007

He also had:

But he hadn’t used that yet.

“A gain in base level, and a gain in Meditation. Meditation experience is base experience?” Erick said, “Shaping those [Cleanse]s for 20 mana gave 10 experience to Shaping and 10 to [Cleanse]. Is that normal?”

“All of that is normal.” Al smiled. “I find your questions astounding, but then I must remind myself that you are not from around here. You don’t expect to spend 20 mana and get 40 experience, do you?”

“I kinda did. Like, I got base experience for Meditation, and that seems odd. Concentration doesn’t give base experience… Wait. Meditation is active. Concentration is passive. That’s the difference.”

Al smiled. “Meditation is active, that is the difference, yes. Meditation is one of the few skills that gains you resources, too. [Second Wind] is the HP equivalent, though that one is vastly different from Meditation in almost every way.”

“What sort of questions did you expect?”

Al rattled off, “What is the purpose of [Cleanse]ing the pools when they fill up again? Why not have a gate over the intake that you can shut? When do you open the big door in the back? What’s with the river opening being right there? What sort of [Ward]s do you have active so that there’s no smell? Where do the pool outflows lead? Why is the sewer system behind the settling pools’ barred inflows not illuminated? Those and a thousand more smaller questions, constantly.”

Erick smiled. “I might not have been born in this world, but I know enough to guess at all that. Except for the vault door. And the light-behind-the-inflow thing, but honestly I would rather not see what’s in the darkness.” Erick shivered. “No thanks.”

Al laughed, loud and booming. He stood. “Come! You, I will show what’s behind the big door.”

“Uh.” Erick said, “But I really should level up these various—”

“Nonsense!” Al quickly added, “Well. Not nonsense.” He hmm’d. “You’re right. There’s only so many hours in the day. Shape some [Cleanse]s into this room. Experiment with it, dumping all your mana. Then you [Meditate] to full, and do it all over again. I will be across the hall in my office. I expect at least three iterations of the whole process. More will be impressive, less is unacceptable.”

Erick nodded. “Sounds fine.”

Al smiled. “Tell me if you still feel that way at the end.”

“What? So you can increase my quota?”

“Ha!” Al nodded, walking away, “Exactly.”

When he was alone, Erick took in the box shape of the room and imagined his [Cleanse] wrapping around the room without touching the middle contents. As he prepared to cast, he concentrated on altering the flow of mana inside of himself.

Shaped [Cleanse]!

His plan did not work. The spell distorted, for sure. Wisps of thickened air touched areas outside of the basic sphere of the spell, but not far outside the sphere, and not where he imagined them touching.

He kept at it, dumping another 140 mana trying to shape the spell properly. He almost collapsed when he hit 0, but he maintained consciousness. The ‘subtle ways’ part of Mana Shaping’s description showed itself as an ironclad rule. While the specifics of shaping were up to him, it was still just a subtle shift in the spell’s original area of effect.

Meditation.

The darkness returned. Shadows swirled in the abyss. An eye opened like a far-away star, to stare into Erick’s soul. A glowing fang flashed, larger than the teeth beside it. The eye closed. Mana flowed around Erick like a warm river.

The first part of the skill was still terrifying, but the second part was nice. Erick felt more in control of himself this time, too.

He opened his eyes. He was alone in the room. HP and MP were both full.

He dumped another 8 shaped [Cleanse]s into the air, trying to feel how the mana moved. Mana Shaping had gone up a level, but rank 2 read ‘better, subtle ways’, instead of just ‘subtle ways’. With all these new levels, it was easier to feel how the potential power of his personal mana transitioned into magic to act upon the outside world, but he knew he knew nothing. He was a man groping in the darkness, touching an elephant and thinking that rough skin was what made an elephant an elephant.

But Meditation was level 3 now. At level 3 there was no pause before the Rest started. Erick went under and the warm river immediately surrounded him. Mana flowed into his body. And, he could still hear the sewerhouse. The river room sounded up the bottom of the spiral staircase, the churning of dark water a gentle echo to Meditation’s warm stream of mana. Erick stayed under until his mana return to full.

He opened his eyes. He cast another 8 shaped [Cleanses], then began another Meditation.

When he came out, he was still alone. He almost immediately started another round of spells when he read Meditation 4…

… But he felt like absolute shit. He wanted to lay down and Rest for real, not Meditation’s fake Rest. No. He needed an actual nap. He also needed to know what time it was. He tried to stand.

He fell onto the floor.

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