Meadow's Gym Visit (Patreon)

Ed lifted the stone training spear over one head and threw it at the dummy. As he did, his fingers traced a quick pattern in the air, and the stone of the spear shifted shape, transforming into set of three rings that bound the arms and torso of the dummy.

“Not fast enough,” he muttered under his breath, glancing at his fingers. The spell that he was using was more complex than a lot of combat spells, since it needed to be able to adapt the size to the target on the fly, and he hadn’t mastered it. If he tried to use it in a real fight, the time it took him to sketch the spell would give away that he was pulling a trick, making the surprise of breaking the spear all but useless.

He sighed and wiped his face with a towel then tossed it into his bag and threw it over his shoulder. Contrary to what his brother may believe, Ed didn’t actually spend all of his training time in their backyard or on the street – he did go to Liz’ house, though she didn’t like to be around at the same time as her dad, and he also went to Lightwatch facilities, like the one he was in now.

As he turned to leave, he stared in surprise at the tiny woman hobbling towards him.

“Meadow?” he asked, surprised. He thought that his brother’s life magic teacher was only in town on Solsdays, but this was a Liday. Malachi was at work, and he never joined Ed at the gym, no matter how often Ed offered.

“Good morning, dear,” Meadow said.

“Why are you… here?” He asked. He glanced at the door. “You have to show your Lightwatch identification in order to even get in. Are you a member of the Lightwatch?”

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head and smiling. “I’m not even a citizen of Mossford.”

“Oh,” was all Ed had to say in response. What else could he even say to something like that? He did wonder just how strong she was, though, to be able to march in here like that.

“Come, come,” she said, pulling him towards the mats where some people meditated or studied their spells. He followed, and sat down across from her.

“Can you manifest your mana garden?” she asked. He paused and hesitantly shook his head.

“I can feel my own mana garden, of course, and if I meditate, I can sometimes visualize it more clearly, but I can’t manifest it out as an illusion or anything.”

“That’s fine dear,” she said, reaching into her dress and withdrawing a small vial. She downed half of the inky black liquid inside it, then passed it to him “Drink the other half.”

He took it and drank. The potion tasted like absolute nothingness – not even the faint flavor of water, or the taste of sweat on the air. It was a complete void of taste.

He felt mana surge through his body, and then the world went black.

He appeared inside his Mana Garden, with Meadow already sitting next to him on the grass. She studied his ungated mana for a while, then spoke.

“I won’t press you for why, but… You should know that there’s nothing to fear from the power it holds.”

“It’s too late for me to unseal it now anyways,” he said.

“It’s not,” she disagreed. “It may cause your Mana Garden some damage, but I think that’s an opportunity.”

He frowned at her.

“What do you mean by that? I’ve got a decent mana garden.”

“It’s a decent size,” she agreed as she took him by the arm and began to walk through his first telluric gate. “But look here.”

She gestured out over the garden. It was full of half-built statues, many of which were all but slabs of raised earth with a plant vein running through it.

“How many first gate spells do you know?” she asked.

“Uh… Well, there’s the Basic Stonecarver spell you’ve had me practice. Analyze Earth, and the weaker Tremor Sense. Lesser Stone Strengthen, which I’ve ingrained. Then there’s Stone Arrow, there’s Mudsink, there’s Lesser Stonecall, and Iron Gauntlets. There’s…”

She raised her hand, and he grew quiet.

“That’s exactly my point. How many of those spells do you use?”

He went quiet for a moment before responding. When he did, he sounded embarrassed, almost ashamed.

“Three of them,” he admitted.

“Precisely,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with knowing a lot of spells, but they need to be chosen well. As is, it presents a drain on your mana, without providing much benefit.”

She kept walking, heading into the second gate and swept her gaze across it. This part of the garden had less spells, and the ones it had were more polished. In the center of it was a large statue of Ed himself. It was only half built, still rough around the edges – mastered, but not yet ingrained.

“That’s a good spell,” she said, nodding. “It’s your Skin of Stone variant?”

“It is,” he said. “It was a gift from Elizabeth’s grandfather, last Unlit Candle Feast.”

“I don’t recognize this specific variant,” Meadow admitted easily. “But given what it’s putting off, I assume it also enhances your strength somewhat.”

“It does,” he said with a nod.

She glanced around at the rest of this part of the garden, pointing out a few of the spells that were starting to fall into decay, but overall, it seemed a lot more polished. Many of the spells were mastered, or close to it.

“I’m glad you have made better use out of your second gate,” she said.

“It’s the one I use most for work,” Ed said. “My Footbinding spell is really useful, as is my Enhance Gravity spell. The Stoneshield spell has saved me from injury quite a few times too.”

“Those are all good spells,” she said. “Now, shall we see your third gate?”

They walked into it, and were almost immediately met with a wall of fog. Two chunks of earth had been hauled up, but they weren’t even beginning to be shaped into a mastered form.

“What spells are they?” she asked.

“One of them is the Arrow Barrage spell, and the other one is a Lesser Wall of Stone spell,” he said. “The Arrow Barrage isn’t the best offensive spell, but it doesn’t cause collateral damage, which is important. And if I’m needing to use a third gate spell on someone, they’re not just someone who’s been abused by the system, they’re an active danger.”

“You don’t need to defend the spell to me,” she said with a chuckle. “They’re good choices.”

She touched the third gate and tilted her head one side.

“You’ve not bonded anything?” she asked curiously.

“Huh?” he asked.

“Let’s return to the center of the garden,” Meadow said, walking them back towards the ungated section.

