– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 214, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 44 –

“Brynn suggested something new,” said Samuel.

“Oh? Has Auntie relented?” Terry was immediately all ears. ”Can I give the blood or dream paths of the lower system a shot?”

“Not a chance. Not for now, at least.”

“Mhmh, then what?”

“New conjecture. Maybe your oscillating mana is not an entirely distinct phenomenon after all. Brynn thought that perhaps it is worthwhile to posit that oscillating mana is just another form of aspected mana. I concur that it is worth considering.”

“But… Doesn’t aspected mana involve, you know, an aspect? I have never heard of an oscillating aspect before.”

“Neither have we.”

“So how exactly does that help us pick new spells to try?”

“Well, there can be minor and major aspects. Mana can be aspected to fire in general, as with Olgorn or Bjorln, but there are also minor or intersection aspects like hellfire or coldfire. We intend to treat oscillating mana as something like a minor aspect to an undocumented major aspect.”

“So what is the major aspect supposed to be?”

“For now, we have come up with: movement.”

“Heh, okay, I see. Fire-aspected mana burns. Oscillating mana moves. Sounds possible, I guess. Nevertheless, if there really is a major aspect related to movement, how come no one has figured that out yet?”

Samuel shrugged. “Lack of an identifiable pattern, perhaps? I mean, what kind of spell does not include movement of some sort? Where would you even begin to draw the line?”

“Good question. How are we going to draw it, then?”

“Fortunately, we do not need to invent a perfect classification as we do not aim to publish a new thesis on magic. For now, we can stick with the obvious candidates and continue from there. We will start with Haste, Flicker, and Slow Creature.”

“Sounds good to me. If nothing else, I will at least learn new spell structures to use in the quizzes.”

About a cycle ago, Terry started helping out with some of the Guardian classes. While Terry still had never been able to cast a spell, he was by now very familiar with a broad range of spell structures.

Additionally, Terry had the mana sense and mana control to match. He was perfectly capable of demonstrating the spell structures, or helping others correct theirs. Terry could also provide trainees with detection challenges in which Terry would shape a spell structure and the participants had to try and recognize the intended spell as quickly as possible.

Terry’s help freed up a proper spell flinger for other classes with a heavier focus on the later spellwork stages or on practical casting in combat. The additional contribution points could be exchanged for mana coins and provided a welcome supplement to Terry’s equipment budget.

***

Terry was walking next to Florine and Jorgen. The three of them had grown up noticeably during the past three cycles. They looked healthy, sturdy, and taller.

The twins’ faces were finally catching up with their facial hair. Consequently, they looked a lot more mature. They did not give off as much of an oddly contradictory impression anymore.

Lori still kept her sideburns smooth, but now the rest of her hair was braided tightly around her head.

Jorg on the other hand was recovering from his mohawk experiment. The intense sunshine of the Setting Sun had quickly killed off his initial enthusiasm for the hairstyle. After his second bad sunburn, Isille insisted he wore a hat and Lori took some pleasure in reminding her brother.

Terry was happy with his hair kept short, but a bit envious of Jorg’s bushy beard. To Terry’s dismay, proper facial hair seemed about as distant a dream as casting a spell.

The three were coming back from window shopping in the southern merchant quarter. They were on their way to the dimensional gate leading towards the city centre.

“To think I got excited about them having a sale,” grumbled Jorg.

“I mean, what did you expect?” asked Terry.

“Yeah, exactly how much did you think they would reduce their prices?” added Lori.

“Who said anything about thinking?” retorted Jorg. “I was hoping. A dwarf can dream.”

“‘Baseless hopes will only set you up for disappointment,’” recounted Terry. “‘Achieving your desires requires persistent efforts.’”

“Stop quoting Pa,” complained Jorgen. “One of him is quite enough, thank you.”

Lori giggled happily.

Terry shrugged, “You could have afforded the self-cleaning knife. Would be useful during hunting missions.”

“Boooring. I wanted the glove with the imprinted Fireball spell.”

“Seriously?” questioned Lori incredulously. “We are still on non-magical beasts. We have only recently been advanced to bear hunting missions. Don’t you think fireballs should be reserved for mana corrupted creatures and stuff?”

“Particularly creatures that do not live in forests, Jorg,” rebuked Terry.

“Nenenenenene,” retorted Jorgen eloquently and then stuck out his tongue.

