The remainder of the day consisted of me learning the alphabet. That and Kalli constantly taking out her new wand to caress it. While my wand was basically a glorified stick, Kalli’s new wand was very ornate. The Dragon Wand, as I called it, was carved from a block of oak with an ornate leather grip and a carved dragon's head at its tip. Bright red paint was used to accentuate the lacquered dark brown of the wood.

Kalli drilled me again and again on the meaning of the different runes and their combinations. Mrs. Hodgins came to check on us and suggested that Kalliphae make flashcards for me. I got so good at recognizing the rune patterns that I could see some of them in my mind's eye. Doing so would reveal the word in my head like I knew it from birth.

I gave the girl an inquisitive look and thought.

What next?

She smiled and her voice filled my mind. You will learn more in due time. One must crawl before he can walk. Pace yourself. Keep practicing until you see the words without having to visualize the runes.

I sighed and pulled out another flashcard. I didn’t want to walk. I wanted to run. Heck, I wanted to fly. I gave in, however, and we were still studying runes when Mrs. Hodgins returned. She gave us a warm smile and said, “I hate to break up this study session, but school is over for the day and it’s about time we headed home.”

“Oh right” Kalli said excitedly before casting a nervous glance at me, “Are you going to be okay, Mel?”

I sucked in a deep breath and pushed my chair back from the table. It was more difficult now because the chair wanted to accommodate the movement and not slide. I stood and stretched and lied to my friend, “I’m good. I’ll go catch the bus. I did this every day by myself before you came along you know.”

I had no intention of catching the bus. I was in the mood for a nice solitary walk. The girl raised an eyebrow and stood up herself. See you tomorrow then? Don’t forget, we can still chat through the group even when we are far apart.

The thought did cheer me up a bit. I smiled and passed her a thought.

Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.

She returned the smile and then they were gone. I sat in the library in silence for what felt like an eternity. Just a few days ago I was completely fine with the solitude that was my life. Had meeting the fiery redhead that I summoned by accident been that life-changing?

I took a deep breath, careful to conceal my feelings from the connection I shared with the girl. I knew she was deep in conversation with Mrs. Hodgins at the moment, but I didn’t want to risk her sensing my dismay at her absence.

Now. What would I be doing if I was alone?

I had tried the summoning spell. The next step was to learn to read magic. The only thing left was to put that magic into practice. That meant applying mana to the spoken words. That reminded me, I had a new wand.

I took the stick out of my pouch and turned it over in my hands.

Kalli used this when she learned magic.

The thought of a young Kalliphae walking the same path as me felt good.

Wait a second, how long has she been practicing magic anyhow?

I groaned when Kalli replied in my head, I’ve been an apprentice for 3 years now. Ever since I entered…um…ever since I was selected by my master.

I mumbled an apology through our shared connection.

Sorry. I was thinking out loud again.

She sent a friendly feeling through the connection. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get better with practice. I slip up sometimes too.

I went back to my private thoughts.

Three years, huh? I guess I had better get started.

I got up and waved at the teacher's aid that took over in the library after Mrs. Hodgins went home for the day on my way out. The bus had left ages ago. I could walk home, but that journey only took 2 hours while mom wouldn’t return from work for another 8 hours. In other words, I had plenty of time to myself like always.

Just across the street from my school was a park.It had all of the usual park amenities like a playground and picnic tables.However, I was more interested in the lightly forested area at the back of the park.It was mainly there for the ambiance, but I discovered a long time ago that I could slip away between the trees if I wanted some privacy.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one that had this idea. In the middle of the wooded area, someone had built a fort out of scraps of wood. I had a pretty good idea what went on in there judging from the unique smokey smell the place emanated. Needless to say, I always avoided that spot.

My spot was much more serene in my opinion. There was a very large boulder overlooking a stream that cut through the park. I loved towering over the water as I listened to it steadily flowing by.

Okay, time to learn.

I took out the wand and held it in my hand. I needed to see if I could modify it first.

