Chương 60: Chapter 29 - Developing Magic

"Well?" Val demanded.

"Did it work? I mean, it must have, right? Your head didn't go boom."

"It worked," Enzo said slowly. Then he asked what was on his mind.

"Hey, do you see any adaptations listed for any of your skills?" He'd checked his own just before entering the clearing. None of them had shown any adaptations available. All three of them took on the glazed look of someone who'd turned their attention inward, reading the Guide screens, checking their own skills. Val's eyes shot open.

"I see the one you just made. It's pretty cool it has your name on it. Everyone's going to know who you are." Sumi nodded.

"I see it too. But I don't see any others on any of my skills."

"Me either," Kenzo added.

"Why?" Enzo sighed.

"The Guide notification said I was the third to create an adaptation. And the third to add it to the lists." Kenzo nodded.

"And between us, we've hit the wall on everything except Attunement, Cultivation, and Enchantment, right?"

"Right."

"They're all harder to level up, though," Sumi said.

"We've been working pretty hard, too." Enzo frowned.

"Maybe they're adaptations for Infusion then. The cultivator's crafting skill. The Guide made it sound simple enough. Just pour mana into a material." He glanced at Val.

"Kind of like what you do to make fire appear around your hands."

"I don't use a weapon, though." Kenzo glanced around, grabbed a stick off the ground, and tossed it to her.

"Try that." She caught it.

"Seriously? It's a stick." Kenzo shrugged.

"You should try it," Sumi said.

"We need to learn as much as we can." Val sighed.

"Fine, I'll do it." She held the stick out in front of her and glared at it. For several heartbeats, nothing happened. Then fire rippled from her hands, and began licking slowly up the length of the stick. It caught fire. Real fire. Val gasped, dropping the stick. Then she started stomping it out. Kenzo laughed, but walked over to help. When the fire was out, Val's gaze lost its focus for half a minute. Then she blinked.

"I got a skill called Empowerment and a new Guide entry about secondary crafting disciplines." She grinned.

"Holy shit. I need a sword! No, wait! A massive hammer." Enzo sighed at his sister's antics.

"We'll need you to write the information down later. Didn't even know that was a skill. I was expecting Infusion." Val nodded. He glanced around the clearing. Now was as good a time as any to test Pulse. Again. The thought made him hesitate, but he pushed past it.

"Stand still. Going to cast Pulse." He cleared his throat.

"Totally for the first time." Lots of work had gone into the Mana Information Translation and Display adaptation. The Guide accepted it. That meant it would work. He hoped. The problem was that magic wasn't pure science. Spell forms had rules, but intent mattered too. Concepts mattered. The science gave him a framework, not control. Enzo took a breath. Then released it.

"Pulse." A burst of mana exploded outward from him, forming a purple sphere that moved faster than he could blink. It reached the maximum distance, then vanished, as if nothing had happened. A heartbeat passed. Then simple information boxes began popping into existence, laid over what his eyes saw, just like the Guide's notifications. They appeared on tree trunks. Over his friends' heads. Even above a small lizard he hadn't noticed. —'Coast Redwood —???'

'Valentina Locke — Cultivator — Tier 1 // Arcane,???'

'Sumi??? — Wizard — Tier 1 // Arcane,???'

'Yamamoto Kenzo — Cultivator — Tier 1 // Arcane,???'

'Western Fence Lizard — Beast —??? //???' — Enzo frowned. The results were simple. It didn't take a genius to realize it was only returning information he already knew, which exposed gaps in his knowledge. He didn't know Sumi's last name. Couldn't recall if Val had introduced her using it. Maybe she had, and he'd forgotten it. The rest was information he already knew. Classes and tiers. That they used arcane mana. But some of the question marks made less sense. He knew Val wielded fire, earth, and body.

That Sumi had successfully used multiple natural elements, alongside life and body, at minimum. He'd also seen Kenzo using earth. Unless the spell couldn't decipher the other mana types because it only used arcane to power it. Stolen novel; please report. Enzo glanced up at the lizard, only to find it staring back down at him. When their gazes met, it flicked its tail and zipped around to the other side of the trunk. The information box vanished as the lizard disappeared from view. He'd seen enough, though.

The eyes had held a deeper awareness than a normal lizard's should. And either it had been watching him, or the spell had disturbed it. Or both. Val crossed her arms.

"So? I felt a weird tingle. What did it do?" Enzo grinned.

"Revealed all your secrets to me. Such as you having a secret stash of magazines hidden amongst your shoeboxes." She gasped.

"How? That's such bullshit." Sumi shook her head.

"He's messing with you, Val. I saw the design. It can't possibly reveal secrets like that."

"What? Then how did he—" She turned back to Enzo and glared.

"You went into my closet!" Enzo shrugged.

"Like eight years ago. Way beyond the statute of limitations for brother-sister bullshit." Kenzo laughed.

"Should I ask—" Val turned on Kenzo.

"Do you want to die?" The big guy held up both hands in mock surrender.

"Sumi, you'll need to test it yourself," Enzo said.

"Incorporate another mana type, and see if it reveals more information than mine did." Sumi nodded. Kenzo stretched.

"We done here? Let's grab some lunch. I'm starving." He was already moving toward the house.

"Go ahead," Enzo said.

"Just going to codify another spell, then I'll join you." Val and Sumi followed. Once they were gone, Enzo closed his eyes and focused. A few minutes and one successful spell form later, he pulled up a new notification. — Spell Codified: Analyze (Level 1) Type: Arcane Description: Channels mana into an object or creature through direct contact, returning detailed information about composition, mana density, active enchantments, and magical properties.

