Awake

  What was it to be awake? It was the state in which the mental faculties were working at full capacity to produce a conciousness. The first parameter for the soul to interact with physical reality through a physical medium. To be awake was to be aware and to be aware was to be. It was a necessity for interacting with reality, one that's often ignored.

  I think, therefore I am type bullshit.

  Mend took a new meaning when combined with the Word, something that was focused on substituting the need for sleep with mana so that the body could stay awake without the lethargy.

  Two Words, I had accomplished as much in less than a year without the aid of the universities. I didn't have a barometer to tell how well I was doing, but that seemed like progress to be proud of. So in that one traitorous moment I let myself feel pride at the accomplishment.

  Combining the words into an effect made it much easier to get what I wanted, with just mend I had to put intention to determine what exactly I was mending. With awake I didn't need to direct anything, just focus the meaning into both words as I went about my life.

  The effect was much more potent if I drew the words using mana, connecting them together into something like a pseudo-spell (would cantrip be the right word?). That took time, but I wasn't exactly planning on using it in chaotic scenarios, so I channeled my mana through the constructs.

  It was good practice, eventually when I formed my own spells I'd need to be able to string together multiple Sentences without losing focus, until the spell was marked on my soul just the same as strengthen.

  The knowledge that I wasn't some kind of freak for having a spell scarred on my soul was hollow, but I took what I could get.

  I could see that spells would need constant maintenance though. If I was right, then you could come upon the same conclusion (relatively) with multiple different applications of Words.

  Paradoxically, the longer the spell was the more efficient it was.

  Alvir said something about there being less room for mana to fill in the definition your mind had conjured, but honestly it sounded like he was throwing shit at a wall and hoping to find something that stuck.

  Luckily, none of that mattered. I had picked up my fathers habit of giving no shits for the intricacies if the process worked. More Words equaled more Sentences equaled better efficiency.

  Easy and clean, no need to complicate matters.

  So eventually I'd have to figure out how to modify strengthen, but that was far into the future. For now I kept my focus on learning my collection of words and reverse engineering my first Sentence of the spell.

  Constructing the Words I did know probably helped with the process, I was getting...closer. If I was right then the first Sentence held only three Words, all I needed to do was memorize and replicate them. Would I get the Words for free when I managed? A part of me hoped so, another part very much didn't.

  Learning awake wasn't as taxing on my soul and body as mend, but I still had a wonderful little seizure. Did Words compound or add to the effect? I wasn't keen on finding out.

  Ah well, that was a problem for when it happened.

  Which would be soon.

  I ignored the fact that I needed to do the same with three more Sentences before I could fully claim the spell as mine, and presumably get the next magical wonder the orc embedded into my being.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I knew those would come sooner than the first, but it took me almost a year and I still hadn't finished deciphering this bullshit. If I was generous, I'd guess I had another two before I finished translating it.

  That was insane.

  So I left that dread to fester for another time and kept going on with my training, no use fretting over things I had no control over. Sure, the future looked bleak, but it always did so I could deal. Instead I was focusing my mana to concentrate to a point on my left arm.

  Healer Ken wouldn't be happy, but frankly, he could go fuck himself.

  If Alvir could be believed (big if), then the healer took my warning of doom seriously. Yet he was still doing a whole lot of jack shit from what I could tell. No increased training, no hunting to add essence to his body.

  Sure, he wasn't a combat mage, but I'd be damned if he couldn't put together a quick-heal spell or some shit to use in the middle of a fight.

  Hells, he was no noble, so he definitely served his time with the army.

  I didn't understand him, why just...accept your fate? He had a greater chance than I to survive, considering his litany of spells and tolerance that easily overshadowed mine. Yet nothing.

  Just continuing on with his life as though nothing were wrong.

  I honestly lost quite a bit of respect for the man.

  What I was doing was more than just pushing mana into my forearm, that alone would do a whole lot of nothing. Instead I had to find a way to...connect it to my body. Ontologically.

  That was a bitch to figure out, but figure it out I did.

  I had to observe my mana as I infused it into my body, find the difference between its impotent state and when it fed into my body. Then I found the point in between, where it was both a property of my spirit and body, and held it there.

  I assumed it helped that my concept was literally about the body, but my ego got a bit of a boost for figuring it out on my own.

  Here I was, bumbling through magic with my half-baked theories, and it was working.

  That, however, didn't mean I knew how to stabilize said mana.

  I worked off the same logic that inspired my droplet, just feeding it more and more until something happened. That something seemed to be my muscles exploding, as was evidenced by the sight in front of me.

  The sight was morbidly entrancing, viscera and blood exposed to the world in that fashion was not normal. At least I thought it wasn't, might've been a bomb mage that could implant their mana into people and make a gory mess of things.

  Not likely, infecting someone with your mana was magnitudes harder than yourself or the atmosphere, even when trying on non-mages. Courtesy of the spirit, or soul. Alvir didn't know, and didn't bother pretending that he did.

  Heals and buffs didn't count apparently, which was weird.

  Was there some kind of intention that spells carried that the bouncer could recognize? Magical theory was fascinating in a way, once I understood it. The problem was studying. Ugh. Ethical torture was what it was.

  There was a knock at my door, and I let out a hum. "One second!"

  They said something on the other side, not loud enough where I could hear but I recognized Aira's voice. She wasn't going to be happy. I shrugged and wrapped my forearm in bandages, that was more her problem than mine. Just because she possessed sanity didn't mean I had to.

  I stood up with a smile and walked over to the door, swinging it open and giving my mentor a smile.

  "Hello!"

  "Hello Yir—what the fuck?!" Her warm smile turned to shock and horror when she saw the blood oozing into my wrappings, as well as the gore I had yet to clean up around the room. I made sure to cover everything so that none of it would get stained with a prodigious Yir porridge! The innkeeper was a shit, but I didn't need to be.

  "Don't worry about it, just training. I was about to leave to see Ken actually, wanna join?"

  "Wanna join?!" Aira yelled just a bit louder. "Yir! What did you do to yourself? This...this...I. What am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to do with you? I thought...I thought you'd heal if given time, like you did with your village, not this."

  I raised a brow. That was a tad dramatic. "It's no big deal, Aira. It just looks messy. Doesn't even hurt that much, I think the mana fucked with the nerves or something."

  Then I was ambushed with a a hug, one that was tight.

  I scrunched my brow in confusion as my mentor just held me there, something wet fell on my shoulder. Tears?

  "Are you crying?"

  "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Aira whispered. "You...you can't do this to yourself. You can't!"

  I patted her on the back. This was weird. "It's not worth crying over. I'll see the healer and it'll be like nothing happened. It's not like I messed with any bones."

  Then the hug broke and the woman gripped my shoulders, Aira looked at me with a gaze that could bend steel as the tears marked her cheeks.

  "Look at me Yir. You. Didn't. Kill. Them," Aira said, she whispered the next part for the benefit of secrecy. "That bastard of a witch did. He could've just had you three face one, but he chose to send four; and when you won he sent something that most hunters would fail against. All you wanted was for your friends to be strong, for their lot in life to be better, those aren't bad things."

  I gave the woman a brittle smile. "Sure, whatever you say."