“So, what do you think, Deklajan?” Chad asked.

“We are getting there,” the brown-haired, tanned looking man, with a tonsure-like haircut answered slowly. “As expected, The Brood is still on top, but should soon be slowing down significantly, since it will have consumed all of its resources. The same for the Darkalves, only that there we already see a drop-off. Somewhat surprisingly, really… some calamity must have befallen their expedition members. Otherwise, I cannot explain this sudden drop. Or…”

“Or what?”

“Did you check on the individual ladder?”

Chad quickly pulled up the screen to check for himself and then cursed. “So that explains it… I still don’t understand why Du’Andrazzil would declare its own faction, especially one called ‘The Earth Alliance.’”

Golgiat cleared his throat. “Is it possible that it is siding with a transferred earth realm?”

“It’s possible,” Chad admitted. “But I don’t really see the point. There must be some internal politics going on that we don’t know about. Maybe there is some shift in policy in the Gi’Andorath faction… Either way, clearly, Du’Andrazzil has found the dungeon and completed the first level; otherwise, there is no way it could have collected that many points. The second rank, just behind the Brood Mother and, from what I remember, Du’Andrazzil is not even an expert yet…”

After a moment, Chad continued. “Perhaps this is a power play to establish its own realm without taking out the Panriarch… but why so early? No, something is going on that we don’t know about. How about the rest, Deklajan?”

“Gormod is doing its thing. I expect them to slow down, once their aggressive approach takes its toll. It all depends on how much the Gorma decided to invest in this realm. Based on historical evidence, it probably isn’t that much.”

“But that hasn’t always been true,” Golgiat added from the side. “During the drought of 945 GW, the Gorma provided the expedition with tremendous resources.”

“True, it’s possible that this is the case here as well,” Deklajan admitted. “But those were special times. There is no drought now, and from everything that I have heard Gormod has entered another fragmented phase… no, the country I am most concerned about right now is Azkeron. If they have managed to subjugate the population of their shard, they will be a force to be reckoned with.”

Chad turned toward the somewhat disinterested-looking Bree-Ann and Jak’lo. “Have we found any sign of their location so far?”

“What?” Bree-Ann looked up, surprised at being put on the spot.

Jak’lo giggled a bit in his high-pitched voice, before responding. “Don’t ask the meathead, she is reveling in the memories of how she fried that Gharstbear’s brain this morning. But the answer is no. We have seen traces of ‘The Brood’, and the Albarnese, but nothing of the others so far. That said, we haven’t explored too widely either, so far.”

“What?” Chad almost shouted, while the temperature in the small room suddenly plummeted. “We are next to ‘The Brood,’ and you didn’t think to tell me right away? What kind of moron are you?”

“Relax,” Jak’lo smirked, while at the same time letting flames dance around his body to stave off the cold. “We only saw a trace, and it moved toward another shard. ‘The Brood’ will be busy over there for a while, and we can prepare some surprises for them in the meantime.”

Chad had to visibly control himself but knew by now that nothing was to be gained by losing patience with Jak’lo, or Bree-Ann for that matter. They were both battle-hungry, and, more often than not, batshit crazy. Chad circulated a small dose of ice-cold mana through his blood to calm himself down and turned toward Golgiat. “So what about the altercation today.”

“Not bad. I was waiting for someone to stand up to the top group. So far, the rest has been rather spineless. I haven’t seen the runt before, but he has spirit at least.”

“How about the fight? What do you think?”

“Well, mostly inept,” Golgiat grunted somewhat dismissively. “It was a bit disconcerting that the EFU, as they call themselves,” Golgiat chuckled for a moment, “had so much trouble with that group while having twice the people.”

“Anyone stick out?”

“The usual suspects. Cobra, didn’t engage in the fight, but he was ready to move in and stab someone, which is why I broke things up right there. Lil’Pope is strong but can’t hit shit. The real surprise, though, was that skinny guy.”

“You noticed it too?” Chad asked with a smile. “I was wondering if I was just imagining things.”

“No, he was good. Not so much with his fists. There he was pathetic. But his vision, and ability to read what his opponents were going to do was excellent. He has been in fights, even though he didn’t look the part,” Golgiat confirmed.

