“Relax. Just breath in, and out. Free your mind of everything that binds you to this world.”

“I WAS DOING JUST THAT FOR SIX HOURS YOU OLD FART!!!” I can't contain my frustration for this. “Why do I even need this shitty meditation to throw balls of fire around? I already can do that to be honest.”

“Yes, but your mana regenerates way faster when you meditate. Just-” ah screw it. Six hours wasted already. System, search for skill meditation.

Meditation I

10'000 SC

Skill used to increase mana regeneration rate. The skill itself is multiplicative, so it works best for those with already relatively high mana regeneration.

Multiplies mana regeneration by 100% + (5)% per level.

… that's it? That's fucking it?! Five percent multiplier per level?! Fuck it.

“Free your mind.” whatever, buy it. Once I get it, I start meditating and find that it's... well, boring. Though I do get faster mana regeneration, but these meager five percent sucks. “Good. Very good.”

“Shut it old fart, meditation sucks.” I deactivate the skill, and find that it's more like sleep with benefits, besides the fatigue reduction.

“Didn't you feel the world around you, how mana courses through your body?”

“No.” All I see are numbers.

“Weird. I saw how the mana started moving faster inside you, but you had no feeling of it being moved?”

“No.”

“Strange. Well then, now that you at least managed to meditate for a while, I will tell you why we use meditation.”

“To increase mana regeneration rate.”

“To be able to regenerate mana besides the time we sleep.”

“What?” that's news to me.

“Yes, you replenish mana passively at a very low rate, but when you sleep, the body recovers mana in much faster way.”

“Wait, wait, wait, what about meditation?”

“Meditation allows one to replenish mana even faster than the times when you sleep.” Hm... I cast a fireball for a hundred mana, after some modifications so it would actually cost a hundred mana, and not seventy five, and look that my mana replenishes anyway.

“Say, how fast do you regenerate mana from the mana exhaustion point?”

“It takes five days on average.” According to the system, mana regeneration shows what you recover per minute... wait a second.

“You say, it takes about five days to regenerate mana?”

“Yes, without meditation or sleep, it takes five days.” I look at the numbers again, and check out my stats, and the speed of mana regeneration I currently have and come to a conclusion. System lied to me. The regeneration is indeed much slower, but... I don't understand why. It's kinda dumb if you ask me. I mean, I totally regenerate... hm... let's see, I regenerate without modifiers about 1 mana per 10 attunement, 2 mana per 10 focus and about nine per ten willpower. But after counting my stats and applying modifiers, it comes out to roughly 540 mana regeneration rate. Wait, radiation poisoning only drops my health regeneration, not mana. Of shit. I get only 108 mana regen per minute?.. ah no, it's hour, 540 per hour if I sleep, and 108 if I'm active.

“Bullshit. This is complete bullshit.” I cast five of the same fireballs, once my mana is topped, and try to see how fast regeneration works. “Hey, teach.” I adress Archibald after half a minute. “How much faster you recover mana comparing to your sleep?”

“About two times, but it varies.” great.

“Congrats, I do know how to meditate, thanks for teaching this.” fucking meditation, why is it so hard to get you?

“Master it, and you'll be able to replenish your mana even faster.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Master this and you'll get better. Was there, done that.”

“Now that you are finally able to meditate, it'll be much easier to actually teach you magic. But for now, let's eat something.” I nod. I must say, having dedicated hunters in the party is quite beneficial, I mean, we are eating deer meat, as well as some rabbits and a few other things, like roots, wild vegetables and berries, while traversing forest. Kinda weird that he sends his daughter on these errands.

“What next?”

“Continue from where you fell asleep last time.” he shows something, but I don't get what the hell is he doing. “As you might have seen, I just used the arcane to create this bolt of raw mana.”

“OK?” he discards it and does it again, a bit more slowly, and discards it again. “Why are you doing that?”

“So you should have an idea what I was going to ask of you.” I look at the weird spell he does and then discards once again.

“No idea.”

“Can't you even understand what I'm trying to do?”

“Well, you make a bolt shape of... magic I guess?” he nods.

“Good. Now pay attention.” and now it's a ball.

“Ball?”

“Very good-”

“Cut the crap. Why the fuck would I need to see how you do something without explanation?!”

“Well, you can make following shapes of magic, arrow, ball, beam and wall.”

“Erm... what?”

“You can make the shape of an arrow, which flies fast and takes less mana to cast, while it also could be directed in the air, if you're proficient enough with it. The ball, which deals damage in a certain radius, but is less damaging than arrow of the same mana cost. Then there is beam shape, that is something in between the two, that can hit multiple targets. And finally, there is wall shaping.”

“So, you can make magic shields, and defensive structures?”

“Precisely. They are the basic shapes, and while I call it wall shaping, it actually can do more than that.” He then makes a simple chair from earth. “As you can see, I shaped the wall to-”

“So, basically, there is no limit to the shaping, but for combat you mostly use these four?”

“It is as you say, however it takes a lot of time to master the shaping, so don't be upset for not being able to do that-” I create a miniature earth palace in front of me, from surrounding earth.

“Done.”

“... Interesting.”

“What?”

“Can you use other elements?”

“Yeah sure.” I make a fire whip, and an ice kite shield. “Though... how do you do anything with air? Or light for that matter.”

“Just make a ball of air.”

“Heh. Airball.” I make one in front of me.

“Hm...”

“What?”

“Light or darkness? Can you use them?”

“Yeah, sure.” I make a ball of light, and a ball of darkness... which is actually weird now that I think about it. I wonder if-

“Now don't try to do the same with life affinity, if you have it. The life is more complicated than that. It takes time and practice to be able to use it. I think my daughter would be best suited for it, as I wasn't born with that particular affinity.”

