Mana Mirror: Chapter Fifty (Patreon)

Woooot! Fifty chapters!!!

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“Hey. I didn’t think you’d be here today? I’m supposed to be paying off my mana debt.”

“There’s a lot more than just mana I can train you in, young man,” Meadow said. She said it sternly, but there was a crinkle in the corner of her eyes that indicated she was joking.

“Yes ma’am,” I said, chuckling.

“Besides, I want to help Ed anyways,” she continued. “And this was always going to happen eventually. It’s just not normally something you’d even get a start on until you’re a spellbinder, and even then, not of this complexity.”

She rubbed her hands together eagerly.

“Let’s see the space then.”

I opened it, and she entered, poking around. When she entered, I got the vague sense I could try to stop her, and a much, much larger sense that it would be a bad idea to try.

After a bit, she came out and nodded.

“Well, you won’t be able to sustain an artificial sun until you’re second gate at the very least, but by reinforcing the structure with the ore, you’ve probably got enough space to begin working on your garden immediately. You’ll need quite a few growth lamps, lots off soil, fans, a heater, thermal monitoring, water producers, raised beds, and of course, plants! Ed, dear, you’ll actually be quite a bit of use in manipulating the soil and enriching it.”

“How much is this all going to cost?” I asked, my head spinning as Meadow grabbed a cart and began to head down the aisles.

“Oh, this is a fairly small greenhouse, so probably around two thousand silver,” Meadow said.

I almost choked on the air, and Ed coughed. Meadow smiled and shook her head.

“It could be far worse, dear,” was all she said. “You don’t think I had you two doing all the work in gardening the back yard for nothing, do you? That was excellent training to get started with this.”

“Yeah, but the monetary cost…” I said, trailing off. I didn’t have nearly enough to start constructing a place like this.

“You don’t need to get it all done today,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “We’ll work within your budget, and you can build up over time. Ed, dear, you don’t have a harvesting spell, do you?”

“No,” he said, and she tutted softly.

“Well, it seems that the library’s going to be the place we go to next,” she said.

We moved through the hardware store, and Meadow pointed out various things I would need to start constructing my greenhouse.

One thing was bothering me, though.

“Meadow, what if I don’t want to use the key as a garden? What if I wanted to use it to store weapons or something?”

“What makes you think you can’t?” she asked. “Or for that matter, what makes you think that you aren’t?”

“How do you mean?”

Meadow removed a seed from her pocket and life magic coursed into it. It rapidly bloomed into a lotus flower, and heat began to pour off of it. She drained the seed and smiled.

“Nobody has ever said you need to only stick to plants with mana types you have. All plants have life mana. A sun lotus flower, properly raised, can unleash waves of heat like a Sun Sphere. The world is full of plants with a thousand aspects of mana and uses. You can use them all, if you wish.”

That actually made me feel a bit better, and I set my mind to collecting more plants. We continued shopping, and after I’d emptied out the tiny dregs of what was left of my bank account, I had a complete list of materials to buy and feed to my key.

As we left the store, Meadow turned and announced we were going to the library.

“I’m a little surprised that you don’t just have a spell for Ed already picked out,” I commented.

“I’m only a life mage,” she said. “I’ve gone to a few libraries to gather resources to help him, but I hardly know everything about Telluric magic. Even if Darius is a telluric mage.”

“Darius?” Ed asked before I could.

“He’s a good kid, a telluric mage that I ran across when he was just a second gate, and I was only fifty or so,” she said with a smile. “He’s actually taken on an apprentice of his own now, or so I heard. But my point is that just because I’ve helped out some telluric mages in the past doesn’t mean I’m a font of knowledge about the magic.”

Meadow didn’t flag down a carriage or flying carpet, so we took a leisurely walk towards Mossford Central Library.

“Does this mean I finally get to meet your secret librarian boyfriend?” Ed asked, smirking.

I sent power into my Pinpoint Boneshard spell and created a point in space right over his head, and then another in my hand. The bone shot out, paused over his head, then zoomed back to me.

“That was a warning shot,” I said. “Next time, it’ll be your eye.”

“Meadow, Malachi’s bullying me!”

Meadow simply chuckled and shook her head, increasing her pace a little bit.

When we arrived at the Mossford Central Library, I saw Alvaro in one of the stacks, and headed over to him quickly.

“Hey!” I said in a whisper-shout. I didn’t want to actually make too much noise in the library, but I also did want to grab his attention.

He looked up from where he was shelving books and smiled.

