Some people hate mornings, others hate them and the rest hate them as well. The ones that are indifferent to them or, gods forbid, enjoy them are irrelevant, insignificant, and quite frankly better forgotten. Sociopaths, the lot of them.

Ixalia Moore liked sleeping through mornings all the way into noon. Which made those she had to go through all the more painful. The fact that she stayed up late experimenting with and practicing the new diagnostic method she stumbled upon while reading the latest issue of Liber Medicinalis Magicae did not help the matter whatsoever. It was interesting stuff and she got sucked into the nitty-gritty of it. All that meant that she got three hours of sleep at most.

She got up from bed and groaned slightly as she walked across the room to kill the alarm. Putting it so far away from bed was one way she learned to not just go back to sleep immediately after switching the hateful device off. Not that it helped much on her free days. She stared into the dark for a while debating whether this was a dream or if it was really happening. Deciding that it was not a nightmare she put on her nicer clothes, a black blouse and beige pants that she prepared the day before, and strode towards the bathroom to deal with her face. Quick teeth brushing and hiding of bags under her eyes later and the morning light found her eating breakfast. Tea, bread with butter and eggs, as was her habit these days. She scarfed it down in less time than it took to prepare, grabbed her bag, and left the house, locking the door behind her.

The morning routine did not take her long as she did not bother with make-up most of the time and fashion sort of just passed by her, not bothering to even wave at her. She spent the bare minimum of time on both to still be socially accepted as not a full-blown shut-in weirdo. Not that she wasn't considered pretty, on those days that she got her beauty sleep. Her dense, blue-dyed hair reached her waist in a single thick braid and her emerald eyes were undercut by a light dusting of almost unnoticeable freckles. Her current frown was not present most of the time. Ixalia usually wore a pleasant smile that showed just the barest hint of teeth, which were white but not overly so, as to look fake or bleached. A simple, small, circular earring in each of her ears finished the look. She wasn't tall but nor was she short. If you asked her how tall she was, she'd reply: just right.

Taking a left at the end of a street, she soon arrived at a bus stop with five minutes to spare. When the vehicle arrived and she sat down, the fact that she was heading to an exam finally hit and her forehead gained a slight sheen of sweat. She wiped it off with a handkerchief and pulled out her notes.

Most people would assume that a girl's handwriting and notes would be neat and properly structured. In this young woman's case, most people would be wrong. The letters, words, and sentences were all over the place. Oh, it had its structure with every different note its own color, and its own shape for the indents. But the handwriting was readable at best and the consistency of the colors and shapes was practically non-existent between pages.

But that did not stop her from reviewing the abhorrent Algebra. She went to university to learn medicine and magic and magic medicine, not maths. Not to mention she sucked at it, she only passed the first course with scraped ears. I’ve still got something like an hour on the bus to cram it all in.

When the bus arrived at her stop, her notes were all sweat-stained and transformed into inkblots. She stuffed her notebooks back into her bag, slung it onto a shoulder, and got off the bus. A fifteen-minute walk to her school later and she was sitting inside the designated classroom.

"Oh, hi, Ixa. How are you doing?" a voice called to her and she had to stop herself from cringing, at least visibly. It was Zev, her classmate. He was a good guy, always ready to help, but someone would sooner rather than later teach him the meaning of personal space. And when it happened it would not be pretty. Nothing was sacred to him, be it standing too close when speaking to someone or borrowing others' things. The man had no boundaries. His morbid obesity did nothing to improve his dating prospects, future, or past.

"Didn't get much sleep last night, or today's night, if I think about it," she replied while quickly taking a seat before he could intrude upon her bubble of comfort. "And I'm as hollow as bamboo. This is going to be a huge fail, I guarantee it. What about you?"

He gifted her with a pitying look, that she totally did not deserve nuh uh, before he graced her with a smile. “Did not get even a minute of shut-eye,” her classmate announced proudly. How he could be so cheerful in the morning, especially if he did not get any sleep if he was to be believed, she would never understand. Some people were just built differently.

Ixalia was deprived of further interaction with the too-jolly-for-his-own-good youngster by the lecturer arriving with an assistant in tow, tests in hand.

***

Surprisingly, the exam went better than expected, but Ixa'd have to wait for the final verdict to be sure. After exiting the building she left a message for her mom. I’m finished, went rather well, will see in several days. The exam's end was awfully timed so she missed her connection home by mere minutes and the next one would be in an hour. Although she was hungry, Ixa was too tired to do anything about it. Her lack of sleep was offset by a pure adrenaline high brought upon by the test, but she was coming down now.

She spent her time waiting at the bus stop by continuing her practice from the night before. The journal described the method in detail and she memorized the process almost to a T. There was only one slight problem, she had too weak mana channels. It was called managraphy and was similar to roentgenography. Where the latter used x-rays to shine through an object and was good at making out metals and such, or where neutron imaging went straight through most of those and highlighted lighter elements, managraphy used a steady stream of mana from one hand to a detector to detect and record areas with higher mana densities.

