Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (hardest books to read txt) 📕

new feeling my mental faculties began to return, and I realized that every muscle in my body was tensed and screaming in exertion. I let them relax and gave Lia’s hands a gentle squeeze. Immediately, I felt the gesture from her perspective and had to pause a moment to resist the urge to shudder. “Are you still with me, Lia?” I managed to pant.

There was a long pause before I felt the words leave her mouth. “I’m...okay.” Her words were heavy with strain. “This is...really...difficult...to keep up. I’m going to use...a little spell, and then...we can stop?”

“Only if you feel up to it,” I replied, concerned. “We can stop right now if you need to.”

Lia shook her head weakly in response. She began to breathe in deep, rhythmic breaths, and I felt a portion of her mana within me recede. It coursed back into her body and flashed as she whispered, “Lesser Agility.”

Everything crystallized for me in an instant. It’s so simple. I felt the muscles in Lia’s body relax all at once as she fell forwards into my arms, exhausted. Her mana withdrew all at once, and for a moment it felt as though my body was only half full. I’ve been so stuck in my ways thinking I had any idea of how the rules of magic worked. I would never have figured this out, no matter how many lifetimes I spent. I leaned back and gently guided Lia down to lay in my lap. I dropped one of her hands and scratched the top of her head; it felt surprisingly good even as it unnerved me to experience it from her perspective.

I watched her break my rules, plain and simple, and I still subconsciously believed she was following them. She wasn’t channeling mana into her skin and bones, and she wasn’t suffusing her mana channels into physical pathways. I laughed at the beautiful simplicity of the idea. It’s just her mana. Lia wanted to activate her mana, and her body figured out how. Without my false rules holding her back, she solved it so quickly.

I held my hand up in front of my face and turned it over in observation with a laugh. The soft pulse of mana within me was comforting and familiar, but there was a new depth to it that I could see for the first time. With a smile, I reached inward and replicated the feeling I had experienced within Lia. “Lesser Agility,” I whispered as I pulled on my mana. A green shimmer flicked to life across my body. Inside my hand, I saw the mana grow slightly dimmer as my body consumed it to power the spell.

“Huh?” Lia’s eyes lazily slid open. “Did I...fall asleep again?” She tried to sit up but abandoned the attempt in short order. “Oof.” A tired laugh escaped her lips as she laced her fingers into mine.

I ended the spell and pulled my mana back from Lia, and was once again filled with an overwhelming loneliness. The look that came to Lia’s face told me she felt the same, but the feeling quickly passed. “You passed out for a few seconds,” I said with a smile. “Sorry about that.”

“Did it work? Did you figure it out?” She looked up at me with sleep-filled eyes.

I nodded. “It worked.”

Lia let out a loud sigh of relief. “That’s good. I don’t think I want to do that again for a while.” We shared a laugh at the sentiment. “It wasn’t painful or anything, just...strange. And tiring.” She yawned, punctuating her point. “I think I need a real nap now.”

“Well, you’ve earned it.” I pushed a stray strand of black hair out of her face. “You did just discover the greatest advancement magic has ever seen. I think you deserve a rest.”

She pouted at me. “No teasing, please Lux. I’m too tired.”

“I’m serious.” I looked down into the deep amber pools of her eyes. “You’re really amazing, Lia.”

A smile spread wide across Lia’s face as small tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. She stared up at me for a few moments, then rolled onto her side and snuggled into my lap. “You are too, Lux,” She said softly.

For a brief moment, nothing else mattered apart from our small world together inside the wagon. I felt a warmth grow in my cheeks, and my heartbeat rose far above its normal rate. When I noticed the changes, a harsh mix of guilt and shame grew in my gut. No. No, I can’t do that. I can’t. I pushed away the feelings with a ragged breath and leaned my head back against the wall. Lia’s breath told me that she had already fallen asleep, and I intended to join her as soon as possible.

She deserves better.

***

3. THE GOLDEN THRONE

The next week of our journey back to Yoria was filled with nonstop magic training. I made it my goal to find every limitation and oddity of our new ability in an effort to rebuild my understanding of the fundamentals of magic. How long could I maintain a single enhancement? Did casting without an implement consume a different amount of mana than casting with an implement? Was there a difference in the difficulty of using multiple enhancements at once? A new world of questions had been opened to me, and I hunted the answers voraciously.

While I tested the limits of my abilities, Lia worked towards a greater mastery of what I considered the fundamentals of magic. With nothing to do every day but practice and think about practice, she advanced quickly. The most basic spells that I taught her on our adventure to Atsal came easily to her now, and she was able to successfully use the Combat Acceleration enhancement which had eluded her on the road. Although she couldn’t sustain it for very long before she grew tired, I was thrilled with her progress, and her mana reserves came back stronger every day.

Lia’s curiosity and hunger for improvement also grew