After returning to the tower, I quickly composed a letter which consisted largely of angry ranting and attacks on the recipient’s character and parentage. This letter went straight into the fireplace, because other than helping me bring my anger down to a manageable level, it didn’t serve any practical purpose.

No, it was the second letter that would bring doom to whoever had dared plagiarize my work. A letter to an old friend, one who I fully believed would be able to bring the full might of justice upon my enemies.

Half-ogres always turned heads wherever they passed. With their large, muscular frames and fearsome tusks, they could clear a path before them with nothing more than a pointed look. My friend had perfected this ability, so much that you could call it art.

Because in this world, few things evoked as much fear as a half-ogre lawyer.

With the immediate concerns out of the way, I finally had some time to actually return to my magical research — but first I wanted to see how much I’d been able to improve my less-used Aspects.

I climbed to the top of the tower where my observatory sat. Inside, what awaited me was an array of mirrors and lenses, all carefully inscribed with thousands upon thousands of tiny spellworks. It had taken decades to put together, and enough gold to make even me wince, but it had been well worth it — its utility in analyzing magic was unparalleled.

This time, I would be using it to inspect the threads I was summoning. I had done something similar that day when I peered at my conduit in the forest, but doing it with the aid of the observatory had the advantage of not having to be essentially unconscious for an indeterminable amount of time. So, without much further ado, I aligned the gigantic device to suit my purpose and began drawing all six types of mana.

Mind and Soul had not changed at all, of course — I was reasonably sure I had reached as close to a peak as was possible. After all, the threads were perfectly smooth, so I couldn’t see how one could improve on that.

Force had improved a tiny bit, and so had Material — both were likely because the day I went to confront Thaos. I had spent many hours drawing wards over wards of both, which had been thoroughly tested in the explosion. I could almost feel the echo of a headache when I thought of the backlash I got that day.

Fate had largely stagnated, but the most surprising part was that Dimension was half the way from catching up to it. Despite the fact that I didn’t use Fate often, the amount of practice I had with it over the last half a century still added up — it was baffling that I could even get close to that level with Dimension in what had been… something like two weeks?

Either my talent with Dimension was actually quite good, and it had only been that strange construct holding me back, or I was woefully bad with Fate. Or, more realistically, a mix of the two. I would have to keep an eye on their progress and possibly rethink the way I used Fate.

I only now realized that I had long made my decision on whether to take the bait or not. It was a no-brainer, really — I could never stay away from trying to progress, no matter what it cost me.

With a sigh, I brought out the three figurines — a raven, a crane, and a fox. It still shocked me, just how lifelike the little things were.

The problem I had run into when I looked at them with Soul sight was that they glowed so brightly I could hardly see them at all. I hoped that the observatory could help in this regard.

Pocketing the two birds, I began with the one that had glowed the brightest, the one that had caught my attention in the first place. I didn’t know much about foxes, but the figurine stood crouched in what looked like a dog-like play bow. I had had dogs, as a child, and I knew the gesture well enough — head low to the ground, butt up in the air, a gesture that simply screamed “Play with me! Play with me!”

I wasn’t sure how to apply that meaning to a god, of all things.

I placed the figurine on a pedestal near the center of the room, and after moving two sets of lenses and a pair of mirrors in a certain configuration, I had a three-dimensional projection of the mana that made up the little fox.

I could see all six Aspects, all of them perfectly fluid threads, woven together to form the shape of the fox. And then, in the center, all of them merged together into a tiny whirlpool, at the tip of which laid a microscopic bead of Origin mana.

I felt a cold shiver go through my body. Did this mean the gods — or at least, the Fox god — knew about how I had discovered the mana well and how it was created?

Either the Fox was sending a message that they were onto me — or was it trying to instruct me? I had no way of knowing, yet, but perhaps the other two figurines could shed some light on the issue.

I removed the fox figurine from its pedestal, placing it gently inside my robe, and glanced at the two birds. The raven holding a bauble — was it a rock? It was too small to tell, and the proud crane, well, the allusion was not lost on me. Placing the crane on the pedestal, I re-calibrated the apparatus and inspected the projection.

At first glance, its construction looked almost the same as the fox. I had expected some obvious difference to pop out, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Squinting, I took a closer look and finally spotted the difference. The crane was dimmer than the fox. The fox had not been the brightest figurine among the sea of light as a coincidence — it was rooted in its construction. I added another lens for magnification, and the cause was revealed to me.

The threads of mana used in the construction of the crane were all of lower quality — essentially the same as I could produce of Force and Matter. What the crane showed me was that Origin mana could still be created, even with inferior threads.

Breathlessly, I went to the pedestal and added the raven and the fox, so I could compare all three at the same time. Indeed, when comparing them side by side, the difference was obvious.

The raven was even dimmer than the other two — the threads were fraying badly, and I could see that the resulting Origin mana was significantly dimmer, nowhere near as dense as the one created by the fox.

I could only conclude that the Fox did indeed know of my dabbling in Origin magic, and it seemed that whoever they were, they weren’t giving me a warning — the figurines were showing me that I likely could already create some, even if it wouldn’t be perfect.

