Chance was a little taken aback by his response, but overall very pleased. Lust confirmed that his thoughts on the subject were even more fierce than his words. If he agreed to take a job, he would finish it or die trying. The more likely outcome, however, seemed to be that everyone else would die trying to stop him. As far as they could tell, the only lie he had told in his statement was to actually undersell how serious he was about it all. Now that that problem was solved, they could move onto the reason he was here in the first place. Test number three.

Patting his hands to get him to release her, she hopped down off his lap and sauntered towards the stage. Like a switch had been thrown in his mind, Dix entirely lost his train of thought. Coyly glancing over her shoulder she purred, “Bring your drink, big boy, you’re gonna need it to cool down.”

Dix struggled to his feet, trying to get some blood flowing back into his brain. He snagged the drink off the bar, and stumbled off towards the stage, following that vision in purple like a starving dog follows a steak.

Without looking back, she dragged her fingertips along the back and arm of one chair as she passed by, calling out, “You just sit right here for me, sugar.” The tiny goddess’s hips rolled, the hem of her dress pulling up a bit, as she climbed the stairs to the stage. By this point Dix was having trouble focusing on anything other than her ass in that skintight dress. Somehow he managed to slump into the chair and set his drink on the table without spilling any. His eyes simply swept up and down her figure as she strutted across the stage towards the stool.

He was in a bit of a state. Combat had always left Dix horny as all hell, and he’d spent quite a bit of time either fighting or training. That was followed by booze and a hot woman wiggling in his lap. After six months of celibacy he was toeing the line on his self control. Now that same woman was strutting up onto what still looked like the stage of a strip club. It was actually a bit of a minor miracle that he was able to walk, let alone try and figure out the current puzzle, considering the fog of lust growing in his brain. So when a storm of fire and lightning blasted over his head, his first thought was that the lights for the show were starting. When they were immediately followed by blasts of water and ice, he started coming around to the idea that magic would make for a better strip show. As the elemental bolts of a variety of colors and styles continued to fly overhead Dix started getting the idea that he wasn’t about to receive a lap dance. The disappointment was so heart wrenchingly painful, even his hard-on bowed before it.

Eventually he managed to focus back on Chance as she stood atop the stage and flung magic everywhere. Dix was actually more impressed by her mastery of the power she was throwing out than he thought he would be with her stripping. Not that he would say no to the chance to compare the two. He was willing to compromise and let her throw magic around while naked. Briefly, he got a little lost in that imagery.

Chance was blushing like mad, even tossing out enough magic to kill herds of dragons. Originally she was just teasing Dix to put him off guard, but now Lust was streaming his thoughts, ideas, and daydreams about her straight to her mind. The man had an excellent eye for the female form, and a very active imagination. No wonder Lust was so impressed with the man, he’s just as horny and depraved as she is. Chance shuddered a little at the thought, but even she couldn’t tell if it was fear or rapture.

With a little growl, and a burst of overpowered magical blasts for emotional emphasis, she pushed both the stream and her thoughts about Dix away. A flick of her wrist brought a number of the books off the shelves to rest on the stage in front of her. Dusting her hands off as though she’d just gotten finished with hard labor, she wandered over to sit on the stool. Perching carefully with her legs crossed, she leant forward to plant an elbow on her leg and cupped her face in her palm. She waited for a bit, allowing both herself and Dix to calm back to a semblance of normalcy, before she started talking.

“As I am sure you have surmised after that little bit of magical extravagance, the third test will be magic.” Dix rubbed his face with both hands, and sat up straight as she spoke. He might not be in the best condition for this, but it was important, and he had been horny before. “Much like the previous tests, you will be given the chance to practice a fair bit before you have to take it. In addition you will be able to choose the spells you want to take. The major difference is that you will be limited on the number that you can take, unless you take the handicap.” Her smile as she mentioned the handicap was positively vicious and hungry. Dix thought it was hot. He really needed to work on calming down more.

“To start with, I’m going to imbue you with the knowledge of these spells”, she said, gesturing at the books arrayed on the stage. Dix was a little perturbed. In most stories he’d read that had anything like this, it hurt. A lot. Chance pointed with one finger. “I recommend you finish that drink first, it will help.”

