It was, in fact, rather difficult.


    My forehead was beaded with sweat, and there was a dull, minor ache behind my eyes from how scrunched they were. The nerves along my arm and down into my sternum felt cold and scrambled. Like snow upturned with a shovel. Not cold in the way of temperature, but in the strange way of mana. Not that this was in any way as refreshing as my prior experience with the energy. Anyway. Apparently, the meridians of my body closely mirrored the nervous system. Which was interesting, but rather annoyingly uncomfortable. Portions of my body where I had strayed from the complex path felt raw, shallowly stabbed from the brief moments before the mana had slithered out of my grasp and back to its resting place. It wasn''t that bad, mostly just annoying. Mostly.


    I sighed and cracked an eyelid as Wen, who had taken to pacing the rows, drew near.


    "Don''t let the failures get to you. You''ll get it eventually!" He drawled. "Probably." I flicked a finger at him in a decidedly rude way, then closed my eye as I tuned him out. Once more I envisioned my mana. In the dark, it pooled before me, roiling, shifting purple. It fled my sight, dancing and wavering from focus. As a feathery strand arced up from the pool, I took it softly in my grasp. Exhaling, I expanded my awareness. My body came into focus as I gently coaxed the strand. It veritably raced from the core, flowing up my chest and then twisting down my right arm.


    This part, at least, wasn''t so hard. After a few tries, it was even easy, with a bit of focus.


    Pain. Well, mild discomfort, really. The tendril of writhing vapor clipped the edge of the channel in its haste, scattered and raced back to the origin. I grit my teeth at the sting and inhaled through my nose. Flicked my arm futilely to disperse the pain. Clearing my mind, I focused on the end point. I envisioned mana gathering at my fingers and imagined the chill flowing down my arm. Tried as hard as possible not to see the violet smoke twining around and between my bones.


    At last, it reached my fingertips. It was cold. In the way of that quiet, dark part of the night when nobody was awake, but you yet felt that you weren''t alone. When you walked through your house with your hands clutched to your chest. In that way your spine tingles when the wind sighs just so and the trees are still. The moment where you freeze, the hair raising on the back of your neck and your heart going still when you hear a sound in the black. Purple glow lit the tips of my fingers, splitting and branching like veins down to their bases. My mana pool -all twenty-eight points of it- slowly depleted as the energy was expended.


    And that was the easy part done.


    I breathed deep and slowly raised my hand, holding it palm-up before me. My eyes bored into someone across the room. Nobody I knew, of course, but I''d found the approach helped, visualizing. Encouraged the power with something it already wanted to do. I imagined slithering tendrils of vapor, snaking out, reaching for the unware mind. Wrapping around it, slipping in through the seams and worming throughout and between thoughts.


    This went on for a while. I tried not to think of anything distracting, which of course made me more distracted. Idly, I recalled and wondered at how easy it had been to learn and cast Seek Through Shadows, compared to the difficulty of this. Something to do with the nature of the energy, perhaps. Or a fluke. Also questioned was why they had taken to teach me the spell yesterday, and only mentioned the meridians and what not today. I came to the conclusion that it was most likely simply a result of the particular schedule I had. Though it certainly could have been handled better. Come to think of it, wasn''t this relevant to Evocation as well?


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    I almost didn''t notice the tiny wisp of vapor that curled off my ring finger, before the glow guttered out. Only almost. And I certainly noticed the drained feeling as my mana pool bottomed out. I shuddered at the empty, hollow feeling. It didn''t last long, my regeneration enhanced by the dense mana that''d filled the room when the assignment began.


    "You shouldn''t be able to do that," the teacher said, standing beside me and gazing down.


    I blinked up at him, shaking off the lingering fatigue that clung to my mind from the complete depletion of mana. The air around me shimmered faintly, the classroom''s dense ambient energy already beginning to refill the empty void in my core.


    "Shouldn''t be able to do what, exactly?" I asked, flexing my fingers testingly for any lingering discomfort.


    Wen''s rectangular pupils narrowed as he tilted his head, the movement distinctly predatory. "That." He gestured vaguely at my hand. "You externalized your mana. It left your body."


    "Yes?" I frowned. "Is that not the point?" I was quite sure that was in fact what we were supposed to be doing.


    Wen let out a short, rasping bark of a laugh. "Sure. Eventually. But not the first time you try. Not the second, either. Most don''t manage to push mana past the skin barrier until at least, oh, the third day, unless they have prior training. Which is mostly impossible. These first few lessons are always terribly boring. You—" He gestured at me again, seemingly curious and just a bit annoyed. "—just did it. Sloppy, weak, but it was definitely external. And I’d bet heavily that you''ve already managed to cast an internal spell of some kind. That shouldn''t have happened."


    I frowned, running over the process again in my head. I didn''t feel as if I''d done anything particularly remarkable. I had followed the instructions, I thought. Directed the mana along the path of least resistance, drawn it up and out, and then... what? Imagined it moving? It was quite hard to not imagine something acting when trying to make it do so. Nothing had felt particularly easy. Was it supposed to be harder than this? It was challenging, sure, on a matter of focus, but nothing impossible.


    "Maybe you were just a really good teacher," I offered dryly. Then I thought for a moment. "Though, I suppose that would also give credit to that other guy..." I trailed off, having momentarily forgotten the name of the individual who instructed the shadowy magics.


    Wen snorted, the sound sharp and amused. "I''m an excellent teacher, but that doesn''t account for this." His eyes gleamed with something that was both interest and also something else. "Tell me, out of curiosity. How does it feel? The mana."


    I considered, rubbing a hand along my chin. Leaned back in my seated position. "Cold. A bit hostile, but not to me. It wants to... manipulate. Degrade. Tell people things and take from them. It doesnt like being seen or known about. It likes to hide in corners and on walls. Behind someone''s shoulder while it breathes in their ear. It''s... slippery to hold, like smoke or maybe steam. Moves like a worm or maybe a snake. Centipede also feels right. It''s not smooth, definitely has a prickly, crawly quality." I paused for a momet. "That''s really all I can say about it at the moment."


    "Hmm." He pursed his lips and gazed off into the middle distance. "I don''t suppose that tells me anything. How odd. Well, I... don''t have a lesson plan for this, that would work for just one person. I suppose I was going to let you out early anyway, what with the Dungeon run being next period.


    "Ah," he shrugged. "You may go. Prepare how you will and what. I don''t see much point to you staying here any more. I suppose you can practice more, but frankly I don''t see a point, to pardon the repetition."


    ------


    I did stay for a little bit more, mostly just to refill my energy. I expelled a little bit more, and it was slightly easier. I could do it within maybe half a minute by the time I deemed it satisfactory.


    After that, being possessed of no particular reason to remain, and quite honestly simply bored of the repetitive practice, I left. With a short time before the next period, allowing for getting there a bit earlier, I jaunted back to my dorm. Mostly to check if my weaponry was there. It wasn''t.


    I sighed dramatically, throwing a hand up to my forehead in an expression of woe. All accounted for or unimportant, and trying not to get distracted, I set off again for what was probably the most dangerous period of the day. Hopefully.


    "I''m off to run the dungeon," I sang quietly to myself as I walked. "The... wonderful dungeon of... hmph. There''s no way to end that satisfactorily. More things should be lyrical. Everything is better when you can sing it, I think."