“Let’s keep an eye on him,” Chad confirmed before wrapping things up. “Let’s speed up the construction of the wall. I’ve heard reports about a large tribe of Gars in the area, and if ‘The Brood’ is close by, I don’t want to take any risks. Also, keep an eye out for a weyr super swarm.”

-------------------------------------------------------

Finally! I was done. The sun was beginning to set, and that was the sign for me to stop torturing myself. Slowly, I made my way back to the hotel.

And I had thought that changing my mental stats was painful. Right now, I figured that I’d rather sit on a comfy armchair and have ants crawl through my brain than move my legs for another foot. But that is how it usually is… the current pain is always worse – psychology 101.

And there was no way to avoid it either.

At one point during the day, I had the smart idea of healing myself, but I quickly realized that doing so was counterproductive. Sure, I could fix a host of little muscle tears, but all I did was negate the effort of the previous one or two hours of pushing myself. When I had realized what I had done, I had cursed violently for several minutes, before calming down enough to restart my workout program.

And no matter what I had achieved today, it wasn’t nearly where I wanted to be. I had not even attempted to work on my agility and dexterity yet, not to speak of skills and spells. With a sigh, I dragged myself up the stairs to my room, slightly wincing whenever I had to lift my feet. Tomorrow… tomorrow I’d focus on those other things and give my muscles time to recover.

Neither looking left nor right, I went straight to my room, barely managing to undress before falling into the bed. I was fucking exhausted.

With the last shreds of energy, I called up the status screen to see what I had achieved by torturing myself for twelve hours straight.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Initiate 9

Title:

Mental Bastion (Mental Defense x2)

First Initiate (Mana Recovery x2)

Army of One (V +20%)

Against the Mighty II (St +25%)

Transformer (1:5)

Droghul’s Disciple (+Healing/Kill)

Strength:

11.25 [+3]

Intuitive Reasoning:

15

Mana

Free

Current

Potential

Agility:

8

Complex Reasoning:

18 [+1]

Silver

0

94

94

Speed:

8 [+2]

Emotional Intelligence:

9

Black

0

125

125

Dexterity:

7

Perception:

18 [+4]

Amber

0

94

94

Endurance:

11 [+2]

Spatial Awareness:

22 [+1]

Red

0

94

94

Vitality:

10.8 [+2]

Willpower:

22 [+1]

Yellow

4

0

0

Available characteristic points: 23 [-7]

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 14

Twilight Vision

Level 2

Minor Healing

Level 10

Shadow Skin

Level 5

Shadow Sense

Level 1

Midnight Skin

Level 3

Partial Incorporeality

Level 2

Aura of Droghul

Level 3

Higrom’s Touch

Level 3

Available spell points: 26

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 8

Mental Fortitude

Level 12

Multitasking

Level 6

Internal Mana Manipulation

Level 8

Meditation

Level 6

External Mana Manipulation

Level 4

Enhanced Mana Recovery

Level 2

Sword Fighting

Level 10

Available skill points: 10

A grand total of +9 in physical stats plus some additional bonuses from my titles for a long day of work. Not bad. That said… I had achieved similar results from just walking around right after I had just recovered from being paralyzed. But that only gave credence to my suspicion that initial gains were easier to come by. The more significant the discrepancy between the image of my body and my current state, the faster the magical retransformation.

Before calling it a day, I also decided to take another look at the leaderboard, or ladder, just to make sure that I hadn’t been overtaken during the last ten hours by some freak.

Name

Rank

Brood Mother

1

Du’Andrazzil

2

Borghost

3

Ro’amash

4

Simurania

5

Azania

6

Izt’Kocruxian

7

And’amash

8

Bron’amash

9

Jak’lo

10

Luckily, I was still there, second place, even though it felt somewhat disconcerting to see Du’Andrazzil’s name instead of something closer related to me. But I had figured that SkinnyDude, funny as it was for Sue, was not the most inconspicuous term. Not that there weren’t many skinny dudes around, but I didn’t have to provide more information than strictly needed. The Earth Alliance was telling enough. And if I could mislead some people into going after one of those elves, dead as he was, even better for me and everyone else. No one needed freaking vampires around.

I briefly wondered what kind of powerhouse the Brood Mother was to take the first spot even though I had more than doubled my already excessive points for the week by completing the first level of the dungeon. You had to kill like… I don’t know, one hundred strong monsters each day? That was fucking insane.