Ixalia always had better-than-average control of her magic but she lacked the depth to her channels to feed a dense stream through her whole palm or the core capacity to sustain it for any appreciable period of time. Not to mention she was trying to use the palm of her other hand as a detecting device, which the journal described as hard and achievable only by trained professionals. That did not stop her from trying different ways to approach her current obsession from many a different angle and experimenting with various ways of channeling her mana.

When her ride home arrived, she almost forgot to board it. She slept the whole way home and even overshot by two stops. That meant that she had to walk for half an hour and she got to the doors of her house in the early afternoon.

Opening the door she gave a quiet shout. "Hi! I'm home," and got several welcomes in reply. Ixa went straight to the kitchen and looked into all the various pots with leftovers from her family's lunch. She found stew with rice and heaped a hefty portion onto a plate and devoured it hungrily soon after. The young woman had to fend off several questions about her exam from her parents before she got back to her room, where she threw her bag onto a chair and collapsed onto her bed. She had just enough energy left in her to change into pajamas and crawl under a duvet before she fell asleep.

***

When Ixalia woke up, it was dark outside. Eyes still drooping and her whole body stiff, she debated whether it was better to stay and continue sleeping until morning or not. A gurgle from her stomach decided for her. She arched and contorted in a whole-body stretch and eventually got up.

It wasn't too late, but her two younger brothers were already ushered into their beds with her mother in her studio in the next room, probably painting. Light was shining under the study's door, the girl's father was most definitely sleeping over a book again, if the loud snoring was anything to go by. She made her way to the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge, not finding anything she turned her attention to the pantry and made herself some instant mashed potatoes and tea. Hunger and thirst satisfied, she returned to her room.

From a drawer at her table, she withdrew a simple contraption she rigged up. It was nothing more than a mana reservoir and a channel connecting the input and output valves with a pump installed. One could compare it to an aquarium water circulation setup, just with no need for electricity and mana instead of water. Some of the magical energy was lost to power the pump and through various leaks but it was easy enough for her to recharge. She used it for her practice, the channels were malleable and sturdy enough for her to change the track the mana traveled through. The whole contraption was covered by a small opaque box which she removed now. Ixa closed he eyes and bashed the channels in different ways and angles against the desk before she replaced the covering.

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Having an unknown configuration in her hands, she got to refining her control of mana before anything else. It was something she was capable of from a young age, she turned her attention inward and mentally traced the channels branching throughout her body. There were more of them than in the average person and the mage prided herself on being capable of tunneling even more, as the practice was called, and connecting them to each other and to different parts of her body and collapsing ones she deemed counterproductive to the current web. As she grew up some opened and closed by themselves and she had to act as a sort of curator for the network else she could stagnate in both magic and her physical growth, as the two were somewhat interdependent. Next came a sort of stretching, similar to how one exercised muscles.

Only once she was done, did she concentrate on the box again. Ixa left it standing on her desk and placed both her palms on either side of it and attempted to send enough mana from one to the other and pick up differences in its amount and some of the energies were absorbed by the material it passed through. She kept up for a good half an hour before she abandoned and scraped this approach. It was untenable and her channels were starting to feel the strain. Either she couldn’t supply enough of a flow to catch the minute differences or she couldn’t keep it for long enough, a problem that stopped her from the very beginning. This is going nowhere. Ugh. If only it wasn't the whole palm, but then I'd have problems remembering the whole structure. She thought the whole thing over. The scientific paper was mainly focused on trying to replicate the method using external devices. Otherwise, it needed a trained mage as it required quite a specific contortion of the internal channels that would have been hard to achieve for anyone without superb control. And those that managed it had, as a rule, deep enough channels and core to pull the rest off.

What if… what if they didn’t go into alternate methods simply because it was not the focus of their study and there is otherwise no need to? Ixalia thought as an idea began to solidify in her mind. She pulled out a notebook and began scribbling and doodling to order her mind. By the time she had a decent plan put together, it was rather late. The young woman glanced at a pocket watch hanging on a pedestal on her desk. Almost three hours after midnight, looks like I’ll have to try it out tomorrow… today… whatever. She stretched and yawned as she put everything back in its place. She didn't have to change as she never got out of her pajamas. Ixa switched the light off and went to bed. At least I don’t have to wake up early.

***

The next day she woke up just in time for lunch and dove back into her experimentation right after. This time she prepared a memory spell beforehand, one taught to her during her short stint as a stenographer. It didn't last, the job that is, but the spell helped extensively during her studies. It granted an almost perfect memory for a short time allowing for near-perfect or if the scribe was good, word-for-word transcriptions and note-taking. Ixa would be using it to memorize the feedback from her detector palm and then, maybe, transfer it to paper if needed. The second modification she came up with was equally simple. Instead of doing the whole palm at the same time she'd be using only a thin stream from two of her fingers and scanning the object line after line, similar to how monitors and screens refreshed.

It... wasn't a total failure, if one squinted really hard one might even call it a mild success. It worked as she wanted but the hitch this time lay in the fact she couldn't keep her arms perfectly still or move them with precise enough motion. Yet, it seemed to work well enough, everything else could be mitigated or outright eliminated with practice. Which she would get to… right now! When else? This is so exciting, it’s like I’m creating a whole new discipline. Me!

