Chương 44

The demon was laughing his head off, of course.

"What's wrong there, champ? Not quite the blue raspberry flavor you were hoping for?" He paused, and put a hand to cup his ear as if trying to hear something over Wade's choking.

"What's that? No, of course I warned you. Didn't I mention that little, itty-bitty detail about the safety flavor?" A bad taste was under-exaggerating. The mana potion was the most disgusting thing Wade had ever tasted. Rather, it wasn't so much the taste as something else within the jelly was causing his gag reflex to work on overtime. He kept the jelly in his mouth, trying to swallow it, but felt his body tense up and refuse to obey.

"Mmm-mmmhhh! MMMM!" The demon howled laughing, wiping off tears from the corner of his eyes as Wade stood up and started pacing around.

"This is the classic first hurdle that separates the wannabes from the real deals. Been the make-or-break moment for aspiring magic-slingers since time immemorial! Never. Gets. Old." Wade's eyes darted around his tiny kitchen, spotting the glass he'd left in the dish rack. He lunged for it, nearly tripping over his own feet as the jelly cube refused to go down. The texture was like trying to swallow a living rubber band that fought back with mental damage.

"Give me a big smile darling, for the camera." Zin had his smartphone out, following right behind for a better angle.

"Months later, we're gonna rewatch these videos with fond tears in our eyes." Wade grabbed the glass, fumbling with the faucet. Water splashed over his hand in his rush.

"Careful now, Mr. Wade." Zin said, taking a step back away from the splashing.

"Wouldn't want to spill any of that three-star municipal tap water on my suit. Although all this could a lmost could be worth the dry cleaning bill." The moment the glass was full enough, Wade threw his head back and gulped water desperately, using it to force the magical jelly down. It felt like swallowing a live fish - the cube seemed to wiggle and resist the whole way down, although Wade just knew that was all in his head. He could feel it hanging on, at the base of his throat, somehow stuck.

Wade drew out more water and planned to chug it again. Zin clapped in the background.

"I've got to say, that performance was more 'desperate chipmunk trying to swallow his hoard' than 'dignified mage.' But hey, points for the water assist. Most blueberries just stand there gagging for a good three minutes before they try to find water." He gave zin a pointed look, bringing the water up and chugging it down. Blueberries?

"All novice mages use mana potions to learn on. So they're called blueberries." The demon tapped the glowing blue potion at his side.

"Oddly enough, same berry you're thinking of, lots in common between our worlds. I get a feeling that's not a coincidence, but cosmic similarities between parallel worlds ain't exactly my field of expertise." Wade doubled over the sink, coughing. He felt his gag reflex kick in one more time but he held it in. One second. Wade desperately gulped. Two seconds. It was done. The cube of jelly finally slid past a point of no return down his throat.

Almost as soon as it passed through his throat, all feelings of nausea blessedly vanished.

"That... that was horribl-" He felt it all of a sudden. A feeling of heat slowly radiating out of his stomach, something deep within himself. Power. Electricity. A buzz of some kind. He reached out to it internally, with his mind. More focusing on the feeling and realizing that simply doing that had already attuned it to him somehow. He could move it without much thought, though he immediately held off, remembering what Zin had warned him of.

"Oh ho, I see it must have hit your stomach acid already and started the reaction given your look." Zin said, putting his smartphone back safely into his inner pocket.

"Don't move it out of your stomach yet. Remember, dangerous stuff. Come over here and we can start with the first real lesson."

"Stats." Wade called out instead of going to the demon to continue. Mana: 0/125 Zero? Even after that?

"What'd you discover Mr. Wade? Something change up in the stats?"

"Other way around. Nothing's changed up. Still shows me at zero mana, which meant it isn't measuring what I thought it would. We're missing something fundamental about how mana works. What else can you tell me about the potion?" Zin hummed.

"Mana potions are highly stable alchemical concoctions. It strongly binds to mana, so none of it is radiating out into your system, one less thing to worry about. Perfectly safe if you leave it inside the gel and don't move it out anywhere in your system. Maybe that's why the system says you have none?" Wade nodded, turning back to demon sitting by the coffee table.

"Guess we'll find out as we go. I'll keep an eye on it." He burped, feeling an echo of the prior panic.

"This really doesn't feel like wizard shit to me. Feels even more like mad alchemy than before. And drugs. Mostly drugs."

"Welcome to magic 101, champ. Where everything's horrible and your dignity doesn't matter." Zin's grin somehow grew even wider.

"Just wait until you have to drink the entire potion instead of just a small cube." Wade's stomach recoiled at just the thought.

"Now, take your shirt off." Zin pulled a black marker from his suit pocket.

"Time to draw your first circuit."

"My first what?"

"Your first magic circuit baby! Start of the big leagues. Well, no, more like the minor leagues, but I digress! We'll get to the technicals later, right now a physical visual helps you learn it better." Wade hesitated for a moment before complying.

