[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

Capacity: 29

Retention: 71

Speed: 57

Resistance: 19

Fidelity: 72

Consistency: NA

Twenty-nine. I grimace every time I think about the abysmal Capacity result from my mana control test. I’ve been working so hard! It doesn’t feel fair. But in the recesses of my mind, I know the fault is my own. I despised my Skill for its “lesser” title and wanted other Skills—better Skills!—and I cut my own hamstrings in the process by not developing the Skill I already had.

I set the two glass orbs on the ground on either side of the training dummy, conviction burning in my heart. I will master every level Mikko developed, and I’ll do it while systematically draining and refilling my mana in the middle of the mock battle. My grip tightens on my staff as I stare down my nemesis: the iron lunk.

With a battle cry, I thumb the activation rune on the linked control bracelet, welcoming the now-familiar mental chime as the various routines announce themselves as options. I hover over the offensive sequence, but I don’t know if I’m up to the challenge yet of defending against the iron lunk while managing the finicky energy flows of [Heat Manipulation]. Fear of bruises wins out over my waning ambition, and I select the defensive routines, preferring to hit rather than to be hit.

The iron lunk whirrs to life, unfolding its collapsible arms and swatting away my cheeky attempt at scoring an early point before it takes up its stance. The level one timer already shows the countdown, and I’m both impressed and annoyed by Mikko’s foresight with the enchantment logic. Flexibility isn’t a quality most automatons are noted to possess.

Level one presents few difficulties, and I’m able to score hits by changing up my tempo, feinting high and striking low, or by stabbing repeatedly in one spot—the machine lacks the speed at this setting to keep up with the relentless attack. Keeping my mental focus split between the attacks and the heat-resistant glass orbs is exhausting, however, and I’m starting to sweat after a single victory. My clenched-jaw determination going into the night looks like an overreach now.

I release my Skill and sit down cross-legged on the ground, eyes closed, breathing in a slow, steady rhythm as I regain a bit of mana. I’m planning to drain the pool before the night is over, but that doesn’t mean that I want to blow through the entire sequence in the earlier levels, before the challenge truly ratchets up.

Boredom proves my biggest enemy, and after only half a minute, I jump up to my feet, spinning my practice spear over my head. I nudge the indicator for level two, resume my Skill, and try to speed up the heat transfer while attacking a split-second faster than the last round.

The iron lunk binds my spear more easily this time, but I’m warming up to the fight and I slip through its block like Ember showed me. The solid thunk of the spear’s impact rings through the night air, and a vicious smile snakes across my face. I slide my left foot forward in a smooth, quick semicircle, plant, and lunge forward with my right foot, exploding off the balls of my feet to stab at the automaton’s head before the defensive arms can spin into position. I roar in triumph, resetting my feet and twirling the back end of the spear in a savage strike to the dummy’s torso, powering through the feeble block.

The spear smashes into the solid iron construction of the training dummy and cracks in a spray of splinters. I stagger forward, braced for an impact that unexpectedly gives way, and I fall face first into the training dummy, smacking my forehead. My Skill falters, sputtering out like a candle at my loss of concentration, and I let out a howl of pain and frustration.

Mikko was right. I really am a threat to smack his creation with my hard head.

The ridiculousness of the situation catches up with me, and I flop down to the ground by the automaton, accessing the control rune and switching off the machine just to make sure it doesn’t read my movements as another attack and decide to counter attack. I reach inward, grasping my [Heat Manipulation], and focus on the energy flows. I’ll finish the fight another time, after I’ve picked up a sturdier cut of wood, but for now I still have half a mana pool to spend. Time to get to work.

The night air grows cool on my skin, now clammy with sweat as I work, but I refuse to give in and warm myself up. Venting heat into the surrounding temperature instead of focusing solely on red and blue glass globes arrayed nearby is cheating, after all. I push harder on the manipulation than before, no longer caring as much about precision as about raw speed and power, and the mana gushes forth like a geyser as I wrestle with the energy flows.

Time ceases to mean anything. I fall inward, losing awareness of my surroundings as my only thought is the task at hand. More and more mana surges into the Skill, unspooling almost out of my control. The heat transfer has completed between the two heat-resistant orbs, but I’ve built up a roiling, raging river of power, and it needs to go somewhere. No longer caring about cheating, I send it into the empty skies above with a whoop and holler, and fall back into the mud, totally spent.

Panting, I reach for more mana and find only the dregs. My Skill gutters and dies out. I blink, disoriented as I drag myself back to reality, brushing off the dirt, and stagger to my feet. Warm air buffets me as the gusts of heat fluctuate, and then slowly dissipate into the night air, leaving me even more chilled than before.

I shoot a glare at the training device. I will defeat it soon, I swear. I will. I refuse to lose to something called a “dummy.” After all, if I can’t win, then what does that make me? I can already hear Mikko laughing in my head at his long list of prepared jokes, and I chuckle to myself as I trudge back to my room. I can’t very well give him the satisfaction, now, can I?

