Johan and Anne returned to Basin to everyone's delight. Johan and Anne handed the catch off the Markus and Finch more than willingly, and headed off to find Pat.
The redhead was, as expected, still tearing apart Johans old car, well, technically his dads old car but... He shook off the thought and approached after removing the device from his bag.
"Hey, I got you a present." Johan walked up to her.
"Oh? Is it some more meat? just leave it over there, I'm currently looking at how I am going to take this motor out." Pat said unconcerned.
"Nope, something way better than that." Johan smiled, setting the dice with a slight thump of metal on wood.
This got the attention of the young mechanic, and before long he watched as she came out from under the car, her freckles hard to spot in the dirt that stained her face.
"What is *that*? And where did you get it?" Pat looked at the dirt coated device, then looked at Johan.
"Well technically I didn't find it, Anne did. It was mostly buried into the ground, and Anne managed to trip on it." Johan laughed a bit, "Since we had the time I dug it out with my broad knife. Once I knew it was a type of machine I figured you'd like it. In exchange, I'd like a watch and your share of beast leather, I am starting to need new gloves badly."
"That makes two of us. Tell ya what, I'll get you the watch, but you'll have to wait until next time you get something for the leather. I really do need that at the moment." Pat turned her gloves and showed several holes, mostly at the base of the fingers and finger tips.
"Ah, I see. Well, I guess I can work with that for now." Johan relented seeing the gloves that were somehow in even worse shape than his own.
"Yep." Pat went into the small workshop and shuffled about for a couple moments then returned with an old classic wind up watch with a maroon colored leather strap. "Tell that sister of yours that if she gets any luckier I'll marry her. Jeez that girl has some great luck when it comes to finding things."
"Heh, true, Anne is abnormally gifted in that way." Johan laughed a bit. He continued to chat with Pat for a little while longer, explaining that her motor problem likely required that the entire engine be removed first, which she was unhappy with, but could only sigh about in the end.
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Johan headed over to Naths house, one to talk to his teacher about the next step of external mana control, and secondly to set the watch to the right time.
Knocking at the door, Johan waited for a moment before Nath opened it and greeted Johan.
"I see you are back from your trip. Good to see you in good health Johan. Come in, I assume you wish to carry on with yesterdays lesson?"
"Yes, but just as importantly, I need to see your clock." Johan held up his watch with all the pride of a fisherman holding one of their largest catches.
"Oh. Haha, I see. Follow me then." Nath guided him to the grandfather clock in the small parlor.
"Hm.. Now that I think of it, how do you keep track of time when this clock needs rewound?" Johan asked as he set up his watch.
"Simple, I brought it with me from Gent when I left. It's a magic item. It pulls a small amount of mana from the air to run itself perpetually. So long as Gent hasn't changed its time, it should be the same time there, and the Karshlan Empire also uses the same time as Gent since Gent has the best timekeeping devices, at least they did when I was there. This clock I got when I was only 634. It has lasted a long time." Nath looked forlorn for just a moment remembering a life long gone and in the past.
"Well... All that stuff is dust in the wind now. What say you and me get this started? You can finally control your mana out to 10 feet around you now right?" Nath looked at Johan who simply nodded in return, "Good. Now the first spell I plan to teach you isn't a real spell. It's more of a training exercise. Imagine a ball. Now make that shape from mana. That is the entire spell. I can also demonstrate it to you if need be."
"Yes please. I have a general idea, but I think that feeling it in my mana sense will help me more." Johan answered.
"Good answer. It won't eat up hardly any of my reserves either since it's just manifestation. Now you do know spell stages right?" Nath asked Johan who nodded while paying attention to the manaspace around himself.
"In order they are Visualize, Conduct, Materialize, and Cast. Visualize the spell, conduct the mana to invoke it, Materialize the Spell, and finally cast it. Sometimes other words can be used like how you called materialization as manifestation. Also for some spells, they don't have a cast."
"Good job. Once you reach a certain level and proficiency with a spell you can skip Materialization entirely and just instantly cast directly onto an enemy." Nath complimented Johan and then built upon what he already knew. "Now pay attention Johan." And then something amazing happened.
A white orb appeared in the air. Perfectly round, it did not glow, it did not move, nor did it spin. No, it just sat there, a perfect white sphere. It had no seam, nor did it have any visible marks. The feeling of it in the manaspace however, was another thing entirely. He could feel that it was a small suction on the surrounding mana but only just noticeable. He could feel the movements clean and pure, and then he moved his own mana to replicate it. Slowly he found himself able to create an almost spherical object. It was somewhat round, more egg shaped really, and much more transparent that Naths, but he had successfully created a mana sphere(ish).