But whatever, I wasn’t going to mess with anyone like that for the time being, perhaps ever. Even just seeing Golgiat move into the little scuffle we had had earlier made me again realize how much of a difference there was between high-powered individuals and bottom feeders like us. That said… I had a ton of flexibility that few others could match if anyone. So maybe I shouldn’t undersell myself.

On those positive thoughts, I closed my eyes and drifted into a deep sleep.

Only to be woken up by an annoying little jolt that jerked me upright for a moment.

What the fuck?

Immediately, I scanned the room for any danger, with my hand taking hold of the dagger on the nightstand. Had I, subconsciously heard something or someone move? No, this was… something different. Not sure what it was, but it was… inside of me.

Before I could further think about what that might be, I suddenly felt as if I was on fire. Every fiber inside my body began to burn and melt as if there was lava pulsing through my veins.

I tried to control the pain, attempted to stay in control of my body, but even my prodigious willpower was not enough. My muscles seized up, and I began to scream.

Within seconds, Ben and the others stormed into my room, weapons drawn, but they couldn’t figure out what to do, not that I blamed them. After all, there was no apparent danger, just a guy in underwear on his bed, screaming his throat raw.

And then, just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. From one moment to the next, I felt weak and tired, as if I had had just had another twelve hours of intense workout, instead of the screaming agony, I had experienced mere moments earlier. The others peppered me with questions, but I didn’t even have enough strength to respond. Instead, I just closed my eyes and focused on every fiber of my body, anxious to see if there was any damage.

None that I could see… there were changes and inflamed, raw flesh. But it felt… right. As if this was a natural state of a body and not something to be fixed. Not the inflamed tissue, obviously, but the underlying changes of the body.

Only then, I realized that there was some type of notification flickering annoyingly in the background. As I focused on it, I saw a blue box open up.

Individual Ladder Reward: 2nd place.

You have beaten the competition. Most of it anyway. The top is not far away! For your accomplishments, you are awarded a Bronze Level upgrade to your mana channels.

Well, so that was that. But there was another notification that I hadn’t noticed at first… it was as if it was tacked onto the first one, somehow, or tethered to it.

Individual Ladder Reward correction: 2nd place; alternate reward

The pre-existence of Gold Level mana channels changes your reward to Diamond Level mana channels instead.

I had no idea what to think of that. Partially because I had no fucking clue what mana channels were good for. If bronze was the first level, or perhaps second, if there was iron or something like that, then gold was probably two levels higher. And diamond was then another one level higher? Or two? Was this a good reward? Or crap? I had no clue. Again.

Fuck, what I would give for Wikipedia on mana issues. Or a fucking internet to read up stuff on.

Was there such a thing as divination? Or a higher being that one could ask for advice? I needed to figure that out as quickly as possible because I was fucking tired of stumbling around like a bumbling fool, not knowing how any of this stuff worked. Perhaps, reluctant as I was, I needed to approach this Chad or one of his companions to get some much-needed intel…

At least, it indeed seemed to be some type of reward, so I could safely assume that despite the ridiculous pain, it wasn’t going to cause harm to my body.

Maybe.

Fuck, who knew if the system was benevolent. Perhaps it had some dark sense of humor… so far, my body felt fine, though, so the working hypothesis was that this was somehow a good thing.

And what about the Gold Level Mana channels? How the fuck had that happened? Perhaps when I had that golden mana, it had done more to me than I had thought. Just a hunch, because of name-association - gold mana and gold channel… whatever. Not that it really mattered at this point. I mentally shrugged and decided that I really needed the rest, so I shut out all other noise from Ben and co. and drifted off into a deep sleep.

A few hours later, the early morning sun flooded the room with its warm, red light, and I stretched out my body, trying to savor the comforting feeling of the soft bed just for a few minutes longer.

Until I heard the loud snoring coming from my left, that is. Confused, I raised my head and rubbed my bleary eyes, only to see Sue resting on the armchair, legs, and arms splayed out in a rather unflattering way. Her head was bent backward, resting on the top of the backrest, mouth wide open and drool running down the side of her cheek.

I had to chuckle at the sight and fought hard to resist the temptation to throw something into her wide-open mouth. I managed. Barely.

After all, she had been sitting there, presumably guarding me all night long. Even if that sacrifice was slightly diminished by her drifting off into sleep herself.

