2 Real Magic

"The Library is a sphere whose exact centre is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible."

― Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel

***

"In short, now that your body is producing denser volumes of mana, wisps of ambient mana will be attracted to your personal mana reserves. As the quantity of mana belonging to you increases, your body will search for a way to store it. It's solution will be to form a thin membrane of mana surrounding your body, trapping the ambient mana within while it converts into your personal store. This also prevents your body from exploding. So... good luck. You don't really need to do anything. Normally, the only way to increase the flow of mana into your reservoir is to have more mana. The rich get richer, I suppose. Fortunately, I can help with that. Check out that mana structure. Maybe practicing it can help you with your mana control. It's real magic, so be careful."

It was a short, disappointing chapter. Do nothing?! That sounds like a lazy excuse to stop writing! I decided that I would do some research into basic mana theory tonight in the Library. In the meantime, I decided to see what he meant about a mana structure.

Sure enough, the last few pages were detailed diagrams of a human body with little blue lines forming a relatively complex tunnel system. I figured this must be mana moving through someone's body. Paired with it was a four-line incantation. Was this a spell?!

I decided to practice. Sigh... I can see why wizards are depicted as hermits. All this magic stuff has already sucked up more hours of my life than I've spent doing homework... which, to be fair, isn't a particularly hard record to break.

My mana control wasn't nearly as fine as what was required to create tiny strings of mana, weaving them around inside my body. But, as they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And so I started with a single string.

Surprisingly, moving this one little string of mana around inside my body wasn't challenging. I thought that since I'd only been moving my entire store of mana like a body of water that minute control would be difficult, but pulling a small string from that pool and maintaining control of it was actually relatively easy.

The only weird part was that I could feel the cool sensation of the mana wriggling around in my shoulder. Trying to manage two strings, though, was already exponentially harder. The moment I tried to gain control of another string of mana, my focus collapsed, and I was back to square one.

It felt like learning an instrument- something I had once tackled, and failed equally miserably. At first, I was clumsy with my control, but sooner than one might expect, I began to become more precise. Unfortunately for me, this mana pattern would require six of these little mana strings to be woven together in my left shoulder.

But, slowly but surely, the hours ticked by, and I managed to lay them all properly in place. Quickly, before I lost control of them, I chanted the command left to me by this unknown master! Magic!! Hell yeah! I was ready to hurl a fireball, or move something with my mind!

shintalgar falopal cantigra. Filstar calnarcan caligra. Gortor shigansti FARGOTEL!

...

...

Was my pronunciation off or something? God dammit! Where's my magic?! Annoyed, I looked around for signs of miniature tornadoes or maybe a cute little pixie familiar, but to my dismay, there was nothing. In fact, I could feel a lack of something. The cool feeling of mana in my shoulder! It was gone!

Sigh... failure was imminent. Magic couldn't be easy. But still, I was disappointed. As I lamented my inability to cast the spell, I tried to move the mana strings back into position. But, as soon as the mana touched the point in my shoulder, I could feel something! An urge! A spell! The incantation moved through my lips smoothly, almost as if it was speaking rather than me.

కꫝỉ᭢ᡶꪖꪶᦋꪖꪹ ᠻꪖꪶꪮᩏꪖꪶ ᨶꪖ᭢ᡶỉᦋꪹꪖ. ᠻỉꪶకᡶꪖꪹ ᨶꪖꪶ᭢ꪖꪹᨶꪖ᭢ ᨶꪖꪶỉᦋꪹꪖ. ᦋꪮꪹᡶꪮꪹ కꫝỉᦋꪖ᭢కᡶỉ ᠻꪖꪹᦋꪮᡶꫀꪶ!

and then

magic.

There was no fireball, no whirlwind, nor a sphere of earth, but my body felt like it would be ripped apart at any moment. There was power, rapidly seeping into my skin, flesh, and bones. I could feel it in my blood. Mana.

Rapidly mixing with my own, there was a massive amount of mana being drawn towards my body. Quickly, I withdrew the string of magic from my shoulder. My body was covered in sweat. Was this mysterious mage trying to kill his disciple?! What was that?!?!

As I caught my breath, I started to think. Was that "so be careful" the only warning you would normally give for something this crazy? Geez, mystery mage, what the hell! But that was besides the point.

As I checked my condition, I noticed two things.

One: I was wrong before. Although the mana has disappeared from my shoulder, I could still feel something there. Like a pathway left by the mana.

Two: The amount of mana I had had doubled! Although I couldn't accurately control my mana quite yet, I could certainly feel it as if it were another appendage. And this appendage had suddenly grown twice its size! If only I could do the same thing to an almost equally important appendage... oh well. I'm sure there's some magic for that out there somewhere. I hope the library doesn't check my book history.

