Chapter 59

Discoveries

Present Day

June 6th, 2026

While speaking with Captain Sherman, I was initially told that the communities assistance in dealing with the bandits would be unnecessary. However after a fair amount of convincing—due to no small part by Rick—Captain Sherman eventually relented. But, only on the condition that my people worked closely with Rick's men, and didn't compromise their operations. It was obvious that Captain Sherman had yet to fully realize the strength our group had as a result of the system. Of course, he had heard rumors, but the saying "seeing is believing" was on full display here.

Rick was well aware of it though, and Captain Sherman was growing increasingly curious the longer he was exposed to Rick's soldiers. It wasn't a surprise that his men couldn't stop talking about the assault on the leyline. It was once we had concluded our discussions, that the Captain decided that he wanted a demonstration before any concrete plans were made, and I was determined to impress.

So, here I was, in an isolated clearing towards the outskirts of the community, attempting to discover the secrets to both water and earth magic.

Unstructured magic was wholly different than relying on the system. While the system could carry much of the weight for a mage when conjuring spells, it was restricted in scope and mana intensive. Unstructured magic, inversely, was much more difficult to learn, but the reward was also much higher.

I had discovered that fire and air mana had both appeared to follow some sort of principle. Fire spells could be conjured by pushing out fire mana and then superheated by willing the mana to move quicker, causing friction. It had an almost instantaneous result. Air mana was similar, in that once it was conjured, it naturally wanted to be released. All I had to do was will it to move in a particular direction, and once discharged, it would burst outward.

I began my experimentation with earth magic. Performing unstructured earth magic with earth mana was... a bit more difficult to figure out. I could push it out, but I had to compress it in order to form anything resembling a rock with substantial mass. Luckily my [Condensed Conjuration] skill helped some. The issue here is that the spell still ended up being inefficient. As such, I figured that there had to be a better way to do this.

So, I meditated, broadening my focus and feeling the swirling tendrils of mana around me.

I began to push out earth mana, attempting to form at least something.

Like a discombobulated fog, the earth mana gradually leaked out from my outstretched hands, a musty and earthy smell filled the air around me. Visually, it seemed as though I was only managing to conjure a cloud of dust.

Perhaps it would be useful in isolated circumstances. But it certainly had not been the result that I was aiming for. It just didn't seem... right.

I sat there in the grass, slowly weaving patterns into the cloud of dust I had conjured.

Now what? I couldn't help but be somewhat exasperated. I felt as though I was at a dead-end, an impasse. There was no way throwing dust clouds in the middle of a battle would be remotely useful. Maybe I could throw dust into people’s eyes? I shook my head. It was stupid. Most of the enemies I had fought so far didn't even have eyes.

As I sat there contemplating, I suddenly had an epiphany. I was trying to use earth magic. Instead of directing the earth mana into the air and treating it like the other mana forms, I thrust my hands into the ground itself.

If this worked, then there just might be an easier way to build formidable walls and fortifications. While I was proud of the palisade we had built, it was clear that in the long-term it wasn't going to cut it. Higher-leveled demons spewed fire for heaven's sake. The wood would just burn if we ever got attacked. I'd kick myself if I could, but at the time it had seemed like a great idea. After all, we had only been worried about the undead and wild monsters.

Refocusing on the task at hand, I used my [Mana Sight] skill. The ground was currently filled with untamed earth mana. Noticing that, I grew somewhat skeptical over my next steps. But I remained determined to see this through.

Slowly, I pushed the earth mana into the ground. As my own mana mixed within, I felt as the wild mana resisted my efforts to control it. The once stable earth mana began to grow chaotic. The earth underneath my hands started to literally bubble—evidence of the battle taking place.

This persisted until the density of my injected mana reached a threshold. Suddenly, the chaotic battle for supremacy settled, and a clear victor had emerged. I had conquered the localized earth mana.

With a sudden flexing of my magical prowess. I willed the ground to lift, and, after a fair amount of strain, the ground dislodged itself, as if held up by an invisible force.

As I examined the floating piece of debris, a multitude of dust particles—signifying the presence of a large quantity of earth mana—orbited the clump of dirt. Even though my own mana had become intertwined with the natural mana within this piece of earth, in order to move it like I had done, it required even more mana to be expelled.

The amount of earth I had managed to grab was about the size of a large beach ball. Nearly three feet across, and just as much wide. Roots hung from below, and I watched as earthworms—much bigger than they had any right to be—fell in clumps.

But, still, I couldn’t imagine myself lobbing mounds of dirt at my enemies. The reason being... well, it was literally just clumps of dirt. Maybe there were some rocks interspaced within it, but it just wasn't dense enough.

That didn’t mean there weren’t any uses. It took a little over a hundred points worth of mana to wrestle control over this sizeable chunk of earth. Which, considering the cost of conjuring earth of a similar size, it was quite the discount.