Trying to limit the noise, I moved to the bathroom to brush teeth and relieve myself before sitting on the bed, stuffing myself with another sumptuous breakfast while looking at Sue.

She was a weird one, and I didn’t know what to think about her. Annoying as heck, but fiercely loyal. Cute as hell, but gross at other times. What do you make of someone like that? Was I attracted to her? Kind of, but not really. Especially because whenever my thoughts were going down that road, I either thought of Annie, or Sue did something that like totally pissed me off.

With a helpless shrug, I finally got up and left the room, not willing to sit around until Sue would wake up. I preferred doing my training by myself anyway so that I didn’t give in to the temptation to slowing down just for the company of others. I needed to focus on what I needed to do.

Terribly sore from the previous day’s exercise, I set out for a morning jog past the Holiday Inn to loosen up my stiff muscles and to scout the bikers a bit more. There was still the guard on top, but at the moment, a group of four bikers was lingering at the entrance area. Beyond that, I could spot movement behind a few of the windows, but all that told me was that some of the rooms were occupied. What I needed was some intel on empty rooms, so that I could perhaps try to get in there or a least use them as a safe space in case I managed to enter elsewhere.

When I noticed the guards looking at my direction, I decided to move on. I wasn’t ready yet to go in anyway, so there was no point pushing things too far.

Instead of going for more strength and speed exercises, I spent the morning working on agility drills and dexterity. I started off with simple dot drills, and, once I was tired of those, drew a hopscotch pattern on the street to work on my footwork.

I was in the middle of my fiftieth or so run-through when I suddenly heard Sue laughing.

“So that is where you are at! Playing a jumping game! And there I thought you are working out hard to build some muscle!”

“Fuck you, Sue!” I grumbled while finishing my set. “Care to join me in some parkour?”

“Parkour? What the hell is that? Something to do with a park?”

“Something like that, yeah,” I laughed.

“Well, I wasn’t ready for a romantic walk in the park with you… but sure. We already spent a night together, after all,” she chuckled.

“Yeah, thanks, by the way,” I said sincerely. “It wasn’t really necessary for you guys to rush over, but I appreciated waking up to your snoring.”

“What?” Sue shouted, mock-outraged. “Mister, a lady doesn’t snore!”

“I know!” I responded deadpan. “Which is why I wasn’t too surprised.”

“Hah, fuck you as well, Daniel! Next time I will just pour some water over your head when you pull a stunt like last night. What the fuck happened to you, anyway?”

“Well, not sure, something with the ladder, I think. I’ll find out at some point, I suppose.”

“Hmpf, fine, be cryptic. So anyway, are we going or what?”

With Sue looking on in apparent confusion, I quickly made out a sequence of cars, fences, a couple of mailboxes and garbage bins, and some other random obstacles that I could easily enough move together to build a challenging obstacle course.

But she understood the concept soon enough when I did a couple of practice runs. For the next few hours, we were running through the course, to the amusement and bewilderment of the people passing by. And I got it. Two adults, jumping like teenagers from trashcan to car and over some fences… that is not a sight one sees every day.

But I didn’t care, and neither did Sue. At first, she was a lot faster than me, but I could feel my body adjusting as we kept on running through the obstacles. Every few minutes, I took a break to stuff a cereal bar into myself or some half-mushed banana, and then continued with renewed enthusiasm. And slowly, but steadily, I gained on Sue. And she noticed it too.

At first, she just pushed herself harder, but eventually, I realized that there was a suspicious amount of wind blowing around us, always in my face, no matter which direction I turned while chasing after her.

Which, granted, was a good exercise too, but nonetheless annoyed the heck out of me.

“Stop cheating,” I finally shouted, when a particularly strong gust of wind blew dust into my face.

All I got in response was some pearly laughter as Sue finished the obstacle course once more well ahead of me.

When I finally came to the finish line, Sue was waiting with a big smile on her face. “If you can’t keep up, buster, you should stop racing!”

“I like you too, Sue,” I responded sarcastically before sitting down to eat another snack and guzzle a bottle of water. “So, tell me about magic.”

A sudden fierce gust blew some more dust into my face.

“What do you want to know?”

“Stop that shit,” I groused while spitting out some sand, before taking a long drink from another water bottle. “I want to learn a bit more about spells. Where do you get them from? And how do you actually learn them?”

“Well, you just go to Jak’lo… and buy them. And then, well, you go through the process of attunement they call it.”

