Jonny grabbed his phone and used his "phone" to copy everything onto it. After a moment a txt appeared on his "phone"

"data on this phone indicates this was your primary phone update your "phone" screens to use this number?"

"fucking yes." Jonny said with a smile and his "phone" became his phone.

Jonny tossed aside the 300$ trash that had ben his phone and grabbed his keys txting Drew for the address of the craftsman's lab when his phone went off.

" '^' Make a Mana-works candle reward 2 '+' "

He frowned looking down at his phone. 'what the fuck is a Mana-works candle?'

He sat down on the edge of his bed and used his phone to look up the word grateful that his phone could search through the whole mad journal and just get him to the part he was looking for.

He found a part talking about how first years usually learned how to make magic candles that sounded more like magic fireworks but they could make other things besides just fire, wind blasts and sparks of lightning in place of normal bangs and fizz of the fire works Jonny knew.

By the end of the year they would have competitions to see who could make the best and most interesting magic candle displays.

Jonny liked that idea, a weapon that he could also use to put on shows like no one els on earth? Jonny nearly licked his lips at the thought.

One of the best things was it only took everyday sand and wax. He didn't even need wicks as the mana would be used for that.

Most sand was mostly quartz he found out from the book, but because of its very nature it wasn't very good for mana storage only to transfer mana, or when sand is added to the wax before the mana is put into it the sand can act like an explosive for the Mana put into it.

Jonny could practically feel the gears in his head spinning as he thought of all the things he wanted to try with this. If it worked out the way he wanted it to then these candles could have nearly unlimited applications, and even if it didn't then it would still be a cool trick and great for getting rid of those damn rats.

The txt came in from Drew giving him an address to a construction company's storage lot half a mile out side of town.

Jonny headed to the car using his phone in music mode and debated the best place to buy wax in bulk.

He figured for now just play it safe and buy a bunch at the craft store in town then if it worked the way he wanted he could tell Drew to get in some major shipments of wax and sand.

He was sure that the construction lot would have sand at the very least he knew they had sand bags so that would save him some money and time.

It didnt take Jonny any time to find and then buy bundles of candles in a few different colors to help him keep track of what mana he put into them.

The sales person sold him on heated pitchers so that he could melt then pore the wax easier, and a bundle of silicone molds that had shapes in them like stars, cubes, leaves, and a few others that Jonny thought would go good with his ManaWorks.

Then of corse he bought a few jars and ways to make small birthday candles.

It added up quickly and he was glad he got one of the gold coin cards before he got into the RV with the rest of the guys. He was also glad he had plenty of space to put all the things he had gotten. If he had the Eco stallion he planed on buying nearly all of its trunk space was used for the hydro-converter so he would have had to barrow another car or try and strap it to the roof of the car somehow.

It was a nice day as the sun had rose midway through the sky sheading its golden light on the little bit of trees on the highway between towns. Jonny had the windows down to enjoy the wind as he made the drive to the construction lot that was down a back road and at the end of a long gravel driveway.

'i wonder if I tried to solidify the air as im driving would it keep moving when I stoped?' Jonny thought moving his had through the air as he pulled up to an old man with a scruffy beard, a fisherman's vest and a bucket hat on who was waving one hand to single Jonny to head over.

the old man leaned in to talk to Jonny through the passenger side window. "you Jonny ?"

"Yeah... are you the craftsman?" Jonny asked a little confused.

The man opened the door to sit down next to Jonny . "Nah. Im Cid. And yes I know how funny my name is and yes its my real name. And actually I DO like those games. They came out when I was a kid Im not that damn old."

Jonny gave him a dumbfounded look. "whaa?"

"Hmmmh" he gruffed "not a fan of classic RPGs are yah?"

"Not really... Im more of a people person." Jonny said with a confused frown.

"Never mind then." Cid folded his arms frowning. "Just go ahead and pull up to where it ses dumpster storage. Hope you got a week sense of smell."

Jonny grimaced and said. "can I get some sand bags first?"

It was Cid's tern to look confused. "what in the hell do you need sand bags fer? Is there some cinda trick to keeping the smell out I don't know about?"

"No. I just need them for what im working on." Jonny said shaking his head.

"shame." Cid said then gestured to a line of trucks. "there are some piled up in front of the flatbeds."

"ok il just be a minute." Jonny said getting out of the car and going over to where a few palets had ben set up covered in bright orange plastick. Some cuts on the sides and bottoms of the palets had sand that had clearly leaked out. Jonny grabbed a couple of the green tarp sand bags in each hand off the top and headed back to the car.

He got back into the car noticing that Cid was playing on a hand held gaming consol as he got back in.

