Mana Mirror: Chapter Forty-Three (Patreon)

True to Orykson’s word, he didn’t appear on Liday, leaving me with an extra day off. I sketched out my Internal Pocketwatch spell, then used the same trick that Meadow had suggested I used when I was working on mastering the Analyze Life and Death spells, converting all of my mana from my other gates into temporal and continuing to sketch.

I felt myself edging up on the border of the mastery, so I headed outside and drained some extra mana from my Emperor Tree. To my surprise, I got lot more mana than I had the first time I’d taken from the tree.

I frowned. There was no way that only two days of enhancing their production would make such a significant increase in the plant’s power.

Then it clicked. The last time I’d drawn from the plants, I hadn’t ingrained my Fungal Lock spell. Its imbued effect increased the efficacy of draining spells, after all. With that boosting the transformation of the plant’s energy into my own mana, I was able to claim a lot of power that I would have otherwise been completely lost to me.

Nodding to myself, I sketched out the Internal Pocketwatch spell again, and then again, and then…

Crack!

I let out a groan as I felt the temporal tree that was the representation of the spell explode out of my mana-garden, reaching up into the air. It took up noticeably less space in my temporal gate than any of my analysis spells did, which I supposed did make some sense. It was definitely an odd sensation, though. I’d expanded the size of my life and death gates far more than I had my spatial or temporal ones, but I actually had about the same amount of free mana available in each gate to work with, since so much of my life and death mana was caught up in my mastered and ingrained spells.

Still, I couldn’t say that the advantages of having ingrained my spells weren’t worth it. Besides, if I worked out the inefficiencies in my spellcraft, I’d be able to reclaim some of the power that I’d lost.

I drained some power from the Blood Carnations and the Pointer Moss and began to sketch out the Analyze Space spell, idly wondering what it’s ingrained effect would be, then began my morning exercises.

I did fifty kicks on each leg, doing my best to hold the Depths of Starry Night mana meditation during it, and then dropped into the neutral stance for five minutes. By the time I headed back inside to eat breakfast, my legs were burning, but I was far more distracted by the fact that Ed was already awake, and cooking.

I could hear my dad in the other room, speaking to a customer on the communication mirror, too, but that was far less unusual. He did keep baker’s hours after all.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“Did you forget already?” Ed asked teasingly. “And after reassuring me that we’d be able to spend the time together, too. So heartless.”

It took me a moment, but I put together what he was talking about.

“I thought the sea estragon migration wasn’t happening until this weekend?” I asked.

“Shockingly, wild animals don’t tend to have a sense for human time measurements,” Ed said.

There was a meowing sound coming from the windowsill at that, and we looked up to see a small gray cat sprawling on the open windows. It looked vaguely familiar…

“Well, maybe cats do,” Ed acknowledged.

“Is that your cat?” I asked.

“Does anyone really own cats?” he asked. “I mean, they’re pretty independent, and move on their terms, not yours. But no, I didn’t get a cat. It showed up when Ikki was here the first time, and he called it… Something. Ixolotl? Ixtlit? It was an ix-something for sure.”

The cat meowed again, and I shook my head.

“I don’t think your guesses were right,” I commented. “Anyways, are you even able to attend? Isn’t today your first day of work for the week?”

“I got work to write off me being there as helping public safety, which is one of the biggest factors of the Lightwatch. I can’t get the twenty an hour, but I still pull my normal paycheck, so that’s nice.”

“I thought contract workers got fifteen an hour?” I asked, then felt a strange shift in my mana senses. There was a new source of life that had just entered my range.

“There was a change,” came Liz’s voice from the entry hall, followed by the sound of the door shutting. A moment later, she entered the kitchen, tucking her keys into her pockets.

“Yeah, the national budget got some sort of boost from a trade deal or something, so they allocated extra for public service and contract works. I know that the art budget got a boost too, so you may see some new statues and stuff goin’ up.”

Had Orykson really negotiated a powerful enough trade deal to alter a national budget, or was it just coincidental timing?

Probably a coincidence.

Probably.

“Hey, if it means more cash in my pocket, I’m not going to protest,” I said as Ed separated some eggs and toast onto four plates.

He wasn’t the most amazing cook, but he wasn’t able to mess up something as simple as scrambled eggs on toast, and so I dug in.

“Have either of you heard of a mana-based goods provider called the Silver Barrow?” I asked in between bites.

“Nope,” Ed said, and Liz shook her head. To my surprise, my father actually nodded as he entered.

“I have,” he said. “They primarily deal in stones and metals, but I made a cake for a vampire a few years ago who wanted Bloodrubies as part of the decoration.”

“Where can I find them?” I asked. “I was told by my mentor that I should get some Structure-ore from them around this time.”

I got up and started to make a cup of coffee, then looked over at them.

“Anyone want some?”

“Yes,” all three of them chorused, and I laughed.