“Jak’lo, that is this fire mage, right?”

“Yup, a real nut. But he knows his stuff. He even ended up on the ladder for this week, did you notice?”

“Yeah… so he’s at the Best Western?” I asked.

“Yup. Wanna go there? I’ll tag along if you don’t mind.”

I didn’t really want her along but wasn’t sure how to say that without offending her badly, so I just shrugged my shoulders and slowly made my way toward the Motel with her to see if I could find some interesting spells to add to my repertoire. For the last one and a half days, I had been focusing almost exclusively on the recovery of my physical stats, and I felt it was time to engage in some magical practice as well. Not that I didn’t need to do even more physical training… but there just wasn’t enough time to do it all.

And if I could buy spells instead of developing them from scratch… so much for the better. I had money after all, and I was lacking time.

When we walked into the lobby, I was stunned to see the crowd of people gathered there, waiting for their turn to approach a skinny looking guy, with brown, shoulder-length hair, olive skin, and piercing, somewhat manic-looking eyes. A long tattoo of a Japanese-style dragon stretched along his right arm from his wrist all the way up to his biceps. Its sinuous form almost seemed alive as Jak’lo flexed his arm muscles in obvious annoyance while looking at one of the members of the EFU that was standing in front of him.

“Do I look like a charity to you? Or perhaps Gundaran the Giver?” Jak’lo barked at the man on the other side of the table. “One gold is one gold and not eight silver. Either you have it, or you don’t. Stop wasting my time.”

“But,-“

“No ‘but.’ Piss off, bub!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You arrogant-,” the man slowly trailed off as he noticed the almost-smile spreading across Jak’lo’s face.

“Yes? You were saying?” Jak’lo encourage the man to finish his sentence, leaning forward almost eagerly.

All I could do was stare at the scene, utterly fascinated. That smile… it sent small shivers of fear down my spine, even though I was several yards away and not the target of the cheerful, yet oddly ominous expression.

And I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. All across the room, people involuntarily backed away a few steps, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

The target of Jak’lo’s ire paled, raised his hands, and said: “I’m sorry, I… I will come back next week then,” before turning around and leaving the lobby as quickly as possible while avoiding the eyes of the other people in the room.

---------------------------------------------

Jak’lo eyed the remaining people in the room with a sigh. Another fifteen hopefuls, at least. And according to his experience, half of them wouldn’t have enough money to get a spell, while the other half would dither around choosing a spell until he’d be ready to burn them just to get rid of them.

Why…? Why had Chad assigned this task to him? He should have put Deklajan in his place. Or Bree-Ann, or… really anyone but him. He’d much rather be out there burning something then be stuck in this stuffy room with all too many people. Perhaps…

Jak’lo surreptitiously activated Aura of Heliot and slowly fueled it with red mana. Immediately, tendrils of red mana began to radiate out from his body into the surrounding area and began to heat up the air. Jak’lo then activated a modified version of Heliod’s Shield to keep things temperate around his own body, while he watched with an amused smirk how the people around him began to fidget more and more, and wipe off the beads of sweat accumulating on their foreheads.

‘There, that should get them out of here rather quickly,’ he thought smugly, satisfied with his little scheme. And indeed, soon, people began to stumble out of the room with their clothes drenched in sweat. All the while, Jak’lo pretended to be studying a document in front of him, to discourage people from sticking around or, Xantis forbid, approach him.

Soon enough, there was only one young man and one woman left in the room. The woman he had seen before, Sue was her name as far as he recalled. But he had not seen the guy before. Moderate height, brown hair, some muscles, but not overly trained, from the looks of it. He wore functional wear, as the locals called that strange type of fiber, most of it dirty and soaked with sweat, but in good repair. The most striking feature was his eyes, which, noticeable even from a distance, seemed to change color. A rather odd phenomenon, to be sure, especially for such a non-magic and inept population as these locals.

As Jak’lo studied him, the man raised his head and stared right back, as if analyzing him as well. Which was a marked change to how the other locals interacted with him. By now, he had a reputation, and most people avoided making eye contact with him, which amused Jak’lo no end and was something he actively encouraged.

Not taking his eyes off the man, Jak’lo further amped the mana input into his aura, making it truly uncomfortable, perhaps even dangerous to be in the room. For a moment, the guy’s eyes turned a fascinating silver, and a thoughtful expression crossed his face.