“We could lend you some coins for the Blinding Flash fingerless glove if it makes you feel any better,” said Lori.

“Hmm, nah. That glove was in the apprentice pile, which means the imprint is probably too fuzzy for me to activate it efficiently. Also…” Jorg reached up and slapped Terry on the shoulder. “I noticed Terry eying it and one should be enough for our group.”

“Also saves you the coins, doesn’t it?” remarked Terry with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh good, you’re catching on,” exclaimed Jorg and grinned back at Terry. ”It is always comforting to be understood.”

Then Jorg raised his hand to Terry’s eyebrow and pretended to pinch it with his thumb and index finger. “Now put that thing down, it makes me uncomfortable. There we go. That’s better.”

Terry chuckled and shook his head…

The three had reached the dimensional gate and could already see the blurry surface displaying the happenings in the city centre. After a few more steps, they were right in the middle of it. In order to cross to the northern quarters, they had to traverse the centre south to north. They took the western route, which would have them first pass the Academy grounds and later the Council Plaza.

“Isn’t that the flunkie?”

Terry and the twins were still discussing mana-crafted equipment when a pair of teenage Academy students stepped in their way. One was a reluctant looking girl with curly blond hair that seemed somewhat familiar, but Terry could not recall if they had met before. The other was a boy that looked upset about something.

“Hey dropout,” the boy looked at Terry. “What gives you the right to wear the Academy’s insignia on your bag?”

Terry looked to the bag at his left side. He was still carrying the bag gifted to him by the Academy after having passed the entrance exams. It was a good bag – durable, practical enchantments, and adjustable straps.

What ‘right’? It’s mine, isn’t it?

Terry was about to answer when he was stopped by an impressive reverberating burp from his right side. There stood Lori with a disinterested expression.

After a momentary pause, more sounds rang from Terry’s left. “Blblblbllblbl klechh bllblblbl” Jorg was moving his gaze along the buildings while forcing air through his closed lips. Every five or so seconds he would switch to puffing up his cheeks and squeezing the air out through his teeth.

“What’s wrong with him?” demanded the Academy youth.

Terry kept his head down in order to hide his grin. After he had regained his composure, Terry started looking around the ground as if he had lost something and was desperately trying to find it.

*Plop* Lori sat down and started to examine the sole of her boot. Then, she started sniffing her boot with a quizzical expression.

Afterwards, Jorg jolted with wide eyes as if he had remembered something very important. He raised his gaze towards the heavens, put his right fist at his left breast, and started to whistle the Anthem of Arcana. His interpretation was more characterized by passion than by tone accuracy.

A small crowd had gathered. This circumstance intensified the Academy girl’s discomfort. It did not take long before she pulled the stumped boy away to leave.

Once there was a distance between them and Terry’s group, Jorg stopped whistling and wrinkled his nose. Lori stood back up and slapped the dirt from her butt.

“What a weirdo!” exclaimed Lori aghast.

“I know, right? Leaving in the middle of a conversation. How rude!” Jorg sounded offended.

“Unbelievable.” Terry shook his head in mock exasperation.

The three guffawed and continued on their way.

***

In the evening, the family split up into groups to follow their usual after dinner activities.

Brynn guided Lori in her current spellwork – Lori was practicing the Earth’s Nourishment spell. The spell allowed a target to recover health as long as their skin was making contact with a patch of grass or other life-providing earth.

Next to them, Samuel was instructing an intensely focused Jorg. The dwarven youth was displaying a level of attention and discipline towards the spellwork that was totally out of character.

Recently, Jorgen had been pestering his parents for permission to advance their hunting missions to mana corrupted creatures. In contrast to all his previous pestering, Isille had acceded. However, she had stated some conditions.

Lori had to completely master the Earth’s Nourishment spell. In addition she needed to increase her spell control for the Raise Wall and Liquify Earth spells so that the casting time was no more than two seconds. Lori had already succeeded in raising her spell control and was getting close to fulfilling the remaining condition. Nine out of ten times Lori would succeed in casting Earth’s Nourishment.

Jorg had to completely master one intermediate-level variant for each of the three fundamental healing spells: Cure Wounds, Cure Poison, and Heal. Furthermore, he had to achieve enough spell control to get the first two spells below half a minute casting time and Heal below one minute casting time. Jorgen had succeeded on Heal and Cure Poison, but it still took him longer than a minute to cast Cure Wounds without risking spell failure.

