jmclarke

Chapter 78: Many Hands Make Light Work

It was lucky he’d calmed down.

If he’d tried to kill the bright-spitter like he’d imagined doing earlier, he wouldn’t have come to his realization.

But, standing there holding a live fire breathing snake presented a problem: what in the world was he supposed to do with it now?

The thing writhed and rattled—beating its wings against him—as it started spitting flame again. Alex squinted against the brightness of the fire. He needed to take care of first things firs...

Chapter 77: Fire and Coils

Jagged rock bit into Alex’s hands as he scrambled back down.

Pebbles rattled down the wall as rubble and dust were disturbed in his rush to reach the crevice floor. He imagined the flying serpents catching him ,and had to fight a desperate urge to just jump the rest of the way.

But a broken neck would likely be the only thing he’d reach if he did that.

Using his two spells, he was able to balance himself enough to make it to the crevice floor, but from above, he could he...

Chapter 76: The Path Alone

Selina had barely spoken a word for days.

Now, at the breakfast table, she, Theresa and Alex ate with a heavy silence over them. Even Brutus—eating nearby—seemed to be in a  poor mood; his ears and heads drooped low.

The little girl ate her porridge slowly, as though she were in a haze. Her eyes—puffy and red—barely looked up from her spoon. Selina hadn’t been sleeping well, waking often and crying softly in her bed, though she tried to remain quiet. It was happenin...

Chapter 75: Ghosts of the Past II (Interlude)

The Ravener’s hunter had been seeking its quarry for a long time now.

At first, it hunted with its siblings, each staying in close communication as they moved beyond the territory of their master. But—as they dispersed—they grew too distant from each other to maintain communication.

And now, the hunter was alone.

First, it had explored the sea, seeking its quarry on one of the great boats its master’s enemies had left their homeland in. The hunter had been given care...

Chapter 74: Ghosts from the Past I (Interlude)

“Zachariah Khan!” one of the teachers called.

Selina Roth jumped a little in her chair as the name echoed through the auditorium.

Zach—one of her friends—was the first to be brought onto the stage. She and the rest of her class from the junior school were seated in rows in the centre of the auditorium, waiting for the teachers to call them—one at a time—to the stage to test their mana.

She glanced nervously past the other students and toward a line of chairs set ...

Chapter 73: A 'Handy' Breakthrough

As it turned out, swallowing one’s pride had some serious benefits.

Going from sculpting alone or in the same area as his little sister, to working together with her had vastly improved his sculpting ability. By working as a duo, he not only got a close look at how she worked, but he also got to try some of her techniques with her guidance. This gave him more successes and in turn, gave The Mark more to use and feed on.

What he hadn’t anticipated was how in sync their...

Chapter 72: For and Against Pride

Alex paced back and forth in front of the golem workshop.

It was early morning. Crack of dawn, really, and much of the City of Generasi was still waking up from their night’s sleep. A light rain hissed against the cobblestones and rooftops nearby, and he pulled his hood higher and his cloak tighter to shield himself.

Shops were opening all around and the scent of baking bread and stewing meat emerged from stalls, eateries and wine houses lining the street. Coming from within the...

Chapter 71: Gains in Mass and Mana

Alex Roth stood in front of the small mirror in his room—with the windows firmly shuttered and door latched—staring at himself half in disbelief. His belly grumbled in hunger—as it always seemed to these days, no matter how much he fed it—but the shape of that belly had changed.

The shape of his whole body had changed.

“Hooooly shit,” he said, turning in the mirror and flexing his right arm. A surprising amount of muscle swelled on his bicep and deltoid under the grinn...

Chapter 70: Different Paths in Life

“I would imagine.” Khalik’s tone was sharp. “That they have concerns as well. There are more people than there are kings and queens. More nobles to appease. Generals. Armies. Merchants. Common folk. They all have mouths to feed, children to raise and coffers to fill. And when a drought comes, or floods wash away homes, or locusts eat all the crops? Who do they blame? Who is the one who should be fearing, then?”

“I uh,” Alex muttered. “Ah, that was just a joke. L...

Chapter 69: Expanding Perspectives

“Wait…” Alex started to take a step back. “You’re a what?” His words dropped to a whisper.

“A devil, boy!” Hobb’s voice boomed. “And no need to whisper, it’s not a secret. Not one worth keeping, at any rate. You know? Bargains for horrifying power for the price of your immortal soul? Become a king in return for the death of a loved one? Curse a farmer’s wife in return for one year of the lifespan of your firstborn? Come now, don’t tell me you’ve neve...

