“Place your hands like this,” Tercius said.

Petra’s green eyes drifted to Ciron’s dark ones.

"I can show you," Tercius said. "If you want to, that is."

Ciron nodded and a few moments after the old man, Petra followed.

Tercius imagined a shape forming above their laps and the wisps rushed to obey. They plucked the ideas straight from his thoughts and arranged themselves accordingly in less than a second. Speed, precision, and accuracy of thought to telekinetic action had been the biggest functions he had created the skill around. While the idea to micromanage his telekinetic skill, like Mana Manipulation, for example, did have its appeal, there was something to be said about the other side of the coin. The skill he created was supposed to be practical, fast, and purposeful, and unlike Mana Metamorphosis, only used with Tercius’ full intent behind it. The skill was a limb that he had imagined as having from birth, a skill that would take all he knew consciously, subconsciously, and instinctively and do as he instructed.

“Ready?”

When they nodded, Tercius let a single telekinetic sphere fall into Ciron’s waiting hands followed by the second one for Petra, startling both despite their foreknowledge.

Tercius smiled with relief. His diversion worked, for now.

After threats of a good beating for his idiotic, reckless–and many more strong words–actions, Petra finally had another target in mind and she had no idea what to do with it. The stoic Ciron also shared the same predicament. It was almost as if Tercius had brought home a wild lion, with fangs and claws that tore through anything they touched, and was now telling them to pet the growling, feral beast. Like any sane individual would be, they seemed quite resistant to even come near such a beast.

“It’s incredibly durable, although not unbreakable from what one Mistress told me. But–and this one is the real kick—is that as long as I have mana, any kind of deformation made to it that is contrary to my image of it is repaired before it even has the chance to alter the shape. My thoughts give it shape and that shape is the one it defaults to be in at all costs.”

“That’s… incredible…” Ciron muttered as he took in the basketball-sized sphere between his two palms with a rare expression on his face, one more suitable to a starry-eyed child than an old stoic.

“I will change the shape now,” Tercius informed them and as they nodded their mesmerized heads, he ordered the wisps to rearrange themselves from a sphere into a stick—as long as Ciron’s forearm and half as thick as the old man’s wrist. Tercius had seen some Nobles carry these with them, recalling vaguely that it was a symbol of ennoblement of some kind or something like that.

“Is it always so cold?” his mother asked as she wrapped her long fingers around the middle of the invisible stick and started to tentatively explore its length.

For some reason, Tercius felt incredibly awkward. "I think that the coldness you notice is a side effect of the morphological type of… err… the crystal affinity that's the basis for… err… the skill. But… I'm not sure. At this point, it's just a… guess…"

With a cough into his closed fist, Tercius turned to see what the grunting Ciron was doing.

The old man held the two ends of the stick in an attempt to bend it.

With Mana Sight, Tercius observed the skill that the old man employed along his arms, threads of reddish-white mana winding up his hands, arms, and everything all the way to the old man's lungs where the threads became motes of mana of the same color. There were motes and threads of that mana in Ciron's back, abdomen, and even legs.

Strength.

Much like Running affected Tercius’ whole body while it was active, Strength seemed to do the same to Ciron’s. How did the skill achieve its effect, he had to wonder? Was it by pulling more oxygen into the lungs and then supersaturating the blood circulation system? The more he observed, the more he was sure that that was only a part of the skill. Those mana threads along Ciron’s arms grouped together in a way that Tercius saw during anatomy classes.

Muscles.

Looking at it from other angles with his wandering eyes, he even saw that the mana was present in Ciron’s bones.

The skill was doing so many things with mana without any kind of direct control from the user and Tercius had to wonder how this was possible. As far as Tercius knew, his grandfather had very little medical or biological knowledge. His grandmother was far ahead there and as far as he knew, she didn’t have Strength.

A skill with gender equality issues, perhaps?

At first, he chuckled at his thought, but then he looked at it purely from a physiological standpoint and found it not so laughable anymore. But to find the real answer to the question, Tercius would have to find a large pool of people–the larger the better–with the skill and do some statistics on them… The Empire soldiers were the first large group that came to his mind.