I attempted another experiment.

Using the force of my mana, intelligence, and wisdom, I compelled the clump of dirt in front of me to compress. And slowly, little by little, through increased mana expenditure. It began to shrink. Becoming denser, and denser, until I could push no more. With a heave of exhaustion, I appraised my work. I had reached the limits of my current attributes, and as a result, the three-foot clump of dirt had shrunk to a much harder boulder-looking conglomeration half of its original size. Now, it should be usable. I assumed that as my earth affinity rose, then so too would my skills at manipulating it. As of now, I was simply pleased with the several notifications I had just received for my efforts. I couldn’t help but grin.

Holy Arc, for all of its useful applications, didn’t exactly come with a tutorial on performing unstructured magic. I had to discover that myself. I’ve found that experimentation was a pleasure in its own right.

Satisfied with my discoveries regarding earth mana, I turned to water mana.

As it turned out, experimenting with water mana followed a similar concept. However, it had a different process. In this case, when I conjured water mana it naturally clumped together forming small droplets. The more I added to it, the larger they got, until, eventually, they coalesced into a floating ball of water. It was when I noticed that I could use my water mana to capture water particles already present in the air itself that my spells began to strengthen considerably.

As it turned out, the secret to water mana was utilizing the water vapor in the air. With the humidity of New England, there was plenty of it.

As I celebrated my success, I suddenly heard grass crunching behind me. As I turned around, I saw Alex walking towards me.

His lips were drawn in tightly, and his eyebrows were raised. Something was obviously bothering him.

"What's going on Alex?" I asked.

"Antonio's awake, and it isn't good," he replied.

* * *

As Antonio laid on the bed, he felt chills run through his body. His breathing was rough and uneven, sweat dripping from his pores. It was a strange feeling, to be simultaneously too cold and too hot. In reality, it was apparent that infection had set in.

In a world where advanced healthcare was a thing of the past, any wound that would’ve been considered minor was now deathly serious. In Antonio’s case, his wound was anything but minor.

When he first joined the community with his brother and younger sister, he hadn’t held much hope for staying there too long. Alex and his father had saved them though, so he felt that he had to repay his debt in some way.

He had figured that after things settled back to normal, he would take his siblings and they could return home.

Except... things didn’t settle down. In fact, in the past several weeks since the ‘systems advent,’ the world had only gotten worse.

Any hope for a return to normalcy had disappeared when the military had shown up.

He had been unconscious for a long time, having entered a coma for a full week before finally waking up. Despite the military doctor's best efforts, the infection that was running rife through Antonio's body was abnormal, and nothing was working. That didn't surprise him though, after all, the infection was magical in nature. Who could have guessed being exposed to so much death mana was so... unhealthy. Antonio was growing to hate magic.

He had caught wind of the news the military brought with them, and the basic synopsis? The nation as he knew it was no more. Of course, there were remnants, and some very strong military groups attempting to restore what had been lost. But, always the pessimist, Antonio couldn’t help to think of the naivety of it all.

Modern civilization was gone.

And now, here he was, dying along with it. He knew it. Alex’s whispers weren’t as quiet as he had thought. Antonio heard it all. Without some sort of miracle, he would succumb to the infection, and he would die. Even when the military had started sending convoys, everyone had hoped that they would have the means to treat him. Unfortunately, they did not. In a normal situation, he would have been airlifted to a hospital where at least they could try to help him recover, maybe he would have been able to fight off the magical infection himself. Now though? Medicine and especially medical care were becoming scarce in the midst of this global apocalypse. They could only stabilize him. Fighting the infection would be a much more difficult task.

He’s already come to terms with that though. His only regret: he would never get to see the great woman his sister Maria was sure to become.

He sighed and grimaced as the pain in his side flared up.

How had he gotten into this situation?

He didn’t trust Thomas and his friends when they first came. Despite the fact Thomas was family of Alex, he was also younger... And the deference of leadership to the young man had quietly irked him. Who was he to assume he had the potential to lead the Community? Alex would’ve been more preferable. Antonio had constantly thought.

Of course, that didn’t matter anymore... he was dying. And frankly, Antonio realized he was wrong about Thomas. At first, he thought the man a loon. Raving about the system, leveling, gods, and a demonic invasion; but, as crazy as it had sounded, Thomas was right, and he was wrong.

Thomas was also stronger than he possibly could have imagined. The man single-handily wiped out a significant portion of the Lich’s forces when the Community was attacked. Alex had only been able to help a fraction. If he ever, by some miracle, survived. He would be just as loyal to Thomas as he had been to Alex.

For now, though, he could only wallow in pain, pondering in regret over his past actions. If only he had been stronger. Even though Antonio knew it was a dangerous thought, he couldn't help but entertain it.