Sunday 20 March 2016

Chapter 9

Initial Learning



Laying on his back, looking up at the sky, Jay sent out tens of thousands of tiny drops of dark blue Mana from all over his body. Cascading out like an explosive fountain through the air, the Water Mana droplets flew out a fair distance, only to spring back to a place right above Jay's face, concentrating into a spiraling vortex much like a whirlpool in turbid waters. As the concentration of Water Mana collected at a point above Jay's face, he opened his mouth, catching the tiny stream of water that trickled out of his newly created Spell 'Water Tap'. The Spell took 500 Mana and collected a little more than a mouthful of water, but Jay was happy with the result.
At first he had tried using Water Mana like he had Fire Mana and created a blob of Water Mana, mentally ordering it to collect water from the air and condense it into liquid; and it worked, to a degree. After using almost 2000 Mana in this way, Jay had only been able to collect a few drops of water, even after waiting and holding the blob of Mana in place for more than three minutes, greatly straining his mental capacities to hold the Spell in place. After that first failed experiment, he used less Mana but spread it out, blanketing a large area with a sheet of Water Mana and sweeping across space hoping to collect moisture that way, and this worked better, but also not well enough since it consumed almost 3000 Mana to collect enough water to fill his mouth.
These two experiments had led to his newly found success, though. Thinking through the properties he had figured out from using the Water Mana in these two ways, Jay tried another approach, and explosively sent out tens of thousands of tiny droplets of Water Mana, letting them fly almost sixty meters in all directions with the instruction to attract water vapor and then fly back to condense the water in a spiral where he indicated. His new Spell 'Water Tap' took almost two minutes to completely be cast from beginning to the end; it was not very mentally draining, and with some practice it had actually been accepted as a Spell quite quickly. It only took six hours of constantly casting the Spell for it to be listed in his Spell-list.
Now that he had created two new Spells in the span of less than a day, Jay felt really happy; if he could continue like this, it wouldn't be long before he could complete this Quest. It had actually gone a lot smoother than he thought it would, and this worried him slightly. Nothing ever seemed to work completely without complications from his limited experience.
After gulping down the now overflowing amount of water filling his mouth, Jay sat up, took out a biscuit from his Inventory and started nibbling on it, thinking about the next Spell he had thought about. At first he wanted to try and make some sort of shield of air spiraling all around him, but with the experiments with Water Mana he had grown slightly bored with trying to manipulate the air around him. And he felt it was better to try and experiment with one of the types of Mana he hadn't thought of a Spell for.
Looking all around himself, Jay found the choice almost chosen for him. Everything in this bowl-like valley was either made from a gray or reddish brown stone. Turning his feet to dangle from the precipice of the stone dais, Jay looked down through his Eye of the Magi, finding the tiny amber brown spots of Mana seemingly suspended inside the rock beneath him. He jumped down to the lower level to have a closer look at the rock. With Observe he found out the stone was a type of granite, but nothing much more.
Jay tried the first thing he always did, and sent out a small tendril of amber brown Mana from his finger-tip, ordering the tendril to go into the rock with the intention of interacting with the tiny spots of Mana suspended inside the rock. But to his horror, after Jay sent in the tendril of Mana it drained his Mana exponentially the deeper the tendril burrowed into the rock. This was not the right way to do anything. He had already used over a thousand Mana and the tendril of Mana had gone in for about ten centimeters into the rock, creating a tiny hole with the width of a strand of hair. And the tendril didn't do much else; it was completely useless.
But Jay didn't despair, failures only gave more knowledge; it was always better to know what not to do than to not know anything. Thinking for a while longer, Jay made a fist-sized orb of amber brown Mana accumulate over his palm, concentrating four hundred Mana into it before pushing the orb into the gray stone. The amber brown Mana splashed out in all directions upon contact with the stone, and all that could be seen where Jay had hit the rock was a slight indentation that could be barely seen. This didn't seem like the right way either, but it had given him an idea. If the stone was too hard for the Mana to damage, then he only had to make the Mana more solid.
Above Jay's hand, using 400 Mana, he sent out thousands of tiny tendrils of Mana, crisscrossing them into a crudely woven flat sheet of Earth Mana; this way of using Mana was very straining and he felt his head start to dully ache, but he couldn't care about that right now. He pushed the sheet of Mana hovering above his hand into the rock wall, vibrating each and every tendril of Mana in a pulsing manner where the warp and weft—the crisscrossing tendrils in different directions—pulsed at a very quick interval, alternating to make the sheet of Mana fluctuate in the air. It hurt his head quite a bit to do this—almost to the point of being impossible to continue—but Jay bit his tongue and persevered, because he could see the result. Where the sheet of Earth Mana touched the rock, the wall crumbled into a fine dust without the Earth Mana dissipating much. After Jay had pushed the sheet of Mana about five centimeters into the wall, the Mana finally dissipated completely, but this experiment had been a real success, now he just had to modify the Spell slightly and make it less troublesome for his mind to use and he would have created another Spell.