Kalliphae’s Training Wand

A stick infused with magic that has become a young girl’s first wand

Level Required to Equip: 1

Item Level 1

Accumulated Mana: 1,064

Magical Attack: 1

I didn’t want to change the name or the description.That just left the stats.I loved stats.As it was my first true item, I wanted to try everything.Level requirements weren’t interesting at all.

Why make it harder to use? Right?

The next was item level. Did items level up the same way that we did? I attempted to make it level 10.

ERROR: CANNOT EDIT AN ITEM TO A HIGHER LEVEL THAN YOURSELF

Check. I made it level 2.

Kalliphae’s Training Wand (Edited)

A stick infused with magic that has become a young girl’s first wand

Level Required to Equip: 1

Item Level 2 (Edited)

Accumulated Mana: 2,500

Magical Attack: 2

Looking at the modified wand, I concluded that the wand leveled up with accumulated mana. This meant that the threshold to get to level 2 must have been 2500 mana. The magical attack went up a measly 1 point. Next, I tried to edit the mana.

ERROR: MANA CANNOT BE EDITED. IT MUST BE INFUSED THROUGH USAGE

I took a long look at the error. So I couldn’t edit mana. Why did it go up when I modified the level then?

It must be a loophole because the wand has to have at least that much mana to become level 2.

Attempting to raise the magical attack on the wand also failed.

ERROR: MAGICAL ATTACK IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO ITEM LEVEL. CANNOT BE RAISED BY OTHER MEANS

My improved wand was over twice as powerful as it has been when I received it, but I hadn’t tried it in either of its forms. The next thing I needed to figure out was how to infuse mana into the spoken word. I knew the words of several spells. Actually, I knew a lot of magical words. Kalli had warned me not to try the complex ones though because even if I did everything properly it would probably backfire and kill me.

She had been very serious when she sent the advice. You must practice magic in order. Become confident with the basics before attempting the advanced magic.

Deciding to practice with the first spell I learned, I whispered the word, “Sviszt”

Feeling no different, I mimicked Kalliphae and blew a kiss at the tree across the stream. Nothing happened. I didn’t infuse any mana into the words. The only time I had ever used my mana was when it was ripped violently from my soul by a rogue summoning ritual.

I wanted to ask Kalli how to do it, but I didn’t want to suffer through another lecture on taking baby steps.I tried to focus my attention on my body and seek out this thing called mana.I knew I had 200 units of whatever it was.It had to be in there somewhere.

When I looked inside of myself, I was shocked to realize that I could feel my innards. Somewhere along the line, I had transformed into a high-tech piece of medical equipment. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I knew exactly where it was located and its current operational capacity. I saw room for improvement. The revelation made me gasp.

I can edit my body.

The idea both thrilled and terrified me. There was no way I was editing my own heart even if it meant giving me an olympian’s body. I dug deeper and examined all of the organs in my body. There was a liver, 2 kidneys, a stomach, more intestines that I cared to acknowledge, and a network that existed outside of any vascular system. It was white and it flowed through every pressure point in my body.

I focused my mind on the white energy buzzing around. With a little practice, it was easy to control. The mana tubes, as I chose to call them, were like a subway traveling a circuit through my body at all times. I could force mana to get off at certain points, giving my body a jolt in different ways depending on what was affected.

I felt like I was going to die when I made the mistake of mana bombing my heart. The effects of the mana were immediate. The strongest energy drink in the world had nothing on a mana infusion directly to my power center. My heart roared in my chest as it began beating furiously. I could feel mana-infused blood delivering its payload to every extremity of my body. My muscles felt snappy and the world around me seemed to slow down.

The downside to this was my heart felt like it was redlining. I became nervous that my heart must have a durability rating and I was currently tanking it. I sat perfectly still on the rock and willed my heart to calm down. It felt like an eternity, but eventually, my sinus rhythm returned to normal. I don’t know how I knew what normal was, but it felt right.