Chapter 68: The Devil that You Know...

The grad students poured their mana into the cauldron, this time reaching deep into the metal vessel. Alex could sense the mana travelling lower toward the bottom of the pot. Then the glyphs flared again.

Professor Jules called to Alex, still standing by the door. “It’s likely safe for you to join us now, Mr. Roth, and I’d recommend that you do if you wish to see the extraction process. I believe you’ll find this to be a very valuable experience, and not one that comes around ev...

Chapter 67: Beyond the Material World

As the last of the glyphs were traced and filled with mana, there was a subtle shift in the mana in the air around the cauldon’s rim. It was so faint, that Alex doubted he would have detected it before he’d started training in mana manipulation at the school.

With a flash, a purple light washed through the glyphs, wiping away the  colours left by the students and making every glyph on the edge of the cauldron all glow in the same hue. At the same time the mana shifted; all the ...

Chapter 66: The Summoning

“Stage Two of the brewing process is not delicate, but we’ll have to be quick today,” Professor Jules addressed her squad of graduate students like she was a general. She looked at Alex. “With chaos essence, it’s best to make sure the reaction isn’t drawn out: it’s too hard to predict, otherwise.”

He quickly wrote down what she said in his notebook word-for-word.

“Ah yes, where’s my mind these days,” she shook her head. “Team, this is Mr. Roth, a first year...

Chapter 65: Armwrestling Wizard's Hand

Alex opened his notebook to a new page, then—using meditation techniques to navigate The Mark’s interference—he cast forceball, counting his heartbeats to time the completion of the spell. It winked into existence like an old friend and he immediately cut the flow of mana to its magic circuit. Next, it was time to record how long it took before the forceball faded:

Forceball Spell Formation: Five Heartbeats

Dissipation: Ten Heartbeats

Better.

He...

Chapter 64: Benefits of the Talented

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Alex said. “The box was pretty fun to work on, actually. Like a puzzle. What’s the offe-”

“‘Fun’, he says!” Professor Jules burst out laughing, which quickly disintegrated into a coughing fit. She paused on the stairs, nearly bending double as she coughed into her sleeve.

Alex stood in front of her in case she toppled down. “You okay, professor?”

“Ach, I’m fine, I’m fine, thank you, though.” She waved him off. “Years of lo...

Chapter 63: Unsafety in the Cells

Quicksilver poisoning was a nasty thing.

There was a fairly extensive section on it in Dexter’s textbook.

One of the nastier things it did was kill you, but if you didn’t die, it could leave you with a whole host of unpleasant symptoms. Depending on how much one ingested, it could cause victims to lose feeling in their limbs and skin, cause itching or a sensation like insects crawling through one’s flesh, or worse: permanently damage the mind.

Those effects we...

Chapter 62: Glyphs and Quicksilver

“So.” Professor Val’Rok looked over the entire class of MANA-1900.

“Dun dun dun!” he said for effect. “It’s time to show off your progress with your glyph boxes. This assignment likely won’t be your favourite this semester, and rest assured, you won’t be unique in feeling that way. You see, glyph box practice enjoys a long tradition of being hated here at Generasi but, sadly-” he grinned, looking pleased with himself. “-it still has to be done. The good news is tha...

Chapter 61: Trust

They appeared on top of the escarpment they’d gathered on after Baelin’s test. This time the benches were already there, awaiting their arrival.

“Sit down, sit down.” the chancellor gestured to their seats. “I’ll be back in one moment. Ah wait, I almost forgot.”

He waved a hand and more benches appeared in a semi-circle around the boulder he’d sat on last time. “There are, in fact, more of you this time. At least…for the time being.”

The air shimmered a...

Chapter 60: Wrangling the Herd

“Watch yourself. Seriously,” Alex said to Theresa. “There’s all kinds of nasty things that live out here, and we don’t know what might be hiding where. The moment you see anything funny, you-”

“Kill it?” Theresea asked, raising her great-grandfather’s sword.

“…I was going to say ‘run away’, but if you can kill it, then sure: do it,” Alex shrugged. “But be safe, seriously.”

“I’ll be fine, Alex,” Theresa said, patting him on the s...

Chapter 59: Group Dynamics

Except for the death of his parents, Alex’s life had been a fairly safe one, generally speaking.

Until their escape from Thameland and his encounter with the mana vampire, he’d never been in any situation where he’d had to struggle for his life. Baelin’s test was the latest time where his life had truly been in danger, and in general those events were all new to him.

