Chương 164: Chapter 154 - Amber's Boring Textbooks

A few days had passed since the coronation when Amber finally managed something she had been working toward every chance she got.

"Mom!" Amber yelled. The sound came out clearer than she expected. Her eyes widened.

"Mom!" She was so proud of herself. Ever since Chelsea's coronation, Amber had been experimenting with every sound she could make. Somewhere along the way, she had realized that some words were surprisingly easy for a baby mouth. They didn't require the tongue control that kept ruining almost everything else she tried to say. Mom was apparently one of them. She sat upright in the middle of the pillows surrounding her and waited. Heavy footsteps approached from outside the room.

Fiona entered a moment later and stopped just inside the doorway. Her eyes widened when she saw Amber sitting there.

"Amber!" Amber giggled at her mother's reaction. The movement threw off her balance, and she toppled sideways into the pillows. That didn't matter anymore. She planted both hands against the bedding, pushed herself upright, wobbled for a moment, and managed to return to a sitting position without help. Fiona crossed the room quickly and crouched beside the bed.

"You have really been working hard, and it looks like it's paying off. I'm so proud of you." Her massive, callused hand pressed gently against Amber's cheek. Amber smiled at the praise. She turned her face toward Fiona's palm and pressed her mouth against it while making the closest sound she could manage.

"Ma." It was supposed to be a kiss. Kisses were surprisingly difficult when your lips barely worked. Amber pulled back and moved on to the actual reason she had summoned her mother.

"Boo?" Fiona's expression changed into confusion. Amber tried again.

"Boo. Boo."

"Are you trying to say books?" Amber stared at her for a second before clapping her hands together as best she could. Yes. Finally.

"Dammit, you're cute. I still haven't decided if I'm going to let you read them, though." Amber's excitement turned to desperation.

"Pea?" Fiona furrowed her brow.

"I don't know what that means." Amber brought her hands together in the best imitation of clasped hands her baby fingers could manage.

"Pea?" She looked toward the desk.

"Pea… boo?" Fiona stared at her.

"You're asking please book?" Amber clapped again. She pointed toward herself.

"Am." Then, just to make her point, Amber intentionally let herself fall sideways. She landed against the pillows before pushing herself upright again with considerably less difficulty than she had managed even a few days earlier.

"Pea, Mama?" Fiona's expression softened. Amber knew she had her.

"Gods, it's already so hard to tell you no. Fine. I will let you pick out one." Fiona replied, holding up a single finger Amber nearly fell over again from excitement. Fiona stood and crossed toward the desk.

"I don't know what they're called, so I will let you read the title of each and you decide the one you want." Amber couldn't believe her ears. She was finally going to get to read one. The last three months? More?... had been torture. There had been almost nothing to do. Amber couldn't walk. She couldn't properly talk. She couldn't hold a meaningful conversation with anyone unless they already understood her blinking system, and even then, the amount of information she could communicate was painfully limited.

Her parents loved her, but they weren't exactly conversational people. Most days consisted of eating, sleeping, being carried around, staring at walls, and waiting for something interesting to happen. Books would change everything. Fiona pulled all nine from the desk and carried them to a nearby table. She arranged them with their covers facing outward before returning to Amber. With a quiet sigh, she scooped her daughter up and carried her across the room. Amber immediately began reading.

She could read every title. An Introduction to Elemental Magic. Her eyes moved to the next. Basic Magic Theory, Vol. I. Then another. A Guide to Beginner Summoning. Vital Magics and When to Use Them. The titles continued across the table, each promising something Amber had been desperate to understand since arriving in this world. Her attention kept returning to one. Basic Magic Theory. Most of the others sounded specific. Elemental magic would probably focus on particular spell types.

Summoning obviously dealt with bringing creatures or objects from somewhere else. Vital magic sounded useful, but still narrow. Basic Magic Theory sounded broader. More importantly, there were two volumes. If she was going to learn how magic actually worked, that seemed like the best place to begin. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Amber pointed firmly toward the first volume. Her decision was made.

