156. Skills, Powers, and Abilities (Patreon)

Tercius and Mistress Kalina rented two rooms at the Jolly Sailor and he retired to his immediately, in need of peace to read the booklet as soon as possible. Before he read a single word, however, he had to deal with something that had been bothering him nearly the entire day.

You have learned the skill: Mana Touch! Obtain Yes/No

To say that it was difficult to observe, move and even speak while that notification persistently hovered in the center of his view would be an understatement, but he had somehow managed to persevere through it all.

Tercius made himself comfortable on the bed, the evening air that streamed through the open window warm and pleasant. The sounds of the city and its inhabitants along with the closeness of the ocean and its flying and squawking denizens, however, made it difficult to focus properly. He had to weigh his options regarding this development.

Reaching for Meditation, Tercius was momentarily left in a dark void, his senses, and then his emotions dulled to near non-existence. Only free thoughts existed here, unconstrained by sight, smell, sound, touch, or taste, by fear, pain, or excitement. A skill born for unapologetic thinking that often went wild and, somewhat paradoxically, for those moments of silent existence, where no thinking at all occurred.

Meditation thoroughly closed Tercius off from the world, at least the physical ones, and yet in some other ways, it opened him to other possibilities. It was from here, in the farthest and most solitary reaches of the mind, that he got his occasional visitors. The numberless beings never stayed for long, though. It was also from here that he could bridge the gap of distance and communicate with his familiar, albeit at a great cost. It was from here that the special doorway to Anima was formed with help from his occasional visitors, and it was from one of those visitors that he harvested the neutral type of Energy that people would kill for.

This was the skill that made it all possible, the skill that led to him being placed on the radar of a powerful group of Magi, and sometimes Tercius wondered how different things would have been without it. Some things would have been better, he plainly saw, but others… well, they could have been a lot, a lot worse. Everything had its ups and downs.

Tercius reigned himself in. That train of thought was not on the order. Here he came to think, think big and unrestrained, but do so in the direction he chose prior. Tangents were allowed, of course, but only with a significant point of contract.

Mana Touch was the first order of business.

Accepting Mana Touch now would mean that most of his natural Energy would be spent on pacifying the chaos of the new skill’s Core. The chaos of the Core had a way of preventing another skill from coming to maturity for as long as it was present and Tercius was not inclined to tinker with Energy and the Core’s chaos, not when he could be risking the seal on his Well by doing it. His Mentor had, in no uncertain terms, told him that even minute presence of Energy in his Well would weaken or destroy it, depending on the quantity.

The seal was there to hide his Well for just a bit over thirteen days from now, but that time could become hours or minutes and there was a possibility that the seal itself could be fried instantly if a large burst of Energy came into play. No seal on his Well would mean that he would have to actively defend his Well from invasion from Spirits, the aftereffects of which were not something he wanted to deal with.

If he were to go harvesting Energy in his Anima, to pacify the chaos of the new skill, then absolute control over Energy would be needed. Not a single scrap of Energy could be allowed to leave his Anima and enter his Body. Doable, but difficult. The precision and control required for that would have to be at the top of his game.

On the other hand, he could reject Mana Touch. He could take a little time now, go to his Anima and the Garden of Skills, and finally learn what actually happens to the skill when it’s rejected. There would be no need to risk messing with Energy, and no risking of the seal.

It was an appealing thought, to finally complete a missing piece of the puzzle, but… Mana Touch was too appealing a skill to pass on, despite the bother it might cause.

Besides, Tercius had an idea on how to make the seal more permanent and personal and the new skill could just make things easier for him. He could just imagine it — a skill based on the seal, a cloak to hide his Well and Energy when he needed it and for as long as he needed it. The benefits that would come out of something like that… Well, even with dulled emotions, he felt a little bit of drooling greed at the thought.

For starters, to successfully do it, he would have to take the Seal in its entirety— encapsulating the different morphological types of mana and all the frameworks into which those types were made, the combination of which was what made the Seal what it was and gave it the functions that it had— and he had to do that without altering anything in any way. Of the two, the Seal's framework was the less important, but he thought that with a certain amount of tentativeness and hesitation. After all, without a proper framework to provide proper guidance, even if he knew all the morphological mana types present, the Seal wouldn't work.

