Chapter 12

Windfall

After Hannah left, Jay rope-jumped from tree to tree, finally finding another suitable tree with a large branch sticking out of an even wider tree trunk; it was a hundred or so meters away from where he started and was be a bit more hidden. Sitting himself down comfortably, resting on the tree trunk, Jay began to think. He wanted to experiment with Wind Mana while waiting on word from Hannah. Ever since he read about the Air Shield Spell that was good against ranged attacks, he had thought of creating such a shield of his own. If he could attack from a distance, and have defenses against ranged attacks, then he would be a lot safer, and a lot more dangerous.

Sending out pale green translucent Wind Mana from his hands, Jay tried to create a spiral-like whirlpool in the air from many tiny tendrils, but it didn't create the result he wanted; the air barely stirred. Continuing to experiment, he sent out more and more Mana, depleting over 30% of his Mana-pool over a short period of time, but still without success. Maybe he was doing something wrong? It was too bad he couldn't figure out what that was... he continued experimenting for a few minutes more, but it lead nowhere; he had to try something else.

Relaxing, not caring about time and with the intention of creating a good mindset for thinking, Jay started to Meditate to quickly replenish the now almost 50% of his Mana-pool that he had used up earlier. But to Jay's surprise, when he looked at the bar indicating his Mana down at the left side of his field of view, the tiny percentile number at its right end didn't increase any quicker than without him Meditating. Something was wrong. How long had this been going on? Remembering back, he felt like it had been the same back in the round canyon when he Meditated, but he hadn't noticed it then. Only now that he thought about it could he see the discrepancy. Had something happened to his Meditation Skill after he got the Eye of the Magi Skill? Or had there been problems even before that? He couldn't remember, but didn't care much about when the problem started. Now all he could do was to find out what was wrong. View 'Meditation' Skill.

[Active Support Skill] Meditation (Undergoing Evolution: 91% Complete) Level 15 (99%) Meditation is the foundation of exploring your mind and its connection to your body. Through resting your body completely and actively attuning your Mana flow, you gain the ability to boost your natural abilities of regeneration. Increases Mana Regeneration by 3.8% (Disabled) Increases Health Regeneration by 3.8% (Disabled) Increases Stamina gained from food by 470% distributing a forth every 15 minutes for 1 hour. This Skill is interrupted if you move or are moved. If this happens it can only be reactivated after five minutes.

Evolution, what's that? He automatically thought, and hoping Claudine was in a helpful mood, he asked her. How does that affect the Skill?

When a Skill or Spell Evolves it grows in accordance to some specific branch in its potential direction for growth, Claudine answered.

What does that mean? He didn't understand at all what this was all about, but maybe he could find out something about the deeper parts of this world from asking Claudine. He knew that this virtual reality was as close to reality to tell no difference; this made it so that the best way for him to become as powerful as possible was to fully immerse himself in the world and act as if it was truly and completely real. And to do that, he needed to understand the basic rules that governed the world. Do I need to Meditate to increase the evolution process? Or is it automatic? He wondered.

From using my own Skills, I know its the former, Claudine helps out with a straight answer. Only by using the Spell or Skill will you be able to make its evolution progress. I think there is some sort of information gathering during the time you evolve the Skill or Spell and from that you will be given an extra ability that is closely related to the specific Skill or Spell that has undergone Evolution.

So, what will happen when the Skill evolves? Jay thought, trying to think of what this might imply. Was the situation such as that every Skill and Spell evolved when reaching Level 16? Or was this a special case that just happened sometimes?

All Skills and Spells become stuck at Level 15 and 99%, Claudine said. Only if you are able to do something that is creative or beyond the normal use will a Skill or Spell start to evolve and surpass the barrier at Level 16. How powerful a Skill or Spell is can be seen from how it grows between Levels, but only when a Skill or Spell evolves will it generate some special branching ability of that specific Skill or Spell. When a Skill or Spell evolves it will also only do so in a direction that is somehow related to your specific Stats, body or behavior; there might be even more things that influence the evolved ability, but I cannot say for certain what those might be.

Thanks, Claudine, that was a relief to hear, Jay thought, appreciating the explanation. It's good that nothing is wrong.

Going back to his thoughts of Wind Mana, Jay had the idea that he should try and observe Freeflowing Wind Mana. He just had to find some. From his tiny experience, he had noticed that the different types of Mana were more densely concentrated at places where it had some specific relation to its environment. Therefore, Wind Mana should be where there was lots of wind. Jay looked up. Above, some twenty meters or so, the tree crowns filled with leaves rustled in the gentle breeze.

