John’s time in the library of Nifriden was well spent, but he couldn’t sit around forever.

Nifriden gave him access to the library as was a way of giving him time to think about Recia’s story. To John, it seemed the Elf needed the time to contemplate as much as he did, if not more. The story may have been more visceral to the alchemist than he’d anticipated.

After these last few days, John hoped that they could finally begin looking into his magical abilities.

There was a restless feeling that accompanied his thoughts as of recently. The feeling that he could be making progress this very moment. Like being told instructions ad infinitum when all you want to do is dive right in.

‘No one ever got better at playing instruments by just thinking about practicing.’

That thought in his mind was what motivated the Human to venture into the laboratory of Nifriden. Hopefully, he was as excited as John.

The stairs did creak to some degree as he went down the steps. It was enough to alert the Elf to his presence. Apparently, he had caught him between tasks as he didn’t seem all too occupied with his experiments.

“Ah, John, to what do I owe the pleasure of your appearance?”

John reached the bottom of the stairs and meandered over to the workbench currently occupying some mixtures.

“I was hoping that I could enlist your help, bud. I’m pretty eager to finally learn about some real freaking magic!”

“Haha! I like your spirit! I have put some thought into your circumstances and I’m also quite eager.”

“In that case, where do we start?”

“I have my ideas, but first, I need to know what you did to get that skill. What process did you have to go through in the actual hell of all places to manifest such a thing?”

“Well, that’s a tale on its own…”

John went on to tell Nifriden of some of his struggles in his torment. How he felt the ambient energy that he now knew to be mana. How he formed his mana core in his soul. How he found runes upon inspecting it. Along with all the subsequent discoveries.

“Incredible…”

The Elf had a faraway look.

“I’ve truly never heard of such a thing, and you can’t feel the mana like you did before?”

“Nope, not a lick. I’m starting to think it’s because I have a body now. Maybe being a floating soul meant that mana was easier to connect to? Or hell had friendlier mana?”

“Possibly, but it looks like the only thing separating you from that is just your inability to connect to the mana. I think I just have to awaken you like I would any apprentice!”

“Awaken?”

“Oh, it’s a simple process really. Mana can be finicky to connect with you see…”

The Elf had paced over to one of many drawers in the basement. He rummaged around, looking for something.

“Ah, here we are! It used to be much younger to awaken people to mana, much more dangerous. Masters have large quantities of mana, and if too much is put into the awakenee… well, what happens when you force too much of anything into a container…”

Nifriden visibly shuddered at some memory of his.

“Let’s just say that far fewer people used to have access to their mana. Not many would take the risk.”

At that, he held up the rod he’d fished out of the notably disorganized drawer.

“With an awakening rod like this though, I can open a controlled channel into your ‘vessel’ as it were.”

It had a simple construction. Overall, a simple metal rod maybe the thickness of a pencil and a half, and about as long as one of the writing utensils were when new. There was only one noticeable adornment, a dark cap of differing metal sat at the end.

“Ok then, what do we have to do now? Do you stick on me or…?”

With speed unbecoming of his bookish appearance, Nifriden threw a knife that sung through the air. In a flash, the blade opened up a wound on John’s forearm.

“Oh shit! What the hell is wrong with you! You insane bastard!”

Walking over with a potion in one hand and rod in the other, the Elf held up a hand to interrupt John’s very natural reaction.

“I needed a wound to apply the rod to, it would have hurt far more if I told you beforehand. Blood is a much better conductor of mana, it why healing potions are usually red actually, many monster bloods are vital ingredients.”

He held up the red vial in his explanation.

John initially wanted to complain more but lost his zeal only managing a mumble.

“Still hurt like a bitch though…”

“This will hurt more, but don’t worry it won’t take too long. The potion will heal it right up afterwards anyway.”

Without further ado, the rod was poked into the open wound on John’s arm, to his wincing.

The pain was soon suppressed by a new feeling soon after.

Mana.

For the first time since being in hell, John felt mana course though him. The actions of Nifriden were like someone tapping a keg. It only needed to be done once, and access was much easier after that.

