Chapter 28

Blinding crimson light assailed his eyes when he manifested in his soulscape. Reflexively, he tried to shrink back in surprise but was stopped by the back of his chair. That didn’t stop him for long as the gears in his head switched, legs planted firmly on the unfinished floor, his weight tilted forward enough to slip the seat out and behind him, and waddled back to a tolerable spot like a hermit crab.

Soft laughter tinkled like that of a dozen tiny bells just out of his sight. Soon, Jack had retreated enough that he was able to gain his bearings. His hearth had grown to nearly double its diameter from the day before. The red Fire flicked out like a living tree, expanding outward. Yet…something was wrong with it, he noticed a second later. The Flames were thinner than before. Whole sections in the center weren’t burning at all, leaving gaps that made the whole thing look a little sickly.

Will you crouch there all day, silly boy? You look ridiculous. Come over here instead and attend me.

Jack reviewed his form, finally taking in his half hunched figure holding a chair level with his but. That was a little silly.

Sorry master. He shifted the chair around to hold it before him and trudged over to where the Sentinel had made itself at home near the midpoint between center and edge.

What is there to be sorry for? Being a little off balance is no sin. Be more sparing in your apologies when you have not erred. It is unbecoming and makes you appear weak willed to your peers. Now, they patted a hand on an empty spot to their side, come sit by my side and tell me of your day.

So he did. He told his master of the myriad discoveries he had made that day, both wondrous and disturbing. His master was suitably impressed with his studious progress and offered information or correction when it was needed to shore up the blank spots he had identified. The experience of discussing with somebody else helped him solidify his new knowledge and make more connections between pieces of information that had previously seemed unrelated.

The most interesting part of the conversation was his retelling of the contents in the covers of ‘Conclave Of The Sentinel’. The Sentinel guffawed uproariously at some of the excerpts he quoted and told him the true story of some of those encounters, most of them unflattering to the writers in question. Then it was Jack’s turn to chuckle as some of the stories were quite ridiculous.

The laughter came to an end eventually and his master brought up the subject he had been wishing to avoid. I would like for you to make another attempt at imbuing your foundation with mana.

Is that safe? He watched the uneven blaze before him. Something seems to be affecting my Hearth. It looks...sick. If he had a stomach right now he was not sure if it would be emptying upwards or sinking with the weight of a millstone, either way, he was glad to be without it for now.

That is because it is ‘sick’. You have imbued it with Fire mana past the capacity of uncultivated foundation. In order to properly refine it, you must reach the first stage of your development. Once you do that, this problem will resolve itself as you learn to refine your mana.

Jack took a deep breath to regain his equilibrium. Ok, I learned that new spell today just for this. It should work. With those words hanging in the air, he pulled Fire from the blaze in front of him and started shaping it. A few seconds later, Imbue Object (Fire) rested in the palm of his hand. He targeted his foundation sigil mentally, or he tried to. For some reason he just couldn’t get a lock on—he actually didn’t know what it was called. He just kinda knew what he could imbue when he used the spell on a subconscious level. It hadn’t occurred to him that he was using an unknown sense till it had failed him. It just seemed so natural. Ugh, it was tiring to always be left with questions he couldn’t answer.

It isn’t working! He complained bitterly. This was supposed to work. I needed it to work.

It was quite an intriguing line of reasoning you followed. The Sentinel formed the spell in their own hands and examined it. Yes, I believe this is promising. Follow this path to its logical conclusion and I believe that you will be triumphant over this trial.

Really, a light of hope shined in his eyes, do you think I can get the spell to work?

No. The spell is designed to target a physical object. There is nothing physical in the realm of the soul. You must identify how your soul interacts with both your mana and the physical world in order to succeed. In the meantime, I believe it would be prompt for you to store some of this external mana in a vessel for future use. Prolonged exposure to mana beyond your capacity will lead to mana poisoning and internal injuries.

Disheartened, Jack fell into his chair with little to no grace and brooded. It wasn’t fair. He had yet another obstacle in his way. How was he supposed to gather enough power to fulfill his duty, or even protect himself, if he kept running into walls at every turn. Now he had two more factors to take into account to reach the next stage of his development. Not only that, his power had plateaued.

Sigh. Do you have any advice on what to do next, master?

