Otto sat around on the stairs leading into the water, he sat such that the light from the sun outside the window would reach his skin.

In his hand was the glass bottle of magically-spawned water that disappeared a few seconds after being created.

He was staring off into the ceiling, the ball of flames that was let on far longer than necessary was an almost nostalgic image of the single-sun world.

“Ah, to live with one sun again… those were the days…” he said splashing him feet in the green water.

“Double the skin cancer…”

“You have to spend twice as much on the sun cream…”

“Oh god, Australia must really suck with two suns…” he thought.

The man rested his back on the stone steps behind him.

He could basically imagine he sound of seagulls outside.

Again, the murky, sludge-covered Otto emerged from the water.

He was wearing light blue shorts and carried a beach ball under his arm.

“Come in, the water is great!” he exclaimed with a thumbs up.

The land-based Otto squinted.

“I… dunno…” he looked at the water.

“Hold on! Why do you get clothes!?” Otto demanded.

“There’s a stash of beach clothes down here,” he replied pointing to the flooded room.

Otto shook his head.

” I can’t go diving into abandoned, not to mention flooded rooms because an imaginary me told me to…” he sighed.

“So dismissive… at least I’m trying to keep your mind occupied!” the murky Otto remarked.

“…” scratched his head uncertain if he really wanted to trust the other him.

“Three floors down from here there’s a door out, I promise!” the murky Otto said with a hand over his heart.

Just as the stair-Otto was about to say something he heard the familiar voice of the book calling him.

Otto turned to see the book laying on the steps above, it flapped open and closed when it spoke.

“C’mere, Otto! The quicker you learn all about magic the faster you can get out of here!” the book reminded him.

Otto turned back to face the murky Otto who now stood only a few centimetres away from him.

“Well, you heard the talking book,” he shrugged.

The murky Otto didn’t reply as he sank down into the water.

“I think I’ll keep my distance from the water for a while…” Otto thought walking up to the book.

He opened it to the next page.

“Transformation of materials, the ability to shape metal with your hands without needing to heat it!”

“You could also control wood, rock and even flesh… not that I recommend the last one!”

“Even if you really think you can extend a part of yourself, trust me… it won’t end well… ☹”

“M-Murlin…?”

“This wizard might be down a wand…” Otto thought.

“Anyway, there are two keywords you’re going to want to learn in order to shape matter!”

“But before that, you need to learn how to select larger regions of coordinates!”

“Simply drag your finger along a surface or in the air with the intention to select an area, usually it’s easier to do on a flat surface.”

“For example, you could drag your finger along the edge of a blade to select it,”

“Since the selected are is technically a shape, you can use ‘Here’ as the shape for the ‘Morfhum’ modifier!”

“If you put ‘here’ as a property of ‘Morfhum’ without dragging your finger, the spell won’t appear since a single point is not a shape.”

“You might also want to make sure the size (Gurhum) of your spell fits the shape!”

“To do this you can use the ‘fithum’ keyword!”

“You use it in a variable, like this…”

“ƒ SizeOfMyPicture fithum Here « «”

“The above variable will return the size of whatever shape you draw! So, with this variable in mind, you could apply it to a spell with the following method!”

“Teria « Emaxhum 5β « Tag FireSquareBattery « Orienthum Here « Terdephum FireSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Igni « Tag FireSpell « Morfhum Here « Gurhum SizeOfMyPicture « Orienthum Here «”

“As you can see, the coordinates and shape information were both replaced with ‘here’ and the size of the spell was replaced with the variable ‘SizeOfMyPicture’!”

“Go ahead, try it!”

“Make sure not to lift your finger from the surface until you finish ‘drawing’ the region you want to effect!”

“Ok!” Otto came up with a spell to try out.

“I’ll use a basic fire spell, but I’ll make its shape a circle I’ll draw on the ground!” he thought.

Otto got down on his knees and began reciting the words, he thought of the same size-variable as it was described in the book.

“Teria « Emaxhum 10β « Tag CircleBattery « Orienthum Here « Terdephum CircleSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β… Elsete Igni « Tag CircleSpell « Morfhum Here « Gurhum SizeOfMyPicture « Orienthum Here «”

As soon as he finished saying the words a circle of flames appeared.

With no ‘Tettihum’ modifier, the battery continued to power the circle indefinitely until Otto cast “Teriadel CircleBattery.“

He looked back to the book with great vigour.

“Now, back to the topic of shaping things…”

“The words Exthrude and Inthrude,”

“Exthrude will stretch the material out from the selected area, while Inthrude will compress inwards!”

“No material is lost or created in the process, it’s always either condense or stretched, as such, making a fork form a metal screw will result in a very fragile fork, but making a fork from an iron chestplate will result in a very heavy fork!”

“Both the Exthrude and Inthrude modifier require a depth variable,”

“For example, if you wanted to pull the earth from the ground in the shape of a line up by a meter, you’d select and area and simply say…”

“Exthrude 5.18027352µ «”

“Naturally, you’d be better off creating a battery for this spell!”

“…”

“He knows what a meter is and still want us to use his bullshit µ system?!”

“I mean, technically he said I didn’t have to… but still…”

Otto looked at the ground before him.

“Maybe I can dig a tunnel out with this!” he realised.

He dragged his entire palm on the wall in a circle that should be big enough for him to fit through.

“ƒ SizeOfMyPicture fithum Here « «”

“Teria « Emaxhum 10β « Tag EscapeBattery « Orienthum Here « Terdephum HoleSpell « Mrelsatehum 1β… Inthrude 10µ « Tag HoleSpell «”

When he said the words the part of the wall he selected began is move backwards however it also began to fill the hole in as if the walls themselves were healing their wounds.

“…”

Otto looked at the self-healing wall for a few seconds in disappointment before breathing a sigh.

“Teriadel EscapeBattery…” he said reluctantly as the walls were allowed to heal properly.

“Of course it didn’t work… it’d be too easy that way…” he sighed.

Otto tried the same trick with the Exthrude spell but in a similar way, the wall was sucked back in to their previous shape.

He closed the book and walked into the room with the pots.

Since he apparently didn’t need to drink, he never used it after the first day.

Otto placed the book down on the table and sat down near it.

“I really need to get out…” he thought.

“Then keep reading!” the book instructed.

The room became quiet as Otto contemplated the book’s advice.

“Is there really a way out?” he asked.

“Of course! As long as you crack the code!” the book explained.

Otto looked down, he was sitting in this tower for a few days now, he completely forgot he was naked, he forgot a lot of things, what it feels like to be hungry or thirsty.

Aside for the occasional cold shower he never felt too cold or too hot.

What else was there to do but sit down and read the black book of magic.