Once they were there, she sat down in the grass, leaning against a wall, and slowly tapped her fingers on her knee.

“It’s not bad at all,” she said. “Your first gate is messy, but that’s quite common for many young mages. Your second gate is put together much better. There are a few inefficient parts, but they’re nothing worth truly remodeling against. And your third gate has two good spells, though you need to push against the fog quite a bit more before you keep going.”

“I’d planned to learn a flight spell,” Ed admitted. “Would you recommend waiting?”

“I do,” Meadow. “Gravity based flight is very mana intense. Right now, you’d be stuck with little more than levitating for a bit. As is, I see three ways you can improve your Mana Garden at a fundamental level.”

“You want me to unseal it,” Ed guessed.

“That’s one way,” Meadow admitted. “Not here and now. I’d recommend you finish ingraining your Skin of Stone spell, and master – or better yet, ingrain – the second gate spells you really want. Ingrain the Analyze Earth spell, and the other first gate spells you want too, and get your third gate spells to mastery too. Then, unseal the gate.”

“I see,” he said. “The damage would destroy the inefficiencies and worthless half spells.”

“The mastered spells would survive, though damaged, they could be rebuilt. The ingrained spells should be fine. The wreckage would be a problem, but having it extracted shouldn’t be too horrible. Do you know the techniques?”

“No, but given that you said technique and not spell, I’m guessing it’s a type of mana manipulation?”

“It is,” she said. “Enchanters use it all the time. It’s not going to be fast, but it won’t cause permanent damage, and if you then used the power, you could become a lot stronger. But I won’t deny there are downsides. If you unseal the power, you have to use it, or else the disparity will continue to grow, and it could cause much more permanent damage. You’re at the limits of what your Mana Garden can take without permanent damage already, so if you need or want to expand your third gate mana any more, you couldn’t do that until everything was perfectly polished and ready for the unsealing, and until that got to at least second gate.”

“I’m… Well, I’ll consider it, but I’m really not sure about that. It’d make me a lot stronger, but it’s not like there aren’t a lot of people who only use one mana type.”

“It’s not necessary to become strong,” Meadow said. She raised her hands and a green aura began to flow between her palms, forming into a single green orb. A huge orb, easily the size of her torso.

Inside of Ed’s Mana Garden, there was no spiritual pressure to gauge the strength of the mana, and Ed wasn’t used to this specific method of demonstrating a Mana Garden. He’d heard of some of the old methods like this, or meditation, but they were pretty much obsolete nowadays.

But even without knowing much about this, he knew that she had to be an Arcanist. Maybe even one who’d opened her sixth gate. He let out an appreciative whistle.

“This is my Mana Garden. I’ve only one Mana Gate, for life magic. I’ve never needed more than that. If you can’t use the unsealed power, then it’s best to just let it lie sealed. You can grow as strong as this, and never touch that power.”

Ed was quiet for a while as he thought about it, and Meadow let the display drop.

“What are the other two methods?” Ed finally asked.

“Well, a good old-fashioned remodel,” she said. “Either by paying a mage to remove them from your soul, or putting in the work to remove the inefficiencies yourself. That’d take a lot of work and some mana manipulation techniques, but it’d provide a much more solid base of power to work from and grow with. I’d still recommend making sure everything is exactly how you wanted it before pushing to fourth gate, but good old fashioned hard work will never let you down.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work,” Ed said, “but are the inefficiencies really that bad? I get that they eat up a chunk of my mana and can mess up the ease of my spells, but…”

“Oh, yes,” Meadow said. “They’re the kind of mistake that the longer you take to deal with, the worse it grows. As is, you’ve barely broached the third gate. It’s not too late to fix the problems, though… I won’t lie, it’s many times harder for you than if you hadn’t broken through to third gate.”

“I see,” Ed said slowly. “And… What about the third method?”

“You could bond,” Meadow said simply. “It would greatly accelerate the rate at which you pushed against the fog in your third gate. There are a huge number of advantages that it could offer depending on what you bonded to. I’ve always found the creation of a staff to be my preferred item to bond to. You could actually repurpose a lot of those half-used spell scraps for its construction, though it’d take longer by necessity, since you’d be doing a remodel first. But if you ingrained your Skin of Stone spell, you could bond to that instead, or perhaps find a powerful magical item to bond. A magical creature offers many benefits as well.”

“I think I can see the disadvantages,” Ed said. “It’s going to push forwards my power, which is going to make a remodel even harder, right? Which means I’d never be able to rid myself of those errors.”

“Right,” Meadow said. “You’d be able to grow stronger. Perhaps you’d advance to fourth gate. But that would be the end.”

“Is that so bad?” Ed asked. “I mean, in my entire life, I’ve only ever met two people who were fifth gate. One is Liz’s grandpa, and the other’s the regional director of the Lightwatch.”

“Oh, child,” Meadow said, her voice full of compassion. “There is nothing wrong with taking the path that doesn’t lead to power. Power doesn’t solve many problems in life, and for every problem it does, it creates two more. If you want a simple life, and a happy life, then don’t keep advancing. Remember too – my advice will polish your Mana Garden, even if you chose to never to open your fourth gate. You could be happy, more than happy, without any mana at all.”

She reached out and gently squeezed his hand. Ed scratched his chin idly as he thought about her words. Pursuing power for the sake of it… would that make him happy?

He wasn’t sure.

“Now, then,” Meadow said. “Let’s get you started with the techniques to visit your own Mana Garden, and the ones to get rid of some of those spells that are just eating up your mana without a point. That’s going to help, regardless of what path you chose.”

Ed nodded.