“Malachi! I’d wondered when I’d see you again. It had been a few weeks.”

“It’ll probably be a few more,” I said guiltily. “My mentor is going to be taking me on a two-week training sabbatical to train soon, so I won’t be able to do any missions for a bit.”

“Oh,” he said, then smiled. “Okay, well, I hope that goes well!”

His eyebrows knitted together as he looked at me.

“Oh. Wow. You’re already prepared to break into second gate, huh?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve only got my spells mastered, not ingrained. And I have three spells that I haven’t even mastered yet?”

Alvaro gestured to a table, and we headed over and sat down.

“Malachi,” Alvaro said after a moment. “By common wisdom, that is peak first gate. Most people focus on expanding their garden until they can advance as soon as they’ve got their core spells mastered. They might wait a bit for one or two really important spells to be ingrained, but they don’t wait until they’re at the very peak of what a first gate can do.”

“Did you?” I asked.

“…Yes,” he said. “Okay, but that’s different! My legacy means that I went ahead and built a pair of full-gate spells for my first gate, and those can’t advance until they’re ingrained.”

“Full-gate spells?” I asked.

“Spells that consume your entire mana-garden for a gate to imbue a powerful ingrained effect. My legacy makes them especially good for me, and they’ve allowed me to… Well, it’d be easier to just show you. Can I?”

He held up his finger, at the end of which was a spark of violet magic.

“Sure,” I said.

The spark leapt to my head, and I felt knowledge mana try to connect to me. I could have fought it, but I didn’t.

Instead, the world around me changed. We were suddenly standing in the center of what looked like an open-air pathway, with paths that lead to different buildings curling out to either side. Alvaro stood next to me with a small smile.

“Welcome to my mana-garden. Little known fact about Analyze Mana-Garden is that it can also allow others to view yours.”

“Interesting,” I said. I was definitely going to be picking up that spell when I was a second gate.

We walked into one of the hallways, and I could see a dozen different stained-glass windows that appeared to look out onto the real world, all of varying sizes, and seeming to depict different senses. The light from the windows streamed into a centralized crystal, and then refracted into a single beam that shot into the ceiling. The crystal spun gently around, a vortex of mana pulsing out of it,

“This is my mental enhancement room. It enhances each of my senses, and allows me to process them.”

He pushed the orb, and the refracted light shifted, so it no longer connected to each beam of light.

“Or turn them off, respectively.”

He pointed up to the ceiling, which I only then noticed also had a massive circular dome of stained glass built into it.

“It also serves as a highly effective mind shield that will grow with me, and creates sensory feedback for when the shield is under strain.”

At the end of the hall was an open set of double doors that led out into another open air auditorium, and Alvaro waved at it.

“Past there’s my second gate, which is a lot more boring.”

He led me back into the ungated mana and to the other building. This one appeared to be a massive library, with books spiraling up into the sky.

“This is my knowledge first gate. It’s an eidetic memory mind palace, essentially. It also lets me process the raw data I have faster. Give me a math question.”

“What’s twenty-seven times forty-one?” I asked.

The library spun as a book flew off the shelf and opened to reveal a giant textbook of mathematics, flipped to the right page, and then Alvaro read it.

“One thousand, one hundred, and seven,” he said.

“That’s just cheating at life!” I protested. “That’s absurd!”

He gave me a cheeky grin, and we faded back into reality.

“That’s a full-gate spell.”

“Indeed,” Meadow said. I jumped, not having realized she and Ed had sat down next to Alvaro and myself.

Meadow pushed several books forwards.

“Librarian, do you mind helping us? Edward and I were looking for some suitable spells to help him round out his first gate. He’s in dire need of a mana generator, but even outside of that, we need to look at the options for him.

Ed, Meadow, Alvaro, and myself spent nearly three hours pouring over different designs for Ed’s mana garden. Alvaro seemed to relish the task, taking to it like a duck to water.

Since so much of Ed’s second gate was about defense and containment, with his Skin of Stone, Stoneshield, Enhance Gravity, and Footbind spells, and his third gate held his truly powerful offensive spell, Alvaro wound up working with Ed’s first gate to round out what he couldn’t do.

Harvest Earthen Excess joined his Analyze Earth spell. It didn’t give quite as much mana as something specific, like Harvest Nutrients, but it would let him pull a little power from just about any type of earth, including concrete. Given his job as a Lightwatch member, being able to pull power from the pavement felt relevant.

