CHAPTER 12 (Patreon)

“Yes!” I exclaimed. This was the perfect new Skill to get. Now I was sure I was ready to cast spells, and I wouldn’t need a staff for it. I had been diligently practicing creating a mana circle and was getting decent at it.

I had practiced with different sizes, different thickness of the ring, and my speed at which I could create one had improved drastically. If you couldn’t throw a fireball at the snap of your fingers, you were likely going to lose a wizard battle. My mind returned to the cultivators fighting in the night sky, and I wondered how they cast spells.

I figured the mana circle was the basis for each and every spell, so learning to create it with just a thought was central. So learning that first couldn’t be wrong. And I had been rewarded for that effort.

Naturally I started casting again. I made the circle and used the booklet as a cheat sheet for the Basic Water spell. Before it had been pretty shoddy work, and I understood why Piraka was having such a hard time drawing spells. It was intricate, and the old badger was working blind. He was rather impressive all things considered.

However Spellcrafting changed the game entirely. Whatever intuition-based Skill Danek had started to make sense to me. Spellcrafting was a Skill like that. It gave me impressions on whether the symbols and shapes I was drawing with mana were correct. I drew a J-shape inside the circle of mana because the booklet said so. What did it mean? The hell did I know, I was just a baby copying someone else’s homework!

I really wanted to understand what these symbols meant, but for now I settled for rote repetition so I could cast spells in my sleep.

Earlier, I had leafed through the spell booklet. Piraka had instructed me to learn one single spell and focus on that first. It seemed like sound advice, so I picked the most interesting spell. It was simply called “Basic Water” in the booklet. 

I didn’t know why I chose this spell in particular, but for some reason it called to me. As an element, water was incredibly versatile. It could be used for offense and defense. I shook my head. The Immortals in the sky were clearly a bad influence. I was already thinking like I was going to battle other magic users…

What I learned quickly was that it wasn’t easy to imagine the whole formula in all of its intricacy, even when you could actually perceive the mana particles. Spellcrafting helped immensely, and I would applaud anyone trying to draw anything beyond a shitty dog without its intuition. I was now spending all day every day simply mastering the Basic Water spell. I still infused potions for Piraka, but I wasn’t using his refined mana anymore.

I learned a lot about my new Skill as I directed my focus on it. It would tell me if the formula was workable, and it would tell me to what degree. It was all pretty vague. Like if I drew that J-shape, it told me that the shape was shoddy work, but only the faintest impression of how to improve it. The Skill told me it was in the wrong position within the circle, but it only slightly nudged my attention to where the correct position was. I assumed these intuitions and impressions would strengthen once I leveled. Soon enough that happened. 

[Spellcrafting level 2!]

[+1 Mana Flow]

[+2 Magic Power]

My hypothesis was confirmed. The impressions got ever so slightly stronger. I used all of my skills in harmony: Meditation provided the focus and power of concentration needed for such intense studying. With Mana Sight I constantly cross referenced the booklet and the spell formula I was working with. My skill with Mana Manipulation was consolidating, as I was forced to do the intricate work of trying to draw a less shitty dog. And I got better and better at listening to the little nudges from Spellcrafting. I had never been so engrossed with anything. Working with the mana particles, knowing that when I succeeded, I would cast my first spell, and that filled me with thrill.

Meticulously I mastered the J-shape, the little triangles and the exact length of a few tricky diagonal lines. I was getting better at keeping the whole structure whole even as it got more complicated. It wasn’t but a child’s imitation, but finally, after hard training, it was enough!

When I finally succeeded it was seemingly rather anticlimactic. Only a small droplet of water materialized to float above my palm. But what had been going on behind the scenes was the culmination of perfecting something beautiful for weeks.

[Spellcrafting level 3!]

[+1 Mana Flow]

[+2 Magic Power]

The circle held form above my palm. In the middle of the formation, a single drop of water floated. I had created that water drop out of nothing. It hadn’t existed before I willed it into reality. What on earth could possibly be sweeter. 

I reveled in this feeling of mastery and creation. There was nothing quite like the bliss of following my purpose and reaching the goals I had set out for myself. I could almost cry, it was so sweet. I couldn’t remember a single moment like this from my past life. 

In this new life? I resolved to rack these experiences up.

The nice thing about the spell formation was that once it was completed, it sort of… solidified. I had noticed this when interacting with the mana particles and forming superparticles. Once a superparticle had formed, it didn’t require much attention for them to hold that form. The mana particles would try to drift away and find orbits when they were not attached to each other. But if they were shaped into a ring, the ring would be steady. It was sort of like playdough… Made of light… And hopes and dreams… And magic…

The important part was that now that the full spell formation was complete, it didn’t require my attention to hold the spell. That was neat, and I wondered about the implications. 

My little droplet was apparently the shittiest dog the mana could accept. Elder Piraka’s spell had generated enough mana to fill a jug. But was it specific symbols I got incorrectly, or the whole shape? Were there symbols that governed the size of the spell specifically?

I spent my days changing the circle’s size and moving the symbols around. Sometimes I made a symbol bigger. Sometimes I removed one or added another. Spellcrafting gave me a vague sense of whether I was improving the spell or making a mess of it.

Two things seemed to make the water globe bigger. Using more mana helped, which I could do by making the circle larger and its symbols thicker. Drawing the formula more accurately helped too, although I was getting weird results with that.I was starting to suspect the sketch in the booklet wasn’t quite right. Sometimes I felt I had copied something perfectly, but it still produced shoddy work.

