Jarrax sat in his rocking chair with his blanket across his legs, closed his eyes, and rocked gently back and forth in front of the fireplace. I picked up the Tier 1 Magic Primar book and began to leaf through it before finding where I had left off. The book had Dream, Cloud, Lightning, Arcane, Metal, and Crystal spells at the back of the book.

“Sorry to disturb you, Jarrax, but are there other schools of magic outside the ones in this book?”

Without opening his eyes, he spoke. “Of course. That’s just a primer on the lower Mana required classes. A handful of classes require a degree more Mana per node in the construct and are generally not taught unless the user has the correct Class or has a Class with a higher Mana proficiency. Take Necromancy, for an example. The Tier 1 spell, Raise Skeleton, takes two hundred Mana per node, for a total of six hundred mana.

“That’s enough Mana to burn almost every new caster’s channels out.

“Then you have schools like Holy, Unholy, and Creation magic, to name a few, that takes even more Mana per node.”

“What kind of magic is Holy and Unholy? What does Holy mean, let alone the opposite of Holy? I assume Unholy is the opposite correct? I’m guessing Creation magic has something to do with creating something out of Mana without, say, earth for a wall of earth.”

“You would be correct, my boy. Creation Magic is one of the highest Mana-consuming schools out there. But, you have the Synergy Aether affinity. You may be one of the few casters out there who could use Creation Magic in the distant future.

“How is it you don’t understand the concept of Holy and Unholy? Didn’t you have gods or deities from where you come from?”

“Oh, we had what you would call gods or deities. The Blessed Elune looked over our forests. Oh! Is Holy like our Blessed? Then Unholy would best describe how the Drow viewed their deities, the Desecrated.”

“I would suppose that’s an apt comparison. Those schools of magic require a connection with a god or deity. They could change the required Mana to use their spells depending on their faith. They don’t have ranks or constructs like normal magic, but are given to the user by the god or deity like the Class users are given their skills.”

“How does one contact a god to get these spells?”

“You don’t. If they choose to bestow or make themselves known, they will show themselves in their own way.”

“Wait, so the gods and deities show themselves here? They have a physical form?”

“Yes, my boy. Did your gods not show themselves to you?”

“It was said they had eons ago. Recently, factions calling themselves atheists pushed to remove the forests once inhabiting Elune and her sisters. I’ve never had my prayers answered or seen one of our gods.”

“Most peculiar. There are hundreds of temples worldwide dedicated to one god or another. Most stories of seeing a god happen at or near these temples. We could spend weeks talking about them, so let's drop the subject and get back to your reading? Hmmm.”

I took the hint and began studying the diagram for Bolt, a Tier 1 Lightning spell. It was an irregular vertical line, the top node at the middle top and the middle to the top node's left. The bottom node was to the right of the top node. The intent for lighting I understood, and the spell clicked immediately.

The following school was Arcane, and it took some pushing on my part to get the intent correct. The construct was in an upside-down triangle, and the intent was described as amplification. I had to keep pushing my different intent into the nodes until I had used a simple mathematical formula, ‘x2,” in the nodes. The spell clicked and then vanished. I flipped to the next page and noticed a small note on the back of the Arcane’s construct.

Arcane is a school of magic like Aether and Chaos. It does nothing by itself, but adding another spell’s construct can amplify the spell at the cost of additional Mana. Arcane is used to push Tier 1 & 2 spells when the user doesn’t have the ability to reach higher ranks.

Interesting. I thought of my Tier 2 Ice Lance and laid the Rank 1 Arcane construct over it. The spell clicked a second time, and I summoned the lance above my hand. The Ice Lance was crystal clear, and upon inspection, the head was razer sharp and sported three blades instead of two. The entire handle had runic patterns going down it.

“Arcane and Ice? How much Mana?” asked Jarrax, staring at the ice pole.

I looked at my status and was surprised at how little it took. “A hundred and fifty. I assumed the Tier 2 spell would have cost a hundred with the Synergy Aether rune, so the Tier 1 Arcane constructed boosted it with fifty Mana. Is this a Tier 3 Ice Lance?”

“It looks like it. Remember, you damage anything in my house, and we’ll continue this next year.”

As I dismissed the Ice Lane, my chest burned. I expected to see my Ice branch change to blue leaves, but instead, a fifth branch was coming off the Aether tree.

“I didn’t get the update on Tier 3 Ice,” I said.”

“You won’t. Arcane isn’t a cheap way to jump ranks. It boosts your spells rank when cast. Seeing as you now have five of the six schools of magic for creation magic, you now just need Life, and your Aether tree will evolve once more. Life should have been towards the front of the book. Did you skip it?”

Well shit. I explained to Jarrax what had happened when I tried to cast Life magic before. He seemed let down but said there was a way around it if I hoarded my Perk Points and waited for an Affinity Gain perk. When I told him I had seen one for nine Perk Points before, he only shook his head.

