Finding fortune

After talking a while I gave the elves my recipe for the tea and they left with their sleeping friend and only after they had gone did I think to ask their names oh how rude I'd been bur hindsight I guess I will do better next time I suppose. The goblins continued their attacks on my place though they continued to fail or be driven off by my death whistles and I soon had an even larger assortment of shoddy weapons to work with melting them down and turning them into tools mostly and a few pots and pans as well. My little business of reforgeing goblin weapons into useful gear was honestly going well the goblins started bringing even cruder gear I swear at this point my home had a meter high wall encircling it and a moat of goblins blood by this point it was flat getting ridiculous why were they still attacking at this point it made no sense.

The elves dropped in twice more before fall truly started to set in bringing me a few things for trade the first of which was a set of clothes they gave me for the tea the second was a request for any extra metal that I could collect they would trade me long storing food so I dug out a crudely made bar of steel I'd been considering how to use and a bar of what I figured was tin but without any kind of testing device I really couldn't be certain. The elves traded me a large sack of potatoes and about 2kg of jerky for the metals and I contemplated trading them the remainder but decided against it I might need it after all and I wanted to try my hand at crafting a katana in the traditional way.

My hut stocked up on food and firewood I was as ready as I could be for the winter snows and that lasted up until my hut was buried under 4 meters of snow. I seriously was not prepared for the winter I'd had to put back on my improvised garments and excavate my house from the snow it was a proper job luckily the goblins had decided that winter was not the time to come out and I didn't have to deal with their insane attacks atleast. As the winter progressed I noticed little blue sprites around so I left out 3 different things the first was a baked potato with a fried onion the second a piece of jerky and a slice of freshly made bread I'd managed to work out and lastly a few pieces of dried fruits. The sprite creatures seemed to like the fruit the most with the jery last so I remembered their preference and made a mental note to make more dried fruit for next year.

Spring came and with it my little blue sprite friends left though I did notice that there were a couple frozen handprints on my door which made me chuckle a bit apparently they had marked my door and out of curiosity I touched them and then I realized my mistake too late. The sprites hadn't marked my door but had left me a gift knowledge and upon touching the handprints I learned fragments of the cold blue sprites magic. I didn't learn all that overly much only a collection of feelings impressions and a few times of them casting their spells not the actual spells themselves it would be handy in the future maybe if I got a book on magic it would help me. My newly learned knowledge of magic gained I could do exactly nothing with it but that's ok for now maybe I could pick up the knowledge elsewhere regardless I was doing pretty fantastically for myself and I even came up with a few new tea recipes granted none had anything quite as nice as my original recipe there was some kind of synergy there.

My first year in this new world had come and gone and I had gained quite a bit from it and now had a proper hut mine had proved it needed work but was serviceable if a tad chilly honestly. After a year I'd made myself a proper set of steel tools and a bastard sword and now I started working on my next project a proper katana but first I had to do some research. The elves returned with spring and so did the goblins granted they made zero progress but they were definitely trying and when the elves returned I traded with them for knowledge and books even history was useful. As i amassed information I learned a few things first that I was on the continent of Agrimor and second that I was on the borders of the elvish kingdom of Treboulion and I also traded for a book on magic and magic theory it was a proper thesis of a book easily 10cm thick and 15cm on a side.

Reading the books on magic proved to be a challenge honestly as I had to relearn how to read elvish script but once I'd remembered the letters learning to read it proved easy compared to trying to learn a new language entirely. What I learned from the books gave me an idea of how magic works in this world but also some disappointment as apparently humans are born manaless with no spellcasting source and while some have developed sources they are incredibly secretive about the process and as such only one fact is known for certain a mana source requires something powerful enough to start the process in humans. I attempted to determine if I had a source but quickly discovered that I did not and without knowing what I could do to begin to form one I was not likely to ever form a source or use magic but it did exist as a possibility so I was slightly excited.

After the disappointment of finding out that I couldn't cast magic I decided to try some experiments to see what I could do first I'd try meditation in a place that seemed magical then go from there it couldn't hurt to try atleast. My first stop on attempting to gain a magic core was a small meadow not far from my home that was utterly idyllic and on a whim I tried 3 different meditation poses one with a limb in every element I could manage one a standard meditation and one focusing on each element around me but nothing stirred inside me so I decided that I'd try once more in the night on a full moon nut I didn't hold out too much hope honestly. The full moon arrived two nights later and I meditated for the entire night under its radiance and I felt the barest flicker of something so I latched onto it and tried to feel it understand it and grow that feeling.

