What is magic?

I had read countless treatises and texts on the subject, covering theories and philosophical musings, academic hypotheses, and observations on the variance between one mage to another. Some called magic the soul made manifest. Others claimed it was the world's will as reflected through a living person, who acted as the conduit.

All of those had always felt needlessly complicated and self-aggrandizing. Magic wasn't, ironically enough, some mystical thing. It was mana meets intent, with understandable rules and foreseeable outcomes. So long as you understood what you wanted to do and had the will to do it, your mana would follow.

That belief had driven my creation of the third, and final, ring of my magical circle.

It was the innermost of the three, and in some ways the least complicated, with only a single, swirling rune repeated several dozen times. I hadn't taken this marking from pre-existing enchantments or circles. It wasn't something learned from another mage or adapted from known magical traditions.

Instead, it was a combination of two other runes, and represented one thing and one thing only.

Me.

I had selected the two runes not for their translation but their pronunciation. One was "Vah" and the other "Ayn," which, when combined, approximated my name. It sounded embarrassing in a way that was difficult to verbalize, but it was the best I could do on short notice. They would be the mark that bound my intent to heal, purify, and refine. It was also the cornerstone of my plan.

Mana poured through my channels, and I felt it spill out into the air. The pressure within me rose, turning from discomfort to pain in seconds, and the sides stretched and strained under the flood of Aether. I focused inward, believing that I had undergone enough agony in the past to push past such petty distractions.

All such notions vanished as my conscious mind receded. I bit back a scream, my eyes screwed shut as the pressure continued to mount. That my channels and core hadn't split open yet was a testament to how much I had done to strengthen them. Yet that didn't change the reality of my impending death. That was my fate if I did nothing.

The threat hung over me like an upraised blade, and a measure of focus returned. I pushed my awareness into my body, diving into my core and finding the energy within swirling like a raging storm. Already, it had formed a dense, spherical cloud but with orbiting wisps of fainter emerald mana. I hadn't yet advanced, but it was a close thing.

That was all I managed before another wave of pain hit me. I lost control, and once more the world vanished in a haze. It took longer to lessen, but when it did, I had the clarity to realize what was going wrong.

My plan was simple, built upon combining and refining lessons learned after years of study. First, I would break open the sealed mana within my core. A portion of this would flood out, overflowing as it filled my core and spilling down my channels. This would damage them, likely to the point of injury, but this same process presented an opportunity that might be impossible to recreate for years. It was my chance to inure myself to far denser mana at volumes I might never wield.

The magical circle was my answer. It would capture and condense any expelled mana, funneling it back into the innermost ring. Then, the runes there would direct the lost Aether into my body. It would sink into and infuse itself within my channels, repairing and refining them as one might transform crude iron into steel.

This was my theory, a refinement upon the processes I had undergone in Aresford, seen within Fortunatus, and learned in the Everforge. If I was right, it should work.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

In theory.

Yet as I felt the measure of the damage riddling my body, I realized I had underestimated the sheer power tearing through me. My healing magic was working, but not quickly enough to keep up. It was slowing the damage, keeping me alive, but soon enough, the injuries would pass over that hazy threshold and become fatal.

The answer came unbidden, and I reached into my body, grabbing at the energy flowing through me. That power refused my call, bucking at my mental grip like an unruly animal. Agony tore through me as my channels stretched and strained to contain the Aether, and I knew a catastrophic injury was imminent.

As my thoughts swam, I felt the briefest temptation to succumb, to allow myself to slip away. All of those problems and concerns and worries would vanish, forgotten in the oblivion of death.

I let out a strangled cry as I threw my will back into the depths of my Aether. I refused to die, not here, not now, and ideally not ever. There was too much to see and do, too many lessons unlearned and too many mysteries unsolved.

My Aether shifted, just the barest flickers succumbing to my will. I drew it then, pulling those wisps out of my channels, through the air, and into the innermost ring. Instantly, the agony tearing through me abated, just a hair, but enough for a measure of clarity to return, and with that came enough focus to draw more mana from within me.

Over and over again, I funnelled mana from my body and into the magical circle. The pain continued to recede, and I felt the injuries within me begin to knit shut. Those microtears and strains in my channels and core sealed themselves shut, even as they continued to stretch and expand.

It was a challenge that I doubted most mages could ever manage, not from a lack of skill but a want of experience. I had done something similar in Aresford, and that guided my hand as I became a living conduit, guiding the mana through me and into the circle even as it poured back into my body.

I had reached an equilibrium, healing as fast as my Aether injured me, and knew the worst of the danger had passed. It was then that I considered the two paths set before me.

If I carried on, I would survive without question. My channels and core would be reborn yet again, expanded even further, and possessing enough resilience to weather anything. That, coupled with condensing my mana, should be more than enough to slay the drake...but was that enough?

The second path courted death. If I made any mistakes, it could prove fatal. But if my theories proved true and if I succeeded, the results might finally set me on the road to surpassing my counterpart.

I weighed the two, putting the value of my life against the possibility of reaching heights never touched upon by any mage in history, and found that it was no question at all.

With only a brief flex of my will, I pulled away a portion of the mana flowing through my channels and diverted it into my Arcane Body spell.

Pain became agony as mana tore through my flesh. I felt muscles tear, bones creak, and blood roil in my veins. Lacerations ripped open across my skin, and my head swam as I nearly lost consciousness, as my focus broke.

It took precious seconds to regain that balance once more, but as I did so, I felt the wounds across my body begin to repair themselves. I pushed a little more power into the circle, then reached into myself and tried again.

All thoughts faded into a cycle of agony interspersed with moments of respite. I would tear apart my body with my own magic, then allow the mana surrounding me to repair the wounds and rebuild me. As I did so, I pushed the same intent into the circle and into my own body.

I didn't want to become a monster like that thing in Aresford, but neither did I want to remain a regular human. All mages sought to reach the heights of magic, but I desired more than that. I needed a peerless body to match such arcane prowess, after all.

Slowly, I felt the changes settle into my flesh. My magic damaged me a little less, I healed a little faster, and I could tolerate a hair more mana. Once more, I could have stopped and considered what I had already done well enough. Instead, I pushed more power into the spell and began the process anew.

I couldn't say how long that went on for, lost as I was in the cyclical process. It could have been minutes or hours for all that I knew, as all other thoughts faded from my mind.

What did penetrate the haze of pain that had fallen over my thoughts was the deep, body-wide thrum as my mana finished condensing. I felt it pulse along my channel, an echo rippling from my core that signaled a greater depth of power and significance.

I allowed myself a smile, releasing the magic empowering my body and pushing any mana left within me into the circle. It was then that I noticed the Aether surrounding me had already begun dissipating.

The rings must have broken down enough that they stopped working at full strength. They retained enough integrity to trap some of my Aether, but I could sense that they would soon break entirely.

I let out a final breath and opened my eyes, smiling to myself as I did so. My body felt wrung out, my mind was exhausted, and my focus was well beyond what I had previously considered my limits, but I had survived.

No, it was more than that. I held my hands up, finding that my skin looked utterly unchanged. I turned my focus inward, using my training as a healer to search for any tumors or lingering damage, seeking signs that my body had been warped or ruined.

As I searched, the smile spread further and further across my face. There wasn't so much as a hint that I had done permanent damage. More interestingly, the mana within my core felt different from what I had expected. Denser and more significant, with a depth I hadn't anticipated. It felt gaseous still, but...

I was about to take a closer look at my channels and core when I felt mana shift not far from me. That sensation came with the sounding of a throat clearing, a deliberately casual sound.

"Well, wasn't that an interesting bit of magic?" Flynn remarked lightly.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.