"This better not be a sex thing."

"Please. I swing only one direction, and you're not in the path." Zin uncapped the marker with his teeth then spat out the cap where it rolled off somewhere on his floor.

"Now stand still. And relax those abs - what little you have of them anyway. No need to impress me Mr. Wade, I'm not here to take photos for a magazine cover. Would be a terrible business decision, no offense. Well, maybe some offense." The marker felt cool against Wade's skin as Zin drew a perfect circle around his upper abdomen.

"This," The demon explained as he continued to draw with the sharpie, "Is going to be your first mana circuit. Mages build these up based on what they need or plan around for, and you train by constantly running mana through the same path over and over. Hence the name, circuit. Goal is to have some parts of your body grow highly resistant to mana and condition yourself to use only those parts basically on reflex."

The line traced directly to Wade's side, then upwards, taking an odd almost geometric curve around his ribcage side muscles, then curved over his shoulder, and ran down his arm until it reached the mithril ring on his pinky finger.

"Now listen carefully. You're going to draw mana up from your upper stomach here, and follow this exact line until you reach your anchor ring and then feed the mana into it."

"That's it?" Wade asked, examining the black line.

"That's it. But I did say I'm good at multi-tasking, remember? This is another lesson. Only draw mana through the stomach upwards. Mages refer to that as your core. Muscles tend to be more resistant to mana just by their nature, and your stomach lining's also in good shape." The sharpie tip tapped a few parts of the circuit Zin had drawn.

"You'll notice the path I'm tracing out follows your muscles and avoid basically everything else. You don't want mana to hit any other kind of tissue in your body, like your liver or lungs. Ambient mana is okay, anymore and it's not okay. And remember rule number 3: keep mana pressed as close to your skin as possible. Otherwise, I get to watch you end up in the toilet throwing up, losing your hair out in clumps, and wondering where you went wrong in life for an entire week. Fun for me, less fun for you.

So - small amount only, follow the line on your skin until you dump it into the ring. Got that?" Wade followed the directions, focusing on the small furnace of power deep inside his stomach. The demon was right, it was simple. More than just simple: Mana had no resistance to his command at all. It did everything he imagined it to do. A small sliver lifted from his stomach. Then he saw his stats screen change. Mana: 1/125"Oh shit."

It happened the instant mana left the contents of his stomach, like he'd sucked a small cloud of it out of the gel. Wade started laughing under his breath. This was exactly what he'd been hoping for. Zin narrowed his eyes, immediately suspicious.

"I know that look. That's the ' I just discovered something I think is clever' look." Wade glanced up, just as Zin snapped his fingers up by his face.

"Let me guess - some kind of mana resistance is showing up as actual numbers, isn't it? Instead of just having to guess like every other poor sap who's tried to learn magic?"

"Yeah. Mana went up to one out of the max." It ticked upwards by one again, and Wade collapsed the sliver of mana he'd been using back into his stomach, back into the mana potion jello core he had in there. The number stopped increasing, remaining at two now. That confirmed his guess so far, the mana bar was tracking his proximity to mana poisoning. Zin let out a low whistle, sitting back against the chair.

"Well, well, well. Aren't you the special little snowflake? So that's what the mana stat's about huh. You know, most mages spend decades trying to figure out their limits through trial and excruciating error. And I do mean excruciating."

"I think I might own that bar soon." Wade said, to which Zin just laughed.

"Champ, if you deserve the ego, you deserve the ego." He shrugged, then stood up from his chair, "Just remember our deal, experiment only in Azdrial where you aren't going to get yourself actually killed and more importantly - I don't have to clean up your body. We better not get anywhere close to max mana for tonight." Wade kept it as close to his skin as he could.

There was only a slight resistance before the mana would leave his body, felt like he was juggling with something as sensitive as a soap bubble's membrane. He flowed it across his skin, feeling it tingle, following the black line Zin had sharpie onto his skin.

"Feels like I'm a toddler tracing a draw-in-the-lines book." The demon laughed, "Yep, intuitive to pick up, hard to master. You're doing fine so far." Mana: 3/125"Resistance just ticked up by another one." Wade said, keeping the status window open as he practiced. The demon nodded, "Keep an eye on it, and tell me what happens once it hits the anchor." Small puffs of blue mist left his skin as he traced the path, a result of trying to keep the mana as close to the outside of his skin as he could.

But he still felt control over the mana even outside his body, so long as he kept it in mind. Weaving it back into his skin was equally easy, the only problem was the bits he'd accidentally lose track of. Those vanished away from his mental sight forever. And he did sense it was slowly defusing outwards too the longer it remained outside his body. Mana inside his body always remained under his control even if he wasn't thinking about it, and he could tell there wasn't any drain at all. His body kept it together.

