23 Magic

The next day, Finn slept in late, it was the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in. Stretching his arms out and taking a deep breath, he felt ready to take on the world. But that would have to wait until after breakfast.

Putting on the guild's training clothes he had borrowed the night before, Finn went for breakfast. Luckily he arrived just before they stopped serving it. By now the porridge was cold, but Finn still found the texture enjoyable. When hot it was creamy, but now it had gained a jellylike stiffness.

After eating, Finn fetched his collection of magic sticks, the introduction to mage hand, his daggers and his pouches. Since he had already worked hard and earned enough to support him for the rest of the week, he would take it easy. Maybe explore the area, try learning some magic and test out the magic sticks, something he had forgotten to do yesterday.

To start out, Finn went on a walk around town. He wandered through a couple residential areas, the docks, and learned the location of the major businesses and services.

For lunch Finn went back to the guild where he had already prepaid for future meals. The armory was also open at this point, so after eating his fill, Finn went to pick out some armor.

Finn wasn't the strongest, so anything heavier than light armor would be more of a hindrance than help.

The guild had only a simple selection of light armor. Padded armor or cloth armor, which consists of layers of heavy fabric, leather armor, made of hard leather sewn together, and studded armor, which was basically leather armor with some metal studs added to it.

The cloth armor didn't provide enough protection, and Finn felt that the studded armor was a little heavy so he chose the leather armor. Leather armor was usually brown, but the guild had a few other options too, mostly different shades of grey. Finn chose a dark grey one, it was closest to the color of his other clothes and he thought dark colors would be good to use at night.

The dwarf at the armory helped him get one his size, but not before stating that a suit of quality chain mail was always the best for tunnel warfare.

Wearing his new armor Finn tested it out in the training room. The room was equipped with training dummies, climbing walls, weights, practice weapons, and a space to spar.

The weapons were all either made of wood, or just not suitable for an actual fight. Finn tried out a few axes and swords, but they didn't feel comfortable to use.

Moving on to the climbing wall he found it came rather naturally. He could climb freely up most of it and enjoyed it too. He needed to get used to wearing the armor so he after climbing he practiced attacking a dummy using a pair of wooden daggers. Imagining combat scenarios he tried out rolling, ducking, lunging and quick sidesteps.

After working up a good sweat, Finn showered and changed back into his black stage outfit. It had dried overnight and the fabric was softer and more comfortable than wearing leather.

Finn noticed his reflection in a mirror and paused. He couldn't be considered handsome, being a slave underground had left him malnourished and pale. Although his features weren't bad, they just wouldn't stand out in a crowd. Some people had big noses, others a large forehead or chin. Elves had pointed ears and dwarves had their beards. Finn just looked really 'human'.

Examining himself in the mirror Finn felt he had changed a little since his escape.

His black hair looked healthier and cleaner. His face, although still a little pale from being inside for years had finally gotten a healthy pink tint to it. Alternatively he might just be sunburned. He finally found what had changed the most, it was his expression. Now he could smile, and his blue eyes sparkled with newfound purpose and vitality.

Taking out all four of his magic sticks Finn proceeded to test them out on a practice dummy. The results were as expected, little more than stage tricks. Blue was a splash of water, Finn already knew that, the tip of the red one released a candle-like flame. The yellow shot out a few sparks, and the green one sent out a puff of rotten smelling gas.

Finn decided he might as well sell them along with the other junk he had picked up. The red one might be useful when camping, but this was a city. He didn't plan on starting a fire in the streets.

Finally it was time to read his new booklet. Finn was quite excited about this, and quickly found a comfy spot to sit and read through it.

The first page was a simplified introduction to magic and how a magician interacts and manipulates the elements around them. It explained the common methods for magic manipulation.

There was verbal methods, where a wizard would use their voice to chant a phrase or speak a commanding word to achieve the desired result. For artificers runes were most important, this was basically a spell in written format and could be engraved on magic stones or other surfaces which would then be able to manipulate magic on behalf of the user. Another important method was somatic, or movement based, using hand gestures or specific wand movements a wizard could direct the flow of magic or even draw a magic rune in the air. In the research and development of magic, some materials or ingredients were found to facilitate specific spells. For example, spells enhancing vision would be easier to cast when the wizard used an eye taken from a creature with great sight. This method requires a wizard to spend a large amount of time and money in the acquisition of suitable material components as casting the spell would consume the material. Therefore, this method is only suitable for the wealthiest wizards, or those attempting to cast spells above their capability.

Most spells used a combination of methods as that would make it easiet on the caster. For example, a wizard casting a fireball would need to gather the fire elements into the shape of a ball, then throw it at the target. The easiest method would be to chant the spell, causing the fire elements to gather at the tip of their wand or in the palm of their hand, then use a physical throwing motion or flick of the wand to send it flying in a direction.

Mage hand was one of the simpler spells, which with practice could potentially be used almost as freely as an extra limb. A short chant gather magical energy into a hand-shape then hand motions or wand flicking would control its movement.

The hard part was that it relied on imagination. The caster would need to imagine magical energy gathering at a specific location in the shape of a hand while they chanted, then imagine that the hand was actually their real hand. Most spells were actually similar, being highly dependent on the caster visualizing the effect.

Learning to sense magic was the first step to using magic. This was rather difficult for Finn. Every living creature had a small amount of magical energy inside them, this became known as mana. The amount was usually directly connected to its intelligence unless it had an inherited a magical bloodline, like unicorns or dragons.

Most wizards used their own mana to guide the magical energy present everywhere in nature to form a spell. This way a spellcaster could achieve an effect surpassing what their own magic would achieve.

Finn's problem was sensing the natural magical energy. This was in fact considered normal. Most people weren't suited to training in magic, it required a lot of talent. Sensing and connecting to the external energy was a required trait for those wishing to become wizards.

After an hour of meditation, Finn realized that he probably would never learn to interact with external magical energy. He had already expected this after his attribute assessment, but the result was still disappointing.

Thankfully, Finn felt quite comfortable sensing his own body's mana. Spells could technically be cast using only one's mana, but that was limited to the most basic spells that didn't need much energy in the first place. Only sorcerers, people who had a magical bloodline, could rely on their innate mana to match wizards in magical might.

Finn spent the rest of the afternoon practicing the chant and bringing his internal mana out of his body to form the spell mage hand. Most of the time it would just fizz out without anything happening, but sometimes he could feel his mana respond to the calling of the chant.

Eventually, Finn managed to form a roughly shaped blob that slightly resembled a hand. Exhausted mentally, Finn checked and found that his mana was mostly empty and stopped responding to his chants. He had reached his limit for a day.

Remembering that he had only paid for one more night at the inn, Finn asked the guild's bartender about living at the guild. He found out that as a trainee he could stay in a community dorm with his own private locked chest for 50 coppers a night.

Finn thought it was reasonable and decided to move tomorrow. The private room at he inn was expensive and he wouldn't be able to save up much living there. High paying tasks weren't that common amongst E-level requests, and as he found out, they would probably be quite dangerous.

Finn had dinner at the guild's bar before heading back to the inn. Today had been a completely different kind of challenge and Finn felt worn out from the mental exertion.