Chapter 3: Mana Sense

Owen trudged alongside Azure, the strap from the broken armor plate already digging into his shoulder. They’d been walking for about an hour now, with few to no words exchanged between them. He figured that would be for the better, since that gave him time to process everything that had happened thus far. Which was a lot.

He’d quickly realized that the breastplate’s straps could be tied over his shoulder and across his chest, letting the armor hang off his back. Then, he just tied the tunics of the dead to the armor piece. That left his hands free and his mind focused on the path before and behind him.

He still hadn’t processed everything yet-- in only a few moments, he’d experienced more death than every other instance of his life combined up until that point. Except for when he specifically died himself, but that was a whole different problem to wrap his head around.

But processing the wyvern, the death, the mention of guilds, and the very existence of magic, he came to a very simple conclusion: he needed to learn as much as humanly possible to avoid dying again.

In his previous life, he’d been forced to drop out of high school at sixteen to go work at his Uncle Joe’s car shop. With his dad dead, and his mom high pretty much 24/7, that had left caring for his siblings to him. That, or he’d risk losing them altogether.

Now that he thought on it, he grimaced. There was no way his mom would keep social services from taking them now. Hell, whenever they’d come sniffing around, it had been Owen’s efforts that had kept them at bay. But now?

He shook the thought from his head. He needed to focus on the problems at hand, not the issues he could no longer control.

He’d always been good at that. Compartmentalizing his problems, tackling one at a time. Fixing what he could, and looking for solutions to what he couldn’t. Even with his job at Joe’s, he knew that he needed to be constantly growing. So, he’d spent his nights in his van after putting his brothers and sister to bed, surfing the internet and learning everything he possibly could. While he’d known a lot about cars already thanks to his dad, he taught himself construction, computer maintenance and repair, and more. He’d even dabbled in programming.

His plan was that once his siblings had graduated high school, he’d finally go to college. Well, that wasn’t happening now. But all that meant is that he needed to restructure his focus. He didn’t have the internet here (or at least, he assumed he didn’t), but he could still learn all there was to know as fast as possible.

And the beginning of that process lay in the brown gemstone embedded in his forearm. He hadn’t touched it since that first experience perusing the menus. But now that he had time, walking in relative quiet…

Without missing a step, he raised his left hand in front of his face and tapped on his brown stone. It read:

EXP: MP:

Owen Westward

Level 2 +

XP: 94/282

MP: 1/1

Class: None

Stats

Skills

Okay, that was interesting. He’d already reached Level 2, and what’s more, his XP bar was already a quarter full. But even more exciting, he had MP! It was only 1, but at least it wasn’t zero anymore! He even had a little bar for it now!

Surging with excitement, he tapped on the Skills option to see what it contained. A new menu popped open, reading:

Skill Name

Skill Type

Mana Drain

Engineering Vision Lv. 1

Continuous

0

Mana Sense Lv. 1

Continuous

1/s

He had two skills. Now that he thought on it, the skills menu had been available back when he’d first entered this world. Guessing by the mana drain of the individual skills, he probably already had Engineering Vision when he was level 1. Which meant that he must have only just learned Mana Sense.

He clicked on the mana sense skill, and yet another window opened for him.

Mana Sense

Detects the mana of nearby living beings and objects.

Press Palm against Sigil to use Mana Sense.

Well, the explanation was a bit redundant. Though, he was curious to note that it mentioned he could detect the mana of both living beings and objects. He wasn’t entirely sure what that encapsulated, but it was fairly obvious how to find out.

His throat tightening with giddy anticipation, Owen pressed the palm of his hand against the Mana Sense Sigil, just like how he’d seen Azure do it before. He did remember that she’d actually drawn her spell in the air, but otherwise, this seemed exactly the same.

The moment his palm pressed against the symbol on the screen, it glowed a bright white in the air in front of him, and the rest of the menu disappeared. Only a split-second later, it too disappeared.

A strange sensation coursed through Owen. It almost felt like a sense of power-- one he hadn’t even known was there-- swelled from within his chest. That energy flowed from his heart and up his spine with a strong tingling sensation, the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. That energy went straight into his eyes, and the precise moment it did, Owen’s world changed.

The sky turned black, and the world around him filled with light. Most prominent was a great flare of bright red energy coming off of Azure. It contrasted with her golden hair with its flecks of blue, and seemed to be cut through by her ice-blue eyes. The red scales on her upper cheeks seemed to give off their own little individual puffs of red mana as well.

She looked like a goddess.

Then, as quickly as the vision came, it disappeared, the world returning its normal color. Owen suddenly felt queasy on his feet, and unable to keep balance, he fell to his knees, staring blankly up at Azure. He felt somehow empty, like he’d been drained of all his energy.

“Owen, what’s wrong?” said Azure, worry seeping into her voice. She knelt over him, her eyes wide with concern, and grabbed hold of his wrist. Absently, Owen noted that her touch was incredibly soft.