That would be analogous to having all the building blocks required while having no idea how to build a house.

This Seal didn't come with a strongbox from the Repository of Magi, a strongbox holding a crystal with all the different components of the spell's mana morphology, and a scroll that had detailed explanations and equations of the spell's framework. He had no way to easily deconstruct a part of the Seal, a part that he could then take out and use for something else like he did when he created his telekinetic skill.

No, this was not that. This was an enchantment done on his Well by someone else, an enchantment that he didn’t see, that he couldn’t feel. For this one, he had to think outside of the box.

Disrupting the framework would disrupt the mana morphology inside of it while disrupting the mana morphology would disrupt the framework. A single error and the carefully constructed seal would be gone and his opportunity for an excellent skill with it. How many times would he get an opportunity to get a skill based on the work of a millennia-old Magos that was a genius in the field of body enchantments?

His endeavor was, he admitted to himself, difficult. Very difficult. If he was honest with himself, perhaps even beyond the current him.

Putting his lacking skill aside, he did have one thing which could end up working for him, something which could potentially allow him to work around the entirety of the Seal without actually disturbing it in any way.

The Seal’s complex inner workings of mana morphology were created out of his own mana, mana which he himself had first purified and then freely given to Mistress Prime’era to create the enchantment with and provide power to it. It had to be done that way, the Magi had told him back when he was getting ready for the open chest operation. The Well was a magically active organ and it was in its nature to erode all structured magic, especially that of foreign origin. If the Mistress had used her own mana for the enchantment, or anyone else’s, then the Seal would have only lasted for around a week or less before degrading completely. Three or four days and the Seal’s integrity would have been compromised, the edges of the veil lifted at the sides.

Contrary to what he thought at that time, Mistress Prime’era assured him that internal body enchantments weren’t weak by any measure. If the target of the enchantment had been any other organ or body part then the enchantment would have lasted significantly longer. Apparently, the appendix was quite popular among Magi to hide a special spell or two in case of an emergency. When properly done, an enchantment placed there could last decades all the while being hidden even from the best of magical senses.

In any case, the mana that made up the Seal had been taken from him, reshaped by the Mistress, but it still had a little bit of him. Since it had been his once before, it could be his again, if he called to it with enough power behind his will.

He knew that much.

So, he truly had a way that had a sliver of a chance of success, he concluded. At least, for that part.

What would be the next thing then?

Energy, of course. Energy was needed to create a skill.

But he couldn’t use Energy now, at least he couldn't allow it to enter his Well. That would destroy the Seal. That left him with using Energy inside his Anima, which was where Tercius was actually a bit of a specialist. It was by playing with Energy in his Anima that he started on the path of Mana and not the other way around, as was considered the accepted standard. Not that anyone knew that about him, although Tercius suspected that Perdinar suspected. Still, Perdinar never asked and Tercius kept his mouth shut. Some things are just better left unsaid and this one screamed that it was part of that exclusive group.

Tercius had more first-hand experience than most of the planet's inhabitants on how the skills worked, how and where they were created, he knew of their dual nature and the way they existed inside the Anima and Body… he knew enough to think himself capable of succeeding in this, without any wishful thinking being involved into it.

Well… maybe a little bit of wishful thinking, just a few grains of it really.

Since he had the entirety of the Mana part of the potential future skill present inside that Seal, all that was left was the Energy part. Any potential modifications on the way the skill manifested would be left for later if all the rest proved a success.

The next problem he saw was that this was not your regular skill that gradually grew by accumulation — this one was half done from the start. A good puzzle to ponder on. He threw himself to comb over the benefits of the various solutions that came to him.

Nothing to it, Tercius thought finally. Since the Mana part of the skill would be already complete in the form of the Seal, then it stood to reason that the Energy part of the skill ought to be the same way. But how to do that… how would he grow a skill crystal on the Garden that would accept the mana of the Seal? In a way, that skill crystal would have to be… hollow inside. Not in a physical way, like a cavern, but more like it lacked the other half— Actually, on second thought, perhaps a physical way was a good way to look at it… This semi-skill would be a… semi-incubator of sorts. It would grow itself to a certain size, stop and then wait for the Seal to enter inside, only for the two to finally join into one and grow into a skill…

The parallels between his idea and the official dogma of Divine Balance were interesting to note, Tercius thought briefly, but he soon returned to the real question.

