The pastel yellow light came in from the outside.

“Let’s think… the magic electricity keeping me trapped must be powered by magic, all I have to do is disable its batteries!” Otto thought sitting at the table.

“Are you sure?” asked the Otto standing by the stairwell, he kept anxiously looking down into the unlit abyss.

“Of course, … I can’t stay here forever!” the Otto at the table replied.

“But what if you disable the magic healing power too?” the other Otto asked.

Otto crossed his arms.

“I’ll starve in a few weeks anyway; my insanity won’t end at talking to myself!” he warned himself.

“Maybe, but what if things outside also have magic? Like fireballs and the ability to kill you with lightning or like… evil man-eating rabbits…”

Otto scratched his head.

“Mmm… you’re right… I should probably assume the worst about this world… since there is magic and I’m trapped in a stone tower, I’ll assume it’s the typical magical setting with castles and stuff…” he remarked.

Otto’s voice from the dark floor below them made its way up: “Right, you’ve been given a place with near-immortality, water and a book with all the magic info you could need!”

Otto stood up and walked to the other side of the table.

“True, but what if I’ll stay here for two weeks, leaving me with a week to escape, only to find out I can’ figure a way out?” he asked.

Otto breathed a sigh.

“Heh, you really are going mad!” laughed the book, it's cover flapping open and closed like a mouth.

Otto rolled his eyes.

“Shut up, book! You can’t talk! A book doesn’t have a voice box!” he exclaimed pointing an accusatory finger at the book.

It rested in the centre of the table.

“Say, buddy, have you felt hungry since you came here?” the book asked.

Otto shrugged.

“No, not really,”

“The spell, it’s not just healing your body, it’s delivering all the nutrients and water directly into you!” the book explained.

“Exactly!“ Otto replied.

“Hey! Whose side are you on?!” the other Otto demanded.

Otto suddenly opened his eyes; the entire tower was pitch black.

“It was just a dream…” he thought.

Unable to sleep, Otto breathed a sigh and sat up.

Despite the open windows, the stone tower was pretty warm to sleep on, and the stone table on the top floor he woke up on served as his bed.

The only source of light was the dim glow of the mana-regenerating circle.

Even while he slept the small, red battery regenerating his mana kept working, though, for the sake of not keeping him awake with the light, he moved it to the back of his neck.

“Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag LampSpellBattery « Orienthum CeilingInRoomOne « Terdephum LampSpellOne « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Igni « Tag LampSpellOne « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum CeilingInRoomOne «” he casually recited the words from memeory.

Otto previously touched every ceiling on every non-flooded level of the tower and marked their coordinate as “CeilingInRoomOne”, “CeilingInRoomTwo” and so on down to “CeilingInRoomFive”

It was a trick he read in the book, originally Murlin described it as a useful method for setting up traps, but Otto decided lighting was more useful.

With the strong light inside, he opened the black book cautiously.

“You better not start talking…”

He flipped to the last page he finished on, the one going over placing coordinates.

“Once a coordinate is recorded it will permanently remain marked by a certain name, some mages go as far as to mark every inch of their bodies for the sake modifying their physical speed, strength and appearance!”

“Keep in mind, if you’re using the touch coordinate method, the coordinates will ‘stick’ to that point, inputting actual numbers or adding a special modifier to a spell can undo this effect.”

Remembering all this from earlier, Otto flipped to the next page.

“Alright! Since you’re still alive, I assume you mastered the fire spell… well… the basics!”

“So here are two more elements, enjoy! 😊”

“Aqui – water,”

“Aeri – Air,”

“Keep in mind, this is a synthesis spell, in other words, this lets you create matter from mana, you’re not controlling fire, you’re creating it…”

“As such, it’ll disappear almost instantly!”

“In order to make the substance last longer, use the following modifier…”

“Tettihum, this modifier sets the amount of time (in seconds) for which the created object will persist after being created,”

“Alright…”

“I’ll create a basic battery and make a water spell that exists for a few seconds…”

“Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag BatteryForMyWaterSpell « Orienthum Palm « Terdephum WaterSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Aqui « Tag WaterSpell « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum Palm « Tettihum 5 «”

A small ball of water manifested from the magic circle that appeared on Otto’s palm, water poured from it like a tap continuously, the water itself lasted only five seconds each, though the magic circle continued to exist, creating short-lived water until he undid it with “Teriadel“

“Huh…”

Otto scratched his chin.

“I wonder…”

He opened the book and looked at the page he was on, he skimmed the words, fully intending to go back and read over them again later.

“AHA!” he exclaimed holding his finger under the new word he learned.

“Pude, also written as ‘ƒ’ allows multiple words to be stored under one name,”

“For example, if you start you spell with the ‘ƒSpellName «’ for example, you could simply announce that that spell name instead of reading out the entire command!”

“Functions! This really is like coding!” Otto thought back to his spells.

