Mana Mirror: Chapter Sixty-Three (Patreon)

I rolled the pill between my fingers as I lay in bed. A part of me was sorely tempted to use it on my Harvest Distance spell, since if it was anything like the Harvest Plant Life spell, it’d give me another stream of mana to use.

But… I’d neglected my time mana for so long. It was about time that I began to treat it seriously. I’d seen first hand just how effective the spells could be when Ikki had done his little demonstration.

Come to think of it, getting me to take my temporal mana more seriously was probably part of the reason why he’d shown me that.

I placed the pill in my mouth and began to draw its mana into my mana-garden, then flow it towards Capture Moment. The pill was too large for me to swallow, but as its power streamed into me, it shrunk and shrunk.

The last thing that I remembered before I fell asleep was the faint taste of aniseed and currants on my tongue.

When I finally awoke, I was famished. I ate through three bowls of cereal by the time Meadow arrived. To my surprise, rather than wake up Ed and send us both out back to practice, she sat across from me at the table.

“I think it’s about time for you to think about breaking through to your second gate with life mana,” Meadow said. “And death mana too, unless you want to learn a few more spells for it.”

“I haven’t even constructed a staff yet, though!” I said. “But I definitely want to learn another death spell, and maybe another spatial one too. And my time mana is still pretty… Rough.”

“I didn’t say you should break through with all of your gates,” Meadow said, giving me a wry smile and shaking her head. “We’ll leave the conversation about death mana until you master your new spell, but I maintain that life is a good idea. With Briarthreads ingrained, you only need to ingrain your Enhance Plant Life spell and work out flaws, and then you’ll be perfect, unless you wanted to learn to do more with it. As for your staff, you’re right – you don’t have a second gate life material yet. I recommend you seek one out, though. Many powerful plants exist in the world, and mastering Enhance Plant life will come with time – and with alchemical experience, if you decide to go down that path. Which, speaking of, you should know that learning to craft basic healing potions can help you transition, not unlike how learning healing magic could have.”

“How?” I asked curiously.

“Well, in all of the methods you have to transition, all of them involve altering the mana and energy composition of the body. The way that most generalized healing potions work is flooding the body with excess life energy, and allowing the body’s natural processes to convert that power into whatever is needed. Rudimentary and inefficient, but capable of dealing with most general wounds.”

“Right, that’s why doctors use specialized spells and alchemical equipment,” I said.

“Indeed,” Meadow said. “The drinking of healing potions will infuse extra energy into the body, which will be able to be used by the transition spells. Especially the Magister’s Body and the Beast Mage Soul.”

“Beast Mage Soul?” I asked.

“That’s one of the ones I plan to offer to you,” Meadow said. “Regardless, we should get back on the topic of you picking up new spells and advancing to your second gate. For death, might I suggest the Crow’s Shade Messenger or Vampiric Senses?”

“You’re welcome to suggest them all day long, but I don’t know what it does” I said, grinning at her.

“The messenger spell is commonly used among witches with death or lunar mana,” Meadow explained, smiling back. “It calls out to the shade of a nearby bird capable of speech and offers a minor infusion of power in exchange for delivering a message. The more powerful you are, the further the message can be carried. A first gate mage usually can manage about a quarter mile per cast, which isn’t too far, but does have its uses, and as you grow, the distance will increase exponentially. It’s also the basis for much of necromancy, which is a powerful path.”

“And Vampiric Senses? I assume it’s going to enhance my senses, but how?”

“It uses a blend of life, death, knowledge, and other smaller aspects of mana like lunar and solar to help scent out blood and information the blood carries. Blood type, how fresh it is, if it’s been spilled or is in a body… It’ll essentially allow you to be a bloodhound, and will give you a general sense of blood that’s excellent for use in vampiric magic and blood magic, which is a path your life and death makes you well suited for.”

“Can I learn them both?” I asked. “They both sound really useful, just different. I don’t know too much about necromancy or blood magic. Both sound… Uh…”

I trailed off, uncertain of what to say.

“Both have rather a bad reputation, and contain spells that are illegal and immoral. So does mind magic. A fireball can be used equally to defend the innocent as to burn down a hospital. Some spells are unethical, yes, so don’t learn those. Besides…” Meadow winked at me. “I suspect you’ll be learning a lot about necromancy and working with the spirits of the dead this Spirits-Walk, if you want to continue working with the Spiritwatch.”

“Yes,” I said. I’d been doing a lot of thinking, and the times where I felt best were when I was helping people. I’d liked helping the small folk village deal with a moorcat. I’d liked helping the terragon get protections. I’d liked finding the toad and knowing it would get back home. I’d even liked setting the spirits to rest when I’d done it.

I liked helping people, animals, and spirits.

All of my missions so far had been on the shorter side, but with Dusk I’d be able to take on longer missions, or more complicated ones.