Should I walk into the barracks and just ask nicely if I could take some of their data and measurements…

At that, he laughed so hard that Ciron and Petra looked away from their telekinetic sticks and straight at him.

“I just had a silly thought.”

With a silent glance between the two of them, Ciron and Petra shook their heads. Laughing at his thoughts was nothing strange for Tercius.

"I had a whole body armor on me made from that the entire time I was there," Tercius said.

“And you can make it into any shape or form?” Ciron asked.

“If I can imagine it in my mind, then yes.”

"And what about the size? Did you try to see how small or large you can go?" Ciron insisted.

“I’m still looking into both of those.”

“And—”

His grandfather went on to ask a dozen questions about telekinesis and Tercius’ ability to form objects with it. The last part was actually completely dependent on the way he chose to make his telekinesis manifest and he was quite pleased with himself for thinking of that. The utility and freedom offered by the manifestation medium he chose for the skill had proven extremely useful so far.

“It’s so light,” Petra stated. “I barely feel a weight to it.”

Ciron nodded. “As if I’m holding a small piece of paper…”

“The best part is that I can make it… how do I… hmm… maybe locked in place is the best way to express it. If I want it, it can start to repel all forces from acting on it. That has a special price of its own. Anyway, observe.”

He locked the sticks in place and asked Ciron and Petra to move them. His mana was spent lavishly to counter their efforts, but with Energy surging in him he barely noticed, and yet it was exactly that expenditure that worried him.

Just by the way his mana was surging he knew that the cost was astronomical. Would leveling the skill bring the cost to a place where he could use it without resorting to spending Energy to boost his mana regeneration?

A few minutes later, neither had any success. Invoking the skill in his mind, Tercius decided to spend his time making some adjustments to the skill's interface while Petra and Ciron spent their time battering his telekinesis. He had learned a lot in the last day alone and it was appropriate that his dynamic skill interface function earned its keep.

All it took to change something was to think about it with a little bit of focus and a desire to change the part. The skill function responded to his commands as it was supposed to and within minutes he had a brand new look to his skill. Some things were removed, some were added and soon the amount of information in front of his eyes was huge.

Done with alterations, for now, he took a moment to take the new look in.

Spring of Crystal Thoughts [10]

Skill Description:

This skill grants the ability to create [Crystal Metaforce], a Mana type that is simultaneously [Physical] and [Magical] in nature. Manifestation type [Fluid-like Swarm] allows the skill a high level of flexibility and versatility of application.

General Skill Details:

Mana Type:

Name: [Crystal Metaforce]

Nature: [Magical], [Physical]

Manifestation Type:

Name: [Fluid-like Swarm]

Mana Cost:

Creation: [???]

Mass: [???]

Distance: [???]

Maintenance: [???]

Skill Range: [Limited solely by Mana Pool]

Skill Barriers [0]:

Effects:

Skill Core:

Starting Size: [???]

Pacification Percentage: [0]

Current Size: [???]

Compression Point: [???]

Specific Skill Details:

Telekinetic Reaction Saturation: [???]

Simple, yet effective. He had new fields to fill out and quite a lot of old ones, if something a day old could be called that. At that, he could only shrug. Depends on who you ask.

Next on his “skill to-do list” was to break the barrier to allow the skill to level again, and then try using the skill at [20] while completely free of Energy.

Suddenly the door of the storage room slowly opened and three frightened individuals sharply inhaled, as their heads snapped to burn holes in the door with the speed of lightning.

A head of dark hair popped in and regarded the trio with narrow green eyes.

"There you are," Aurelia said.

Petra, Tercius, and Ciron sighed with relief.

“What are you doing here?” Aurelia asked, her childish voice laced with suspicion.

“We were… searching for something,” Petra said.

Ciron grunted affirmatively.

“Did you need something, little one?” Tercius asked.

Aurelia nodded slowly. “Mistress Kalina wants to start teaching us to play so she asked me to see if you are free. Are you coming?”

