[Chapter 9: actual magic]
While I was definitely excited to learn magic the day before, I ended up disappointed. I was not even close to being ready for actual magic at all. The Basic guide to magic stated that to use magic one must control their own mana. And it is not talking about the kind of pumping mana through me like what I do with mana reinforcement which leaves me sore after each use. Instead it calls for a much more gentle movement of mana through a passive flow, which while I aimed for that before I ended up making due with a much more violent stopgap.
Gaining the control need for what was explained in the book could not be done in a day, but I didn’t plan on it being quick. Instead I strove to practice while continuing on with everything else. Which in itself was a blessing as I had much to do.
Seeing as how some of the things I had read in stories worked in this world I had decided to test some things out. The first of such experiments is me attempting to create a sort of short range dash. Which basically involved me jumping back and forth in between some trees close to my cave. If anyone say me I must have looked rather stupid but I don’t really care about that.
Anyway instead of worrying about useless things like what people would think if they saw me, I worked on figuring out how to make my imagination reality. There were three part of my final model the initial bounce, staying stable in the air, and landing as stably as possible. Each part was harder tan the last. The initial bounce was hard to angle right so that I stayed close to the ground but didn’t hit it, funnily enough I got into the habit of tapping my foot once before the bounce. As for the air time while much simpler in theory, was very difficult to keep still. And hardest yet was landing which involves stomping down to prevent skidding and then more keeping still as you resist the forward momentum which is very uncomfortable.
[Obtained skill]
[Sprint| lv: 1]
[Move in a burst of 50% increased movement speed]
Well I made it work somehow, it goes for about 6 feet. Although at this point in time the strain might make it too dangerous to use properly in battle. But having it makes me feel better. Well with that activity done I head back to my cave.
After my session of nightly training a familiar message appeared.
[Skill level increased]
[Basic sword proficiency| lv: 3]
[When using a sword damage is increased by 9% and crit chance by 3%]
“Baby steps… yeah baby steps, eventually I’ll reach something truly great.” Over the following days I did whatever while trying to get magic to work. It was hard but every day I could feel myself getting closer. It would not be long before I had it.
One of the main things I found myself doing often was reading my Comprehensive forest survival guide a very useful book to have, perhaps even more than the others. While it says forest, it really is a more general guide that contains many things that will help me later. The most eye catching thing to me was a rundown of monsters that may be found in most forests, allowing me to finally know what the creatures of this forest are.
As I guessed the green things are in fact goblins, or at least what would translated as goblin by whatever let’s me read a foreign language. They have good ears and can see in the dark but not much else of note. As for the furry things that haunt my nightmares, they are called gnolls. As I had guessed, they have a very good sense of smell. And according to the book gnolls are stronger than goblins individually. This seems to be balanced by the fact that there are more goblins than gnolls. This stale mate may explain why neither species will cross the river, as doing so will be dangerous to both sides.
Days passed once more and I moved my mana through me once more, this time with a grace incomparable to when I started. Guiding the mana smoothly throughout me to the point where I barely had to do anything, as all at once something slipped into place.
[Obtained skill]
[Mana circulation| lv: 1]
[10% control over one’s own mana]
[A Skill has evolved]
[Basic mana reinforcement| lv: 1]
[Str, Agi, and defense by 10X% with X=Int*0.1]
While the power of the newly evolved skill had decreased significantly it had far more room to grow. Instead of the flat rate this relied on once of my stats with the efficiency presumably increasing with level. The best part of course being that it was a passive that no longer required mp to work, or at least used so little as to not be noticed. Now armed with the necessary tools for magic I could feel that my power would only grow
[ |Name: Yellow Stone|
|Species: human|
|Class: Scholar|
|Lv: 2|
|Hp: 20/20| |Mp: 45/45|
|Str: 2| |Dex: 2| |Agi: 2| |End: 2| |Int: 15| |Cha: 2| |Luk: 2|
|Skills: [Basic sword proficiency| lv: 3] [Mana circulation| lv: 1] [Basic mana reinforcement| lv: 1] [Inspect| lv: 1] [Sprint| lv: 1] [Butchering| lv: 1] [Stealth| lv: 1] [Flee| lv: 1] | ]
Thanks for the chapter :)