Mana Mirror: Chapter Four (Patreon)

Then the power was gone, sucked back inside Orykson.

Even with it gone, I was having a hard time breathing.

Orykson was an Occultist?! I’d never felt seventh gate mana before, but that was unmistakably what he’d released into the air.

There were only a handful of people with that kind of power in all of Mossford.

Most common laborers just used ungated mana. Ungated spells were more than sufficient for most basic daily spells, like heating water for tea. If they were specialists in their field, like construction workers with telluric mana, they may have opened their first or even second gate.

Most professional mages – battlemages, doctors, members of the Watches, engineers, and the like – were Spellbinders, with access to third gate mana, and perhaps fourth as well.

Arcanists, those with fifth or sixth gate mana, were much rarer – lead engineers, head doctors at the top of their game, mages capable of opening portals across hundreds of miles, or battlemages capable of slaughtering a town’s worth of people singlehandedly. Liz’s grandfather was a battlemage Arcanist, and I had liked the man during our handful of meetings.

Occultists… Occultists simply didn’t exist, at least not to ordinary people. They did exist, but they were the kind of person that you only heard about in stories. Teleporting anywhere in the world, leveling a city alone, creating pocket worlds…

The powers of an Occultist were almost limitless, and it was the peak of magical power.

Unless you believed that there were Magi still out there, but there were always rumors about those who had opened their ninth gate. The nation-state of Nightflock was supposedly ruled by a Magi, but most people agreed that the Death Queen was simply a powerful Occultist with an equally powerful legacy.

Standing in front of an Occultist, even one that hadn’t opened their eighth gate…

I gulped, suddenly wishing that I hadn’t been quite so demanding and blasé during this interview. I’d thought it projected strength, but that was stupid in front of him.

“Do you think I can actually succeed?” I asked nervously.

“Your success is definitively possible,” Orykson said confidently. “So, what do you say?”

Lessons from an Occultist were invaluable, quite literally, so it was no wonder that Orykson prized his time so highly.

If I did fail, though… there was no way that I’d be able to pay back all the hours that I would owe him as his apprentice.

On the other hand, if I succeeded, I’d be a Spellbinder within a year, rather than the average three to five years it took most people. Spellbinder salaries were much higher than basic practitioner salaries, so even getting an extra few years of higher pay might be worth it.

On top of that, even if I failed, I’d only be paying ten percent of my salary. That was annoying, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that would cripple me for life.

“Where does my apprenticeship end?” I finally asked.

“It ends when you’ve become an Arcanist. Anyone can reach Spellbinder with little more than dedication. Reaching Arcanist is more difficult, a more personal path. Possible to be guided through, however. The walk from Arcanist to Occultist and beyond? That’s a path that can never be walked twice. I took my route, and I’ll set you on a strong route to ensure that you do one day reach Occultist. But I can’t lead you down it.”

A standard apprentice contract was for four to ten years, but it sounded like Orykson wasn’t planning on measuring in time.

What did he get out of this deal, though? Most people who took in apprentices did it to continue their craft, or at least to have cheap help while they were teaching. What was Orykson’s craft, though?

“That’s all to the deal?” I asked, trying to make my tone hold less suspicion and more respect. “You don’t expect me to perform great acts of service or anything?”

“Oh no, I do,” Orykson said. “The missions that you’ll be going on will grow significantly more advanced as your skill and power grow. But you’re of no use to me with only ungated mana. Even once you’re a Practitioner, your power will be too low for me to get any real use out of it. Furthermore, once you are an Arcanist, you’ll owe me three favors.”

“I get the right to refusal on the favors,” I said, all but instinctively. I’d been tricked into agreements too many times by my older brother to not add a clause like that.

“Of course,” Orykson said. “I’m an analyst, not a monster. It’s not like I’ll be asking you to kill a member of parliament. I’m actually quite happy with the current trajectory of the nation. It doesn’t produce the most powerful mages per capita, but it is a bastion of civilization and poise.”

“It’s a deal, then,” I said, holding out my hand. Orykson took it and shook it once, firmly, then removed two copies of a contract and an ink pen, seemingly from nowhere, and pushed them both towards me.

I stared at him. How had he been able to conjure a fully written contract, complete with all of the clauses and provisions I’d negotiated for?

“Then all I need is your signature, and we can begin by getting you your uniform.”

Orykson hadn’t been joking about wanting me in uniform – he immediately dragged me to three different tailor shops. The first one apparently had the highest quality suits, made of tenebrous-weave.

I would never have been able to afford a suit that wasn’t secondhand, let alone one made of a magical material, so I had no clue what tenebrous-weave even was, but it had to be expensive, given that there was no price listed.

After the suits, he took me to an entirely different tailor to get the measuring, hemming, and fitting done, before taking me to a third tailor for accessories such as ties, clips, shoes, and cufflinks.

As I was looking over a selection of different colored pocket kerchiefs, I glanced up at my new mentor.

“How much will all of this cost?” I asked, looking up at Orykson.

“I’ve no idea,” he admitted. “Likely somewhere in the vein of twenty or thirty thousand silver for all five suits and their accessories?”

“What exactly did they make that suit out of?” I asked, some of the shock leaking into my voice.

