Mar finished up his last day as a dockhand in a daze. He was going to learn magic! Or at least that’s what Jinn had promised him. When his shift finally ended Mar collected his final days pay from the dockmaster and left for the market.


    “Can’t I just use one of Grob’s mana crystals?” Mar whispered quietly.


    <Those crystals are already attuned to a specific element of magic. You need a fresh, clean crystal to store an imprint on if you want to do as you did years ago. That mana amplifier was an ideal scenario for crafting a homunculus. If you want anything useful however you’re going to have to be a bit more knowledgeable. Luckily you have a very knowledgeable tutor at hand, or rather, in your pocket.>


    Mar glanced at his pocket warily. “You’re forbidden from entering my mind. How did you know about that?”


    Jinn cackled. <Fear not, fleshling. That knowledge was already stolen from before we made our bargain.>


    “But still. I only have so much coin on me, and I’ll need every bit of it soon enough. Does it really have to be a gemstone?”


    The stone sighed. <It could be just a pretty glass bauble if you really want, but whatever you create with it will be half mad and not truly under your control.>


    In the end Mar settled for a bit of amber hardened into a dome-like shape about the size of his smallest fingernail. Normally it would have been quite expensive, but luckily The Winking Maiden had just brought in barrels of jewelry not fit for a noble lady but too expensive for a farm wife. As a result the gray bearded merchant in the rickety stall was willing to part with it cheaply.


    As he walked back to the privacy of his room at the inn he nearly dropped the piece of amber from his shaking hand. He passed by the innkeeper, forgetting his usual order of bread and cheese to eat. He sat down on the bed uneasily and plucked Jinn from his pocket.


    <The first step is to fully unlock your mana pool. It’s sitting partially sealed, though the bindings have come a bit loose over the years.>


    “So it’s true then? Master Warrik and the others… they knew I had the gift and they took it away from me??”


    <Quite right. Though I think it’s safe to say you’ve fully revenged yourself upon them, destroying their city and all. Now, I’m going to need an active influx of mana from you in order to make this work, so close your eyes and meditate or whatever crutches modern mortal mages require. But first I’ll need your permission to weave the magic.>


    Mar granted Jinn permission and took a deep breath to help him focus his thoughts. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until he could concentrate on the mana lying inthe center of his aura. It looked as small as it always did. Compared to a mage''s aura his was small and shriveled, too small to mount even the simplest spells on. Mar grasped a thin tendril of energy with his mind and pulled it through, feeding it into Jinn’s vessel, where it was promptly gobbled up.


    Suddenly four prongs emerged from the stone’s hard stony shell. They wrapped around Mar’s aura and he had to make an effort to keep calm as the strange sensation of invasion built within him.


    Then something unraveled. Chords of mana that bound his aura in it’s current small and shriveled condition suddenly became visible. Jinn’s tendrils attacked the restrictive bonds, his probes of elemental magic carried out an assault on the now visible enchantment and one by one the binding cords snapped.


    Mar’s aura swelled with the newly available space. If a mage was looking at him at the moment it would seem as though his aura had swollen to a hundred times it’s previous size. The growth slowed down after that, but it continued to slowly expand, like a pig’s bladder slowly being filled and stretched. To Mar, it felt as though chains he’d been carrying for years without noticing had finally fallen off him. He felt free in a way he hadn’t in years.


    He remembered one of the first things every young mage did with magic, the mage vision. He’d seen a crude approximation of it many times via specially enchanted lenses, but he longed to see the world of magic with his own eyes. He channeled mana into his head up into his eyes and blinked. The world around him suddenly appeared to be made of thousands of interwinding strands. It was mana he realized, and it was everywhere. There was red mana streaming into the room from between the shutters and blue mana swirling in the mug of diluted ale he’d been drinking from that morning. There were strands of something that didn’t seem to have any color at all floating through the air, and all manner of strands of in-between colors. The world was a beautiful kaleidoscope of mana interwoven around everything, within everything.


    Then he glanced across the room and his eyes lit upon something truly amazing. There in the corner of his room was the most complex weaving of magic beyond anything he’d ever seen described in any book. A countless number of colors were woven together in a pattern so close as to be almost indecipherable, eventually forming a small, humanoid shape. Interwoven between and around all of the other elements was a fifth kind of magic, one that he’d only seen tiny specs of in his scan of the room. It was so complex that Mar’s eyes began to ache the longer he looked.


    “Ahh!” Mar cried out as a sharp pain shot between his eyes, cutting off the vision.


    <You’re a fast learner, but you shouldn’t play around with things you don’t understand. More than one spirit mage has gone mad doing what you just did. As a spirit mage, you have the capacity to see all of the elemental magics, and the spirit magic that binds them together to create life. Most of your kind however prefer to view only one element at a time. Makes you much less likely to go insane.>


    Mar looked around the room with his normal sight, trying to match what he saw just a moment ago. It wasn’t like mage sight, though that’s what he’d been trying to do. Those enchanted goggles and guardsman’s visors were supposed to mimic mage sight, but this was something different. Something beautiful, bizarre, and utterly confusing. He wasn’t just seeing the free magic, he was seeing everything. All the magic in the world, and how it tied together to make things what they were.


