Chapter 42 – Catacombs

Mirian returned to Griffin Hall after classes, spellbook in hand, and descended into the underground. Immediately, she cast her new reveal iron spell. Faint glows popped up in places she expected, such as a wrought iron railing on the staircase, but there was nothing notable. She walked a few dozen feet, then tried again. Same result. Then again. Finally, she got to the split in the passages, and this time the spell revealed a long luminous line behind the wall. Just like the switch in Griffin Hall, she thought. Mirian cast detect passage next, which was more mana intensive. There seemed to be a false positive telling her the ceiling was a passage—it obviously wasn’t, but there was probably a building directly above her—while the other result was just along where the iron mechanism behind the wall was. A few minutes of study, and Mirian found it. In retrospect, it was obvious—the brick was more worn down than the others, polished by fingers pushing into it a thousand times. There was a rumble, and a stone wall a few feet away swung open. Mirian felt the elation of success.

That feeling faded quickly when she realized the passage was another hall that connected, via another secret door, to more of the underground. She wasn’t totally sure, but she thought she recognized this section. Mirian wracked her brain, trying to remember the convoluted layout from the map. What she’d found was a shortcut. But at least she had an answer to where Jei usually went: through passages like these. She just needed to find the ones Jei actually used.

She found five more hidden doors in the underground. One led through a particularly grisly tunnel; there was the skeleton of a soldier, still clad in rusting armor, sword by their side. Mirian stepped gingerly around it. Probably not the one she was using. After a few hours, she stopped before she disoriented herself and got totally lost. There was no getting around it. She’d need to make that stupid cartography device again, or she was never going to find what she was really looking for.

***

The next day she had no time to craft the device, though, or explore. She dedicated the day to preparing for her combat certification, crafting not just the usual assortment of wands, but the new ones she’d need for the second level. Then the next day were the tests themselves and registration, and by the end of it, Mirian was as tired as grave-dirt.

She’d just barely passed the second certification level. The first level cert hadn’t been a problem, but the second level one was. She was too used to carefully channeling spells, while the instructors wanted much faster reaction times, and more power in each spell. Doing both tests on the same day had almost completely depleted her mana, so she spent some time lying in bed considering the ceiling before setting out to eat her second lunch of the day. There was another issue she had to contend with; everything she was doing demanded mana. Reading textbooks was fine, but real expertise came from practice, and she was practicing a lot. Every glyph she set down and every project she worked on also demanded mana, and come second quarter, her teachers would also be having her cast spells. It had never been a problem for her before, but it was becoming clear she needed to work on her aura.

“How do you get more mana for the empowered spells?” she asked Lily that evening. Mirian had insisted they celebrate their success at the trials by taking them up to one of the rooftop diners by the market square. It was cold, but a little heater by the table kept them warm. Both the view and the fare were excellent. She’d gotten a duck kabab and a rich vegetable soup that both tasted even better than they smelled.

“Huh, that’s right, you haven’t taken those classes. You’re really trying to take a 300 level combat class? What happened to artifice?”

Mirian shrugged. “Why not both?”

“I mean, I guess. It worked for Professor Torres, didn’t it? There’s a bunch of ways you can go about it, but the research is also mixed because measuring auric mana directly is tough. The soul gets in the way with its spell resistance. People can self-report flow, capacity, and generation, but only in relative terms. Then, there’s the causality problem.”

Mirian knew about that one at least. “Yeah, you can figure out it’s increased, but not why. Too many variables.”

“Yup.” Lily paused to take a bite of her savory pie. The bakers had gotten the crust perfectly flaky. “So, some people think you just get more mana over time, and that’s it. Others suggest meditation, though some of them say meditation only works in special places. Then there’s the people who say it’s just a matter of practicing spells. But if you practice a spell enough, you get more efficient at casting it, which seems like it improves your capacity, but it’s just for that spell, so one study we read said all auric mana improvements are illusionary and your auric mana is fixed. But one wizard we studied thought if you practiced stripping your auric mana almost entirely, it’s like working a muscle, you gotta really push it to the limits before it grows. Another one said that was totally bogus and it has to do with eating a special diet of myrvites. Then we read another guy who said eating myrvites was probably just producing traces of alchemical mana in the aura, so that was only a temporary improvement.”

“What you’re saying is: nobody knows.”

“Basically.” Lily took another bite. “This is so good. How did you know about this place?”

“Lucky guess. Saw it from the market and thought it looked good. Well, that’s a lie, I smelled it first. So what’d your professor say?”

“She said it’s probably all true, but you have to do it right. There’s plenty of evidence that people have increased their mana traits, but some people see way more growth than others. Like, if you practice a spell wrong, you’re not going to get better. If you meditate wrong, you’re not going to improve. If you don’t actually push yourself to your limit, your capacity doesn’t improve. And mana generation is almost certainly tied to food because it’s tied to your soul which is tied to you and you need food.” Lily paused and chewed thoughtfully. “Also, everyone knows you get super hungry after casting a bunch of spells, just like exercise.”

The Academy was full of rumors and talk, and Mirian had heard the basic gist of those ideas, but it was good to hear which parts the magical research actually supported. “If we could measure souls directly, that would sure help.” Then she blinked, realization dawning on her.

“Yeah, but you can’t,” Lily said, just as Mirian was thinking I’ve always heard you can’t, but necromancers have to be able to do it. If auric mana can be measured, and they siphon auric mana from souls, they’ve done it. She leaned back in her chair. So why does everyone say you can’t? I can’t be the only one who’s thought of that. Obviously I can’t talk to a necromancer… but maybe Xipuatl knows. If she could learn to sense her own soul, not just her auric mana, she would be able to see if what she was doing was working.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Well you just got thoughtful,” Lily said.

Mirian smiled. “It’s a lot to think about. So what do you do?”

“Practice, mostly. When I meditate, I can see my auric mana, but it doesn’t feel like I can do anything with it.”