179 Rosebuds & Spells

James, the very same human I had just saved from a brain tumor, sat up straight and studied me. His eyes started off at my muscular chest, before quietly and quickly ascending until they arrived at my face.

James had dark brown eyes. Impressively, he managed to look at my face. I stared right back at him, gazing unflinchingly at the man. He had a serious and confused look on his face, while I had a curious one on mine. We silently stared at each other for close to a minute before he spoke.

"Who... Who are you?" He asked, his voice trembling as he spoke. He didn't understand why I was here, which made sense. And that wasn't the only thing that threw him off either. He was pain-free at the moment and a simple surface-level reading of his mind allowed me to be sure he was confused by that as well. I smiled but I didn't speak. Instead, I silently continued to gaze at him.

James had a ruggedly handsome face, despite his relative youth. He was in his late twenties, still below middle age even for a human. He had heavy, thick eyebrows, and a strong jawline. He was also obviously muscular, something which no doubt helped him appeal both to many human women and also some human men, including his boyfriend.

I considered whether or not to induct him into a cult, but after a few moments of silently studying him I chuckled and instead I decided to make him a guinea pig for some of my powers. I rose my hand towards James, and I began to strike him with one of my newer desire powers, one I only acquired as a result of my powers over love mixed with my powers over lust.

James, who until this point had made continuous eye contact with me, visibly shuddered and broke eye contact as he felt pleasure begin to make contact with his lower body. I allowed it to be small at first, but it was still enough for it to be noticeable, as though a hand was gently cupping him through layers of clothing.

The man had to work to stifle a sigh, especially because though I allowed the pleasure to start off small I didn't allow it to remain small. Seconds after I began to cause him to feel pleasure, I allowed it to increase in intensity until it took everything he had to not audibly react to the pleasure assailing him.

James' dignity was saved due to the fact that he was underneath a set of hospital blankets. This allowed his arousal to not be immediately noticeable by his family, though they did glance at him whenever a sigh managed to audibly escape his lips. They had confused and scared looks on their faces, clearly worried about whatever pain they felt sure he must be enduring. After a while though, I chuckled and released James from the pleasurable grip of my power.

He visibly relaxed as he felt the alien and invisible pleasure stop wracking his lower body, falling back on the bed. There was a scared and scarred look on his face as he shut his eyes to avoid making eye contact with me.

James' older brother was a man just reaching the lower halves of the 40s. He was awed, but he did his best to hide it. This was only an option for him because he wasn't underneath the influence of my ability to induce awe, but it was impressive none the less. I studied him, examining him and what my quick appraisal of the man told me, for a moment. I opened my mouth and uttered a single word.

"Interesting." I said, speaking about him quietly. This caused his eyes to widen, but I quickly turned my back on him as well. There was one person I was a bit more interested in than James' brother or boyfriend. James' mother.

I turned to her and appraised more substantially than any of the men in the family. She had aged gracefully and was only in mid-fifties. She had the look of a kindly woman, one who felt happy to have her family and to be a part of a community she loved. She was the physical manifestation of her alignment: "Lawful good".

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Agatha Buchanan was a kindly woman who was dressed in a stylized summer dress. Her outfit was adorned with a healthy number of sunflower drawings, and the dress itself was a sky-blue. She held a tiny purse in her lap, one that was filled with a number of home remedies for headaches and pain. She was fair-skinned and had dimples from smiling often.

She was a doting mother, one who was filled with a deep love for her family and their own families. And when she laid eyes on Althos, his alien, divine, and terrifying powers reached deep into her heart and siphoned away at least some of her love from them to him. He didn't care to take away more than the bare minimum demanded by his powers, so the overwhelming majority of Agatha's heart was her own, but the god's theft did matter and it did seep into her soul almost immediately.

He was like a thief, but one who stole that which mattered most, the heart. That said the god himself did not understand love, and more importantly, he did not care to understand it. He did not care for love, and he had no interest in the depths of the emotion as felt by those with lives as short-lived as humans. All he knew and all he needed to know, was that love brought with it a certain amount of loyalty. Althos liked that, to an extent anyway.