    “What was that?” Mar asked in a hushed voice, still clutching at his temple.


    <You just looked at your little pet goblin over there with spirit vision. You attempted to see the world at a level of clarity beyond what the feeble human mind is capable of comprehending. You’re lucky I pulled you back. Just be glad you didn’t look my way.>


    “I think it worked. My aura feels different. I feel so much better than I did before… I can’t explain it.”


    <Of course it worked. Very few mortal magic casters could make a seal that I couldn’t unbind, even as limited in tools as I am. Your aura is probably now large enough to mount a half dozen spells now. I have one or two simple diagrams for a beginner spirit mage that you can work on latter. It may continue to expand to the size it would have been if you hadn’t been sealed, or it’s growth may be forever stunted. That being said, I am starting to see why the other chose to bind us to you. More on that latter though, for now let’s do some spell-weaving.>


    “Right. How do I do what I did before? Make a creature like that… thing from my memories?”


    <Well for those creatures you were very much lucky that you were working with a device that could resonate a crude spell-weave internally until it could form a sort of consciousness. It’s a neat parlor trick but ultimately not very useful as you can’t exert control over your creation. We’re going to be working on something like that today.>


    “Right. So we need that crystal, and a container.” Mar fished the piece of amber out of his pocket. He grabbed the mug and dropped the little shard of amber in the small puddle of ale that was lying the the bottom.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    <I suppose that will have to suffice. A recently dead corpse would be far superior…>


    “I’m not delving into necromancy.” Mar stated firmly. “If there’s one type of magic that everyone outside the Dead Lands hates, it’s necromancy. The moment people get wind of a necromancer they start running for the pitchforks and torches.”


    <Fine. Without any joints or functional sensory inputs however, your first creation is unlikely to be useful for anything. Though I suppose we’re only looking for proof of concept at the moment.>


    Mar nodded without replying. He was too eager to use magic to be dissuaded.


    <Lets try a rudimentary spell-weave. Draw some of your mana from your well. Don’t worry about being picky, it’s nearly all spirit mana in there, which I must say is quite unusual.>


    Mar concentrated again and was presently surprised to find that he fell into the trance-like state in seconds rather than in minutes. He was able to pluck a much larger chord of mana then before and pull it through his aura. That last part was trickier now that it was so much bigger.


    <Good. Now for the simplest stable pattern possible. Form a circle with the strand. Good, now push it towards the piece of amber, but don’t let the connection to you be severed. That’s it, now open your eyes.>


    Mar opened his eyes and looked at the cup in front of him. It looked exactly the same as before.


    “When is it going to start moving?” Mar asked.


    <Never. Weavings for living things, or sudo-living things, are vastly more complicated. This weave is not without it’s uses though, especially with you connected to it. Touch the water in the cup.>


    Mar peered inside. The water in the cup was eerily still. He reached a finger in and poked it, jumping back in alarm.


    “I felt that!” Mar exclaimed.


    <So long as you maintain that connection, the water in that cup will be like an extension of yourself. With a bit of improvement in skill and design of your tool, you’ll be able to use this weave to sense things from afar. Eventually when you start delving into the true depths of necromancy or chiromancy you’ll integrate this weave into things vastly more complicated. Creations that are extensions of your will but which are so complex and powerful they’ll be indistinguishable from real, live creatures.> Jinn sounded a touch excited.


    Mar poked the water again, reveling in the strange feeling. After several more minutes of experimentation he turned back to Jinn.


    “Okay. I’m ready to learn one of those spells you mentioned.”


    <An eager student I see. That’s good, though I don’t believe you have the materials for the full ritual.>


    “No chalk, but Grob brought paper and ink. That should be sufficient for at least an abbreviated diagram.”


    <Very well. Lay out some sheets and draw exactly as I describe.>


    Jinn walked Mar through the process of preparing a ritual to mount a spell into a mages aura. After going through the short list of options Jinn described to Mar, and eventually they settled on the simple spell, ‘Spirit Burst’. Mar had never heard of that specific spell before, but it sounded suspiciously like the simple elemental attack that all first year mages in Orlem learned. Fire burst, air burst, water burst, and stone burst were all basically the same spell. It was simply mana rapidly and forcefully expelled from the aura through pores made during a ritual. Based on the pattern Jinn was guiding Mar through drawing on the ground, this spell was nearly identical to the elemental variants Mar was familiar with. He voiced his thoughts to Jinn.


    <You’re right. This spell is essentially the same thing. The ritual is poking holes in your aura, through which raw mana of any variety can be rapidly expelled into the physical world. This can manifest as a sudden gust of wind, a splash of water, or a wave of heat for each of the elemental magics. For spirit magic it’s a little different though.>


    “How so?” Mar asked eagerly. “What does Spirit burst do?”


