39 – Channels

Even though morning wasn’t quite around the corner yet, I returned to my room.

I wanted to continue my nightly ritual of working on Anaster’s book. Based on previous experience, such training made me useless for up to a few hours, so I would rather have the extra time. I had plans for interacting with people after all. People had the annoying habit of sleeping at night.

To further my goal of spending minimal time disabled, I brought a handful of fruit back to my room with me. I wouldn’t be able to eat them without use of my limbs, but once I recovered enough to move they would shorten the remaining time.

Sitting on my bed in a pose I’d learned wouldn’t have me falling over, I opened the book in my lap. And paused in confusion.

Instead of a new pattern, there was a single space in the page’s middle again. Does it alternate between left and right hands more than once?

Hopefully it wouldn’t stay on this pattern for too long. As motivating as the thought of magic was, being repeatedly turned to a loose collection of noodles posing as limbs with minimal progress wasn’t fun. So far, I’d had something new or new-ish each time at least.

Trying not to allow negative thoughts in, I pressed my right thumb onto the page.

I gasped in surprise. A smile broke out over my face.

Instead of what I was used to, large amounts of magic being drained from me through my fingers, this was something new. A single, short moment of pull. Compared to the previous torrent of mana, this was a bare trickle.

Just enough to make the mana channels in my thumb noticeable.

Below my hand, the pattern on the page shifted in real time. On closer inspection, a few of the tiny, background shapes formed by the countless lines had been different to before. As the familiar five spaces for the right hand’s fingers formed, the background was also different again.

Wonder if that’s important. It probably is, I just don’t know how.

With only a little hesitation, I placed my fingers in their spots. Similar to the thumb before, a sharp, short jolt of mana was drawn out of each digit. Even though it was a pittance compared to previous full-hand draws, I was starting to feel considerably drained.

Not to the point of losing control of my extremities though. By rough estimation, hampered by the nascent state of my mana sense, I was around half empty. Still quite a lot of mana lost, but vastly less than last time.

Getting the impression this book has a hard time controlling itself, I mused while chowing down on one of my stashed fruit. The alternative is that I have a very small capacity for mana, which might also be true. But I don’t want to believe that.

Several minutes and fruit later, I felt fresh enough to see what the book had in store next.

After the full right hand, the pattern had shifted again. This time, it was completely new though.

A quick glance estimated two dozen spaces of various shapes and sizes littering the page. I couldn’t detect any specific pattern, but all of them were at least large enough to fit a fingertip. Over a dozen could hold my thumb as well.

Since even several minutes of observation didn’t reveal anything new, I placed my right index finger in a round space and pressed.

Nothing happened.

Hmm.

Trying several different shapes didn’t lead to any sudden inspiration. Not even when I placed all my right hand’s fingers on the page did anything happen.

Hmmmm.

Dominating my mind was one question – what is Anaster trying to teach with this?

There was a slight possibility this was a prank of some kind. I didn’t really believe that, but you never knew with someone like him. Just to be sure, I tried to turn the page.

Nope, still stuck. That would have been a move I can see that man doing.

Something to do on this page then. Before this, it repeated the mana drain again. Why?

My mind settled on an answer. The previous long draws had been to make me aware of the existence and feel of mana and my mana channels. Since it was not something I had natural senses for, a bit of a heavy-handed approach was warranted.

It followed then that the short pull just now was to remind me and refresh the sensation. Why was that important? If I needed to do something with said sense, of course.

The page in front of me was a puzzle. At least I assumed as much. I probably had to find the right spaces by feel or something similar. Annoyingly, the mana-sense was already fading. My time was limited.

Systematically brushing my index finger over each space had mixed results.

A few of the places felt somehow… softer? But trying different fingers on those spaces had them unyielding as the rest of the page. My middle finger likewise found a few softer spots. None of them overlapped.

Each finger had different spaces with a different level of… resistance? – is that what that feeling is? As I tested my pinkie, there was barely any detectable difference.

Frowning, I repeated the probe. And again. Only after a frustrated few minutes of finding nothing did I realize my mana sense had faded all the way.

What now?

I didn’t know any ways of expelling mana to regain my sensory abilities aside from the book. The book that was currently not offering me a means of doing so.

‘Blindly’ pressing on various spots didn’t help. Not that I really expected it to. As a last-ditch effort I closed and reopened the book.

Suppressing a groan, my eyes alighted on the single, thumb-sized space again.

Looks like I’ll get to do this part every time. Lovely. Despite my complaints, this was a good development. It would have paused my magic education for a long time if the book just left me stuck on an unsolvable puzzle without the means to sense what I needed to do.

There was a chance I’d develop a mana sense naturally by growing as a vampire, but I had no idea how long that would take. Longer than I want to wait, for sure.

Sacrificing a big chunk of my mana to re-up my mana sense wasn’t pleasant, though it did make me chuckle. This is a bit like a subscription service, pay mana to get temporary advantages.

Eating my remaining fruit brought my mana back to a good level, though less than the previous attempt. Whether that was good or bad was open for interpretation.

Annoyingly, the ‘softer’ spaces I’d discovered last time were reshuffled. In fact, the entire pattern was subtly different.

Now that I had an idea what to look for though, it didn’t take too long to find each finger’s possible spots. It tended to be two or three each, with about a dozen left inert. I didn’t have too many issues remembering which spaces were which. The different shapes were helpful in memorization.

Experimentally, I placed each finger on one of the places with less resistance. I chose the easiest combination for my hand to fit, since playing twister with my fingers didn’t sound pleasant.

Pushing down on the page almost felt like it was soft cloth rather than woven metal. This was very different from touching anywhere outside these special places, so I knew I was doing something correctly. Then I took a closer look and realized a discrepancy.

Even though it clearly felt like I was pushing into the page’s fabric, there wasn’t actually any more give to the book at all. Despite the fact my fingers didn’t depress the ‘paper’ any more than usual, the sensation of softness remained.

I was quickly developing a headache from the contrast. Like the perception of my fingers was being split in two. I felt the page against my skin and I ‘felt’ the page against my ‘skin’.

Obviously, just finding these softer spots wasn’t the goal of whatever exercise this was. I needed to do more than this. And I had a good idea of what that something might be.

Drawing on my recent memories of the channels in my fingers, I willed something to move. Even with my mana sense currently active, it wasn’t by any means precise. The actual mana channels for example weren’t detectable any more. Not to mention anywhere besides my fingers.

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Still, there had to be something I could do. Nothing was happening. My intuition was saying the book wanted me to manually infuse mana into it. But I didn’t know how to move mana.

So far, it had always moved beyond my control. Whether being drawn out or refilling, I didn’t have any input there.

I spent minutes sitting there, willing a part of myself I couldn’t properly feel to move.

A headache was pounding in my skull. I felt sick from the contradictory sensations.

Finally, the page below my fingers returned to simply being hard. Snapped out of my focus, my mind was filled with confusion for a moment. Then I realized what happened – my mana sense had faded again.

It had taken longer than before, due to my mana taking longer to refill. I’d apparently spent much more time than expected concentrated on this fruitless task.