Chapter 72 – I’m A Real Wizard! (Patreon)

Lyura left first for the airport; Lis and Mahya were busy at the computer looking for a good place to work and left the next day.

For the first two days, I didn't know what to do with myself. After such a long time with good friends, it was suddenly hard to be alone. I toured Lleida a bit, but didn't even feel like buying anything. I wasn't exactly down, but I felt lonely. Rue felt what I was going through and kept clinging to me, licking my face, rubbing his head on me, and reminding me that I was never alone. I really love this dog.

After two days, I decided I needed to snap out of it and continue with my assigned homework. Since I wanted to see it, I went to Madrid, booked a hotel, toured the city for two days, and returned to my studies.

I took out the book Mana Constructs for Spell Creation and started studying it in a new unit of time. I had already learned half of it, but because I had so many other things to do, it was in small, short study periods, and my studies lacked consistency.

It took me a week to finish it and another two weeks to do all the exercises and train in creating the basic mana constructs. The most basic forms were an orb, a cube, a tube (whether small for a dart or bigger for more complicated spells), a mesh, and a shell.

The shell and mesh were the most complicated because they had no standard shape. The shell’s shape depended on the nature of the spell it needed to encapsulate or the object the spell was embedded in, and the mesh depended on the item the spell was embedded in or the area it needed to affect.

The mesh construct had another complicated aspect: all area-of-effect spells were open mesh spells, and a mana construct can’t have open ends, or the mana would leak out, and the spell would collapse. But you couldn’t just “close” the edges with each other; they would create a short circuit, and the spell would collapse. No, you had to build a complicated lattice at the edges with one consecutive line of mana that “closes” all the mesh lines and then closes the spell. It was a combination of weaving and geometry because the mana lattice had to have precise, repeating measurements.

Another step was the hardest: most embedded mesh spells needed a shell, but they were in conflict and kept interfering with each other. I had to learn to balance them perfectly so they’d stay put. This magic stuff was fascinating, but much more complicated than I initially thought.

Finally, I was good with basic shapes and could create a simple open mesh, so it was time for the next step. Before starting on it, I toured the city a bit more, and now even bought food for my future journey and went to the Prado Museum; I couldn’t pass it up.

I had the mana dart, but since I bought it from the system, I couldn’t apply it to my class, the “no double benefit” annoying rule and all that. So, I began to build offensive spells. I decided to go with the classics: fire and ice. There probably was a reason why those two were repeated the most in the books I read so long ago, or it felt like it was long ago.

I had no fire mana handy, but I had an idea. I rented a one-bedroom apartment with a fireplace and burned two logs from Tuanela. Initially, the mana released was wood and nature, but after about two hours of burning, it converted to fire mana, and I had my source for the aspect.

In the middle of my experiments with fire, Rue approached me and sent me in an annoyed tone, "No! Understand!"

"What don’t you understand?"

"TV."

"You don't understand the TV?"

"Yes! No! Understand!"

I went to the TV and saw it was in Spanish.

"Maybe we can find you something in English?"

"No! TV! No! Understand!"

I was looking forward to the day he would start speaking in complete sentences; understanding him from one word, usually spoken with an extreme emphasis, was quite tricky.

I bought him Local Adaptation:  Spoken Language; another 5 points gone. I understood why Lis called it the “Starting Package” – it never ends. I spent the 500 mana for Spanish, and he returned to his show. He spent too much time with Lyura – she infected him with her TV obsession! At least he could change the channels with Telekinesis and didn’t need me to do it.

I returned to my experiments with fire and slowly focused on the aspect – and burned my hand. Ouch!

The next time I was smart, I built a mesh of mana around my hand like in one of the exercises, and continued to focus on the fire. Although I managed to catch it once, I still had to study it in depth. After another half hour of experiments, I had a flame in my hand. I kept having to feed it mana so it wouldn't go out, but I had a flame in my hand!! A flame I created!! I was a real Wizard!

I just sat there and admired my flame. After ten minutes, I called, "Rue, come see!"

He came, looked at the flame, smelled it, and started sneezing.