Paradoxically, the longer he made it move through new parts of his body the easier the control over the mana felt. It was like everytime the power passed through more of his body, it became more attuned to him. More his. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Soon it had reached his armpit, and then flowed up over his shoulder and down his arm. By that point, even if it flowed out of his body by accident his control over it was so easy, hardly any of it dissipated away.

That all changed the moment the charge reached the mithril ring. He felt a loss of control over it, almost immediate. The force was outright sucking the mana. Fighting it off was impossible, like a black hole capturing light. But the range was rather small. Almost a tenth of an inch maybe? In moments, the puff of mana he'd managed to drag all the way to the ring was eaten up and gone.

Ultimately he was left with nothing to command, and his resistance meter had gone up to five out of a hundred twenty five then stopped there.

"Well well well, look who's not completely hopeless after all!" Zin clapped his hands together.

"And here I was, ready to start a betting pool on if you'd panic and need to take the mithril pill early." Wade examined his arm where the line had been drawn. The skin tingled slightly.

"So this is it? Just trace the line?"

"For now? Your bread and butter right there. You're supposed to do fifteen of these a day, maximum." Zin straightened his tie.

"Keep practicing that exact path until you can do it with your eyes closed. And I mean that literally - you'll need to be able to feel the path without seeing it. It's more likely you'll run out of mana before you hit fifteen repetitions, but we'll get there when we get there."

"Seems... simple enough."

"Oh sure, now it does. But wait until you're trying to maintain that control while, oh I don't know, running for your life from one of the many lovely things on Azdrial? Trust me, simple doesn't mean easy." The demon's grin widened.

"Now, what's that fancy mana meter of yours showing?"

"Five."

"And is it ticking up, or staying mostly flatlined?" Wade shook his head.

"Soon as I'm not moving mana around, seems to stay at five." The rest of the mana he felt in his stomach didn't feel like it was actually suffused in any of his cells. Instead, it was probably staying within the jello chunk he'd swallowed.

"It only started going up when I was moving mana around other parts of my body. How useful is this going to be, do you think?" Zin hummed.

"How useful is a mana meter telling you precisely when to hit the brakes? Mr. Wade, useful isn't the right word for it. You're sitting on the holy grail of magical cheats is more like it." That shark smile came back, "Maybe the ancient civilizations figured out how to do this at some point, but I can tell you right now nobody in the modern age has anything close to that available.

If it's working like we think it's working, then you my friend, are going to be buying the bar and the entire city block attached to it real soon." His finger reached out and booped Wade's nose.

"Because that's not even the whole package, buttercup. Any mage can go over their limits, you just get sick and slowly die over the next few days. No refunds, no exchanges, death basically guaranteed. Push it further intentionally? Now you're looking at maybe five hours before checkout time. And if you're dying already, why not floor it, go out on a bang? Every mage out there has to play it safe, casting far under their limits. But YOU? Well… take a guess." He could do the opposite. Cast far above his limits.

"Because I can die over and over in Azdrial without it affecting my real body here…"

"Ding-ding-ding! Give the man a prize! Look at you, connecting those dots! Just IMAGINE the possibilities here, kid! All that magical testing and training without worrying about, y'know, your inevitable mortality and the gruesome decay of your body wasting away in horrible agony. AND you've got a handy little number telling you exactly how close you are to the edge at anytime! It's like having the answers to the test while taking it!"

He moved like a snake, one hand reaching out to Wade's shoulders, arm wrapped around his neck, while his other hand stretched out to the kitchen window ahead, as if showcasing possible futures.

"Listen, Mr. Wade, with advantages like these? We're not just talking about moving up a few ranks - we're talking about the BIG leagues, the major players, the cream of the magical crop! On the express elevator straight to the penthouse suite! Of which your apartment really could use one." Wade considered the advantages. He could keep up with a seasoned mage with years of resistance training. It would end his run on Azdrial early, but it could be done.

"Only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why a single bar." Zin said, humming to himself.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's two types of mana necrosis out here. General necrosis, as in your entire body got hit by a mana wave and now you're screwed - but generally. And acute necrosis, usually just called circuit burnout. Where you overtaxed your circuits, and now most of it is dying and has to be cut out of you before it starts rotting and killing you from infection. So is that mana bar tracking a circuit or your body in general?" Wade could see where the demon was going with this. Reality is complicated.

And clearly mana had been studied and understood for centuries now like an actual science would. But video games? They'd have one single mana bar as a resource to track to simplify things. If he ran mana around in a circle inside his index finger for hours until it died from exposure, would his bar remain low on mana because only a small part of his body was affected? Or was it tracking his entire body as a whole?

"I think... I'd need to test the limits to get that answer." Wade said.

"Hit max mana, and see what happens after. On Azdrial of course, not here."

