Mana Mirror: Chapter Twenty Three (Patreon)

The following morning, I rose early and prepared to use the elixir.

In my life, I’d only used a handful of elixirs, potions, or pills. The ones that I’d gotten for free in my classes growing up had all been intended to stimulate the growth and development of ungated mana.

I’d also used the lethetic tea, and Kene’s mana enhancer had boosted the power of that, so I was confident I could handle the effects of this mana, but I was still nervous.

I got some water, since I didn’t know how the elixir would taste, and created a pallet of blankets for myself on the floor, and started to sketch out my Analyze Death spell until my death mana was empty.

I didn’t convert any of my life mana into death mana this time, wanting to leave myself a cushion of mana to fall back upon, in case the elixir was too weak to be very useful.

Finally, I opened the vial and drank it. It tasted vaguely like undiluted cherry cordial, sickeningly sweet, but it had a sour undertone.

After a few moments, I felt new power start to slide into my first gate death mana. It wasn’t a whole lot, but I wasn’t casting the spell, only sketching it.

It didn’t refill me as quickly as I could expend it, even if I was only sketching the spell, however, so I focused and drew a trickle of power from my life mana into my death gate, letting it supplement the power with its own size.

It took a few tries to get a good pattern going, but as soon as I did, I fell into what felt like a fugue state. I was unaware of the world around me, caught up in only the interplay of my quickly regenerating death mana, the slower regeneration of life, the conversion between them, and the sketching out of the spell.

I finally broke out of the state when I felt something erupt from the ground in my Mana Garden.

Unlike with life, it didn’t feel like digging out a scab. Instead, my whole body erupted into shivers, and in my mind’s eye – or perhaps in my soul – I could see what looked like a dead sapling, with peeling bark and no leaves, forming in my mana garden. It was oddly white, almost like bones left to bleach in the sun.

I let out a slow shaky breath and focused. I could still feel the power of the elixir feeding into my death mana, so I drew my attention to another spell I had that used it, sketching out the Fungal Lock spell.

It took a little bit to work out a new pattern, and not long after I fell into my new rhythm, I felt the trickle of power that the elixir had provided me taper off.

I was mildly disappointed that I wasn’t able to master both of the spells, especially since Fungal Lock was so simple, but I thought that I might be getting close to mastery.

But that was a small spark of disappointment, compared to the satisfaction I felt with the fact that I’d completed Orykson’s deadline with a week to spare.

I opened my eyes and stood up slowly. It was dark outside, and my legs had gone rather numb from sitting for so long. I half expected to see Orykson appear before me, now that I was done, but he didn’t.

I licked my lips, which were horribly dry. I glanced down at the water that I’d prepared, and sighed as I realized that I’d entirely forgotten to drink any. My stomach rumbled, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything today.

I wandered downstairs to see my dad on the couch, reading a newspaper. He glanced at me as I came down and smiled.

“Evening, Malachi? How did… Whatever you were working on go?”

“It went well,” I said as I riffled through the pantry and dug out some of the pastries that we hadn’t sold from the day, then sat down on the couch. As soon as I took a bite, there was a knock at the door.

I let out a sigh of annoyance and set it down to go to the door. I opened it, expecting to see Orykson.

To my surprise, however, there was a floating spirit there, flickering with a purple and blue light. Its shape was vaguely humanoid, but it had several nodes in it that gave it a slightly uncanny appearance.

I squinted at it, then sent a pulse of mana into Analyze Death. It had faint lines of death mana running through it, but it didn’t look like any of the ghosts I’d seen before. It might be an asomatous? Or maybe it was an elemental?

“Hello, Mr. Baker,” the spirit said. It’s voice was completely calm and level, without any inflection or emotion. Definitely an elemental, then.

“I am here in lieu of Orykson. He has found himself indisposed with necessary duties at the moment, so he has instructed me to assist you.”

“Do you want to come in?” I asked.

The elemental’s nodes flashed in an incomprehensible pattern for a second before it responded.

“There is no need, unless you would prefer it,” the elemental said. “I am not inconvenienced either way.”

“Alright,” I said. “What were you here to tell me?”

In response, one of the nodes of the elemental separated and shifted into a ring that snapped open into a portal. Inside of it was a small separated space, which held the slender book that Orykson had carried when we’d met – the ones he’d torn out two pages from to give me the Analyze Life and Death spells.

“Please remove the next page from the book, and then return it to the extraspatial pocket” the elemental said.

I reached in and removed the book, then tore out the third page. It had been cut with a dotted line along its edge to help tear it, but it still felt wrong to rip a page out.

For a moment, a reckless part of my brain contemplated refusing to give the book back, or maybe tearing out more pages, but I dismissed it immediately and put the book back. I glanced back at the elemental.