The idea he had gotten wasn't the most comforting, but now that he had a different way of finding out how to use Wind Mana Jay couldn't ignore it. Looking up again, he really didn't like this idea. Ignoring his likes, however, he sent up his rope with the Magic Rope Spell to a sturdy looking branch fifteen meters up and pulled himself slowly upward, crawling on the tree's trunk while ascending.

When he arrived at where he had fastened his rope, he felt the tree sway with his motions and vertigo set in. He shook his head, dispelling the sensation. He had to climb higher.

In his eyes he saw a few wisps of extremely pale green Wind Mana flying by him, but it wasn't enough. The higher he could go, the easier it would be to observe the ever-blowing wind up high in the air. He slowly snaked the rope around the trunk of the tree, now climbing slowly and pulling himself a decimeter at a time. It took a bit of time, but after a few minutes of nervewrackingly swaying back and forth on the tree trunk, Jay had finally gotten to a height where he could look out over most of the trees in his surrounding. And even though the tree he was now clinging to had almost bowed horizontally from his weight, Jay was able to find a fairly comfortable position for his body while hanging from the rope around his waist that was also curled around the trunk and his two hands clinging on to the very bent tree top.

Up here, as he looked out, the forest truly looked strange. If it wasn't for his now abnormal clarity of sight, he could have been fooled into believing that the green leaves were actually the surface of some sea. The leaves swayed back and forth, creating waves with every breeze blowing by.

All around him, Jay could see tiny wisps of Wind Mana, but it was almost impossible to catch a mental hold on a specific wisp of Wind Mana for a long time; all the Wind Mana wisps were fleeting and ephemeral, their color so pale that it blended in completely with the surroundings. When Jay looked at the sky, it wasn't much difference, the tiny wisps were more numerous, but they also churned about in chaotic ways to make his head spin just by trying to look at a specific wisp among the hundreds intertwining just above his head. He couldn't figure out anything at all from this, the surroundings were too distracting; if only he could only see the Mana and ignore everything else... deactivating Eye of the Magi, he closed his eyes, focusing his mind, then activated Eye of the Magi again while not using his eyes. Nothing happened except a brief flash of something that was gone as soon as it appeared. He had hoped he could use his Eye of the Magi without actually using his eyes, but maybe that had been too much to ask for. But he didn't despair, he just had to try some more before ruling out the possibility of using Eye of the Magi while not having his eyes open. He began flickering Eye of the Magi on and off, on and off.

Slowly, with every usage of Eye of the Magi his inner sight flickered with light, and the light stayed for a longer period of time after each usage of Eye of the Magi. It was as if the Skill was trying to accommodate for the specific situation, or as if it was trying to learn what the user wanted to do. It felt bizarre, and Jay's head was starting to hurt, but he continued. And suddenly, the lights inside his mind blinded him, even though his eyes were closed; the world had turned into flashing lights of many different colors, and Jay could clearly see the wisps of pale green Freeflowing Wind Mana in the air. His ability to see Mana had increased tremendously, and now the wisps of pale green Wind Mana were a lot more pronounced. Jay figured it must be because he was able to exclude much of his eyes' former distractions and was now able to focus all his attention to only the Mana that he could see with his Eye of the Magi. But now he didn't dare open his eyes for losing this way of seeing the world.

Once more slowing his breathing, relaxing his body and mind, Jay entered a Meditative state, and soon time seemed to have slowed down slightly. He was in a marvelous state of mind, and he felt himself growing closer to understanding Wind Mana while he was observing the Freeflowing Mana's behavior. He could now see that what he earlier thought were only wisps of Wind Mana were actually part of a larger whole, and this whole stretched out as far as Jay could see into the sky; it was only that the pale green Wind Mana was so pale at most of the places that he couldn't see it before. His opened eyes had actually made it impossible to see this ephemeral Wind Mana that covered all of the air around Jay; it was that thinly concentrated. But now he could see that there was Wind Mana everywhere, it was only that the concentration was differing in different places in the air. He knew this had to be a clue.

If he could understand how the Freeflowing Mana behaved, he could imitate its behavior, amplify its concentration, modulate it to do what he wanted and then consolidate it into a Spell by repeated use. Giddy, he felt he was truly on to something here. He observed the pale green Mana and how its density seemed to move around chaotically, creating tiny winds by compressing or depressing the air density where the Mana moved. This was what he had been looking for. It seemed his idea earlier had been all wrong. What he needed to do to create winds was to envelop all the surrounding air he wanted to manipulate with his Wind Mana and then have the Mana be in different states of concentration at different places to move air with the Mana. This wasn't something he would have thought of by himself, but now that he looked at how the Freeflowing Mana was behaving, it seemed quite obvious that this was how you were supposed to use Wind Mana. He needed to look at more and different kinds of Freeflowing Mana; that would be the quickest way to create the Spells he needed for his Quest.