She was finally going to learn something useful. Everything she had heard so far made magic sound almost absurdly simple. People spoke incantations and spells happened. Chelsea had even used magic in front of her before, and Amber had heard enough conversations to understand that spoken words played a major role. But if that was really all there was to it, why did people need entire books? There had to be more. Maybe the incantation shaped the spell. Maybe mana had to be manipulated in some particular way.

Maybe saying the words without understanding what the spell was did nothing? Amber wanted to know all of it.

"All right." Fiona gathered the remaining eight books and placed them into her bag.

"Going to put you back over in your bed with it." Amber stared at the book still sitting on the table. After months of being trapped inside a body that could barely do anything, she was finally about to get some answers. Amber was placed back in her bed, and Fiona arranged several pillows in front of her before propping the book against them. The cover remained open where Amber could easily see it. She read the title again. Basic Magic Theory, Vol. I. There was no author listed anywhere on the page.

She reached forward and carefully caught the edge of the first page. Turning it took more effort than she expected. There was some level of hand dexterity involved. Her fingers still weren't particularly useful, and she had to drag the paper rather than simply pinch it between them. Eventually, the page fell over. Chelsea had been right. It really was a textbook. Amber was voluntarily studying. Magic Theory, thus far, can be summed up into three basic principles… That was fine.

It might technically be studying, but this was something Amber actually wanted to learn. She didn't care how dry the writing became. After months of being unable to do much of anything, someone could hand her three hundred pages discussing the complexities of drying paint and she would happily read it. Fiona released a sigh from somewhere behind her. Amber heard her footsteps moving toward the door. Her mother really was having a problem with this. Amber couldn't blame her entirely.

Fiona had been very clear about what she imagined for her daughter. She wanted Amber to grow into some enormous warrior who carried a weapon nearly as large as she was. Unfortunately for Fiona, magic was interesting. Amber turned another page. It didn't take long before she found something that made her stop. Mana can best be described as a toxin. Most living creatures do not make or store mana in their bodies.

When we speak of mana capacities, or what is commonly referred to as a mana pool, it is referencing the amount of mana a body can absorb and filter into magic power. Amber reread the paragraph. Mana wasn't actually the thing being used to cast spells? The body absorbed mana from somewhere outside itself and filtered it into magic power. That magic power was what spells consumed. How did people absorb the mana to do this though? What process? If they don't have mana in their body naturally…

Amber leaned closer to the book. She had only been reading for a few minutes, and she was already learning things no one had been able to explain to her. Did most mages even know this? Chelsea had told her literacy wasn't particularly widespread. Something this fundamental seemed like information every mage should understand, but that didn't necessarily mean they had read it themselves. Maybe it was something passed from master to student.

Maybe people knew the practical version without understanding the actual process. She kept reading. The book explained that exceeding the body's ability to filter mana could cause severe exhaustion. Continuing beyond that point could result in unconsciousness, coma, or death. Attempting to cast something requiring a large amount of mana filtration when the body was already near its limit could overwhelm the system entirely. That was apparently why the author described mana as a toxin.

Amber hadn't expected to become this interested. It was still a textbook. The writing was dry, and whoever had written it clearly had no concern for making the subject entertaining, but Amber kept wanting to know what came next. Maybe that was all school had ever been missing. A topic she actually cared about. Back on Earth, some people genuinely enjoyed history. Amber had never understood them.

Someone could begin explaining what a pair of explorers did in 1804, and her attention would start looking for somewhere else to go. This was different. Several concepts in the early pages caught her attention enough that she reread them multiple times. One's mana capacity can be increased by living near and increasing the Intelligence attribute while in high mana density areas. This can be easily accomplished by living near running water, such as a high-movement river, or near an oceanic beach.