“Is this all?”

There was another flashing pattern, and I wondered if it was supposed to indicate amusement.

“No,” the elemental said. Its voice was just as monotone as ever, so maybe I’d misread the flashing pattern. “You are still owed your reward. But first, let us review the spell that you have been given. Do you still have the bones from your first mission?”

“I do, they’re inside,” I said.

“Please fetch them, Mr. Baker.”

I did as the elemental requested. As soon as I stepped back outside, the elemental began to speak again.

“The spell you have been given is called the Pinpoint Boneshard. It will be your first offensive spell, and will serve as a basis for greater power yet to come. It incorporates aspects of death and space mana.”

“I don’t have spatial mana,” I said. I wasn’t opposed to it, but I wasn’t fully set on it either.

“I am aware,” the elemental said. “It is not necessary to cast the spell, but if you do choose to take up spatial mana, it will increase the efficiency and efficacy of the spell. This particular spell is seventy-five percent death mana, however, so it will be quite useful regardless. The spell is not extremely mana intensive, so the lack of perfect efficiency should not be a major impediment.”

I nodded, and the spirit continued.

“As you feed each iteration of the spell mana, it allows you to select points in space. The bones are charged with death mana and will travel in a straight line from point to point, at which point the points may be removed or kept.”

I frowned.

“Aren’t most attack spells that fire like that guided by will, or otherwise you just fire them in a straight line or pick a spot? That seems a lot easier to intuit.”

“They are,” the spirit confirmed. “There is a version of this spell that eschews the spatial mana in order to rely entirely on will. However, this version of the spell allows for multiple existing patterns to be maintained. For example…”

An illusion of light began to swirl out in front of me. I saw myself standing in a blank room. Two points of purple light appeared in front of me, and a bone shard fired from my hand to strike the first, then the second. Then, it bounced back to the first point. Then to the second. Then back again.

The pattern changed then. I, or rather, the illusory version of me, added six more points. The bone shard now flew around me in an octagonal shape, forming a strange sort of offensive defense.

A pair of shadowy shapes appeared in the illusion, and then a new set of purple lights appeared; one in my hand, and one on each of the shadows. A second bone shard launched from my palm and struck the first shape before immediately bouncing to the second, and then returning to my hand.

“This sort of effect would be possible to manage with pure will alone,” the elemental said. “However, it would require significantly more active concentration. This takes a higher intelligence to use optimally, but allows you to concentrate on other spells.”

As the elemental spoke, the image faded away.

“I see,” I said. I wasn’t confident in my intelligence to make the most of the spell, but I didn’t protest.

“There is one other reason,” the elemental continued. “The utilization of spatial arrays into the spell has allowed the imbued effect of this version of the spell to be radically different. The will-based version of the spell merely provides an increased efficiency with the spell. This version will allow a small amount of bone shards imbued with your mana to be stowed within your mana garden, and easily summoned or dismissed back into it.”

My eyebrows raised at that.

“Really?”

“I do not lie, Mr. Baker,” the elemental said. “If you ingrain the spell, it will ensure that you never go unarmed, unless access to your mana garden is suppressed.”

I let out a low whistle and glanced at the paper in my hand.

The spell was complicated – not as bad as the Analyze Life or Death spells, but it was still an order of magnitude more complex than the Fungal Lock spell.

I thought about what Liz had said about combat spells. With a spell like Fungal Lock, I definitely thought she was right – I could sketch that quickly in a fight.

With a spell like this, I wasn’t so sure. It would take far too long to sketch, so trying to use it in a real fight could just end with me getting hurt.

“How long do I have to master it?” I asked.

“Six weeks,” the elemental responded. “There is no reward for mastery of this spell early, as Orykson wishes for you to also ensure you have time and mana to work on ingraining the Analyze Life and Analyze Death spells, since those will serve as a basis for all future magic you perform. However, once you have mastered it, Orykson has designated two weeks of his time to personally train you with combat magic.”

My eyebrows shot up at that. Even if Orykson wasn’t a focused combat mage, nobody made it to Occultist by sitting around and collecting stamps. Training with him for two weeks would be a massive advancement to my ability to use the spell.

“As a reminder, you have three weeks to achieve the reward for ingraining, and six before you are failed out as an apprentice,” the elemental continued. “This means, at minimum, within six weeks, you must have ingrained your analysis spells and mastered the Pinpoint Boneshard spell.”

“Understood,” I said with a nod. “Is that all?”

“Not quite,” the elemental said. “As you have mastered both of your analysis spells before the requisite deadline, there is still the matter of your reward.”

I grinned in anticipation.