Babies First Magic (Rune Creation 2)
“Now, close your eyes and try to purify your intent from your mana. Let us see if you can create a basic fire rune, shall we?” said Sylvia, her eyes momentarily locked with Mary's.
Mary nods in acceptance. ‘The ability to create my own runes and, through them, my spells is just too important for my future. I need to succeed.’ Determination fills her at that thought. For the sake of Mary's future, she needs to be able to make her own magic.
Mary closes her eyes and once again pulls from Alexander's wealth of experience for introspection. Mary slowly breathes out through her mouth; calmly she begins the process of centring herself.
She breathes in through her nose, and idly she notes the comforting feeling of the soft yet muscular arms holding her. Mary breathes out again, and the arms holding her leave her attention entirely.
Once more, Mary breathes in, distantly registering the sound of Sylvia’s breathing. Mary breathes out, and with the speed granted by long experience, the last of the outside world's distractions fall away, banished into the background, too far away for her to notice any longer.
With the world now constrained to her body and mind, Mary brings forth the mental framework that she had constructed during her earlier spell, dragging it from memory to the forefront of her mind.
Unlike last time, she does not pay any attention to her physical body; she dismisses the temptation of figuring out what mana is doing to her biology. Instead, Mary focuses on her soul, at the overflowing well of magical power in her core.
Despite this only being the second time she has done so, Mary still finds grasping the magical power within her to be utterly trivial; in her mind's eye, she takes a fistful of mana from her soul, holding it in place.
‘Like Sylvia said, managing to take control of your mana is the easiest part of this task; anyone in the world can do it.’ Mary thinks to herself chidingly.
Mary frowns as she mentally inspects the mana that is now fully under her control. How should she purify her intent from the mana within her?
Distantly, Mary feels her already closed eyes narrow further as she tries to bring the entirety of her focus on the clump of mana.
‘What does true neutral mana look like?’ she wonders.
Mary feels her already present frown deepen further as she considers the task ahead of her.
‘My internal mana is Mary-aspected; that’s what she said. But what does that mean? Where would I find proof of a Mary aspect…?'
Mary pauses; distantly she feels her head tilt in consideration.
‘There is one thing in my soul that could be called the Mary aspect, isn’t there?’
Eager to prove her theory, Mary focuses intensely on the mana currently in her mental grasp.
Object:
Newborn Human Princess
Name:
Mary Midgard
Race:
Human
Title:
Princess of Midgard
Mana Density:
Extreme
Mana Quality:
Extreme
Mana Quantity:
Extreme
Mana Alignment:
Neutral
Mother
Crown Princess Elizabeth Midgard
Father
Prince Consort / Duke Cidolfus Midgard, born Augustus
Description:
Mary is a newborn princess of the Kingdom of Midgard.
Mary is the firstborn child of the Crown Princess Elizabeth Midgard and her husband Duke Cidolfus.
Mary smiles to herself as she gets the response that she had hoped for. Her intense observation of her mana had responded with her suppressed akashic record, not her true one.
‘Doesn’t this mean that the technique to suppress your Akashic Record is the same one that makes your mana more neutral? If the record is present in every mote of mana, then removing the record from the mote is the same as removing your personal flavour from the mana.’
Mary thinks to herself triumphantly; she can faintly hear her cry of victory and feel Sylvia tightening her hold on her body.
‘Then, all I need to do is remove my record from the mana that is under my control. This is the right path, and I am confident in it.'
Mary rushes to purge her record from her controlled mana and then once more focuses intensely on the mana in her grasp.
Object:
Mana
‘Sure enough, it looks like I was right.’ Mary allows herself to feel a smirk of victory that rapidly spreads across her face.
Mary feels herself breath out as she opens her eyes, her arm once more extending in front of her chest. With a thought, she pulls the newly neutral mana out of her soul, through the pathways of her body and into the space above her hand.
“Oh? Did you get it after all?” Mary hears Sylvia’s voice interject but ignores it for now.
With iron-clad control, Mary forces her mana to stay separate from the ambient mana around it. In both her mind's eye and her physical sight, she sees the faint outline of a barrier between the newly neutral mana and the lightly aspected ambient mana around it.
“Yes! That mana really is neutral; good job!” Again, Mary hears Sylvia’s commentary, and again she ignores it. “Now just will a fire rune into being.”
Mary glares with intent at the neutral mana that she has created and orders.
‘You will become [Basic][Least][Fire]!’
Mary watches in almost slow motion as the mana that is still under her iron-fisted control begins to twist and morph; the clump of mana immediately changes from an unidentifiable but opaque colour to a fiery red.
The newly red clump of mana twists further into a language that Mary simultaneously knows right down to her soul and yet consciously does not; she feels the rune through her control, caressing the now burning heat of a fire.
“That’s it!” Sylvia celebrates, and this time Mary briefly glances towards her, a look of victory in her eyes, before turning her attention back to the new rune she has created. Triumphantly she moves to view the record of the rune she has created.
Distantly, Mary hears Sylvia’s next instruction: “Now all you need to do is memorise it for later.”
