Mana Mirror: Chapter Twenty Eight (Patreon)

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All in all, the choice was easier to make than I’d thought at first. The Thundercloud Faerie Steps was probably the most niche case. While boosting the range of my teleport spells would be nice, I had too many mana types for it to be an appealing choice. 

That left Truths of the Mirror, and Depths of Starry Night. Both of them offered value, certainly, but I felt like Depths of Starry Night offered more. 

Either one of them would provide me with a boon that was worthwhile, but there was something in the Depths of Starry Night that pulled at me more. A hidden, for lack of a better word, depth within it.

“Do these meditations work at higher mana gates?” I asked curiously. 

“Certainly! Well. No. Not at all.” 

I arched an eyebrow at the blue haired librarian. 

“Okay, so… No. None of these work for higher than first gate mana. But all of them have higher level variations. The Thundercloud Faerie Steps and Truths of the Mirror have evolved meditations that go up to third gate. Depths of Starry Night has evolved arts to… Fourth or fifth, I believe.”

“Depths of Starry night it is, then.” 

I paid the library for a copy of the technique scroll, then went home. I spent a while trying to practice the technique, though it was very difficult, and before too long, I put it away to feed my plants, exited for Meadow’s input.

When Meadow arrived that Solsday, she surveyed my growing garden, then shook her head and let out a quiet laugh. 

“Well, you’ve certainly been busy, haven’t you?” she asked, one hand on her hip, the other leaning on her old walking stick. 

“Somewhat,” I said with a soft laugh. 

“Well, it’s a solid start,” she said. “You still need a source of spatial mana for the garden though, and when it comes time to construct your staff, you’re going to want to find an additional source of pure death, spatial, and temporal magic to balance it out. Maybe a source of knowledge mana too…” 

“A staff?” I asked. “Like an enchanted item with spells built into it, kind of like a broom?” 

“No, child,” she said, shaking her head. “Those are staffs. This is your staff.”

“I don’t follow,” I admitted. 

“There are many types of staff. The oldest and simplest is simply a stick. Most modern ones are constructed by enchanters to hold spells and save a bit of time. This is an older practice that has gone out of practice in many parts of the world, with the commercialization of magic. Even still, most of those who are truly deeply immersed in magic for the sake of magic will find the time to construct one with this method. For simplicity, wood will be a normal staff, an enchanted item containing spells and mana will be an enchanted staff, and this will be called a true staff.”

I let out a sigh and ran my hand through my hair. 

“Meadow, that’s lovely and ominous and stuff, but what’s special about this type of staff?”

She chuckled and shook her head. 

“Patience, child. This method, the creation of a true staff, is keyed to you and you alone. It contains physical copies of the spell arrays for each spell you can cast, formed out of trimmed mana from your own mana garden, integrated with natural sources of magic, and is then made to resonate with your own mana-garden.”

“And what effect does that have?” I asked, now more curious than annoyed. 

“It gathers energy of its own, which it will add into your spells, making them more mana efficient, giving you finer control, and giving them an increased effect. When not in battle, it sends that power into your mana-garden to slowly improve the spells you have, push against the mists and walls, and increase the power and control you have over the ingrained effects that you have from spells.” 

I stared at her. 

“What?” I eventually said. “That sounds like a miracle power.”

“It is and it isn’t,” she said. “It takes a massive amount of resources to make a staff. At first gate or second gate, it isn’t too bad, and life magic users have the advantage of being able to use plants and empower them with their own magic to increase their power, at least to a degree. But it’s not a one-time investment. You’ll need to find appropriate second gate materials and go through a reforging process. When you’ve hit third gate, you will have to assemble more materials for the staff to perform another reforging. Then, and only then, will you be able to reduce the amount of work you need to do on your staff.”

“What do you mean by reduce?” I asked. 

“If you chose to bond it to one of your third gates, then it will use the resonance of the staff alongside the power of the bond to allow it to slowly and automatically adapt itself to keep up with your power, and it can be fed other sources of mana to increase its power further. If you don’t, you’ll have to continue reforging and adapting the staff to your power each time you master a new spell or increase your mana gate.”

“How hard would that be?” I asked. 

She tapped her own staff. 

“I did not bond to my staff, and I have grown it with me manually every step of my journey. But with that being said, I’ve only one type of mana gate, while you have four.” 

“True,” I said, nodding. Idly, I wondered if Alvaro or Kene had a staff. Alvaro seemed like the kind of person who’d want to construct one, and Kene was already a powerful alchemist, so doing something like this didn’t seem too far out of their wheelhouse.