Was this a skill to increase my mana production? Is that why my body felt so strained? I decided to check my status. Lo and behold, the answer lay in my skills!

[Counterfeit Mana /Active/ [LVL 1]:

Upon activation, the caster's mana will appear to be far greater in density than it really is, attracting greater quantities of mana at a much faster rate and creating a more threatening aura within your mana reservoir.]

Ah-ha! Here's the culprit! So it seems this was a skill, after all! To be honest, if I were ever to meet another user of magic, this could possibly be a useful skill if I could trick them into thinking I'm stronger than I really am... oh well. I doubt that will ever happen.

But, in reality, that's a good thing! That means I get to eat up all the magic! It also means I get to be the most powerful person on earth! I'm a seventeen year old boy. What teenage boy hasn't dreamed of living a life of power and prestige? Once I'm powerful enough, I'd be a weapon of mass destruction! I could rent myself to militaries for billions of dollars and single-handedly win wars! And nobody would be able to do anything about it!

As I schemed, I realized how valuable this skill really was. Although it had ravaged my body with mana, oversaturating it and risking causing damage, in short bursts, this could increase my mana rapidly! And so, I wasted yet another night away torturing myself before collapsing in exhaustion the next morning.

And so, I returned to the Library. What awaited me here? Books! And more books. And maybe a few more if I was feeling adventurous. And I was- so I delved into the books in the Pamar continent, the only language in this library besides English that I could understand. Something told me I wouldn't find any books on magic in English, so I didn't bother looking.

I sorted them by author, selecting "none". Unsurprisingly, plenty of books popped up, so I sorted through titles written similarly to the last book I found. There were plenty of books on magic, which was fortunate but also a bit shocking. From what I'd read about Pamar, they had crusaded against magic and burned all their books.

Maybe the books here in the Library are all just re-creations? That seems plausible. I sifted through book after book, searching for the same author as last time. He taught me both how to develop mana and an incredible skill, so I figured if I wanted to continue my magic studies it should be through his knowledge.

It seems, though, that a lot of people had the same idea as my mystery author, as there were over 100 books with names like "To anyone who finds this..." and "My final legacy. Revitalize our former glory." I tried searching with both magic and mana as keywords, and finally, after an hour of searching, I found my guy.

I could recognize it by the handwriting on the title cover. This was certainly my "teacher". This time, though, it didn't seem to be an instruction manual. It looked more like a textbook. As I flipped through the pages, there were tons of diagrams, theories, and all sorts of other stuff I couldn't understand.

I checked out the book, titled "how magic works. don't let it die." and left the Library. Studying was something I'd avoided for weeks now. Since there was nobody home to stop me from skipping school, it was something that happened on a regular basis. At least now I didn't have to feel like I had no future! I had magic!

I opened the cover and started reading. A lot of it was far too difficult for me to understand. It seemed this world was one of high technology far beyond what existed on Earth. But I studied, and finally, I had a basic understanding of what exactly mana was.

In short, mana is a form of supermatter. When stimulated, it can shift the atomic structure of itself and atoms surrounding it. The catalyst for this is a wizard. Our personal mana stores are contaminated with our DNA, which holds all the information of our body. When contaminated by our DNA, the mana becomes bound to our body, sticking to other mana contaminated with our DNA rather than ambient mana.

Ambient mana, on the other hand, is still attracted to our personal mana reserves, mixing with it and also becoming a part of our bodies. This only occurs once our cells begin producing enough mana through intentional methods, such as the exercises I did, as otherwise, it's only produced in trace amounts required for survival and basic functions. Since we naturally function using mana, using it in every action including thought, our thoughts serve as a method to stimulate our personal mana similar to sending signals to our nervous system. Through this, we can manipulate our mana.

There was still a lot I couldn't understand, but it seemed like there was actually a science behind magic. Everyone naturally produced it, and it was a necessary component for life to exist. The only problem was that modern technology was incapable of detecting it.

Magic, like fireballs, was possible due to the user activating a skill, and the mana reacting to the skill and manipulating itself to take a certain form. Another thing I learned was that mana was only capable of manipulating matter. Radiation and spacetime were out of its range of abilities.

I still couldn't comprehend what skills were supposed to be, though. I could feel some kind of imprint in my shoulder where the skill resided, but there was nothing visible on the surface level, and I wasn't about to dissect myself.

Anyway, I returned to the Library, and failing to find any more books by the mystery author, I decided to browse through mana structures to learn some new skills. Unfortunately, there were almost none I could find that were even close to as simple as the one I had just learned.

