51 – Sneaking Out

Before Mia and I split up in front of her room, she scrutinized me for a moment and then asked quietly, “This whole fruit thing is just an excuse to improve blood quality across the manor, isn’t it?”

I shrugged in response. “I won’t pretend that’s not a nice benefit. To be honest, it was the reason I considered it in the first place. However, you can’t deny this will be good for everyone, not just me.”

Mia sighed. “I guess that’s true. Just… don’t overdo it, all right?”

“Wasn’t planning to. All my staff and subjects being healthy is a good goal to have though, even if it is partly self-serving. Just because something is done for selfish reasons doesn’t mean the outcomes are necessarily bad.”

Enlightened self-interest, I believe that was called? The idea that you can perform outwardly altruistic actions for purely self-centered reasons. While morally inferior to true altruism of course, that was unfortunately usually in rare supply. And as I said, as long as the outcome was good, the intentions didn’t matter too much.

This was different from the idea of the ends justifying the means, since I wasn’t doing anything bad to achieve my goal. Providing better nutrition and healthcare was hard to classify as nefarious.

With another appraising glance, Mia turned and closed the door in my face. Well that was a bit rude. Didn’t even say good night.

It would be a busy one too. For the first time since waking up in this world, I was going to leave the manor grounds.

Not quite sure what I’ll do exactly, but at least scouting out the town is probably a good idea. Maybe find that spy, though Mel didn’t say where he lived… Oh, and rats! I wanted to check the town’s rats compared to the ones here.

First though, I picked up Anaster’s book. Since I was full on mana and didn’t actually have any uses for it yet, I might as well see if it changed. My reading session this morning had ended with a ‘locked’ page after all.

Flipping open the cover, I was greeted by something unexpected. The title page was still legible, proudly proclaiming ‘The Art of Magic’ and so on. But the next page held a small bundle of metal lines outlining a thumb-sized space. The really unusual part though was the label next to it.

‘Intro, Fundamentals and Sources of Mana’, it read. If my assumption was correct, pressing some mana into this page would unlock the chapters I’d previously read again. This implies…

Turning the page again, I saw something new.

‘Mana Control and Shaping’, said the headline. Most of the page was covered in the chaotic lines, currently outlining a single space like on the previous page. Unlike that simple thumb-spot, this one was not an oval. It looked like an ideal circle.

Most unlike all the tests or puzzles before, there were actual instructions on the page too.

‘Perfectly fill this shape with mana.’

I was pretty sure I understood the next series of things the book would ask of me. Now that I could make mana move, it was time to learn how to move it correctly. The chapter title made it pretty obvious.

This test was easy though. I just placed the very tip of my thumb in the circle’s middle and slowly pushed mana out. Without further guidance, it behaved like I’d expect ink seeping into a page to behave and spread out around the origin point. Once enough mana stained the ‘paper’, I ceased the flow.

Once I lifted my finger off, the dark circular blotch suddenly glowed golden and disappeared. The page promptly rearranged itself a little, changing the shape.

My next test wasn’t a circle. Instead, I counted seven connected corners, forming a polygon. What’s that called, a heptagon? Well, this is going to be much more annoying.

To be totally honest, I wasn’t sure I knew how to manipulate mana outside my own body. Moving it around in the channels wasn’t too hard, now that I had some experience with it. But so far I had never done anything beyond pushing it out, without direction.

No way to learn but to try, I guess. This attempt began much like the previous, with me pushing mana into the heptagon’s center. But after that… I realized I didn’t actually know how exactly to influence mana – even my own – once it was outside.

Far too soon, the spreading circle pushed through the heptagon’s sides into the tangled lines beyond. There was a red flash as the blotch disappeared, accompanied by a painful sting. I couldn’t quite locate where the pain was, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

Is this another of those ‘learn through painful failure’ moments, like when it first taught me to feel mana? If so, I’m not looking forward to it at all.

That was partly a lie. I did want to learn how to use magic, the thought still making me giddy when I lingered on it. If the only way to do that was accepting some learning pains, then I’d bear through it.

In the interest of minimizing that pain though, I inspected the puzzle a bit closer. Now that I thought about it some more, the instructions never specified how I should fill the shape. Pushing mana into the center and then somehow shaping it to fit was just my first thought.

There was no reason I couldn’t go about this in a smarter way though.

Taking a deep breath and focusing my mind, I touched the page not in the space’s center, but next to one of the corners instead. Doing my utmost to limit the flow – still not really possible below a much-too-high minimum, in my opinion – I traced along the sides.

My plan worked, to an extent. When I was done, a relatively thin line barely touched the insides of the heptagon’s walls. Now I just had to fill the center, careful not to go beyond the shape I’d drawn myself. This part was much easier, a simple mix of the tried and tested ‘spreading out from the center’, followed up with filling in the gaps manually.

As I beheld the fruits of my effort, I waited for the verdict. I wasn’t sure I could call it perfect, to be honest. But it was much, much closer than before.

After a few seconds of tense waiting, the heptagonal blotch flashed and disappeared. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in gold. Instead, it was a new color, silver. And then, the very tips of the heptagon’s corners flashed in red and I felt seven small stings somewhere. I winced and hissed as I drew in a breath.

Distracting me from the pain, text appeared below the instruction above.

‘Not bad for a second attempt. Also, good idea. Approaching a problem from a different angle and utilizing what you can do is a great mindset to have. However, you do need to learn the basics of mana shaping, so this one doesn’t count. You’ll never make sharp corners otherwise, only be stung by them.’

I stared at the writing in surprise. I hadn’t expected to receive feedback on how well I was doing after the previous, completely unguided series of tests, to be honest. It felt nice being acknowledged for my attempt at creative problem solving, even though it wasn’t enough.

Wonder how exactly that works? Did Anaster program in dozens or hundreds of possible responses for various things the reader might attempt? Or is this book somehow a sentient artifact or something? He might also just be able to influence the thing from afar as well… I just don’t know.

In the time I’d spent thinking, the text had disappeared again. A simple ‘Don’t forget to take time to think’ was left in its place. Considering the matter, I agreed.

Time to do something else. Maybe I’ll have an enlightenment after a break. Closing the book, I placed it back in a desk drawer.

Now, to prepare for my excursion. It was still early in the night, my little magic session having not taken very long. In other words, I’d have more than enough time to go back and forth from the town. It wasn’t that far away in the first place, with my speed cutting down travel time considerably.

Dark clothes were a must. Much as human night vision was terrible, my ghost-pale form would stand out no matter the light conditions.

Checking my wardrobe, I was actually running a bit low on fitting clothes. Especially if I was continuing my plan of wearing double-layered long clothes if I ever had to move around during the day for some reason. Not that Kalin had a small collection to choose from, but most of that stuff had been in the tower, so…

Much of what remained here was also more colorful or fancy than I’d like. I might have to meet a tailor soon. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where Kalin got his clothes. The two likeliest options were of course a local tailor or buying them from the traveling merchants.

Considering the quality of cloth, it was probably the latter. Well, I’d have to make do with what was available for now. Ruining my clothes as I had over the last short while didn’t help the selection any. Getting those rips or stab-holes fixed was something I should arrange.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Most of the people working for me could probably patch a small bit of damage in clothes, so that wouldn’t be an issue. Once I actually remembered to ask for it of course.

Finally, I outfitted myself in skin-covering dark clothes, with the same dark-red hooded cloak I’d worn on previous nights out to cover my head. I even managed to find a pair of fine leather gloves, though they were just a tad tight. Probably unused since Kalin was a few years younger then.