The next day we left bright and early. The slaves were happy since they had a better meal than normal and more room to move around in. I had split them up between the three carts instead of the two, and also decided to let the two slaves who had been enslaved illegally ride next to the drivers. Bartoss had his own cart of course, though it was now occupied by myself and Elendria, who was more than happy to give me an overview of magic and how to learn the elements.

“There are two ways to unlock the elemental version of mana. Elves and more magical creatures tend to go by feeling and imagery, where humans go by knowledge of the element itself. Both have their own drawbacks. The most obvious is fire. Many relate to fire with rage. But what to do if you can’t summon anger? That’s why the best mages that follow the emotion path add several different emotions to their element. With the knowledge path, the less you know about the element the less potency you have. There are ways to determine your affinity to each element, but they generally aren’t used outside of the mage schools.”

“Huh. I know a lot of people relate rage to fire, but there are others who describe an icy rage. Does that effect the spells at all?”

“Yes. In fact I am one that uses icy rage. My deep connection to ice has basically neutered my ability to cast flame magics, at least those outside of apprentice tier. That’s why you won’t see many true elementalists in the magical species.”

“Would you mind explaining your connection to ice? If it’s too intrusive…” I trailed off as I looked at her.

“It’s fine.” She said after a few seconds. “Just, don’t ask someone who doesn’t have complete trust in you. Ice, for me. Cold rage, that takes its time. The chill wind that cuts to the bone. Dying a slow, painful death. Blinding snow that covers the land.” As she was describing it, her eyes took on a light blue glow, gradually increasing in intensity. I could actually feel a bit of chill flowing out of her, it was an amazing feeling.

“Once you have that in your mind, channel mana through the image. It will gain the elemental affinity. The stronger the imagery, the better the effects.”

Interesting. Mental imagery was apparently pretty powerful in this world, but I wonder. Would someone like me be able to combine both? Maybe something to explore later, right now I needed some spells to use. “So, do you actually cast spells or are they just effects?”

“They are considered by the system to be spells. A lot of them are easy to pass on, just by listening to the name and deducing the effects. What do you think ice spear would be?”

“A spear formed of ice, either held in the hand or more likely fired at an enemy.”

“Exactly. And you can use it for both. The system rewards those who are flexible.”

“Thank you, Elendria. I’m going to work on a few spells, do you have any suggestions for where to start?”

“Most humans tend to gravitate towards fire, though I wouldn’t recommend it. Part of the reason we have been making such good time is the lack of rains, which means this grassland is waiting to burn. Depending on the wind, I doubt I could contain it in time.”

“Gotcha. No fires.” I nodded, and set about thinking what to do. I knew a bit about earth, but I didn’t want to do anything to rip up the road we were on and slow down our pace. Fire was obviously out, though I’m sure I could put a bit of knowledge that the natives of this world didn’t know. Water could work, but would it be easier with more water around? Elendria did mention that it was dry, which obviously meant that it might be more difficult despite the knowledge I might have. That left air.

Air. The chemist in me revolted at calling it an element, though I understood that it was different than the actual periodic table. So, what all do I remember about air. Roughly 75ish percent nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and the rest is assorted compounds. I was probably off by a bit, but it was good enough for government work. Now, gas relationships. Every chemist in training had to go through the ideal gas law and all the related laws. Charles’ Law. Boyle’s Law. If you wanted, you could find a million substitutions and come up with a million equations. But to break it down simply, pressure, volume, and temperature are generally constant. Pressure goes up, volume goes down or temperature rises. You could break down a gas into partial pressures depending on concentration.

In addition to the more mathematical relationships, were physical relationships. Gases generally expand under higher temps, which causes warmer, less dense air to rise. Cold air condenses and drops. Updrafts and downdrafts form, and in the worst case twist around each other to form tornadoes. If I had a funnel and some liquid, I could even tell which direction the tornado would spin in this world, provided they had something similar to the Coriolis effect. Wind. Simply air moving from high pressure to low pressure, constantly searching for equilibrium. This was thrown off by uneven heating of earth and water sources, which causes lake effects. Did this world have an atmosphere build like Earth’s? A troposphere with all the weather, the tops of which included the jet streams that propelled the major weather shifts. I didn’t remember all the other layers, other than there is one where the temperature rapidly rises.