Using my newfound knowledge of mana, I channeled a full load of 200 mana into my tongue and attempted to speak the words of magic again, “Shizt”

I was lucky that no mana came out with the word. Due to a heavily swollen tongue, I had butchered the pronunciation. My tongue swelled to twice its normal size and I could suddenly taste everything. I regretted the fact that I hadn’t brushed my teeth since morning. The foul leftovers of lunch lingered in my mouth because I could taste every morsel. I could even taste the raunchy remnants of the pot in the air from the fort over 30 yards away.

After another long wait for my tongue to return to normal, I repeated the process, but instead infused the mana into my vocal cords, “SVISZT”

While there was mana in my voice, it did not come out in the words. I sounded like a demon. My guttural voice was unnaturally loud as it echoed across the park. I clamped my hand over my mouth and sounded like I was on helium from hell when I barked, “Oh no. What’s wrong with my voice. Ack, I can’t stop.”

I held my breath for several minutes as I tried to decide how to calibrate my spell casting.

What was it Kalli told me? Infused the words with mana. Not my body.

After giving my body sufficient time to return to normal, I took a deep breath and spoke.

“Sviszt”

I invested all 200 mana into the spell. When I exhaled the clearing around the stream erupted in a mini-maelstrom. My overpowered spell burst from my lungs, shaking the leaves in the trees around me. I gasped and heaved a sigh of relief.

At least I pulled it off. I probably used too much mana though.

As I sat on the boulder debating which spell to cast next, I heard a faint sound in the distance. I stopped breathing to try and figure out what had made the sound but could hear nothing aside from water flowing in the stream.

I was about to try Kalli’s light spell when I heard the noise again. It sounded like a distant screeching. It was very faint. Infusing mana to my ears, I listened again. I could hear everything from a family playing at the playground to someone farting in the park restroom. Sure enough, a minute later I picked up the sound again.

This time my ears were like radar dishes. They informed me that the bird making that sound was very large, 5 miles away, and closing in fast. As a matter of fact, it was headed directly for me.

I felt my connection with Kalli.

Um, Kalli. Something strange is happening. I think there’s a big bird that’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before.

I felt the conflict in Kalli’s thoughts as she replied. Mel, it’s not a good time right now. We are about to eat dinner.

By this time the bird had cleared the distance and was circling the sky above me. I infused my eyes with mana and took a mental image of the bird, projecting it to the girl.

Can you at least tell me what that thing is?

A wave of panic returned through the connection, causing my heart to start to race. Melvin, that’s a Griffon. You need to hide. Now!

I didn’t hesitate. I infused my legs with mana and raced for the old fort. The griffon must have heard me because it crashed down on the rock just as I dove through the line of trees. The monster appeared to be an eagle with all of the sharp pointy things that went along with it as well as a lion on the bottom part for enhanced land assault.

I screamed at the top of my lungs as I dove for the entrance to the fort. Kalliphae’s voice calmed me. I’m coming. Just wait and, whatever you do, don’t die.

The griffon had other ideas about that. It crashed its considerable weight into the top of the fort, causing it to buckle and creak. I was more than a little impressed with the craftsmanship of the potheads that built the fort.

I inspected it to be sure.

Item:

Smokeout Base 420

Components

Wood, Nails

Item Rank:

F

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Rodgers

Heh, they named the fort.

I made a quick modification of my own that I hoped would buy me some precious time.

Item:

Reinforced Smokeout Base 420 (Edited)

Components

Wood, Nails, Mana

Item Rank:

C

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Murphy

Great. I now own a Smokeout.

Unfortunately, the griffon wasn’t giving up. Massive claws tore at the structure, causing the whole thing to quake around me. The decision to hide put me entirely on the defensive. Not that I knew any real offensive magic or anything.

I thought about editing the monster and turning it into a puppy. I focused on a claw as it punched a hole in the wood and managed to pull up its stats.

Name

Griffon

Class

Monster (Protected Class)

Level

5

Affection Level

Feral

It was too high level. The hole in the fort was widening, allowing the monster to extend its paw into the gap and try to extract me. I pressed myself against the back wall and thought desperately at Kalli.

Are you almost here? How do you even know where I am?