After about 30 minutes of just watching the Wind Mana in his inner mind, Jay opened his eyes again and his perception of Mana seemed to dull. He no longer saw the ever-present pale green Wind Mana that was all around him, and could once again only see the more densely concentrated Wind Mana wisps that danced around in the air, creating tiny air currents. But now he knew how the underlying principle worked, so he saw it in a whole other light.

Sliding down his long rope, Jay soon got back to where he sat earlier; it was a much better place to rest than hanging from the top of a tree.

Though it was a good thing that he hadn't been disturbed during his moment of enlightenment, Jay now wondered why Hannah hadn't contacted him yet. It shouldn't have taken a long time finding some players to kill, yet she had not said a word. Had she run off to do something else? Jay doubted it, so he wondered what was going on. Opening up his chat, he made a call to Hannah, and got an answer in less than a second.

“Yeah?” Hannah said.

“Why haven't you found any players for me to kill yet?” Jay asked. “Didn't you want to help me Level up as quickly as possible?”

“I found a couple of small groups wandering around, but they were all below Level 16,” she said. “I won't let you bully such noobs. I also believe you wouldn't think it worth your time to kill people with such a low Level. Losing alignment over those players couldn't be worth it. I read on an info-site that if you have an extremely low alignment, you will be actively hunted by something called the Guardians, so you shouldn't press your luck too far.”

“Good to know. Was there any mention of how low alignment you can have without being actively hunted?” Jay asked, frowning slightly. He needed to know where the limit was. “And you were right about those low Levels, anything below Level 20 isn't worth the time and effort, but why aren't there any players higher than Level 20 around?”

“Eh...” Hannah said, sounding a bit reluctant. “You do know that during the day there are practically only very weak monsters and at most about 10% of the amount of monsters compared to during the night, right? We'll probably have to wait until evening before people above Level 20 come out into the forest. During the day, the best places to hunt monsters for Experience is to go into caves and dungeons. Most of the creatures that come out at night hide away in caves and dungeons during the day. So... you didn't know?”

“No. I didn't know,” Jay said, enunciating each word. “Aren't things such as this something you should mention? Or at least ask if I know about it before we do something?”

“How is that my problem?” Hannah asked, actually sounding like she didn't understand. “I thought such basics were too obvious to need to be explained. So, should I come back until nightfall?”

“Do as you wish,” Jay said. He didn't care what she did anymore. If he had to wait until night for there to be good prey, he would wait. It wasn't anything to think too deeply about. He had things to do even if he couldn't hunt players right now. His newfound insight into using Wind Mana was much more important right now.

“Okay,” Hannah said. “Then I'll come back now. I've got nothing better to do, and I can train there as well as anywhere.”

“Fine,” Jay said, closing the connection between them, furrowing his brows. He needed to focus his everything on creating this new Spell with Wind Mana before he lost his inspiration.

Making a ball of Wind Mana about a meter in diameter above his outstretched right hand, Jay looked intently at it, trying to create fluctuations in density inside the ball. It was a lot more difficult than he would have thought; the worst part was that the Wind Mana seemed to want to float away from his mental grasp. He constantly lost Mana as the outer parts of the large ball of Wind Mana seemed to melt and diffuse into its surroundings. So, all he could do was to supply the ball of Mana with more Mana just to keep it in existence. He had to use more than twelve Mana per second just to keep the ball of Mana the same size, and this meant he was now beginning to lose Mana from his Mana-pool. His Mana Regeneration couldn't keep up completely. If he just held the ball of Mana in its place he would drain all his Mana in less than three hours. And to replenish it would take almost one and a half hour; he really didn't like that, but he had no way to change it. He just had to make the best of it and try and figure out how to easily compress and depress Wind Mana within three hours; that was all.

He reached up to his head to comb his fingers through his hair, only to feel the smooth bald skin. Rubbing his bald head, Jay felt a bit awkward, and a bit confused. Hannah seemed to like making jokes at someone else's expense, why hadn't she laughed at his change in hairstyle? She had seen him with hair before, but now he had none. Aaaargh... it bothered him, he really couldn't figure her out. And now he was even distracted by that. Not good.

He closed his eyes, and flickered his Eye of the Magi on and off until he got back into that marvelous state of seeing only Mana. Now, with his more enhanced Mana-vision, he could more easily see that the surrounding Freeflowing Mana was actually making his Mana diffuse into the air around because of the difference in density. He didn't know how to make that stop, however, so he could only ignore it and focus on trying to make his own Wind Mana move according to his will.