"So... Dumpster storage?" Jonny asked and Cid pointed with a chin and Jonny started driving.

"its a good thing you don't have one of those big trucks" Cid said as they drove

It only took a few minutes before Jonny knew what he meant the dumpsters where more like large metal boxes stacked together in a large area. There seamed to be hundreds of the things just stacked in neet rows at least 2 stories tall and stretching back into the lot.

Cid pulled out what looked like the bottom half of a flip phone and typed in 3 numbers. 4 rows of dumpsters started to slide sideways revealing an opening as big as a garage door that seamed to lead down into an underground parking lot.

Cid smiled at Jonny 's socked expression. "Good. Maintenance on that thing is a pain in my ass but its worth it to see the look on peoples faces when they see it for the first time."

"i bet." Jonny said carefully driving into the space noticing that in fact he had just enough room to drive through comfortably on his next trip.

"I've also got an escape hatch so I don't have to move the whole thing every time I want to get in and out." Cid said "Im going to tell you about it. Don't interrupt cus I don’t much care if you don't wanna know I like tellin the story when I can."

Jonny frowned glancing at him as he drove down a half circle like you'd find in underground parking lots and realized thats exactly what this was as his lights shown on the support pillers ahead of him.

"good." cid grunted then went on. "this whole area was bout up by the government back in the 40s and it just sat there mostly until the 50s were they started trying to tern it into a bunch of doomsday bunkers and a underground base but then they had that big fire in 67 and deemed this whole place condemned until it was sold in 78 to one of our founders and they found out that the inspecter for this area was a lazy asshole. Sure it looked like hell but after a good scrubbing and a few tunnels being cleared out the place looked damn fine."

Jonny had found a place to park and hurd the rumble above him of the secret door closing and actually interested but not wanting to waist time he gave Cid a questioning look.

Cid pulled out his half phone a gain and hit a new combination of numbers on it and lights started to go on. Leading up a ramp with a shopping cart, a flat cart, and a couple dollys set up just outside the door.

"So he payed off the next inspecters to say that he had just paved the whole thing over and was playing on building a mall then he went bank rupt and abanded this area. Or at least thats what the paper trail said." Cid kept on with his monolog as Jonny sighed and got out of the car grabbing the shopping cart to load up the stuff into it. "But really he had finished this place but wasn't sure what all to do with it except maybe sit on it just in case. So he built the casino to launder the money he was making on his "side businesses" on top of another half built bunker and just left this one to stay hidden until his death in 91 when Norman took over the casino and then he started getting into what I like to call some "Supervillain shit" or what he calls "philanthropic educational sponsorships"" Cid seamed to struggle just a little while saying this as Jonny finished moving over his candle work stuff and stoped himself from correcting Cid on who it was that took over the casino remembering Drew was officially just a Hotel manager or something.

Cid finally got out of the car and started walking up the slight ramp as Jonny followed pushing the cart. "Wich if your hear that means you've probably earned one of those. Ya' see Norman started reading storys in the paper and hearing about those kids who were building bombs or guns out of scrap and trash in there hoods to fight in the gang wars they were having. And he thought to himself "good god. look at what these kids are doing with nothing but a couple of junk cars and trash they found in abandoned homes. What the hell could they do if they were given the same money those dumb ass professors get for sitting around wanking over the same 8 books for years."

Jonny waited as Cid unlocked a large set of double doors and shut off the lights with what Jonny was being to think of as his remote. Inside the doors was another hallway but this one was level and led off to doors on either side and Jonny could hear men working inside a few of them as they walked.

"what cinda things are you going to be working on?"

It took Jonny a moment to realize that was a question not some part of the story.

"oh... um... Fireworks?" Jonny said

Cid gave a glance at the stuff in the cart a disbelieving look. "you making another trip?"

"umm... im going to be getting more things in later this is just the start." Jonny lied dismissively.

"you ganna need a place to fire off your projects?" Cid asked

"...yeah that would be best." Jonny said thinking about it for only a moment.

"allright. Room 33 then" Cid said and led Jonny down the hall continuing his story. "So he sent people to look for these kids and a few others that clearly had talent but nothing to do with it and if there talents are in most things like music, arts, medicine, and such he sends them up to all expenses payed schools then watches them and gets first dibs on any patents or artwork they make while making sure they get a bonus for there hard work. The doctors are asked to do a little work on there off hours or make sure that the right people get the transplants they need."