But—in each of those instances—he’d been fortunate enough to be surrounded by people he could trust, ...

Chapter 58: Planning Around the Mana Vents

Baelin had not been exaggerating about the impact the mana vents would have.

The moment Alex stepped through the portal, it felt like he’d walked into a wall of thorns that pricked at his mana instead of his skin. It didn’t feel as deadly as the mana vampire sapping his mana through his forceball, but there was a pain and invasiveness to it.

He squinted against the blast of light that suddenly hit his eyes.

Baelin had teleported himself and the group a short distance fro...

Chapter 57: Terrain and Entourages

“A wizard will spend much of their life in hazardous surroundings,” Baelin said to the class. “Which you will train for today, with your chosen entourages.”

It was another hot day—hotter than mid-summer in Thameland—and the students of the Art of the Wizard in Combat were gathered in the stadium. Despite the loss of some classmates during Baelin’s test, the number sitting before the chancellor had grown in the following weeks. Those who had entourages had brought them, inc...

Chapter 56: Naming and Sculpting Futures

“What’re you trying to make?” Selina peered at Alex’s crooked, strange looking creation. “It looks like a bug that got run over by a wagon.”

“Hey!” Alex grabbed the mostly finished clay doll he’d been shaping and held it protectively away from his sister. “It’s my second time making one, take it easy on me! Besides yours…is…not…that…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. The truth was that hers was much better than his.

She had shaped a...

Chapter 55: Reflecting on Different Paths

“Mr. Roth, have you studied alchemy before you came to Generasi?” Professor Jules asked.

They were alone in Cell-207, and she was looking at him pointedly. Not a hostile look, but simply an appraising one.

“Um, no, Professor,” he admitted. “The only magic I knew before coming here was forceball.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You got into Generasi knowing one spell? And you’ve had no other magical training?”

“A little bit of magical theory from some books, bu...

Chapter 54: Safety in The Cells

The Cells loomed before him across the grass.

Though it had been long fixed, the stone was still blackened in parts from previous accidents. There seemed to be a dangerous energy surrounding the building, one he noticed more strongly than before. He wasn’t sure if he was becoming more sensitive after a week of solid meditation practice or if it was just his own nerves colouring his perspective.

After all, today—in his second week of POTI-1000—would be the first day he’d be...

Chapter 53: The World Opening to the Senses

“The key to meditation, according to my professor,” Theresa said, sitting cross-legged across from him on a blanket on the balcony floor. “Is that failure is your friend: the point of meditation is to keep concentration on a particular thing, but you will get distracted and your mind will wander. Things outside of your thoughts will pull at your attention. That’s all perfectly natural.”

“Right,” Alex said, watching her closely—something he was happy to do for multiple re...

Chapter 52: Manipulating Mana and Mind

The box that professor Val’Rok had assigned in Mana Manipulation didn’t prove to be a very worthy adversary.

Alex concentrated on it, guiding his mana through the specific pathways built into its inner structure. It was a puzzle in a way: a magical object that ran on mana combined with a child’s toy maze.

The glyphs on the side required one to guide one’s mana through the specific pathways—in the correct order—and ‘touch’ the underside of each glyph with mana in di...

Chapter 51: Help Wanted

“Alright, I think it’s time for the next folk to have a turn,” Sim cleared his throat behind them.

“Alex?” Theresa poked him, her worried eyes watching him through the bulging lenses of her beak mask.

“What? Yeah, sorry, it’s just really cool. I lost myself for a moment,” he said quickly. That wasn’t a complete lie.

“Ah yeah, happens to the best of us, golem-work is one of the most awesome disciplines in alchemy,” Sim said emphatically as he guided Alex...

Chapter 50: Familiar Encounters

Sometimes, life was generous with its coincidences.

Alex had thought that before: there were times where he’d go through months of everything proceeding as normal and uneventful.

Then, for a period of time, there would be instance upon instance of coincidences.

He remembered a particular week in his life when he was sixteen and it had seemed like everything had become interconnected. He had been wondering about a historical event one morning, only to find that it was the s...

Chapter 49: The First Classes

“Hey, I recognised your accent in class!” Carey said cheerily. “Good to meet someone from home here, especially in these dark times—when Uldar’s voice seems so far away. Have you been to a worship service at his church in the city yet?” Her eyes bore into him as she continued. “I’ve gotten a group together and we go weekly.”

Alex resisted the urge to scream.

His mind worked quickly, trying to think.

“Oh uh, I um, am fairly private in my worship,” he sai...