Restart Again: Volume 1 by Adam Scott (pocket ebook reader TXT) 📕

to me, I held out my hands above me to observe them. My right was an angry, blistered red from the fire, and my left was a smudgy, sticky red from the large cut on my thumb. “Maybe...I can do something about this.”

I gently picked at the freshly clotted wound on my thumb, opening it once more with a grunt of pain. Blood dripped down onto my face, drawing a sputter and an exasperated sigh as I sat up to prevent a further mess. Onto the upturned palm of my right hand, I carefully drew the rune for healing. I took a moment to calm myself, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths as I settled my legs into a comfortable cross-legged meditation stance. Once I felt centered, I opened my eyes and concentrated on the healing rune.

Mana flowed down my arm, surging into my upturned hand. It began to circulate around my palm, a result of my focusing, but to my dismay, there was no reaction from the rune. I scrunched up my brow and closed my eyes, redoubling my efforts. I could feel the mana pooling in my hand but, try as I might, I couldn’t force it up through my palm to the rune. The absence of my sword was overly apparent in this moment; I had never channeled mana outside of my body without an implement before, and it was clear that it would take more practice than a single attempt to master it.

“Just...go already!” I yelled in frustration. Energy cascaded down my arm, and the overabundance of mana in the extremity started to feel uncomfortable. Pressure was building all throughout my arm and the usual tingling sensation of channeling mana had changed to a burning that was growing at an alarming rate. “Gah!” I let my focus go, and the energy rocketed back through my body, overflowing into my other limbs until it slowly pooled back into my core. I flopped back down onto the mattress feeling winded and let down. After the instant success of the first test, I thought I’d be able to figure out anything.

I sighed deeply. “Well...that sucks.” Laying in silence for a moment I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. I was tired, bloody and burned from what I realized was less than a minute of testing and experimentation, and even though I had accessed a new form of magic on my first try, I was disappointed in myself. “I guess I have plenty of time to work on this. No reason to expect it all on the first try.”

Absentmindedly, I ran my hand around the pommel of my sword, tracing the golden band embedded at the bottom. “I never really thought about it before, but I am using an implement to cast my magic like most classical wizards. I never thought it was useful in Alderea to use Combat Enhancements when I wasn’t holding a blade, and in Hedaat…” I trailed off, staring off through the wall of my cell at an unseen memory. “I had other things on my mind back then. Casting magic without it might be harder than I had anticipated.” A new thought crossed my mind, and I sat up with a small grin. “There is one more thing I can test today.”

When I had first made the rune enhancements to my sword in Alderea, I had never gone back to openly chanting my combat enhancements; it seemed like such a step backwards to waste time speaking the words. Now, though, I realized it had clouded my judgement in regard to my advancement in mana manipulation. My left thumb, now a terrible mess of swollen skin and blood, was a testament to that. I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and took my sword in a two-handed grip. I was tempted to start my testing right away, but I stopped when I remembered the continuously spreading fire from earlier.

“Which words do I need to use when casting magic? Does magic care about grammar? How specific do I need to be?” I pondered the questions for a while. The realization was finally setting in now that, without having seen how magic worked in this world, I was at an extreme disadvantage in figuring it out by myself. “Without a guide, I guess I should just...start somewhere.” I took a moment to prepare my incantation and adopted a ready stance.

“Lesser Sustained Self-Healing!” I felt the drain of mana, and a moment later, a sudden wave of relief over my entire body. Both my blade and my skin seemed to sparkle with a green, otherworldly light as the spell continued to work. Removing my left hand from the sword’s grip, I saw the large slice on my thumb slowly begin to weave back together, skin joining separated skin in an uncomfortable display. After a few seconds of holding the spell, I felt satisfied with the test’s results and stopped channeling the energy before the cut was fully healed.

“Onto test number two.” I cleared my throat and regripped my sword with two hands. “Lesser Self-Healing!” As expected, the dim green shimmer returned, but only with a single pulse. The mana drain was more pronounced with this spell, yet it faded immediately after activation. “Alright! Sustained spells exist.” The discovery was exciting, and I took a moment to feel proud of the accomplishment. “Now, just one more test, then I’ll break for brainstorming and sleep.”

“Lesser Sustained Self-Healing, Wounds!” A new sensation coursed through my body upon the spell’s activation. Cold, tingling energy sped across my extremities, seeming to stop and linger only on my damaged hands. After a moment, the feeling was replaced with the relief I had felt before, and the green shimmer appeared again, focused around my wounds. This time, I let the spell linger until the puffy red burns on my right hand had completely healed, about ten seconds of channeling in total.

I breathed a sigh of relief and ended the channeling. Cautiously, I