How the hell do I link the two? I didn’t really have a mental image, unless you wanted me to list a bunch of equations on a mental blackboard. “Elendria, you wouldn’t happen to know how humans link their knowledge, would you?” I asked.

“Hmm?” She turned from her inspection of our surroundings to look at me. “Sorry. I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Carrigan. He should know.”

Great. Can’t ask Carrigan until we stop, I guess I’ll have to experiment. I tried sending mana through my mental blackboard, and felt absolutely nothing. I didn’t think it would work, but it had to be tried. Sending the information into wherever I felt the mana came from didn’t work either. I tried to lace the air around my hand with mana, and have it sort of absorb the properties, but that just got me a small mana tornado dancing on my palm.

“Calm.” Elendria suddenly said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Magic will never be forced, so just wait until you can talk to the mage. He’ll help you out, I’m sure. Even if you have to pay for it.”

“Alright.” I said with a defeated sigh. Well, if I couldn’t manage to teach myself air magic, maybe I could make a few more mana spells. Maybe the tried and true magic missile? Why not. What to target, what to target? There wasn’t much. Grasses swaying, but picking out one and watching to make sure it got hit would suck. Can’t really target the wagon in front of us, Bribis would probably be annoyed. And charge me for damages. Oh? Looks like there are occasionally rocks along the road. Perfect!

I pointed my palm at one and felt a small spear of mana fire off at the target. My heart swelled with excitement for half a second, until I missed the target. Wide left. By about three feet. I tried again, only to overshoot the target by a foot and still wide left by another foot.

“What are you doing?” Elendria asked, confused.

“Trying to make another spell.” I replied, firing again. Each shot ended up using around 15 mana, and I was not getting any better at targeting. Undershot and wide right. I wasn’t even getting noticeably closer.

“I can see that. What I don’t understand is why you are pointing your palm at the target? You are trying to hit that rock, yes?”

“Yeah?” I answered uncertainly.

“Don’t use any mana, just hold your palm and point it at the rock. Can you still see your target?”

“I’m an idiot.” I muttered. No wonder I couldn’t hit it. Can’t hit what you can’t see idiot. Changing tactics, I pointed a finger gun at the rock and sent the mana out through my finger. I still overshot it, but I was only off by inches this time instead of feet.

“Much better. I’ve seen that skill before, all you have to do is hit the target three times.” Elendria said, before turning back to her guard duties.

Renewed, I kept firing at stones. And kept missing. Almost always overshooting, though sometimes I would get lucky and hit a glancing blow. What the hell was going wrong? Sure, I was no marksman back on Earth, but it’s not like I was shooting a moving target. The rock was just sitting there! I slumped down, realizing I was an idiot twice over.

I wasn’t shooting a moving target, but I was moving in relation to a target. It took 150 mana for me to realize this, too. So. If your target is moving, you have to lead it. Does that mean if you are moving you have to trail the target? Is that what it’s called? Doesn’t matter, time to do it. Instead of aiming at the rock, I aimed a few inches below the rock. BULLSEYE! The bolt of mana smashed into the rock, sending it flying into the grass along the road. I pointedly ignored the chuckle next to me as I celebrated with the arm jerk. Palm facing you, make a fist and jerk your arm down to your stomach.

Spell acquired: Magic missile (1/5)

Apprentice

Fire a bolt of mana at a target doing damage. Cost 10 mana per bolt.

“Hah! Basic offensive magic acquired!” I chuckled. “Ugh, that’s a bit more draining than I would like to admit.” I said, leaning back into my seat. “Give me a bit to recover, then would you help me train it a bit? I don’t think it’ll take too long to max out that skill.”