I had achieved the first small step of getting a mana source unfortunately my capacity was abysmal and I suspected that once I'd used up my mana it would only refill when the next full moon arrived so that wasn't great but it was a start atleast. In one night under the full moon I had gained a small source of magic and grown my capacity for it though if I had to guess I had so little capacity that I might possibly be able to cast a single spell so instead of casting a spell I used my little collection of mana to attempt to grow my storage. I had no idea if I had made any progress it was hard to tell if I had achieved anything at all but I figured any improvement would be welcome and then I drank my relaxing tea and realized why the elves were so excited about it the tea had expanded my capacity nearly doubled what it had been unfortunately I didn't have any more mana than before but my mana capacity increase was very welcome.

I decided to sleep in the clearing and drink a tea or two while I was at it and well the first tea increased my capacity by about the same amount as the last one and I quickly filled my capacity the second cup put me out. I awoke feeling fantastic as was normal with the tea and now my mana capacity had doubled overnight my original capacity was now what I'd call 4 units of mana instead of 1 with each dose of tea raising my capacity by 1 granted this would only work if I then filled my capacity every night which I doubted I could especially on a new moon. After a month I'd managed to raise my capacity for mana by 32 units for a total of 36 units all total and I still didn't know a single spell though I had heard mention of mana channels and I figured I'd have to make my own which could be unpleasant but if I ever wanted to cast a spell I'd most likely need them.

Creating mana channels I decided would have to be on a night when we had a full moon to replenish my resources from and then the night arrived and I began. The pain was intense and by the time I'd finished the first I'd increased my capacity by 3 units and also had a mana channel to my right palm I was now sitting at 40 units of mana total and utterly spent but I could possibly cast a spell now. The night after I'd forged my first mana channel I tried creating a shower of sparks from my hand and I was rewarded with a single fat spark that arced from my palm lazily into the night the cold pale color of moon light. As I marveled at my ability to use magic I realized that I'd used half of my capacity to create the singular spark so I decided that I'd keep growing my capacity until I could truly be called a spell caster. [From this point on the Mc will daily increase his capacity and on average will gain approximately 20 units of mana capacity per month or 240 units per year]

After casting a simple spark from my hand I'd realized that it had taken what I thought of as 20 units of mana and it only had a use as a very dim light or to possibly start fires not great prospects for throwing out bolts of lightning or hurling fireballs and it seemed that the moon seeped into the spell giving it lunar properties. I had to think about what properties lunar magic might posses maybe I was trying to cast a spell unsuited to my source so I sat in contemplation for several days and then I tried envisioning just a pale glowing orb of light and pushed some mana out and I was rewarded with a glowing orb that created a area of light about a foot in diameter and only cost 2 units of mana and figuring I was on the correct path so after contemplating and coming to a understanding of sorts with moon magic I decided to attempt to aquire a second source.

What I understood of sources is that they couldn't mix or the opposing magics would nullify each other and the person who mixed them would have to start anew from the beginning with that in mind I decided to attempt to place my next source location far enough from my lunar source that they would not interfere with each others growth for quite some time. After I made my decision I tried to gain a source from fire and while I gained a remarkable number of burns in the end I also gained a source of fire granted I only had a single mana unit to start with and so I focused on expanding my fire source every night while I also expanded my lunar source luckily it didn't interfere with either and I was able to grow both every night I had fire and my understanding of fire was far closer to complete compared to my understanding of lunar magic and so I came up with several ideas for spells quickly for fire but then I realized that I would need to make new mana channels for my fire spells and so I had to get creative with how I designed my mana channels and then I had to actually remove some of my lunar channels and if I thought creating them was hard removing them was worse yet.

As I recreated my mana channels I decided that I'd add a single other channel for mana in the event I found another source but I'd definitely leave some space for it. My new mana channels carved through my flesh and ready I decided that I'd try to see if I could aquire an earth source next and last though I'd have to work at it some. My experience with my other sources gave me a leg up trying to aquire my final source well it didn't work out the way I'd expected however but I aquire two at the same time the first a lightning source was myself and the final source was earth I'd found the perfect spot for it where mud stone and sand met I tried to connect and eventually I acquired the power of stone.

I called it quits as I had more than I'd have ever thought source wise all total I'd acquired Lunar, Fire, Earth, and Lighting each with their own unique traits and requirements as for earth I just had to touch it and I'd slowly gain mana fire would slowly regenerate from body heat but would regenerate faster from a external source then there was lightning and it simply regenerated from me being alive and I'm certain that if I was struck by lightning it would regenerate but I'm not testing that theory. I attempted to grow all of my sources of power to the same level but each required a different thing granted all grew at the same time I drank my nightly tea which was great for the most part I could only imagine how I'd have to sleep if I added yet another as it was I needed to sleep naked in the dirt to get everything to grow every night.