Derivan had suggested they go back to the forest to test any new ideas they had about magic, and so they had. They'd informed the Guildmaster beforehand, just in case anything went wrong with the skills they wanted to test and the magic they wanted to cast — she'd assured them she would ensure that there were people that would keep an eye on them while giving them privacy, through an assortment of [Danger Sense]-adjacent skills — so they were free to practice as much as they wanted within the forest.

For now, though, Vex was just charging up Derivan with more mana, trying to push Slime into the next stage. The amount of mana he absorbed passively had slowly increased as the stat went up; it was at a whole 25, now, giving the armor 2500 mana to play with.

"I'm almost jealous," Vex admitted with a shy smile, not looking remotely jealous. If anything, he seemed admiring. "I had to go through... a lot more, to get as much mana as I have now. And you've already almost caught up."

"It will get much harder now, I think," Derivan said. He watched the forest with [Mana Sight] turned on, enjoying the playful dance of mana over the trees — it hadn't noticed them yet, and wouldn't until they began to cast. He'd try to disturb it as little as possible, but something about the dance sparked something in him, and he wanted to test that.

"It's still incredible," Vex said. "If my family knew this..."

He fell silent, then, and Derivan glanced at him with concern. The lizardkin didn't seem like he was willing to elaborate too heavily on the topic yet, and so Derivan changed the topic.

"You still know far more about magic than I could hope to, I believe," Derivan said with a small smile. "Do you want to try your new skill first? [Splash of Mana], yes?"

"Oh! Yes," Vex said, brightening considerably. "The skill doesn't actually tell me a lot about what it'll do, so I'm thinking I can use [Delineate] to limit the effects first. And once we've got a better idea of what it does, we can figure out what to do with it."

"Indeed," Derivan said, though he was paying attention more to the lizard's smile than the words. Misa was rather more practiced at exploiting skills than he was, though he'd had his moments.

Vex stood back for a moment, preparing the skills he wanted to cast — first, [Delineate], which didn't cost any mana at all and didn't seem to be a spell. The air seemed to twist and turn in the region he had marked, and now there was a barely-visible boundary sitting in the air, an almost-sphere.

"Huh," Vex said. Then he reached out and cast [Splash of Mana]. It was an ambiguous cast, formed with no real intent behind the spell, and so the mana that emerged wasn't typed in any particular way; instead, raw mana spilled out of him, bright and colorful to Derivan's eyes.

It splashed into the area marked by [Delineate], like it had struck a barrier, and then settled into a pool at the bottom of the sphere. It hovered there, invisible to the naked eye but a gentle glowing green to his [Mana Sight].

"It acts like a liquid," Vex said after a moment, carefully looking over the spell. The mana didn't seem to be dissipating like it normally did — whether that was due to [Delineate] specifically or due to the effects of [Splash of Mana], he wasn't sure. "That'll let me create spells that cling to people, I think, if it works that way? If I make the liquid more viscous..."

"Can you do that?" Derivan asked curiously, and Vex nodded.

"I didn't show you the skill box, did I?" the lizardkin said. He gestured, and the box popped up in front of Derivan; he glanced at it.

[Splash of Mana] [Active Skill] [Grade: 1]

Cost: Variable mana

Your mana takes on a form akin to paint, allowing you to color surfaces with it. This skill has secrets, and will grow as your understanding of mana grows.

"That's... an unusual description," Derivan commented after reading it through twice. He glanced at Vex with a metaphorical eyebrow raised, one glowing eye lifted over the other. "Are skills usually this direct about their growth?"

"They're not," Vex said, shaking his head. "I've never seen one be this direct, actually. Most skills do have secrets to them, and understanding them enough always unlocks some sort of skill growth — Misa's [To Fall Yet Hold the Line] is one of them, even if she hasn't chosen to evolve the skill yet. So there's no reason for this skill to outright state it the way it does."

"And yet," Derivan mused.

"And yet," Vex agreed. He glanced at the bit of liquid mana still hovering in [Delineate]d space and made a gesture; the [Delineate] skill cut out, and the liquid mana within splashed down onto the grass.

There were two immediate effects that Derivan could observe — one was that the ambient mana nearby shied away, though not nearly as dramatically as it presumably did when a full spell was cast. The second was that the mana began to dissipate noticeably.

"It's still not dissipating as quickly as when a normal spell is cast," Vex murmured to himself, glancing over the puddle of mana and making a note in one of his journals. "So the liquid state is definitely a factor when it comes to mana dissipation rate. It's like evaporation, then?"

"If it is like paint," Derivan said. "Would it not dry, rather than dissipate?"

Vex paused and frowned. "That's a good point," the lizardkin admitted. "I'm not actually sure. There's a few different forms of paint I was thinking of when I used the skill, so if it doesn't anchor to any one of them the mana might just evaporate. Or maybe it'll require me to dismiss the skill?"