How to make something like a hollow skill crystal?

For a while he existed in darkness, not a single thought passing to answer his question. Then a few puzzle pieces came to him. A few dozen times he thought he had some idea, only to realize the contrary the next moment. Finally, he agreed with himself on a very good and simple way forward — one which he wasn't sure why he didn't think of in the first place, considering everything that he knew of Energy and the way it behaved.

Instead of micromanaging something which he had no idea how to do or even begin, he ought to let Energy do what it already knew how to do by its very nature. Energy was not Mana, it did not need precise measurements and detailed orders, rather even a vague sense of purpose was enough to stir it. Energy was in some ways capable of following instincts and emotions, imprints of desire and wishes. That was how normal skills came to be, after all. What he should do was think of the proper commands to imprint on the Energy that would form such a semi-grown skill seed.

It would cost him more Energy to do it like this, but if he pushed himself to endure some soul-crushing pain, then he could harvest any quantity of Energy that would be needed.

For this, all that was left was to create a specific list of commands that would be imprinted on the Energy which would create the semi-finished skill, try that semi-finish skill out on something else and if proven successful, repeat the same on the Seal before the fourteen days were up.

Thirteen now, he reminded himself.

Vaguely, he bothered to remind himself that Mistress Prime'era might take exemption if he just plundered her work in such a brazen fashion. Perhaps he ought to ask for permission first? But how would he go about doing that? Just by asking that question, many of what remained of his secrets would be revealed in an indirect manner…

If speech was silver then silence was gold, the saying went, and Tercius mostly agreed with it. Should he agree with it now, the true question was… Perhaps he ought to leave that training of thought for later, and first make sure that he had a reason to worry. After all, if he couldn't make it work, then he had nothing to worry about.

That which took him here in the first place, he decided to accept. Having more metaphysical senses would only help him grow faster and observe more with less time.

That was how Mana Touch joined his growing arsenal of sensing skills.

The message of the new skill finally vanished from view and Tercius used his Visualization to vividly conjure a memory in the void. Imagined as white letters on the endless black canvas, the list held all of his hard work so far. He read them one by one and his thoughts stood for a few moments in silent observation. Twenty-five skills in total, listed in the order he got them.

First, he had to separate six from the rest.

Whereas all other skills automatically shaped and changed a person’s Mana to manifest different kinds of phenomena, Mana Manipulation and Mana Metamorphosis allowed a person active control over the shaping of Mana and changing the nature of Mana, respectively. Provided that you knew how then in theory these two skills allowed anyone who had them to produce every Mana-based phenomena in existence. Phenomena produced by Mana Manipulation and Mana Metamorphosis were called spells, and the people capable of spellwork were called Magi mages, sorcerers, perhaps even something entirely different in another part of the world.

Mana was by its nature almost completely hidden from plain senses, with only the most sensitive of channels able to perceive it. With luck and exposure, that sensitivity could lead to skills like Mana Sight and Mana Touch, and skills suited to other senses. Sensory skills were sought after because the ability to see, feel, taste, smell, or hear Mana made a lot of difficult things easier.

Whereas Mana was a power that found itself more on the physical side, Energy was its counterpart that was found more on the metaphysical side of each living being, yet both Mana and Energy inherently shared a dual nature.

The metaphysical side of a being the Society of Magi called Anima, or Ark in Magik language. Tercius had adopted the term Anima for his use, preferring it to Soul or something like that. He wasn’t entirely sure that the two were the same thing, after all. Energy Manipulation and presumably Energy Metamorphosis would be the two skills required to create metaphysical phenomena, phenomena that would presumably affect not the physical world but the metaphysical Anima. Similar to the sensory skills of Mana, Energy Sight made handling Energy easier by orders of magnitude.

These six he named as “Magos Skill Set” and proceeded to collect another group.

All of the rest he placed into a group named “General Skill Set”.

Skills— or what he named and thought of as “skills” when he got Language Acquisition in those hazy months following his rebirth— were perhaps better called innate abilities. All skills had a sort of general presence within the species— as his Mentor put it, that presence was a pool of building blocks of all skills that your ancestors had. In other words, genetics.

