It was late in the afternoon when John made it back to his plot. Once there he immediately set about figuring out how the implements worked. First he took out the amulet and the raw shards. The shards were all mismatched shapes, and clearly not made for the sockets on the implement, but he decided to try placing one anyway.

To John’s surprise the socket reshaped itself to fit the shard. With a pleased grin he socketed the other four raw shards as well, then hung the amulet around his neck. He then fitted one of the water stones into his new wand, which also shifted to accept the irregularly shaped stone.

“Alright, now how do I see the stats on these things? Uh… I’m going to need the Help module aren’t I?”

[Would you like to purchase the Help module for 20 USD or 20 gold?]

John sighed and then spoke. “Purchase the Help module for 20 USD.”

[Verifying Purchase]

[Purchase Approved]

“Help, Identify objects.”

[Answer: Objects, creatures, and even places can by identified using the Inspect skill.]

“Great… a skill I don’t have. Maybe I can learn it? How do you learn to inspect items…” John looked around, then sat on the ground and started examining the amulet in his hand.

Staring at it intently he started carefully cataloguing everything he could sense about it. He began with the color, it was an iron grey color, though the amulet was too light to actually be made of iron. The amulet was circular, with five irregular gems socketed into it. Around the edge was what appeared to be scrollwork in a Celtic Knot type pattern, though it was heavily scratched, making it difficult to see. He brought the amulet to his nose and sniffed, catching a faint metallic tang from it. Then he ran his hands over its surface, noting how the metal was smooth in some places and rough in others where it had been damaged or the scrollwork had been placed. Flipping it over he revealed a shiny smooth back without adornment. At the top of the amulet was a loop, running through which was a fine chain made of the same material.

John finished surveying and waited for a moment. When nothing happened he made his last ditch attempt. He licked the amulet, receiving a metallic taste for his troubles, followed by a much welcome popup.

[Skill Gained: Inspect]

John grinned. “Help, how does inspect work.”

[Answer: Using inspect on an object, item, or place will give an amount of information based on your rank in inspect, the quality and rarity of the opposing object, the level of the person, or relative level of the location.]

John nodded and then inspected the amulet again.

[Name: Battered Amulet]

[Type: Accessory/Implement]

[Quality: Poor]

[Socket 1: Poor Tiny Raw Mana Stone – 625 mana]

[Socket 2: Poor Tiny Raw Mana Stone – 625 mana]

[Socket 3: Poor Tiny Raw Mana Stone – 625 mana]

[Socket 4: Poor Tiny Raw Mana Stone – 625 mana]

[Socket 5: Poor Tiny Raw Mana Stone – 625 mana]

Finished eying the amulet he turned inspect on the wand instead.

[Name: Stubby Wand]

[Type: Implement]

[Quality: Poor]

[Socket: Poor Small Water Mana Stone – 2,500]

Then he pulled up the information for Create Water and gave it a quick review.

[Name: Create Water]

[Description: A simple spell used to create water.]

[Current Rank: Novice]

[Amount: Small]

[Mana Cost: 20/ second]

Turning to his empty field John cast the spell and held it for his best count of three seconds, then examined the wand again.

[Name: Stubby Wand]

[Type: Implement]

[Quality: Poor]

[Socket: Poor Small Water Mana Stone – 2,488]

John grinned. It had only taken 12 mana instead of the normal 60, which meant an aspected mana stone was five times more efficient than using raw mana. With a flick of his wrist he put the wand away and started walking across the field. As he did so he opened his inventory and began pulling out wheat kernels by the handful.

His first few broadcasts of wheat were awkward and left the kernels more clumped than not. However, he then felt something like a mental tickle, and his next cast was far more smooth, almost practiced feeling. With a gesture and an effort of will John used the smallest amount of mana possible to cover the newly broadcast kernels. To his surprise he could use as little as one point of mana, allowing him to move a very tiny amount of soil indeed.

Falling into a rhythm, John walked forward, threw down seeds, and then covered them with dirt. It took most of the rest of the day, but eventually the entire field was seeded and covered. Pleased with his progress John took out the wand and began to pour water into the irrigation channels he’d been smart enough to include when he tilled the field. It took 45 solid minutes of casting Create Water before he started to get the feeling that he’d used enough. Cutting off the flow he pondered why that was, and then decided it must be the Farming skill at work.

Looking around, John found that it’d become almost too dark to see. With a sigh and a shake of his head he made his way over to the tent, and crawled inside.

***

John examined his field the next morning to find that it had already started pushing up shoots, and he had to wonder how fast the crops would grow, if they had already germinated and broke the surface. He spent about an hour examining the field from every angle to be sure there wasn’t anything that immediately needed his attention. However, as far as he could tell, everything seemed to be in order.

Sitting down inside his tent John decided it was time to work on Mana Manipulation and see if he couldn’t raise it to Apprentice rank as well. Getting comfortable he began by meditating, pulling himself into that state which allowed him to access his core. After a solid half hour he could feel his core and he tried to take a small pinch of mana. It was much like trying to pick up a single noodle with a pair of chopsticks, the mana kept sliding out of his grasp.

Each time he lost his hold, he pulled on a slightly larger clump of mana, until eventually he had managed to hold a fat strand between mental fingers. It writhed and squirmed like a live thing, but he clamped down on it and held on. Now he had a dilemma, what to do with it? He wanted to try making a mana stone, but with so little control that seemed like a pipe dream.