"Gonna be painful to test that, but you're the video game expert here. I'll leave that testing to you. My job? I'll teach you like I was contracted to." Zin said, giving Wade a few pats on his shoulder.

"Focus on this basic circuit, and keep things simple for now."

"Is there more than just the circuit?" Wade asked.

"How far does magic go?"

"Most mages have three to four circuits depending on race. They overload one, swap to another, repeat. By the third circuit you're already irradiated and risking mana necrosis, so a fourth or fifth isn't worth it unless you're naturally resistant like beastkin." He tapped Wade's sharpie-marked lines.

"You can place circuits anywhere in your body, any configuration you want. But this is advanced theory that entire magic schools are built around, and you need some good foundational training before you try any of that fancy stuff. There's a reason people can read the books but fail the practical." He tapped the marker a few times thinking.

"Ah, I got it: Think of it like a YouTube tutorial on brain surgery. Sure, you've got the theoretical knowledge to do it, but I'd still want a real doctor." The demon paused.

"Actually, that's a pretty smart analogy. I should ask for a raise."

"And the healing ring?" The demon held a hand out, asking for the ring. Wade took it out of his pocket, and handed it over. Zin turned it over a few times, examining it, then pointed out a small design on the outside.

"That's the activation rune and there's more runes on the inside that convert mana to a holy attunement. I can tell because it's giving me a rash already." He pointed at what looked like a tiny red inscription, the metal clearly different than the silver looking ring itself.

"Touch and hold that, then chuck mana into it and the ring does the rest automatically. It's a defuse ring, so it starts healing anything that's touching this red line here." He tapped the ruby red seam just a quarter of the way off from the activation rune. The line itself wasn't very long either, another quarter length of the ring.

"Can it heal spinal injuries?" Play had told him only a basic ring would be needed and not to waste his coins on more expensive items. But he still needed to hear it from the demon.

"Well duh, it's holy. Nature attuned healing would be far more efficient and less toxic, but holy can heal things the body can't ever naturally heal by definition. That's the entire schtick. Real issue isn't if it'll work, it's how long it'll take and how efficient it'll be doing that. It working automatically for you is a double edged sword. You hit both wounded and perfectly healthy parts of the body with this, wasting a lot of power over nothing.

And healing magic is still mana, overexposure to it will cause damage. Do one minute of healing, then give it a rest for half a day or so before you go again, just to make absolutely sure you're not killing your sister or friend with that."

"How many… sessions do you think it'll take?" Zin shrugged, looking at the ring again.

"Eh, five? Six? Maybe seven at best. Plus this puny thing has terrible throughput, healing is going to be slow. That's actually good news for you, since it won't require powering it with more mana than you're capable of. I think you have enough mana potions to keep it powered through the entire healing process, but I'd get your hands on more just in case." Three days. Four at most. In a video game that'd be insanely bad.

In real life, doctors would kill for a tool that could recover people's ability to walk around in under four days of therapy. And the bean-counter accountants in the medical field would actually kill or at least legally bury him in red tape to keep that kind of thing from eating away their profits. But he had it. This was it. The gold mine. If this worked, he was submitting his'I quit, and I hate you.' letter and he'd do it without a two week notice either because fuck Bob.

He didn't need fulltime at Froggy Hobby's if he could sell magical goddamn healing. The dollar bill signs were popping just about everywhere in his head. He held the little metal ring with deep reverence. All he'd need was to secure a steady supply of mana potions to fuel his magical golden goose egg here, and he was set for life. And that was only after the first day in Azdrial. He was going to grind the shit out of that world and drag every last upgrade and storefront coin he could shake out of the System.

Wade kissed the little ring of blessings, then shoved it on his index finger, away from the mithril one.

"Well kiddo, you technically got the basics down for now." Zin said, nodding at the excited mortal.

"Make sure you keep that ring in contact with something that needs healing. Otherwise, you're just venting mana into the air without direction." Wade nodded, getting how it worked.

"What's next?"

"Bring the ring up to your neck where it hurts and hold the activation rune with your thumb, then move mana through your thumb. Just keep an eye out on your magic resistance, stop when you hit maybe seventy five percent? You'll get there faster than you think, traveling mana through your arm, and having the ring infuse that into your neck. If you're healing someone else, you'll only have to deal with the mana running through your hand. There's some... shall we say complications.

Spells are way less toxic than raw mana, but you know what they say, too much of a good thing is going to be a problem at some point." Zin gave him a quick clap on his back, "All right champ, go for it." Wade did just that, bringing the powered ring to his neck. His first real personally casted magic. It was one thing to logically know this could probably heal Ann and Jason. It would be another to actually feel the effects and know it wasn't snake oil. He triggered the ring. Atonement Complete!

You have discovered the means to heal your only true family in the world. You feel greatly reduced self-loathing. As it turned out, it had been everything he had hoped for his entire life.