His mana pool didn’t feel like a physical thing. It was like his body had a spiritual ‘sack’ of some kind. The initial press of mana came from the Elf, it was controlled and focused like a nail piercing his ‘sack’.

After the initial piercing, the mana felt familiar. It ebbed and flowed like a tide, and it slowly began filling his mana reserves.

The sense was interesting to feel in conjunction with being in a body. He could even do his little ‘breathing’ technique alongside his actual breath pattern. The pool filled rapidly while he did so.

He only became aware of his surroundings once again when he reached his maximum. So focused he was, that he never noticed his wound healing to good as new, or the new sitting position of the Elf off to the side.

“H-how long was that?”

“Quite a while from the looks of it. You drained so much damn mana from the surroundings that you’re like a level three mage! No matter what you pursue in magic, you certainly have the potential to go far!

“A capacity like this at awakening while level 1? The kingdom would probably pay to train you as their own magus.”

“Forget about that, let’s do some freaking magic!”

He was jittery with excitement, the beginning of his journey was about to start, he just wasn’t sure how…

“Um, any ideas there bud?”

“Of course not! Its your skill, what would I know about it?”

Remembering the runes he had seen previously, a thought struck John.

“Cast a spell right now, whatever you want. I think I can copy it!”

“I highly doubt that, but here we go.”

The air in front of John shimmered slightly, the space then manifested runes in a rather simple pattern. One he could copy with his superior memory.

A bright light hovered in the air.

“This is magelight, think you can copy this?”

To say his tone was doubtful would sum it up pretty accurately.

“I think so…”

Focusing his returned sense of his own mana, he took the image he wanted to make in his mind, and he made it appear before him.

And appear it did.

There was no sound from the spell itself, but Nifriden was just as good of an audible indicator.

*Gasp*

“H-h-how!?”

The Elf looked to the perfect clone from John to the caster himself.

“That was a perfect cast on the FIRST! DAMN! TRY!!!”

John was very pleased with himself.

Nifriden asked another question even as his baffled expression should have translated to wordlessness.

“How much mana? What portion of your pool is gone?!”

“Oh, um, let me feel, just a sec.”

He delved into his mind and felt the pool of his mana to be fairly drained. Not too much, but twenty casts would nearly empty him.

“I could do that spell about twenty or twenty-five more times before it would take all my mana.”

“So much!?”

“Is something wrong.”

Bafflement on the alchemist’s face turned to a thinking scowl.

“A magelight cast shouldn’t have taken that much of your mana. Your method… I believe it must have some sort of added cost to be so perfect.

“Your cast, from what I could glean, was technically perfect. It shouldn’t have taken that much mana with the efficiency it would have possessed.”

‘And now the other shoe drops.’

“I guess it had to be too good to be true then.”

“Perhaps, but don’t underestimate the power of a perfectly formed spell, your method of ‘writing’ it is odd, but many mages would pay the price for such spells.

“And we still haven’t tried enchanting! I’m a little rusty myself, but I could give you an example to follow.”

That perked John up a little bit. There were a lot more applications of mana than just casting them out in space. What would the cost matter if it only needed the initial cast for use?

“Your right! Can we do it now?”

A short period of Elven chin-stroking followed the display of curiosity.

“We can, but it won’t be very good. I don’t have any prepared material for an object. It will be weak at best.

“I suppose it will have to do though. A block of wood will have to do for now.”

“Wait, what about materials? You need to do stuff beforehand?”

“Of course, rare woods need to be treated and cured for the best work. Different metals accept mana differently. Bone can be a good material but depends on the beast. They all impact how well the enchantment will hold.

“A good material is resistant to the enchantment fading over time. Additionally, they limit how complex and large they can be. It can be a very involved process just gathering materials for it!”

“Oh, is it expensive to get into?”

“Like you wouldn’t fathom!”

‘Guess it’s a good thing I’m freaking rich then. Though if its anything like Recia’s shopping trips… Crap.’

“Alright, it’s expensive, but I want to see what it looks like!”

