When I woke up, it was to a screen.

For successfully teaching someone, you have earned the skill teaching.

For successfully teaching two people, teaching has leveled up.

For successfully teaching four people, teaching has leveled up.

For successfully teaching eight people, teaching has leveled up.

For successfully teaching sixteen people, teaching has leveled up.

.

.

.

For successfully teaching 134,217,728 people, teaching has leveled up.

How many views did I get? I thought incredulously. I quickly booted up my computer and checked. I had 103 million views on my magic manipulation video, and it was on the top of trending. I had 84 million views on my magic missile video. I had also gained roughly a million subscribers.

Nobody can prove I fell off my chair. Nobody

This was beyond even my wildest expectations. I had hoped for a couple million views and maybe a hundred thousand subscribers. Instead, I had a hundred times the views and ten times the subscribers. It had even got me a ton of teaching levels. Speaking of, how many did I get?

“Skill list.” It was the first time I had used the command. With all the excitement yesterday, I had forgotten about it.

Skills

Heal LVL 1- convert mana to vital energy and pump it into a target’s body.

Diagnose LVL 1- release a pulse of mana into a target’s body to receive information on what ails them.

Sedate LVL 1- pump soporific mana into a target’s body to induce sleep.

Mana Manipulation LVL 1 - allows the user to better manipulate mana.

Magic Missile LVL 1 - create a destructive magic bolt.

Teaching LVL 26 - To show or explain something to educate.

Level 26? From teaching 200 million people? I know the requirements exponentially increased, but that’s brutal. I suppose it's to stop people like me from gaining millions of levels while still allowing regular people to level. Just because it’s sensible doesn’t mean I have to like it. Where are my exploits? Can’t I have a cheat skill? Where are my protagapowers?

I should stop fooling around and actually finish making my channel. I don't even have an avatar yet, for christ's sake! But what do I want it to be? Preferably it would have something to do with magic. Maybe a wizard?

Where would I get a picture of a wizard that isn’t 5,000 years old? No, something else. I scrolled through my photos hoping for inspiration and struck gold. Sitting in my hard drive was a picture of a stage magician’s hat and wand. I faintly remember using it for a home ec presentation. That class was a joke; we never actually cooked anything.

Anyway, I decided to create an introductory video for my channel as well, just to explain what my channel is and what I plan to do. It would be the video that starts autoplaying when you click on my channel. I created a script and got started.

“Hello and welcome to my channel. I am John, The Magic Man, and I teach magic and what I know about the system. Whenever I learn something new, I will make a video and share it.”

It was short, but those videos are supposed to be short. I started to make a new video, but I paused. I’ve yet to check the news.

I quickly googled mysterious screens. Instantly, a billion results popped up. I clicked the one on top; it was a news report. The title read “Mysterious Screens Appear, Martial Law Declared.” The article then mentioned that due to large-scale prison breaks all over the country, martial law had been declared. People were urged to stay inside, and many states had issued shelter-in-place orders.

I then checked international news, and unsurprisingly it was much the same. What stuck out to me, however, was that there were mass riots. Most articles attribute this to magic missiles, even blaming me. I felt some guilt, but not much. Even if I did nothing, magic missile would still be available. The type of people who would seek out the skill are the type of people to download the Anarchist’s Cookbook. Even if I didn't upload it, they would still hurt people.

I nodded to myself, this wasn’t my fault, and I shouldn’t blame myself. Though I should figure out a way to defend with magic, maybe a barrier or something.

My stomach rumbled.

Maybe I should make some food first.

I spread my mana into a thick sheet. I threw the rock I had grabbed for this very purpose, and it passed through without disturbing the mana. I grimaced, I hadn’t expected it to be easy, but it would have been nice. Next, I tried condensing the mana, similar to what I did to make the body of a magic missile. The rock passed through once again. Then, I used the method I was avoiding. I tried to infuse the barrier with the concept of hardness but failed.

I blinked in surprise. Why didn't it work? I can infuse my magic with concepts; it's how I use heal and sedate.

Then it struck me, heal and sedate are system-granted skills; it only grants the ability to infuse those specific concepts. I would have to learn to infuse concepts the normal way for anything else. While it would slow me down personally, it would also let me teach it, so it wasn’t that bad.

I would just have to knuckle down and work.

Unlike mana manipulation, I have infused concepts before, so I had a lead. I had to imagine the concept as vividly as I could. Then I would have to blend it into my mana. I began with hardness, it was simple, and I was already working on a spell for it.

I imagined the durability of steel, the tensile strength of hair, the hardness of diamond, and the compressive strength of concrete. I knew I was on the right track; I could feel the idea, resilience, alongside my core. But when I tried mixing them, they violently repelled each other.

It felt like there was an explosion inside my chest. I coughed up blood, just barely managing to cast heal before passing out.

That’s enough magic for the day. I thought I’ll put out a community post warning people later. For now, I’m going to sleep. I staggered to bed and collapsed without undressing.