Otto opened his eyes feeling a throbbing headache pounduing away within his head.

“What… happened…?”

He sat up and looking around the room to confirm he was still trapped within the stone tower.

“I’m still here…”

“Earlier… did I… use magic?” he wondered.

Otto grabbed one of the pots, he was going to start the fire inside of it so the wooden floorboard wouldn’t burst into flames.

He stuck his hand inside and thought “here”.

He put the book aside and recited the words he learned not long ago.

“Elsete Igni « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum here «”

Otto barely managed to yank his hand back as the orb of fire spontaneously manifested in the pot creating a puff of smoke.

Seconds later, Otto peered inside the pot seeing black scorchmarks.

Again, he felt extremely lightheaded as he stumbled backwards, falling against the stone wall.

“This… again?” he wondered; his vision began to blur as he felt the familiar metallic taste in his mouth; it was blood.

Carefully he lowered himself to the ground, not trusting himself to get up and walk just yet.

He slowly inched his way towards the black book that he put away seconds ago.

He flipped it open seeing the first and second pages that he remembered reading.

“Hi again!” read the book.

“I bet you’re feeling pretty hungover, right?”

“Damn it! Murlin is fucking around with me for fun…” Otto thought.

“Remember what I said about the catalysts and how little mana people have?”

“People can die from mana loss y’know…”

“THEN WHY HAVE ME PRACTICE THE SPELLS EARLIER, ASSHOLE?!”

“Don’t worry though, the spells you cast would have cost about 14 mana, so your body would just shut-down without any serious damage!” he explained.

Otto breathed a sigh.

“At least he isn’t directly trying to kill me… usually…”

“Now, I bet you want to know how to create β from the air!”

“Here’s the trick, you need a separate spell to do that…”

“In order to convert matter-energy into β, you need a battery…”

“WHERE THE FUCK AM I GOING TO FIND A BATTERY IN A STONE TOWER IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?!” he thought.

“Hold on… I have pots as well as a fork… if I melt the fork with fire magic little by little and ferment the green algae into vinegar, I could make a basic battery!” Otto thought thinking of a blueprint as he looked over to the book once more.

“Of course, in magic, a battery is just a magic circle!”

“Oh…”

“There as 6 tiers of magic circles…”

“Red, it can store up to 10β”

“Blue, it can store up to 50β”

“Green, it can store up to 100β”

“Silver, it can store up to 200β”

“Gold, it can store up to 500β”

“Prismatic, it can store up to 1000β”

“Keep in mind, the higher lever circle you want, the more it’ll cost to summon and the harder it is to fill.”

“It’s also important to mention that you can’t cast a spell with a circle that isn’t 100% full,”

“A basic red circle will cost you 1β directly from your mana pool,”

“The words to create it are…”

“Teria defines the spell as creating a battery,”

“Emaxhum is the modifier you apply to specify how much energy you wish to store inside, anything from 1 β to 10 β will be red, anything from 11 β to 20 β will be blue and so on.”

“If you know the exact β price for a spell you’ll be able to create a battery just for it and allow it to recharge as fast as possible!”

“For example, if a fireball spell cost you 5β and you used a 10β battery, you’d be forced to wait twice as long for the battery to recharge then if it was 5β,”

“However, if the mana in a battery reaches 0β or goes over the limit of the current colour the circle will shatter releasing the β into the air.”

“Teria « Emaxhum 10β « Tag BatteryForMySpell « Orienthum Palm « Terdephum Manapool”

“Terdephum is a word that describes the destination for the magic to flow, by default the β will build up in the battery until it reached its max and remains charged, slowly using up its own mana supply to continue to exist,”

“It’s also important to remember one’s manapool will expel excess mana up to a certain point, like a water balloon that you pour a stream of water into, it’ll expel the extra water if the stream is slow enough, but if you put too much in too fast it’ll pop,”

Otto felt a chill run down his spine.

“Pop?!”

“Now then, the spell to refill your mana pool is…”

“Teria « Emaxhum 10β « Tag BatteryForMySpell « Orienthum Palm « Terdephum Manapool « Mrelsatehum 1β «”

“Mrelsatehum dictates how much β can leave the battery at once, for your own safety, don’t change this modifier, and make sure not to exclude it either!”

Otto took a deep breath as he built up the courage to try out the spell.

He said the words slowly as a red circle appeared on his hand, strange runes were engraved in it.

The circle was suspended in the air, following the relative position of Otto’s hand.

He brought the circle to eye-level and saw that it was completely two-dimensional.

At first, the circle was completely still and a very dim colour, but within a few seconds, it began to spin slowly, eventually spinning faster and faster until it reached its top speed and stayed there.

Its brightness also increased, at first it was a very dim glow but now it looked like a proper magic circle from any game or movie.

Otto glanced down to the book, occasionally glancing back to the magic circle that was still anchored to his hand.

“You may be able to feel it now! The energy-returning to your body!”

“In order to remove the battery, simply say…”

“Teriadel BatteryForMySpell «”

“If you don’t know the name of a battery you want to be deleted, you can do the same thing as when picking coordinates, touch the magic circle and say ‘here’ instead of the name!”

Otto did as instructed and the magic circle shattered with a loud crack, creating small, red, glowing sparks that exploded from his hand and rained down for a second before disappearing.

“…”

“Woah…”

That’s when Otto got an idea.

“First I’ll define the battery and direct its β output into the ‘fireSpell’ the ‘tag’ I’ll give to the fire-spell from before!” he thought.

He placed his hand in the pot and recited the words, he jerked his hand back as soon as he reached the keyword ‘here’.

“Teria « Emaxhum 10β « Tag BatteryForMyFireSpell « Orienthum Here « Terdephum FireSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Igni « Tag FireSpell « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum Here «”

“And now I’ll create one to regenerate my mana!”

“Teria « Emaxhum 2β « Tag ManaRegenBattery « Orienthum Here « Terdephum Manapool « Mrelsatehum 1β«”

Otto pointed to his torso when he said ‘Here’.

A smaller, red ring appeared anchored to his torso, it didn’t spin for a second, then began to spin slightly, then stopped again and so on.

In other words, the batter with a maximum storage capacity of 2β reached 2β, sent 1β into Otto’s manapool as specified with the “Mrelsatehum 1β«” modifier and set itself back to 1β, then it absorbed another 1β and so on in a loop.

Otto looked over to the pot, seeing that inside was his spinning battery as well as his ball of fire that didn’t disappear unlike before.

He looked back to the book.

“As long as there is mana being supplied to it, the spell will run forever unless the source is your manapool, in which case it will only be cast once before needing to be re-cast.”

“Keep in mind, currently you’re absorbing spatial β, that’s all fine and good right now, though eventually you’ll learn to convert objects themselves into mana but that’s not until you master at least the silver circle!”

Otto looked back to the pot.

“Teriadel BatteryForMyFireSpell «”

“This is the best dream ever!” the man exclaimed grabbing the book and walking over to the table, he placed it down on the old, dusty surface and sat down on one of the chairs.

“This tower isn’t a prison…”

“It’s a puzzle!”

“And I’m going to beat it!” he thought flipping to the next page of the book.