"Bad! John!"

"I'm not bad John; I told you to look, not smell."

"Bad! Friend!"

"I'm really sorry. Next time, don't smell fire. But look, that's a flame I created alone, with my magic! I'm a real Wizard!"

He shook his head, said, "Strange!" and returned to the TV.

I filled a bucket with water, created a somewhat thick dart construct, filled it with mana, applied the aspect of fire to it, and pointed my hand at the bucket. The dart just sat on my palm and wasn't going anywhere.

Huh?

No matter what I tried, it didn't go anywhere. The only thing that worked was physically throwing it into the bucket. I concluded that I was lacking information.

I started looking through Lis's books, but I encountered a problem. There were some books that I paid the mana to learn their spoken and written language, but I didn't read the language to learn it; I just paid to spend mana. So now I had to read a page or two of each book, so I could read the title and know if the book would help me or not.

Unfortunately, none of the books I paid the mana for their language contained the solution to my problem. So now I had to spend a thousand mana on each language, read a page or two, read the title, and move on to the next book. After 8,000 mana, I still haven't found a suitable book.

I dismantled the bad spiral from my mana system and built a denser spiral. My regeneration went from 2 per second to 4 per second.

Second Spiral Completed

Quality: 95%

 I decided to build another spiral, and this time, it was a battle - I don't know why, but each spiral was more difficult than the previous one, and the jump in difficulty was very significant. After I finished the third, I knew there was no way I was building a fourth; I would fail.

Third Spiral Completed

Quality: 95%

My mana regeneration went up to 6 per second.

I needed to occupy myself until my mana regenerated, so I sat at the computer and started looking for workshops. I should fill up more with all the points I spent on Rue.

Paella and Sangria Workshop with Dinner and Drinks
10 Tapas 2.5-Hour Cooking Class
Flamenco Class Experience

Workshops were much more fun with friends.

Sigh!

After another eight books, I didn’t find a solution.

Latin Dance & Salsa Class Experience
Unique Traditional Cooking Class of Sardines
Leathercraft workshop in the Rastro of Madrid

The last one I decided to keep, and after another eight books, there was still no solution.

Private Bachata Class
Velázquez Tech Museum + Paint your Menina Workshop
Stone Carving in Cercedilla/Madrid
Small Group Make Your Own Bird Feeder Workshop in Cercedilla

Yes! Success! 

After three books, I found Action Aspects for Spell Creation. And I had another 9 points – my total was back to 150.

I decided to celebrate by touring the Royal Palace and viewing the Royal Collections for an additional fee. The next day was Sunday, so I went to the El Rastro flea market to see what I could find. It was huge and located in the historic center of Madrid. Initially, I went with Rue, but when he saw all the people, he wanted back home to his TV. He was binging on some cop show in Spanish.

After I returned to the market, I toured the stalls and bought quite a few things. At some point, my red light started blinking, but I didn’t want to stare into space with all those people around, so I waited till I was back home to open it.

_______________________ 

Profession: Merchant Level 6

Level up

+3 wisdom, +3 perception, +2 luck, +3 free points

Profession: Merchant Level 7

_______________________

Not including luck, my lowest stat was Agility at 37, so I added the points there. I agree with Lis; we need all the stats.

I returned to my studies and was halfway through the book Action Aspects for Spell Creation when Lis called me.

“Are you still in Spain or left for Italy?”

“Still in Spain, in Madrid.”

“Fly to Toulouse airport in France, rent a car, and drive to Balma. Call me from there, and I’ll give you further directions.”

“Why?”

“We are done with the project and want to show it to you.”

“Okay, see you in a couple of days.”

I must admit, I was excited; I missed both of them.

“Rue! We’re flying to see Lis and Mahya.” I called to him over the noise of the TV.

“Friends!” Was shouted back into my mind.

I needed to practice talking to him telepathically; it would at least protect my throat with the volume he was watching TV. He liked to hear the gunshots loud, and I had no idea why. I always thought dogs' ears were sensitive.

I booked a flight for the following day and went to bed full of excitement. I’ll see my friends soon.