Looking over at his drink, Dix remembered why he didn’t want to drink it. It was definitely not normal. Still, anything to help with what would presumably suck a ton. Swirling the drink briefly in his hand he looked down into it again. With the swirl it actually looked like the Milky Way in a glass, bright sparks of light flowing in a swirling decent into a mass of light all surrounded by darkness. He had a bit of a chuckle to himself at having the entire galaxy in the palm of his hand, then started pouring it down his gullet.

It tasted much like it looked. The inky black was cold and empty, but it was necessary, because the sparks of light literally exploded with heat and flavour as soon as they touched his tongue. Sweet, sour, savory stars. A cascade of flavour poured over his taste buds, and the only reason he stayed sane was the cold and deadening flavor of the dark of space. When it all reached his stomach it hit with the force of the Big Bang, as each of the stars went nova. The dead space evaporated instantly, and the magical energy of the stars swept into his bloodstream, a third rushed for his mind, while the rest rushed towards his heart before splitting in two and dropping through what felt like cracks in his heart, one hungry and the other warm. Caught without the breath to scream, all he could do was suck in air as he curled over, holding his head between his knees shivering in pain. Suddenly the sensation of intense flame swept over his whole body, and he snapped his head up as his limbs flailed, a rictus of pain stretched across his face. Struggling to control himself, he staggered upright, locking the joints of his legs to keep him that way. Hands curled into fists at his sides, palms forward. Veins and tendons stood out wherever skin could be seen as every muscle in his body tried to tense to its limit at the same time. Head still thrown back, jaw clenched and teeth gritted to keep in the scream he now had the air to lose.

Chance was in shock. He looked to be in so much pain, but this shouldn’t have happened. The drink was only supposed to awaken his mana pathways and impart the necessary knowledge to channel it outwards. Right now it looked as though his pathways had been over-stimulated to the brink of rupture, and he had no idea how to use any of it. If this kept up he would either die in unimaginable agony, or rupture his pathways completely, thus negating any ability to wield magic he could ever have had. She couldn’t understand how this had happened. She’d given the same drink to every person who’d ever come across from Earth, but none had reacted like this.

Abruptly, there was a voice screaming into her head, “HIS MANA IS ALREADY AWAKE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!”

What? How could he-- Exploding Arrow! Oh. Fuck. This is all my fault. But there was nothing she could do at this point. Not even gods could stop what she had set in motion. The only hope was that he figured out how to use all of the excess mana in his system before it killed him.

He could feel the different magical elements manifesting across his skin, and he tried to contain them with his mind. Grappling for authority of the magic gone out of control across his whole being. Without a weapon he couldn’t use any of the mana based skills he had made already, and he was in too much pain to make a new skill now. He had thought the magical energy rushing through his brain would kill him before it was done, but it was starting to slow down, dissipating and leaving knowledge in its wake. Knowledge on mana.

Quite a lot of it was theory, diagrams, and useless drivel about mana being a gift from the gods. Trying to sort through that mess for the practical information hurt almost as much as what he was struggling through. It wasn’t organized in his mind, so there were pieces scattered all over, unconnected to the other pieces, except the index. He had to pull up the new memory of the index to find any of the other knowledge because his brain didn’t know it was there until he had read what it was from the index. Thirty spells were imparted, but very few would provide any actual help. The healing spells were actually the worst for him at this moment. Apparently, the last thing you want when you are struggling with mana overload is more mana trying to run through your body, and there was no information on if it was even possible to reformat all of that mana into healing him.

As he struggled to sort through the spells, looking for something that could help, while keeping himself together, there was a surging at that hungry crack in his heart. Whatever was on the other side of that crack was trying to get out. With the new knowledge imparted through the drink, Dix realized that what was trying to get through the crack was his soul. It seemed kinda important to keep that where it was, but he had no control over the thing, so all he could do was ignore it for now. Afterall, it was just more pain, something he currently had in abundance.

Something about one of the spells he was skimming through in his mind abruptly drew his attention. It was immediately apparent that while it was in no way a solution to his problem, it may take enough of an edge off that he could actually speak to Chance and get her help. According to what he now knew, the normal process of casting a spell involved gathering the mana in your body, and focusing it into your hand, where it would be released by opening a spot on your palm that would work as a valve to release the mana. The runes of the spell would guide the released mana into the form necessary for the spell to cast, and then the effect would manifest.