And then, rather than starting to sweat worse, or leave, the guy almost began to relax. Jak’lo would have questioned the effect of his spell if it wasn’t for Sue looking like she was about to die of heatstroke. Did the man have some type of spell that protected him? But he had been selling spells from the beginning, and had a reasonably good idea of what everyone had in their repertoire… and he had never sold a simple heat protection spell before, of that he was sure. So, could it be…?

“Hey, you there!” Jak’lo shouted. “Come here!”

“Sue, why don’t you wait outside where it is a bit cooler,” the guy said to the gal and then slowly approached, with a guarded expression on his face.

As the fellow got closer, Jak’lo could see a sheen of sweat on his skin, but otherwise no visible sign of discomfort.

“How are you doing that?” Jak’lo asked suspiciously.

“Doing what?” the man asked with an innocent expression on his face.

Jak’lo glared at him. “You are resisting my spell. How?”

“Oh, you are casting a spell? I didn’t know…”

“Stop screwing around. You know a spell that allows you to resist heat. I want to know where you learned it. Are you from Randmere? The Mountain Alliance?”

Jak’lo poured mana into his left hand, ready to incinerate the fool on the spot if it turned out that it was indeed a spy. “Give me a reason not to burn you to crisps.”

“Fascinating,” the man said while staring at Jak’lo’s hand filled with mana. Intriguingly, his eyes had turned a silver color again, as he seemed to scrutinize the spell Jak’lo was about to let loose. “But, before you set everything on fire, let me explain.”

With a flick of his right hand, Jak’lo encouraged the guy to continue.

“I noticed that you were increasing the temperature, obviously, and I… have the limited ability to manipulate mana. So, I have been cobbling together a sort of protection.”

The man slid the back of his hand across his forehead and flicked off some sweat. “As you can see, my ability is indeed limited, so I am still suffering from the heat, just not nearly as much as everyone else.”

Jak’lo stared at the man, stunned for a moment. Mana manipulation. It had to be. That was a skill that was truly worth having. And to find that among the bunch of inept morons that seemed to populate this town was like a miracle.

But he wasn’t ready to trust his words so quickly. “Interesting… so then you can create a flame sphere on your hand as well?”

“Uhm, I am not sure. I haven’t tried that yet.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“Like right now? I kind of came here to buy a spell, not to create flaming spheres.”

“Humor me.”

“And if not?”

Jak’lo looked at his left hand and willed a ball of fire to turn visible. “What do you think?”

With a resigned frown, the man sat down on a chair and looked at his hand with some consternation. “Can you at least show me what it should look like?”

With an annoyed huff, Jak’lo extinguished the ball of fire and pulled forth red mana to shape it into a flame, hovering above his palm. Just as before, the man’s eyes turned oddly silver as he raptly watched what Jak’lo was doing. And then a look of intense concentration crossed his face, as he apparently attempted to replicate what he had seen.

The first minute passed, and nothing happened. Then another few minutes went by, and Jak’lo was getting impatient. It shouldn’t be that hard, right? He had mastered this within a day of obtaining external mana manipulation. And that had been the first thing he had tried, which obviously wasn’t the case for this man. But then, finally, a misshapen half-flame, half-spherical red construct flickered into place above the palm of the guy’s hand.

“Fascinating…,” Jak’lo whispered, oddly reassured by the imperfect result. He was quite confident that no spell would create something that ugly as a result. And a foreign agent, pretending to be a local… wouldn’t produce such a terrible construct either. Well, perhaps they would actually because it allowed them to claim to just having learned the skill… But he could inquire a bit later on the guy, asking some of the locals if they knew about him. Undoubtedly, that would uncover any machinations by a foreign faction.

And if it truly was a local… finally someone worthwhile dealing with. All those morons that just purchased spells and crammed them into their tiny, stupid brains never really thought about the beauty of magic, its power and limitations, and how to adjust it to one’s needs, how to truly master it. And as a result, all of them would forever be mired in pitiful mediocrity.

-----------------------------------------

Well, shit. That gleam in Jak’lo’s eyes was worrisome. What had I gotten myself into? At first, I had just wanted to keep myself a bit more comfortable, a perfectly reasonable thing to do given the random bullying by Jak’lo. I hadn’t really expected everyone else to give up so quickly, though, and then, worse had not left with them.

