26

Chapter 26: Learning magicNotes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter 26

"You wondered earlier what the magic I was using was and I would gladly teach you about its functionality. You may know that I am from beyond the great waterfall and as such possess powers that have never before been seen in this land."

If Tanya wanted to learn shadow magic then she needed to give the librarian girl something in return. Such were the rules of capitalism. She doubted that Beatrice would allow her into the "Forbidden Library" for nothing in exchange. It was forbidden for a reason after all. Telling the seemingly young girl about her own brand of magic was the only thing of equal value for someone who valued knowledge above all else. That was the most effective way to bribe her into giving her access to the thousands of ancient tomes stored in this place. At least that was how she expected Beatrice´s mind to function.

Giving away some of her minor secrets would not hurt Tanya in the slightest, because anybody who practiced formulae based magic needed a computation jewel to do so. The only two existing pieces in this world were in her possession as far as she knew. Mathematic equations would hopefully only confuse the people of this medieval society, because they would be unable to compute them fast enough to be of any real use.

"And what do you want in return, I suppose?"

Beatrice tried to sound bored, but the excited glint in her eyes was hard to miss. She had swallowed the hook. Bingo.

"In return I would be thankful if you could let me borrow some of your books about shadow and light magic."

"That is an agreeable condition, very well. But the day was tiring and Betty wants to be left alone for now. To get you out of here faster Betty will show you some books right now, I suppose."

How thoughtful of her. This girl understood the importance of time management. They would work together well, she could feel it.

A couple of studious hours later Tanya decided to test her newfound knowledge under the cover of night. Ideally nobody would even notice that she trained and she could avoid some uncomfortable questions from the residents of the estate. Basically devouring several thick tomes had left her with many burning questions and theories that needed to be tested after nightfall. Carefully she left the house through her window and made her way to the backside of the mansion where she was least likely to be noticed.

It was time for testing her first elemental spell.

Slowly she imagined pushing mana through her "gate" and visualized it forming into a black cloud around her. She felt the familiar sensation of magical energy singing in her blood and taking form just below her skin, but the feeling was slightly different. There was a pressure building inside her head that grew by the second.

What was she doing wrong? Where was the mistake? Only veteran experience with countless life or death scenarios prevented her from panicking.

"Think Tanya! Think!" she franticly whispered.

In all the books she had read every spell had been named in strange ways. What she was attempting at the moment was called a "Shamak". A cloud of black fog that allegedly not only obscured the opponent´s vision, but robbed them of their other senses as well. This little trick would be supremely useful in ambush situations and to make a safe retreat from the battlefield.

Could it be that she was supposed to say the word out loud like in these ridiculous stories about wizards and witches from her first world? Well, witches existed here so why not give it a try. It was ridiculous and stupid, but she was quickly running out of options.

With slight desperation she loudly chanted: "Shamak!" and the world drowned in pure blackness.

The crushing pressure in her head had gone away, but the result was disconcerting. Tanya had to use a quick flight burst to leave the radius of the massive smoke cloud in order to assess its volume. Unexpectedly nearly half the mansion had been enveloped by the dark mist even though she had performed her little experiment a good fifty meters away from the building.

From what the book had described she had assumed the cloud to be just a few meters in diameter, but this exceeded her every expectation. This artificial shadow could engulf hundreds of people if used correctly. Not to mention that she could just cast it repeatedly to expand the affected area.

The only problem was that it had also taken more energy than anticipated. It was not much for someone with incredibly large mana reserves like her, but it was noticeable. Not to mention that she had likely terrified everybody inside the mansion. Hopefully nobody would think of this as an attack...

"That was quite the powerful Shamak I suppose." said the little librarian floating besides her.

Where had Beatrice come from? It was almost like she just appeared out of thin air. Then again she was not human so it was possible. Tanya managed to show no outwards reaction to her sudden arrival, but was internally frustrated because she had not seen it coming. This could have gotten her killed! She really needed to be more careful.

"I take it that they are normally not that big?"

"Indeed. You lack a proper control of its power. This was your first time using one I suppose?"

"Yes. I am not familiar with yin magic."

"Mmph. You are fairly powerful for a human. I suppose I will have to teach you so you don't accidentally mess up this place. Betty could not care less if you reduced that clown´s house to ashes, but she is sadly bound to protect the library there. This leaves me with no other choice I suppose."

"I am most grateful for your offer and humbly accept."

This was a wonderful opportunity to learn even more. Books could only teach you so much and the knowledge was often incomplete or lacked a practical orientation. Beatrice just offered a perfect way to expand her arsenal in a faster way than expected.

"That was not an offer, but your thanks are noted even though I do not need them. Betty already knows how great she is in fact."

"Then how do you propose I could gain greater control over the spell?"

"Just cast it quicker so that less mana is able to accumulate, in fact."

"Mmm. Sounds easy enough."

It was indeed easy enough. The mass of black fog was far smaller this time and required comparatively no mana at all. But Tanya was still not satisfied.

She decided to try something different this time. Instead of shoving her mana through her gate, she pushed it towards her Type 97 computation jewel; a process which she was intimately familiar with. Feeling silly by speaking the name of the spell out loud she intoned: "Shamak!" and the same result happened.

Quickly measuring it with a volumetric formula revealed that had nearly the same proportions like the last Shamak, but with the difference that it had cost roughly thirty percent less mana to produce. Was computing it properly with a computation jewel really that much more efficient?

Only now did she realize how much magical energy filled the atmosphere of this place. At first she had paid it no mind, because she had not used huge amounts of energy intensive spells in the capital; so she had thought that her mana reserve recovering faster than normal was just a side effect from the good food and the relatively peaceful rest at night. (Not fearing to get shot or bombed during a nap really did wonders for the morale.) But now she finally understood that the energy density in general was larger than in her homeland.

If this observation of needing thirty percent less mana was accurate then that meant all the mages here were wasting unbelievable amounts of energy! Their primitive "just imagine it"-method held them back and weakened them. How fortunate for her! Due to the high energy density of this world´s atmosphere they were able to squander colossal quantities of mana without a care in the world, but that meant only that she would be able to cast far more magic then them because she was resourceful. A third more energy was nothing to trivialize.

It seemed as if her computation jewel served as an artificial gate that was more stable and could focus and distribute the magical energy far more effectively than a normal gate. A machine was apparently better suited for that then a frail, biological organ which made sense to Tanya. Just like a car was superior to a horse (or in this case a ground dragon) a computation jewel was superior to human gate. How fascinating. Such were the wonders of progress and innovation.

That reminded her that she would need to find a way to reliably produce spare parts for both her orbs to sustain them. Every few month they were in need of repair or they would break down which was an unacceptable outcome. Hopefully the smiths of this world would be up to the task or she would have to invent a method to do it herself. Tanya could already feel a headache forming from the mere thought of all the effort she would have to put in.

"Thank you Beatrice. I will visit you tomorrow after breakfast if that is alright with you."

"I suppose..."

Now Tanya needed time to think about what she had learnt. The future was looking bright.

Notes:

I was advised to drop my daily upload schedule in favor of longer chapters. What do you think?

A = Daily updates

B = Longer chapters every few days

EDIT: Option B has unexpectedly won. Uploads will now happen every two days.