– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 214, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 100 –

“Well, that was a shit idea.” Jorgen washed the blood from his nose. His smile stood in stark contrast to his bloody beard. “Fun though.”

“You scared me for a bit there,“ said Terry.

“Hey, we were supposed to practice,” stated Lori while looking back from the door. “Now, Jorg has the chance to practice his Cure Wounds spell for real.”

“Shh. You stay silent and keep lookout,” retorted Jorg. ”We don’t know when Ma will come back.”

“Yeah, I am pretty sure that Ma would not follow your reasoning there, Lori,” added Terry.

After Terry had learned his spell, the three were given a new schedule that involved less time in the training grounds and more time for spellwork.

Technically, the twins were supposed to improve their own spell control and mastery while Terry familiarized himself with the Immovable Object spell.

In reality, however, it took all their discipline to not spend the time binge-reading the Veilbinder’s legend and consequently they came up short when faced with some of the possibilities of the Immovable Object spell.

Long story short, a few side lessons were learned: You could transfix a staff in midair. The staff carried any weight. A person could attach themselves to the staff with carabines. Siblings of the person could spin the person quickly around the staff.

The most important lesson learned: Have a second “warning” staff imbued with the same amount of mana for the spell and have its spell activated at least ten seconds earlier.

Alternatively, you could obviously wait until you completely understood the mana amount to spell duration ratio, but what self-respecting teenage dwarf had time for that?

Luckily, Jorg’s face clash with the floor looked worse than it was. Thank mana cultivation for that. Right now, their biggest worry was that their parents would come home early. According to the twins, Ma Isille could smell blood even after it had been washed away. However, Terry was not sure if they meant that literally or metaphorically.

Of course, the three had not fooled around the entire time. Lori had by now completely mastered the Earth’s Nourishment spell and Jorg’s casting time for the Cure Wounds spell usually came in around thirty-five seconds.

Terry had spent his spellwork time divided across three tasks: Understanding the Immovable Object spell, testing the spell’s interaction with different materials, and brainstorming ideas for practical applications.

For the first task, he mostly stuck to the notebook provided to him by his uncle Samuel. Nevertheless, he always verified whatever was written in the excerpts. Terry had to admit that the information was rather basic.

It seemed that the spell’s “odd” positioning prevented most mages from seriously considering it. The most obvious application of the spell was in combination with a shield. However, any proper mage with master-level mana control would be able to summon a powerful barrier out of thin air. Learning a spell for use with shields seemed somewhat redundant.

As a consequence, nearly all excerpts were documenting the spell’s effects in a dry academic manner. Nevertheless, it was sufficient to get a general idea.

The Immovable Object spell could be applied to any continuous surface. If an object was made of multiple parts, then a single spellwork would only cover a single part.

Terry could immediately verify this with his practice pen. While the pen hovered in the air, Terry was able to remove the cap. He could control which surface he wanted to impart with the effect by directing the spell structure accordingly. Terry surmised that there may be some density-based rule in place or thresholds applying to the intermolecular attractive forces. At least, that was his proposed explanation for why the spell worked on rocks, but not on blocks of loose earth. He scribbled down a note and planned to confirm his understanding with Samuel and Brynn.

Next, Terry tested the spell on a rope and discovered two things. First, the spell did not work on the rope at all. Some of the excerpts actually explained why – apparently, most of the spell structure has to fit within or be in contact with the object. Second, trying to compress the spell structure to objects as thin as a thread gave Terry a headache comparable to cluster migraines. For now, the diameter of the pen seemed to be close to his limit when compressing the spell structure.

The Immovable Object spell would keep an object in place independent of the force applied to it. Apparently, “in place” also included relative to itself. As long as the effect was active, the object would become pretty much indestructible – no matter how fragile the object would normally be.

Again, the practice pen acted as the first test subject. The twins helped out by smashing their practice weapons against the immovable pen with all their might. The pen as a whole did not budge, but part of an inlay – a separate surface – shattered and Terry instantly regretted this particular experiment design a bit.

Afterwards, Terry tested his spell on a candle. The wax turned as invulnerable to kinetic force as the pen before, but what really fascinated Terry was his finding when he lit the candle: The candle wax did not burn. The flame only lingered for a few seconds and then it died out.

Terry immediately made plans for experiments with ice cubes, but for that he would first have to secure the cooperation of a mage capable of casting ice spells. Technically, Jorg could use ice magic, but he had never bothered to learn any spells of this aspect.

According to the excerpts, the spell had a fixed mana cost independent of the object’s size or mass. The main factor influencing mana consumption was duration.

As long as you managed to recreate and prime the spell structure, you could quicken the spell by harvesting and investing less mana, but this would also shorten the spell’s duration. Similarly, you could invest more mana so that the spell would stay active for longer periods.

It was even possible for Terry to extend the duration of an active spell by reinfusing it with more mana. On the flip side, an activated spell could also be disrupted with his own mana in order to cancel it immediately.

An additional secondary factor that also affected the mana requirements was the material itself. Different materials had different base consumption values for activating the spell. Aside from mana cost, some material also differed in what the authors called activation delay, which meant the time between ignition and the complete activation of the spell.