Jumping back up to sit on the dais outcrop, Jay rested for a bit, looking out at the hard-working Saruk. They had a kind of harmony in their work, and Jay could see that all of them used some sort of Spells in each and every action while they tended the plants. This fascinated Jay, and he wanted to go have a look at the plants, maybe even pluck a few and try to eat or sell them, but he didn't dare disturb these Mole-squirrels either; he really didn't want to spoil their tentatively friendly relationship. They didn't seem to care about his Murderous Aura and for some reason they were quite obedient to him, both made this place a haven of sorts, and there was no reason to disturb the peace before Jay could actually gain more than he would lose if he actually did something to disturb the Saruk.
Looking down at his legs, Jay saw that there were tiny tendrils of static Mana in his trousers that seemed to have been made part of the garment. Jay figured these swirling Mana patterns were what imbued the equipment with its special effects. If he could learn how these patterns worked, he might be able to replicate it on something else, which would be really good. But to Jay's disappointment, even after he studied the pattern of purple, amber brown, dark red and pale green Mana he couldn't even figure out how the Mana had been assembled and made static. The thought of trying to figure out how this worked was a good one, just not as relevant as trying to create Spells at the moment, so Jay quickly filed the idea away for later investigation. He felt a bit lacking in his understanding of Mana right now to actually be comfortable recreating the patterns of Mana in his equipment.
But from looking at his pants, Jay got another idea of something he hadn't tried yet. Rolling up his left pants-leg, he activated the Haste Skill and looked at his leg, trying to figure out how the Skill worked from looking at what it did. As Haste activated, hundreds of tiny purple lightning-bolt-like tendrils flashed through Jay's legs down to his foot. He deactivated Haste and reactivated it again, and was now certain that these tiny purple lightning bolts of Mana was the Skill being used.
The Skill looked very complex from his limited knowledge, and he had no idea how it worked, but he figured he could at least try doing something to manipulate it. Using his Mana Manipulation, he focused on his legs, increasing the input of Lightning Mana into each of the flashing bolts until they doubled in size. The added Mana seemed to be increasing the efficiency of the Haste Skill, but Jay wasn't sure by how much, and it was quite tiring to focus on increasing the purple Mana-strands flashing in his legs, so he didn't increase it more, and jumped down, running for a short distance. He could clearly feel that his legs moved quicker, and that his Movement Speed had increased, but it was also quite mentally taxing to keep up the continual increase of Mana in the Haste Skill.
Running back to the dais, Jay jumped back up, sitting down and looking at his left leg for a little more time before he deactivated and activated Haste again, only increasing the flow of Lightning Mana used by the Haste Skill in the left leg until his leg started vibrating. He had now increased the Spell by almost eight times the volume, and it showed; Jay's leg was actually vibrating in a frequency high enough to make a tiny buzzing sound. The vibrations also numbed his leg; it felt like he had cut off the blood-flow to it. This didn't make Jay apprehensive, however, only more inquisitive. He felt like something great would happen if he could just increase the amount of Mana flowing through the Haste Skill a little bit more, so he pushed more Mana into his left leg, forcing it with all his mental faculties. And to his delight, he finally increased the amount of Lightning Mana to more than eight times the original amount... And his leg exploded.
Gory pieces of flesh and a mist of blood sprayed out all around Jay's leg, and his foot actually dropped off, leaving a stump in the middle of his calf. He didn't feel anything; it felt strange, almost surrealistic.
You have been Crippled, losing your left foot.
Your foot has been removed, making you a cripple.
While your left foot is gone, you lose 10% of your Max Health.
He had actually lost his foot, but it didn't hurt one bit. Stunned, Jay looked down on his leg, the trickling blood flowing out of his leg slowly stopped, but it still looked very bad. He felt a slight panic rising, what would he do without a leg? What do I do now? he thought, cringing at the message he had gotten. How can I fix this?
Just find a very strong Healer or Cleric that has the Regrowth Spell, Claudine answered in his head. You can also buy some limb-reattachment ointment from an Alchemist shop, or a Potion of Regrowth. There are many ways.
And how should I go about finding one of those solutions? Jay asked Claudine. Not having the use of my leg will limit my movement severely...
