“—and don’t become like those fogies up there. There is a whole world waiting outside of the Pyramid, never forget that,”

Jumping up with a start, the words came to him in those last moments of the sleepy veil, said in his uncle’s deep voice. Sweat poured down his back, as the remnants of the nightmare scattered like scared clouds. Heaving deeply, Tercius used his shirt to dry his soaking neck. The night air that came through the open window was pleasant enough, his skin could tell, yet inside he felt as if he was burning up.

Waving J’ro’s questioning gaze away, Tercius got up and quietly made his way downstairs. Each breath he took was a little bit harder than any had ever been before. He was heavy, much too heavy, as his muscles and bones struggled to carry him forward.

Great timing, he thought as he rested his weary bones on one of the dining room chairs. Placing his hands on the edge of the table, he leaned his head to rest on them, just for a bit. The effects of Meditation helped immensely in mere moments, the separation from his body an almost instant relief.

It was in moments like these when pain and exhaustion overcame him and he reached for the skill, that Tercius noticed that Meditation had a positive effect on his body's recuperative speed. Now, he was pretty sure that this was not a direct effect of the skill itself, but rather an unintended consequence of the use of the skill and he had a theory as to what was going on. Tercius had read that a body healed itself at a faster rate while asleep, and to him, Meditation had this look of a skill that imitated the effects of sleep, albeit in a unique manner.

That would be a nice addition to the skill, he thought, as he added a mental note on the list for Meditation barriers. Accelerated healing.

Twenty or so minutes of Meditation and meditation greased his wheels for him to function to a serviceable degree. He made his way to the stove and placed a hand on the side of the large metal plate. It took him a minute to funnel enough mana for it to work, and an orange circle broke up the darkness of the night. As the circle on the plate rapidly gained heat, he placed a kettle on and then started rummaging through a nearby tea cabinet. Seliana didn’t keep nearly as many tea varieties as Rona did, so Tercius went through them in a minute. Finally settled on one, he took a seat and, in an effort to use every available minute of the day, he practiced his morphing. After all, it was too early to leave the house.

Weeks of practice with the ‘gray glass lump’, as Seliana called it, had given him a sense of what was expected of him to earn Mana Metamorphosis. If someone had explained it to him, he had a feeling that things would have gone down a harder path. In fact, he wasn’t sure how he would go about explaining the process to someone who had no idea of the concept. How do you explain colors to someone who never saw, or sounds to someone who never heard? Even if you do your best to explain, would the understanding flow freely from one side to the other and be received in a way that was comprehensible?

Rather than tackle something that had too many unknowns, mages had created a way for anyone with Mana Manipulation to experience what was expected of them, however briefly.

In his opinion, the process of gaining Mana Metamorphosis had a lot in common with building artificial islands. Rather than just dump sand, earth, and stone in one spot and hope that someday your effort rises above sea level, the mages went about the effort with a plan. First, you find a suitable location for the island and do some research on the ocean floor, namely figuring out mana affinity. Then comes the priming of the area, namely the mediums for specific mana morphs.

By following these two steps, instead of stepping in the process with a blindness of an hour old kitten, the island would be very close to the surface and all a student had to do was shovel enough sand to cover that last distance and break the surface.

A whistling sound interrupted his effort to break that surface, as Tercius looked to the stove. Making a brief stop, he got up from the chair and poured the boiling water over his tea leaves. Under the light of the heated plate, Tercius took a seat and placed his tea within arms-reach. Raising a hand, he poured out of it a pulse of mana, a circular sphere that was as perfect as he could make it, and joined it to the remains of his previous attempt. Resuming his efforts with practiced ease, he tried to do what Mistress Helfira, Master Lazarus, and many others showed him.

"My Mentor had told me that I should think of it as if I was turning clothes inside out," Mistress Helfira had told him in one of their private lessons. "Take a long-sleeved shirt and do just that, if only to experience the feel of it. The true crux is that while morphing mana, each time you do it, another shirt must wait on the inside. To morph means to change, from old to new, from white to yellow, and green and black. The focus of the skill is on the middle of any transformation process from one point to another."

From that lesson on, he had been left to his own devices as Mistress Helfira dedicated her time to the other students. He had all he would need to do this, she had told him, and it was up to him alone to make that final stretch.

As he practiced and sipped his hot, bitter tea, he thought about that morphed mana example, and how it felt. He thought about all the sleeves he turned inside out, and finally, he came to how mana looked like before his interference. From the end he moved through the middle, only to arrive at the beginning. From the beginning, he paced the middle and came to the end.

By this point, it was a thing of simple repetition, a shovel of sand thrown onto a primed seafloor.