“Oh…”

Tercius had hoped to skip that and go to bed, but…

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

As he nodded to his mother and grandfather he dismissed the invisible telekinetic constructs and followed after the curious Aurelia.

“What were you really doing down there, brother?” she whispered.

Tercius looked at the eight-year-old. “Searching for something really important,”

“Can you tell me what?” she asked hopefully.

"We were searching for answers," he said with a small smile that he hid from her.

That answer threw her for a little loop.

Mistress Kalina already had Penelope and Leo with her, both of them ready for their lessons for the chosen musical instruments. Aurelia took her own instrument and waved for Tercius to hurry along already.

***

***

***

After musical and magical lessons were over, lunch followed, and after it was over Tercius meant to speak with Mistress Kalina and inform her that he needed the first favor cashed in.

It was still a bit early to ask of the whereabouts of the alchemical tracking marks she gave him to paint with. With a spell keyed into the specific mix of ingredients used in the paint’s making, she could get a sense of where the paints were.

She even gave him an explanation of how the spell worked—without any prompt from Tercius whatsoever—which was… well…

Anyway, the spell sent out a wave of special mana, and any time that mana wave found that specific thing it was premade for, it would interact with the magic present in the paint and create a wave at that location which would then make its way back to Mistress Kalina.

Documentaries and books about bats, whales, and dolphins had surged in his memories. Submarines… To him, the spell sounded like a specialized sonar. He already had a skill in mind for it, a skill that would be more general. One of the functions would be able to switch between different "marks" to track.

And yet… somehow… by doing what he did, he felt that he was ripping Mistress Kalina off—even minute details of her spells and explanations he had analyzed and then asked himself as to how to implement for himself—and… He was ripping her off… and that did not sit well with him.

Anyway, the favor.

“Mistress, those favors you mentioned…”

“Yes, Neophyte? You have something on your mind?”

“Mistress, can I exchange one favor to travel from here to Spheros and then after I find someone there, use the same favor to travel back here with them?”

Mistress Kalina squinted at him. “You can. Although I think that I know what will be the answer, I need to ask. Who will be coming back with us?”

“My grandmother and my father, Mistress,”

“Since you said that you need to find them, I suppose that you don’t know where they are. Do you know how many days you will need to find them?”

“I do not, Mistress,” Tercius swallowed. “Actually, I was hoping that you might help me there too. I suppose that there are spells for these kinds of things?”

“To find them?”

“Yes.”

“There are, but… I suppose that you need to use the second favor too, then,” she said with a glimmer in her eyes.

Tercius opened his mouth then slammed it shut. The second favor was supposed to be used for the second batch of Potion of Regeneration. He didn’t have enough money to buy a second batch of the ingredients, for the potion… Actually, he remembered that he had yet to count the ones that he stole the previous night, but even then he doubted that he had enough. The money he gained from the proceeds of the mind mage had been a true fortune when converted into the coins of the Empire. Shaking his head, Tercius realized that it would be a waste of the favor to be spent on something that he had a decent shot to do on his own.

“Then I will try to find them on my own first, Mistress. I need the second one for another batch of the potion.”

“Did I tell you, neophyte, what a single of these favors can get you from me?”

“You did mention a few things, Mistress.”

“Yes, but did I mention that you can exchange your favor for a powerful spell or two made by me? Or I can lend you a few books written on the subject of rare skills that are not available to the public as easily as the ones that you’ve read?”

“No…” Tercius said, quite sure that he would have heard something like that. Why was she telling him this now?

“You would have to spend quite a few cycles earning Repository points to get either.”

“I suppose that I would, Mistress,” he said slowly.

Her orange eyebrows rose in question. “So will you use any of the favors I owe you differently?”

Two answers to his question hit him like a brick as he answered, “Not unless absolutely necessary.” Was she goading him to her way or testing him to see if he would take her offer or refuse her?

“Oh? Why is that?” she asked curiously. “Don’t you want something for yourself out of these favors?”