Chuckling to myself, I trudge back to my bedroom. My mana will fully regenerate by morning, and I’ll regain my energy after a good night’s rest, but for now I’m spent. My mind is still a whirlwind of questions and theories, so I reach into the travel knapsack that I keep near me in case I need to make a quick getaway, and withdraw the first of what I am sure will be dozens of textbooks and training manuals.

“[Scholars],” I mutter. Crazy as loons, the lot of ‘em.

The title is missing from the first book. I can’t tell if it’s because the textbook is ancient, or if the cover has simply been handled by so many careless students—just like me, I think with a slight smile—that they’ve collectively rubbed off the words.

I crack open the musty textbook that Ezio picked out for me, and the aroma of scholarly neglect for the outside world washes over me like a blast of nostalgia as the scent unexpectedly reminds me of my father. I clutch at the new memory, trying to hold it close before it evaporates into the ether and I lose a part of him that I never knew existed.

I inhale deeply, filling my nostrils with the tannic scent of old leather and the acrid stink of the gum-like glue of the book binding. Did my father like to read? Or perhaps it was my mother? I can’t recall either of them with any clarity, other than the image of my stalwart father in the hot shop, preparing the molten glass in order to make a masterpiece.

Wiping away tears wasn’t in my plans tonight. I scrub at my eyes with the back of my sleeve, take a shuddering breath to steady myself, and stake out a comfortable spot on my bed to commence reading. My desk feels too sterile, all of a sudden, for the emotional encounter with my past that blindsides me out of nowhere.

I open to the well-worn table of contents, skimming through the entries until I find what I’m looking for: a chapter all about mana Capacity and how to increase the amount of mana you can hold. Eagerness at the thought of improving my terrible score gives me a burst of energy, and I turn the pages with equal parts determination and dread. What if the methods don’t work for me? What if I’m already capped out?

What if I’m just bad?

“Capacity,” I read aloud, tracing the words with my finger, “is not, as many mistakenly believe, an absolute number that reflects mana pool size. Rather, it’s a measurement of mana held in reserve versus a theoretical total maximum—one hundred—on a per-Threshold basis. That is, a middle of the pack score of fifty is different in size pre-Threshold compared with the First Threshold, the Second Threshold, and so on.”

“But why?” I ask no one in particular, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. “That’s so needlessly complicated.” I sigh and get back to reading, only to find that the answer is far more annoying than I expected.

“Due to exponential growth at each Threshold, measuring Capacity in raw units of mana creates a lopsided mana-control result that offends this author’s sense of symmetry. Thus, to maintain the same one-hundred-point scale that fits so neatly with as the other traditional mana categories, Capacity score is instead a function that’s calculated as a percentage of the highest recorded results run through a linear regression model, and then extrapolating the maximum.”

Yep. [Scholars] really are the worst. Why not just measure what exists?

I thumb through the rest of the dense chapter until I locate the practical exercises for increasing mana capacity in budding [Mages]. The predominant theory is a time honored classic: constantly use, drain, and refill your pool. Over the years, you’ll expand the pool like a child inflating a balloon, little by little.

“I hope I can’t also pop like a balloon if I overfill myself with mana,” I snicker.

The dissertation continues in the same dry tones, and I almost give up reading until I see a footnote near the end of the chapter. Paradoxically, it’s the small print that catches my eye, although it looks like the author only included it begrudgingly.

Some [Sages] recommend holding mana at all times—not using it wastefully, they claim, but nurturing it and infusing every sliver of their life with the energy of the universe. How this avoids excessive waste is something of an opaque discussion, but this humble author is willing to overlook such obstacles to the theory and include it for the sake of completeness; scholarship rarely advances due to a singular voice, after all.

Advocates of this mana-enhancement method claim that soaking your body and soul in mana all throughout the day apparently strengthens you so that your reservoir can grow in a safe, gentle way, rather than straining yourself by draining your pool over and over again and risking a mana coma—or, worse, burnout. While emotionally appealing, more research into the subject is required before this [Researcher] will provide his imprimatur.

I’m skeptical, but intrigued. What have I got to lose if I try this method out? Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work, and I simply revert to the fill and drain cycle to forcibly deepen and expand my mana pool.

Half an hour later, my confidence fades. My eyes glaze over after pages of dense reading, and my head feels heavy with the soporific effects of cramming too much info into my mind all at once about the compositions and effects of various mana types. How do students at the Silaraon City Academy put up with this kind of torture?

“Twenty-nine isn’t forever,” I mumble to myself like a mantra as I prepare for bed. When I finally close my eyes, I release a little mana throughout my body, attempting to gently soak my muscles and bones—and my Skill—in mana overnight. Might as well grind while I’m asleep. I’ve got my first taste of numbers, and now I’m obsessed with watching them grow.

Thirty will only be the beginning.