“Is this how enchanting works?” I asked curiously. 

“Not really,” she said. “This is more like constructing a part of your mana garden in a physical shell, or perhaps an extra layer. There are some basic enchanting and alchemical skills needed for it, such as expelling excess formed mana, but by and large, the arts are rather different. I’m much more of an alchemist than I am an enchanter. Even bonding to a magical item, like an enchanted staff, is going to produce radically different results than bonding to a true staff would. The growth aspect is there, as it is with all Spellbinder bonds, but that’s all.” 

“I still don’t know much about Spellbinder bonds,” I admitted. 

“You don’t need to worry too much about them for now,” she said. “But the essence of it is very simple: Almost anything with mana can be bonded to, and it will allow the recipients of the bond to grow more easily. The specific benefits vary from individual case to individual case. There are broad strokes similarities between the effects: bonding a spell is going to increase the power and effectiveness of that spell, for example, but the specifics of how it does that vary from person to person. Even two tempest mages bonding the flight spell wouldn’t get precisely the same benefits.” 

“Alright,” I nodded. “We’ve gotten pretty far afield from what I’d intended to ask about.” 

She chuckled and shook her head. 

“Nonsense child. You’re curious and want to learn. Learning in the way that best suits you is what’s most important, be it a straight sprint or an exploratory hike.” 

I frowned. There was something about those words that struck a chord with me, in a way that was hard to really put a finger on.

I dismissed the thought after a moment, and turned to my sapling and flowers. 

“Are these ready to harvest for mana now?” I asked. “I wasn’t too sure about the sapling, since it’s brand new, but it’s also not just a cutting, it’s a full sapling. 

“Why don’t you tell me?” she asked. 

I studied the plants for a moment, then poured power into Analyze Life and Death. 

The flowers and tree lit up. I wasn’t able to see the temporal energy flowing in the tree, but the life energy was strong. Stronger than I’d expected, and stronger than the oak trees. 

It wasn’t as deep, it needed most of its energy to grow still, but the power was richer. It was like comparing a lake of water to a bowl of jelly. The jelly was stronger than the water, but the lake had more liquid to give up without loss.

The flowers were shedding some spare life and death energy, which was sinking into the earth. I couldn’t follow the pattern from there, but I thought it was strengthening the energy of the garden. 

“Yes?” I asked. 

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Well then, why don’t you go practice, and test out refueling with the plants while I wake up Ed? He needs to work on his remodel, and you can learn the theory behind expelling the contents of your mana garden.”

I sketched out Fungal Lock first, since it was the spell I was closest to mastering, then sketched out the Harvest Plant Life spell with the remainder of my life mana, until I only had enough for one sketch left. I connected to the power of the blood carnations and drained them. 

Power swelled through my mana garden, then abruptly cut off. I sent some into the Analyze Life and Death spells in order to try and figure out what was going on. 

The carnations excess energy was already gone. It had refilled half my mana almost instantly, but I wasn’t able to drain any more. Even if I’d tries, it didn’t have any more to give that the spell could take. 

I cut off the harvesting spell, then curiously watched the plant with my Analyze Life and Death spells. 

The plant’s leaves began to slowly glow, converting the light into life energy, and tiny amounts of excess power began to shed from the leaves. 

The amount was still tiny, of course. It’d probably take a few hours to gather enough excess energy to be worth draining the plant again. 

I shrugged and used the power to sketch out the Fungal Lock spell several more times. As I was almost drained of my mana, however, I felt a familiar sensation roll through my mana garden and shuddered. 

Fungal Lock was now mastered, but the Internal Pocketwatch and Analyze Space spells would both be a lot harder.  

Meadow and Ed emerged then, and we began the process of feeling our mana-gardens. Everyone had a general sense of their mana, but picking out specific locations within the garden, shifting them around, and moving them was much less intuitive. I found myself slipping into the motions of Depths of Starry Night to help me focus. 

As we took a break for lunch, I glanced at Ed. 

“Why are you doing this? Are you going to try and build a staff?” 

“Not sure about the staff thing, I think a familiar is more my speed,” he said. “I like the idea of having a little friend with me at all times. But I need to remove most of the spells in my first gate. I don’t use them, and they’re mostly going to waste. The only ones I really use are Basic Stonecarver and Analyze Earth. I want to master them, then pick up a few spells that I can actually use, with solid effects. I really need to rebuild my entire first gate, essentially.”

“I know a librarian who may be able to help you pick out some spells,” I said. Ed thanked me, and then we got back to work.