My eyes suddenly snap open, and before I know it, I'm already sitting upright in bed. I glance over at the clock—5:00 AM. Hmm? That's weird. It's an hour before my alarm usually goes off, but I feel wide awake. My thoughts drift back to yesterday's meditation, when I was clearing away some of those blockages. Did I finally get a good night's sleep? I can't remember the last time I woke up this easily—and without an alarm.

Maybe it's just the excitement. After all, I'm about to send in my totally-not-made-up excuse to my manager and take the rest of the week off. Too lazy to call the answering service like I've been told to do countless times, I just shoot an email directly to the inbox that receives the messages from them, skipping the middleman. Whatever—they're already going to be annoyed that I'm taking time off. So what if they're a little extra upset that I'm not following protocol? Phone calls are so archaic—who even calls anyone at this point?

Stretching dramatically as I get out of bed, I let out a yawn and make a beeline for the kitchen. It's still warm this morning, so I opt for iced coffee. And by that, I mean a premade carton of the stuff I keep in the fridge. As I shake the container and pour the gurgling contents into a glass over a few miserly cubes of ice, I see the telltale signs of an empty carton as the last remnants of froth come up to top off my glass.

Tossing the now-empty carton into the trash, I grab a straw from the cabinet on my way over to the couch. I pick up the bag of jewelry off my desk as I plop down, setting it on the coffee table in front of me. Lazily sipping my iced coffee, I start brainstorming how I'm going to go about enchanting this jewelry. I furrow my brow slightly as I remember, belatedly, that I forgot to add a splash of sweetened creamer. Ready to drink, my ass—this isn't nearly sweet enough.

Too lazy to get back up and walk the five feet to my fridge, I suffer in silence as my thoughts drift back to my idea from last night. With no better ideas coming to mind, I figure "refining" the jewelry as if I were cultivating it is as good a place as any to start. Hopefully, some sort of noticeable change will occur, and if I'm lucky, it'll create a kind of "core" of its own to hold a little mana. That's the first step. Then I'll figure out how to add instructions to the mana or whatever. In the back of my head, I'm thinking it'll be something like programming, but there's no point worrying about that now when there's nothing in the ring to power it, right?

After all, the whole point of this is for the ring to exude a natural charm on its own—enough to make a passerby willing to fork over a ludicrous 3x markup for this cheap silver trash. I take another regretful sip of bitter coffee before finally setting the glass down and rummaging through the bag of baubles. A simple silver band with a silver rose charm set on it catches my eye. For some reason, I keep thinking back to all the novels where they talk about inscribing jade. I wonder if it has something to do with the properties of certain minerals.

Somehow, I doubt these cheap, manufactured glass crystals will be as receptive. It's the silver itself that will have to act as the housing for my magic. So what better to start with than the ring made entirely of silver—well, sterling silver, to be precise—but that's beside the point.

Trying my best to push away all the distracting internal monologue I'm prone to, I empty my mind and focus solely on the ring and my connection to it. I gently hold the ring between both hands, almost as if I'm using the silver as a contact to complete the circuit my arms are making.

As my core begins pumping mana into my left arm, I force it to flow through the silver ring with the intent to "refine it," carving out an energy center within the ring. Meanwhile, I do my best to sense the energy on the other side, pulling it back through with my right hand. My intent is to only pull back clean energy, imagining the mana being strained and purified before it's allowed back into my body.

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After all, I don't need any more impurities or blockages—I have plenty of those already. So I go slowly, taking care to avoid causing any unforeseen accidents. It might be more prudent to just let the energy go to waste, but with how precious little I have, and the time I've spent refining it, I want to recapture as much as I can.

Especially given what that old man said about me leaking mana like a sieve—more than just the residual mana passing through the ring but not being used up in the process. There's plenty of mana that doesn't even enter the ring at all. I can feel it—it's the same as when I output mana normally, just hovering in the air. If left alone, all that energy would simply dissipate back into the atmosphere.

Between what's actually being used to refine the ring and what's being lost to the air, it seems like I'm only capturing less than half of what I send out. But still, getting back even half is a hell of a lot better than getting none of it back. Thinking about it this way, I'm essentially able to take 100 points of mana and circulate it through the ring in an attempt to refine it.

Fifty points get taken back in through my right hand, only to be sent through again in another cycle. I'm careful to keep reusing the same energy rather than pouring more mana into the ring from my core. I continue this recycling current: 50 becomes 25, becomes 12.5, 6.25, 3.12, 1.56, and when it reaches less than a single point, I can't even tell if I'm feeling it anymore.

Let's say only half of the energy that makes it to the ring actually refines it. By the time I lose track of the energy, I've sent that same 100 points of mana through it seven times, so roughly 49.21 points should have gone into refining the ring. I can't say I'm thrilled about wasting over half the energy I put into it—but I quickly put my disappointment aside as I check to see if this was all worth it.

Again, I focus on sending mana through my left hand and into the ring, but this time, much slower. With the tiniest trickle I can manage, I gently push a little mana into the ring—this time with the intention of filling a small reservoir.

I'm practically holding my breath at this point, pushing my focus to its limits, trying my best to feel the flow of mana into the ring and to sense any leaks. And from what I can tell, none at first. Then finally, a small "leak" appears. After checking it a few times, I note that it's almost identical to the amount of mana I'm sending into the ring. When I stop the flow, the leak stops with it.

I keep watching the ring closely, but no matter how long I wait, the energy doesn't seem to go anywhere.

"Yes!" I can't help but shout, even though I'm completely alone at the crack of dawn. Slightly embarrassed by my outburst, I hope I didn't wake any of my neighbors. But I couldn't help it—it actually worked! This ring is holding mana all by itself, and none of it's leaking out. That must mean I was successful in storing the energy—but wait, how much energy?

I focus again on the ring, slowly drawing the energy back from it to estimate how much I initially put in. Being careful not to let any energy slip away, I absorb it all back. I'm a little disappointed—even though it was my first attempt—because I only absorbed about 25 points of mana back from the ring. Earlier, I clearly spent nearly 50 points charging it!

I don't think any was lost when I charged or absorbed it back, so where did it go? Does the mana that I store in the ring get converted into something else? Like how you have to convert AC to DC power to charge a battery, and then back to AC to use it again? Maybe it's just losses in conversion—that seems like the best explanation.

So for every 2 points of mana I put into the ring, I can only expect to get 1 point back. Not to mention the 100 points of mana I spent just creating the core in the ring in the first place. This is turning out to be a lot more trouble than I expected. One hundred fifty points of mana, just for 25 points of usable energy. That's a 1:6 payout ratio—but I guess I should be happier that I succeeded at all, right? This is still better than it all blowing up in my face.

I need to stop being so negative and just take it all in stride. I'm still new at this. It's only going to get better from here. I've got to stay positive and keep working toward my goal. What's my goal, you ask? Never having to go back to work again!