There were only two problems. One, he had never done this before. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he had no idea how to open a valve in his palm. If the know how to do that was in the packet, it either got lost or destroyed. Either way, he was just going to have to make some shit up. Or die. Going with option one. Time to make some shit up!

By this time the pain had been in a constant state of growth as more and more mana poured into him, and even bits of his soul had started to leak out into his heart. His soul actually appeared to be helping by gobbling up some of the mana, but while it was slowing down his impending re-demise, it wasn’t working fast enough to save him. Trying to force his first spell to cast under these circumstances would be virtually impossible, but as Chance had said: it’s not fate that decides, it's choice. He had made the choice, now it was time to put it into practice.

Considering the overabundance of mana swelling his pathways, he decided to forgo gathering any of it into one point. In reality he just wanted to pour it all out, but, according to the implanted knowledge, if it didn’t go out through the right spots it would tear him apart. Since he didn’t know how to open the valve in his hand, he instead formed the rune where the valve should be, inside his hand. Rune formation wasn’t something he had any experience with, but it was surprisingly similar to drawing 3d models free hand, but using his mind and its connection to the mana inside of him. There were some oddities in the rune he was scribbling inside his own body with a tentacle of mana, but he had no time to double check any of it.

As soon as the rune started forming, the mana in his body rushed for it. Drawing lines that throbbed with suppressed power as you laid them out was both easier and harder than he had thought it would be. The line seemed to want to draw itself, but it was vibrating the entire time. When the last line finished, the mana snapped into place, and Dix started screaming as a huge spear tore out of the palm of his hand in a shower of blood.

The spell he had cast was Conjure Weapon. It would allow the creation of a weapon from the user’s mind made out of mana. It took a large chunk of mana to make it in the first place, and a fair amount to sustain it once created. The size of the weapon also impacted the cost, so he had made the biggest weapon he could think of, one he had seen in a movie on the big screen. Maybe the version that was filmed wasn’t that large, as it was being wielded by a fairly well known actor, but on the big screen it was positively huge. Sure he couldn’t use a spear that was almost eighty feet long, but it did use up almost all of his mana to conjure it, and it’s upkeep was taking care of the rest. The butt of the spear was as big around as his whole hand, but it weighed nothing for him, being made of his mana. Barely managing to keep the spear butt held in his hand by his fingertips, he panted for breath, his body twitching as it recovered.

Turning his head a bit, he saw Chance. She looked rough. Tears were streaking down her face as she knelt nearby, rocking back and forth, hands clasped together in front of her face as she mumbled the word “no” over and over. Sadly, there wasn’t much he could do for her at the moment. Hanging onto the giant spear was what was keeping him alive, and despite it not weighing anything, moving it in a confined space would be disastrous. Considering her condition, this was all just a horrible mistake. He was quite glad this wasn’t the test, or even the training.

Having nothing else particular to do while he waited for the spear to suck up all his excess mana, he started going back through the spells a bit more carefully. They were divided into three categories by whoever organized the information he had been given: attack, healing, support.

At the moment, the most important to him was healing. The arrival of his summoned spear had torn most of the flesh from the palm of his hand, so while he wouldn’t be re-dying anytime soon, there was still a fair amount of blood. His main concern was whether healing would actually help, or just do more harm. It didn’t help that he still had no idea how to open the valve on his hand that was supposedly there, provided he didn’t completely destroy it with this stupid, yet lifesaving stunt. After a moment of contemplation, the amount of blood running down the spear convinced him to at least try and figure something out. Chance was still out of it, so healing magic it was.

There were five healing spells he had been given. The most expensive, mana wise, was also the one that he would have preferred to use. It was called Summon Healer. According to the knowledge he had been given, the spell would open a portal through which a being that could heal would come forth. The strength of the Healer was dependent on the amount of mana given to the portal, measured as thirty percent of his maximum mana, then used a further fifteen percent to maintain its presence. Other than its purpose, it was quite similar to the Conjure Weapon spell he had used to save himself. Had he seen this spell first, he would have used it instead. Now, however, having seen the results of incorrectly using magic, he was rather worried about how badly hurt he would have been with a portal spawning inside his other hand. Any sort of summoning magic was completely off the table until he understood how to use it properly, there was just too much danger in using spells of that style incorrectly.