All of them had extremely complex shapes, and required immense precision. Unfortunately, this wasn't something I had. The only simple skills I could find were extremely boring looking, and their power wasn't necessarily anything impressive. Still, I needed to learn some skills, and I had plenty of space in my body to do so. The first one I learned only took up about the size of a marble's space in my shoulder, and I still had the rest of my body to fill with magic.

I started with one that looked relatively useful. It was a skill that would allow the user to manipulate wind in order to make them quicker and lighter. This one was much less complex, requiring only three strings of mana, and took less time to learn than my counterfeit mana ability. Overall, it only took me a few hours to create the mana structure.

I decided to test it out. I spoke the incantation while holding the structure in place, and as expected, nothing happened except for the disappearance of the mana strings. That was just the creation of the spell. Now that the skill was imprinted into my shoulder (I like to keep my magic organized and in one place!), I touched it with a string of mana, stimulating the imprint. Now, I spoke the words.

కꫝỉᨶᡶꫝꪖꪹ ꪶꪮƙƙకᡶꪮᠻ ᡶꫀకᡶ᭢ꪖꪹᡶꫀ! ᨶꪹꪖỉᦋ᭢ꫀ᭙ ᦋꪖꪶꪮ᭢ᡶꫝꪹꪖ! ꪉỉ᭢ᦋꪶꪖᡶ ᨶꪮꪹᦋꪮꪹ ɀꫀ᭢కᡶꪮ ỉꪶᦋꪮᡶꫝꪖꪹ!

Suddenly, I could feel the wind pushing up on my entire body. I felt extremely light. I hopped, and my head hit the ceiling. My descent to the floor was slow and controlled. The wind continued to roll beneath my feet and arms.

This was incredible! I never expected the skill to feel this effective! I would have to try some other skills from that book! I decided to test my speed. I grabbed a stopwatch and headed down the street to my high school's track field.

I may not have attended for the past two months, but I was still a student! School was over for the day, and it only took me about a minute to reach the school since I lived right down the street.

The track was 400 meters. I started my stopwatch and started to sprint. Occasionally, I would push off the ground too hard, causing me to take a big leap, which would've looked crazy to anyone watching. It was like I was on the moon!

I laughed out loud, realizing that I was this powerful even with just a level one simple skill. Woohoo! As I crossed the finish line, I hit my stopwatch. I looked at it with astonishment. 34 seconds! I had just broken the world record of 42 seconds without even breaking a sweat, and I felt like I could go even faster! I did a few more laps around before the skill wore off.

About a sixth of my mana was gone. My mana count was low, since I'd only just started training it, and using my Counterfeit Mana skill required breaks in between and limited usage every day to maintain my health. The first night that I learned it, I overused it, which not only caused my body to pass out in exhaustion, but also caused a leak in my mana reservoir! I had instinctively expelled some mana since my body couldn't handle it!

When I connect the string of mana to this skill, it lasts for about five minutes, and reels in the mana string like a fishing rod, consuming it as it continues to unspool from my reservoir. This was a fair trade, but it seemed that mana was not a renewable energy source. If it were a game, my maximum mana would be consumed by a skill, rather than renewable mana points.

Fortunately, I had a quick solution for this. My Counterfeit Mana skill! The mana required to use it was minimal, and although activating it was painful, it still would fill my mana reservoir rapidly! After bringing my mana back up to its former glory, I decided to finally check the skill's description.

[Wind Step /Active/ [LVL 1]:

Manipulates the wind to increase the caster's agility, as well as reducing their weight.]

It was about what I expected. After replenishing my mana using Counterfeit Mana, which I predicted would have taken me hours if not a whole day to replenish otherwise, I continued to run for about another twenty minutes. I didn't want to diminish my mana too far, since it took far too long to replenish without Counterfeit Mana which I still had to use sparingly.

[Name: Calvin Sanchez]

[Title: Librarian Operator]

[Skills:]

[Wind Step /Active/ [LVL 1]:

Manipulates the wind to increase the caster's agility, as well as reducing their weight.]

[Counterfeit Mana /Active/ [LVL 1]:

Upon activation, your mana will appear to be far greater in density than it really is, attracting greater quantities of mana at a much faster rate and creating a more threatening aura within your mana reservoir.]

[Interpreter (1/1) /Active/ [LVL 1]:

Learn any language recorded in the Library by hearing it spoken or seeing it written and subsequently activating the skill.]

[Book Search /Active/ [LVL MAX]:

Search the records of the Library for a specific book by title or keywords.]

[Body:]

Human Body (Librarian Enhancement)

An average earthen human body. Beginner level mana reservoir. Above average musculature. Above average intelligence due to containing the power of the Library.]

[Authorities:]

[Authority of the Library Operator]

[Binds:]