Last, there was Terry. Since they had not found any spell that Terry could cast yet, Isille gave him a condition for his mana cultivation instead.

All three youths had mastered the balance stage and were steadily increasing their rate of mana consumption. As of now, they were still solidifying their experience with incorporating mana-crafted items.

Terry had an advantage thanks to his aptitude in mana control. Therefore, he was expected to master this stage completely. Additionally, he had to embark on the beginning of the burst stage.

The house was not really suitable for training the burst stage, but Terry used the after dinner time to improve his use of mana-crafted items. He was either sparring unarmed with Bjorln or using dummy weapons with Isille.

At the training grounds, Terry and the twins would mostly train in specifically prepared rooms and with proper mana-crafted items. Here, however, Terry was wearing five practice items at his body – one at the chest and one at each limb. The devices did not do anything except glow softly if they had been activated correctly. They also came with different charge levels and different degrees of activation fuzziness. These were meant to simulate different spell imprint levels and mana crafting quality.

Bjorln and Isille would tell him to activate or deactivate a certain item during their spar and Terry had to decrease his reaction delay as much as possible without failing any activation or becoming too distracted to keep up the spar. After more than an hour of this, they stopped the sparring session.

Next, Brynn had Jorg join up with Lori so that Samuel would be free to test a new spell with Terry. After Terry had washed off the sweat and cleaned himself up, he joined Samuel in the small bureau next to the living room.

“Today, I have an odd one from the outer system for you.”

Terry looked curious. “Odd how?”

“For one thing it is sometimes categorized as an expert-level spell and sometimes as a master-level spell. Going simply by structure, it should be an expert-level spell, but apparently there has never been anyone capable of casting it with only expert-level mana control. That peculiarity makes the spell stand out.”

Terry puckered his lips and raised an eyebrow. “Since when am I at ‘master-level’ mana control?”

“You are not, but you are also not too far off. It should suffice to test far enough into the priming.”

Terry relaxed his expression again. “So what is the spell?”

“Immovable Object – a spell used to anchor an object in place wherever it is.”

Terry immediately recovered his previous expression. “Isn’t that kind of the opposite of what we were looking for with the movement aspect?”

“You could say that, but we also aren’t completely sure what we are looking for, are we? Also, do you know the difference between expert-level and master-level spell structures?”

Terry furrowed his brow. “Not really. Never thought about that before.”

“Complexity aside, the main difference is movement. Master level structures are not stationary. Therefore a mage needs to be capable of rebalancing parts of the structure.”

“Huh. Anyway, can’t hurt to try, can it? Can’t fail any harder than with the other spells, can I?” Terry chuckled.

“Here,” Samuel took up two pens and handed one to Terry.

“Look closely.” Samuel harvested mana and proceeded to shape the required spell structure.

Terry activated his mana sense and was stunned for a moment by the complex structure. Terry had shaped expert-level spells before, true, but not that many. After taking a deep breath, Terry started his own shaping.

It took Terry around an hour and a dozen correction instructions from Samuel before he had the shape down for the first time.

“Very good. Create the primer right here.” Samuel added the primer to his own shape.

Terry did the same.

“Now pay attention to the priming path.” Samuel moved the primer along his spell structure.

After Samuel was done, he ignited the spell structure. The pen that was in his hand before was now fixed in place right in the air.

“Your turn.”

Terry attempted the priming. Unexpectedly, the primer moved a lot quicker than normal – as if it was sucked through the structure on its own. Caught off guard, Terry lost control and the structure dispersed.

Despite the all-too-familiar sting in his casting hand, Terry’s face did not display disappointment. Instead, there was only shock. The primer made it all the way to the end of the first slope. This spell felt different somehow.

“I…”

“Wait a moment.” Samuel stood up and went for the door. “Brynn? Could you please join us?”

“Of course, excuse me, you two.”

Terry was still looking dazedly at his hand.

Samuel clapped his hands twice to jolt Terry out of his daze. “Another try?”

Terry nodded without speaking.

Harvesting? Check.

Shaping? Check.

Terry took two deep breaths. Priming?

