To mend, you must discover the original path of the flow. Not where it resides now. Once this is discovered, you must channel the flow of the vortex’s center into a single stream of flow, then pass it through the original flow path.

Andromeda pushed a shovel down in the ground and dug out a torn post. She was helping Argo replace some posts in the fence after a cow from a neighboring farm broke it. He only needed help with replacing the main posts for the moment and could handle the actual fence himself later.

As she dug, she tried to mull over what she should do. She had such great progress in the beginning. But now she is stuck at step two.

She looked through a few books over the last few days and found nothing explaining how you find a flow path. There were a couple different theories for how the flow worked, but they all came down to the same general idea of being a path that passes through an object. Once it was found it seemed like the flow itself would do the rest of the work.

Andromeda wondered if she was missing something. The first part of the book was so clear and understandable that it made no sense that the logic would drop off so quickly. It was like she was missing something right in front of her.

It reminded her of an old story she heard. If two people swapped bodies, would they see the same as they did before? Would they perceive red to be the same as how they had in their own body, or would their new eyes perceive the color differently?

The problem she was facing was similar, but she had no one to confirm or deny if it was being done correctly or not. She almost considered putting the project down and moving on. This was a different world, she couldn’t assume that everything worked the same. Something obvious to people here might be alien to her. Things were obviously similar enough for her to get the basic process, but that didn’t matter if she was missing something else.

“Hey, we’re taking a break!” Argo yelled from a distance.

The two of them parked themselves in the shade of the barn. Two chairs were set up and they were sharing a pitcher of lemonade that Catherine made for them. Argo said it was important to take a break when working hard, sometimes people didn’t know when to stop and would hurt themselves without knowing better.

It didn’t help that the sunlight was beating them down today. It was unseasonably warm the last few days and was starting to drive everyone mad. Argo could see that Andromeda was thinking hard about something and tapped her on the shoulder.

“You doing alright? Do you need to head inside?” He asked.

“No, I’m just stuck on something.” She said.

“Is it that magic stuff?” He asked.

“Mhmm, I can’t figure out how to ‘find the flow’ of something. Apparently that’s something I need to figure out on my own.” She said.

“Flow?” Argo asked.

“Yeah, mana is kind of like water. The flow is like a river. I need to figure out how to find that flow without knowing where it is.” She said.

“That’s a thinker, I was never too smart myself. You say it's like water?” Argo said.

“Yeah, well, a little bit like it. That might be an oversimplification.” Andromeda said.

“I can’t say I know much about how magic works, but I can think about water. What have you tried?” He asked.

“I’ve been using a door stopper as a test subject. I’ve tried looking at it, I’ve tried passing mana through it, I’ve tried forcing the mana through. But I don’t even know if that’s what I’m supposed to do.” She said.

“You say it's like water, but water does more than flow right? It can sit still, or freeze, or turn into steam. Does it always need to flow?” Argo said.

She thought about it. If the water comparison was true, then what Argo said had merit. But how would she apply that? Water froze when it was cold, and it steamed when hot. But what was hot and cold in this context?

“Another thing, a river isn’t just water right? There are little things floating in it, fish, bugs, moss, all kinds of things.” Argo said.

Hearing that, Andromeda remembered something else.

Just as a river does not exist without its banks, a mana stream does not flow through an object that does not exist.

The banks of the river.

The longer water flows through a place, the more it erodes the land around it. But the evidence of erosion remains, the banks of the river seem to rise as the river descends into the ground.

“That might just be it.” Andromeda said.

She leaned over and grabbed the shovel she was using earlier. It was old and bent, a small part of the left side of the head was gone completely from wear. It was old and used, if anything could be mended, this was it. She leaned it against the wall of the barn and started performing the technique she learned from the book.

Instead of visualizing a stream from finger to finger. She tried to imagine a river, banks and all. The water in the river slowly dropped and left the exposed riverbed. All the sediment and much left to dry, exposed and easy to see.

“Well, I’ll be…” Argo said.

She opened her eyes and thousands of scratches and micro-fractures in the shovel’s head were lit up, the entire thing was practically glowing from the number of cracks.

Was that it? All the imperfections of the shovel were highlighted and made clear. The light made up the negative space, it looked like it was repaired with the light itself, but when she tried to touch one of the filled spots the glowing material disappeared, followed by the entire rest of the lights.

A moment passed and the shovel returned to its shabby original form.

“Progress, right?” Argo asked.

“Definitely!” Andromeda said excitedly.

“That’s good, let’s get the rest of this out here done so you can get back to those books.” He said. Then they returned to removing and replacing the posts by the road with renewed vigor.

-----

Andromeda finished her business outside and returned to the house, at the insistence of Catherine she took a bath first before touching anything important. Afterwards she changed into some clothes that Catherine had to spare. Her and Andromeda were about the same size with Andromeda being a bit smaller, Catherine pinched a hem here and there and it fit Andromeda perfectly.

The outfit was simple, a gray kirtle along the thin white overshirt Andromeda had taken off before she went outside. The kirtle was comfortable, but it lacked pockets which annoyed her to no end. She caught a look at herself in a mirror as she passed by it in the hall. She barely recognized herself.