'so stealing there work and organ harvesting.' Jonny thought a little nashusly. 'helps explain were the money comes from'

"But thats out there the people who come here are into the crazy stuff. Lazer weapons, new cinds of bombs, new cinds of drugs, crazy new ways to hack into things. Hell iv got one guy who is swearing hes nearly able to hypnotize people with flashing lights." Cid said with a smile as he opened a door into a long room that looked like half a narrow firing range and half tool shed. With the wall at the far end having an elevator shaft inside it with a wooden box. "the oh shit button is by the door try and work on anything explosive in there and when it looks like its ganna go wrong hit the button and it’ll drop it down 2 more stories to go off there. IF you cant hit the butten in time and dont know how to play it safe then eather hit the 'oh im fucked' buten witch you should allways have on you, or hope that one of us is going to come looking for you before you die."

"that happen a lot?" Jonny asked nervously.

"I like to tell the new guys it happens once every few mounths but soon they lern its more or less how dumb the people around them are. One guy didnt seam to know the difference between himself exploding and the bomb going off." Cid said with a shrug "now if you can think of anything you know you want now txt it to the porter in the book. There not your mother, butler, or maid. there mor like waiters and there mostly Veterans so they'll kick your ass if they want to. If you know your the cinda guy who keeps working till he drops let me know now and I can get you the standard set up."

Jonny wasn't sure if he was or not, he never really had that hard a time studying in school and he always knew there was a job for him at the Casino if he wanted it. So he never really tried very hard or got into projects besides some Drama club activities and a few big parties.

"umm.... mite as well?" Jonny said with a shrug. "my sleep cycle is a little.. off these days."

Cid nodded. "thats fine but if your on any uppers or caffeine pills its a strict 3 days on 2 days off rule. Your here to be a craftsman not a junky."

"yeah thats not going to be a problem for me." Jonny said a little disgustedly.

"whatever." Cid said and seamed to think making sure he covered everything. "the porter should be able to answer most of your questions and if you made it this far then you should already know all the other rules."

"...yeah I think so." Jonny said looking around and noticed what looked like a garden hose on a cart next to a bright silver fire extinguisher. "dose that actually work?"

"yep water is good enough for most fires and your porter should be able to tell you if its not if your not sure. Theres drains and fans built in so don't be afraid to use it." Cid said and with a little nod seamed satisfied "well that looks like everything your porter will cover the rest and don't be surprised if they change every so often. They have set hours unlike us nuts."

"well thanks... I never knew all that stuff about the underground but it explains that basement in the house next door to mine." Jonny said wanting to get started but also not wanting to be rude.

"Oh yeah nearly every old house in the town has at least a little one. The boss has ben trying to buy them all up but owning a whole town takes time." Cid said "especially with the homeless that move in. Boss tries to give every one a job and so people come here hearing that all there buddies have gotten jobs and health care or you just get those people who just stumble across this place and think they won the jack pot when they find one of those bunkers."

Jonny nodded remembering all the trash he found in the one he had ben in. "yeah looked like it."

"well I get payed to stand around jawin, but you get payed to craft so il leave and let you get to work." Cid said as a message came to him on his real cell phone.

"thanks" Jonny said emptying out the shopping cart onto the table so that Cid could take it back with him. While trying to think if there was anything he would want to txt the porter about.

Cid took the cart away as Jonny picked up the paper with the porter number on it and sent a txt.

"hello. I'm Jonny in room 33 and I would like

Bunsin burner. A fan.

A jacob's ladder/or tessla coil. witch ever is easier.

More power cords. A freezer. if its not to much trouble empty milk jugs. And if you can get your hands on it Clear crystals."

'I cinda hope Cid wasn't kidding and this place is full of oddballs. otherwise im just going to piss off my porter right from the start.' Jonny thought and realized he was starting to get hungry. with a shrug he sent another txt for a peperoni pizza from a place that shouldn't be to far out.

A txt came back "This is porter Andy. There should be a bunsen burner in the drawer marked 52 and plenty of power cords in drawer 15.

electric or paper fan how big? box? Desk? or industrial?

how big a freezer? How powerful?

half or full gallon milk jugs? How many?

and what kind of clear crystals?"

Jonny looked and sure enough there was a small drawer with a bunsen burner with picture instructions on how to attach it to the spigot on the counter. "drawer" 15 turned out to be more like a rolling bucket filled with different power cords and power strips.

"ok found them thank you. and electric desk fan should work." Jonny started to txt back. "idk about the freezer just big enough to fit a couple of the milk jugs and powerful enough to make ice. and if you have another magic drawer filled with bottles with caps on them then I could just use that. Quartz crystals as many as you can in all shapes and sizes. I need at least 5 quarter sized and 40, quarter wide ones would be perfect."

"got it and draw 11?" Was Andy's reply.