Depth of analysis scales with contact duration, mana types used, and the caster's knowledge. — Enzo compared it to Pulse. They worked very differently, though he hoped they would return information the same way. — Spell Codified: Pulse (Level 1) Type: Arcane Description: Emits a radial burst of mana that returns ambient information about objects, creatures, and environmental features within range. Detail and accuracy scale with the caster's knowledge and mana types used.

— Seeing the two new spells gave him a satisfaction he hadn't felt in years. Magic had given that back to him. Something he hadn't realized was missing from his life, perhaps something he'd even unconsciously been avoiding by burying himself in his work. He also had three more skills sitting at the first wall, which meant three more adaptations yet to be created and shared with the world. The thought was pleasant.

Knowing that his first adaptation would be used all over the world by other mages, that they would know his name. There was an edge of competitiveness there, too. A familiar feeling. The same drive that had once pushed him up mountains just to stand at the top and prove he could get there. The injury had narrowed his world until only the work remained. Jewelry crafting. And while he did love it, there was no way it could ever be enough on its own. Not anymore.

Not in a reality where Eaters and Beasts existed, with who knew how many other mysteries waiting beyond them. With magic, he would accomplish things he could never have imagined. With magic, he had a new mountain to climb. And that started with completing three more skill adaptations as quickly as possible. Enzo pushed himself to his feet, retrieved his cane and spellbook, then paused. Curious, he held the journal out in front of him.

"Analyze." — Enchanted Journal Type: Arcane Enchantment: Gather mana (Failed). Description: A journal containing sketches of various spell forms, enchantments, and insights into magic. Contains a basic, degraded mana-gathering enchantment formed of ink, resulting in the journal having a slightly higher than average mana density. — Analyze was everything he hoped for, though it was probably going to be limited until he solved his mana typing issue. Still. It was a good start.

Enzo grinned and made his way back toward the house. Now that he thought about it, he was feeling a little hungry himself.

They ate lunch on the back porch, spread out across the steps and the old bench their father had built when Enzo was a kid. Their mother had left plates of rice and canned vegetables, alongside strips of dried venison that their father had been curing all week. Val brought up the bikers between bites.

"Frank told me two of them rode past yesterday afternoon. Took a long look at the barricades before heading back into town." Sumi looked between them.

"You think they're scouting?" Enzo set his fork down.

"Maybe. Or they noticed we stopped sending people into town for resources and wanted to see why. Either way, it's worth paying attention to." He glanced at Val.

"Ask Frank to put a couple more people on the night watch. And make sure they know to just observe and report. We're not looking for a fight." Val nodded. Kenzo swallowed and leaned back against the railing.

"On the topic of things to worry about. The hunters have been marking areas where something big has been hunting. Mostly deer. Your dad and I spotted its claw marks on the trees. Marking territory. We're advising everyone to steer clear for now." Beasts establishing hunting grounds implied territorial behavior. Around here, that meant anything from a coyote or a fox to a mountain lion. Or it might be a house cat grown stupidly large because of mana.

Because whatever mana did to animals, it definitely wasn't the same as what it was doing to people.

"Any trouble besides that?" Enzo asked.

"Just a few animal Eaters. And one guy twisted his ankle chasing a turkey down a ravine." Kenzo shrugged.

"Nothing serious." Val wiped her hands.

"What are we doing now that the perimeter is good, and people are handling food and water?"

"I'm going to complete my other adaptations," Enzo said.

"Then I want to level my newer spells and work on upgrades, before getting back to enchanting." Val raised an eyebrow.

"That's a lot of 'I' and not a lot of 'we.'""The more magic we have, the safer everyone else is. We need to keep advancing." He looked at Kenzo.

"What about you?" Kenzo chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds before answering.

"Keep heading out with the hunters. Best way to level Circulation and Absorption is by using them under pressure, and I've still got a gap to close. Besides, somebody should keep an eye out for whatever is carving up deer out there." Enzo turned to Sumi. She'd been quiet, picking at her rice.

"I'm close to finishing a water spray spell which should help solve the cleaning and showering issue." She hesitated.

"But I don't want to get stuck casting it for people. I was hoping we could use the spell form as part of an enchantment?" Enzo frowned.

"It's a good idea, but I can't work with water mana. You might have to take up enchanting yourself."

"What if you design and build the enchantment, and then I layer the mana?" Enzo nodded slowly.

"Might work. You'll have to show me the spell form, so I have something to work off for the design." Val stabbed her fork at him.

"Maybe your magic is broken. It's weird that you still can't convert anything." He shook his head.

"I've tried everything I can think of by this point." He paused.

"Light and earth are the only ones that feel like anything. Like they're right there, but I can't quite reach them." Sumi grabbed her notebook.

"Light? I hadn't thought of trying that one yet." She was quiet for a moment, tapping her pen against the page.

"You know, maybe you can make an enchantment that converts mana types. You already have one that gathers and stores, right? It's not much of a step." Enzo's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He lowered it.

"That doesn't make sense. If I can't convert mana on my own, surely I can't make an enchantment that does it for me?" He glanced between the others.

"It can't be that simple. Right?" Sumi tilted her head.

"You figured out how to give magic to people who don't have it." She shrugged.

"Converting mana can't be much harder than that." Enzo opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he looked down at his plate and said nothing. The conversation moved on. But the thought didn't.