My excitement threatened to bubble over — I was going to try my hand at condensing a drop of Origin mana, and I was going to do it now.

I left the observatory for this experiment — working with multiple kinds of Mana at the same time was always prone to failing spectacularly, and I didn’t want to risk the fragile instruments being shattered in an explosion if something went wrong.

Instead, I went to the basement, which I had recently instructed some wights to turn into a sturdy training hall. The walls and the foundation were reinforced, so hopefully, I would not be bringing down the tower on top of my head.

I sat down to calm my nerves and began breathing slowly, in and out. I didn’t need to breathe, and neither did I even have any lungs, but going through the motions helped bring me back down to earth.

Without any better guidelines to follow, I decided to mimic the way the figurines had done it. Slowly and carefully, I began channeling each of the six Aspects, beginning with my Soul and Mind, my best, and finally concluding with Dimension, which was still my worst by a fair margin.

I began spinning them together, forming the whirlwind I had seen inside each of the figurines. I began with deliberate slowness, increasing the pace as each thread attached itself to the budding spiral. Once all the threads were connected, I steadily increased the speed of the spiral’s rotation, until it finally gave birth to the whirlwind shape I sought.

I kept it spinning and spinning, losing track of time as I went until finally, I could not see the individual threads anymore — just an indistinct rainbow blur.

I was reaching the tipping point of the miniature system I had created — all it needed now was a small push, and it would either become Origin or it would blow up in my face.

I closed my eyes to better concentrate and willed the little construct to condense. Instantly I could feel the imbalance in the system, but before I could even react to try to mend it, an explosion rocked the basement as the construct blew up in my hands, taking them and a good chunk of my head with it.

Well, that didn’t work.

Five hours later I had a new pair of hands and a fresh left side of my head. As I looked in the mirror, I noted it made for an interesting sight — despite my body being a construct, it retained some human features such as forming wrinkles when frowning. The new bit of face I added lacked any such marks, and despite there being no seam where it was attached, the wrinkles suddenly ending and giving way to a smooth, almost baby-like skin was a strange sight indeed.

At least I wasn’t one for manual work, or else losing the calluses on my hands would have been a pain.

In any case, while my experiment with condensing Origin mana had ended in a rather spectacular explosion, it wasn’t all for nothing. In that moment, before it all went wrong, I understood exactly what had caused it to fail.

While you could create Origin mana with just about any quality of threads, all the threads you used needed to be of the same quality. I had just drawn Mana as I did normally, and the disparate qualities of my Aspects had caused the construct to become unbalanced, and finally going off in a blaze of glory.

Drawing poorer quality Mana than your maximum was possible, though I had never seen a point for it before — you could weaken a spell through its design, so weakening one by using poor-quality threads just seemed like a waste. It was still a popular exercise back in the Academy, as weaving spells with poorer quality Mana helped improve your control.

Once I was finally healed, I returned to the basement and began my second attempt at condensing Origin — this time I adjusted my threads, using Dimension, my lowest common denominator as a reference.

The weaving went entirely the same, and soon I stood on the same precipice as before — only this time, I was certain I would succeed. With an effort of will, I pushed the Mana to condense, and an instant later, with no pomp or ceremony, a tiny, almost see-through bead of Origin Mana rested at the end of the whirlwind.

I actually teared up a little, but with my excitement having gone through the roof, I instantly rushed to the next logical step in my exploration of this wondrous Mana — using it in a spell.

While I’d glimpsed Thaos’s teleporting trinket, I had no idea how to even begin crafting such a thing. I had, however, closely analyzed the Mana well carried by both of my Revenant companions.

Was I putting the cart before the horse? Probably. Was it a gigantic leap in complexity? Most definitely. Was it probably going to blow up in my face again? I had almost no doubt. But the need to discover was an itch that demanded to be scratched, and I was powerless not to oblige.

I knew the structure of the Mana well by heart, having spent many hours trying to divine how exactly it worked. The paltry amount of Origin Mana I held would be stretched thin, but even so, I drew it into a thread and got to work.

Since it was a construct meant to be tied to a soul, I naturally had to draw myself inside my soul to begin crafting. Once there, I wove the frail little thread as delicately as I could, stretching it as far as it could handle.

It took barely a quarter of the time it had taken to create the Mana in the first place, but to my surprise, the Mana well was crafted successfully, and I saw it settle into my soul.

Before I could even cheer for my success, the Mana well disappeared in a bright flash.

What.

Of all possible outcomes, this was not one I had predicted. I had done the impossible, and it was just... gone? How? Why?

Baffled, I left my soul, returning to the physical world — but it seemed the surprises hadn’t ended. There were a series of messages floating in front of me, just like that notification that damned me in the first place.

System Anchor detected! Attempting to attach Main Process… 0%

Alert! System Anchor integrity (6%) below minimum threshold (20%)! Unable to attach Main Process! Aborting...

Alert! Abort failed! System Anchor has been destroyed in the process. System will accept liability for damages. Generating appropriate compensation...

You have been awarded a perk!

Arcane Savant

Perk — Special

Increases speed of improvement for all magical subjects by 100%.