In this state of mind, where everything but Mana was excluded from his eyes, Jay could more easily see when he did something right and also when he did something wrong. Every time he managed to compress some Mana in a specific region he came closer to creating something like how the Freeflowing Mana had looked like. So he continued, compressing Wind Mana and forcing it to move as he wanted; it became easier and easier, and he could create larger and larger areas with a higher density, which also led to larger areas where the Wind Mana was a lot less dense. He continued to experiment.

It didn't take more than an hour before Jay truly got a hang of it and now he could create his own tiny wisps of differently dense places within his ball of Wind Mana, but he didn't dare open his eyes just yet. This was just the beginning. His goal was to make a whirlwind that enclosed him, making him the eye of the storm with a wall of spiraling wind as his shield from all sides. It was too bad that for now, that didn't seem to be very possible. Just doing as he did right now was very exhausting for his mind, he already felt a headache coming on, his temples throbbing. Having different densities of Mana inside all the Mana he controlled was a lot more difficult than anything he had ever tried to do.

Another fifteen minutes passed while Jay tampered with the little wisps inside the ball of Mana, and he was getting more and more accustomed to Manipulating Wind Mana as he wished. He had now made the wisps of Wind Mana move at a specific distance from each other and in a pattern much like a cylinder inside a cylinder. The outer cylinder had densely packed Wind Mana wisps moving at a 45 degree angle spiraling around it upward, while the inner cylinder took form from the Wind Mana wisps that reached the top of the outer cylinder that then flew down to the bottom again as quickly as Jay could command them; in between these two cylinders of more dense Wind Mana there was almost a vacuum, and almost no Wind Mana could be detected there. This was the model he had created in his mind for his later Whirlwind Shield, it was only in a smaller scale.

Opening his eyes, Jay wanted to see what was happening to the air because of his Manipulation of Wind Mana. What he saw was a lot more promising than he could have hoped for. The cylindrical patterned structure of Wind Mana he had created inside the diffused ball of Mana was actually creating just what he wanted. A large whirlwind was rising into the sky above the ball of Wind Mana, so Jay had somewhat succeeded. It wasn't how he had thought though; the whirlwind rose almost three meters high into the air above the ball of Mana, but inside the ball of Mana there was only a little whirlwind covering the outside of the cylindrical Mana-structure. It both pleased him and vexed him. He hadn't thought he could create such a large whirlwind with his experimentation, it was only a bit strange that the whirlwind was actually more violent outside his own controlled ball of Mana.

Stopping the output of Mana, Jay looked up into the sky, trying to think of how to rearrange the Wind Spell's structure to create what he wanted. The only ideas that came to mind were ideas that he needed to experiment with to actually be able to see if the Spell would behave as he wanted it to. But right now, he just wanted to rest a while and recuperate his mental fatigue and fill his Mana-pool.

“What was that?” Hannah asked from above and to Jay's left. “How did you make a tornado?”

“How long have you been watching?” Jay asked, not really wanting to explain what he was doing.

“Since... I don't know... you were stretching out your hand and wiggling your fingers while having eyes closed,” Hannah said. “It looked very strange, but became even stranger when your finger-wiggling made a tornado appear. How did you do that?”

“I was experimenting with how to control the wind,” Jay said. “You know I'm a Magician. That was just me trying out a possible new Spell.”

“What? You can create your own Spells?” Hannah's eyes glittered like sparkling gems as she looked at Jay. “That's one of the most difficult things to do in this game. Isn't it just easier to buy the Spells you want?”

“Maybe,” Jay said, not refuting her statement, but not believing it to be the truth either. He had found out by accident that his own Fling Shot was tens of times more destructive than any Spell he could buy, so he figured that self-made Spells might be a lot better than those you could buy and easily use. “I've created a few Spells and Skills, and they are all a lot better than anything I've been able to buy. So it's never a bad idea to try making a new Spell.”

“Wah?!?” Hannah seemed to lose her balance slightly, but quickly regained it, nimbly shifting her body slightly to a crouch. “I read that creating a Spell could take weeks. How could you have created several?”

“Good luck, I guess?” Jay answered ambiguously. “It doesn't matter to you, does it?”

“No, not really,” Hannah said. “But, man, that's amazing. Show me the Spells you've created.”

“I don't want to,” Jay said.

“Come on,” Hannah said, pouting slightly. “You're no fun. Why can't you show me?”

