“It is difficult to compare a Skill like Spellsong to something like Sweeping. The former is, by its nature, innately more flashy. Many might argue that since it is harder to unlock, that it is also a superior Skill, even though the System does not distinguish Skills in such a manner. While this might be true at the lowest levels, I have seen the most mundane sounding Skills defy the imagination at higher Tiers. As such, I cannot agree with that theory as a matter of principle.”

~Unknown

Several weeks had passed since I told Tina about the changes to Taming [Fudge]. Where I anticipated a prompt followup to discuss Fudge’s Advancement, I instead received a few gentle reminders that it would happen ‘soon’. I got the impression Tina wanted to wait until Marco was slightly less dependent on her until we delved into things properly; no doubt she wanted to be able to give the situation her full attention. All things being equal, it was a reasonable course of action. Fudge would need time to settle into his new Skill, I had my own Skills to work on, and it would be several years - at least - before Fudge could Advance again. We had time, and Tina trusted I could handle things in the interim.

Naturally, my interpretation of the situation was that I had her blessing to indulge my curiosity.

Coaxing Fudge into using Quantum Manipulation became my primary objective. Fortunately, my regime already included time set aside to work on Taming. There was only a single problem, one that left my proverbial wheels spinning in the mud. That is, without a demonstration of the Skill, Fudge was unable to decipher what I wanted him to do; neither of us had any context for what the Skill looked like in action now that it had been quantified by the System.

When it came to mundane commands, there were ways to coax dogs into performing the relevant action so that they could form an association between it and the chosen trigger word. Telling Fudge to ‘do a quantum superposition’ was consistently met with blank stares. Upgrading the Tamer Bond wasn’t sufficient to bridge that particular gap in comprehension; I had also been growing increasingly reluctant to refer to the changes to Taming as anything but a burden.

Instead of a vague sense of Fudge’s emotions and wellbeing, it was like I had a klaxon blaring straight into my brain. Perseverance helped temper the worst of it, but it was merely a stopgap measure. Remedying the situation was another of my top priorities. To that end, I had some ideas. Well, I had one idea.

The door separating Fudge and I had been destroyed, so I just needed to fix it. Rebuild it. Whatever.

Now, how does one build an ephemeral door in a metaphorical doorway? Great. Fucking. Question. I could only assume mana was involved, but without an accurate sense of the situation it was like fumbling about a dark basement for a toolbox that was left in the attic.

It was around that time the visit to Bella’s happened.

***

I had been nervous about going to see Bella’s family; there was a real possibility that Fudge’s new appearance would tip Lianda off regarding my Advancement.

“What is the alternative? For you to live like a hermit?” Tina had not been amused when I raised my concerns to her while we were en route, probably because they accompanied a suggestion that I minimize how much Fudge and I were seen in public. “No. If need be, we will say I am responsible for Fudge. People might not believe it, but no one will challenge me on it - not publicly.” Off to the side, Vigil huffed as if to emphasize her point.

I recognized a losing battle when I saw one, so I acquiesced. Suddenly becoming a recluse would likely draw just as much attention, anyway.

The whole purpose of the visit was to allow Lianda and Bella to fawn over my baby brother. Part of me wondered why they didn’t come to us, but I ultimately decided I didn’t really care. I was already splitting my focus towards too many endeavors; deciphering the nuance of my parent’s social interactions was not even in my top five list of priorities.

Marco, to his credit, handled the affair with the type of elegance and grace one might expect from an infant. That is to say, he shit himself and cried a few times. Classic, really. I’d been dwelling on how to handle my concerns regarding the upcoming bestowment of his Core Skill, but it was neither the time nor place to voice or dwell on them.

Unfortunately, the allure of a baby doing baby things was not enough to keep Bella indefinitely occupied. When I wandered outside she waddled after me like an enthusiastic duckling. Bella was a sweet kid, but she was ultimately just that - a kid. Even without taking her increasingly troublesome Core Skill into consideration, I still lacked the desire and patience to engage in childish games and conversations for hours on end.

If not for my promise to Tina, I’d have gone full antisocial. As it was, I had to, at the bare minimum, tolerate talks of sheep haircuts and whatever else Bella wanted to do to waste the day away. I’d once considered myself closer to a reluctant babysitter than a peer, and I maintained that it was the most accurate representation of my relationship to kids my age. We couldn’t be friends, not really.