Jonny looked in drawer 11 and found stacks of both plastic and glass cups with sealable lids inside they were marked as 40onces.

Jonny set back a confirmation txt, then turning his music back on he started to work actually setting up his candle making gear. He set to one table a little away from him all the heated pitchers and made sure there wasn't any plastic or weird residue in them finding them all clean he filled up each with a different color of wax and set them to melting.

Then he set one of the sand bags on each table. One near the wax melters and one on the other table where he would be working the most.

He had ben told it would take at least 15 minutes for the wax to melt enough to work with and with no idea how long it would take Andy to bring the things he needed he started looking through the drawrs so that maybe he wouldnt keep sending so menny dumb requests to Andy.

That took about 10 minutes and Jonny found many things he would be using a few of witch he didn't even think he would need.

A new txt from Andy appeared on the phone.

"out side the door got your pizza and a few of the easier items first."

"You can come in" Jonny called out to no answer so Jonny walked over to open the door and found a short woman with dark hair holding a pizza with a flat cart behind her. Her face was covered in one of those thin paper medical masks but it had a little smile in sharpy drawn on it.

"i wasn't sure how jumpy you were." she said handing him the pizza and grabbing the cart. "and in room 33 its very important not to startle people."

Jonny hurried to put the pizza down and help her with what she had brought him.

a plastic desk fan, a small deep freeze that looked a little battered, a jacobs latter that had a cord wrapped around it, and 5 crystal necklaces from the hippy spot in the mall.

He set the stuff were he wanted them on the first desk then helped her unload the deep freezer and put it in the corner to plug in and get started on getting cold.

"ok iv got the people back at the store getting together all of the Crystals they have. Do you have any interest in the others besides clear? cus they have them in a lot of colors and most of the ones with just clear also have other colors on them to." Andy said clearly a naturally hyperactive person.

Jonny noticed that she was also wearing gloves along with a long with a soft turtal neck. He also noticed that her hair seamed to be a wig.

"ahh... well don't buy any you don't have to but if there already attached I mite be able to use them..." Jonny said unsure and not wanting to pull up his "phone" to check unless he had to.

"Good to know. Anything els you want me to get while im right in front of you?" she asked already heading back out the door with her cart.

"some sort of targets? or beer bottles? something I can smash and shoot at with out costing to much money?" Jonny said thinking and had a few ideas for some odd things latter but for now he just wanted the basics covered.

"ok wow we got a recycler on our hands huh?" she said and Jonny could tell she was smiling beneath the mask. "Il have the boys that are setting up your over night kit get some old bottles im sure they have laying around and bring them up."

She closed the door seaming to nearly run away from Jonny and he wondered why.

The smell of pizza called to him so he shrugged it off and filled his belly glad that Andy had given him a couple bottles of water and napkins along with his pizza.

Jonny pulled up the magic book on computer mode and set his phone to lock at about eye level wile also keeping it in music mode so that he would be able to read it while he worked.

Typing with one hand and chewing on a slice of pizza with the other Jonny looked up how the mana candles would ignite or activate.

"For all but the most base of mana candles the advanced mana manipulation is needed along with soul mana. Most will think that you simply put fire mana into a wick or a line of sand inside the candle.

And at the start this will work but only slowly unless fire mana is added to the rest of the candle. The fire mana will melt the wax and release the mana in the sand that was held stable by the wax.

Of course this often mixes with the fire mana and whatever mana is also in the candle, in some cases with explosive results.

This is why soul mana is needed, and why the mana candle is one of the best starting projects for students and one of the best ways to introduce soul mana in one of its most basic forms.

When asked what soul mana is most are unable to fully define it other than what it is.

It is interaction, activation, timing, stoping, repetition, shape, and duplication.

It is why fire can jump from one leaf to another and why the leaves can grow in the first place. it is how the wind terns rock into sand and how the water can run through the rivers but also freeze like stone. It is how a worm crawls and how a man thinks.

With out soul the elements would simply be, water just still in there oceans, rock unchangingly still, wind moving over everything but tuching nothing, and the sun burning far away its heat neve leaving it.

Some take this a step further and say that the waters would not be together and even the sun would just wink out with out its soul to keep them going."

'ok? so soul is what? the programing of the universe? I mean thats good to know and all but how dose that help me make a fucking candle?' Jonny thought using a napkin to dab at his mouth and grabbing a new slice of pizza

"Soul is all of these and therefore what is needed in the magic candle is the wick to be made of the activation of soul mixed with the timing of soul and the other manas inside the candle.

It is a must that first time makers of Mana candles must not use any dangerous mana at first until they get the timing mix correct so not to

activate there candle while trying to make them.