The primer moved. Again, it was way quicker than Terry expected, but this time he was prepared for it and did not lose control. Again, the structure eventually dispersed, but…

Terry’s eyes reddened and his lower lip started to tremble. He had actually reached the second slope. For the first time in his life, Terry managed to move the primer past the first slope.

His tears caused snot to accumulate in Terry’s nostrils, which made it harder for him to breathe and brought him back to reality. Immediately, he felt embarrassed.

“Sorry. I am getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? It still failed, after all.”

“Brynn?” Samuel gave her a serious look.

Brynn was pensive. “I… do not believe you are.”

Now, Terry forgot to breathe altogether.

“Did you feel a tug at your mana primer? As if it was moving somewhat of its own volition?”

Terry nodded slightly. He did not know where to look.

Brynn gave a wide smile and this inspired a deep sigh of relief from Samuel.

“That tug is a sign of being aspect gifted. On the rare occasions when I am using spells of the air aspect, I feel the same.”

Brynn paused and moved to catch Terry’s eyes. ”You cannot be gifted and impaired in the same aspect, which means that…”

Terry gulped.

“Good news is that this should be your spell,” said Samuel. “Bad news is that we have already ruled out the spells categorized in close proximity to it. You may be a pure aspect savant and it may be your only spell.” Samuel looked intently at Terry.

After Terry’s brain caught up with what was said, Terry gave a smile with a half-opened mouth and shook his head.

“I don’t care. It’s a spell. A spell. I can finally…” Tears ran down Terry’s face and he bit his lip.

Samuel nodded. “Good, then let us finish this properly. Brynn?”

“I will contact Ser. He should be able to cover your morning class.”

“Thanks, Whaka.”

Brynn went into the living room. Lori and Jorg caught a glimpse of Terry through the door.

“Is Terry alright?” “Can we do something?”

Brynn gave the two worried teenagers a warm smile before fetching Isille and Bjorln in order to explain the situation. She would be out for a bit, but would be back shortly.

“We may have to impose on you for the night,” said Samuel.

“Of course, Whaka,” replied Isille with a nod.

“I’ll prepare some midnight cake then,” stated Bjorln. Afterwards, he pointed at the twins. “If you want to stay up as well, then you will help me.”

The twins stayed silent, but nodded and followed their father into the kitchen.

The rest of the evening and night felt like a dream to Terry. Afterwards, he vaguely remembered worried faces trying to talk to him or handing him cake, but he could not recall any details – not up to four in the morning.

The sun was about to rise and Terry was moving the primer towards the last slope of the spell structure. He did not remember how many attempts he had made. He did not know how far he got before. All of his mind was filled with that glowing dot moving forward.

The primer reached the start again and finished a complete cycle. The whole structure now emitted a brighter glow than before and the primer continued moving on its own.

Terry became short of breath.

“Steady now.” Samuel’s voice brought Terry back to focus. “On my signal, ignite the primer.”

Terry stopped blinking and clenched his teeth. His eyes followed every one of the primer’s movements. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears.

“Now!”

Terry ignited the primer. Afterwards, there was a pen floating in midair and casting a shadow below.

Terry let out a breath. His vision was growing blurry and he sat there open mouthed, exhausted, dazed, but somehow feeling lighter than ever before.

One moment later, there were two small bodies hugging him from impossible angles. Terry was still sitting on a chair, which made the hugging a bit challenging and awkward. Jorg’s beard got in Terry’s eye. Lori’s sideburns really tickled, but Terry did not mind. Not at all.

“Congratulations, little one!” Bjorln grinned. He had his arm around Isille who stood next to him with tears in her eyes.

After Terry realized what had happened, he stood up. He walked to Brynn and gave her a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered in a barely audible voice.

He turned to Samuel and moved a step towards him. Terry hesitated. With Brynn he had exchanged hugs before, but…

“Congratulations!” exclaimed Samuel and put his hand on Terry’s shoulder. “Well done.”

Terry moved in to hug Samuel as well. “Thank you…”

“My pleasure, Terry. Forget the spell for a moment. You have improved so much since I first met you. Take time to reflect on how far you have come. My students rarely inspire me with pride, but please know that I am proud of you.” Samuel patted Terry’s back.

“Thank you,” mumbled Terry before adding, “Whaka.”

Samuel paused momentarily and smiled warmly.

“Nama. You honor me, Whaka Terry, but as a child of the Rising Moon you won’t finish your eighteenth cycle before the next season.”

