi.
Agreed. This is getting old.
She took a deep breath, ready to shout for help, when she ended up face first in a web. Nothing new there, after all she lived with a group of big ass spiders, you got used to it. No, what surprised her was that the web actually stuck to her instead of sliding over her face and hair, leaving behind only a phantom of discomfort.
What the fuck? she hissed in her head.
“Oh, little running one! You found me again! And you didn’t run into my webs!”
A voice came from her left. She turned around, and saw the kind [Seamstress] who’d crafted for her the beautiful dress she was still wearing.
“And I see you’re still wearing my creation! Although… [Take Measures]. Hmmm… you’ve grown a bit around the waist. Very good, very good! You have to grow big and strong to help your sisters! Here, give me the dress, I’ll adjust it for you.”
Without even receiving an answer, Aru hugged her tight, then proceeded to slide the dress from her upper half, leaving her only in a little white spidersilk shirt that acted as her underwear.
“Oh, I missed you little one. The small ones don’t come often to me, not when they’re still small, and you grow up so fast.”
“You could come visit us then,” proposed Isse.
Aru stopped in her tracks, turning to look at her, an appraising look on her face.
“Ah, so you can speak now little one. Excellent! What is your name? My name is Arunielle, but everyone calls me Aru.”
“Issekina, but call me Isse.”
“Delighted!”
Then she went back to work, needle and string in her hands, moving at such a speed that sometimes it felt like she left behind afterimages.
“You know, I’ve been working recently on making something else for you. Grandmother’s order. A little dress worthy of a Clan Leader of old.”
Isse’s eyebrows shot into her hairline as she heard that.
“Sure, I had to stop to make Maki that silly rabbit dress. Very fluffy. Hadn’t laughed like that in a lifetime, but it’s coming together!”
“Can I see it?”
“Nope! It’s gonna be a surprise!”
She handed over the dress. It looked exactly the same as before, but when she put it over her head she felt the snugness that had been there at the waist was now gone.
“It’s perfect, thank you!”
“My pleasure, little one. If you want to stay for a while and look around do so. I think the other kids won’t mind the reigning champion of Queen of the Tree’s absence.”
“I keep winning just because I can keep my word and make alliances.”
Aru laughed, putting down her needle.
“You’re right, Issekina, you win because you can make alliances. Because you think like an adult does. But Queen of the Tree is just a game. You should treat it as such.”
They stayed in silence for a while after that, with Aru going back to work on some other clothes while Isse looked at the artwork she’d turned her clearing into. It was as beautiful as she rememebered, the colors as bright and clashing and perfect as last time. Now that she looked at it closely, she noticed more details sewn into what were probably hundreds of meters of fabric: little spiders here and there, mosquitoes and other insects all around, a small family of rabbits down by the tree roots. The wolf was gone!
It was like looking at the worl’d biggest painting, and it was mesmerizing.
How I wish the whole world could be this beautiful.
And that’s when she realized what she wanted her Mana Sight to look like. Something beautiful, everchanging and unique. Just like this clearing.
“Aru, you are a genius.”
The adult turned slightly, a small smile on her face.
“I know."
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The next day she walked back into Grandmother’s clearing, ready to finally pass this obstacle. The elder was, as always, sitting on one side of their tea table, a cup in front of her, saucer of biscuits right in the middle, flanked by the teapot.
She smiled slightly when she saw her arrive.
“I would like to propose we leave the tea for later. Do you agree, Issekina?”
The little arachne looked up with an expression of triumph and certainty.
“You knew this whole time, didn’t you, you old hag?”
Grandmother nodded: “You were making the mistakes we all made when we began. It was right for you to make them. If you didn’t realize on your own, you would never Level.”
Isse couldn’t help it: she chuckled. Then began laughing, a full belly laugh.
Old geezer is as calculating as a [General] of old, said Siidi with a smile in her tone.
“Now, sit, little one, and show me what your soul truly looks like.”
She did.
She sat down with a certainty she hadn’t felt in a long time, and looked at the clearing around her. She didn’t close her eyes, because it was stupid. If she wanted the world to be the way she desired it to be, she first had to see it as it was. After all, how could a seamstress sew together a dress without looking at it?
She watched, and willed herself to see the world around her not as a clearing filled with white webs from top to bottom, the only form of decorations the small table and Grandmother. No, she looked at it like she had looked at the grand tapestry made by Aru. She looked and saw not webs, but silk. She observed, and there was no Grandmother, but a far-too-big doll of cotton and silk, elaborate beyond imagination.
There was no table there, just an image on a grand tapestry, sewn in and ready to be unsewn out of existence at a moment’s notice by simply pulling at the thread.
The clearing was big but simple, and she reduced it to something even simpler. Perhaps that was why Grandmother had made it so. To simplify the process.
She looked at it all.
And, finally, she Saw.
She Saw a great web of colorful strings connecting everything and everything, every color a different, new, meaning, something she and she alone could understand. Something to discover at its fullest. A string dark as night connected her to Grandmother, fighting a war against the white creeping out from her, while another one, red as love, went into the woods.
She Saw a string disappear between here eyes, no, two strings, wound together tightly, one a simple brown, the other purplish. Her and Siidi, together in body and soul, bound.
She Saw.
And her nose bled.
“Careful now, little one. This is enough for today.”
She moved, a small tissue of spidersilk in her hands, stopping up her nose in an attempt to stop the flow. She whispered the words [Minor Heal], and suddenly she didn’t feel the wetness in her nose anymore.
“You’ve done well, Issekina,” she composed herself again, “Here, have some tea. This herbal mix is quite mild and sweet, perfect for now. Do not strain yourself, and be careful with your Mana Sight. Do not exagerate.”
That night, when she closed her eyes to sleep, she heard the voice confirm her progress.
[Soul Mage Level 6!]
[Conditions Met: Skill - Mana Sight -> Mana Sight: Personalized]
[Skill – Mana Sight: Personalized Obtained!]
[Skill – Magic School: Thread Obtained!]