Some may just try to make sections of the candle activation only as to skip this or make it easier but this will make advanced mana applications even more difficult due to lack of refined technique.

It will most certainly take a few tries to accomplish."

'ok... I think I got what I need.' Jonny thought and chewed while thinking 'the timing thing... if thats what I think it is then its like how sometimes a match burns quickly or slowly depending on how you hold it. And activation should be like how one match lights another match on fire being near it. So wouldn't it actually be easier to start getting the hang of this with matches? ...maybe the guy who wrote this didn't have matches?'

Jonny grabbed a book of matches from drawer 3 witch had them lighters wicks and a sparker. He started to reach for the drawer with some putty in it then remembered his ability and hesitated.

'would be a good time to test that as well...' Jonny thought and then took his hand off the drawer.

He took out a match and then set it on the table and used just a little bit of his power the golden dust leaking out and forming a very small cube at the base of the match.

Satisfied he did the same with more matches setting up 10 of them this way. He set just one in front of himself for now and pulled one of the matches out of the box.

'ok... lets see if I can start with timing... I want to make the standing up mach light 3 seconds after I put the other match up to it.' Jonny thought looking at the matches. '...but how the fuck do I do that? Just will it with mana and hope for the best?'

Jonny shrugged and reached out with his off hand and held the standing match and thought loudly at the match that he didn't want it to light on fire until 3 seconds had passed.

he felt cinda dumb but what could he do? he allso didnt notice any changes or feel anything like when the gold dust left his hand.

He just shrugged and let go of the match before striking the other one and slowly put one match to the other.

The match lit up instantly flaring with a definite fire that burned on Jonny 's failure.

"hmmmm" 'fuck you match... how am I sposted to do this? it mite help if I actually knew what it was like to move normal mana around first.' Jonny thought before blowing out the match and shaking out the other.

He pulled out one of the bracelets that Andy had brought him.

'so witch element should I make you, I wonder?' Jonny thought looking at the clear stone and figured that water would be the most notice able and safest bet.

He filled one of the cups up with water from the hose and set it down on the table next to the crystal then just looked at them for a moment.

'ok I can do this. I spet the points into it after all.' Jonny thought and put his hand on the cup and lifted the stone so it was touching the side of the glass.

He focused and instead of just thinking loudly at it he tried to feel for it like he did with the gold dust that seamed to come out of him to make the solid air.

This time he felt a little tug in the palm of his hand and white glittery dust pushed out from his palm and into the cup of water turning blue. excitedly Jonny willed the blue sparkles into the crystal and watched as the clear water started to drain as the blue dust floated into the clear gem and seamed to disappear into the crystal. Jonny did this with the hole cup, the white mana turning blue and disappearing inside the clear.

Jonny licked his lips giddy at his first real use of real magic. He just couldn't beleave that he had done it. He also couldn't belive the crystal looked the exact same.

He looked at it closer holding it up to the light and could see faintly a single blue speck of light inside the crystal.

If he wasn't looking for it he knew he never would have seen it. It was smaller then a piece of glitter and for a second he thought he had just imagined it.

'ok now lets try and get it out of the crystal.' Jonny thought and held the jem over the cup then willed the mana through his hand into the gem then out into the glass the mana moved and the water pored out of the crystal into the cup just as if he had pored it out of a bottle.

'How much can this thing hold?' Jonny thought in wonder as he smiled at the cup of water. 'cant think about that now iv got to focus other wise il never get this done.'

He put the lid onto the cup and put it away in the slightly cool deep freezer. He had wanted to use the cup for ice anyway.

He turned back to the matches and grabbed a new set this time with more confidence put mana into the match while willing it not to activate until latter.

He saw the white mana go into the match and slowly tern the match head white as well.

'so water is blue and soul is white?' Jonny wondered as he lit the next match and held it up to the first.

nothing seamed to happen to the first match making Jonny smile then he noticed the white mana inside the match seamed to glow with red at the edges Jonny put out the match he was holding and watched as the white mana slowly turned red when he couldn't see any more white the match flared to life.

'gooood. now I just need to figure out activation mana.' Jonny thought 'ok so timing was stoping the red from spreading. So what is activation? making it spread red faster? or maybe just making the white tern red? No red is almost definitely fire mana so just turning it red would make it fire mana. So what? ...maybe it only makes sense if I already have another mana to put with it. Or maybe its what let me take the mana out of the gem and put it into the cup.'

Jonny set up a 3rd match set lighting a match and this time just holding it and putting mana through the flame and aiming it at the match on the table.

Fire lept out of the match in jonny's hand and jumped at the match on the table lighting it. Jonny swore dropping the match he held and lost concentration causing the match to go out and the flame to dissipate into the air.

