Master Of None

”Why is this room closed?” The confusion came from Gil as he had tried to catch back up to Walker. He knew that Walker was busy preparing for the expedition and wanted to review all the condensed information from other books found about the continent.

He even had managed to track down a book from an ancient elf ruin that explained stories of other continents and the giant monsters that could eat entire mountains there. Yet, now he found that two archivists were doing their work right outside the door of the room Walker worked in for the time being. They also were turning away everyone and sending them on side tasks for the day.

”We discovered that there is a meditation happening inside beyond our capabilities. We did not wish to interrupt and followed protocol established to make sure that everyone during an enlightenment or focused meditation is safe and undisturbed.”

These sorts of rules had been set up after Walker had done similar things in the past. However, others had random experiences that led to enlightenment of focus on breaking through in understanding for certain skills or affinities. So to ensure safety and success, people often allowed them the space to make that breakthrough.

”This is so much like him. I bet he was reading something about the potential magic methods and nature or something and started to work on a skill. I will head in and wait until he is done.” Gil gave them an approving nod.

This change to the rules had given many people space as they had fallen deeply in to their skills and training. Several warriors had become able to use certain skills that would often be seen as impossible, yet they had been in an enlightened state breaking through their walls to learn something they believed possible.

The same had happened for many mages who had seen something different from their perspective of a certain magic skill or their interpretation of a mana as a whole. It led them to understand new ways to use this skill or mana causing them to be in meditation or experimentation for hours.

Yet, Walker had gone for days before in states like this, meaning that Gil just had to hope he was catching on at the right time. But even if Walker did take a few days, he too could take the chance to meditate.

While he wouldn’t say it to anyone else, he had begun to understand that meditation wasn’t just for a mage. He could use it to check in on his own body. Be more informed about changes that occurred in his growth. To understand the mana flowing through him and the bonds he held. This was how he had refined his eyesight once again to be able to predict movements of targets he was aiming at better. He had not understood the ways he could track a target by focusing on the smaller movements they made while he could see them with his more refined vision skills.

As he settled down, Walker was beginning to draw in a lot more mana toward him and condense it.

While the multidimensional storage space needed a lot of mana to make a normal storage space, Walker had already made one for specific manas. He had the entire elemental array made. He just lacked the unique manas but that was fine since he knew very well that they were parts of the very foundation to make all of the storage space.

However, when he was pulling at life and death mana and using natural mana as the base of the new multi dimensional storage space he was creating, he was still hyper focused on the mana around him due to his sharper senses.

He had sensed the ambient mana that Gil absorbed and released just by being near him and had a fleeting thought that he was able to have someone near him despite not speaking. Sometimes that silent bond and just benign around those he called family was enough to increase his mood, but that was the same for everyone.

As he focused on the space mana being the foundation for the skill and how he was trying to pull natural mana instead of a specific mana, Walker felt the flicker of light blue that had been like a ghost in the side of his vision all this time. He knew very well what it was but didn’t try to latch on to it.

If he did so, he knew that the time mana would be gone from his senses before he could even begin to understand a thing about it. Yet, his sharper mana senses allowed for him to grasp a bit more than before.

The thoughts that struck him weren’t basic either. It was actually going against what he had believed time mana to be in the very basics of itself.

Instead of expecting time mana to accelerate or reverse time, Walker found that those sorts of abilities might be completely foolish. He gut told him that those desired effects were small and improbable. Reversing someone’s time or something’s time? It would be temporary at best since it broke the flow of what time mana should be.

It felt wrong to the point that the world or existence itself might counter him naturally because he tried to do it. Because that would be going against the flow of all things. It was similar to trying to force space mana to bend and break because that would cause damage to everything around it too which was also against the flow of nature and existence.

When he contemplated the enhancement or acceleration of time, Walker felt a dreadful downside in his very bones. Like the repercussions would leave scars that couldn’t be healed or undone. Like speeding up time around a plant would just lead to it wilting and dying just like a farmer that forced his crops to grow, stealing too many nutrients from the soil and leaving it barren.

Both reversing or speeding time just felt wrong beyond a doubt.

Time obviously moved. That thought rang out clear. It was just the flow of time mana moving along all the other manas.

Space gave other manas a foundation to grow on.

Time gave manas the means to flow.

They worked together to become the overall framework for life mana and death mana to encourage the cycle needed in the world to become balanced. The slight imbalances were a greater balance to all things. That was how natural mana formed and broke while chaotic manas tried to push in to the world as it was just the way of all things.

But time mana was a view of potential. It was a whisper of what could be.

”Time mana isn’t about manipulating time at all. It’s about seeing what could be and offering what you can to help that potential blossom…”

His whisper was more like a scream. Not in voice but through the mana he was currently allowing to flow toward him.

Gil felt the sudden shock. It caused his body to shiver as if he had just felt something peer through everything he was and ever could be. This wasn’t just like when they had encountered those powerful beings in the outer elemental planes.

This was as if he had just been glanced at by something he couldn’t even fathom. Yet he knew it meant no harm, it was just a glance. A curious eye. Something that noticed him then moved on to something else.

While other mages within Genesis and even outside of it felt their mana shiver, many warriors or common folk also felt the slight change. Nothing terrifying to the same degree that Gil felt, but they could sense something had changed and would always be different from this point on.

Something had taken a step forward and it couldn’t be undone.

As mana condensed and a tiny wisp of time mana was pulled in to the multidimensional storage space, Walker felt that he had figured out the very thing he needed the most. No he didn’t need it, he wanted it. He had theorized a space he could build where time moved and he could store something alone properly. Something that wasn’t in a dormant or dead state.

Right now, the smallest cabinet sized space he had just made blossomed with enough mana to fuel a single houseplant or herb placed there. It could grow slowly and be protected while gaining the same balanced manas as the world.

It wasn’t a massive space he could call a world but it was the foundation of something new. Proof that he could delve in to this form of magic or whatever the proper term would be for it. He even felt he could condense the mana even better if he were to use his senses and manipulate mana in the same ways as the elemental planes moved individually.

Yet it was out of his control right this second. His focus had slipped and his mana sense was blurry.

”Just relax. I can tell that you gave your little experiment too much and you’re exhausted. Wherever you did was amazing, but maybe try not to cause too much chaos, alright?” Gil’s voice anchored Walker while he glanced up and realized he had no mana left to keep trying to do anything. He’d run himself out of mana and mental energy. It wasn’t something that had happened for some time.

.…

….

….

Please say no to piracy! Don’t take part in crime! Don’t patronize thieves!

Drop those golden tickets!