Chapter 4

Riverwood, 4 AM, First Seed (March)

I woke up early, unable to sleep in the uncomfortable bed, tormented by night terrors of dragons and spiders forcing me to get up early.

I had taken refuge in Alvor's (Hadvar's uncle), house for the night, I was planning on strengthening myself a little more here in Riverwood before continuing on my journey.

I lay in bed, unfortunately I couldn't access the perk panel in any way yesterday, causing me to give up for now. I was hoping going to sleep would allow me to see the constellation menu, but alas.

What I could do was vaguely sense a direction for me to improve in, like knowing that if I invent a cellphone, it would be more useful than an electric hammer... But in terms of skills.

'For now, I should make a list of things I need to do.' I thought as I sat up in my bed hearing the occasional quiet creaking of beds and rustling when the other dreaming roommates turn in their sleep.

'First, I need to learn enchanting as it will be a stable income and also necessary for making better gear." I started listing out a few things.

1. Azura's Star

2. Telekinesis spell

3. College of Winterhold

4. Clairvoyance spell

5. Bleak Falls Barrow

There were many things I needed but was too weak to get for now, Clairvoyance may be possible as there is a free book in the bandit mine shaft near Riverwood, but that would require more killing and danger.

If it was avoidable, it better to stay out of combat, I had already barely made it out of Helgen. The life of a solitary mage seems safer, as long as the Nords don't have something to say about it.

I wanted Clairvoyance as it was an interesting spell, although rather useless in the game, simply guiding you towards your quest location, but in real life, it may be something entirely different when you think "how does it work?".

Does it simply work as a compass? Then it wouldn't have been called Clairvoyance. Then does it somehow peer into the future and tell you where you need to go? That would be very useful.

'The Riverwood trader, Lucan Valerius, has a Spell Tome of Clairvoyance, but I'd rather not spend my gold right now.' I thought as I took out a pouch of gold coins from my pocket dimension, each coin actually had different sizes that correspond to their value by weight of gold.

'I wouldn't be surprised if there were forgeries out there, should be careful.' I thought as I saw how crudely minted they were, I had sold all the items I had collected, including the Spell Tome: Sparks which luckily didn't disappear along the way for roughly 400 gold, leaving behind the mage robes, mage hood, and steel sword with some cloth shoes.

The reason I didn't take any armor is for the "perk" in the Alteration skill tree that boosted armor spells by 100% to 200% effectivity when wearing only cloth armor. Although I couldn't unlock it like in the game, I still got the "feeling" I could understand how to do it if I studied in this direction.

Either way, the mage robes granted plus 50% magika regeneration speed and the hood granted 30 extra magika. I was planning on observing the enchantments later on in hopes of getting a better understanding of how it works.

I gathered my thoughts and set a general course for the future, and turned to the Spell models in my memory. Surprisingly, I could recall them perfectly without fail which was something unusual for me, in fact, my memory seemed to have improved dramatically since my untimely... whatever it was.

Although I had remembered them well and could cast the spells without fail, I still didn't quite understand them besides the things needed to cast those specific spells. So, I started cross-referencing the spells I know and studying their concepts.

Thanks to the Mage stone, my understanding seemed to be unhindered and I quickly grasped the meaning behind the patterns and symbols.

Turns out Magic is, in a way, very much like math and physics, but with a new element thrown into the mix: Mana.

Mana exists within everything in Skyrim in varying concentrations, it's effects on the world are hard to predict, and thus mages have been studying it for centuries and have only scratched the tip of the iceberg.

Mana usually stays dormant, without interfering with anything, until a living creature interacts with it. Strangely, Mana is the only thing that reacts to the thoughts or "will" of a creature allowing for numerous effects.

Even plants can interact with Mana allowing for better tolerance of the harsh climates in skyrim along with the strange phenomenon called "Spriggans"

Even so, simply the thought of something isn't enough to cast magic, one must have a deep understanding of what they want to achieve, while also having gained adequate control of the elements.

As an example, wishing to make fire would not have any effect, but after having a deep understanding of physics and chemistry one can will the Mana in their body or surroundings to interfere with reality and cause friction and oxidation to generate heat that will start a fire, similarly one may "burn" the Mana as a fuel source.

Mana has two states, charged and dormant, the Mana found in the air and non living organisms is dormant, meaning it can not be used in it's this form to cast spells, only once absorbed into the body and "charged" would it be usable.

When absorbed, Mana is charged by your "willpower" or strength of your mind, the stronger your mental energy, the more Mana you can store and the faster you can regenerate it.

When you cast a spell the Mana discharges and becomes dormant again, releasing into the surroundings to be recycled again.

Over use of mental energy may lead to mental fatigue and slowed thought processes. Fortunately, this trains your mental strength to become stronger.

Absorbing more Mana into the body has any benefits including improved health and immunity, longer lifespan, and improved muscle training speed.

Not everyone has a strong affinity to Mana, but even if they don't, through enough practice they can catch up with those that have talent as long as they put in more effort.

The College of Winterhold tests talent based on how quickly one can comprehend knowledge rather than their affinity with Mana as you can train your affinity, but you can't fix stupid.

'Something unnecessary was thrown into that spell book.' I had confirmed that I could instantly memorize and have a basic understanding of any book even if it isn't a spell book thanks to a book I borrowed from Alvor.

Unfortunately, even after tinkering with the spells for a while, I couldn't change much about them other than the intensity or duration in exchange for spending more Mana, which also resulted in less mana efficiency. The Spell Tomes was years of improvements of countless mages, it was hard to achieve the same level of perfection of a spell, especially for a novice like me, no matter how great my compression was.

Getting a better understanding of spells, I moved on to my inventory ability. It was a strange as I didn't exactly understand how it worked, unlike the spells, but my guess it uses a fold in the fabric of space or something, no clue for now.

I should study some space magic if I want to figure out how it works, maybe I'll be able to find out how I ended up in this world.

What I didn't expect the most was that I am still in my body from my past life, as if I got teleported to this world rather than reincarnated, but that doesn't explain how I became the dragon born.