HUNGRY.

As far as impressions from Fudge were concerned, it was one I’d grown intimately familiar with. While Bella pouted at me for answering her questions, because apparently that was not the correct thing to do, Fudge grumbled and started to wander off.

And then the world fractured.

Except it didn’t.

But it did.

And it didn’t.

I left Fudge at home with Tulos that day as a way to test how far we could stretch the new Tamer-

No, that’s not right.

Taming [Fudge] blazed like a bonfire in my mind’s eye. My mana was rapidly being drawn through the Tamer Bond like water swirling down a drain at an alarming rate.

HUNGRY. Hopeful… JOY!

Immediately, I recognized the sensations I felt from Fudge; he was being fed. Except, I’d already known he was hungry because-

All of my Skills erupted in a corona of brilliance, shining like a trio of miniature suns. Less than a minute had passed, but my mana was already dropping to dangerously low levels. In that moment, I became aware of two truths.

Fudge came with Tina and I to visit Bella and Lianda.

Fudge stayed at home with Tulos so we could stress test our upgraded Tamer Bond.

I knew both of those statements were accurate even as they contradicted each other. I knew because, to Fudge, they were both a representation of his truth. My vision started to spin as my mind tried to yank itself in two separate directions.

Fudge wandered back around from the other side of the house. Just as abruptly as it started, the drain on my mana came to a sudden end. The light of my Skills was snuffed. If not for my dwindling stores of mana and the throb of steadily increasing pain I felt in my skull, I might have dismissed the last less-than-a-minute as a vivid daydream.

I have to be certain.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I pulled Fudge in close and sniffed at his breath. It was meaty. It was fresh.

Bella said something about her stomach hurting, but I waved it off. I was too excited to care, such that even the blossoming jackhammer behind my eyes was momentarily forgotten.

Fudge did it! I had no idea how specifically, but Fudge had existed in two states of being; two realities; two streams of possibility. It had to be Quantum Manipulation - a magical expression of quantum superposition. I could think of no other reasonable explanation. Even so, I had so many questions.

Why did my mana drop so low? Did Fudge somehow take it to use the Skill? Would that work in reverse? What determined the mana cost? Would my Skills get better at letting me parse when Fudge was using the Skill? Question after question after question.

Fudge, I am so proud of you!

Before anything else, it was crucial I helped Fudge understand that I understood he used Quantum Manipulation. I focused on trying to remember the feeling I got when Fudge existed in two realities and pushed it through the Tamer Bond. I wanted to give him an anchor point, a touchstone for when I tried to coax him into using the Skill later.

Tired. Uncomfortable. Reluctance.

Fudge responded and curled up into a ball next to me, dramatically thudding into the ground hard enough to kick up some dust. He was content to have been fed, but evidently the Skill took a lot out of him. There were so many possible variables as to why that was that I couldn’t even begin narrowing them down without more data points.

Later. Later. Regardless, Fudge’s response made it clear that he was in no state to repeat the feat any time soon. I decided to let him rest.

Vigil was off wandering the fields with Jacket, the livestock guardian Tina bred and trained for Figuello. Bella had taken my advice and gone inside, much to my pleasant surprise. A bird was singing somewhere, one of those lower toned calls that sounded partway between a whistle and a gurgle. It was nice to have a bit of serenity to sit in while I processed my thoughts.

I sent a tiny trickle of mana into Perseverance, just enough to try and clear my head. Obsessing over Fudge’s Skill while he rested would be wasteful, and there were other things I could be doing while I waited for him and-

Ouch. Right. Low mana. Trying to use Skills in that state was unwise. Which is exactly why I need to - carefully - do so anyway, I told myself.

When I was in highschool, I had a soccer coach who would always run us ragged before we even got to touch a ball. The way he justified it, we’d be run ragged on game days, so practicing in different conditions would be worthless. I felt like the same logic could be applied to mana. There would be times when my life could depend on functioning with low mana stores, so I needed to practice with them.

That didn’t mean it didn’t suck worse than stepping in a puddle of water while wearing socks, though.

I sat with my legs crossed and back straight, basically the lotus position but without the ‘making a circle with your thumb and pinkie’ thing. Instead, I rested my hands on my thighs, noting the feel of the fabric. The System indicated I had a talent for sensing mana through touch, so I had gotten into the habit of trying to activate my tactile sensitivity before practicing any mana exercises. Without the Mana Sense Skill, it was the best I could manage.