If Familiar Bond was not an impediment like he strongly suspected was the case, then to acquire his desired skill was only an issue of some additional Energy, and that he had in spades. Correction. I will have it, later today, he thought as he finished his tea.

To acquire a skill, you had to practice an action, not necessarily of a physical kind. To level a skill, you had to practice the action. In Tercius's theory of skills, actions were guides for the Energy a body acquired, a way to influence where some of the Energy would go to. Desire and will were amplifiers of that influence and both were critical. If someone was ambivalent towards a particular skill, then Tercius would place the amplifier at a round one. If you don't want a skill, then the amplifier would fall towards zero or do the reverse and rise towards positive infinity, in the case of a deep desire.

From his uncle, Tercius had learned that almost all of the nobles had a mental protection skill of some kind, because of people, mostly nobles and courtesans, who had skills of mental influence of some kind. Tercius imagined that a desire to control other people was common in every stratum of society and if one tried hard enough at manipulation of others… Who knows? A mentalist skill set is a plausible outcome, given enough time and success.

Stepping away from such an unsavory line of thought, he returned to his previous thoughts.

Outside sources of influence, that gave you the knowledge of how something was done, were also to be taken into account. This could even be something as simple as knowing that a specific action was possible, up to a detailed step-by-step guide. The more information you have, the easier it is for a skill to form.

He knew all of this for a while now, but lately, a lot of new perspectives came his way, and he thought it prudent to think about these things before he plunged into their depths.

While Tercius practiced, the first rays of the sun broke through over the eastern mountain peaks and made their way to Seliana's home.

Days were long, at this time of year, and Seliana and the kids would sleep for a while yet, he knew. They always did, and that gave him a little more time to practice.

The nightmare of lengthening shadows and tightening circles was barely an afterthought as he started making a large breakfast for everyone. Seliana's garden was home to a few species of berries he planted, the bushes carefully shaped per his grandmother's instructions. The sole mature tree in the garden was also fruit-bearing, and although the fruits still had some time until complete maturity, they were edible even now.

Back in the kitchen, he whipped up some flour, eggs, curdled milk, and honey, and fried something reminiscent of a pancake, in more than mere looks.

“That smells nice,” Seliana said, as she came down the stairs.

"It tastes even better," Tercius assured her. On multiple occasions, his little sister had been suspected of having worms, on the account of her boast-worthy capacity to store an obscene amount of these pancakes in her stomach. His eyes turned south and stayed there for a moment. Shaking his head, he turned to Seliana. "Can you wake up the kids? These are much better while warm,"

“I don’t know if I’ll manage, some of these kids would sleep through an earthquake,” Seliana shook her head.

Tercius chuckled and pointed to the plate of stacked pancakes. “Take one of these and wave it under their noses, I’m sure that they will be more agreeable with a bribe. If that fails, cold water always does the trick,”

Seliana took a small testing bite, and then a larger one. Nodding to herself, seemingly satisfied with the test bite, she said, “It could work,”

Less than five minutes later, six faces came waddling down the stairs right after Seliana, just like a flock of baby chicks. Most of them were sleepy, he noted, but not all. J’ro’s eyes were bright as he sat on his usual chair and helped himself.

One by one, the leaning tower of pancakes was razed to the ground, much to Tercius gusto— his masonic senses had been offended when the tower abruptly tilted. He could just hear the deep voice of Ciron asking what kind of a mason was he? The pyramid of fruits and berries followed soon after, and once Tercius cleared up, he picked up his backpack and Amber and went on his way.

***

Tercius patted his full stomach as he leaned his back onto the bark-covered vertical surface. Running while burdened in such a way was not pleasant at all.

Giving himself a few minutes to breathe, he played with Amber and then dived for Energy. Minutes later, satisfied with the amount he collected, he thought about what to spend it on.

His Magik studies had fallen behind, for a week now, and while he would have liked to continue with it today, he still hadn’t settled on a specific path for Language Acquisition. Maybe something will come to me today, he thought. I still have tomorrow.

That left a lot of other avenues to think about, but Mana Metamorphosis had eluded him for too long now. It was time to dedicate a day to it and see if one would be enough.

Grabbing his backpack, he took out a metal box that was keyed to his mana signature. Only he and Mistress Helfira could open this box, or so he was told. Taking out the scroll, he closed the box and unfurled the artistically done rendition of a spell. Every single detail of the spell was something he could remember, easily, but that didn't come close to the feeling of holding a scroll in his hands, while the smell of the paper and the dark ink-filled his nostrils. Tercius simply couldn't resist himself, he had to have the real deal.

The spell he was given, ‘Stone Attraction’, was a detailed guide of all the individual steps a skill of the same name would do automatically.