Yes. Keep reading. Your studies have already shown dividends in your development. You are now able to store your excess mana to use in a pinch and more. I have faith that you will find the answer soon enough.

At least someone does.

Indeed. The Sentinel placed an iridescent hand over his and gripped softly. A pulse entered his projection through that contact and rippled across his...everything. All of a sudden, his mind felt like a pristine crystal vase—clear and ready to be filled. He felt like he could study twice as long and absorb double the information. It was a heady experience.

Dawn is approaching. Go get some reading done before you are rousted to play with sticks.

Thank you, master. I will do my best. Then he was gone.

…

Under the light of Torch, Jack feverishly tore through the pages of the next few chapters of his thaumaturgy text. The book continued where he had previously left off by describing the nature of mana and how it interacts with the physical realm. Everything material could be segregated into two categories—active and potential. The example in the book used an example that Jack was actually familiar with. If a rock is left alone then it is being acted on passively by various forces like gravity and air pressure, but if you were to pick up the rock and throw it, then the rock is actively generating kinetic energy, or Force mana as the book called it. There were even more examples that corresponded with different universal forces.

Does magic follow the basic laws of physics? If I can apply my knowledge of natural law...then what? He scratched his nose in irritation. An old tick that had started to bleed over to his new life.

[One Who Tends The Hearth has achieved basic proficiency in mana lore. Congratulations on your achievement. May you discover the secrets of creation, child!]

The sudden intrusion of that voice reverberated with something deep inside of him. It felt like his soul was being shaken down for it's lunch money, a deeply violating experience. The moment passed quickly. His muscles turned to jelly and he slid to the ground limp. The experience this time was completely different than when encountered it in his Soulscape. It was far more intense here, and far less illuminating. It irked that he would have to wait an entire day for him to figure out what had changed in his soulscape.

Just because things weren’t bad enough, his Torch sputtered out of existence. Wonderful. Dawn was still an hour off proving that it was always darkest before dawn. Jack’s breath started to pick up and his pupils dilated. He couldn’t see!

Desperate, he tried, and failed, to recast the cantrip. Every time he summoned the power, those useless freeloaders he once called his fingers would twitch the wrong way and disrupt the casting.

Come on! Come on!

After a dozen failures, his switching appendages finally started to obey his demands and formed the cantrip. Red light bathed the room so thoroughly that it pierced every book and cranny. Jack peered around in confusion. This spell hadn’t done that before. He examined the fading runic array in his palm and forgot to breath. Laying on his palm was a spell more complicated than anything that he had ever seen before. Even his signature spell couldn’t compare to it.

How did this happen? Where did this come from? I didn’t make it! Or did he? The evidence was right here after all. The corners of the array started to fray at the edges, at the same time light started to retreat from the edges towards the center of the room.

Jack mentally released the spell.It was sucking mana out of him like it was a straw with him the cup. He didn’t know how long he could maintain it. Darkness returned only long enough for him to recast Torch. Nothing good ever happened when he heard the voice.

Chapter 30

The first ray of sunlight had crept over to illuminate his prism. The small pyramid sent a cascade of rainbow light across the room. Jack smiled at the result of his little experiment. It appeared that light behaved similarly if not exactly the same as on earth. He moved on to the next phase of the experiment, he imbued the prism with Fire mana to see what would happen when natural phenomena interacted with distilled mana.

The rainbow disappeared instantly. It was like a wall suddenly blocked all sunlight from entering the pyramid. It seemed that natural energy and mana did not always play nice with each other.

A knock came at the door. It positively reeked of martial piety and a but whipping. Why did he ask for this again?

“Come in!” Jack called to the person on the other side.

There was a click as the door unlatched and the somber appearance of drill instructor Bucket Head, as Jack called him when he got like this, stepped into the room.

Bucket Head surveyed the room quietly. “Did I come at a bad time?” He asked.

The room had been thoroughly trashed. Remnants of various experiments lay everywhere abandoned upon completion for the next trial.

“Oh, wow!” Jack noted absently, “got a little carried away there didn’t I?”

Virtus kicked away a small car made from an ink bottle, two quills, and a few buttons. “For what, may I ask, was the purpose of this…?” he broke off, obviously lost for words.