Object:
Rune
Main:
Fire
Level:
Basic
Power:
Least
Creator:
Mary Midgard
Mary feels the triumph fade as she blinks in surprise at the unexpected addition to her fire rune and so looks at Sylvia questioningly, going so far as to attempt a verbal question, “Aaaah?”
“Hmm? Is something wrong?” Sylvia looks at Mary briefly and then at the rune in realisation; immediately, her smile returns in full force.
“Ah. You saw that the rune remembers you as its creator?" Sylvia asks Mary, prompting Mary to nod at her.
“Yes, there are… well, probably an uncountable number of runes just like this one out there. The major mage guilds no doubt have thousands of [Basic][Least][Fire] runes in their runic libraries.”
Mary raises both of her eyebrows in response to that statement. Surely thousands was an exaggeration; she could believe that many people had created their own fire runes, but what would be the point of the guilds recording so many basic fire runes?
Sylvia smirks at Marys questioning look but opts to continue explaining instead.
“As you saw earlier, removing the Creator from a rune is possible.”
Sylvia pre-empts Marys coming question.
“I don’t know how they remove the creator from a runes record, the mage guilds like to defend their secrets you see. But I do know that removing the creator from a rune makes it more… standard. Perhaps reliable is more appropriate?”
“The cheapest and most available runes are those with no registered creators, as they are less powerful.”
Sylvia smirk grows before starting to explain runic libraries further.
"There is a reason beyond prestige to collect so many rune variants, although I have no doubt that some people buy runes purely for prestige. The nature of the runes' creator also has a small but noticeable influence on the effects and even efficiency of the runes when they are used.”
“Because most high level spells use many runes, this increase in efficiency can be incredibly noticeable for the higher-ranking spells; in particular, runes created by heroes and archmages are highly coveted for this reason.”
"Why would a guild potentially have thousands of choices? Well, let's go through a theoretical exercise; imagine a mage whose focus throughout their life was entirely fire magic, to the point that even their personality is passionate and fiery. Fire runes created by such a person could exceed the fire runes made even by an archmage, especially if that archmage were, say, an ice mage.”
“But it is more than that; the fire mages' passionate and fiery nature would impact every rune they made, and so all the runes created by that mage, but especially the fire ones, would quite simply be the better choice for fire spells when compared to those made by almost anyone else.”
“Of course, exactly why this is the case is unknown. People have tried to research the nature of runes for centuries, but if anyone has unlocked the true secrets of magic and runes, then they haven’t been shared. Not publicly at least.” said Sylvia, her distrust in the guilds clear.
“Enough about that… you have created your very first rune; let's test it in your very first spell, shall we?” said Sylvia, her smile returning.
Mary nods in acceptance, secretly eager to see the effect of her first personal rune. Mary had cast a spell before, of course, and doesn’t expect this experience to be any different, but to her, the fact that it will be cast with her rune makes it feel somehow more special.
Mary turns her attention back to her fire rune and blinks as she realises that during Sylvia’s explanation she had forgotten about it.
Mary frowns as she feels that while her control is still ironclad, she can now feel another barrier around the fire rune, ensuring that it does not dissipate or go out of control. Mary looks towards Sylvia in surprise, and Sylvia returns a smug smirk.
“You got distracted.” She teased, “In the future, you should memorise a rune immediately and then disperse it.” Sylvia instructs, her tone serious.
With the rune already memorised, she orders it to disperse and watches the fiery mana drift away, Sylvia’s own grasp disappearing too.
Mary braces herself and focuses once more on her mental framework, calling forth some of her mana to her hand. Briefly, she wonders what she should do but ultimately decides on something simple.
She orders her mana to form a basic magic circle, and in its centre she forms her fire rune. Immediately, the spell ignites, and in its place appears a small flame. Mary looks at the flame in both awe and disappointment; this was her very first self-made spell… but why isn’t it a fireball?
Sylvia notices Mary's disappointment and interjects, “You were expecting a fireball, weren’t you?” She questioned her tone, amused.
“Something that could be thrown, perhaps?” Sylvia said teasingly before moving on to explaining properly.
“There are two options available to you if you wanted an actual ball of fire instead of a simple flame. The first is a [Ball] rune, which might sound funny but does exist; adding an extra rune to the spell circle would certainly make the spell more powerful. The second option is to add a maths formula to the spell circle, specifically something which essentially tells the flame to become a ball; this option is likely to be weaker, but it will be more mana efficient.”
Mary snuffs out her flame and with determination tries again; this time she digs into Alexander's education and finds the necessary mathematical notations to define a sphere.
Sylvia watches on as the spell forms, and in the spell circle, alongside the fire rune, she sees the recognisable numerical characters.
The spell ignites, and this time hovering just above Mary's hand is a small fireball.
“As expected of an Otherworlder, you're probably even more educated than I am, aren’t you, Princess?” Sylvia comments warily.
Mary glances at Sylvia and then dismisses the fireball with a yawn, her eyes suddenly heavier.
“Ah, time for bed then. You lasted much longer than a newborn ought to.” Sylvia responds to Mary's yawn with an amused smile.
“Just remember. You cannot give away your nature as a hero.” said Sylvia, her face and tone attempting to convey her seriousness.
Mary nods in response as her eyes close.