“I don't want to,” Jay said again, but relenting slightly he figured it was best to show one Spell at least. “Forget it, I'll show you one. But after that, don't try to pry out more information from me.” Jay tossed out a pin from his inner pocket, making it float above his outstretched palm. He started bombarding it with Force Mana from all directions, taking his time.

“Ooooh...” Hannah said, smiling. “That Spell could be called utterly useless. At best you might charm a bored cat with that, but only if you're lucky.”

“Shut up and watch,” Jay said, slightly irritated, but also not caring enough to actually sound it. After he had loaded the pin with a bit more than 1000 Force Mana he changed the direction of all the Force Mana's push to one direction and explosively shot the tiny pin into a thick tree nearby. With a SHWAPP! the pin flew through the air, almost breaking the sound barrier and crashing into the tree trunk, splintering it and making a hole the size of an open palm that bore at least thirty centimeters into the wood, tiny splinters falling away continuously and raining to the ground far below.

“Ah...” Hannah said, her open mouth seeming to want to say something, but not knowing how to.

“See, told you it was powerful,” Jay said, feeling a bit smug. This was the attack Spell he was most proud of, even though it wasn't even an official Spell yet. It was so powerful, and could be regulated. It was great. “And that was just me being conservative. If I have time to use enough Mana the Spell can be about five times as destructive.”

“Really?” Hannah said, once more her eyes sparkled. “That's great. You can be the glass cannon in my future adventuring team.”

“Glass cannon?” Jay asked, not understanding the term. “And what future adventuring team? Don't just add me to it without asking me first.”

“Come on, don't be stingy,” Hannah said, laughing. “You'll follow me from now on. With such Spells, we don't even need an archer. You'll be enough for long range attacks. Now I just need to find a tank and a healer, then we'll be good to go.”

“Follow you? My ass,” Jay said. “Give me a good reason why I should follow you? If anything, I think it should be the other way around. I only know you're slightly skilled at acrobatics. How could I subordinate myself to someone like that?”

“If we fight, you'd be dead in seconds,” Hannah said. “But I don't want to force you. Just think about it.” She smiled even broader, making her pointy teeth stick out from the corner of her lips, her feline face looking very mischievous.

“For now, let's just focus on getting to Level 100, alright?” Jay could bother to argue. He didn't mind her company, but also felt she was a bit strange. He knew, however, that he couldn't say someone else was strange, because he himself was probably a lot more strange than he thought he was.

“So, what should we do while we wait for nightfall?” Hannah said. “Want to play a game?”

“No,” Jay said. “I need to keep trying to create the Spell I was experimenting with earlier. Don't disturb me.”

“Okay,” Hannah said, not seeming to be displeased. “Have fun with that then. I'll jump around close by. This place isn't too bad for gaining Experience.”

Jay didn't think about Hannah anymore, and once again closed his eyes, creating an inner picture of only Mana. When he saw Hannah, however, he paused for a moment. In the Eye of the Magi inner vision her periphery blazed with a brilliant white light that Jay could only assume was Light Mana. The strange thing was that there was only traces of Light Mana, and no other kinds. From what Wraith had said, the type of Mana you used showed itself by leaving a residual presence inside the body of the user. How was it possible for Hannah to only use Light Mana? Were all her Skills and Spells using Light Mana? That didn't seem very likely, but he couldn't explain it in any other way.

Shaking his head, Jay turned away from Hannah; he had once again been distracted by her, he didn't have time for that. Focusing back to himself, Jay created a disc of pale green Wind Mana a few meters away from him, creating the same cylindrical structure, only flattened and wider than before, wide enough that he could stand inside it. Then he pushed himself to release as much Mana as he could and opened his eyes to see what happened. Before him stood a five meter tall whirlwind that distorted the air so much that it was difficult to see things through it. This was more like it. If he could create a Spell with even a tenth of this ferocity it would be great.

Jay close his eyes again and started calibrating the amount of Mana used and how quickly the denser wisps of Wind Mana flowed up the cylindrical pattern. After almost an hour, he had found a stable structure that didn't use too much Mana. To start up the Spell cost 600 Mana, and then its continuation used 90 Mana per minute. With his Mana Regeneration at almost 500 Mana per minute, he could pretty much keep this Spell going non-stop, the only problem was that he couldn't move it. He had tried moving the Spell after he had found a stable structure, but as soon as it moved the slightest sideways the whole thing broke apart and diffused into nothing. However, he had now created a Whirlwind Shield Spell, and only needed to keep it going until he got the prompt of having created a new Spell.

Less than thirty minutes later, the notice came, and the Spell was officially created. Jay was ecstatic. Things were really coming together now.