“Nothing ventured nothing gained.” He muttered to himself.

Pulling on the mana he began pooling it in the palm of his hand as he tried to figure out how to go about it. Mana stones were crystals, and at their base a crystal is a rigid repeating pattern, so if he organized the energy in a lattice, perhaps he could create a crystal?

Focusing, he took the pooled energy and started pushing and pulling the strands, trying to force structure on the fluid like energy. It resisted his efforts, always falling apart and returning to its pool like state over and over again. Eventually he stopped, deciding this route was a dead end. As he held the mana in his palm, he considered what to do.

After a moment he decided to try a different tactic. He once again brought the full bearing of his focus onto the mana he was holding. What he wanted wasn’t a crystal, or rather, being crystal was a byproduct of what he wanted. Mana stones were solid mana, much like ice was solid water, the fact that it was a crystal was secondary. With that in mind he began again.

John pushed his will onto the mana, that it be still, solid, unmoving. As he did so he felt resistance, mana wanted to flow, to move, to be free. Pushing against the resistance he continued to bear down on the mana, imagining its fluid motions becoming slow, and rigid, stilling. As he fought against it, he lost all sense of time outside the back and forth of his will pressed against the natural tendencies of the mana he sought to master, and soon he found himself kicked from the game once more.

For a moment John tried to continue pressing his will forward, only to realize it was meaningless in the real world. Blinking up at the ceiling he lay there as reality slowly came back into focus. Sitting up, he frowned. He had felt like he was on the right track, but it’d been more than eight hours without success. Perhaps his mana manipulation simply wasn’t up to the task? He pondered this as he stood and ran through some quick stretches and exercises. Afterward he had lunch and saw to his other bodily needs before laying back down on the bed.

Logging back in John found himself once more in the tent, the mana he’d been working with had long since evaded the grasp of his avatar and evaporated. He popped out to take a look at his field, which had clearly experienced some growth, and finding nothing amiss he returned to the tent where he opened the web interface and pulled up the forums.

The first thing he searched was mana stones. It got more than a few hits, mostly about people complaining that they needed to purchase them to supplement their mana pools. Many people seemed to agree that building as a mage was a trap, not enough mana to be truly effective, which meant they had to buy stones. He further found that the price he had paid for his mana stones was outrageously low, in other non-dungeon towns they could cost upwards of ten times what he’d paid. Shaking his head he redefined his search, looking for references to making mana stones.

The new terms only pulled up a few threads, many of which were people asking how to do so. One in particular however seemed to be a player who claimed to have managed it. John quickly read the entry.

Right, so, the first thing you’re going to need is somewhere comfortable to sit, you’re going to be at this for hours, like, seriously, I got kicked twice before I finally managed to make my first stone. The second thing you’ll need is patience, and a lot of it. Now you might be tempted to try something fancy like imagine a lattice and force the mana to take that shape or some shit, I know I was, but that doesn’t work. Mana wants to flow like water so forcing it into a rigid shape piece by piece is impossible. No, you’ve got to change the mana all at once. You need to impress on the mana what you want it to be, all at once, in a single go. The more mana you try to change at once, the harder this is going to be. I know I started out with a good portion of my pool, and had to pare it down to a mere sliver. Another thing to know is that it’s a 10 to 1 ratio. For every 10 mana you put in you’re only going to get 1 point in a stone, I don’t know why that is, it might just be that my rank is too low, I’m only an Apprentice at Mana Manipulation.

Anyway, where was I? Right, you need to impress on it what you want. In this case I used the image of a crystal, and I basically forced the mana into the mold until it took. Once there, you need to hold it, it took almost ten minutes for it to finally solidify completely. Once done though you’ll have a mana stone… a really small, poor quality mana stone. I really hope this feat is worth it.

John considered the post and wondered if he could even achieve this with a novice level of Mana Manipulation. He really wasn’t sure, it seemed like visualization was key however, so he was willing to give it another go.

Sinking into meditation once more he grabbed the smallest portion of mana he could reliably hold and got to work. He built in his mind the image of a shard of crystal. He began by outlining its shape, then adding facets, he considered the color that rich mana-blue of the stones he had in his inventory, and how the light would play off its surface. Carefully, piece by piece he constructed the image, until he started to lose details with every new one he added.

Knowing that this was the best it’d get, John started forcing the mana into the image. Once more he came against that feeling of resistance and pressure, and once more he began to fight against it. The constant back and forth, especially on top of the struggle from the morning, was quickly wearing on John, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up the mental effort for long. So he pushed harder, straining against the barrier that seemed to block him.

Eventually, something gave, John wasn’t sure what, but he felt the resistance falter and then disappear. The mana slid into his mental image like water into a jar, and he made sure to grasp and hold it there, even as he poured in as much mana as he could. Finally, he could feel the solid, cool weight of something small in the palm of his hand.

Opening his eyes, John looked at his creation. It was tiny, barely larger than a kernel of wheat and a rough prism in shape. With a thought he Inspected it.

[Name: Ultra-Tiny Poor Raw Mana Stone]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: A Poor quality raw mana stone.]

[Mana: 28]

John smiled… and then got kicked from the game for the second time.