He’d already ingrained Lesser Stone Strengthen, which paired well with his legacy, but Alvaro also found him Stone Spear. While he would only need to directly cast the spear if he didn’t have time to use his legacy to shape a spear from nearby stone and launch it, having a backup was good.

Even better, the ingrained effect would also pair with his legacy to enhance his innate control over any of the spears he created, allowing him to adjust how much power each strike was packing, regardless of the source.

Finally, he rounded it out with Lesser Stonecall. Ed had actually already learned the spell, but he’d dismissed it. It forged earth out of mana to manipulate temporarily, which could be a lifesaver in an aerial battle, but Ed was mainly on the ground.

Meadow had already given Ed a general sculpting spell to help him practice his fine control, but Alvaro actually got him a different one. It was designed to sculpt weapons, which would further compound on his legacy.

It was a strange spell, older than most spells I recognized, but it was clearly polished, just out of use.

“It saw more use in the past, when people didn’t know any combat spells, and a lot of armies would just fight on foot with weapons,” Alvaro had explained.

The final spell that Alvaro had picked out for Ed was Earthskate, which let you slide over earth as if you were skating, and increased your speed when ingrained. It wasn’t an especially powerful mobility spell, but telluric mana wasn’t exactly known for speed. Since Ed already had massive strength and durability, even a weaker mobility spell would do a lot to help round out his abilities.

I was a bit jealous that Ed was able to get copies of all of the spells without having to do anything to prove himself to the library, but I supposed that he had signed on with the Lightwatch, and wasn’t just a casual contract worker for the Watches like I was.

I checked out a lot of hobby books about constructing different things. Mainly greenhouses and gardens, but I got ones that ranged from framing and building a house to upholstery.

“What’s with all the hobby books?” Alvaro asked once he’d peeled himself away from designing Ed’s new mana-garden.

“I got a growth item,” I said. “It’s a separated space that will grow with me, and it has the ability to consume mundane objects to convert them and organize the internals of the spa–”

I was cut off when Alvaro pushed a finger to my lips. My eyes widened, and for a reckless moment, my heart stammered wildly, before he pulled it away.

He sketched a spell in the air, and then cast it. A moment later, I heard his voice in my head.

“Really?” he telepathically asked.

“Yep,” I thought back.

“That’s… Wow. People would kill for an item like that. Literally, people might try to if they knew you had it, and thought they could get away with it. The Lightwatch is good at their job, and most people aren’t inherently bad, but something that valuable… Keep that close to the chest, okay?”

I nodded seriously, and he broke off the telepathy.

“Did you want to get set up with a spell of your own?” he asked.

“Like what?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what else I really needed.

“May I see your mana garden?” he asked, the purple spark appearing on his finger again.

I gave my consent, and we walked through my mana-garden. It hadn’t changed much since I’d been in there before, with the only main difference being in the strange, flickering, superpositioned tree of Analyze Space and Pinpoint Boneshard.

When we emerged, he let out a hmm.

“Well,” he finally said. “It seems like you’re making great use of your life gate. Seriously, it’s one of the better built ones I’ve seen, props.”

“Thanks,” I said, a slight flush creeping up my neck.

“Your time gate is also good, or at least, it will be when you master the spells in it. You may want to pick up one more, but I’ll leave that up to your mentor. Your death gate is decent. And your spatial gate is abysmal.”

“Oh,” was all I had to say.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself about the spatial gate,” he said. “Spatial magic’s one of those magic types that’s disproportionally better at higher gates than lower ones. One moment, I do have an idea!”

He bustled off to the spatial pockets in the library, which I could now actually feel with my spatial sense, and returned a while later, slapping down two items on the table. The first was a stack of legal documents, and the second was a scroll.

“This spell is one we only just got access to,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “It was developed by a crazy spell engineer, and my mom was able to retrieve it from him. Normally, harvesting spells for spatial magic don’t start until second gate, but this one is a first gate version. I can’t tell you more than that unless you sign the nondisclosure.”

I read through the legal documents slowly. It was essentially entering me as a test subject for the library’s beta trial of this spell. I had to accept that there was a risk the spell could be useless, or even potentially harmful, though any harm over a certain threshold would be covered by the library.

I’d be required to test the spell regularly, and make monthly updates about its utility, until I was a third gate mage, at which point any reports would be accepted gratefully, but not required.

In exchange, I’d increase my standing with the library, and be allowed to keep access to the experimental spell.

Meadow had wandered over, and she glanced at it.

“If you want to do this, you can,” she said. “I’ll keep the old man off your back about it.”