Terry let go and shook his head. “I don’t care.”

He turned around and looked at everyone, before addressing them all in a firm voice.

“Whaka. Thank you. All of you. Thank you so much. Nama.”

Now, even Bjorln teared up a bit.

“Nama, Whaka Terry,” started Isille, “However, Samuel is right. We of the older generation are acting of our own volition. You have no obligation towards us and you should take your time—”

“Ah puff poodle,” interrupted Lori. “Whaka Terry!” She darted forward to hug Terry again.

“Right! I’ll have you know we are precocious and very mature for our age!” claimed Jorgen before adding himself to the hug. “Wait up, Whaka Terry.”

Terry felt that Jorg’s rather dubious claim might sabotage the formation of his own accepted family, but he could not help but laugh happily.

***

On the following day, Isille and Bjorln let the youths sleep in.

When Terry awoke, he immediately sat down to cast Immovable Object to prove to himself that he had not hallucinated the previous events. On his seventh try, he succeeded.

Finally.

Terry practically skipped all the way to the breakfast table – or rather the lunch table considering it was already past noon.

Terry entered the living room and he was immediately greeted by the twins beaming and waving at him while stuffing their mouths with all the food within their reach.

Terry was about to sit down at the table when there was a knock at the house door. Bjorln opened and let Brynn in.

“Oh good, you are already awake. I have something for you, Terry.”

After exchanging greetings, Terry stood in front of Brynn. Jorg and Lori accompanied him with curiosity and continued to munch on their food.

“Here, this is from me.”

Terry received a thin cloth-wrapped something. He removed the cloth to find even more cloth, but this time it was surrounded with a wire and with an opening like a pocket.

“I personally prefer them as rings or other jewelry, but I figure a proper mana cultivator would not want to risk punching their storage into pieces.”

Realization dawned on Terry and he stared with mouth agape.

“You can sew this one into your normal clothes or attach it behind an armor piece. It has two modes: open and closed. When closed, you have to put your hand into the pocket opening in order to put items in or take them out. When open, you only need to be close enough, but mind that this also makes it easier for pickpockets. It’s cloaked, but there are still ways to discover it.”

“Holy mana!” exclaimed Lori. “A dimensional storage bag!”

“Thank you! But this is… I—” Terry knew roughly how expensive dimensional storage items were and this one seemed of high quality.

“But nothing!” interrupted Brynn. She smiled warmly at Terry. ”You have earned it. I would also suggest that you pair up a locating device with it.”

“Uhh, Auntie Brynn?” started Jorg. “Can we also ‘earn’ one?”

Brynn considered it for a moment before answering. “Sure, construct work pays well.”

Jorg was about to jump in happiness.

“If either one of you learns an expert-level spell, you will get one, too.”

Just like that, Jorg’s hope and happiness were crushed.

Jorg looked at Terry and said. “You’ll have to act as our mule for quite some time then.”

Brynn snorted and added cheerfully, “Hmm, I will talk to your ma if she can think of some alternative conditions. Long-term you are going to need storage items. I suggest you work hard and put her in a good mood.”

Afterwards, Brynn turned back to Terry.

“This one is from Samuel. He would have liked to give it to you in person, but he has to teach the class of instructor Ser right now.”

Brynn handed over a rectangular package wrapped in white paper. Terry unwrapped it to find three books and a box.

The first was a notebook filled with what appeared to be extracts from other books copied with the Copy Pages spell. All sections were talking about the Immovable Object spell. Each section had a note in Samuel’s handwriting indicating the source text.

More learning – as expected. Terry smiled.

The second book was a very familiar tome: the Path of a Mage. Terry spaced out for a few seconds.

“Really?” mumbled Terry.

“Shh! Don’t question it! Awesome!” “More chapters! Wait, ALL chapters!”

The twins were sharing the excitement for this one and a few crumbs escaped from Jorg’s mouth to make their way to the floor.

The last book was tied to the box.

“Open the box first,” instructed Brynn.

Inside the box, there seemed to be a collection of specifically sized samples of various materials like metals or crystals.

Terry was stumped.

“Now the book,” said Brynn.

It was a mostly empty notebook. Only the first page had a note in Samuel’s handwriting.

Add your own insights to the collection! Create your own path to follow!

***