I’d also be able to take on Goetíea missions, but I shied away at the thought of doing that for the moment. I needed to patch things up with Alvaro, but I needed to finish my own healing first before I did that.

Dusk threw her arms around my neck in a hug, and I smiled.

“I think that both of them are a good idea,” I said. “I’m not sure I can pick just one yet, and there’s less flexibility with death than life, so I assume I can learn a bit of both?”

“A bit, certainly,” she nodded.

“Then definitely both,” I said. For a moment, I was worried she was going to have us go to the library to pick them up, but instead, she wrote them out on sticky notes and passed them over to me.

“What about other spatial spells?” I asked. “I feel like I need one more. Isn’t there some sort of… short range teleport, or something else I can do with my first gate?”

“Both space and time tend to be very… middle to back loaded,” Meadow said, leaning on her staff. “Most of the low-level ones don’t suit a generalist super well. For example, Stabilize Space is a spell that takes up roughly half your first gate, and creates a powerful imbued effect to stabilize spaces you create. But you don’t plan to go into crafting spatial rings. Same goes for teleportation and warping space. Thus, the normal ‘base’ ones recommended for spatial mages don’t work as well for you.”

“I see,” I said. “That’s… A little disappointing, I won’t lie. I’d kind of hoped for more.”

“I didn’t say it was completely hopeless,” Meadow said. “I was able to dig out one. Are you familiar with the ungated spell for northfinding?”

“Kinda,” I said. “I know it exists, but I don’t know much else.”

“This is an extension of this spell. It will allow you to know the cardinal directions, as well as the location and rough distance of the nearest city teleport circle rooms, or spatial anchors you have set up with the purpose of interacting with this spell.”

“That’s… Useful. A bit underwhelming, but still useful, for sure.”

“It’s the best I could do, unless you’d like to pick a single type of spatial magic and heavily specialize in it.”

“I… Not really, no. This spell it is, then! What’s it called?”

“Sense Directionality,” she said as she wrote it out.

“Fair enough,” I said, taking the piece of paper, then I looked over my three new spells.

The Sense Directionality spell was small, and would be easy enough to master. It was even smaller and less complex than Internal Pocketwatch, which at least meant it’d take a commensurately small amount of mana and effort.

Vampiric Senses and Raven’s Shade Messenger were both a little bit smaller than an Analyze spell was, but they definitely weren’t small. Probably comparable to Pinpoint Boneshard, I’d say.

Not too bad, all in all, but I still winced at the time it would take to master them. I was right on the border of breaking through with pretty much all of my gates but temporal, but I’d just had to mess it up.

No wonder Orykson had said I’d only be learning a handful of spells to get to third gate as quickly as possible. Taking these on, it would add even more time, and slow me down even more.

Was I okay with that?

Honestly?

Yes.

I’d take a firmer foundation over speed.

Orykson had overlooked low gate magic, claiming that ‘real’ magic only started at third gate.

If Meadow and Ikki hadn’t been here to show me spells, slowing my growth, I’d probably have been second gate in everything already, but I’d be an infinitely weaker mage than I was without them.

Meadow had been the one to help guide my synergistic life gate, and produced something that had let me take on and defeat Mallory with relative ease.

I didn’t think low gate magic should be overlooked just because it was low gate. It was the foundation I built upon, and it should be solid.

I should be able to choose my spells, choose what path I walked.

Ikki had said the time of the old guard was gone, and… I agreed. I didn’t know what Orykson represented, but he was mysteries upon mysteries. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow linked to Mallory.

Meadow was open with me.

There may come a day where I had to shed blood. But when that day came, I wanted it to be because I had no other choice. Not because I decided to.

“Thank you, Meadow,” I said. “I have a question, though, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course.”

“What would you do if I just… Decided to stop? I become your apprentice, get the transition spell, and then… stop. I just work with the watches?”

“Would that make you happy?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said seriously. “But I want to know. What would you do?”

“I would be sad to see someone who clearly enjoys magic and learning about magic to simply stop growing, but if that would make you happy, then that would be what’s best for you. If you wanted to become my apprentice later in life, I’d do my best to make it happen.”

That, more so than anything else, settled me.

“Meadow,” I said. “I accept. I’d like to look at the contract to be your apprentice.”

“Contract?” she asked, shaking her head and laughing. “No, I don’t use such a thing. If it would make you comfortable to have one, we can write one together. But I simply follow the bond of student and teacher.”

“Nothing?” I asked. “No favors owed, no… Charge per hour of your time?”

“Hardly, child. If I wanted to do that, then I wouldn’t keep a simulacrum permanently stationed in Lledrith University,” she said with a snort. “I believe strongly that knowledge should be free. You owe me no debt for it. You’d be my apprentice until you weren’t.”

“Huh,” I said. I extended my hand to her. “Alright. Deal.”

She shook my hand, and it was done: I was now the apprentice of Meadow, not Orykson.