    <It causes a slight tingling sensation in the target. Some pain or numbness if you use enough mana.>


    “That’s it?” Thus far, the spell sounded severely disappointing.


    <It’s your first spell. Don’t expect anything too impressive. If you master this I’ll teach you a more powerful version of the spell that can disorient your target, or even cause temporary loss of motor function.>


    Mar let out a low sigh. He’d been eager to throw around magic, but it was foolish to expect to be able to toss around powerful third or fourth order spells without a lot of practice. Still, it would be a start.


    “Alright. The drawing is done. What’s the rest of the ritual?”


    <Have you chosen a trigger word? Something to set off the spell? Most mages tend to simply use the name of the spell.>


    “I’ve already thought about it. I think I’ll just use the word ‘Burst’. It’s shorter than saying the full name, which might be invaluable if I only have a instant to cast the spell.”


    <Smart, though in this instance you’d be better off throwing a punch than trying to fight with this spell. Let us begin the ritual.>


    Jinn whispered words for Mar to repeat. The mantra came out to something along the lines of ‘Azohaaaam noo’los va’taris muritivir burst seluke phataaris’ repeated several times over. The meaning itself was unimportant though. What truly mattered is that the words resonated with the diagram and Mar’s own aura, allowing it to be altered as needed. The process took several minutes and Mar felt a sharp pain steadily building as his aura was reshaped by the ritual. Eventually the pain faded and Jinn told him he could stop.


    “Did it work?” Mar wondered aloud.


    <The only way to know is to try it and see.> Jinn replied.


    Mar pointed his hand towards his pile of straw. He concentrated on the mana inside him for a moment before mentally shouting “Burst!”.


    Nothing happened.


    <I forgot to mention spirit burst only works on living targets.> Jinn supplied helpfully. <You should try it out on your pet goblin over there.>


    Mar turned to look at Grob briefly before shaking his head. “I’m not going to use untested magic on Grob.” The goblin perked up at the mention of his name. He’d tuned out most of the one-sided conversation thus far because he could only hear Mar speaking.


    <The spell is very weak at this stage. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll managed to kill or severely injure the goblin.>


    “I said no, Jinn.”


    The demonic stone let out an exasperated sigh. <Fine. Let’s take a walk outside and blast a few people, it will be excellent practice on moving targets.>


    “I’m not going to attack random people without reason, Jinn.” Mar snapped in reply.


    <Fine! You’re just impossible to please. If you’re so intent on not testing your spell on the goblin or the stupid humans wandering around this pitiful excuse for a settlement then you could always test the spell on yourself.>


    Mar frowned. “Is that safe? Couldn’t there be mana backlash?”


    <You won’t be firing it at your physical body. In fact, this is the perfect time to experiment with your two newest skills at once. Remember that spellweave with the shard of amber? Do it again. Once you have the connection setup again, test out your spell on it. You’ll be able to feel exactly what it would feel like to get hit with your own spell.>


    Mar couldn’t spot a flaw in this plan, and he was eager to work as much magic as possible now that he had the ability. It only took him two attempts to rebuild the spellweave with the shard of amber, and soon he had it back in the cup. Mar set it down on the floor by his feet. He pointed his hand at the open cup, though at this point he wasn’t able to funnel a spell down his arm, so the gesture was more of a mental aid than a magical one.


    “Burst!”


    The moment contacted the liquid in the cup Mar jumped back as he felt a sharp piercing pain somewhere on his body. He couldn’t name the part of his body that hurt but he felt it all the same.


    “Ahh! Gods damn that hurt!” Mar hissed out between clenched teeth.


    <Hmm. That was quite a bit more powerful than expected. It seems you really do have a talent for this.>


    Mar only glared at the stone in reply. The pain had started receding now and only a strong tingling sensation was left. He poked at the water in the cup and found he felt no sensation from it this time. It seemed the blow had broken the delicate link.


    <This is very good news! You might actually be able to kill someone with that spell! Spirit mages tend to accumulate power quickly. Most can only get new mana by ripping it from the corpses of their slain victims, though you seem to have mana regeneration rate quick enough to not need it. Still, if we kill everyone who’s in the inn right now you’ll have enough spirt mana to raise a few of them as zombies. By morning we could wipe this entire pathetic town from—>


    “I told you, no necromancy.” Mar repeated firmly. “In fact, it might be best if I just get some sleep. I need to wake up early tomorrow so I can buy some things before setting sail.”


    <If you followed my instructions, I could make you greater than any mage in Orlem in a few years time…>


    Mar grabbed the stone hand stuffed it under his pillow. It didn’t do anything to stifle Jinn’s telepathic speech, but it helped Mar ignore it. He found himself slowly drifting off to sleep with thoughts of spells and magic.