The nock at the door made Jonny jump a second time but then he remembered that they were bringing him a sleeping kit.

Jonny opened the door to a well built man with one arm holding a trash bag and a skinny guy with his arms full of blankets and a couple pillows Between them was a small bed folded in half with a large duffle bag on top.

"ah.. sorry let me help you with that." Jonny said grabbing the bag off the top of the small bed and pulling it inside.

The men for there part just grunted and stepped inside the one armed man setting down the bag with a clank proving that they were the glass bottles he had wanted.

Jonny pushed the bed to an out of the way corner and set it up so the guy with his hands full could set his bundle down. Jonny noticed the man was missing fingers on one hand and nearly half of his other hand.

"thanks." Jonny said trying to pretend he hadn't noticed.

The guy just grunted and gave a half nod and they left the one armed man closing the door behind them.

'...OK' Jonny thought then set up his bed while he was thinking about it and wondering if he really even needed to come here or if it would have ben better if he just spent some of that money to buy the stuff he had. But at the same time it seamed he kept thinking up new things he needed and having to stop to run out and get it every 5 minutes would kill him.

His bed compleat Jonny went back to his work with the matches this time scooping up some sand and poring it out onto the metal table.

He lit a match and put the fire mana into the sad witch started to tern red as if a little bit of paint had ben doped onto it.

'Holy crap it changed so much faster and more than the pure crystal did.' Jonny thought looking at the red sand.

He then took a new match and touched it to the sand moving it around a little, it wasn't until he really mixed the red sand into the normal sand did the red in the sand and the match flair up lighting the match.

'ok so the sand probably isn't hot when its just sand.' Jonny thought and put the manna off the match in his hand into the sand.

He gently touched the sand half expecting it to be hot, if nothing els then from the fire that had just lit the spent match. The sand was only slightly warm to the tuch probably from where it had ben sitting out in the sun all day before Jonny had brought it in to use it.

Jonny layed a new match just a little to the right of the red sand and tried to focus on the red sand coming out and into the other match but instead of putting it into the sand he put it into the new match in his hand and watched the white light fill up the match as he held it. He then laid the match between the red and the other match and watched as the red mana moved through the first match and into the second lighting it before it to lit up.

"gotcha" Jonny said with a smile and blew out the matches and set them to the side adding a little more sand and spreading it out into a circle putting matches in an X shape then he put activation and timing into the sand trying to put more delay in each as he went so it would take longer and longer for each match to finally be lit.

Then he lit a new match and put it into the center of the circle and moved the fire mana into it slowly the red moved into the sand then started spreading out and like he wanted it seamed to move at different speeds to each match the first one spread pretty quickly to light the match head that was just outside the sand then the next one came slower but still lit the last one moved so slowly Jonny could see it crawling across the sand to the final match head.

'Now all I need to do is put it together and into the wax and il have a candle.' Jonny thought and knew that with what he had just seen he should put the activation/timing mana in last. 'also is activation really the right word for that typ of mana? ...No thats more of just transferring it isnt it?'

Jonny frownd down at the sand then blew out the match sticks and cleaned up the little mess he had made.

"ok ok" Jonny said trying to think. 'so transferring and timing but what would you call activation? was it just mixed in with the transer?"

Jonny layed out a new set of 2 matches with sand in between then lit 3 matches and put the mana into the sand in a line leading to both match heads and tossed aside the spent matches.

He grabbed the measuring spoons he found in one of the drawers and headed back over to the table with the wax and the other bag of sand. Scooping up a half teaspoon of sand he set out the birth day candle mold he picked up the white wax pitcher and pored just a little bit into the mold then added a little of the sand then pored more wax on top until it filled.

He waited on the wax to cool then took the wax out of the mold and saw that he would need to stir the sand into the wax. He had thought that the sand would just sink into the hot wax not form a layer that blocked the new wax from reaching the rest of it.

'fuck but whatever itl work for what I want.' Jonny thought taking the smaller bottom peace of wax back over to the table and filled it with mana while he focused on it activating any mana it came in contact with. He saw the sand glow white and gently touched It to the red sand. Fire jumped up from where it hit the red sand but no where els. Using the half melted candle nub Jonny moved it touching the other parts of the sand and saw only the parts that he touched lit on fire.

"fuck yeah. now thats activation" Jonny cried out with a smile.

'now what to make the fist candle out of?' Jonny wondered and thought about using fire or air but fire would burn him and the air might make the candle go flying away if he did it wrong. He wasn't sure what an earth candle would even do, except maybe just tern the wax to stone. Water would leave a mess and maybe damage the hot pitchers when he did so.