I didn’t want to stick out in any way, but on the other hand, I didn’t fancy the idea of coming back another day only to have the same thing repeat itself. Sue had already told me on the way that Jak’lo had a somewhat volatile personality and could be set off by small things. And it was an almost daily occurrence that he set something, or even someone, on fire. And I needed to get more powerful quickly, and spells seemed an easy way to achieve that goal.

So I had stayed.

And then it was too late, and I had to somehow explain myself. Not that revealing my mana manipulation skills were such a big thing. At least, that is what I had thought until I saw Jak’lo’s expression. Perhaps I had to revise my opinion on that…

But perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing after all, because I really needed knowledge. And secrecy was good and all, but if it held me back too much, it could be detrimental as well.

From all I had heard and could see, Jak’lo was truly adept at fire magic. The ease with which he cast his spells, the speed, as well as the fine control he exhibited, had left quite the impression on me. And in contrast to the others that I had observed using mana around town, Jak’lo’s spells had an… improvised component to them that I hadn’t noticed anywhere else. It was as if he was able to modify spells to some degree, or perhaps enhance them.

I wasn’t sure yet if that was true, but if so… I wanted it.

“So,…spells?” I asked tentatively, as Jak’lo stared at me as someone might stare at a fascinating insect.

“Oh, yes,… do you have at least one gold?” Jak’lo asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I do,” I responded, briefly flashing three gold pieces and some silver.

“Good, good… follow me,” Jak’lo mumbled while almost dragging me into a little office space behind his desk.

There, arrayed on shelves all around the room were hundreds of little boxes with runic inscriptions on them.

“So, let’s see,” Jak’lo muttered. “Red mana spells, obviously, something interesting… perhaps Rognar’s Firestorm? Or Meteor Shower? Or Heliod’s Wrath… oh, I like that one…”

“Uhm, Jak’lo?” I asked, eager to get my hands on my first spell, but not sure if Jak’lo was going in the right direction.

“Yes?” Jak’lo asked distractedly, while he was searching through the shelves on the right side of the room, pulling out boxes to briefly scan the runes inscribed on top, only to push them back with obvious disdain - apart from the small, yet growing pile of boxes that had met with his approval.

“I… I really just want a simple spell for now... something to try this out.”

“A simple spell?” Jak’lo almost sounded outraged. “Why, by Xantis, would you want a simple spell? Are you a moron? And what do you mean by trying out? Are you daft?”

“Well, trying out… because I have never learned a spell in this way… !?”

Jak’lo whirled around, staring at my face in obvious surprise. “What? What an outrageous claim… so tell me, how did you learn your spells then?”

“Well… to be honest, I only have one spell… I can heat stuff that I touch!”

Jak’lo stared at me for a moment, before starting to guffaw.

“What would you do with that kind of spell? It is completely and utterly useless! Every time you use that, you’d burn yourself!”

“Well, I guess… I am not sure how, but it doesn’t really burn me.”

“Hah, you see? That is already a second-degree spell. Two effects combined. Not so simple after all. And the runes involved… well, there is no force there, but thermal power in two directions, combined in…”

I leaned forward, trying to capture the rest of what he was saying, but Jak’lo’s mumbling became too quiet for me to make out what he was talking about. But the few things I had heard made me almost unreasonably excited. It almost sounded as if there was a system of concepts from physics, or at least a close equivalent to that, which made up the composition of spells. I had been somewhat aware of that, obviously, from my tinkering with magic, but to hear it spelled out was big news. Same with the degree, or level, of the spell being determined by the number of different components that went into the spell. So did that mean…

“So, Jak’lo, a fireball spell, would that be three effects combined? Thermal, a force for shooting, and another force for the explosion?”

“Hah, close. Seems like you are not as stupid as you look! Excellent deduction! You might even have some potential beyond your mana manipulation skills.”

“Thank you,” I said dryly, but couldn’t stop myself from cracking a smile. Despite the condescending and even insulting tone, Jak’lo’s excitement was almost infectious.

“So…? Maybe I should try something not too complex anyway? How about a fireball then?”

“So mundane…” Jak’lo grumbled while going back to the shelve to grab a spell that he had previously discarded. “Everyone wants a fireball for some reason. It really isn’t the best spell out there, but it is flashy, I suppose.”

Greedily, I looked at the box with the spell.

Finally!