According to Magi, ordinary people get their skills by taking what their ancestors had given them– building blocks made of Mana– and then they go about coupling that Mana with enough personal Energy through their deeds.

A man or a woman who had had soldiers for parents, grandparents, and so on, would more easily gain skills that they had, but they weren't limited to soldiering skills at all. All ancestors counted, according to Mistress Kalina, even those from thirty or forty generations ago. That gave each person a wide enough Mana base to get different skills from, if those of parents and grandparents weren't too aligned with them.

Mistress Kalina’s recent revelations were actually very illuminating for Tercius. He had suspected for a while that all skills were so deeply embedded into a person that they were no different than a hand or a leg. That suspicion was really all a result of him being multilingual and bored enough to be hyper-observant. Being fond of learning new languages so well that he could do away with any need for translation, he had realized that he sometimes saw the names of the skills in other languages he knew fluently.

For example, the word that his parents and grandparents used to call the power that allowed the skills to work sounded like shhiena. Tercius, having been an avid reader of fantasy once upon a time, had translated that as Mana when he first learned the Empire’s Common on his own. After he became fluent in Empire’s Common, Mana Manipulation sometimes showed itself Shhiena Heliasaa, and for his mind, that was practically one and the same. Yet, when recalled intentionally, the difference between what was seen and what was thought was jarring to the extreme. It was difficult to notice, one of those things that only became apparent afterwards they happened, and it was only visible if you bothered to recall it and had the certainty that your recall was perfect.

Other things could also be extrapolated from simple language comparisons.

In Magik, the language spoken by the Magi of the Society for millennia, the equivalent of Empire’s Common shhiena was Mund’ane— a higher tier Rurd which was broken down to plain Magik speech as Mund enna’ane ae, which was a phrase then translated by the Magi into The Empire’s Common and Tercius came to understand it as The Power of The Body.

That, if nothing else, indicated what Magi thought of Mund’ane, of Mana.

At the same time, Arc’ane— Energy did have a name in Magik— was likely broken down as Arc enna’ane ae, and Tercius would bet his modest and overpaid book collection that that phrase was translated as The Power of The Anima.

And yet, despite those descriptive phrases, his Mentor had told him that Magi considered both Mund’ane and Arc’ane as both physical and metaphysical and they were considered entwined at some level of their existence. What the descriptive phrases actually meant was the alignment of the Powers — Mund’ane was the more physical of the two and Arc’ane was the more metaphysical one.

What that actually meant was a matter of millennia-old debate.

Tercius also had another perspective to look at things, more specifically he had a way to observe skills from another species. For example, it was common knowledge that even animals had skills, but how exactly animals “saw” skills was considered a mystery, at least it was so in the Empire. Well, with some help from the bond he shared with Amber, his familiar, the tiny river lioness, he knew for a fact that the way animals perceived their skills was more instinctual rather than visual or auditory, like it was the case with most humans. Animals just… knew her skills. At least Amber did.

What Tercius called skills, the Magik termed as Enna’ane’ue or singular as Enna’ane. Enna’ane was translated into Empire’s Common as a term that Tercius understood as Power. From the perspective of less sentient beings, Tercius knew that Amber “thought” of skills as something which he would tentatively put as “ability”.

It was amazing to behold just how much information could be extracted from a simple comparison of terms used for what was really the same thing and it showed just how deeply skills— or powers, or abilities, call them as you will— were an integral part of the psyche, instincts, body, and anima.

Grinding the train of interesting thoughts to a halt, Tercius realized that he had drifted off to an unplanned direction. A danger of a perfect space to think was that sometimes thoughts never stopped welling up, and Meditation was perfect for both thinking and the reverse of it. Comparing experiences across culture, language and species was interesting, supremely so, but he had more important things to do, books to read, and places to be.

Tercius pushed Meditation away and slowly his senses returned to him, a feeling of guilt for wasting time assaulting him.

Rona and Septimus were waiting for him and here he was, wasting time. He looked at the small compendium and threw himself to finish it, Quick Learner taking his Mana to ensure that what he read remained memorized.

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AN: This is the last of the prologuey chapters. Hooray!