Ixa got so absorbed in her bashing of the channel circuit and figuring out its new shapes that she almost missed one of her brothers calling her for dinner.

The doorbell rang before the girl could sequester herself again and her mom called for her. "Ixa! It's Sidy, asking for you. You home or not?"

“Yeah I’m home, I’ll be right there, let me deal with the dishes first,” she shouted.

"Ok, I'm gonna let her in then. You, girls, have fun," came the reply.

Locks of curly brown hair flickered at the corner of Ixalia's vision as she was nearly done washing the second to last plate. She always did the dishes, and regularly right after eating. For some bizarre reason, it calmed her down and helped organize her disorderly mind to be doing things with her hands. Right as she placed the last dish in the drip tray two slender hands hugged her from behind.

“So, how did algebra go?” a cheerful voice asked and its owner rocked her from side to side. “Zev said he passed and that you seemed to do better than him. Sooo?”

"Oh! The results are already in? Didn't know that, let me go and check. Do you want anything, Sid? Water, tea, something to eat?" the mage exclaimed as she took stairs by the twos and asked her question without any intention of producing the offered items.

Sidysvalda Weaver, her childhood friend, giggled as she hurried after her. “Nah, I’m good. How did you miss it? Oh, right, you’re one of those,” she stretched the last word mockingly.

Ixa threw her a glare as she crested the stairs. “Just because I don’t spend twenty-four-seven on my phone doesn't mean I am weird," the girl complained.

“Whatever you say… weirdo,” her friend jested on her account.

As they got to Ixalia’s room, she grabbed her phone and searched for a message from the school. As expected, one was waiting for her and the young woman squealed when she read it. “I did it! No more math from now, until the day I die! Hip hip,” she gave Sidy an expectant look, who did not concur with the sentiment whatsoever as she loved the subject to bits. With a sigh, her friend finally returned an overly unenthusiastic hurray.

Sid quickly reverted to her cheery self and turned Ixa by the shoulders. Still holding onto her she hopped up and down. “How are we celebrating your ginormous achievement?” she asked eagerly.

“By sleeping in tomorrow, how else?” joked the other girl, which elicited a groan from the first one.

"You're probably the only person I know who could possibly even remotely consider sleeping as a celebration. Come on, we've got to go out, party, and live a little!"

“Fine, have it your way. But first I have to try something. I managed to make it work! Sit and give me your hand,” the medico-to-be was now the overenthusiastic one and practically abducted her friend’s whole arm.

“Ouch, watch it. What did you make work exactly?” Sid asked as her limb was yanked away from her.

“Managraphy, you remember right, I told you about it two or three days ago,” Ixalia explained.

“Oh, that, you still hung up on that?”

"Yes, very much so, now shush and let me do the thing," she chastised as she cast the memory spell and got to examining her friend's arm. It was much larger than her channel box and took that much longer to examine. Sidy set through the whole procedure looking exasperated with her friend, a look that seemed to ask why they were friends in the first place on her face, all in jest of course.

When she was done, Ixa grabbed a pen and began tracing intricate lines on a piece of paper. Thick ones first that branched into smaller and finer ones, soon she switched colors and began overlaying new ones over those she had already laid down. When she was done, she cast another spell, this one a standard diagnostician’s one and quickly ran her hand over her friend’s arm. Some scribbling and muttering later, she presented Sid with the result. “Ok, so I got the veins all kinds of wrong, but the main arteries were correct. Those I have here in green, the blue lines should be your mana channels. How close did I come?” she asked with a big smile on her face.

“All that effort and you could have done the same with another spell? Why bother with it in the first place if that’s the case?” her friend looked confused.

The young woman scratched her scalp sheepishly. "I didn't think I'd get anything other than the channels, but your blood carries and absorbs bits of mana, so it showed me your blood vessels. I drew them just because I could, but I mainly wanted to look at the channels. And there is no spell for that out there according to my knowledge. And that of my teachers'. This seems to be the only way to accurately map another person's network. It's a fairly new discovery."

“Ok, let me look then. These are a bit squigglier than mine really are, but you got the major ones correctly. The secondaries are mostly there, you missed some things here and here,” Sid pointed to a few spots on the paper. “The tertiaries are more of a hit and miss, some you got but are misshapen and others are just plain wrong. The lower sets you botched,” a smile was exchanged between the two friends. “Now, get changed so we can ride out!” Sid declared.

"Ok, give me a minute," Ixa stowed everything away and raided her wardrobe for something nice to wear. Ten minutes later and the two were searching for a nice café to catch up, chat and celebrate. Sidy at one point tried to get her friend drunk, but in the end, it was Ixalia who had to escort her companion, who was the one who'd drunk too much, home.

Later that night she lay in bed contemplating. So I have a week to learn for my next exam. And the next one as well. Ugh! The girl groaned as she realized she had two of the hardest subjects back to back. Why did it have to be two exams in as many days? And Diagnostics with Advanced basics of magic as well. And seriously what kind of a stupid name is that?