“Of course, master.” Elendria replied, still looking out over the fields.

“You know, you can call me by my name.” I said, not wanting to give her orders. She had enough of that for several lifetimes.

“I understand, but will stick with master. At least until we get this collar off.” She answered, and I gave up. If that’s what she wanted, I would at least give her that little bit of control. I spent an hour vainly trying to get that damned meditation skill. My mind kept jumping around to different spells that would be awesome. Would I stand in front of enemy armies, compressing them into paste with a gravity singularity? Or lay waste to the countryside with the equivalent of a solar flare? Send forth dust devils filled with blades of air, shredding those unfortunate enough to be sucked inside. Or the ultimate in space magic, call forth the wrath of the heavens as multiple meteors slam into my enemies. Alas, all of these spells would laugh at my pathetically small mana pool.

“You rested enough, master?” Elendria broke me from my musings.

“Hmm? Yes, I am, thanks.” I said, sitting back up. “I was thinking for my training, could you make small ice plates for me to target? You can move them around. Just make sure that you don’t drop below ¾ of your maximum mana, just in case we get some things to attack.”

“That is easily accomplished, master. I’ll start with stationary ones.” Pointing a finger, she created an arm of ice on the back portion of the cart in front of us, with a small round target. “This way if you miss, you won’t injure anyone.” She explained.

And so training began. Targeting and striking consistently brought my skill up to level 2, and the floating targets were enough to bring me to level 3. There progress stalled, and after three hours of practice I was frustrated. Obviously there was more to improve, and it wasn’t my aim. If it wasn’t aim, maybe it was damage. But how to increase the damage? Obviously more mana would work, but that seemed like a diminishing returns type of approach. Sure, blasting something with a mana bolt made of 200 mana would cause massive wounds, but would also leave me with a scant hundred mana to spare. If it didn’t die, I was boned.

So, let’s change the shape. I cast the spell, but didn’t let it fire right away. The ‘missile’ was more of a stretched out football. Oblong, with rounded ends. Let’s fix that then. Pull the back end in until it is flat. Take the spare mana from that and concentrate it in the tip. Stretch the tip a bit, so it is a little more pointed. What I was left with was closer to an armor piercing bullet than a football, and that reminded me. Bullets spin to increase accuracy. Might as well give it a bit of spin as well. Aiming my new mana bullet at the ice block still on the back of the wagon in front of us, I let it go. It shot forward much faster, and smashed through the target that had received several previous blasts with no issue whatsoever.

“What did you do master?” Elendria asked, eyes wide. “Let’s see just how powerful that spell is.” Glaring at her hand, she created a block of ice nearly a foot thick. Sending it aloft, she leaned in to whisper in my ear. “That’s the strongest ice I can make. Ice Rampart is a master level spell that has withstood direct assault from a catapult. Let’s see what you can do to it.”

Smiling at the challenge, I targeted her block and concentrated. The mana swirled as it formed, blasting forward and smashing into the ice block. It didn’t shatter it, but the ice was forced back several feet from the impact as I heard Elendria grunt in surprise. When she brought the ice back, her face paled.

“Had that not been blasted backward to absorb the impact, I do believe you would have shattered my spell.” She whispered. The ice had spiderwebbed pretty thoroughly on the impact side, with a few cracks reaching two thirds of the way through the thickness. I was excited about that, but even more so because of the popup I had received.

Magic Missile upgraded to Piercing Magic Missile (5/5)

New spell branches available!

Multi-missile (1/25) (journeyman)

Homing magic missile (1/25) (journeyman)

“Hah! That’s got it!” I shouted in glee, getting a glare from the driver. “So, does anything else happen after you max out a skill level?”

“You perfected it? Congratulations master. In addition to the new spells you should have access to, your spell will do additional damage. Some spells will drop in mana cost.” Smiling, I leaned back into the seat and decided to relax for the rest of the ride. There was only about an hour left until we stopped for the night, and it felt good to end training on a high note.