“Silk from Tenebrous Lacewings,” Orykson said. “A monster – though I despise that nomenclature – which is able to use its magic to spin bundles of flexible shadow silk. It’s capable of shedding all dirt and grime, as well as a degree of physical and magical force, and it can reconstitute itself from shreds when left within shadows. Of course, as you grow and change, your suits will need to be retailored, and once you’re combating beings capable of third gate magic, you’ll need to upgrade to a stronger defense. But, it’s a fair start.”

I felt like I’d been doing a lot of staring at Orykson in disbelief, but I couldn’t help myself from staring again. A moment later, a question formed on my lips.

“Why did you pick me? An Occultist could have their pick of students.”

“You met certain parameters I needed for this particular experiment,” Orykson stated calmly. “Now. I think that the red tie you were looking at would work well with your charcoal and black suits, but you really ought to pick up a handful of lighter colors as well. I forced you to buy a tan suit for a reason.”

I felt a flash of irritation at being called an experiment, but at the same time, I couldn’t be that mad.

I would be happy to be an experiment when I was getting these sorts of benefits.

It took us another hour or so to finish up the shopping. I wouldn’t actually get the suits for another few days, since they were being tailored, but it was a good start.

When we left the final shop, Orykson began to walk in the direction of the bakery, and I followed him.

“Malachi, are you ready for your first two spells?” he asked.

“I haven’t opened my first gate yet,” I said, “but I’d be happy to have them for when I do so.”

“A simple enough matter. I assume you were taught the theory behind opening a gate?”

“Push your mana up against the gate while attempting to cast a spell that draws on mana from behind the it.”

“A bit overly simplistic, but adequate for the purposes of reaching Spellbinder, at least. Open your life mana’s first gate, then.”

As he spoke, a thin, leatherbound volume appeared in his hands from nowhere. He opened it to reveal hand drawn spell formulas on each sheet of paper. He tapped the first page.

“This spell.”

I’d known that spells generally got more complicated as mana intensity increased, but this spell was more complicated than any ungated spell I’d ever even heard of. I’d seen my brother trace out spells before for his practice, and none were ever even half as complex as this one.

I studied the book and drew my mana into my fingertips, straining against the limits of where I could – just barely – feel the life mana waiting to be unlocked.

I slowly and deliberately began to trace out the spell in the air as we walked. It took me the better part of fifteen minutes to get the spell cast correctly, and it drained my mana-garden to nearly nothing to even try to trace it out.

I poured the fragments of power I had left in my mana-garden into the spell, and I felt something crack.

Then the world went green around me.

I stood in the middle of a small field of grass, with four berry bushes around me. A thick stone wall ran around the grass in a roughly circular shape. There were gates of wrought iron at each of the cardinal positions in the garden. The northern gate was set with a green gemstone the size of my head, and the southern gate was set with an identical stone in a shade of purple.

The green gemstone cracked, then dissolved into dust. The gate swung open, and I felt air rush into the garden.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I almost screamed.

Orykson was behind me, hovering in the air like a ghost.

“What is this?” I asked him. “My mana-garden? How are you here?”

“Mana-gardens are a part of the soul,” Orykson said blandly, “And I am a death mage. Soul manipulation is well within my field of expertise.”

He glanced around and nodded.

“I scanned your mana-garden when we first met, of course, but there’s nothing quite like seeing it in person. A reasonable size.”

He gestured forward, to the open gate.

I began to walk forwards, then passed through the gate. The grass here was brighter, taller, wilder, but there was only grass. No bushes or trees dotted the landscape.

It was large, though. The land hidden behind the first gate was nearly four times as large as the area that had been in the ungated land.

I expected to see another wall and gate, but instead I could only see a thick bank of mist swirling around the edges.

“Where’s the gate to second realm mana?” I asked, curious.

“Please,” Orykson said, a frown tugging at the corner of his lips. “You don’t think you’ve expanded your first gate mana enough to find the gate, do you?”

“I suppose not,” I said, then bit my upper lip. “Wait, does that mean once I’ve expanded enough to hit the walls and gate, I’ll be unable to grow any more first gate mana? I’ve been able to expand the amount of ungated mana I have, though, despite already seeing the walls.”

“You’ll be able to grow quickly, pushing back the mists, until you reach the walls. After, you can still grow by raising the walls, but it’s much slower.”

“Alright,” I said with a nod. “And why is it so… barren?”

“You’ve barely even begun to use it,” Orykson said, “You’re going to cultivate your first and most important spell here – Analyze Life. That was the spell you were drawing out earlier.”

He gestured at the ground to one side of the gate. I looked over to see a patch of loamy earth, where it looked like the ground had been tilled.

“You’ve cast the spell once, now. By the time you master it, it will be a small sapling. When it’s grown into a full tree, it will be ingrained into your soul permanently, with all the benefits that entails.”

I didn’t know what benefits he was talking about, but I didn’t ask him. I didn’t want to come across as stupid, after all.

“How real is this place?” I asked instead. Orykson shrugged.

“Perhaps not at all. Perhaps entirely real. That’s a question that’s up to you to answer.”

Well, that was a vague and annoying response.

“May I see your mana-garden?” I asked.

“No,” Orykson said. “But when you learn the spells to examine someone’s mana-garden, you may observe mine.”

I nodded and looked around again.

“How do I get back?” I asked.

“You’re within the boundary of your own soul. You have absolute control. Simply will yourself back.”

I closed my eyes and focused, then I was back on the street, in my own body again.