This spell would only target stones of a certain size, while for smaller granules he would have to make a variation on the spell, and the same thing further applied for large boulders. These particular variations would only involve the output of mana quantity, so they were relatively easy to make, from what he learned. But if he wanted to move a cloud of small stone particles or rain of boulders, especially in a controlled way? Then it got complicated.

To attract a rain of boulders to me is not something I particularly want, he thought, tapping his chin with his index finger. Although even that has its uses… But if I could change the target?

The spell was separated into a few parts, namely the search for a stone of a particular size, attachment of a spell anchor on the stone, and then the subsequent attraction to the other end of the anchor, his hand in this case.

The anchor, in this case, was a Runic construct of mana, morphed to be easily attachable to ‘stone’. Once attached, he could use the anchor with Mana Manipulation to activate the functions he built using Mana Metamorphosis and attract the stone to the other end of the anchor that rested in his hand.

There were other ways to achieve the same result, of course. Focused and controlled gravity fields could do the same for attraction, not just stone, but of anything really, but a spell like that was incredibly advanced and costly.

Looking at the diagrams that would make up the construct of the functions, he went over the mathematical Runes for Gods knew which time. Without his hands to support the top and the bottom, the scroll returned itself to its iconic shape. That’s almost too enjoyable, he thought as a smile came to his lips.

"Now, focus," he said and gave two small slaps on both of his cheeks.

His nose scrunched briefly as he inhaled a breath of preparation as his hands heated each other for a second. Palms up, mana leaked, and settled into the shape of a ball. One hand stayed on the bottom, seemingly holding up the entire thing in the air, while the other made a gentle hover over the whole surface. His mind focused on making mana turn into the shape he knew it could turn into.

Just like Mistress Helfira showed him, he would use the help of the morphed mana and he could swear that he could feel the Energy his Well contained surge in joy. The crystal was cold in his hands, and so was the mana that entered it and exited.

Occasional glances at his Well with Energy Sight assured him that the Energy was going somewhere.

Around ten in the morning, he had to go and grab more Energy, the harvest of the previous hour spent much too soon. It seems Mana Metamorphosis needs more Energy than a level twenty barrier of a normal skill.

Two harvests became three right about noon, his mind boggled by the quantity of Energy required. Tercius tried to figure out how many months it would have taken him to get the skill, without the additional Energy, but he was stuck. He had little point of reference, in this case.

A worry crept up along his spine, as the shadows of the tree moved around the little rise. The Energy was not used for its intended purpose, a doubt came to him, yet it still went somewhere. I have a hole in my metaphorical Energy pocket, he thought, as he made a small stop and examined himself. Either that or Mana Metamorphosis is on another stratum of skills.

A strange sensation flowed into him, its source apparent immediately. His eyes searched for Amber and found the little creature basking in the sunlight, her small body lazily stretching on the grass some ten meters away from him. Why did you stop that? She sent. I want more.

Releasing a weak laugh, a weight came off his shoulders, only for a new one to settle in its place— this one almost crushing him immediately.

His face went pale as he confirmed that Amber was filled to the brim with Energy— everything from her small tail to her flickering ears had a dose of Energy coursing through it!

“Fuck,” he muttered in denial, and then yelled the same curse once more, only in acceptance. “Amber…”

Amber couldn’t hide that Energy! She had no Well, nor could she spend that much Energy even if she had days. With Seliana… no! Not that. I could leave her here… but… With a start, he realized that he had to do something, and soon!

The sooner the better! If she took it from me, then I can get it back! Tercius thought boomed like a thunderstorm.

“Amber, come here. Amber, come here girl,” he called for her and she reluctantly got up, but he couldn’t wait. Like a storm was chasing him, he got up and ran to her, lifting her small form in a single scoop.

“Amber, you need to give me that,” he commanded.

For a while, she had no idea about what he was talking about until he showed her some he had in him, and then she firmly denied it.

Mine, she hissed at him, her teeth and eyes serious. Mine! You can’t have it.

“Amber, this isn’t the right time for this,” he pleaded, but she was not swayed.

Ignoring her entirely, he used Energy Manipulation to latch onto the Energy in her body, but the Energy didn't move. Rebuffed like an afterthought, the latch only made Amber glare at him in warning. With a pitched meow, she gave one final warning. Mine!

“What the Hells,” he muttered, his face in disbelief.

Taking deep breaths he stared at the impossibility his Energy enhanced eyes saw. The Energy was changing before his very eyes into something else. One needlepoint came first, then it spread around like a wave of gas in a small enclosed space, infecting everything it came across. Within minutes of his observation, the Energy Amber got from him was no longer the same. All of it was still there, but… it wasn't what she got from him. Not anymore.

“What the Hells did you do?” he asked the little creature, honestly hoping for a response.