82 - Book 2: Chapter 19: Opposing Elements

82 - Book 2: Chapter 19: Opposing Elements

Derivan hummed in consideration.

There was an oddity of magic here.

He'd spoken with Vex on their suspicion that the magic performed by the system was artificial, after a fashion there was something in the way he'd cast that one Barrier spell without the assistance of the system. Vex had tried, on a few occasions, to copy what he'd done to guide the magic into the spell, instead of forcing it and had never quite succeeded; the closest he'd gotten was that their time together that first night, when Vex had painted an imitation of his Starry Night spell and they'd guided the mana into it together.

He had a suspicion, now, as to why his first attempt at the Barrier spell had failed. With the rules of in place, the mana had likely never encountered [Mana Manipulation] or any of its variants before. It had still followed what he'd asked it to do, but it had done so almost grudgingly; when there had turned out to be no substance behind his request, it had shattered almost indignantly.

Proper magic, then, needed a base. An anchor.

He'd seen that before, even, in Vex's version of Starry Night when the spell had something to anchor on, it had been far stronger than his system-assisted version of the spell.

So... Mana manipulation was a bridge. It helped, in a world where the mana didn't trust anything related to the system; maybe it was willing to help him as long as it wasn't forced the way the system did it, or maybe he was missing a particular connection in his own ability with magic, as explained by Anyati-the-shopkeeper.

Or it was the Magic stat. He felt his connection with that stat even more keenly than before, now, and he felt he was close to some kind of revelation on it; every time he turned it over in his mind, though, his thoughts simply went to Vex and the lizardkin's love for magic.

Regardless, in this place, where the mana presumably didn't know what the system was, it wasn't as useful. It wasn't that mana manipulation didn't work; the mana still did as he asked, dancing around his fingertips with a certain exhilaration he'd never seen before the moment he prodded it into doing so but if he gripped any more strongly with the skill, he suspected, he'd face the same backlash Vex had suffered when he tried to cast a spell.

Mana here was more powerful than the system was. And Derivan wasn't quite sure how that thought made him feel.

"You are a curiosity," he murmured, watching as the light-green display of magic played across his senses. The mana wriggled between his fingers, as if in response to his words, though he knew it couldn't possibly have heard him. "What makes you different from the mana in our world?"

It didn't answer him, of course. Very gently, Derivan fed his [Intermediate Mana Manipulation] skill with a thread of willpower, and guided the mana into forming the basic Barrier spell once again; he'd done it enough times now that it was instinct, even though the spell that formed was never large or fast enough that it would be useful in combat.

A perfect, polished barrier formed in front of him, tinted a faint green, and Derivan felt the mana reacting the same way it had before that same moment of realization, followed by the barrier beginning to flex and break in response. This time, he didn't fight it, and when the spell broke the mana spun free; it scattered in the air like it was confused, but Derivan was more concerned with the odd twinge he'd felt from within the moment the spell broke.

That odd feeling, as he understood it, was the influence of his Magic stat.

He remembered the first moment he'd gained that stat. It had happened in connection with Vex, when the lizardkin had begun feeding mana into him in order to test the growth of his Slime stat. He hadn't felt anything particularly special about it then, but as the stat grew he'd become more and more in tune with a nebulous something that he'd never quite been able to quantify.

And the rest of his team members, of course.

"You figured out a spell?" Vex was looking at him with wide eyes, and Derivan nodded.

"I believe I understand the Magic statistic a little better as well," he said. "It has increased to 21."

"Does anything feel... different?" Vex asked, curious, and Derivan shook his head.

"Only in my understanding," Derivan said. "I believe, more than anything else, it is a guide though I am uncertain where that guidance comes from. It feels very much like you, Vex."

"Does it?" Vex seemed to stiffen a little bit, a darker color flushing across his scales. "Um. I hope that's a good thing."

"I enjoy listening to you," Derivan said. Physical Empathy told him Vex was embarrassed, but what he had to be embarrassed about, Derivan really wasn't sure.

"You'll have to show me the spell later," Vex said. "I was gonna experiment a bit with glyphs, but I was a little tired last night. And I had other things on my mind."

"Gladly," Derivan said.

The four of them were hiding just outside where otter-Noram said the city kept its main store of mana slivers. Vex had tried to ask after a little more information on the slivers in fact, he'd tried to ask for clarification on a whole host of things, and had in fact prepared a list of questions but Noram had waved him off tiredly, and the poor otter seemed like he was on the verge of outright falling asleep. There was the question of what had kept him so busy, but the poor otter didn't seem awake enough to answer even that question properly.

Something about the Roads, he'd said. Something about odd screens showing up, and haywire magic. That had been enough for Sev and Misa to exchange worried glances, and for Derivan and Vex to start to ask questions but the otter was already gone, apparently getting himself ready to keep fighting off the crisis.

They'd discussed cancelling their stakeout plans to go pursue this new problem instead, but eventually they talked themselves down from it. They understood the system the most, certainly, and could provide guidance but from what it sounded like, the system notifications that popped up were random and sporadic, never tied to any specific person. More importantly, no one here had access to mana crystals to bind themselves to the system with.

They'd need to get a copy of what one of those notifications looked like as soon as they were done with this. But since the disappearances of the slivers seemed like it was likely to be linked to the mana crystal raids in Fendal, this seemed like their best lead.

The warehouse was nothing like they expected. It was a plain building that didn't look any different from the others - security through obscurity, or something like that. Inside of it was a plain expanse of gray rock, and a few crates of slivers. Not a lot of them, either; if this was their main supply, then they either didn't have a lot to begin with, or they'd lost quite a number of the slivers over the course of the raids.

And for better or for worse, it wasn't long before Derivan noticed something off. Shift was indeed picking up on something happening that wasn't visible on the usual wavelengths of light or mana.

"Something's here," he said, and promptly pulled on that thread of reality, Shifting the intruders into visible space.