Terry had prepared a number of experiments for trying to verify the required mana consumption to keep specific materials in the air for a fixed amount of time. He took notes meticulously and scribbled his own estimates into his notebook.

The excerpts discussed some ways for measuring a baseline, but they had to be adjusted and normalized somehow. While mana concentration could be measured, it was much harder to measure the amount of mana put into a spell structure. A mana user could get a standardized mana-crafted item to try and get a feeling for how much mana he was using.

However, the interesting metric was not necessarily the amount per se, but rather the time it took to cast the spell. That, unfortunately, depended on yet another variable: your own mana throughput. That was why Terry tried to get an idea of his casting time with different levels of bursts. In the future, he would have to add some more pages for measuring the impact of quickening or empowering the spell. Furthermore, all numbers would get outdated rather quickly, because the variables would change with his progress in training. Nevertheless, it was better to establish a baseline early.

The last facts of note were the limitations on objects on which Immovable Object could be activated. First, it did not work on any living material. Casting it on a block of wood would be fine, but casting it on a tree would not succeed.

Another limitation applied to interactions with mana and other spell structures. It was possible to cast the spell on mana-crafted items, but the caster would have to overpower the imprinted spell structure. Alternatively, the spell structure for Immovable Object would have to be properly shielded.

Here, Terry looked at his pen again. The pen was a mana-crafted item and the tip had been imprinted with a spell for darkening or lightening non-living materials. Terry figured that his spell activation only worked, because he had not targeted the tip of the pen.

“How about that!”

Jorg grinned at his siblings. The blood in his beard did not fit the grin.

“By my count, Cure Wounds took exactly thirty seconds to cast!”

“Great, then we only need to punch you in the face in order to clear Ma’s conditions!” exclaimed Lori.

Jorg was not entirely sure if that was supposed to be sarcasm and subconsciously took a step back from the door.

Terry raised his gaze from his material box and gave Jorg an examining look that had previously been reserved for his practice pen.

“We still have to narrow down his true motivating incentive. From what we have discerned so far, we can only conclude it to be either pain or fear of Ma. Maybe he would react better to blackmail than to pain?”

Lori pulled her sideburns in front of her chin before stroking them in a thoughtful pose. “True true, it cannot be ruled out. If he fails, should we tell Ma what happened to her grappling hook?”

“You wouldn’t!” gasped Jorg. “Would you?”

Lori tried to keep a straight face, but eventually had to giggle. “Nah. That would mean mutually assured destruction.”

“Right and if Ma grounds us both until the next era, then who would look after Whaka Terry?”

“I would like to point out that I am not the one with a bloody face at the moment,” interjected Terry. “It would get lonely though. And boring.”

***

“Alright, you have passed my conditions,” announced Isille. “Here is your first hunting mission for mana corrupted.”

Jorgen was nearly doing tippy taps when he received the mission pamphlet. To his chagrin, the excitement did not survive the pamphlet’s contents.

“Cloud badgers? Seriously?” demanded Jorgen with indignation.

“What? You thought we would start you on shadow panthers?” snarked Isille. ”Or maybe even some terror grizzlies? Yeah, they’re outright cuddly if you’re a greenhorn.”

“No… but come on. Wasted badgers? We are already hunting bears.”

“Non-magic bears, yes. You think the separate classification is just for fun? A corrupted, cursed, or magic-wielding creature is an entirely different beast.”

“But we already participated in the intermediate introduction class.”

“A class that had an instructor spoon-feeding you information and calling the shots. This time, you have to make the decisions on your own.”

At this point, Lori just shrugged with a sigh. Somewhat begrudgingly, she had made her peace with the mission.

“But a badger?” Jorgen remained unwilling. “I mean, I get that we would pick a minor corrupted and low-rank creature, but a badger?”

“Jorg, it is just the first mission,” said Terry in an attempt to mediate. “Right?”

“Depends on your performance,” snarled Isille while keeping her eyes on Jorgen. “You must never conflate a creature with its ancestor. The most dangerous corrupted hunt open at the moment is for a vortex hamster. That overgrown space rodent considers a sleuth of terror bears as nothing more than a light snack.”

After Isille saw the persistent look of resentment on Jorgen’s face, she made an offer.

“Tell you what, you are always talking about wanting to join the Guild, so let’s play by Guild rules. I’ll give you a side mission. If you manage to finish the hunt without so much as a nick on your equipment, you will have succeeded. I will put the reward at six hundred coins.”

Jorgen looked a lot less unwilling and was about to agree.

“BUT you are a rookie and this would be considered an upranking or rank-crossing mission. If you fail, you’ll owe me three hundred coins or the equivalent in contribution points.”

Jorgen’s agreement got stuck in his throat. He paused and swallowed hard. There was a moment of silence before Jorgen had finally mustered the resolve for defiance. “Deal.”

Isille only raised an eyebrow and inclined her head as acknowledgement. “Any other takers?”

Terry shook his head immediately.