“I was testing out universal law. Good news, by the way, Terra Cognita follows the laws of physics. Well, at least until you factor in mana. Then it goes all wonky. For example, did you know—”

“Physics? I have never heard the term. Would you mind explaining that part first?” Virtus interjected in order to diffuse the oncoming rant.

“What? Physics is, well, everything. I take that back. Physics is half of everything. Science, in my world, could be split into two categories. The study of energy and the study of matter. This is a dramatic oversimplification since you people still live in the dark ages.” He reached down and grabbed the prism. “Take this for example. A prism is a perfect polyhedron with an interesting effect. It separates visible light into the various wavelengths, or colors. Watch!”

He sucked all of the Fire mana that he had just finished storing out of the prism. Immediately, a rainbow spread across the room.

Virtus was amazed, he told him as much as he was first shown each of Jack’s experiments before assisting in it’s cleanup. The process took long enough that they had to skip morning sword practise in favor of breakfast. Everything was going according to plan.

…

The morning had much the same as they had on the two previous days. The group gathered eagerly for their morning feast, only to be dazzled once more by yet another unique meal prepared by Lillian. She had gotten much more comfortable with the heaps of praise that they had laid at her feet and started to develop a quiet pride in her bearing at the affirmation of her culinary skills.

Then came general magic class. Today the class covered what it meant to be a magi. Fabian went over the awakening process step by step, as well as the first few tiers. There are nine tiers of Magi. From basic magi, the first rank, on to mivine magi, the last rank. The only living divine magic was the Emperor himself.

The first few tiers went like this—magi, magi Practitioner, high magi, awakened magic, enlightened magi.

Every tier gave extra power and increased the lifespan of a magic exponentially. Which explained why so many of them were obsessed with power. Most magi in the empire were at the second tier magic practitioner, which was the bar of competence for this society. Anyone that couldn’t break into the second tier by the age of thirty would be considered untalented and lose favor by their peers accordingly.

There was a lot more to that but Jack dwelled on that last nugget of information for the remainder of the class. The rest didn’t apply to him anyways. Just how powerful was a second-tier mage anyways? It was something he needed to know.

An inkling of doubt trickled down to his gut where it mixed with the rage, fear, and anxiety that had been building up with every failure he had encountered. Intellectually, he knew that success was built on the backs of multiple failures and that the difference between a successful man and a mediocre man was as simple as the will to persevere through rejection and failure till they found an opportunity to raise their status and exploited it. But his negative tendencies were fighting to take control and veer him towards an easier path, a compromised path.

Overall, the lesson only showed him that he had far, far longer path to traverse than he had ever imagined for himself.

Rune class didn’t change in the slightest. Professor Ferrum was determined to keep his curriculum organized to the second and he more or less succeeded. Jack left the class with a sheet of sloppily penned notes and knowledge of a particular rune that he thought that he could apply to one of his spells.

In order to get the overly familiar professor Rhys off of his case, a compromise was made. When asked to create a Fire, Jack made a small wisp of Fire on the tip of his finger for a few seconds before feigning loss of control and returned to his chair. No one was fooled by the display, especially the professor.

Soon enough, Jack was strolling along behind Virtus on their way to his next elective course, field lore. It was in the same arena as his fieldcraft class. Virtus explained that these classes as well as his friday elective, magical dueling were meant to be taken together as a cohesive whole. When he probed the austere guardian, he only received a nasty smirk and a warning.

“You will find out for yourself soon enough.”

They arrived inside the arena with a few minutes to spare. His fellow classmates were the same people he had seen on Monday, which lent evidence that these classes were meant to be taken together.

Graves came out of a short side tunnel without his customary chameleon, straightened the kinks out of his back, and scanned his students with his grim visage. As one, every student, even Virtus, stood tall and laid their arms down at their sides. Jack supposed that meant that they were at attention or something. He was fuzzy on anything related to the military, but he thought that was the correct term. As they stood there waiting for Graves to finish his inspection, Jack wondered where the little psycho lizard had gone off to. He was sure it would have LOVED the opportunity to give them all the crazy eye at the same time.

“What a sad waste of my time.” Graves growled. “Do you boys think you have what it takes to slay a beast? Well?”

“Yes, sir!”

“No, sir!”