How would I know? Claudine didn't seem to care much about the injury, as if it wasn't any big problem.
Before Jay could comment on Claudine's unresponsive attitude, he heard a yell.
BIG OW OW!” a gruff voice rang out, followed by a chorus of echoing “Big Ow Ow!” “Big Ow Ow!” from pretty much every single one of the Mole-squirrels. Jay looked around, stunned at the creatures; they were all now looking at him, and his crippled leg.
Hoping his injured leg didn't send these creatures into some sort of blood-frenzy or other weird state, Jay sighed. He shouldn't have experimented on his own body while not understanding how Skills worked. It was something he had to remember in the future: While not certain about what results it might bring, always experiment on others. It was easy to think that after the fact though, so Jay didn't feel very pleased with himself. How was he going to fix this? He had no idea...
In the distance, the words “Big Ow Ow!” still echoed, but now they had a hollow sound to them, as if the words were spoken through a tube. And a little later, to Jay's astonishment, there came an answer. “Yes, yes. Coming,” said a reedy old voice in a carrying tone that was somehow like a whisper while still being loud. For some reason, the voice inspired Jay's curiosity. Who was it that had answered? It sounded very different from that Mole-squirrel he had talked to.
A little later Jay got his answer. From somewhere behind a patch of shrubbery, a short hunchbacked creature came walking out, its body completely clad in a dark brown robe with twigs, seeds and moss attached to its outer surface. Every step the short creature took was accompanied by a delicate thud of its staff hitting the ground. The staff looked very impressive; at its top was a large hexagonal dark blue crystal woven into thin branches coming out of the two different types of brown wood twisting around each other that made the staff's body. In Jay's eyes, the two twisting pieces of wood each had a different color, one dark red, the other dark green; it seemed to be utilizing both Life Mana and Decay Mana in some way. With every tap on the ground, the staff surged slightly, a pulse of red and green light respectively going up each of the intertwined pieces of wood to reach the dark blue crystal which then absorbed the light. The crystal glowed with Life Mana, Decay Mana and Water Mana from what Jay could see. He had no idea how it was used, but it looked grand in his eyes, though it was probably quite lackluster if you didn't see the flow of Mana inside the staff.
The hunchback walked up to Jay in another two minutes, the slow shuffling gait not giving Jay much confidence in this little creature. It looked up at him, and showed its wrinkly old face. It was also a Mole-squirrel, but its skin looked like pine bark, one of its eyes was clouded and gray, and its nose was drooping down below its chin, a few white whiskers limply flowing down to touch the creature's waist. “Hello Little Master,” the creature said in its reedy old voice, a slightly feminine tone of care coming through. “This one is called Asarj. Grower. Healer. Shaman.”
Hello?” Jay felt strange, but also hopeful. “Do you need something from me?” this Mole-squirrel seemed different somehow.
Big Ow Ow,” Asarj said, pointing at Jay's stump. “Not good.”
Obviously,” Jay said. “Can you do something to heal my leg?”
Yes,” Asarj said, taking off an ornament from her dark brown robe. It looked like some sort of small seed or dried berry. “Eat.”
What is it?”
Big Ow Ow become no ow ow,” Asarj said.
It seemed to be some sort of pain reliever, from what Jay gathered, but it wasn't really necessary. He still couldn't feel any pain from his leg, only the numb feeling he got when he had pushed a lot of Lightning Mana into his leg. “I don't need pain relief. I need to somehow get my foot back onto my leg.”
Not eat?” Asarj asked, seemingly confused.
No,” Jay said. “Just help me get my foot back if you can, please?”
Hm...” Asarj hummed to herself, walking up to where Jay's foot stood in its boot, the remainder of his calf still attached to the foot slowly seeping blood into to boot. Asarj picked up the foot, looking it over, then licked it. “Big Ow Ow inside too. Not good.”
Can you help me?” Jay asked, he really felt like these creatures were on a totally different wavelength than him when it came to their thoughts. They all seemed to live in a sort of confused and slightly dulled state of mind.
Yes, yes,” Asarj said, going up to Jay and reaching up to his stump. “Stubborn Little Master.” Then Asarj aligned Jay's left foot with his stump of a leg. And in almost an instant the thin branches on her staff grew out of it and started intertwining in a seemingly random way around Jay's calf, holding together his leg and foot. Then Asarj tossed the small seed she had earlier given Jay to eat to where there were now only a covering of thin branches on Jay's leg. The moment the small seed touched the branches, they convulsed, a dark red radiance glowing brightly almost blinding Jay in its intensity. The seed merged into the branches around Jay's leg and a hot feeling ran through and up his leg. The feeling lingered for a couple of minutes and Asarj started to slowly pant with effort. It seemed to take something out of her to do whatever she did, but Jay could see the stubborness in Asarj's good eye and just waited.
