Chapter 47: What doesn’t kill you, can actually sustain you

  There was no point going to the library in the middle of the night, so I stocked up on food and deliveries before heading back to the orphanage. Mishun made a variety of items that would keep longer than the meals she normally sent. That included a lot of sandwiches and cured meats.

  Everyone was asleep when I got back, but I made a pitstop at the girls’ room and woke Beth.

  “What’s wrong, Oliver?” she whispered, sitting up in her bed.

  I reached into my bag and started taking out food. Her eyes lit up, and she kissed me on the cheek. “You didn’t have to go out this late at night. It’s dangerous.”

  I smiled. “Grace was hungry, so I had to. Besides, at least this way everyone can have full bellies in the morning.”

  After a bit, she stopped me. “That’s too much. There’s no way we can hide this from Miss Havasu. I’ll make sure they get breakfast. Just try to be home early for dinner if you can.”

  “Sure,” I replied, before getting up to go.

  I left Beth in charge of the packages and headed up to my room. Gordon cut me off when I got to the boy’s room. “You’d better have food, or I’ll tell Miss Havasu you snuck out.

  I pulled a sandwich out of my bag to placate him. He didn’t let me go until I produced two more. After that, I didn’t want to deal with anyone else and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  I woke up in the morning, bombarded by the boys in my room. Gordon must have let slip that I had food. I patiently distributed sandwiches, careful to drop one in my shadow for Grace when nobody was looking. Once the storm of kids died down, I headed downstairs to see what was going on with Miss Aires’ food deliveries.

  Just as Beth said, I was greeted by a throng of suited businessmen in the dining hall, all chowing down on the food I worked so hard to procure. Miss Havasu tended to them like a brooding hen, offering to fill drinks or get seconds for the already overweight men.

  Our eyes met momentarily, and she gave a look almost daring me to challenge her. Instead, I turned my back and left. There were better ways of dealing with the problem than confronting her.

  A multitude of ideas filled my head as I munched on a Sandwich on the way to the library. My mission was to invent a device that even a non-magical orphan could use to get food, but also something that Miss Havasu couldn’t exploit.

  The perfect thing would be a bag like mine with an infinite supply of food. For that, I would need a permanent preservation ritual as well as unlimited space. Or maybe something that worked like my shadow connection with Grace. That way, I could link the bag directly to Miss Aires’ restaurant for food on demand. It would also have to look mundane or have some kind of gimmick so Miss Havasu couldn’t use it.

  Somewhere along the line, I stopped thinking about my potential invention and started daydreaming about the librarian, Lavender. She wasn’t like any librarian I’d ever heard of. She looked like she was dressed to go to a ball, for one. Maybe that was because she was magic, like the old man in the bathrobe at the Chrysler Building.

  I was disappointed when Lavender wasn’t there. Fortunately, she told me where the shelf constituting the special section was, so I headed there to find the orangutan. While there were no primates in sight, the shelf was not empty. Three books sat there, tethered to the wall by a medieval-looking chain. It appeared the curator of the special section didn’t want anyone taking his books out of the library.

  That was okay, though, because I had a special skill, Mimic. I picked up each book in turn and used the skill. The duplicates appeared without the chain.

  Spell Crafting for Dummies

  The Fundamentals of Magic Crafting

  Edible Ingredients - What doesn’t kill you, can actually sustain you

  “Thank you,” I called out to whoever made the books appear.

  They vanished, and in their place was a note. “You’re welcome.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the orangutan or Lavender hiding in the hidden section. She was the one with the ability to read minds, so my bet was on her. What I wouldn’t give to spend a day back there. I found a quiet seat in the back to begin with the first book, Spell Crafting for Dummies.

  In this book, we will explore the complex art of transcribing the skills and spells into words. This serves a variety of purposes, including teaching spells to others and implementing them into magic artifacts.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I flipped back to the table of contents.

  1. Introduction

  2. The language of magic

  3. Paper Spellcasting

  4. The basics of learning magic

  5. Putting it all together

  I flipped through the pages and took notes in the margins. It turned out magic had its own language. The second chapter gave me an eighty-one-character alphabet that looked more like sigils than letters. Saying them out loud was a bit harder, considering the English language didn’t have some of the sounds.

  Paper spellcasting explained how to create single-use talismans to cast spells. It was more complicated than just writing spells down on a sheet of paper. Everything had to be taken into consideration, from the composition of paper to the kind of ink used. Every variation would introduce new characteristics to the resulting magic. That didn’t excuse the user from having to do their part. They both had to supply it with mana and say the words correctly. Any mistakes could result in catastrophic consequences.