Her red hair was short, only just reaching her shoulders, that much was still the same. The tuft of loose hair from her bangs that hung between her eyes no matter what she did was there as well, but it laid lower than normal because her hair was still damp. Her look was a strange mix of old fashioned with the kirtle and accompanying undershirt and newer fashion, as her overshirt was so thin and light that it didn’t even have a way to button up in the front.

Another thing was her eyes. It had been a minute since she last looked at her own reflection, but her eyes seemed to faintly glow in the dim light of the hallway.

Her whole appearance was frighteningly eye-catching. She didn’t like standing out all that much, too many painful memories from school, but now it didn’t feel so strange. Everything felt so different and strange here that she felt that she couldn’t stand out more than everything else already was.

She continued down the hall and up the stairs toward the room. The doorstop was still sitting on the desk where she left it. Along with the book that she had been learning from.

Now that she finally had the technique down, she wanted to practice it.

She closed her eyes and pictured the flowing river scene in her head. The river dried up in front of her until there wasn’t a drop of moisture left. She could imagine every loose pebble and grain of sand, all the sediment and salt of a river laid bare in front of her.

She opened her eyes to see the cracks and imperfections of the doorstop had started to glow. The space was filled with the same fleeting light that she saw in the shovel.

Then she had an idea. She wiped her hand across the stopper to dispel the light.

She wanted to see if she could do this without having to close her eyes. Her eyes open, she tried to picture the river in her mind, all the same steps.

It was hard.

As she pictured the flowing river, she saw light engulf the entire block. The first few times this small distraction was enough to break her focus. She continued at it until she reached the full picture of the river in her mind. Then she pictured it draining. The glow on the stopper retreated inside, the first time this happened she was also distracted and lost her focus.

One final time, she managed to reach the picture of the river. Then she saw it recede, then finally it dried completely. When it did she saw the block’s imperfections had been filled out by the light once again right in front of her eyes.

She started over, wiping away the light, repeating the whole technique over and over until she could do it without difficulty. She tried it with a few other things in and around her, a book with a torn page, a pen with a broken tip, and an old glass cup with a chip in it being used as a pencil holder.

The process became second nature and she could perform it in a few seconds with or without her eyes open. Though it was a bit faster with her eyes closed.

Finally, after nearly an hour of solidifying the process in her mind. She looked back to the book.

To mend, you must discover the original path of the flow. Not where it resides now. Once this is discovered, you must channel the flow of the vortex’s center into a single stream of flow, then pass it through the original flow path.

When you do this, it forces reality to fill in the gaps, thus “mending” the object. The only alternative is for reality to break its own rules. Which it is loathed to do. Just as a river does not exist without its banks, a mana stream does not flow through an object that does not exist.

She remembered the whirlpool visual and reminded herself of it. As a test of her improvement she tried it without closing her eyes. It took her a few tries, but after that she got it pretty easily.

Now that she had an idea for where the flow currently was, she could figure out how to find where it used to flow.

The idea was thought in terms of a river, she knew that as time went on a river would erode the land around it. That was how canyons a mile deep could form in the middle of otherwise flat land.

The point she was trying to reach was before it was a river, a creek. A small little trickle that hadn’t made much of a dent yet.

Taking this idea perhaps a bit too literally, she imagined the river in her mind’s eye to shrink, for the ground around it to take back the space stolen by the river.

As she pictured this scene, she noticed the color of the light surrounding the stopper change. From white to green.

Now that she had it pictured, she imagined the flow created by the whirlpool. All that energy swirling in a vortex to a single point.

Finally, she put the two separate images together in her mind. The vortex draining its energy as water into the small creek in the form of water, passing through the newly formed creek bed and on its way down stream.

The color of light changed again, it glowed brightly. Enough that she needed to squint to look directly at it. After a few moments her concentration had finally broke and the light all faded away.

But when it did, the stopper was not as it was.

She picked it up, the scratches were gone, the groove of the wood was restored to perfect condition. When she looked closely she could see the pattern of the ax that probably created this stopper in the first place

That might have been it, she performed magic. However before she got too excited she looked to the book that had been her silent and patient teacher to this point.

If by good fortune, great skill, or awesome experience you have combined these ideas in your mind together, you hold the potential to perform mending.

Be proud young mage. You stand at the first step on a path crossed by countless before you, and surely to be crossed by many long after you. Know that your masters are proud of your progress. Know that the years of effort and practice you dedicated was worth it. Know that this is only the first step. Never settle, never stop looking for new practices to master, new techniques to refine. This gift you have is one in the truest sense. A small blessing that you can expand into the greatest of victories. This humble mage, who has collected this information to create this volume, salutes you. It is my greatest hope and dream to one day know that my writing has been of worth to those who read it.

Remember well, the road you walk is not risk-free, just any path in any place in any world is not free of danger. Do not let yourself fall off the path. Search, but do not obsess. Explore, but do not intrude. Attain Mastery, but do not play god.

If you do these things as well as you follow the teachings of this volume, then you will be fine.

Finally, Never forget this feeling. That you hold something in your hand that only exists because of your effort. Treasure it always, for it may not be the last, but it was the first.

With that, Andromeda let out an elated squeal and bounced in her seat.

This little wooden door stopper, the one she picked off of the dusty ground, this was proof that she was a mage. No matter what happened in this world, good or bad, she was a mage. She had the skill and ability to make her way now.