She pressed his brown gemstone, and a menu popped up in front of her face. She scanned the contents of the screen, the golden text reflecting in her eyes. “What the hell?” she breathed. “How in the sweet, holy name of Isthu do you only have a mana capacity of 1?”

“You can look at my menu?” said Owen, only mildly surprised.

“Of course I can.”

“So, do you have one of these fancy gemstones too?”

She gave him a narrow look. And after seeming to consider her response for a moment, she closed his menu and pulled up the sleeve of her tunic, revealing a corresponding stone embedded in the inside of her left forearm. Unlike his, however, her gemstone was a series of distinct smaller gems, with seven tiny crimson rhombuses surrounding a circular center like petals on a flower.

“Everyone has a Mana Stone in their arm,” she said with a furrowed brow. “The fact that you don’t know that… Owen, did you hit your head or something before we met?”

So, her first thought wasn’t that he’d come from another world, which likely meant it wasn’t a common occurrence. That was good to know. Giving up on trying to maintain any semblance of dignity, Owen collapsed onto his rump.

“It’s a long story,” said Owen, “but the short version of it is that I have no clue where I am, how I obtained a-- you called it a Mana Stone, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that. And, I’ve no idea how to use magic or how it works at all.”

Her expression became one of exasperation, her jaw hanging a little. “You just tried using magic without knowing how it works?!”

Owen felt a bit bashful, his cheeks heating a bit. “That would appear to be the case.”

Azure’s look of exasperation turned into a laugh. She closed her eyes, cupping her forehead with her hand. As she did, Owen noticed that her teeth-- which were pearly white-- had oversized incisors, almost like--

Azure had fangs.

Owen had no frame of reference for how “normal” that was, but he knew one thing for certain: it looked freaking awesome!

When at last her laugh subsided, Azure said, “You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself.” Removing her hand from her face, she looked him in the eyes and asked, “What spell did you even use?”

“Um, I’m not so sure it was a spell per se, so much as a skill?” Owen said. “I used Mana Sense.”

Azure nodded. “Well, at least you chose something that has only a small chance of backfiring. Did it work, at least?”

“Actually, yeah. I didn’t notice much, though. It only lasted a second, but I saw-- I think it was your mana. It was this big, red cloud of energy around you. It looked… amazing.”

Owen thought he detected the slightest hint of flush in Azure’s cheeks, but it blended in too well with the smattering of scales beneath her eyes.

“Well, It’s good to hear that you were able to use it. Just be careful when casting Mana Sense. It doesn’t actually show you how much mana a person has. It’s more like it shows you how much mana is overflowing from their reservoir. A skilled mage can control that easily.”

That left a question practically hanging. “Can you do that?” said Owen.

Azure shook her head. “No, not yet. I’m only level 5. So, I’m still fresh, not unlike you.”

Now, that actually surprised Owen. “But you seemed so calm and confident earlier. I would not call that fresh.”

“I guess you really don’t know anything, after all,” Azure chuckled. She reached to the belt at her side and procured what Owen had to guess was a waterskin. “It’s pretty obvious that you used up all your mana. Doing that isn’t exactly dangerous, but it makes you pretty weak for a while. So, drink up.”

Owen unstoppered the waterskin and gave it a sniff. Actually, on second thought, it was actually a wineskin. “Is this supposed to help me get my mana back?” How awesome would that be, for alcohol to restore mana?

“No,” said Azure, “but it’ll take the edge off.”

“Right,” said Owen, taking a swig of the wine.

“Also, what’s your Mana Charge Rate?”

“Uh, let me check,” said Owen, restoppering the wineskin, popping open his menu, and navigating to the spot under Stats. “Yep, it still says 0.5/1.”

“Okay, that means you gain half a mana per hour,” said Azure. “Shit. That means it’ll take you two hours just to get back up to a single mana. We’ll see where you are in half an hour.”

“Are we that pressed for time?” said Owen.

Azure glanced up at the sky. “Yeah. Night falls in about five hours. If we aren’t within the city gates by then, we’re going to be in a lot of danger.”

That was right. She’d mentioned the need to make it to safety before nightfall. Almost not wanting to know the answer, Owen asked, “What exactly makes nighttime so dangerous?”

Azure looked him dead in the eye and said only a single word: “Demons.”

A shiver ran up Owen’s spine. They had that word back on Earth, but demons had only ever existed in stories. Hearing it now made him tense. There seemed to be so much weight in how she said it, like that single world held a thousand stories between its first and final letters.

Gritting his teeth, Owen forced himself to his feet. “We should be on our way, then.”

“You need rest,” said Azure, grabbing his arm.

“Will walking decrease the rate at which I regain mana?”

“No, but it’ll hurt like a bitch. And you’ll be feeling it for a week. It’s not worth it. Just rest for a while.”

Owen growled and plodded forward. “I don’t know what a demon is like, but I have absolutely no desire to find out. Set the pace. I’ll keep up.”