“OK? So... the lesson is over?”

“Yes, yes... let's try actual spells tomorrow, as affinities can change how certain spells work.”

I watch as the old man leaves the vicinity, as I sit in a meditative position and start browsing the shop for... well, anything. And not only shop, I decided to also try out my other abilities I had, like this Grimoire for one.

Grimoire

Temporary conjure a book of magic that stays as long as the caster touches it. It allows for increasing potency of one's spells, as well as learning new spells, as long as the affinities allow.

And immediately I got the option to learn spells. Of course, how can I say no?

You have learned:

Combat shaping, Basic shaping.

You cannot learn any more basic spells.

You have learned the following spells:

Specialized Fire spell: Inferno

Conjure a pillar of fire at the specified place. The flames are hot enough to melt most rocks.

Specialized Fire spell:

Infectious Flames

Launch flames that consume both life and mana of your targets to fuel themselves and launch at other targets. Doesn't discern friend from foe, so caution is advised.

Fire spell:

Immolation

The target is wrapped up in the magical flames.

Fire spell:

Flame Jet

Flames come forth from your location and burn everything in their path.

Fire spell:

Flame Whip

Create a whip of fire that deals half environmental and half magical damage to your foes. It is considered a melee weapon and will persist for as long as the mana is supplied.

Water spell:

Conjure drinking water

You can conjure water that is safe to drink.

Air spell:

Pressure Bomb

Make air in the area condense, before violently expanding.

Earth Spell:

Tremor

Generate a small tremor on solid surfaces (excluding those of different elements or metal), and create spikes that will pierce your foes.

Light spell:

Blinding Light

Create a glimmering ball of light that blinds anyone watching it.

Darkness spell:

Shadow Garb

Meld with the shadows to become nearly invisible in dark areas. Being exposed to light increases mana consumption.

Darkness spell:

Shadowstep

Enter in and out of the darkness, allowing you to move faster and teleport between dark areas.

Requires: Shadow Garb.

Life spell:

Healing

You can heal people, or yourself. Also removes certain negative effects.

Death spell:

Raise dead

You can raise undead creatures from the corpses of ex-living creatures. Golems are not a part of the deal, but other undead are.

Summoning spell:

Summon Elemental

Allows you to summon a variety of elementals. The stronger they are the more mana are required to summon them.

Summoning spell:

Summon Familiar

You can create a contract between yourself and any creature, turning it into familiar, allowing you to summon it at will, as well as providing other benefits for the said creature.

Time spell:

Time Flow

You can slow or speed up the time for a certain individual. World at large is unaffected.

Void spell:

Antimatter

Conjure and shape the destructive energy.

Space spell:

Blink

Teleport a short distance away.

Soul spell:

Soul Eater

You can consume souls of fallen enemies in order to gain some health and mana. Fully developed souls may also give you some other benefits.

Souls persist for six standard system hours on average.

This is actually awesome. If I knew I could use grimoire to learn spells, I would use it much earlier. It actually didn't just sent all the information to my brain, instead I had to actually sit and learn the spells, how to guide mana for them, and how to empower them. Unfortunately, as I am an esper, the actual spell shaping isn't that useful for me, as I have full control over mana, and I just need to know how I want to use it, but still, it did give me a way to bypass some of the processes which otherwise would require a bit more mana, it seems. So let's start with the reasons as to why I choose the following spells.

Inferno, immolation and flame jet are to actually learn how to interact with mana over large distances, infectious flame is because I found it odd and fun, but I doubt I can replicate it, fire whip is to get myself a fire spell that deals both physical, or environmental damage, as well as magical. For drinking water, well... I found out that I can't drink the water produced with the water magic, the taste is just off. Pressure bomb is plainly the only useful air spell, Tremor isn't that useful, just like the rest of the earth spells, but free spell is a free spell, light however is not that useless, it's similar to a flashbang, and shadow garb with step are great for stealthy missions, also speed boost is never a bad thing. Heal is simple, I can't actually manipulate life mana or death mana, which I find rather odd, but not that unexpected, considering that none of the kinesis abilities allowed me to manipulate these two mana types. Raise dead is simple and dumb, I want to summon undead minions. Speaking of summoning, familiar is a must for a summoner, and elementals are totally the best summons ever, I hope. Time flow is simple, it combines haste and slow spells, and it's probably fun to make someone as slow as a turtle and another one as fast as a cheetah, I guess? Void had no other spells available, like at all, while blink was just a way for me to teleport around the battlefield, and it is actually quite cheap in terms of mana cost. Soul eater is actually the most useful of spells. Check the description again. You gain some health and mana, you get it, you get health and mana every time you kill someone. Also it's not like I literally eat souls, I just eat the energy from which souls are formed.

Ahem, anyway, all other spells, that are 'insert element here' plus bolt, ball, blade, beam, etc, are way too simple. Air doesn't do much damage, earth blade is nearly useless, water ball is lame, fire has it covered for all, light bolt is weird, just as darkness, life bolt is even more so, while death, I guess I'll find out what it does to my enemies, at some point, but the tree I hit with it started whithering almost immediately. I hope it's something like an instant death effect, or at least a debuff. I don't like the idea of it being pseudo summoning affinity. On another hand...

Ravager Combat Enhancement

400'000 SC

Ravagers are known to fully utilize any augmentations and or mutations that one could gain. Nerve signals transfer and interpret at much faster rate, which allows for better control of the body and body enhancements.

Passive. Synaptic acceleration +5% per level.

I want it. Still need 300K to buy it though. I also wonder where we actually are.