But it does help, I told myself. Tulos. Lionel. Tina. Most of the adults in my life had regularly reminded me that just because I wasn’t Skilled in something didn’t mean I couldn’t practice it. On the contrary, doing so was an important part of preparing for Advancement and, on a societal level, likely contributed to people not being defective outside of their System Skills.

Feel the air as it passes into your lungs, the way your chest expands and retracts. Note temperature. Wiggle your toes. With one hand, gently rub the fabric of your pants. Does it feel different? Why? What does the ground feel like? Is there wind? Is it damp? Is it dry? I ran through a list of elements in my environment I could feel with my sense of touch. When I first started the practice, I kept the list consistent, but over time I was gradually trying to mix it up or leave parts out. In an ideal world, I’d begin to run through my sensory checklist subconsciously and periodically.

Without getting too far ahead of myself, I was almost certain I’d be picking up Mana Sense when I next Advanced, so the preemptive practice seemed prudent. It was easier said than done, though.. Normally, relying on stubborn persistence could only get me so far. Luckily for me, it was under those conditions that Perseverance tended to lend a helping hand, especially when my goals extended beyond basic sensory exercises.

Okay, Recovery, we got this.

Crippling agony tended to distort details, but I remembered doing something with Recovery while helping Fudge through his Advancement. It was the desperate culmination of the mana exercises I’d been practicing the last couple of years. There was pushing, pulling, twisting, shaping, and a dozen other verbs as I worked through the visualization of action and reaction applied to the nebulous power that resided in my core, throughout my body, and within just about everything.

Reflecting on the event had been the focus of my practice with mana for the last few weeks, and I felt I was on the cusp of a breakthrough. The feeling I had when Fudge was taking my mana was the final piece of the puzzle I needed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he had somehow been emulating my initial feat to an extent.

It’s the suction, like a drain or a vortex. If it was possible for mana to be absorbed from the environment, and I was only partially certain it was based on the fact that I had felt Tina and Vigil’s mana on more than one occasion, then it was probably like osmosis; a natural, gradual process that passively occurred until an equilibrium was achieved.

If Recovery mana could be used to draw in mana from the air around me, then I’d be able to reduce my downtime, which would bestow all kinds of useful benefits in the long run. Every second counted.

That’s the hope, at least. Without Mana Sense, it was like feeling around for the worm in a barrel of wet spaghetti. I couldn’t accurately discern how mana passed into my body, so the precision of my efforts would be mediocre, at best. It would be better than nothing, though.

I removed one of my palms from its perch on my thigh and held it facing upwards. With a flex of will, I urged Recovery to send out a stream of mana that I directed to the exposed surface.

Hands are sensitive. I will be better able to direct the mana this way. Intent is important.

Even though I called on Recovery, I could feel the wisps of Perseverance and - to a greatly lesser extent - Taming that it carried along its wake. Only mana from my Core Skill would ever be truly pure, for everything else it would exist in a composite of some form. I suspected I could make the effort to separate the impurities by practicing a more nuanced application of the cleaning process used to gather unattributed mana.

Could. At that moment, I had neither the spare mana, time, nor inclination to experiment with the process.

One thing at a time. It was advice I seldom followed, but that didn’t detract from its validity.

I urged the mana to spin, to spiral.

Air dances upon the surface of my palm and so too will my mana become of the air. It will be a breeze, at first, then a gale and finally a tornado. I felt the gathered mana on my palm start to move in accordance with my will, starting slowly at first, but with each rotation it grew faster, and faster.

I dared not open my eyes, and at the edge of my perceptions I could almost feel something start to-

The stream of mana abruptly cut off as a new, sharper pain blossomed behind my eye. The pain was almost enough to make me vomit. A wince. A curse. Fudge stirred from his rest and I felt a pang of concern come through the Tamer Bond.

What the… oh. Well. Fuck. I’d all but bottomed out. Evidently, I didn’t have enough mana left to properly start the process. The renewed throbbing in my skull promised a miserable evening.

That seems about right…

I couldn’t help but feel I was close to something, though. Ignoring the twinge it caused, I called up my System window and saw that Recovery had earned several new proficiency points.

Vindication. I’ll take it. I slumped back down, content to rest until-

“Will, have you been mean to Bella?” Tina’s voice called out from the house and I groaned.

Of course.