The young god approached the kind-hearted woman with a disarming smile on his face. And she did, indeed, find herself disarmed by it. As he approached her he silently activated a number of potent peace-making and peace-keeping auras, ones designed to subdue the tempestuous natures of human hearts, and they worked immediately and effectively. Agatha found himself positively serene in his presence. In a number of steps and a number of seconds, he found himself right in front of her, his eyes staring into hers. As he did so he asked her a simple question.

"Are you happy?" He asked, his eyes peering deeply into hers. She looked at him, curiously, and considered his question for a moment. She was still as she did so, the question causing her to pause for a moment and seriously consider the life she had led until now.

She thought about her family, her home, and the life she led when she wasn't in the hospital.

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The human woman enjoyed her life. She liked her home, her family, and the ways she spent her days. But was she happy? That was a harder question. The fact that she had to think about it was a strong sign that she wasn't happy. At least not to the level she knew the deity was asking.

For a moment she considered lying. She wanted the man in front of her to think she was happy. She suspected, naively, that that was what he wanted. But she mulled that thought over in her mind, and then she quietly went against it. She never experienced the strange sensation of when a mortal tried to lie to Althos because she opted for honesty instead.

"I... I don't think I am happy." She confessed, trusting in this odd stranger, and not just because he had healed her son. She knew, on an instinctual, subconscious level, that Althos had done what he had said he had done. She knew and was indeed the first person to know, that the creature in front of the Buchanan family was capable of doing impossible things.

Althos looked at her, studying her for a moment. His gaze was calm and being in his presence prevented Agatha from feeling anything other than serenity at this moment, even as his eyes lingered. For a moment the god considered making her younger and empowering her but after a moment of contemplation, he instead did something. He created something.

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Agatha's true words were intriguing to me and so I decided to reward her for choosing honesty without making an attempt at deception. I slowly moved one of my hands towards her, while also creating something. A relic.

As my hands moved towards Agatha I swiftly used my powers over creation to create a glass, pink rosebud. The pretty thing was quite eye-catching and Agatha's eyes widened when she saw the thing abruptly appear in my hand. Her eyes followed it until it wasn't moving anymore and was instead being offered to her.

"What... What is this?" She asked, looking at it curiously. I gestured for her to take it, and after a moment's hesitation, she did so. She held it in both of her hands, studying the thing carefully. It was quite a cute display, and there was a look of curiosity on her face.

The object I created was quite a fun one. It served as a battery of sorts, one that when charged allowed those who possessed it to use magic as it provided them with the spiritual energy they'd need to cast spells and even a few spells for them to cast. Agatha, after a few moments of consciously studying the item, placed it in her hair and winced as the item clasped onto her hair and her eyes suddenly radiated blue light as the all too familiar textbox I was used too filled her vision.

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[The Glass Rosebud:

This relic is a barely sentient tool used to test non-magical mortals. It was created to act as a medium that provides those who have it with the tools needed to use magic, both the spells themselves and the actual spiritual energy they'd need to cast them. The rosebud gains the spiritual energy it uses when it casts spells through exposure to the sun and through consuming water, much like an actual rose would.

The item "knows" a few spells and serves as a tool with which its creator can learn about the magic used by whoever possesses it and can decide how to treat that individual. Those who behave in ways that the relic's creator likes may well gain real access to magic, instead of this "baby's first wand" type of access to magic.

The item's creator is a mysterious god of knowledge, creation, magic, and nature named Althos. This is a replicable relic, and thus it's possible that elsewhere in the universe there are others or will be others who also possess glass rosebuds.]

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As she finished reading the notification I watched Agatha's lips curl upwards in a smile. There was an excited look in her eyes, even though they were radiating blue light.

"Althos..." She whispered, being just one of the two beings in the room who knew my name. James also knew it. There was a quiet reverence in Agatha's voice as she uttered my name. As soon as she was done reading the first notification, another flooded her vision. This one was written by the system, and I performed a surface level reading of her mind to see what it said out of curiosity.

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[Alert: Explaining Magic

Congratulations! You've gained access to magic, a somewhat orderly and supernatural way of influencing the world and the universe around you through the usage of your spiritual energy, which is consumed to cause a number of supernatural events to happen, in precise and ordered formulas known as "spells". Or at least that's normally how it works, for now you'll instead use the rosebud's spiritual energy to cast spells.