“If only I had a book to write all the functions in…”

“ƒLampOneOn « Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag LampSpellBatteryOne « Orienthum CeilingInRoomOne « Terdephum LampSpellOne « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Igni « Tag LampSpellOne « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum CeilingInRoomOne «” he cast the spell.

Since the light was already on, nothing happened.

“ƒAllLampOff « Teriadel LampSpellBatteryOne « Teriadel LampSpellBatteryTwo « Teriadel LampSpellBatteryTree « Teriadel LampSpellBatteryFour « Teriadel LampSpellBatteryFive «”

The tower went dark as he said those words.

“LampOneOn” as he said those words the ball of flames on his ceiling appeared, lighting up the top floor of the tower.

Otto proceeded to create the ‘LampOn’ spells for every individual room.

Now he was able to turn any individual lamp off with an easy command “LampXOn” where X is the number of the room he is in.

Then he can disable all the lights at once with “AllLampOff”.

He could create LampXOff if he wanted, but since he can cancel them easily by saying “Teriadel LampSpellBatteryOne” he decided not to do it.

Otto read over the parts of the book he previously skimmed over.

“Pude, also written as ‘ƒ’ is what’s called a variable, it’s difficult to keep track of all of them with your mind, as such a grimoire is needed to record the pages upon pages of variables a mage will need!”

“’ƒ MyAge 15 «’ would be a totally valid variable.”

“Mathematic equations are also permitted within the variable, however, that is far too difficult to delve into now! For now, know that you can store spells, numbers, places/coordinates as well as battery names in these variables. “

“I get it, they’re just variables but without a ‘type’… and without an equals sign which makes them harder to read…”

“Let’s test it out!” he thought.

“ƒ VariableTest 2 «” he said the words carefully “Alright… the word VariableTest is now equal to two…”

“Now I’ll create a water spell and have it run for VariableTest number of seconds, in other words, the water should exist for two seconds!”

“Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag BatteryForMyWaterSpell « Orienthum Palm « Terdephum WaterSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Aqui « Tag WaterSpell « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum Palm « Tettihum VariableTest «”

He exclaimed the words with confidence as from his palm poured a constant stream of water, each particle of water only lasted two seconds before disappearing.

“Teriadel BatteryForMyWaterSpell «”

“Alright, what if I add the ‘Tettihum’ keyword to the battery instead! That way the spell will stop after the two seconds!”

“Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag BatteryForMyWaterSpell « Orienthum Palm « Terdephum WaterSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β « Tettihum VariableTest «… Elsete Aqui « Tag WaterSpell « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum Palm «”

This time the water that appeared from the magic circle only existed for an instant before disappeared, this gave off the illusion of a ball of water being attached to his hand for the full two seconds.

“Oh! I get it!”

“The water doesn’t have the ‘Tettihum’ keyword so it disappears instantly! I’ll need to add one to the spell as well as the battery!”

“ƒ CleanWaterSpell « Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag BatteryForMyWaterSpell « Orienthum Palm « Terdephum WaterSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β « Tettihum VariableTest «… Elsete Aqui « Tag WaterSpell « Morfhum Orb « Gurhum 1µ « Orienthum Palm « Tettihum VariableTest «”

This time the magic circle appeared on his hand and the water fell down as expected, after two seconds, then the magic circle and the water blinked out of existence.

“Nice!”

Otto grinned.

“You know what that means, Otto!” he exclaimed.

“A bath!”

Otto began quickly making his way down the steps and towards the flooded room.

As he rushed down the stairs he once again stepped on the slimy substance and tripped, falling down the stairs and landing in the big pool of gross water.

“Ah, right… forgot about the wet sludge on the stairs…” he remarked, getting out of the water and sitting on the stone steps leading up.

He placed his right hand over his head.

“CleanWaterSpell!” he announced as a sudden wave of water came down on him, the algae coming out of his hair and washing off his body in two-second intervals.

The dust and dirt that came off Otto were carried away by the trickling water before being dropped off, dry and solid once the water disappeared.

“I wish I could get hot water, but this is better than nothing!” he remarked.

“Oi, Otto…”

The voice came from a dark corner of the water-filled room.

He didn’t reply, only glancing over to the partially obscured figure standing in the corner, he recognised the figure as a dirty, algae-covered version of himself.

“Maybe you should dive on down here, you probably can’t drown…” the voice offered.

“I can’t see in the dark, I’ll head down as soon as I figure out a light spell or something,” Otto replied.

The murky-Otto smirked.

“What an Otto thing to say…” the voice remarked as it stepped down the submerged steps down even deeper into the water.

Otto finished up his makeshift shower and headed upstairs.

“Back already?” the book asked.

“There you go breaking the laws of physics again…” Otto sighed.

“Look here, you loose pile of pages! You don’t have a voice-box!”

“You can’t talk!”

The book grumbled something incoherent.

“Whatever, just come here and read up on variables! You know you want to!” the book teased.

Otto crossed his arms.

“I suppose I could have a glance at the next topic…” he reasoned before taking a step towards the book.