Then he thought of something. The book had said a lot of different things could be manna so why not try light?

He cleaned up the unlit matches and then held his hand out sideways over the sand in order not to block the light and willed mana into the light to put it into the sand.

Nothing seamed to happen except the White mana was much brighter when it was added into the sand.

Jonny frowned and moved a finger through the white sand.

He was startled by the sudden flash of light like a small phone camera light going off in his face.

Blinking away the light in his eyes Jonny noticed that the matches that he had set up were falling down one by one the golden light fading from them as he watched.

'Damn I wish I had set a timer I have know idea how long its ben since I set those up.' Jonny thought 'but its got to have ben at least half an hour.'

He thought for a moment of different ways to try and time it but thought hed put it aside for now and work on the candles.

He wished he knew that the mana made things change color he would have just gotten a lot of that gell wax or tryed for some other clear wax to make this next part easier.

Jonny wasn't sure if he wanted to be blinded again but felt that light was probably his best bet, when his music stoped for a moment to switch to a new song.

"no way..." Jonny said as he pulled up his phone menu and set it to customize and moved one of his "head phones" into the palm of his hand and put controls for it in his other hand. Then saved it as Test sound mana.

He turned it to a song he knew by heart making a slightly larger pile of sand then held his hand with the headphone over the sand and focused on moving the sound into the sand as he hit play.

He could feel his hand vibrate as the song moved into the mana then the sand. The sand didn't just take on one color it seamed to flash between a dull white and bright green. It spread through the sand quickly he couldn't have gotten more then 30 seconds before the whole pile of sand was flashing.

He stoped the music almost wanting to see what would happen if he just let it keep going. The book had implied it would just start gushing the mana out like an over filled cup but he wasn't sure he wanted to test it.

Jonny turned his phone into pocket mode and then brushed his fingers through the sand and could hear faintly the sound of the song. as if he was trying to listen to it from a head phone that was on a table and playing only softly.

Jonny licked his lips. 'holy shit, im going to be so fucking famus I could be the next fucking Hudini.'

Then Jonny remembered Drew's words about how this wasnt a game and that other people were treating this as an arms race. Poeple were going to die and he was standing here thinking about putting on shows like a fucking clown.

He shook his head and got back to work.

Jonny made yet another setting in his phone, this one was labeled "sound mana1" and he made it so that there was 4 speakers in a row pointing in the same direction starting at the palm of his hand.

Testing it out he could feel and hear the increase in sound, the music blaring out and echoing a little in the stone hall of a room.

He was very glad he asked for the room with sound proofing and a drawer full of ear protection. He put the earplugs in his ears then put on the Earmuffs.

Jonny then tried again playing only the first 20 seconds of song while putting the mana into the sand. He shut it off and this time when he moved the sand he could feel it vibrating is fingers as the sound came back out blaring through the room.

'ok so tern it down when I actually go to make it.' Jonn thought then took out the ear plugs and left the earmuffs on his shoulders and started work mixing sand and wax together using the white wax for activation, Blue for the music, and yellow wax for timing.

He make equal amounts of each inside the birth day candle molds though he would cut down on the activation and the music.

He took them out and cut them before adding the mana. the activation he just made a little nub, the timing/transfer he cut in half and for the music he cut it in a 1/4th.

He used a match to melt the timing wax onto the music wax then melted the activation wax to the top. Then started adding mana to the candle segments.

Starting with music he didn't bother putting the ear plugs in this time just turned down the music so that it was loud enough to hear but not so loud it hurt.

He made sure the flashing mana didn't get to anything other than the blue mana.

Then he worked on the timing mana making sure to put transfer mana inside of it so that the activation mana would spread to the rest of the music mana.

He finished it off by putting activation mana into the top little nub of wax "lighting the wick" and watched as the white mana filled it then spread threw the yellow wax slowly moving until it touched the blue wax and music began to play.

" '*' 2'+' awarded. " came the txt and Jonny smiled as he listened to the men sing before the candle ran out of mana. "Its the end of the world as we know it..."

Jonny got a sudden chill realizing what song he accidentally picked.

'damn thats some spooky shit.' Jonny thought to himself then tried to think about what he wanted to spend his points on. 'being able to move mana farther away with out it actually activating would be nice. But that seams more like a practice thing then me just waisting points on it. Knowing more about mana is just a matter of reading more in the book.'

Jonny folded his arms in thought 'being able to make bigger shapes? again he just needed practice. them lasting longer? maybe but maybe practicing would do the same.'

Jonny kept at this thinking of something he mite want but realizing he would probably just be able to make it happen with time and effort.