Lori was tempted, but looked warily at her mother. In the end, she decided that this smelled too much like a setup. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Hmph.” Jorgen was somewhat miffed that his siblings did not back him up.

“Great. Since you were so happy with the basic outline, I have one more requirement. Your pa is going to accompany you.”

This time, it was Florine who spoke up with indignation. “We’re not little kids anymore! What kind of Guardian has their parents babysitting them during missions? Will we have to hold his hand so that we do not get lost in the woods?”

Isille was becoming irritated and nearly got into another snappy argument with her daughter. However, she managed to resist the temptation and decided against taking the bait. After all, this was not some squabble over chores or clothes. As the adult party, it was on her to keep things professional. Therefore, Isille limited herself to a disapproving glance and a sigh.

“Your pa is not there to hold your hand during the mission. He will not interfere, nor will he give you advice. His role is not to show you the way, but to remind you of not getting lost. Additionally, he can act as a witness for the side mission, I guess. Although, I do not believe that will be necessary.”

Florine only rolled her eyes while Jorgen gave an acknowledging grunt.

“Can I still ask Pa something since he will be there anyway?” inquired Terry.

That question earned him some reproachful looks from the twins.

“Hey, whose side are you on, Whaka Terry?”

“The side that has questions, duh.”

Before the kids could get really into it, Isille interrupted. “Sure you can, Terry. Anyway, you three still have training scheduled for today. Tomorrow, you should take the time to prepare.”

***

“More lasagna?” Bjorln looked expectantly at Terry.

“Thanks, I’m full.”

“So just a bit lasagne, then?”

“Uhh…”

“Just saying, you are still growing and all.”

“A bit then. Thank you.” Terry gave in before Bjorln continued to the next seat.

“Don’t look at me, I can’t eat another bite.” Jorg exhaled happily while patting his belly.

“Me neither,” added Lori preemptively.

“So, are you done with your preparations for the mana corrupted hunt?” inquired Brynn.

The twins were quick to answer. “Yup.” “Sure.”

“Not yet,” said Terry. “I still wanted some advice.”

“If you need help in picking out mana-crafted items, we could join you,” said Jorg with a grin.

“Actually, I wanted to buy some healing balms and recovery medicine. Among the three of us, I am the only one who is not able to cast any healing spells.”

“Good thinking,” praised Bjorln. “I am supposed to stock up for the Guardians soon anyway. I can prepone it and you could join me tomorrow. Sounds good?”

“Great! Also, I thought about buying items made from some of the materials in the sample box, but I have no idea if they are even used for crafting items or how expensive they would be.”

“I can get you a copy of the crafter’s reference which tells you the common uses as well as the base price and difficulty of using it in forging or mana crafting,” stated Brynn.

“However, for specifics regarding the usage in weapons or where you could find them…” Brynn glanced at Isille.

“I can have a look,” said Isille.

“Thanks to all of you!”

“Have you made up your mind on how to incorporate the Immovable Object spell?” inquired Samuel.

“Somewhat, but mostly I have a list of things that won’t work properly until I can cast hands-free or have enough spell control to significantly reduce the casting time.”

“Patience then.”

“There are some fun uses already,” interjected Lori.

“Yeah, I like the double jump,” said Jorg.

“What’s that?” asked Brynn.

“Prepare the primed spell structure. Jump and activate the spell on an object in the air so that you can use it as a jump-off point again,” explained Terry.

“Sometimes, we even managed to prepare a third jump point,” bragged Lori.

“Uh-huh? And where did that happen?” questioned Isille with narrowed eyes. Her tone immediately rang the alarm bells.

“Uh, on the lake of course,” replied Lori.

“Of course,” concurred Jorg. “Anything else would be way too reckless, Ma. Perish the thought.”

“Uh-huh.” Isille’s face was an open display of skepticism.

“Maybe you could bridge the time until the casting speed is sufficient by preparing mana-crafted items?” suggested Brynn. ”Since you can cast the spell, you should be able to imprint it. I wanted to introduce Lori to construct crafting anyway.”

That woke up Lori from her food induced drowsiness. “Nice!”

Terry nodded as well.

“How about you, Jorg? Up for some mana crafting?”

Jorgen seemed less than enthusiastic.

“You know it can pay quite well if you put in the time. Even with an average ability, it helps pay for itself and may save expenses.”

Jorgen seemed a bit more conflicted, but ended up refusing anyway. “Thanks Auntie, but I do not want to lose my focus.”

That statement caused a few raised eyebrows at the table. It also inspired a laughing snort from Lori.

“If I spread myself too thin, how would I ever become a proper mana cultivator?” Jorgen tried his best to sound sincere.

“Suit yourselves.” Brynn smiled. “Just let me know if you ever change your mind.”

“And until then,” started Bjorln, “I will try my best to support you in achieving your high ambitions in mana cultivation. I will remember them during our next training session.”

Jorgen’s eyes widened. His mouth opened in order to protest, but he failed to find a valid objection.

Isille and Lori chuckled heartily.

“My condolences,” muttered Terry from Jorg’s side.

***