The feeling of warmth went away after another couple of minutes and Jay felt as if he had lost something as the warmth went away. Soon after, the thin branches attached to Asarj's staff broke off from the staff and withered on Jay's leg until only ashes were left from the formerly healthy branches. The ashes were then dispersed with a puff of wind, and what Jay saw stunned him. Where his leg had been a ragged piece of destroyed flesh was now smooth and perfect, as if nothing had ever happened.
You are no longer Crippled.
You gain back your full Max Health.
Wow, he thought to himself. Wasn't that a bit too easy? He was truly stunned. The problem he had been almost panicking about, was actually fixed this easily.
Easy? Claudine asked. That was not easy, it was powerful. Usually it takes a Regrowth Spell an hour to reattach a lost limb. That this Asarj could do it this quickly is really telling, she should be a very powerful Healer.
Thank you, Asarj,” Jay said, smiling at the old Mole-squirrel. “How can I repay you?”
No pay,” Asarj said. “Big Ow Ow go away is good.”
Yes, that is good,” Jay said, trying to ingratiate himself with this useful creature. “How did you learn to do that? Can you teach me?”
All old Shaman know this,” Asarj said, but stopped, as if thinking about something. “Old Shaman make new Shaman and teach everything. Then old Shaman go away. New Shaman become old Shaman and make new Shaman and teach everything.”
Okay?” Jay was a bit puzzled. “So, can you teach me?”
You not new Shaman,” Asarj said, as if trying to explain that water was wet, then seemed to tremble, hesitating. “Little Master. No kill.”
So you can't teach me?” Jay asked, hoping to get a straight answer. “And I won't kill you either way. You just helped me. I wouldn't hurt you after that.”
Good Little Master,” Asarj asserted. “I no teach. You not new Shaman. Old Shaman only teach new Shaman.”
Fine,” Jay said. “I won't pry into this then. Thank you anyway though.”
Yes, yes,” Asarj said, her body slumping down slightly, the hunchback growing larger. She wobbled slightly, and Jay jumped down and grabbed the old Mole-squirrel, trying to stabilize her.
Here,” Jay said. “Let me help you. It seems it was difficult to heal my leg.”
Yes, stupid Little Master,” Asarj said, exacerbation flowing out with every word.
What? Why?”
Just eat seed. Wait half day. Grow new foot,” Asarj said. “But no, say no eat. Stupid Little Master. Now Asarj use Mana instead and get tired.”
Ah,” Jay said, suddenly realizing that the seed given him could have actually been eaten and had the same effect, but he didn't feel any guilt. “You should have said so earlier.”
Yes, yes,” Asarj just answered. “Help me back home.”
Sure,” Jay said. “Lead the way.”
Helping the weak Asarj, Jay walked and her walked together for a few minutes, their pace slower than a crawl, but Jay didn't complain. No matter what, the old Mole-squirrel had helped him, so he couldn't just brush her off. Soon they arrived at a hole in the ground. The hole was oblong and a slanting staircase went down into the ground inside the hole.
Stooping down to not hit his head on the ceiling, Jay almost carried Asarj down the long sloping staircase, and after a few more minutes they arrived at the bottom. What Jay saw then was incredible; in front of him, an enormous cave stretched out and the entire smooth ceiling was glowing in a light red hue. The light illuminated something even more incredible; there were dwellings stretching out on either side of a wide main road as far as Jay could see from this slightly raised platform, and every single house was made from some light green translucent crystal that glowed with an amber brown light in Jay's Eye of the Magi. The crystals were all hexagon pillars, but they had merged into walls and slanted roofs. The structures looked very beautiful in the red light, sparkling every now and then in yellow flashes. It was as if the crystals had captured a twinkling night sky in their depths.
What's this?” Jay couldn't help but ask.
Sarukim,” Asarj spoke out in her reedy voice, pride filling it, and not seeming tired anymore. “Home of the last Saruk,” a hint of sadness filled the last sentence.


14 comments:

  1. great chapter hope you never stop making more.

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  2. Thanks, great chapter. I want 20 more like it Johnson and make it snappy! I expect them posted by tomorrow morning! :P

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  3. Good chapter. I liked the screw-up of him blowing up his leg.

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  4. Awesome, with this kind of flexible system Jay is sure to come up with some aweosme spells now!

    Thanks for posting :)

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  5. Great stuff once again! Thanks as always! I can't wait to see what spells Jay makes, and how overpowered he becomes when he receives all that experience xD

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  6. Why is this so addictive...
    It's clear how much thinking and effort you put in this. Hope you continue!

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  7. Any info on the next chapter release or are you taking a brief hiatus? So hungry for more. Lol

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  8. Just hoping its late or taking a very, very short break. Hope all is good.

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  9. I hope you are in good health, and that has only forgotten to click the upload

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  10. Amazing... as always.
    Thank you for the chapter!!!

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