'the real trouble is I don't actually know what I 'CAN' do yet. so I don't know what id want to do with these points.' Jonny thought to himself. 'oh well mite as well save them for later. hell mike mite have something useful to say about all this when he finally wakes up. For now I guess i'd better keep reading and figuring out what I can do.'

So Jonny shut off all his wax melters and picked up the crystal bracelet he had put the water in earlier grabbed a folding chair and sat next to the hose turned on the water. Then put the hose in his hand while holding onto the crystal with his fingers and started putting mana into the water then into the crystal while he set his phone to computer and music modes to read more on mana.

He wasn't sure what to read about first, he was thinking about it when he noticed that the water hose in his hand was spraying out instead of going into the gem.

'fuck... looks like I have to keep my consentration up.' Jonny thought then looked back at his phone. 'unless the book has some tricks for that.'

He shut the hose off and looked at the crystal noticing a blue spot that was much bigger than before but was still small even compared to the rest of the stone.

He searched on how to make stones automatically gather mana and got 4 very different results.

One just said save your time buy it with points.

The other was much longer and said that you needed another crystle or large pile of crystals filled with transfer mana placed near empty crystals or inside of empty crystals then surrounded only by the mana you wish to gather.

something like an egg or box filled with transfer mana then place empty crystals inside then drop the box in the river or hung up for the wind. Or put into a fire that is watched over and kept full.

Another was to use advanced techniques to build step by step something that could take any mana tern it into transfer mana then absorption mana then letting it go into a new stone with out letting the first one be changed.

The last one was using advanced soul mana and taking a living things ability from it then changing it. The suggested way was taking a moss's ability to change water into more moss and changing it so that it grows what the desired element is. Then using the part of the moss that allows it to move water through it while changing it to just constantly moving into the mana stone. In effect it would change the moss from growing moss from mostly water into growing what the desired new mana is while also filling nearby mana stones.

'well then. looks like I need some moss.' Jonny thought but also knew there had to be another way that was half way from buy it with points and build a hole new set of things.

Jonny tried looking up "how to get a lot of mana into a mana stone quickly" instead.

this gave him the answer that there were a few ways using advanced mana stones to increase the speed of movement to gather more mana quickly or just getting good enough at mana manipulation to do so.

'Well that fucking blows.' Jonny thought and sighed 'it would just be easier if I could just put a bunch of absorb mana into a stone then drop it into the mana I want... wait why cant I?'

Jonny tried to look up in the book "absorption manna". He found that the only reason was that if he put absorption mana into a stone it would just take anything near by with out taking worrying about what he wanted it to do.

'the fuck? thats exactly what timing mana should be for.' Jonny Thought then remembered this book was based on a journal of a crazy guy who scribbled notes about magic in between dieing, and had gone to a real mages school were getting full mana stones would be easy.

'ok so now lets see how long it takes to por timing and absorption into a stone.' Jonny thought picking up a new bracelet and poring delay and absorb mana into the stone.

Again the stone seamed to remain unchanging and Jonny tried to push harder poring more mana faster into the stone, and he could slowly feel it speeding up like when you slowly tern on a tap and the water goes from a steady trickle into more of a small stream he cept at it and slowly it started to get even stronger and stronger until he could clearly see the white soul mana growing inside the stone.

He smiled in satisfaction watching the little spark slowly but steadily grow inside the stone.

He pored the mana into the stone for what felt like hours song after song played on his head phones with barely a notice from Jonny as he knew he had to focus.

Finally the white stone shown in his hands filled with delay and absorption.

Jonny had to act quickly to set something up for the stone to absorb he didn't think he wanted to waist a stone on Air just yet so he pulled out stand they use to heat things in a bunsen burner and then wished he had set up the damned bunsen burner sooner.

Instead he grabbed the jacobs ladder and set it up carefully placing the stone in between the prongs before turning it on.

At first it seamed the jacobs ladder would tern on just like normal arks of electricity coursing up the 2 copper wires seamingly ignoring the crystal then the timing mana started to fade and slowly the arks stoped just lighting up at the base going into the crystal.

Jonny yawned in satisfaction noticing how tired he was now that he had gotten this first crystal set up and saw that it was nearly 8 in the morning.

He wasn't sure just when he woke up from Drew's couch but he knew it had to have ben before 4pm yesterday so what 17 hours driving around and messing with mana.

'Geez no wonder i'm tired.' Jonny thought remembering that he used to stick to a schedule of 8 hours of sleep a night. His routine had died and in its place magic and monsters awoke.

'i really hope the trade was worth it.' Jonny thought as he took off his shoes and got into the small thin bed.