They stared at the patch of mana for a moment. It was still dissipating, but the process was slow; Vex was right, in that it wasn't nearly as fast as when a normal spell was cast.

"We're not actually going to watch paint dry, are we?" Vex asked after a moment of staring.

"It seems to me that we may be watching grass grow," Derivan said dryly. Vex giggled. Planeshifted humor. They weren't exactly familiar with all of the cultural norms, but they'd heard enough of Sev's sayings over the months. Sev didn't even realize they were planeshifted sayings, usually, when he said them; a consequence of his memory.

"Well, while we're waiting for this, do you want to try anything?" Vex asked. Derivan nodded.

"I would like to try out that skill, I think," Derivan said, then paused to consider his words. "Later. First, I wish to test my ideas of magic. You mentioned the mana would shy away once I cast a spell, did you not?"

"Yeah," Vex said. "It doesn't like it for some reason. I'm not sure why."

"Perhaps because of the way we cast spells," Derivan mused. He cast a [Barrier] spell once, watching as the ambient mana immediately shot away from the manifestation of... what he would call 'dead mana', he thought. The word wasn't exactly accurate — the mana wasn't dead by any means — but it was... docile. It didn't seem to have the same joy that the ambient mana here did.

So what if he changed the way he cast the spell?

He was leaning more on the Magic stat now, he realized. He tried to remember the way the spell had cast when he'd been relying on the system — he didn't have a hope of understanding the complicated runic constructs that had instantaneously formed and dissipated, guiding the mana into forming a barrier. But he could remember the way the mana flowed and changed, switching from an ethereal presence into something solid...

Instead of using his own mana to fuel the spell, he used [Mana Manipulation]. Instead of forcing the mana into his own shape, he asked it to move as he wanted, to change as he wanted. If his ideas were correct, if the mana was alive...

The mana responded.

It was slow and hesitant — far different from anything he was used to when he cast spells. Those formed instantly. Now, though, the mana had to understand what he was asking for, and he could almost sense that it didn't trust him. There was the way that it hesitated, the way it shied away from the grip of [Mana Manipulation]...

But he kept at it. Vex was watching him carefully, his eyes slightly wide, but he didn't say a word. The mana gathered into his hands, and then slowly shifted — not through any particular twist of his skills, but simply because he'd asked.

Just above his hand was a small but gleaming... no. It wasn't a [Barrier]. It was a barrier.

The mana that was swirling further away from them came back closer. Vex was staring at it in a curious sort of wonder. "May I?" he asked.

"Of course," Derivan said.

The lizardkin came close and poked at the barrier once, his eyes gleaming with his particular version of [Mana Sight]. "It doesn't look different to me," Vex said softly. "But it feels different. Stronger. You didn't get a notification about a new version of the [Barrier] spell, did you?"

"I did not," Derivan said, shaking his head.

"May I try a spell on it?" Vex asked.

"I would like to test its efficacy," Derivan agreed, nodding. "It is more difficult to cast than the standard [Barrier]."

Vex paused for a moment, as if considering what spell he wanted to use — and then he reached out with a hand. Electricity played across his scales. "[Shocking Grasp]," he explained when Derivan looked over at him. His fingers brushed against the barrier —

"—Ow," Vex winced, pulling his hand back sharply. Derivan had been watching as the lizardkin reached out, and he saw the spell pop and fizzle strangely against the barrier. At the same time, he felt the mana within the barrier twist, like it no longer wanted to stay in that position, and so he let go of whatever tenuous grasp he held on it; the barrier unravelled in his hands, and Vex looked at it, surprised. "Did I break it?"

"I dismissed it," Derivan said.

"Ah." Vex winced a little as he looked down at his hand. "I've never felt anything like that before. It was almost like the mana rejected me."

"A path worth exploring, then?" Derivan asked, and Vex nodded vigorously.

"Yes. I mean, teach me how to do that. I want to learn."

"Of course," Derivan said, feeling strangely pleased that he could do something in return for the lizardkin. He had no doubt that Vex would pick up on anything he could teach remarkably quickly, but the lizardkin seemed excited in a way that he rarely was unless they discovered something new.

"It might be something you can only do with the Magic stat, but I want to try anyway," Vex said. "And if it works together with [Splash of Mana], I have some ideas. But let's try and see what — uh, I don't know how to say the skill name out loud. The skill you have with an error in the name. You wanted to test it out, right?"

"I did," Derivan said. "You are sure? I do not mind guiding you through what I just did, first."

"Nah," Vex said. "Let's see what that skill does. We can play with magic after. I want to spend as much time on that as possible." He grinned at Derivan, and Derivan felt an urge to smile back, though all he could do was the usual faint eye-curve. He compensated by patting Vex on the head, making the lizard yelp.

Not in protest, though, so he figured he'd won there.

That done, Derivan reached into where he felt the skill, and activated [###### Night].