Even so, the booklet was immensely useful.

I also spent some more time studying the other spells to get more perspective. The symbols for Basic Water reappeared in the other spells. That meant that different symbols had different functions. So if you learned the language, you could cast all kinds of magic. 

Unfortunately Piraka had made no notes about that. The only thing he had learned was copying the formulas.

I tried asking him about these things, but he offered little knowledge. He said he had been in a hurry when he had been copying the spellbook at the ancestors’ ruins. When he had visited the pyramid, Silverback had been younger and less dangerous, but it had still been a threat to avoid.

I really wanted to go see this spellbook at the pyramid.

But for now I could only learn the only way I knew how to: by playing.

So I tested the limits of the formula. I tried removing symbols and adding more symbols. The spell mostly broke and the water drop fell. I tried this a few times and decided that shooting in the dark wasn’t the best use of my time. So I asked myself what else I could do.

Then I made the circle bigger and the symbols thicker. I packed as much mana into the spell formula as I could. The problem was that when I was still constructing the formula, it required my rapt attention. It was not easy and fast, no matter how many times I had done it. It would require a lot of repetition to make spellcasting second nature. 

I gradually started adding more mana into the formula and my accuracy grew.

After some work, I had now made the biggest and fattest spell formula so far. When I placed the final piece into its place, the spell activated. My eyes widened as half a cup of water materialized to float above my palm.

I was no god of the sea, but boy did that feel amazing. What had previously been a drop, was now a globe. And it seemed that the system also appreciated my efforts.

[Spellcrafting level 4!]

[+1 Mana Flow]

[+2 Magic Power]

I worked with different sizes of spell formulas for the rest of that night. I was sure there was more to learn with the spell formulas. I wanted to make the water globe move. Could I shoot out a water bullet? Surely there was such a spell. Could I modify the existing spell formula to do that? Or would I need to cast another spell formula? 

These questions kept me awake long into the night, until my body gave and I fell into a slumber. That night I dreamt of retrieving a golden spellbook from the tip of a massive pyramid.

*

“Mother,” I said as we dined together. 

“What is it, little gem?”

“You were a Jungler, right?”

My mother’s face brightened. “That’s right. I was pretty good at it.”

“Damn you were in such a good shape…” father muttered. “OW!”

Mother raised an eyebrow. I giggled. There must have been some footsie going on under the table.

“I mean you still are. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and motherhood suits you!”

“That’s more like it,” my mother said and grinned. 

“What does a Jungler do?” I asked.

“Well, most of the village’s food comes from fish, but you can't live off fish. We need other food. There are herbs, fruits, mushrooms and critters in the jungle. But the jungle is dangerous. So you need to be quick and smart to forage there.”

“And trapping beasts for meat and such,” my father added. “Like the snake eggs you like.”

“I love mama’s snake egg omelet,” I said and nodded. “Is being a Jungler hard?”

“It requires a specific build,” Mother said. “You need some kind of endurance Skill. I had Running. Then I had Stealth and even a rare skill called Sixth Sense. It gave me supernatural sight and hearing.”

Father leaned in to whisper conspirationally. “She still has it. Be careful of what you say when you think you’re not within earsho— OW!”

I giggled. I had heard of mother’s Rare Skill, and was vaguely interested in learning it, because it increased Perception.

“Do you still have enough of the Skills left to go into the jungle?” I asked.

She shrugged. “If I need to. I’m pretty high level— wait, what are you asking specifically?”

“Wellll….” I said dragging the word. “I would like to see the jungle.”

“No.” 

“Absolutely not.”

“But— SPELLS!”

“You are learning spells with Piraka,” father said. “I’ve seen how hard you are working with the water spell. Good work!”

“Thank you, papa,” I said. “But Piraka only has incomplete knowledge of the spells. His booklet is incomplete. The original spellbook is in the ancestors’ ruins.”

“The jungle is too dangerous,” mother said. “Especially the area around the ruins.”

“I heard Silverback killed another young Jungler from the nearby village,” father said.

“But you are strong, mom,” I said. “You could escape it, especially with a Strength Surge tonic.”

“I could. Maybe,” mother said. “If I wasn’t trying to keep you alive.”

“But I could help!” I said. “My magic is getting stronger.”

“Little gem, you are so talented,” mother said and brushed my cheek. “But nowhere near strong enough for the jungle.”

“Luka,” father said. “There is no rush. The Moon Festival is still three months away. If you keep up the pace, you’ll be able to use you water magic to impress everyone.”

“I can’t keep up this pace, papa,” I said. “That’s the point. I’m slowing down because I don’t have the right information.”

Mother crossed her arms. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Mama, please,” I said. “You told me I was like a child from those fables. Well sometimes those fables involve danger.”

Mother hesitated.

“You know he learned that from you,” father said.

Mother scowled. “Learned what?”

“Using your own words against you. I hate it when you— OW!”

Mother sniffed. “I’ll... consider it, little gem. But only if we have a good plan and you show you are strong enough to fend off beasts.”

“So that’s a yes?” I said with a grin.

“I didn’t say that,” mother said. “I said—”

I climbed on the table and rushed over to hug and kiss her.

“Thank you mama!”

“Wait— what I meant was—”

Too late mother, I heard it in your voice. I smiled to myself and was pretty certain that if I had the Negotiation Skill, I would have leveled up.