“I am getting something for myself from these favors,” he said.

She seemed surprised. “Care to share what it is?”

“I’m afraid that that’s something I can’t share with you, Mistress. We need far more hours of interaction for me to consider sharing something like that,” he said, inwardly satisfied that he had been able to slip in the same answer that she gave him the most.

Mistress Kalina chuckled. “I suppose that I must meet the bottom line then. When do you want to leave?”

“Well… I have a few things I need to do in Nurium and then I need to make sure that those people we marked are gone, so… it depends. But I should be prepared anywhere from three to seven days from now.”

“So at worst a week before we depart and an unknown number of days before we find people you seek… In that case, I will need to visit the Pyramid for a day. Oh, and since I’m going back I will be taking Seliana and Penelope with me,” Mistress Kalina said. “It’s time I establish some boundaries with that girl.”

It took him a moment to realize that Mistress Kalina by “that girl” meant the fifty-year-old Seliana rather than twelve-year-old Penelope.

Would there come a time when he would do the same, Tercius had to wonder. What kind of eyes did Mistress Kalina use to look at the world? How different were things from when she used to be young? Were months to her what weeks were to Tercius?

***

***

***

With days of sleepless nights behind him, Tercius expected things to be different now that he was tired and without any Energy in his system, yet sleep eluded him as he laid on his bed and different thoughts vied for his attention.

Mistress Kalina told him that the majority of the marks that Tercius painted on people’s necks and foreheads had scattered all over the town and a few were missing entirely from Mistress Kalina’s “considerable spell range”.

That brought some relief, but he would still like them all gone from her “considerable spell range”.

Then there were the lessons that he learned by making Spring of Crystal Thoughts.

The most important lesson he took from there was that for any future skills that he planned to tamper with and make on his own, it might be best to temper himself and start with simple and basic functions only and then add more functions at the barriers.

That way he could have a monstrous skill without a monstrous mana cost required to feed it.

Another way of going about it was to do what mages did with Mana Manipulation and Mana Metamorphosis.

The effects of the second skill were theoretically and practically achievable with the first one, but the difficulty of actually doing it would likely take decades of painstaking work as a mage was forced to fine-tune his control over mana to incredibly minute details. By getting Mana Metamorphosis, mages turned what would be decades of learning to do one thing into decades of learning actual practical magic.

Make a central skill and then with its help create a skill or several skills that focus on certain subfunctions of that central skill.

This would be applicable to the idea he had of making specific mage-like skills for his family, skills that would correspond to their affinities. Or maybe he should try training his family the same way that the Pyramid trained their students?

He would need his Teaching to be brought up to speed for that, while for the Mana Metamorphosis he would have to figure something out. Maybe take his whole family as Disciples under him and then pay for a few basic spells for them? Something to consider.

Then there was the issue with the speedy leveling of his Energy Manipulation yesterday morning. He would have to try to replicate that. If he managed to understand how that had worked he could potentially make a skill in the morning and have it at [40] or [60] by evening.

All it would take was some immense pain.

And then he made a circle back to the issue of Strength.

He was sure that many of the mages had the necessary knowledge of how the skill was supposed to work and why, so did they have the skill? Was it widely distributed in that population? Maybe Mistress Kalina knew something like that? Should he even ask her?

Shaking his head, Tercius recalled that he had dismissed knowledge as the sole reason for skill formation. Instinct, action, and even desire were at play as well. Now that he knew of Spirits, “belief” was on the skill table, which brought along some serious issues and questions for him to ponder on.

Setting aside the issue that “knowledge” was a group name for everything from structured sentient thoughts to memories, it was highly possible that there were even more factors he had yet to uncover.

From where did the skills normally get the specific Mana types required for their formation? And how did the skills know when it was time for them to “mature”?

And last, but not least, that which kept his nerves tingling with trepidation was his wonder of what the next day held. Would after over two cycles, since Tercius last saw him, Perdinar finally let him open that front door?

Maybe calling him Master Perdinar instead of Perdy will finally do the trick?