Magic comes in twenty schools, 10 basic, 2 intermediate, 3 advanced, and 2 expert schools. For now, you have access to the 10 basic schools of magic though at an extremely limited level. Evocation, conjuration, alteration, healing, necromancy, enchantment, environmental, spiritual, divination, and contractual magic.

The rosebud in your possession is linked to its creator. He will know each of the spells you cast, and at some point in the future will decide what to do with his rosebud and whether or not to give you real access to magic.

Htraeian humans do not possess sufficient spiritual energy to use magic on their own, normally. Althos is capable of changing that, and can also grant even this world's humans access to real magic.]

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For not the first time in my life I wondered about the mysterious anomaly in the system's explanation of magic. It listed 17 total schools, not 20. During the few weeks I spent in my tower I had asked about that and been told that there was no information on the total schools of magic aside from what I had already been told: there were 20 schools of magic, and 17 expert or lesser schools of magic.

In all honesty at some point I had just quietly come to the conclusion that there must be three "lost" or perhaps "supreme" schools of magic that were just beyond my awareness.

The rest of the notification that was scrolling through Agatha's vision was about spells and how to care for the rosebud though I think it was pretty easy to figure out. So long as whoever had it in their possession gave it water and regularly exposed it to the sun the thing would be fine.

Stylistically the thing was supposed to tie me to nature in the minds of whoever possessed it. I quite liked it, and I thought it went well with Agatha's apparent style. She was still gazing at me, awe in her eyes as she did so. She realized who and what I was now, and I found that amusing.

I turned to leave, even as she continued to read through the notification, but not before sending her a quiet mental message that we'd meet again. I grinned as I left, and as I opened the door I made eye contact with both her and James, smiling wildly at them. The second I closed the door behind me I teleported out of the hospital and back to the farm-home of Geoffrey Finigan.

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As I appeared near where I had first been teleported too when I arrived in this world, I had a new goal in mind: I was going to go ahead and acquire the second tier of influence over magic. And I knew that to do so I needed to acquire influence over the basic schools that I hadn't yet gained the ability to influence.

I needed to go ahead and acquire influence over the contractual, environmental, divination, and spiritual schools of magic. It was only by doing that that I could gain access to the quest needed to gain the second tier of influence over magic. As I set my heart on that goal, I heard a joyous peal of laughter fill my mind. It was a radiantly beautiful sound, and it was immediately followed by words flowing into my head.

"Finally! Now the fun begins..." The voice told me. It was a curious, almost chaotic voice that radiated power.

"With this newfound determination of yours, I can go ahead and give you the quests you need to complete to finish acquiring the first tier of influence over the basic schools. Now go and have fun, so that together we may influence the entire multiverse!" The voice commanded, sounding both authoritative and also innately chaotic.

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[Alert: New Quest(s) Acquisition and New Spell Granting

Divination: To acquire the first tier of influence over this school of magic, use some of your new spells to view a world you've never been in a place beyond the reach of your sensory abilities.

Spiritual: To acquire the first tier of influence over this school of magic, use magic to strike a deal with a spirit.

Contractual: To acquire the first tier of influence over this school of magic, strike a contract with a mortal that grants them magic.

Enviromental: To acquire the first tier of influence over this school of magic, completely transform an area using magic. Not your divine or elemental powers, but spells and sorcery.

You have acquired spells in each of the respective schools you seek to gain influence over. You will gain more spells when you complete the respective quests you've been tasked with completing, as well as the powers over the subdomain, as usual.]

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One of the quests was the easiest quest I've gotten so far. It was so easy in fact that the moment after I got it, I rose into the air and began to use one of the spells I had just acquired to alter the environment.

I rose into the air just above the barn I had teleported into when I was first brought to this world. I then conjured a fireball, using one of the environmental spells, and I lobbed it at the barn. The building quickly caught fire, and I chuckled as I watched it begin to burn up. A moment later I received the notification that I had completed the quest.

It was at that moment that I targeted the barn and immediately rewound time to when the thing wasn't on fire. That was when I began to grin, thankful for unexpected synergies, even as I began to read the notification altering me to the powers I had just gained.