  Learning magic took the paper spell and reverse-engineered it into a permanent skill or spell for the aspiring mage. Traditionally, it was easier to learn skills over spells. If a wizard wanted to learn how to swing a sword, all he needed to do was pick it up and practice. The same couldn’t be said of a swordsman who wanted to learn to conjure a fireball. For that, he would have to acquire the spell from a talisman or spellbook. The difference between a talisman and a spellbook was that you couldn’t cast magic directly from a book. Also, the spell in the book wouldn’t disintegrate the moment you spoke the words.

  What it boiled down to was that learning magic required a lot of repetition. Someone born with the class had the spell inscribed on their soul when they learned it, and they innately knew how to cast it. Someone learning it needed to speak the spell aloud, understand what they were casting, and expend just the right amount of mana all at the same time. In other words, it was incredibly difficult to learn magic without a class designed for it.

  Putting it all together was a recap of the four lessons, explaining how to go from start to finish in pulling a spell or ability out of your soul and putting it to ink. While it could help with my food problem, I was going to need some supplies to pull it off.

  Your Research skill has increased: +1 (16)

  The next book was The Fundamentals of Magic Crafting. Rather than focusing on the magic, it detailed the differences between non-magical and magical crafting. An item could be magic in a variety of ways, and not all of them were obvious. The easiest way to make something magical was to start with magic ingredients. That didn’t mean the result would be good. The book was filled with warnings not to incorporate ingredients without first researching potential side effects, as a lot of monster-dropped components were riddled with them, which must then be compensated for.

  Another way was a magic ritual. I was familiar with that as it was one of Analyze’s favorite recommendations when monster parts weren’t readily at hand. The diagrams in the book were all basic compared to the ones my skill recommended. I skimmed over that for the most part since I already knew how it worked.

  The chapter also included numerous examples of past crafters and the work they did to both create and modify magic items. I was surprised to learn that most magic objects weren’t crafted, but either dropped from monsters or created through the everyday use of mundane items. It turned out that even the most basic item could soak up mana if exposed to it for long enough.

  Your Research skill has increased: +1 (17)

  The last book was all about food. Rather than including recipes, it went into detail on various monsters and what was safe to consume. Monster nutrition ranged from edible meat to different parts that could be used as seasoning. There were even some monsters whose parts could be used to heat or chill meals. The book also highlighted mana and the various effects it had on food. It turned out that what I thought was applying the infusion technique I learned from Mr. Yu was actually something more basic. What I did was apply my mana to food, which technically made it taste like me. The book explained that everyone’s mana had a unique flavor that could also be combined to make even more flavors.

  Your Research skill has increased: +1 (18)

  I sat there for a while, trying to figure out what I wanted to make. Making something from scratch was very different from Analyzing and improving existing items. To start, I decided to focus my attention on scribing one of my skills on paper. That would be a necessary first step to making a device that could Mimic food.

  To transcribe a spell, several ingredients are necessary.

  Manaforged Parchment

  Capacitative Ink

  Soul Quill

  Translate the skill or spell into the ancient language of magic and transcribe it using the sigils in Chapter 2 of this book. The Soul Quill will extract your essence and infuse the Manaforged Parchment with a small piece of your soul.

  To use the skill or spell, read the words of magic out loud while envisioning the spell or skill in your mind. The spell or skill may not work the same for you as it did for the original caster.

  The book didn’t go on to explain how exactly to apply the printed skill to another object, but that was a bridge I could cross when I got there. For starters, I had a shopping list: Manaforged Parchment, Capacative Ink, and a Soul Quill. I knew the logical place to get them was the auction house, but that was the last thing I wanted to do, so I headed to the shopping arcade.

  “You’re early for once,” Mr. Yu commented as I walked down the aisle toward his booth. “I hope you brought breakfast.”

  I sighed as I took out one of my precious sandwiches. Then I remembered I could just make a copy and smiled. “That’s actually the reason I’m here. We have a food emergency. Do you know anyone who makes Manaforged Parchment?”

  “Paper?” he asked, rubbing his chin. “What on Earth do you need that for?”

  “It’s kind of complicated,” I began. “But I want to make a device that makes copies of food without needing mana.”

  “Go on,” he said, his expression changing when I mentioned wanting to make something new.

  I handed him a copy of the sandwich and continued. “The director of my orphanage is stealing the food I arranged for the kids. I need a way of feeding them that she can’t take away.”

  “Hmm,” Mr. Yu said between bites. “What’s to stop her from confiscating your invention and taking the cloned food for herself?”

  I had several plans for that. “I want to make something that looks like a regular old bag. That way, she won’t care about it. Maybe I’ll add something to prevent anyone but orphans from activating it.”

  “Manaforged Paper, was it?” Mr. Yu asked again. “And you don’t want to use the auction house, I presume.”

  I sighed. “I will if I have to.”

  “Good,” Mr. Yu replied. “I have an idea, but you might not like it.”

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