Nifriden chuckled in the nature of old men watching a young man in his youthful excitement.

“Don’t be childish John, you’re much too smart for that.”

Despite his best effort to hold his blush down, the much older Elf caught a glance from his guffaw.

“Whatever, you old fart! Just do it already!”

“Careful who you call old, I don’t go out much because my good looks will make the young lady’s heart’s swoon. Being chased by a girl a fraction my age gets old!”

Despite his jokes, the Elf had already brought out his block of spare wood. It was no bigger than a boot, and roughly the same dimensions.

“Watch carefully now! I don’t have the patience to waste doing it again!”

So John watched, his attention fully focused on looking for runes.

The stream of mana was like the previous spell, but significantly more complex. If the magelight spell was a short two or three sentence paragraphs, then this was a six- or seven-page paper.

The runes defined things, parameters, what to execute, and in what order, like streams of code. He wasn’t particularly familiar with coding, but he’d heard his fair share of black-hat hackers talking shop, so he could at least liken it to what he remembered hearing about.

Using his intuitive sense of runes he cultivated while disembodied, John could actually make out the purpose of the script.

It was to make the block float when mana was put into it. It just sort of ‘clicked’ in his mind.

Sure enough, when Nifriden finished and poured his mana into the matrix it resisted the pull of gravity and rose steadily into the air.

“Cool…”

“Did you get that, John?”

“Hell, yeah I did! I fully understood that one.”

His internal thoughts were verbalized.

“If I get some more exposure to enchantments, then… Maybe I can create entirely new ones!”

The seed of potential he had been nurturing had finally cracked open and was taking root in his mind.

“Let me see if I can do it myself, got another block?”

The Elf waved lazily at a cabinet.

“Sure, help yourself.”

Now, with his own block of wood, he brought up the script he’d seen Nifriden make in his mind. Before he created it for real though, he wanted to tweak it a bit. Going off of feel, he made a few key changes to the gravity resisting script. Just some changes that would play with the direction it repulsed from.

After making sure the script he drafted in his mind was set, he cast the enchantment.

To explosive results.

*Crash* *Crunch* *Tink-tink*

The spell didn’t actually explode, in fact, it worked perfectly.

The block of wood lifted off the ground to a certain height, and then promptly rocketed into a cabinet on the far side of the laboratory. It collided with a crash of wood splinter and breaking glass.

Nifriden didn’t even seem upset at the sight either. Intense feelings of shock, yes. Anger at property damage, no.

“What was that?!”

The most recent of today’s shocks had already begun to wear off with the demand for answers. Perhaps he was getting more resistant to them, maybe even a skill? Who knows.

“I uh, just tweaked it, a little…”

*Whap*

A wrecked shelf lost its hold on the wall and hit the ground.

The Elf and the Human shared a look at the sight.

*HAHAHA—*

The two burst out into laughter. It wasn’t all that amusing, but they needed some catharsis from the shocks and surprises of the day.

When they had finally regained control over their amusement, Nifriden spoke first.

“John, after I’m done with you, there will be no enchanter on Cuerus that can measure up to you, I swear it on my reputation as a master of magical arts.”

“Oh-ho-ho, my pointy-eared friend! I believe you just might be right. The applications for my ability, they might be endless.”

Unbeknownst to the excited and understandably distracted duo, a silent jaw hung behind them.

Standing at the base of the stairs, Recia shook her head in disbelief. Every couture of the former storage space was traced by the Wolfkin’s eyes.

The two aspiring mad scientists finally caught sight of their observer.

Prompted by their looks, her next words were empty and despondent in the way of one who has seen too much out of their comfort zone.

“I have no idea how you two caused this, but I am not paid nearly enough to have to deal with this type of stuff.”

Her head tilted before it turned on Nifriden.

“Now that I think about it master, I don’t think you’ve paid me anything for taking care of your messes. Have you?”

The jovial attitude of the Elf faded as his chuckled became a helpless grin.

The whipped nature of his host was more than enough to send John into another fit of laughter, no sympathy for his benefactor at this moment.