“What?”

Individual voices were all but drowned out as each man responded to the question differently, it was horrid.

“Congratulations! That was by far the worst response that I have ever heard from a new class. You deserve a prize. Run the obstacle course twice while you think very hard about where each of you went wrong. Go!”

For the next twenty minutes, all the students in field lore learned what hell looked like. It looked a lot like an obstacle course. At first, things were going well, they traversed the rope net and climbed down the wall on the back side. They even made it past the balance beam. Then one moron, who shall not be named, decided to use magic to cheat. Everything went south after that. The next challenge, a series of swinging ropes, started icing over. The first few people lost their grips and landed in a filthy pool. Those were the lucky ones. On and on, the students cursed the day they signed up for this class and double cursed the one that decided to use magic, which they had to pay the price.

The first student to complete the course skidded to a stop before Graves before falling on his face. Graves surreptitiously picked up a bucket that hadn’t been there when they started running, and dumped the contents on the students head, putting out the flame which had left this left temple bald.

The rest trickled in at a steady rate for the next five minutes, including Jack. He had been one of the best off with this course since he could ignore discomforts that would give another pause. For example, there was a huge gash in one of his palms that he received during the army crawl section that he hadn’t even noticed till the end. His only annoyance was that Virtus had completed the trial next to him without breaking a sweat, just how is that fair?

“Did you enjoy your reward?” Graves asked with a big grin.

“Yes, sir!”

“Excellent, I suppose you should know that the course is set to dramatically increase the difficulty if anyone uses magic within its bounds. Not that any of you fine young men would ever do such a thing.”

Yup, he’s enjoying this. Jack mused, while his fellows fidgeted in embarrassment.

“Now, one more time, do you believe that you can slay a beast?”

“No, sir!”

“Good. That is wise of you. One should never take the slaying of a beast lightly. It is one of the most difficult things you will ever do. A beast of the same rank is faster than a magi, stronger than a magi, and more vicious than a magi. Every fight with one should be done only in great need or with much preparation. Now go sit in the stands while I bring out the first beast.”

Graves’ hunched figure disappeared down the tunnel he had previously come from. The students settled down to rest their aching limbs on the long stone bench closest to the pit. Some bemoaned their misfortune, while others guessed at the species of beast that Graves would make them face. One big man with a long, black beard boasted of his skill and declared that he would defeat the beast with one mighty blow while holding an action hero pose.

“Get down, you goof!” Another called out.

Jack chuckled along with several others at the antics of their peers.

“Hey, Virtus, what exactly is a beast anyways. Are we talking lions, tigers, bears, (Oh my) or something magical like...like a Minotaur?”

“Beasts, or mana beasts, are natural creatures that have been twisted by magic into something dangerous. They are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than their natural counterparts. Most of them are deranged from the process and rampage in impotent frustration. These are the types of beast you will be facing in this course.”

“And the other kind?” Jack had noted how Virtus skipped over this part. He was starting to figure out his guardians' ticks, and Virtus had averted his gaze whenever he tried to veer away from a subject he didn’t want to talk about.

“Those are the intelligent ones. Some are born as mana beasts or are awakened gently by a natural treasure. They learn to harness their power completely like a magi and can even cultivate. They are the nobility of their kind and regularly lead their insane brethren to invade the Empire in terror raids for land and resources.”

“Interesting! I always wanted to see a magical creature. Do you have werewolves, chupacabras, unicorns...dragons?”

“I have never heard tale of such a creature as the chupa—“

“Chupacabra.” Jack helpfully finished when it was clear that Virtus couldn’t say it.

“I have never heard of it, though we do have dragons and unicorns. They are among the most stable beast races.”

“That is good to hear. I want to see a dragon some day. What kind of beast do you—“

He was cut off when one of the portculli' rattled and screeched a few inches up before halting. Curses echoed throughout the amphitheater as someone fiddled with the mechanism out of sight.

Soon, there was a flash of silver light that scattered all the rust in a five meter radius of the gate. The grate once more began to lift smoothly as if it had been greased. There was a rumble across the sandy floor as something large set a foot down. It was brown and leathery. Two meters or so in diameter, it’s claws dug into the soft earth as the rest emerged into daylight. It was a giant Komodo dragon.