“If y’all don’t mind, I’ll through in some mana enhancer, it should boost your recovery for at least a few hours. Probably healthier than cracking open a Mana Shock at this hour of the morning.”

“Sure,” Liz said. When nobody else objected, I poured water into the percolator, poured in the rich smelling grounds, added in the mana-enhancer, and set it on the stove.

“You should be wary of having to buy stuff as a part of your apprenticeship,” my dad said. “It’s not a great idea. Usually scammers start small, but before you know it, you’re throwing thousands of silver down the drain.”

Liz laughed and shook her head, the beads in her hair clinking softly.

“Trust me, Mr. Baker, that’s not an issue with his mentor.”

“You know him?” he asked, more curious than challenging.

“My grandfather does,” she said. “I actually asked him about Orykson, since I was curious. He’s the real deal.”

“Good to know,” my dad said with a nod. “But either way, you should be careful.”

“Caution never hurts,” Ed said neutrally.

“True,” I nodded. “But can I get the directions to the store anyhow? I do actually need to go there.”

“Oh, sure. They work out of a warehouse down by the docks. If you all are headed down there to help with the estragon stuff, you’ll be pretty close. I want to say it was near an ice cream parlor? But I don’t remember.”

“Thanks,” I said with a slow nod. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

I took a few more bites of my eggs while I waited for the coffee to be ready, then poured each of us a cup. Mine and my dad’s with milk, Liz’s black, and Ed’s with milk and sugar.

I took a sip of the enhanced coffee and felt my mana start to recover a bit faster.

“Malachi’s learning to fight from his mentor. Not Orykson, one of the other ones who Orykson’s sent to him,” Ed told Liz, and I immediately saw a dangerous glint enter her eyes.

“Oh?” she asked.

I held up my hands.

“Nothing so fancy. He just wants me able to move fluidly, since I’ll be learning haste spells and stuff. I don’t think he wants me to actually learn to be a melee fighter.”

“What sort of style?” she asked, sounding innocent. Too innocent.

“I… don’t know?”

“It’s a soft style,” Ed said. “I sparred a bit with him. His style reminds me of the Singing Springtime style, or maybe Green Viper style. I’m not sure if that’s what he’s teaching Malachi, but he’s definitely laying the groundwork for a soft style of some sort.”

“Makes sense. You’re short and small, and Singing Springtime is a good choice for those who want to learn defense.”

“The weird thing is,” Ed said, “I’m not sure that Singing Springtime is the style that Ikki used. Like I said, it also reminded me of Green Viper. But there were also some parts of it that were classically Mossford Boxing style…”

They two of them started talking about the specifics of Ikki’s style, speculating about how he learned it, and what styles he may be mixing to find his own blend, I started to tune them out, only nodding along when needed. I really had no idea what they were talking about, but they were clearly happy, so I was happy for them.

And I was happy to have my coffee too. That was definitely worth being happy about.

My dad excused himself shortly after he finished his eggs to head into the bakery, and I collected the plates to do the dishes. Not long after I finished, Liz sighed and stretched.

“Alright, we should probably get heading ourselves if we want to make it there in time.”

“Hold on, I’ve got to change,” I said. “Orykson wants me to look fancy if I’m representing him as an apprentice.”

I headed upstairs and changed into my suit, grabbed my broom from my closet and we headed outside. Ed sat behind Liz on her broom, and all three of us lifted up into the air, headed towards the beach.

Mossford was too far north to have proper sunny beaches, and it was too rocky to have the glistening white sands that I’d seen in pictures of some of Elohi or Kijani’s beaches, but there was a certain charm to the pebble beaches of Mossford, and the cold, dark sea.

At least, I thought that there was, but I was also inherently biased, given that they were the only kind of beach I’d experienced growing up.

There were already a few people on the beach from the night shift, or who’d already shown up early, and there were a series of weak abnegation blockades along the edge of the beach to stop people from entering the beach.

It was actually probably a good thing that our beaches weren’t like some, actually. If we’d had more than the ten miles of dock and beach to protect, then containing them would have been way harder.

I wondered how someplace like the Redsummer Isles kept their sea creatures from getting into their population. Could they? Or was there so much sea around them that they just had to learn to live with it?

Probably a bit of both.

Near the barricade’s entrance and exit point, there was a sign-up booth, and we headed over, showing our ID’s and putting down some bank information for the transfer.

“Excellent,” the man at the booth said. “Now, each of you will need these.”

He handed us each a wand, and I looked it up and down, examining it. It was giving off a low amount of knowledge mana.

“It’s got some internal reserves, but it’s mainly designed to be powered by ambient mana,” the man said. “Just point it and send the mana at each estragon that you get back in the water, and it’ll tag them with a basic tracker. Now, I’ve got three spots open in zone three, so head on that way.”

We looked over the map, then flew off towards the marker to begin our work.