“There are other ways to gain Affinities you don't have. Completing Dungeon levels can give Perk Points and sometimes Traits or Skills. There is a Life-based Farming Dungeon far to the north past the empire’s borders on a small island. It’s possible to earn contribution points with the Dungeon to gain the Life Affinity. Most just go around farming Dungeons for the first clear reward and wait for a perk with the Affinity they’re after.

“I wouldn’t try to cast the Dream spell. It’s close enough to Life that may give you a nice jolt in rejection.”

“Thank you. I don’t want to deal with the pain again. I would need to do the same for Dream magic, then I gather.”

“Right, you are my boy.”

I continued to put together the constructs for Cloud, Metal, and Crystal, all three quickly forming and clicking in my mind. When I let Jarrax know I was finished, we went through the kitchen door and into his massive basement.

The lighting spell, Bolt, was just that, a small bolt of electricity that splashed off the back walls when it hit. The Metal spell was a bit different. It was closer to Earth than anything else and wasn’t offensive in the least bit. It allowed me to take a chunk of metal and slowly from it to my will. The spell drained my Mana rather quickly, as it cost thirty mana per second, as I was forcing the metal to move to my will.

The Cloud spell, Shade, was an interesting spell. All it did was form a thick fluffy cloud over the user. Jarrax chuckled at the look on my face and explained at Rank 2 that it could release the accumulated water it took from the air around you and rain it down. The spell was incredibly useful in deserts and other places where water was scarce.

My Lightning branch burned into my chest as I was about to practice with the Crystal spell, Create Shard. Once the pain was gone, I was able to create a crystal shard from Mana. The book and Jarrax explained that this magic school was more suited for crafters but had its uses as an adventurer.

When I learned the Tier 2 Crystal spell, Store, I could store Mana or a Spell of a lower rank. I finally understood what this meant. I could store a Rank 1 Fireball inside a Rank 2 Crystal Shard. Crushing the shard would release the spell. In the case of a crafter, they could store unused Mana in them until they needed the Mana for their work's creation step or enchantment.

Jarrax explained that Crystal Mages lived a life of luxury and stayed near Mana Wells to charge up shards and sell them. That had my mind racing. I could save enough Mana with the Crystals to create larger and more complex Void Storage items.

The burning on my chest brought me out of my musings. The Cloud rune branched off my Void tree, and a few moments later, the Crystal branch pushed two others away to a branch of the same tree.

I now had two trees taking up the better part of my left chest. There were eighteen runes, and I asked Jarrax what the most he heard someone of having. His response was those who traveled the world seeking new dungeons easily had thirty to forty runes on their Stigmata from the rewards from their first clears.

He went on to explain, I was indeed fortunate to have so many at a low level, and those who had close to forty were pushing Level 70 or even 80. What set me apart was my two Prime Runes, one of them being Aether. He had never heard of any adventure or delver earning that Affinity in any Dungeon before.

I practiced with the new schools for a few minutes draining my Mana till I felt exhausted. Then we headed upstairs, so I could continue reading.

The second book was labeled ‘The Theory of Intent.’ The book went over the many ways users could change the intent of their nodes in the constructs and still end up with the same spells but with various and different effects. One chapter went over the theory that there are already a limited number of spells the system allows us to cast, depending on how we construct the nodes and push our intent. The system selects the best matching spell.

A different author wrote every chapter in the book. Each documenting examples of how they formed their intent and a theory on how it changed their magic for the better or worse. I read through the book in two hours, not getting much more insight into magic with it.

The third book was fascinating. It was an encyclopedia of known schools of magic from A to Z. It gave a brief description of the magic and its uses, along with known spells associated with the school.

One of the first schools that caught my eye was Astral. The Astral school of magic allowed the caster to travel outside one’s body and traverse the many Astral Planes. If my assumptions were correct, I could use one of those spells to look where I wanted to place a Void Gate before placing it. This would allow me to make sure no enemies or hazards were on the other end of my gate. Unfortunately, Jarrax had no such books on Astral spells.

The following school of magic made my skin crawl. Flesh magic was a school of magic used by assassins and other shady casters to allow them to reshape their faces and features to change their appearance. A higher known spell allowed them to form weapons out of their very flesh.

Drain or Siphon magic was another of these schools that allowed the caster to drain life and Mana from their targets, boosting their longevity and refilling their Mana. The book had a section explaining that this school of Magic was banned from use in almost every established kingdom and empire.

After reading about Siphon, I was surprised to see it. Necromancy was a highly praised school of magic. It didn’t raise the dead from people's bodies, as I assumed, but created the creatures from Mana, like how Jarrax explained Creation magic. The summoned allies were permanent allies until they expired from death or when the caster dismissed them. The drawback was that the six hundred Mana used to create the Skeleton ally wouldn’t regen back unless the Skeleton died or was released.

I spent the better part of the afternoon reading until I heard a high-pitched whistle, followed by an explosion, and then a humming coming from my magic bag.