Additional well-known places of extremely high-density mana are inside the den of a greater dragon, in the Mage Village on the mountain of Taru, inside or very near the Crystal Cathedral while it is awake, or inside the domain of a god. The Mage Village is usually considered the easiest to access while being the weakest of these extreme examples. Amber stopped. She was living next to one of those extreme examples. Not just near it, either. She was constantly in and out of the cathedral. An awake Crystal Cathedral.

Amber stared at the paragraph again. That meant she was sitting in one of the highest-density mana environments known to the author. She needed to increase her Intelligence. As soon as possible. The problem was figuring out how. Maybe the book would eventually explain that part. Amber's attention drifted away from the page for a moment as she thought through what she already knew. She had practically memorized her status screen during the last several months. There hadn't exactly been much else to read.

Nowhere in the description for Intelligence did it mention increasing mana capacity. That bothered her. It should say that if that's what it does. She returned to the book. The next several sections were less exciting. A lot of what they covered was familiar from fantasy stories back on Earth. Mana existed throughout the environment. Certain locations contained more of it than others. Spells required different amounts of magical power depending on their complexity and strength.

There were still enough useful pieces of information scattered throughout that Amber continued reading carefully. Whenever something seemed important, she went back over the section several times. Eventually, another problem began annoying her. The writing was enormous. Amber turned another page and found that nearly a quarter of it was occupied by a drawing. At the rate she was moving, she was going to reach the end of the book far sooner than she wanted. Were all books in this world printed like this?

The illustrations weren't helping. Several were crude attempts to show what mana supposedly looked like as it moved through the air and entered the body. Another depicted branching lines spreading through a person before converging somewhere in the torso. Amber stared at it. The longer she looked at the drawings, the more skeptical she became. How did the author know any of this? The book repeatedly described Intelligence increasing mana capacity as established fact. But did it actually?

Amber knew enough about the world's system to recognize that there was a difference between something people believed and something the system itself confirmed. Also, she knew what mana looked like. It was nothing like what the book depicted. This world had seemed incredibly rigid when she first arrived. You gained levels. Levels granted attribute points. Attributes improved specific parts of a person. Skills had descriptions. Titles had effects. The system provided actual numbers.

Yet nowhere in the Intelligence description did it say anything about increasing mana capacity. Amber shifted against the pillows and continued thinking. Psyche made the problem even stranger. From what she had learned, one of Psyche's functions was increasing the effectiveness of Intelligence. That should make it extremely valuable to a mage. Yet people in this world apparently treated Psyche almost entirely as a defensive attribute.

Mage equipment rarely included it because everyone seemed focused on Intelligence and Wisdom. If Amber understood the mechanics correctly, that meant her own primary magical attributes shouldn't be only Intelligence and Wisdom. Psyche belonged there too. Possibly just as importantly. That was something she needed to discuss with Chelsea. Amber looked down at the book again. She wasn't simply absorbing what it told her. She was full on questioning it.

Her own Mana Manipulation ability made some of the explanations even more wrong. She also had Chain Reaction Casting. If mana had to enter a body and be converted into magic power before it could be used, then Mana Manipulation raised an obvious question. There had to be some way to interact with mana before the body finished processing it. Maybe even outside the body entirely. Amber lowered her eyes to the illustration showing mana supposedly flowing into a person. What actually performed the filtration?

Was it an organ? Was it something created by the system? Did every creature process mana through the same part of the body? And if mana became magic power through some physical or magical process, what exactly happened during that conversion? Amber stared at the page for several long seconds. She had been beyond stoked to find all of the answers. Instead, the first real book she'd been allowed to read had given her an entirely new block of questions....... Hey guys it's Riley again!

So I've sort of been obsessed with the book in the top Author's Note Ashes of the Exiled Moon. If you like cozy vibes and spicy girl flirting then you'll like it. Let's be honest, if you're reading my book you probably do. Check it out! (They don't know I'm recommending them so shhhh... This is a legitimate recommendation and not a shoutout trade.)